Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Really, I was somewhat taken aback. As I was now informed that the actual 'national
chairman' had not yet arrived, I decided to wait with my declaration. This gentleman finally
appeared. It was the same who had presided at the meeting in the Sterneckerbrau on the
occasion of Feder's lecture
Meanwhile, I had again become very curious, and waited expectantly for what was to come.
Now at least I came to know the names of the individual gentlemen. The chairman of the
'national organization' was a Herr Harrer, that of the Munich District, Anton Drexler.
The minutes of the last meeting were read and the secretary was given a vote of confidence.
Next came the treasury report- all in all the association possessed seven marks and fifty
pfennigs -p; for which the treasurer received a vote of general confidence. This, too, was
entered in the minutes. Then the first chairman read the answers to a letter from Kiel, one
from Dusseldorf, and one from Berlin, and everyone expressed approval. Next a report was
given on the incoming mail: a letter from Berlin, one from Dusseldorf and one from Kiel,
whose arrival seemed to be received with great satisfaction. This growing correspondence was
interpreted as the best and most visible sign of the spreading importance of the German
Workers' Party, and then-then there was a long deliberation with regard to the answers to be
made.
Terrible, terrible! This was club life of the worst manner and sort. Was I to join this
organization?
Next, new memberships were discussed; in other words, my capture was taken up.
I now began to ask questions-but, aside from a few directives, there was nothing, no
program, no leaflet, no printed matter at all, no membership cards, not even a miserable
rubber stamp, only obvious good faith and good intentions.
I had stopped smiling, for what was this if not a typical sign of the complete helplessness and
total despair of all existing parties, their programs, their purposes, and their activity? The
thing that drove these few young people to activity that was outwardly so absurd was only
the emanation of their inner voice, which more instinctively than consciously showed them
that all parties up till then were suited neither for raising up the German nation nor for
curing its inner wounds. I quickly read the typed 'directives' and in them I saw more seeking
than knowledge. Much was vague or unclear, much was missing, but nothing was present
which could not have passed as a sign of a struggling realization.
I knew what these men felt: it was the longing for a new movement which should be more
than a party in the previous sense of the wold.
That evening when I returned to the barracks I had formed my judgment of this association.
I was facing the hardest question of my life: should I join or should I decline?
Reason could advise me only to decline, but my feeling left me no rest, and as often as I tried
to remember the absurdity of this whole club, my feeling argued for it.
I was restless in the days that followed.
I began to ponder back and forth. I had long been resolved to engage in political activity; that
this could be done only in a new movement was likewise clear to me, only the impetus to act
had hitherto been lacking. I am not one of those people who begin something today and lay it
down tomorrow, if possible taking up something else again. This very conviction among
others was the main reason why it was so hard for me to make up my mind to join such a
new organization. I knew that for me a decision would be for good, with no turning back. For
me it was no passing game but grim earnest. Even then I had an instinctive revulsion toward
men who start everything and never carry anything out These jacks-of-all-trades were
loathsome to me. I regarded the activity of such people as worse than doing nothing.
And this way of thinking constituted one of the main reasons why I could not make up my
mind as easily as some others do to found a cause which either had to become everything or
else would do better not to exist at all.
Fate itself now seemed to give me a hint. I should never have gone into one of the existing
large parties, and later on I shall go into the reasons for this more closely. This absurd little