Extracts from "Mein Kampf," on Hitler's views of the necessity and value of war, Germany's right to expand its territory to the east, and the restoration of Austria to Germany

EXTRACTS FROM "MEIN KAMPF" HUTCHINSON'S ILLUSTRATED EDITION [Page 556, col. II]
"The soil on which we now live was not a gift bestowed by Heaven on our forefathers. But they had to conquer it by risking their lives. So also in the future our people will not obtain territory, and therewith the means of existence, as a favour from any other people, but will have to win it by the power of a triumphant sword."
[Page 145, col. II]
"Thus I used to think it an ill-deserved stroke of bad luck that I had arrived too late on this terrestrial globe and I felt chagrined at the idea that my life would have to run its course
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along peaceful and orderly lines. As a boy I was anything but a pacifist and all attempts to make me so turned out futile." [Page 162, col. I]
"In regard to the part played by humane feeling, Moltke stated that in time of war the essential thing is to get a decision as quickly as possible and that the most ruthless methods of fighting are at the same time the most humane. When people attempt to answer this reasoning by highfalutin talk about aesthetics, etc. only one answer can be given. It is that the vital questions involved in the struggle of a nation for its existence must not be subordinated to any aesthetic considerations."
[Page 256, col. II]
"Had it not been possible for them to employ members of the inferior race which they conquered, the Aryans would never have been in a position to take the first steps on the road which led then to a later type of culture; j ust as, without the help of certain suitable animals which they were able to tame, they would never have come to the invention of mechanical power, which has subsequently enabled them to do without these beasts."
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"For the establishment of superior types of civilization the members of inferior races formed one of the most essential prerequisites."
[Page 344, col. II]
"If in its historical development the German people had possessed the unity of herd instinct by which other people have so much benefited, then the German Reich would probably be mistress of the globe today. World history would have taken another course, and in this case no man can tell if what many blinded pacifists hope to attain by petitioning, whining and crying may not have been reached in this way; namely, a peace which would not be based upon the waving of olive branches and tearful misery-mongering of pacifist old women, but a peace that would be guaranteed by the triumphant sword of a people endowed with the power to master the world and administer it in the service of a higher civilization."
[Page 553, col. I]
"In regard to this point I should like to make the following . statement: To demand that the 1914 frontiers should be restored is a glaring political absurdity that is fraught with such consequences as to make the claim itself appear criminal. The confines of the Reich as they existed in 1914 were thoroughly illogical; because they were not really complete, in the sense of including all the members of the German nation. Nor were they
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reasonable, in view of the geographical exigencies of military defence. They were not the consequence of a political plan which had been well considered and carried out. But they were temporary frontiers established in virtue of a political struggle that had not been brought to a finish; and indeed they were partly the chance result of circumstances."
[Page 554, col. II]
"For the future of the German nation the 1914 frontiers are of no significance. They did not serve to protect us in the past, nor do they offer any guarantee for our defence in the future. With these frontiers the German people cannot maintain themselves as a compact unit, nor can they be assured of their maintenance. From the military viewpoint these frontiers are not advantageous or even such as not to cause anxiety. And while we are bound to such frontiers it will not be possible for us to improve our present positions in relation to the other world powers, or rather in relation to the real world powers. We shall not lessen the discrepancy between our territory and that of Great Britain, nor shall we reach the magnitude of the United States of America. Not only that, but we cannot substantially lessen the importance of France in international politics.
"One thing alone is certain: The attempt to restore the frontiers of 1914, even if it turned out successful, would demand so much bloodshed on the part of our people that no future sacrifice would be possible to carry out effectively such measures as would be necessary to assure the future existence of the nation. On the contrary, under the intoxication of such a superficial success further aims would be renounced, all the more so because the so-called national honour would seem to be revindicated and new ports would be opened, at least for a certain time, to our commercial development.
