by Savitri Devi
Yes, the “freedom of the individual” . . . unless he (or she) be a Nazi—that is how they should have put it, to be honest. But we all knew all the time what the slogan really meant. And many Germans who, perchance, did not know, then, have surely learnt since 1945.
Any form of self-expression, any form of art or literature which reveals more or less obviously “Nazi tendencies”; any philosophy which might pass for a new—or an older—edition of ours, and especially which justifies whatever we have done in the past and are likely to do in the future; anything of that description, I say, is anathema in the eyes both of Democrats and Communists; of those who are bent on de-Nazifying Germany and the world—if they can, that is to say.
The ban on National Socialist literature is not even restricted to Germany. Although there are no laws actually forbidding one to do so, it is, in fact, practically impossible to publish anywhere even plain historical truth showing, without comments, the excellence of the National Socialist régime, or the soundness of its basic principles, or the greatness of its immortal Founder, let alone books in which personal devotion to Adolf Hitler and to the Nazi cause is expressed with the warmth of sincerity. (I do not expect this present book ever to see the light, unless radical changes take place in the world.)
Nor is the ban in Germany restricted to National Socialist literature. It extends to books that have nothing whatsoever to do with politics or even philosophy; to books of travel and exploration, written before the National Socialist Movement was ever heard of, if these happen to be written by someone who is well-known as a Nazi. Sven Hedin’s books, for instance—written as early as 1908, about Tibet and the Himalayas—come under the ban. No new edition of them can be printed in Germany today. Sven Hedin told me so himself on the 6th of June 1948. Given this, one understands how the books of Friedrich Nietzsche—the spiritual father of National Socialism—are nearly as difficult to find in the country as pictures of the Führer (unless, of course, one knows where to look for them). And I was told that, a year or two at least after the capitulation, Wagner’s music was “dangerous” to play . . . for the simple fact that the Führer admires it!85 That is the stuff they call “Entnazifizierung.” Pretty significant, anyhow, as an index of the quality of that world that turned against its Saviour.
* * *
But the attempt to make people forget us has also its positive aspect. The Occupying Powers in Germany do not use force alone. They use persuasion too. They try to. In the schools and colleges they have taken over—i.e., which they have given over to Germans who hate all that we stand for—they do their best to tell the young that all we did at the time we were in power was wrong; that the principles from which our Ideology draws its strength are false—“unscientific,” “not in keeping with facts,” etc. . . ; that our scale of values is wrong—“inhuman”; contrary to the morality of “decent” people, etc. The Churches—the arch-enemies of National Socialism—help this propaganda as much as they possibly can, by harping upon the Christian values as opposed to our essentially Heathen ones. More doubt is stirred in the minds and consciences of young Germans, once wholeheartedly devoted to National Socialism, by the Christian preachers than by all the official “democratic” propaganda in the three Zones rolled in one.
Also, a number of books criticizing the Führer’s policy—or the Führer himself—from varied standpoints, are exhibited in the bookshops. Their sale is sponsored by the Occupying Powers. And not only here, in Germany, but all over the world, publications attacking in more or less all civilised languages, the philosophy of the National Socialist régime, or its relations abroad, or its conduct at home—or all three—are printed freely, nay encouraged, under local governments directly or indirectly indebted to Jewish money, while the tale of the other side—the tale of our grievances against those who, not content with having ruined a whole continent in order to crush us, have been persecuting and slandering us for the last four years—is not given a chance to reach the ears of the thinking people, let alone to move the feelings of the unthinking but kind-hearted masses.
Our enemies have decided that the world must remain in ignorance of all that we really stand for; in ignorance of all the good we have actually done; in ignorance of all the beauty we have created. Its labourers must not realise all that our Hitler did for the health and happiness of the German labourers, nor its mothers, all that he did for the German children, lest they might love him. Its “intelligentsia” must learn to consider as masterpieces the products of decadent art which we condemned—only because we condemned them—and ignore the work of such an artist as Arno Breker, which expresses, in all its splendour, the very soul of National Socialism. Its millions of East and West must look upon the opponents whom we fought and overcame as heroes and martyrs—only because we fought them—and remain in ignorance of our heroes and of our martyrs. Yes, of us Nazis, the world must remember nothing but a series of horrors—the exaggerated picture of the violences we had to resort to in order to surmount the obstacles which those very same people, who now accuse us, had put in our way; and the wholesale lies added to it by those who hate us or believe they have some interest in slandering us. That is de-Nazification on the broadest possible scale—that concoction of cleverly presented half-truths and downright lies, coupled with complete silence about all facts that proclaim the glory of National Socialism louder than anything or anyone can preach against it.
