Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

speed as the English ships, the British navy would have found a watery grave beneath the
hurricane of the more accurate and more effective German 38-centimeter shells.
Japan carried on a different naval policy in those days. There, on principle, the entire
emphasis was laid on giving every single new ship superior fighting power over the
presumable adversary. The result was a greater possibility of offensive utilization of the navy.
While the staff of the land army still kept free of such basically false trains of thought, the
navy, which unfortunately had better 'parliamentary' representation, succumbed to the spirit
of parliament. It was organized on the basis of half-baked ideas and was later used in a
similar way. What immortal fame the navy nevertheless achieved could only be set to the
account of the skill of the German armaments worker and the ability and incomparable
heroism of the individual officers and crews. If the previous naval high command had shown
corresponding intelligence, these sacrifices would not have been in vain.
Thus perhaps it was precisely the superior parliamentary dexterity of the navy's peacetime
head that resulted in its misfortune, since, even in its building, parliamentary instead of
purely military criteria unfortunately began to play the decisive role. The half-heartedness
and weakness as well as the meager logic in thinking, characteristic of the parliamentary
institution, began to color the leadership of the navy.
The land army, as already emphasized, still refrained from such basically false trains of
thought. Particularly the colonel in the great General Staff of that time, Ludendorff, carried
on a desperate struggle against the criminal half-heartedness and weakness with which the
Reichstag approached the vital problems of the nation, and for the most part negated them. If
the struggle which this officer then carried on was nevertheless in vain, the blame was borne
half by parliament and half by the attitude and weakness even more miserable, if possible- of
Reich Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. Yet today this does not in the least prevent those who
were responsible for the German collapse from putting the blame precisely on him who alone
combated this neglect of national interests-one swindle more or less is nothing to these born
crooks.
Anyone who contemplates all the sacrifices which were heaped on the nation by the criminal
frivolity of these most irresponsible among irresponsibles, who passes in review all the
uselessly sacrificed dead and maimed, as well as the boundless shame and disgrace, the
immeasurable misery which has now struck us, and knows that all this happened only to
clear the path to ministers' chairs for a gang of unscrupulous climbers and job-huntersanyone
who contemplates all this will understand that these creatures can, believe me, be
described only by words such as ' scoundrel, ' ' villain, ' ' scum, ' and ' criminal, ' otherwise
the meaning and purpose of having these expressions in our linguistic usage would be
incomprehensible. For compared to these traitors to the nation, every pimp is a man of
honor.
Strangely enough, all the really seamy sides of old Germany attracted attention only when
the inner solidarity of the nation would inevitably suffer thereby. Yes, indeed, in such cases
the unpleasant truths were positively bellowed to the broad masses, while otherwise the
same people preferred modestly to conceal many things and in part simply to deny them.
This was the case when the open discussion of a question might have led to an improvement.
At the same time, the government offices in charge knew next to nothing of the value and
nature of propaganda. The fact that by clever and persevering use of propaganda even
heaven can be represented as hell to the people, and conversely the most wretched life as
paradise, was known only to the Jew, who acted accordingly; the German, or rather his
government, hadn't the faintest idea of this.
During the War we were to suffer most gravely for all this.