NATURE AND FORM OF

NATIONAL SOCIALISM
 Speech Delivered by Dr. Joseph Goebbels
Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

Writings of the German University of Politics Published by

Paul Meier-Benneckstein Issue 8
NATURE AND FORM OF
NATIONAL SOCIALISM
JOSEPH GOEBBELS

Originally Published by
Junker and Dünnhaupt / Berlin, 1935

Translated into English from the Third Reich

original by Nathan R. Lawrence.

REDPILL ACTION PUBLICAT IONS

 NATURE AND FORM
OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

It is impossible to give an all-encompassing interpretation of

the nature of National Socialism in a temporary outline, since it is
a question of a movement and idea that broke into German public
life with dynamic force and fundamentally changed all
relationships and relationships between people from the ground
up. In addition, National Socialism today does not represent
something that has become, but something that is becoming, that
it is subject to continuous changes and transformations and
therefore cannot be defined in its entirety.
We do not want to view National Socialism as an overall
phenomenon, but rather to clarify the basic concepts of National
Socialist thought and to outline the conceptual pillars on which
our ideological structure rests and to read from these basic
concepts not only the possibility, but the necessity of National
Socialist reality.
Like every great Weltanschauung, National Socialism is based
on a few basic concepts that have a deep inner meaning.
The simple explanation of all the fundamental errors in the past
14 years of German policy lies in the fact that we Germans never
argue about our questions of fate, neither as individuals nor as an
organization or party.
Terms were discussed; but it was impossible from the outset to
come to an agreement on the basic principles of our political
thought, for each individual took the right to see something
different under these terms. What one understood by
"democracy", the other regarded as "monarchy"; one said "black-
white-red", the other "black-red-gold", what one understood as an
"authoritarian state", the other saw as a "parliamentary system".
We discussed and talked about these terms. If one had made the
effort 14 years ago at the beginning of the political debate to
clarify these terms of politics and to determine what the individual
actually meant by "democracy" or "monarchy", by "system" or
"authoritarian state", it would have made in clear clear that we

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 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

Germans agreed on the basic principles, but that we gave them

different names.
National Socialism has now simplified the thinking of the
German people for us and has not reduced it to any primitive
archetypes. He brought the complex processes of political and
economic life back to their simplest formula. This came about out
of the natural consideration of bringing the broad masses of the
people back to political life. In order to find understanding among
the popular masses, we deliberately carried out popular
propaganda. So we carried facts that were otherwise only
accessible to a few experts into the street and hammered them into
the little man’s brain; all things were set forth so simply that even
the most primitive mind could perceive them. We refused to
operate on vague, watered-down and unclear terms, but gave
everything a clear meaning.
Here was the secret of our success.
The bourgeois parties, in their lack of understanding, felt that
they were above our "primitive cult", they sat in judgment over us
with an elegant intellectual arrogance and came to the
misjudgment that they were statesmen and we were the drummers.
At best they viewed us as agitators and champions of the
bourgeois Weltanschauung. But we had set ourselves other tasks
than conquering wavering thrones, and then generously leaving
them to the others after the decision.
Since we had the ability to clearly see and present the basic
principles of the German situation and German community life,
we also had the strength to move the broad masses of our people
to adopt these new principles and original formulas of political
life. This purely agitational process was not without decisive
consequences on the level of power politics.
I see this success as the prerequisite for a political
understanding between the Germans and their whole people with
the partly democratic, fascist or Bolshevik states. If we do not use
the same disambiguation procedure everywhere, agreement is
impossible. The first necessity of any political debate is based on
this definition of terms and principles, and it is important that one
can easily anticipate political practice from the section
"Definition".
Anyone who once clearly recognizes the basic concepts will be

