is the bearer of the mind.
What, however, applies to individual man also applies to nations. A nation is only a multitude of more or less similar individual beings. Its strength lies in the value of the individual beings forming it as such, and in the character and the extent of the sameness of these values. The same laws which determine the life of the individual, and to which he is subject, are therefore also valid for the Folk. Self preservation and continuance are the great urges underlying all action, as long as such a body can still claim to be healthy. Therefore, even the consequences of these general laws of life will be similar among Folks, as they are among individuals If, for every creature on this Earth, the instinct of self preservation, in its twin goals of self maintenance and continuance, exhibits the most elementary power, nevertheless the possibility of satisfaction is limited, so the logical consequence of this is a struggle in all its forms for the possibility of maintaining this life, that is, the satisfaction of the instinct for self preservation.
Countless are the species of all the Earth’s organisms, unlimited at any moment in individuals is their instinct for self preservation as well as the longing for continuance, yet the space in which the whole life process takes place is limited. The struggle for existence and continuance in life waged by billions upon billions of organisms takes place on the surface of an exactly measured sphere. The compulsion to engage in the struggle for existence lies in the limitation of the living space; but in the life struggle for this living space lies also the basis for evolution
In the times before man, world history was primarily a presentation of geological events: the struggle of natural forces with one another, the creation of an inhabitable surface on this planet, the separation of water from land, the formation of mountains, of plains, and of the seas. This is the world history of this time. Later, with the emergence of organic life, man’s interest concentrated on the process of becoming and the passing away of its thousandfold forms. And only very late did man finally become visible to himself, and thus by the concept of world history he began to understand first and foremost only the history of his own becoming, that is, the presentation of his own evolution. This evolution is characterised by an eternal struggle of men against beasts and against men themselves. From the invisible confusion of the organisms there finally emerged formations: Clans, Tribes, Folks, States. The description of their origins and their passing away is but the representation of an eternal struggle for existence.
If, however, politics is history in the making, and history itself the presentation of the struggle of men and nations for self preservation and continuance, then politics is, in truth, the execution of a nation’s struggle for existence. But politics is not only the struggle of a nation for its existence as such; for us men it is rather the art of carrying out this struggle
Since history as the representation of the hitherto existing struggles for existence of nations is at the same time the petrified representation of politics prevailing at a given moment, it is the most suitable teacher for our own political activity.
If the highest task of politics is the preservation and the continuance of the life of a Folk, then this life is the eternal stake with which it fights, for which and over which this struggle is decided. Hence its task is the preservation of a substance made of flesh and blood. Its success is the making possible of this preservation. Its failure is the destruction, that is, the loss of this substance. Consequently, politics is always the leader of the struggle for existence, the guide of the same, its organiser, and its efficacy will, regardless of how man formally designates it, carry with it the decision as to the life or death of a Folk It is necessary to keep this clearly in view because, with this, the two concepts — a policy of peace or war — immediately sink into nothingness. Since the stake over which politics wrestles is always life itself, the result of failure or success will likewise be the same, regardless of the means with which politics attempts to carry out the struggle for the preservation of the life of a Folk. A peace policy that fails leads just as directly to the destruction of a Folk, that is, to the extinction of its substance of flesh and blood, as a war policy that miscarries. In the one case just as in the other, the plundering of the prerequisites of life is the cause of the dying out of a Folk. For nations have not become extinct on battlefields; lost battles rather have deprived them of the means for the preservation of life, or, better expressed, have led to such a deprivation, or were not able to prevent it.
Indeed, the losses which arise directly from a war are in no way proportionate to the losses deriving from a Folk’s bad and unhealthy life as such. Silent hunger and evil vices in ten years kill more people than war could finish off in a thousand years. The cruellest war, however, is precisely the one which appears to be most peaceful to presentday humanity, namely the peaceful economic war. In its ultimate consequences, this very war leads to sacrifices in contrast to which even those of the World War shrink to nothing. For this war affects not only the living but grips above all those who are about to be born. Whereas war at most kills off a fragment of the present, economic warfare murders the future. A single year of birth control in Europe kills more people than all those who fell in battle, from the time of the French Revolution up to our day, in all the wars of Europe, including the World War. But this is the consequence of a peaceful economic policy which has overpopulated Europe without preserving the possibility of a further healthy development for a number of nations.
In general, the following should also be stated:
As soon as a Folk forgets that the task of politics is to preserve its life with all means and according to all possibilities, and instead aims to subject politics to a definite mode of action, it destroys the inner meaning of the art of leading a Folk in its fateful struggle for freedom and bread.
A policy which is fundamentally bellicose can keep a Folk removed from numerous vices and pathological symptoms, but it cannot prevent a change of the inner values in the course of many centuries. If it becomes a permanent phenomenon, war contains an inner danger in itself, which stands out all the more clearly the more dissimilar are the fundamental racial values which constitute a nation. This already applied to all the known States of antiquity, and applies especially today to all European States. The nature of war entails that, through a thousandfold individual processes, it leads to a racial selection within a Folk, which signifies a preferential destruction of its best elements. The call to courage and bravery finds its response in countless individual reactions, in that the best and most valuable racial elements again and again voluntarily come forward for special tasks, or they are systematically cultivated through the organisational method of special formations.
Military leadership of all times has always been dominated by the idea of forming special legions, chosen elite troops for guard regiments and assault battalions. Persian palace guards, Alexandrian elite troops, Roman legions of Praetorians, lost troops of mercenaries, the guard regiments of Napoleon and Frederick The Great, the assault battalions, submarine crews and flying corps of the World War owed their origin to the same idea and necessity of seeking out of a great multitude of men, those with the highest aptitude for the performance of correspondingly high tasks, and bringing them together into special formations. For originally every guard was not a drill corps but a combat unit. The glory attached to membership in such a community led to the creation of a special esprit de corps which subsequently, however, could freeze and ultimately end up in sheer formalities.
Hence not seldom such formations will have to bear the greatest blood sacrifices; that is to say, the fittest are sought out from a great multitude of men and led to war in concentrated masses. Thus the percentage of the best dead of a nation is disproportionately increased, while conversely the percentage of the worst elements is able to preserve itself to the highest degree. Over against the extremely idealistic men who are ready to sacrifice their own lives for the Folkish Community, stands the number of those most wretched egoists who view the preservation of their own mere personal life likewise as the highest task of this life. The hero dies, the criminal is preserved. This appears self evident to an heroic age, and especially to an idealistic youth. And this is good, because it is the proof of the still present value of a Folk. The true statesman must view such a fact with concern, and take it into account. For what can easily be tolerated in one war, in a hundred wars leads to the slow bleeding away of the best, most valuable elements of a nation. Thereby victories will indeed have been won, but in the end there will no longer be a Folk worthy of this victory. And the pitifulness of the posterity, which to many seems incomprehensible, not seldom is the result of the successes of former times.
Therefore, wise political leaders of a Folk will never see in war the aim of the life of a Folk, but only a means for the preservation of this life. It must educate the human material entrusted to it to the highest manhood, but rule it with the highest conscientiousness. If necessary, when a Folk’s life is at stake, they should not shrink from daring to shed blood to the utmost, but they must always bear in mind that peace must one day again replace this blood. Wars which are fought for aims that, because of their whole nature, do not guarantee a compensation for the blood that has been shed, are sacrileges committed against a nation, a sin against a Folk’s future.
Eternal wars, however, can become a terrible danger among a Folk which possesses such unequal elements
