Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

common framework of the national community, cannot be secured by theoretical instruction,
appeals and exhortations, but through the struggles of daily life. In this spirit and through
this spirit the movement must educate the several large economic groups and bring them
closer to one another under a wider outlook. Without this preparatory work it would be sheer
illusion to hope that a real national community can be brought into existence. The great ideal
represented by its philosophy of life and for which the movement fights can alone form a
general style of thought steadily and slowly. And this style will show that the new state of
things rests on foundations that are internally sound and not merely an external façade.
Hence the movement must adopt a positive attitude towards the trade-unionist idea. But it
must go further than this. For the enormous number of members and followers of the tradeunionist
movement it must provide a practical education which will meet the exigencies of
the coming National Socialist State.
The answer to the third question follows from what has been already said.
The National Socialist Trades Union is not an instrument for class warfare, but a
representative organ of the various occupations and callings. The National Socialist State
recognizes no 'classes'. But, under the political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with
absolutely equal rights and equal obligations corresponding thereto. And, side by side with
these, it recognizes subjects of the State who have no political rights whatsoever.
According to the National Socialist concept, it is not the task of the trades union to band
together certain men within the national community and thus gradually transform these men
into a class, so as to use them in a conflict against other groups similarly organized within
the national community. We certainly cannot assign this task to the trades union as such.
This was the task assigned to it the moment it became a fighting weapon in the hands of the
Marxists. The trades union is not naturally an instrument of class warfare; but the Marxists
transformed it into an instrument for use in their own class struggle. They created the
economic weapon which the international Jew uses for the purpose of destroying the
economic foundations of free and independent national States, for ruining their national
industry and trade and thereby enslaving free nations to serve Jewish world-finance, which
transcends all State boundaries.
In contradistinction to this, the National Socialist Trades Union must organize definite
groups and those who participate in the economic life of the nation and thus enhance the
security of the national economic system itself, reinforcing it by the elimination of all those
anomalies which ultimately exercise a destructive influence on the social body of the nation,
damaging the vital forces of the national community, prejudicing the welfare of the State and,
by no means as a last consequence, bringing evil and destruction on economic life itself.
Therefore in the hands of the National Socialist Trades Union the strike is not an instrument
for disturbing and dislocating the national production, but for increasing it and making it
run smoothly, by fighting against all those annoyances which by reason of their unsocial
character hinder efficiency in business and thereby hamper the existence of the whole
nation. For individual efficiency stands always in casual relation to the general social and
juridical position of the individual in the economic process. Individual efficiency is also the
sole root of the conviction that the economic prosperity of the nation must necessarily
redound to the benefit of the individual citizen.
The National Socialist employee will have to recognize the fact that the economic prosperity of
the nation brings with it his own material happiness.
The National Socialist employer must recognize that the happiness and contentment of his
employees are necessary pre-requisites for the existence and development of his own
economic prosperity.
National Socialist workers and employers are both together the delegates and mandatories of
the whole national community. The large measure of personal freedom which is accorded to
them for their activities must be explained by the fact that experience has shown that the
productive powers of the individual are more enhanced by being accorded a generous