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 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

amazed to see that political practice emerges from them almost

organically, and naturally. It becomes clear to him where the
political development had to lead and thus the process that has
taken place in Germany since the beginning of the National
Socialist revolution cannot be considered complete, but must be
continued, so that it can only come to an end when the National
Socialist way of thinking has fundamentally renewed all public
and private life in Germany and filled it with its content.
Today in Germany it is said: "We made a revolution." But very
few people know what this revolution means in detail, what it
represents dynamically, historically and in terms of development.
There are even Volksgenossen who do not want it to be true that
a revolution has actually taken place in Germany.
What is this: "A Revolution"? Before the outbreak of the
National Socialist upheaval, the term revolution was generally
associated with features that actually only had something to do
with the original meaning of the revolutionary. Under "revolution"
one imagined a political pretext that takes place on the barricades
with the help of any means of power and is directed against the
existing laws. One only knew about the visible process, namely a
violent depossession of a ruling class and the takeover of power
by a new power group who proceeded with violence. But the
invisible implementation of a revolution means something
completely different. The term barricade does not necessarily
belong to it, nor does it always have to be the characteristic of a
genuine revolution. A revolution can take place bloodlessly and
lawfully, and it is possible that a power group goes to the
barricades with no revolution in mind. Revolution is an inherently
dynamic process with its own legality, which aims to transfer its
dynamism and legality, as the previous prerogative of the
opposition, to state legality. It is completely irrelevant by which
means this happens. In characterizing a revolution, the means of
violence or legality play no role. The German revolution provides
the classic proof of this, because it was carried out legally in
painstaking compliance with the existing laws and nevertheless
brought about the greatest intellectual, cultural, economic and
social upheaval that has ever occurred in world history. This is due
to a special characteristic, namely that the German revolution was
made from below and not from above.

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 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

There are revolutions from above and revolutions from below;

they differ less in the area of power they conquer than in the
permanence with which they can maintain this area of power. A
revolution from above is inorganic and usually becomes of little
historical significance. A revolution from below, on the other
hand, is organic and lasts for centuries. It is very difficult, if not
impossible, to impose a new legality on a people from above
without spiritual preparation; therefore revolutions from above
usually only have a short life span.
It is the other way around with the revolutions from below, their
legality is not invented and enforced by a small group of men
upstairs at the green desk, but already experienced by the people
below and brought to growth upwards. If a people are not prepared
for a revolution, a revolutionary group may conquer power and
have the best goal in mind, but it will not hold power for long.
Revolutions from above usually happen very quickly. A handful
of generals or statesmen band together, overthrow the regime and
take power. Revolutions from below, on the other hand, grow
from below; They develop from the smallest primordial cells of
the people, ten revolutionaries become one hundred, one thousand
become one hundred thousand and at the moment when the
dynamic force of the revolutionary opposition is stronger than the
gradually orphaned state apparatus, the revolution has already
been spiritually won. With the seizure of power and the marriage
to the state apparatus, what we have experienced in Germany since
January 30, 1933, takes place. It is not the "revolution" per se, but
the last part of a revolutionary act. The legality, the way of
thinking and the dynamics of the revolution - which have grown
up over decades from the deepest roots of popular power - are
visibly transferred to the state.
We have experienced the miracle in Germany: without
bloodshed, without barricades and machine guns, a revolution
took place within our 60 million people, the momentum of which
did not stop anywhere, which occupied all territories with
sovereign self-evidence and whose law ruled all things. Over the
past few months, the men of the revolution have set the pace of
the upheaval. The result is a new state!
In fact, nothing else took place than the transposition of
revolutionary legality onto the state. From then on, National

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 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

