Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

such a nature that it would have been more profitable for the nation to keep away from them
entirely. It was a sad sign of inner decay that the youth could no longer be sent into most of
these so-called ' abodes of art '-a fact which was admitted with shameless frankness by a
general display of the penny-arcade warning: 'Young people are not admitted!'
Bear in mind that such precautionary measures had to be taken in the places which should
have existed primarily for the education of the youth and not for the delectation of old and
jaded sections of the population. What would the great dramatists of all times have said to
such a regulation, and what, above all, to the circumstances which caused it? How Schiller
would have flared up, how Goethe would have turned away in indignation!
But after all, what are Schiller, Goethe, or Shakespeare compared to the heroes of the newer
German poetic art? Old, outworn, outmoded, nay, obsolete. For that was the characteristic
thing about that period: not that the period itself produced nothing but filth, but that in the
bargain it befouled everything that was really great in the past. This, to be sure, is a
phenomenon that can always be observed at such times. The baser and more contemptible
the products of the time and its people, the Lore it hates the witnesses to the greater nobility
and dignity of a former day. In such times the people would best like to efface the memory of
mankind's past completely, so that by excluding every possibility of comparison they could
pass off their own trash as 'art.' Hence every new institution, the more wretched and
miserable it is, will try all the harder to extinguish the last traces of the past time, whereas
every true renascence of humanity can start with an easy mind from the good achievements
of past generations; in fact, can often make them truly appreciated for the first time. It does
not have to fear that it will pale before the past; no, of itself it contributes so valuable an
addition to the general store of human culture that often, in order to make this culture fully
appreciated, it strives to keep alive the memory of former achievements, thus making sure
that the present will fully understand the new gift. Only those who can give nothing valuable
to the world, but try to act as if they were going to give it God knows what, will hate
everything that was previously gives and would best like to negate or even destroy it.
The truth of this is by no means limited to the field of general culture, but applies to politics
as well. Revolutionary new movements will hate the old forms in proportion to their own
inferiority. Here, too, we can see how eagerness to make their own trash appear to be
something noteworthy leads to blind hatred against the superior good of the past. As long, for
example, as the historical memory of Frederick the Great is not dead, Friedrich Ebert can
arouse nothing but limited amazement. The hero of Sans-Souci is to the former Bremen
saloon keeper approximately as the sun to the moon; only when the rays of the sun die can
the moon shine. Consequently, the hatred of all new moons of humanity for the fixed stars is
only too comprehensible. In political life, such nonentities, if Fate temporarily casts power in
their lap, not only besmirch and befoul the past with untiring zeal, but also remove
themselves from general criticism by the most extreme methods. The new German Reich's
legislation for the defense of the Republic may pass as an example of this.
Therefore, if any new idea, a doctrine, a new philosophy, or even a political or economic
movement tries to deny the entire past, tries to make it bad or worthless, for this reason
alone we must be extremely cautious and suspicious. As a rule the reason for such hatred is
either its own inferiority or even an evil intention as such. A really beneficial renascence of
humanity will always have to continue building where the last good foundation stops. It will
not have to be ashamed of using already existing truths. For the whole of human culture, as
well as man himself is only the result of a single long development in which every generation
contributed and fitted in its stone. Thus the meaning and purpose of revolutions is not to
tear down the whole building but to remove what is bad or unsuitable and to continue
building on the sound spot that has been laid bare.
Thus alone can we and may we speak of the progress of humanity. Otherwise the world
would never be redeemed from chaos, since every generation would be entitled to reject the
past and hence destroy the works of the past as the presupposition for its own work.