Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

exist. Thus, conversely, a State may be called bad if, in spite of the existence of a high
cultural level, it dooms to destruction the bearers of that culture by breaking up their racial
uniformity. For the practical effect of such a policy would be to destroy those conditions that
are indispensable for the ulterior existence of that culture, which the State did not create but
which is the fruit of the creative power inherent in the racial stock whose existence is
assured by being united in the living organism of the State. Once again let me emphasize the
fact that the State itself is not the substance but the form. Therefore, the cultural level is not
the standard by which we can judge the value of the State in which that people lives. It is
evident that a people which is endowed with high creative powers in the cultural sphere is of
more worth than a tribe of negroes. And yet the statal organization of the former, if judged
from the standpoint of efficiency, may be worse than that of the negroes. Not even the best of
States and statal institutions can evolve faculties from a people which they lack and which
they never possessed, but a bad State may gradually destroy the faculties which once
existed. This it can do by allowing or favouring the suppression of those who are the bearers
of a racial culture.
Therefore, the worth of a State can be determined only by asking how far it actually succeeds
in promoting the well-being of a definite race and not by the role which it plays in the world
at large. Its relative worth can be estimated readily and accurately; but it is difficult to judge
its absolute worth, because the latter is conditioned not only by the State but also by the
quality and cultural level of the people that belong to the individual State in question.
Therefore, when we speak of the high mission of the State we must not forget that the high
mission belongs to the people and that the business of the State is to use its organizing
powers for the purpose of furnishing the necessary conditions which allow this people freely
to unfold its creative faculties. And if we ask what kind of statal institution we Germans
need, we must first have a clear notion as to the people which that State must embrace and
what purpose it must serve.
Unfortunately the German national being is not based on a uniform racial type. The process
of welding the original elements together has not gone so far as to warrant us in saying that a
new race has emerged. On the contrary, the poison which has invaded the national body,
especially since the Thirty Years' War, has destroyed the uniform constitution not only of our
blood but also of our national soul. The open frontiers of our native country, the association
with non-German foreign elements in the territories that lie all along those frontiers, and
especially the strong influx of foreign blood into the interior of the Reich itself, has prevented
any complete assimilation of those various elements, because the influx has continued
steadily. Out of this melting-pot no new race arose. The heterogeneous elements continue to
exist side by side. And the result is that, especially in times of crisis, when the herd usually
flocks together, the Germans disperse in all directions. The fundamental racial elements are
not only different in different districts, but there are also various elements in the single
districts. Beside the Nordic type we find the East-European type, beside the Eastern there is
the Dinaric, the Western type intermingling with both, and hybrids among them all. That is a
grave drawback for us. Through it the Germans lack that strong herd instinct which arises
from unity of blood and saves nations from ruin in dangerous and critical times; because on
such occasions small differences disappear, so that a united herd faces the enemy. What we
understand by the word hyper-individualism arises from the fact that our primordial racial
elements have existed side by side without ever consolidating. During times of peace such a
situation may offer some advantages, but, taken all in all, it has prevented us from gaining a
mastery in the world. If in its historical development the German people had possessed the
unity of herd instinct by which other peoples have so much benefited, then the German
Reich would probably be mistress of the globe today. World history would have taken another
course and in this case no man can tell if what many blinded pacifists hope to attain by
petitioning, whining and crying, may not have been reached in this way: namely, a peace
which would not be based upon the waving of olive branches and tearful misery-mongering of