Socialist authorities were regarded as the authorities of the state,

the laws of the revolution became state laws and the National
Socialist way of thinking passed over to the nation. There was
nothing in Germany that could have evaded the legal progress of
this historical process.
The revolution would never have prevailed if it had only been
carried by the usurpatory intention of a group of men whose
conquest of power had taken place without the inner meaning of
an idea. In the National Socialist Revolution, a Weltanschauung
made a breakthrough!
A Weltanschauung has - and this is its most essential
characteristic - nothing to do with knowledge. A poor, unknown
worker with a small supply of knowledge can represent a
Weltanschauung, while it need by no means be the case with a
highly learned university professor who has mastered all areas of
knowledge. Experience has even taught that the greater the
knowledge, often the less the courage to stand up for a
Weltanschauung.
Weltanschauung is - as the word suggests - a certain way of
looking at the world. The prerequisite for this is that this kind of
view always takes place from the same point of view.
As a representative of a Weltanschauung, no other standards are
applied to the economy than to politics, while cultural life is
organically related to the social and foreign policy is viewed in
organic relation to the domestic political situation.
Weltanschauung means always looking at people and their
relationship to the world, to the state, to the economy, to culture
and religion from the same point of view. This process does not
require a large program, but can usually be defined in a short
sentence. However, it depends on whether this sentence is right or
wrong. If it is correct, it can bring healing to a people for several
centuries or millennia; if it is falsified, the system that emerged
from it must very soon disintegrate. All great revolutions in
history have taken place from these omens. At the beginning of a
revolution there was never a book or an initialed program, but only
a single slogan that overshadowed all public and private life.
Thus the great extent of Christian moral teaching and religion
was not determined by its master himself. Christ only clarified the
basic concept of charity, everything else is the work of the Church

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 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

Fathers. Charity was so diametrically opposed to the concepts of

the ancient world that there was no understanding between these
two poles and either the ancient world had to do away with
Christian doctrine or Christianity had to do away with ancient
times.
Revolutionaries do not intend to get stuck in theory, but
advance from theory into practice, and see the development so
clearly that there is no need for any discussion of the realization
of their slogans. In the same way as the teachings of the Christian
and French revolutions, the slogans of the National Socialist
revolution will be realized.
The bourgeois world in Germany used to mock: "The program
of National Socialism means lack of a program." We National
Socialists, on the other hand, did not see ourselves as church
fathers, but as agitators and champions of our teaching. It was not
our intention to scientifically justify our worldview, but to realize
its teachings, and it was to be reserved for later times to leave
practice as the object of knowledge of the idea. It should never be
the task of lawyers to determine the way of life of a people at the
green table. Constitutions made on paper will never give the
constitution to a people. Nature ignores science and shapes its own
life. This is what happened in the National Socialist Revolution!
Shortly before we came to power, science tried to prove that
this or that revolutionary process did not conform to the existing
laws and they did not shy away from referring state-political
disputes to the highest court. At that time we only smiled, because
while science maintained that it should not be the way it was,
things had long since prevailed. Science only has the right to read
out a new legality from the existing conditions, and that is why the
state of affairs created by transposing our National Socialist
revolutionary legalism onto the state - law.
It represents the new normal for the people and evades scientific
criticism. The revolution has become a reality and only crazy
reactionaries can believe that anything we create can be reversed.
National Socialism is now about to slowly stabilize the
revolutionary new legal status in Germany. This differs
fundamentally from the old legality and also eludes the
possibilities of criticism that he himself could apply in the old
system. If democracy allowed us in times of opposition to use

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 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

democratic methods, it had to be done in a democratic system. We

National Socialists, however, never claimed that we were
representatives of a democratic point of view. Instead, we openly
declared that we only used democratic means to gain power and
that after we had seized power we would ruthlessly deny our
opponents all the means that we had been granted in times of
opposition. Nevertheless, we can declare that our government
conforms to the laws of a refined democracy.
We have been the sovereign masters of criticism and today we
can unanimously take the standpoint of the right to criticize. There
is only one difference: the right to criticism, if it is supposed to
make sense and not represent democratic nonsense, can for the
benefit of a people, who must stand above all things of politics -
always be granted only to the wiser over the stupid and never vice
versa. All that remains to be shown is that we National Socialists
were apparently the smarter ones during the opposition.
The other side was in possession of the power, the army, the
police, the bureaucratic apparatus, the money, the parties and the
parliamentary majority. It dominated public opinion, the press, the
radio - in short, everything that can be summarized under the
general term "power". If, however, a small group that started with
seven men in 14 years succeeds in contesting this right together
with power only with the right of criticism of the other side, then
it appears undoubtedly who the smarter would be if the other side
were It would have been wiser, with such an unequal distribution
of the means of success, she should have found ways and means
to prevent us from being deposed. That did not happen; on the
contrary, it did indeed succeed in holding back the organic
development of the revolution for a certain time, but the new
legalism prevailed.
When the German revolution made its visible appearance on
January 30, 1933 and wed the National Socialist movement to
power, it seemed as if it had only broken out on that day. In fact,
it had started much earlier, perhaps with the outbreak of war and
the signing of the Versailles dictate. Over the years it had an
impact, soliciting followers, shaping the community life of its
followers, creating new authorities, new ways of being, new ways
of thinking and a new style which it transferred to the new state
on the day of the conquest of power.

