ABSTRACT
In his remarkable book Germany's Revolution o f Destruction, Dr. Rauschning gives an impression o f National Socialism that re minds one o f a landslide or an avalanche. His evidence is all the more valuable psychologically since the catastrophe, which he saw approaching, is now actually upon us. From the standpoint o f the present work, his most significant testimony has to do with the destructive effect o f the avalanche upon human individuality. The following passages contain the gist o f his indictment:
It is the essential task o f every revolution to produce a tabula rasa, to make a clean sweep of the past political forces; but the nihilist revolution o f National Socialism sets out to destroy everything that it cannot itself take over and convert to its own pattern. This explains its Gleichschaltung, or forcing into conformity o f all elements of society and of every independent activity, or else their total suppression. It explains why the revolution ignores the very conceptions o f a private sphere in life and of legality . . . The new social order will consist o f universal and equal servitude, a general mobilization, not only for the purpose o f military prepared ness, but as a permanent revolutionary system — a servitude which will remove human labour from the sphere of economic and social considerations and subject it to the principle o f blind obedience to an absolute despotism. . . . Thus National Socialism is at issue with every independent activity or ordering o f life. It is bound to make an end o f freedom of initiative, o f all that in the past has made for creative ability and progress: these things make its dominion incom plete. Nothing is more intolerable to it in its revolutionary course than originality, individuality, character, or true public spirit. Whatever it cannot dominate it must destroy; what ever it cannot absorb and master must go. . . .
