for my enemies in the presumed harmlessness, enviability and thereby also the non dangerous character of my action.
This situation changed almost in one stroke when Mussolini had begun the March on Rome. As if by a magic word, the running fire of poisoning and slander against Italy by the entire Jewish press began from this hour on.
And only after the year 1922 was the Southern Tyrol question raised and made into a pivotal point of German Italian relations, whether the Southern Tyroleans themselves wanted it so or not. It did not take long before even Marxists became the representatives of a national opposition. And now one could experience the unique spectacle of Jews and Folkish Germans, Social Democrats and members of the Patriotic Leagues, communists and national bourgeois, arm in arm, spiritually marching across the Brenner in order to carry out the reconquest of this territory in mighty battles but, to be sure, without the shedding of blood. A charm of a wholly special character was further added to this bold national front by the fact that even those out and out Bavarian particularist representatives of Bavarian sovereign rights, whose spiritual forefathers over a hundred years before had surrendered the good Andreas Hofer to the French and let him be shot, also vigorously interested themselves in the freedom struggle for the country of Andreas Hofer.
Since the influence of the Jewish press gang, and the national bourgeois and patriotic dunderheads who run after them, has really succeeded in blowing up the Southern Tyrol problem to the dimensions of a vital question of the German Nation, I see myself induced to take a detailed position toward it.
As has already been emphasised, the old Austrian State had over 850000 Italians within its borders. Incidentally, the data on nationalities as established by the Austrian census was not wholly accurate. Namely, the count was not made according to the nationality of the individual, but rather according to the language he specified as spoken. Obviously this could not give a completely clear picture, but it is in the nature of the weakness of the national bourgeoisie gladly to deceive itself over the real situation. If one does not learn of a matter, or at least if it is not talked about openly, then it also does not exist. Ascertained on the basis of such a procedure, the Italians, or better, the people who spoke Italian, in large measure lived in the Tyrol. According to the census figures of the year 1910 the Tyrol had ………. inhabitants, of whom ………. percent were counted as speaking the Italian language, while the rest were counted as German or in part also Latin. Consequently around ……….
Italians were in the Arch Duchy of Tyrol. Since this whole number is allotted to the territory occupied today by Italians, the ratio of Germans to Italians in the whole part of the territory of the Tyrol occupied by Italians consequently is one of ………. Germans to ………. Italians.
It is necessary to establish this because not a few people in Germany, thanks to the mendacity of our press, have no idea at all that, in the area understood by the concept Southern Tyrol, actually two thirds of the inhabitants living there are Italians, and one third German. Thus, whoever seriously advocates the reconquest of the Southern Tyrol would bring about a change of things only to the extent that instead of having 200000 Germans under Italian rule, he would bring 400000 Italians under German rule.
To be sure, the German element in the Southern Tyrol is now concentrated primarily in the northern part, whereas the Italian element inhabits the south. Thus if someone would find a solution that is just in a national sense, he must first of all completely exclude the concept Southern Tyrol from the general discussion. For one cannot war on the Italians on moral grounds because they have taken an area in which 200000 Germans live next to 400000 Italians if we ourselves, conversely, want to win this territory again for Germany as a redress of this injustice, that is, if we want to commit a still greater injustice than is the case with Italy.
Thus the call for a reconquest of the Southern Tyrol will have the same moral faults in it which we now discover in the Italian rule in the Southern Tyrol. Hence this call also loses its moral justification. With this still other viewpoints can be asserted, which then must speak for a regaining of the whole Southern Tyrol. Thus on the basis of morally justified feelings we can, at most, advocate the regaining of that part which is actually inhabited by an overwhelming majority of Germans. This is a spatially limited area of ……… square kilometres. Even in this, however, there are around 190000 Germans, 64000 Italians and Latins, and 24000 other aliens, so that the completely German territory encompasses hardly 160000 Germans.
