Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

since all these things have a firm foundation in its own being; but it combats with the
greatest hostility any attempt to rescue the nation from the embrace of its most mortal
enemy, since its attitude toward the Jews just happens to be more or less dogmatically
established. Yet here we are facing the question without whose solution all other attempts at
a German reawakening or resurrection are and remain absolutely senseless and impossible.
In my Vienna period I had leisure and opportunity enough for an unprejudiced examination
of this question too, and in my daily contacts was able to establish the correctness of this
view a thousand times over.
In this focus of the most varied nationalities, it immediately becomes clearly apparent that
the German pacifist is alone in always attempting to view the interests of his own nation
objectively, but that the Jew will never regard those of the Jewish people in this way; that
only the German Socialist is linternaticnal' in a sense which forbids him to beg justice for his
own people except by whimpering and whining in the midst of his international comrades,
but never a Czech or a Pole, etc.; in short, I recognized even then that the misfortune lies
only partly in these doctrines, and partly in our totally inadequate education in national
sentiment and a resultant lack of devotion to our nation.
Thus, the first theoretical foundation for a struggle of the PanGerman movement against
Catholicism as such was lacking.
Let the German people be raised from childhood up with that exclusive recognition of the
rights of their own nationality, and let not the hearts of children be contaminated with the
curse of our 'objectivity,' even in matters regarding the preservation of their own ego. Then in
a short time it will be seen that (presupposing, of course, a radically national government) in
Germany, as in Ireland, Poland, or France, the Catholic will always be a German.
The mightiest proof of this was provided by that epoch which for the last time led our nation
into a life-and-death struggle before the judgment seat of history in defense of its own
existence.
As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled their duty and
obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, both together
contributed infinitely in maintaining for so long our power to resist, not only at the front but
also at home. In these years and particularly at the first flare, there really existed in both
camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose existence and future each man turned to
his own heaven.
The Pan-German movement in Austria should have asked itself one question:
Is the preservation of German-Austrianism possible under a Catholic faith, or is it not? If yes,
the political party had no right to concern itself with religious or denominational matters; if
not, then what was needed was a religious reformation and never a political party.
Anyone who thinks he can arrive at a religious reformation by the detour of a political
organization only shows that he has no glimmer of knowledge of the development of religious
ideas or dogmas and their ecclesiastical consequences.
Verily a man cannot serve two masters. And I consider the foundation or destruction of a
religion far greater than the foundation or destruction of a state, let alone a party.
And let it not be said that this is only a defense against the attacks from the other side!
It is certain that at all times unscrupulous scoundrels have not shunned to make even
religion the instrument of their political bargains (for that is what such rabble almost always
and exclusively deal in): but just as certainly it is wrong to make a religious denomination
responsible for a
number of tramps who abuse it in exactly the same way as they would probably make
anything else serve their low instincts.
Nothing can better suit one of these parliamentarian good-for-nothings and lounge-lizards
than when an opportunity is offered to justify his political swindling, even after the fact.
For as soon as religion or even denomination is made responsible for his personal vices and
attacked on that ground, this shameless liar sets up a great outcry and calls the whole world