Germany are Czechised for the sake of the Czechs. This is all in order. Only when the Italians changed the holy name Brenner into Brennero was this an occasion to demand the most fervent resistance. And it is a spectacle not to be missed when such a bourgeois patriot begins to blaze with indignation, when one knows well that it is all a comedy. To simulate national passion suits our passionless, putrefied bourgeoisie as exactly as when an old whore mimics love. It is all only an artificial sham, and at its worst this is proved most correctly if such an excitement has its homeland in Austria. The black-gold legitimistic element, to whom formerly the German element in the Tyrol was completely a matter of indifference, now joins in a holy national indignation.
Something of this kind electrifies all petty bourgeois associations, especially if they then hear that the Jews are also cooperating. This means that they themselves protest because they know that this time, exceptionally for once, they are permitted to shout their national feelings out loud — without being done in by the press Jews. On the contrary: it is after all fine for an upright national bourgeois man to appeal for a national struggle, and at the same time even be praised by Moses Israel Abrahamson. Indeed, even more. The Jewish gazettes scream along with them, and with this for the first time the real bourgeois national German unity front is established, from Krotoschin via Vienna up to Innsbruck, and our German Folk, so politically stupid, lets itself be taken in by this show exactly as once before German diplomacy and our German Folk let themselves be duped and misused by the Habsburgs.
Germany once before had let her foreign policy be determined exclusively by Austrian interests. The punishment for this was something terrible. Woe, if the young German nationalism lets its future policy be determined by the theatrical babblers of the putrid bourgeois elements, or indeed by the Marxist enemies of Germany. And woe if, at the same time, in complete misunderstanding of the real driving forces of the Austrian State in Vienna, it again receives its directives from there. It will be the task of the National Socialist Movement to prepare an end to this theatrical hue and cry, and to choose sober reason as the ruler of future German foreign policy.
To be sure, Italy also bears guilt for this whole development. I would view it as stupid and politically childish to rebuke the Italian State for the fact that it pushed its borders up to the Brenner on the occasion of the Austrian collapse. The motives that dominated it at that time were no more base than the motives which once determined bourgeois annexationist politicians, including Herr Stresemann and Herr Erzberger, to prop the German borders against the Belgian Meuse fortresses. At all times a responsible, thinking and acting government will make an effort to find strategically natural and secure frontiers. Surely, Italy did not annex the Southern Tyrol in order thus to come into possession of a couple of hundred thousand Germans, and surely the Italians would have preferred it if only Italians lived in this territory in place of these Germans. For, as a matter of fact, it was never strategic considerations primarily which induced them to place the borders over the Brenner. But no State would have acted differently in a similar situation. Hence it is aimless to criticise this shaping of the borders as such, since ultimately every State must determine its natural borders according to its own interests and not others. To the extent that the possession of the Brenner may serve military interests and strategic purposes, it is irrelevant whether or not 200000 Germans live within this strategically established and secured border as such, if the population of the country encompasses 42 million people, and a militarily effective adversary on this very border does not come in for consideration. It would have been wiser to have spared these 200000 Germans any compulsion, rather than to have forcibly tried to instil an outlook the result of which, according to experience, is generally without value. Also a Folkdom cannot be extirpated in twenty or thirty years, regardless of the methods employed, and whether one wants or does not want this. On the Italian side, one can answer with a certain appearance of right that this was not intended at first, and that it developed necessarily by itself as a consequence of the provocative attempts at a continuous interference in domestic Italian affairs on the part of Austrian and German external forces, and of the repercussions evoked therefrom on the Southern Tyroleans themselves. This is correct, for, as a matter of fact, the Italians at first welcomed the German element in the Southern Tyrol very honestly and loyally. But as soon as Fascism arose in Italy, the agitation against Italy in Germany and Austria began on grounds of principle, and now led to an increasing heightening of mutual irritability which in the Southern Tyrol finally had to lead to consequences we see today. Most unfortunate in this was the influence of the Andreas Hofer Association which, instead of strongly recommending sagacity to the Germans in the Southern Tyrol, and making it clear to them that their mission was to build a bridge between Germany and Italy, aroused hopes in the Southern Tyroleans beyond any possibility of realisation, but which, however, were bound to lead to incitements and thereby to rash steps. It is primarily the fault of this Association if conditions were carried to an extreme. Whoever like myself had many opportunities to know important members of this Association personally as well must be amazed over the irresponsibility with which an Association with so little real active strength could do so much damage. For when I see the different leading figures in my mind’s eye, and think of one of them in particular who had his office in the Munchen police administration, then I grow angry at the thought that men who would never bring their own blood and skins to the market occasioned a development which in its ultimate consequence must end with a bloody conflict.
