Racism versus Marxism

The NSDAP also perceived racial hygiene as a political controversy. Der Schulungsbrief pointed out that National Socialism “is the first ideology in history to consciously incorporate the laws of nature and apply their wisdom and efficiency to mankind."108Germanisches Leitheftcontended that emphasis on race is the “antithesis of the western perception, especially former France. It was there that the grand revolution proclaimed the equality of all who bear the human countenance. . . . Intermixing of human types was a main thrust of French democracy.” The revolution of 1789, the periodical noted, was a poor example for such an altruistic ideal: “The revolution became a power struggle among ambitious party leaders. This no longer led toward a new order, but climaxed in the elimination of those public representatives still conscious of their responsibility to the people. . . . The so-called reign of terror began. It depopulated entire towns and districts. 'Death to the blondes' was the battle cry."109

The National Socialists viewed Marxism as the political descendant of revolutionary France. It leveled humanity off to a “faceless mass” by destroying society’s more talented, productive elements.110 According to Der Schulungsbrief, “Marxism is a radicalized variant of liberalism strongly rooted in the brutality of the French Revolution."111 The journal Volk und Reich {Nation and Realm) wrote, “The Bolshevik revolution regards itself as the legitimate successor to the French."112

Brutality was indeed an element common to both France’s Reign of Terror and Bolshevik Russia. The first Soviet dictator, Nicolai Lenin, became the only member of the original Politburo, the governing council, to die a natural death. Stalin proclaimed a “war on terror” in December 1934, personally writing a new law imposing a death sentence for “acts of terrorism” and leading to massive executions for several years. In 1937, the Soviet state carried out 353,074 death sentences, the following year 328,618.113Houston Steward Chamberlain described Russia’s Bolshevik regime as under “the influence of the French revolutionary ideal, which in the course of a century, turned decent people into half-beasts filled with envy and loathing."114

Goebbels described the rise of the NSDAP as “one continuous confrontation with the problem of Marxism."115 The ideologies were at loggerheads regarding questions of the significance of race. The German study Der bolschewistische Weltbetrug {The Bolshevik World Swindle) provides this comparison: “The National Socialist world view interprets the nation racially, as a national community grounded in common historical blood ties of its people as determined by fate. The primary conviction of Marxist ideology is the class concept defining those with possessions and those who possess nothing. This class concept is bound neither by nationality nor by race. It stands like a dividing wall between people of the same nation. At the same time, it joins as brothers persons of the most diverse racial types. ’society is dividing into two immense, diametrical, hostile camps, bourgeois and proletariat,' declared the Communist Manifesto.... Adolf Hitler’s judgment runs a different course. It desires the unity of naturally related people, the removal of class distinctions, and the personal feeling within every individual of belonging to the national community that the person, through fate, was born into."116

A primary liberal argument against the significance of race is environmentalism. Supported by democracy and Marxism alike, this theory holds that not racial ancestry, but factors such as climate, arable land, education, luck, and social opportunities determine group or individual achievement. As Der Schulungsbrief explained it, “Marxism is built on the teaching that all men are equal at birth. Differences that become apparent in the course of a lifetime are the result of external influences. Personal development therefore depends on surroundings. The more favorable the environment, the better the person will turn out."117 The periodical NS Briefe countered that this view “degrades man to a slave of his circumstances. . . . The determining factor supposedly rests with the environment; that man does not mold the age, the age molds the man."118

Application of environmentalism’s principles as a matter of state policy, according to Gross, demonstrates how impractical the theory is: “The habitual criminal, the cold-blooded murderer who since boyhood went through life harboring asocial instincts detrimental to society, was just a 'victim of his surroundings.' The ruthless eradication of those manifesting such bestial, menacing natures is not the obvious solution, but attentive, painstaking education, and improvement through transfer to a 'better environment'; the prison with radios, billiards, and a library. Here the killer experiences a more comfortable lifestyle than the hard-working laborer in the land. This is the logical consequence of the belief that exterior influences decide or can alter the nature of a person."119

The periodical NS Briefe related the German position: “No amount of education can change the inner substance of a person, since the factors that determine who he is do not come from without. They rest within him, given to him by his parents and grandparents"120 Germanisches Leitheftsummarized that race alone “makes the individual and indeed the whole society masters of their environment and external circumstances, to shape them according to their will."121

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