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 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

From a historical perspective, August 1, 1914 is the point of

intersection, and even then it had to be obvious to every
historically thinking person: "Where we stop today, we cannot
start again after the great war." Nine million German men went
through the most terrible physical and mental torments; they went
through all the hells and purgatory of human suffering, human
pain, and human renunciation and depression. It was impossible
for them to start where they left off four years ago. No - these
people brought a new way of thinking with them from the
trenches. In the face of terrible hardships and dangers, they had
experienced a new kind of community which, if they had been
lucky, could never have been given to them. They had become
acquainted with the sovereign leveling of death and had
experienced that in the end only the values of character remained.
Outside of this there was no property, education or a noble name
that mattered; no difference guided the bullets in their course. The
eternal leveling of the high and low, poor and rich, big and small
were mowed down. There was only one difference between
people: personal worth. The uniform could never level if one was
brave, the other cowardly, when one proved himself to be a man
and threw his life into the redoubt while the other tried to hide. It
was a matter of course that the valuation from the trenches carried
over to the homeland and that the old "statesmen" who had stayed
in the crowd and felt no hint of this new attitude, rebelled against
it. But it was only a matter of time that according to the law of
strength the younger, the harder and the more courageous had to
triumph over the older and the more discouraged.
The nine million German soldiers at the front knew about the
fragility of the regime which they defended at the risk of their lives
for the nation's sake. They had seen the whole world rise against
Germany and realized that this threat could only be averted with
all efforts. It became apparent that even the poorest Volksgenosse
confessed to his nation, although he had never felt it was a
possession. He knew nothing about the cultural values of his
country, he knew the names Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, Goethe,
Kant and Schopenhauer at best from hearsay. He would have had
a right to say. "The mines and ore mines that we want to conquer
have nothing to do with me, because it will probably be
completely indifferent to me whether I work for a German or a

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 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

French owner." In spite of this, it was seen that these people stood
up for an ideal which they did not even know in its broad outline.
When the toughest endurance test came later, millions fell away
from this ideal out of ignorance and weakness. But we were not a
Volksstaat, because such a state grows with its dangers. A people
will never abandon their own state.
The National Socialist movement went through the opposite
development. During the crises, party comrades never fell away
from the movement, only supporters and voters. The party
comrades, on the other hand, became all the more ruthless and
active in order to wipe out the gap again. It would be the same
with a people who remain clearly conscious of the value and
property of the Volksstaates. Had the people who committed their
lives outside had any idea of the size, value, and achievement of a
country they were defending, they would never have let that
country play into the hands of political impostors and profiteers at
decision-making time. They would have resisted it with fanatical
zeal and would never have tolerated the terrible sacrifices made
outside on the fronts being gambled away and wasted in a single
day.
We Germans used to be no world people and for this reason we
did not pursue world politics. When the war broke out, the nation
was headed by a philosopher as bad as a statesman. Later one did
not learn from the failure of this man, rather the German statesmen
did not get younger but older, while the opposite occurred on the
opposing side. There were real men at the helm, brutal power
people complained of no sentimentality and inconsiderate in the
use of state power. They did not let their parliaments deliberate
for weeks on whether a revolting sailor should be shot, but had the
nerve to shoot the guilty. We Germans won the war brilliantly
from a military point of view, but lost it politically across the
board. We had no war goal and we did not pursue world politics.
For a whirling jumble of hazy war aims, the proletariat would
be dead.
And so it happened that our front gave way, our people broke
up and the concept of the Volksstaates did not stand before the
harshness of historical development; after a heroically and
courageously waged war, the terrible catastrophe was bound to
break out. The straight lines, the best, the German patriots in fact

