Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

think of these wretched caverns, the lodging houses and tenements, sordid scenes of
garbage, repulsive filth, and worse.
What was-and still is-bound to happen some day, when the stream of unleashed slaves
pours forth from these miserable dens to avenge themselves on their thoughtless fellow men
F
For thoughtless they are!
Thoughtlessly they let things slide along, and with their utter lack of intuition fail even to
suspect that sooner or later Fate must bring retribution, unless men conciliate Fate while
there is still time.
How thankful I am today to the Providence which sent me to that school! In it I could no
longer sabotage the subjects I did not like. It educated me quickly and thoroughly.
If I did not wish to despair of the men who constituted my environment at that time, I had to
learn to distinguish between their external characters and lives and the foundations of their
development. Only then could all this be borne without losing heart. Then, from all the
misery and despair, from all the filth and outward degeneration, it was no longer human
beings that emerged, but the deplorable results of deplorable laws; and the hardship of my
own life, no easier than the others, preserved me from capitulating in tearful sentimentality
to the degenerate products of this process of development.
No, this is not the way to understand all these things!
Even then I saw that only a twofold road could lead to the goal of improving these conditions:
The deepest sense of social responsibility for the creation of better foundations for our
development, coupled with brutal determination on breaking down incurable tenors.
Just as Nature does not concentrate her greatest attention in preserving what exists, but in
breeding offspring to carry on the species, likewise, in human life, it is less important
artificially to alleviate existing evil, which, in view of human nature, is ninety-nine per cent
impossible, than to ensure
from the start healthier channels for a future development.
During my struggle for existence in Vienna, it had become clear to me that
Social activity must never and on no account be directed toward philanthropic flim-flam, but
rather toward the elimination of the basic deficiencies in the organization of our economic
and cultural life that must-or at all events can-lead to the degeneration of the individual .
The difficulty of applying the most extreme and brutal methods against the criminals who
endanger the state lies not least in the uncertainty of our judgment of the inner motives or
causes of such contemporary phenomena.
This uncertainty is only too well founded in our own sense of guilt regarding such tragedies
of degeneration; be that as it may, it paralyzes any serious and firm decision and is thus
partly responsible for the weak and half-hearted, because hesitant, execution of even the
most necessary measures of selfpreservation.
Only when an epoch ceases to be haunted by the shadow of its own consciousness of guilt
will it achieve the inner calm and outward strength brutally and ruthlessly to prune off the
wild shoots and tear out the weeds.
Since the Austrian state had practically no social legislation or jurisprudence, its weakness
in combating even malignant tumors was glaring.
I do not know what horrified me most at that time: the economic misery of my companions,
their moral and ethical coarseness, or the low level of their intellectual development.
How often does our bourgeoisie rise in high moral indignation when they hear some
miserable tramp declare that it is all the same to him whether he is a German or not, that he
feels equally happy wherever he is, as long as he has enough to live on!