"Against all this we National Socialists must stick firmly to the aim that we have set for our foreign policy; namely, that the German people must be assured the territorial area which is necessary for it to exist on this earth. And only for such action as is undertaken to secure those ends can it be lawful in the eyes of God and our German posterity to allow the blood of our people to be shed onee again. Before God, because we are sent into this world with the commission to struggle for our daily bread, as creatures to whom nothing is donated and who must be able to win and hold their position as lords of the earth only through their own intelligence and courage.
"And this justification must be established also before our German posterity, on the grounds that for each one who has
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shed his blood the life of a thousand others will be guaranteed to posterity. The territory on which one day our German peasants will be able to bring forth and nourish their sturdy sons will justify the blood of the sons of the peasants that has to be shed today. And the statesmen who will have decreed this sacrifice may be persecuted by their contemporaries, but posterity will absolve them from all guilt for having demanded this offering from their people."
[Page 557, col. I]
"Germany will either become a World Power or will not continue to exist at all. But in order to become a world power it needs that territorial magnitude which gives it the necessary importance today and assures the existence of its citizens."
[Page 552, col. II]
"* * * We must take our stand on the principles already
mentioned in regard to foreign policy; namely, the necessity of bringing our territorial area into just proportion with the number of our population. From the past we can -learn only one lesson. And this is that the aim which is to be pursued in our political conduct must be twofold: namely, (1) the acquisition of territory as the objective of our foreign policy and (2) the establishment of a new and uniform foundation as the objective of our political activities at home, in accordance with our doctrine of nationhood."
[Page 132, col. I]
"Therefore the only possibility which Germany had of carrying a sound territorial policy into effect was that of acquiring new territory in Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose so long as they are not suited for settlement by Europeans on a large scale. In the nineteenth century it was no longer possible to acquire such colonies by peaceful means. Therefore any attempt at such a colonial expansion would have meant an enormous military struggle. Consequently it would have been more practical to undertake that military struggle for new territory in Europe, rather than to wage war for the acquisition of possessions abroad.
Such a decision naturally demanded that the nation's undivided energies should be devoted to it. A policy of that kind which requires for its fulfillment every ounce of available energy on the part of everybody concerned cannot be carried into effect by half-measures or in a hesitating manner. The political leadership of the German Empire should then have been directed ex-D-660
clusively to this goal. No political step should have been taken in response to other considerations than this task and the means of accomplishing it. Germany should have been alive to the fact that such a goal could have been reached only by war, and the prospect of war should have been faced with calm and collected determination.
The whole system of alliances should have been envisaged and valued from that standpoint. If new territory were to be acquired in Europe it must have been mainly at Russia's cost, and once again the new German Empire should have set out on its march along the same road as was formerly trodden by the Teutonic Knights, this time to acquire soil for the German plough by means of the German sword and thus provide the nation with its daily bread."
[Page 570, col. II]
"As long as the eternal conflict between France and Germany is waged only in the form of a German defense against the French attack that conflict can never be decided, and from century to century Germany will lose one position after another. If we study the changes that have taken place, from the twelfth century up to our day, in the frontiers within which the German language is spoken, we can hardly hope for a successful issue to result from the acceptance and development of a line of conduct which has hitherto been so detrimental for us.
Only when the Germans have taken all this fully into account will they cease from allowing the national will-to-live to wear itself out in merely passive defense; but they will rally together for a last decisive contest with France. And in this contest the essential objective of the German nation will be fought for. Only then will it be possible to put an end to the eternal Franco-German conflict which has hitherto proved so sterile.
Of course it is here presumed that Germany sees in the suppression of France nothing more than a means which will make it possible for our people finally to expand in another quarter. Today there are eighty million Germans in Europe. And our foreign policy will be recognized as rightly conducted only when, after barely a hundred years, there will be 250 million Germans living on this continent, not packed together as the coolies in the factories of another continent but as tillers of the soil and workers whose labour will be a mutual assurance for their existence."
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