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despaired of the future of their people in those gray weeks of

November, and many of them perished.
Today we see things differently. We recognize the organic
connection and expediency of this development and understand
Moeller van den Bruck's prophetic words: "We had to lose the war
to win the revolution!" If we start from the view that the war
already represented a part of the revolution, which had an effect
not in the circumstances but in the people, then we come to the
result: We had to lose the first part of the revolution in order to
reflect on ourselves in the second, third and fourth acts and to win
anyway!
After the end of the war, the opposing side had invented a peace
treaty for Germany which, with ingenious refinement, resulted in
destroying the nation of Germans and finally removing it from the
list of world powers. The parties of the Weimar system never
realized that. A few years ago even the bourgeois press in
Germany shrank from the word "tribute" and the view was that the
mere mention of the Versailles Treaty of Shame was capable of
poisoning the relationship between "nations united in friendship".
We National Socialists have made the complicated facts of the
opposing methods of slavery clear to our people over many years.
Today every schoolchild in Germany knows the terrible effects of
Versailles and there is no longer a German who is not clear about
the scope of the tribute treaty. But just 15 years ago the mutinous
German Chancellor was able to appear before the nation and, in
view of this disgraceful treaty, coined the word: "The German
people have triumphed across the board!" What a change has
taken place in these 15 years of struggle. Indeed, one can say:
Nations are not always the same, there are all dispositions for good
or bad in them and it always depends on their leadership whether
nations decide for good or bad! The German people of today
cannot be compared with that of 1918, any more than the masses
of 1918 can be compared with the nation of 1914. These are
fundamentally different mentalities, a different way of thinking, a
new sense of community and closer internal cohesion.
We have described the methods of conquering power and the
roots of our being. There are still some basic terms to clarify,
which should give us the ultimate understanding of the National
Socialist world of thought.

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In public you often hear the word: "National Socialism wants

the total state!" There is a great error here, because National
Socialism does not strive for the totality of the state, but the
totality of the idea. That means a complete implementation of the
kind of view that has been fought for in the last decade and which
we have led to victory. It applies in the entire public life of the
nation and does not stop at the areas of economy, culture or
religion. In Germany there can no longer be any relation that does
not correspond to the National Socialist point of view.
The view is often held that the National Socialist movement is
falling into disintegration because it has power and has destroyed
all other parties. The argument for this attitude is that we are "all
National Socialists" today. That's not true! A whole people can
think in a soldier-like manner, but nevertheless it does not
renounce an army as the actual foster home of a soldierly attitude.
It is she who maintains the tradition, the organization and the
experiences of soldier life. Only in exceptional cases is the whole
people a soldier; as a rule it remains the privilege of a select
minority.
Another example: a theater director has a great interest in seeing
as many people as possible visit his theater. But it is not acceptable
that every theatergoer goes on stage to replace the actor. This right
cannot be acquired by attending the theater, however diligent,
entry into the small hierarchy of artistic designers has to be fought
for with hard work.
Not everyone can put on their hero's cloak or - politically
speaking - put on the party badge and declare that they are a real
National Socialist. If a layman puts on his toga, he is by no means
a great tragedy. On the contrary, one recognizes the great tragedy
even without a toga, and the dilettante only puts on the toga
because he lacks the talent for tragedy. So the party must always
remain the hierarchy of the National Socialist leadership. Their
minority must always insist on the prerogative of government. She
has to keep the way open for the German youth who want to march
into her hierarchy. Beyond that, however, their hierarchy has
fewer privileges than preliminary obligations! It is responsible for
the leadership of the state and it solemnly takes responsibility
from the people. It has a duty to run its state for the good and
general benefit of the nation.