It is also correct that no understanding at all over the Southern Tyrol can exist with the real wire pullers of this agitation against Italy, since to these elements the Southern Tyrol as such is a matter of indifference as much as is the German Nation in general. Indeed it is only a question of a suitable means for sowing confusion and stirring up public opinion, especially in Germany, against Italy. For this is what concerns these gentlemen.
Hence there is a certain ground for justification in the Italian objection that, regardless of what the treatment of Germans in the Southern Tyrol may be, these people will always find something suitable for their agitation, because they want precisely this. But for the very reason that in Germany today, exactly as in Italy, certain elements have an interest in thwarting an understanding between both Nations with all means, it would be the duty of wisdom to remove these means from them as far as possible, even despite the danger that they will try further. The opposite would make sense only if there were altogether nobody in Germany who had the courage to speak for an understanding in opposition to this agitation. This, however, is not the case. On the contrary, the more presentday Italy by itself seeks to avoid impolitic incidents, the easier will it become for Italy’s friends in Germany to expose the hate inciters, to unmask the sanctimoniousness of their reasons, and to put a stop to their Folk poisoning activity. But if in Italy they really believe that they cannot compromise in some way, in view of all the clamour and the demands of foreign organisations, without this looking like a capitulation rather, and possibly further increasing the arrogance of these elements, then ways could be found. Indeed such an obligingness could be fundamentally ascribed to those who not only are not involved in this agitation but, on the contrary, are the friends of an understanding with Italy and Germany, and themselves lead the sharpest struggle against the poisoners of public opinion in Germany.
The foreign policy aim of the National Socialist Movement has nothing to do either with an economic or bourgeois border policy. Our Folkish territorial aim, in the future as well, will assign the German Folk a development which need never bring it into conflict with Italy. We will also never sacrifice the blood of our Folk in order to bring about small border rectifications, but only for territory in order to win a further expansion and sustenance for our Folk. This aim drives us eastward. The east coasts of the Baltic Sea are for Germany what the Mediterranean Sea is to Italy. Germany’s mortal enemy for any further development, indeed even for the mere maintenance of the unity of our Reich, is France, exactly as she is for Italy. The National Socialist Movement will never fall into a superficial insipid hurrah! cry. It will not rattle the sword. Its leaders, almost without exception, have learned about war as it is in reality and truth. Therefore, it will never shed blood for any other aims save those which are serviceable to the whole future development of our Folk. Hence it also refuses to provoke a war with Italy for the sake of a border rectification, which is laughable in view of the German fragmentation in Europe. On the contrary, it wants to put an end for all the future to these unfortunate Teutonic marches to the south, and wants the advocacy of our interests to take place in a direction which makes the elimination of its need for territory appear possible to our Folk. By thus delivering Germany from the period of her present enslavement and servitude, we also fight above all for her restoration and thus in the interest of German honour.
If presentday Italy believes that a change in various measures in the Southern Tyrol would be viewed as a capitulation before foreign interference, without in the end leading to the desired understanding, then let her undertake this shift exclusively for the sake of those in Germany who themselves are for an understanding with Italians — thereby openly justifying them — and who not only reject being identified with the agitators against it, but who, indeed, have fought the sharpest struggle against these elements for years and who recognise the sovereign rights of the Italian State as existing, as a matter of course.
It is just as little a matter of indifference to Germany whether she keeps Italy as a friend, as it also is to Italy. Just as Fascism has given the Italian Folk a new value, likewise the value of the German Folk must not be
