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. . . .