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We would be making a mistake with grave consequences if we

put the National Socialist movement on the same level as the
earlier bourgeois and Marxist parties. From the very beginning,
National Socialism had set itself the goal of destroying all other
parties and removing the people from their encrusted influences.
That is why the essential programmatic prerequisites of the
National Socialist movement cannot be changed today. Her view
of the future remains clear and clearly in the design of her own
programmatic content, she relies on the steadfast and is not
dependent on the changing and wavering character of the crowd.
In many cases, we National Socialists are secretly requested to
change this or that terminology and our program. One speaks:
"Why do you call yourselves Socialist? Social is enough! After
all, we are all social! Take away the hurtful edge of this word and
everything would be in full agreement." No - we National
Socialists cannot do that, because it is fundamentally different
whether I am “Social” or “Socialist”, whether we are “National”
or “Nationalistic”. The word "also" is usually included with the
term "National" - and that is the decisive factor. Here two worlds
separate. For the National Socialist, however, what the other
emphasizes as a characteristic of his "national" attitude is
completely meaningless.
For him it is not the outward appearances that count, but he has
dedicated himself to his people with flesh and blood, body and
soul. The real Nationalist will never utter the hollow phrase: "It is
sweet and honorable to die for the Fatherland." He is far too honest
for that and he is reluctant to degrade his constant willingness to
work on the floor of the philistine audience to a babbling phrase.
The same is true of the concept of Socialism. "I am Social!"
This is usually what a bank director, syndic, factory owner or civil
servant in a high position says. They want to set up hospitals and
recovery centers to help the poor; they admit that this cannot
continue and that something needs to be changed. The Socialist is
above that. His standpoint is that we must all become one people
in order for the nation to stand its test.
Every sacrifice is right for this nation becoming. I belong to my
people in good and bad days and carry joys and sorrows with
them. I don't know any classes, I feel only obliged to the nation!
National Socialism does not think in the slightest about leveling

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the German people and recognizes every achievement that lifts

people out of the multitude of contemporaries. But basically we
are all equal before death, before danger and before probation, and
we want to express this equality when we profess one another and
never allow a gap to open up between us; for there will come the
times of danger when our people will be dependent on their inner
solidarity.
The much discussed Jewish question must also be seen from
this point of view. In this case too, it does not depend on the
individual sacrifice, but solely on the well-being of the nation.
When we took over the government, we decided to work out a
development period of four years in front of the German people.
More than a quarter of this time has passed, and no one can say
that it passed uselessly. One can hold against us with much malice
and dialectic, how much more is still yet to be done. But we can
proudly claim that what was humanly possible has been achieved
in our state. We did not prophesy a miracle and therefore no one
could expect miracles.
We tried ruthlessly and step by step to stop the damage caused
by time and its development. We National Socialists solved
problems in Germany that were considered unsolvable: the
problem of imperial reform (Reichsreform), the reorganization of
the estates (Stände-Neuordnung), party disunity and the creation
of popular unity in political, spiritual and ideological terms. Our
government has launched a successful fight against
unemployment in a way that never happened in the old system.
She attacked the winter hardship with unheard of courage and she
will continue to fight obsessively against the terrible time sickness
of unemployment in the future.
In the past year, the German people received an object lesson
on National Socialism that could not be better wished for. Those
who used to face us with enmity and skepticism have now become
convinced that we have successfully approached the solution of
the most difficult problems with honest will. Much remains to be
done! We are stepping into the future with youthful vigor, and
despite sorrow and misery, the German people have no reason to
despair, because they are already standing on the ground of their
own strength.
"Germany will not go under if we have the courage to be

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stronger than the hardship that has thrown us all down to the
ground!"

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