ABSTRACT
IN the last chapter the skeleton of the National-Socialist State has been laid bare. Only if we understand this bone-structure can we judge present-day Germany. All Nazi slogans, “nation”, “education”, “law”, “freedom”, “idealism”, etc., can be understood only if we understand the fundamental social facts to which they refer. These facts are: internally, the open oppression of the working-class and the lower middle-class, the prohibition of any political or professional organisations of these classes; externally, Imperialism taken to its extreme, military and economic warfare against Germany’s national rivals. Only in reference to these facts can we understand the “social reforms” of Hitler-Germany, whether they are acclaimed as socialism (the agricultural reforms) or as economic realism (the formation of cartels). Only these facts give us the clue to Germany’s statements of foreign policy, its withdrawal from the League of Nations, its pacts with neighbouring countries. Open in his scorn of truth, in his praise of demagogy, Hitler invites us to be critical, to refuse to take his declarations at their face value, to seek for their origins in the general line of his politics.