At the present time there is hardly a border which does not cut Germans off from the Motherland just as in the Southern Tyrol. Indeed, in Europe alone, not less than ……… million Germans all told are separated from the Reich. Of these, ……… million live under out and out alien rule, and only ……… million in German Austria and Switzerland, though under conditions that at least for the moment pose no threat to the nationality. At the same time, here are a whole series of cases involving aggregates of a quite different numerical character as compared to our Folkdom in the Southern Tyrol.
As terrible as this fact is for our Folk, just so guilty of it are those who today raise their hue and cry over the Southern Tyrol. Just as little, at any rate, can we make the fate of all the rest of the Reich dependent simply on the interests of these lost territories, let alone on the wishes of one of them, even by taking over a purely bourgeois border policy.
For one thing must first of all be rejected most sharply: there is no Holy German Folk in the Southern Tyrol, as the Patriotic Leaguers foolishly prattle. Rather, all who must be reckoned as belonging to German Folkdom must be equally holy to it. It won’t do to appraise a Southern Tyrolean higher than a Silesian, East Prussian or West Prussian who is enslaved under Polish rule. It also won’t do to regard a German in Czechoslovakia as more worthwhile than a German in the Saar territory or also in Alsace-Lorraine. The right to grade the German element of the severed territories according to special values could, at best, grow out of an analytical examination of their specific decisive and dominant fundamental racial values. But this is the very measure which the protest groups against Italy apply least of all. For the Tyroleans in the territories now separated too, it could yield no higher credit factor than, let’s say, for an East or a West Prussian.
Now the foreign policy task of the German Reich as such cannot be determined by the interests of the parts split off from the Reich. For in reality these interests will not be served thereby, since practical help indeed presupposes the regained power of the Motherland. Hence the sole viewpoint that warrants consideration in regard to the foreign policy position can be only that of the fastest and earliest restoration of the independence and freedom of the remaining part of the Nation united under a Government.
In other words, this means that even if a German foreign policy were cognisant of no aim other than the salvation of the Holy Folk In Southern Tyrol, that is, the 190000 Germans who can really come under consideration, first the prerequisite thereto would be the achievement of Germany’s political independence as well as means of military power. For it should be rather clear, after all, that the Austrian protest State will not wrest the Southern Tyrol from the Italians. But it must be equally clear that even if German foreign policy knew no aim other than the actual liberation of the Southern Tyrol, its actions must especially then be determined by such viewpoints and factors which guarantee the regaining of the means of political and military power. Thus we should surely not place the Southern Tyrol in the focal point of foreign policy considerations, but, on the contrary, especially then must we be dominated and guided by those ideas which in fact allow us to smash the existing world coalition directed against Germany. For ultimately, even through Germany, the Southern Tyrol will not be restored to the German element by the droning of a Tibetan prayer wheel of protests and indignation, but by the commitment of the sword.
Thus, if Germany herself were to have this aim, she must nevertheless ever and again look first of all for an ally who would furnish help for the gaining of German power. Now one can say that France could be considered in this case. As a National Socialist, I however oppose this most sharply.
It may well be that France would declare herself ready to allow Germany to march with her as an ally against Italy. Indeed, it can even be that, in gracious recognition of our blood sacrifice, and as meagre bandages for our wounds, they would award the Southern Tyrol to us. But what would such a victory mean for Germany? Could our Nation, for instance, live then because it possesses 200000 more Southern Tyroleans? Or does one not believe that France, once she has defeated her Latin competitor in the Mediterranean with German military help, would surely turn once more against Germany? Or in any case that she would surely pursue her old political aim of the liquidation of Germany?
No, if for Germany there remains any choice between France and Italy, then, according to all human reason, Italy alone warrants consideration for Germany. For a victory with France over Italy will bring us the Southern Tyrol and a stronger France to boot as a subsequent enemy. A victory over France with Italy’s help will bring us Alsace- Lorraine at the least, and at most, the freedom to carry out a genuine large scale territorial policy. And in the long run it is through this alone that Germany can live in the future, and not through Southern Tyrol. Nor will it do to