Is that the weapon with which they hope to kill our Weltanschauung? Lies never kill truth—not in the long run. And not even in the short run, if the champions of truth can help it.
* * *
I have already said: after that of National Socialism, now, the most thorough persecution of truth in history is perhaps the persecution of the Religion of the Disk under the Pharaoh Horemheb, in ancient Egypt. Within a few years, not a trace of that beautiful cult of Solar Energy, and of King Akhnaton himself (its Founder)—not a sign of his brief passage upon this earth—was left. And for thirty-three solid centuries, not a man in the whole world even knew of his existence—let alone of his philosophy. The triumph of the priests of Amon seemed complete. And yet! In spite of all their curses and of all their glaring success—in spite of that endless period of 3300 years during which nothing challenged their victory—could they keep the truth from coming to light, one day? Could they keep a humble peasant woman from discovering, by accident, the famous Tell-el-Amarna tablets in 1887 AD? Could they keep Sir Flinders Petrie and his successors from excavating the site of Akhnaton’s destroyed capital? And, in lands of which they did not then suspect the existence, in languages which were not yet spoken in their days, could they keep men and women of our times from reading the translation of what remains of his hymns to the Sun, and from marvelling both at the literary beauty of those songs and at the accuracy of the eternal ideas which they reveal?
In a like manner, even if the agents of the dark forces could crush us out of existence, still they could not blot out the everlasting truth on which our socio-political Ideology is founded. Even if, by killing us all, they could de-Nazify the earth in its length and breadth, still they could not keep Life from evolving, now and always, on this and on all planets in space, according to those self-same iron laws regulating the rise and downfall of races, which Adolf Hitler recognised and stressed in his speeches, in his writings, in his whole career; still they could not de-Nazify the Gods.
But can they even de-Nazify Germany—as the priests of Amon (like they, worshippers of vested interests in their days) swept the Religion of the Disk out of Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt? That is already too great a task for their ability. Not that they lack the cunning—the methodical art of threat, and blackmail and bribery; the capacity to exploit the worst side of humanity hidden in most men—nor the hatred that once distinguished the ancient sacerdotal gang. But we are not the light-minded courtiers of Tell-el-Amarna. We are prepared to resist all attempts to destroy our spirit, with the same enthusiastic fortitude as that displayed by the early Chri
stians in the defence of a Welt-anschauung less beautiful and less eternal than ours. Thousands of us have proved it, during these last four years. Thousands more will prove it in the near future—until at last we win.
* * *
The whole apparatus of de-Nazification is powerless against those of us who, whatever their official status in life, admit no ties—no allegiance to anyone, save to Adolf Hitler; no personal love, save for him and for his other followers; no interest, save that of the Movement, that of the Idea for which he stands. Such ones are free, even behind bars. Such ones are strong, even when their bodies are broken. They stand beyond the reach of threat and bribery. But they are the minority among a minority—naturally. Pure gold always is.
But even the great number of our comrades, the average Nazis (to use together two words that strike me as incompatible), the men and women who share our philosophy but who happen to have personal ties as well, defy, in a different way, the “cultural” schemes and the “re-education” programme of the Occupying Powers.
I do not say that they put up a very glorious show. Anything but that! They fill out the forms stating that they have ceased to believe in Hitler’s ideals, and sign them; they go through the formality of de-Nazification in all its humiliating details, and pay the sum of money they are asked (twenty marks at least) and come home with some kind of written attestation that they are no longer to be considered as National Socialists; especially, no longer to be submitted to the restrictions that had hindered them (and their families) economically, up to that day. But all this does not keep them from being just as good Nazis as before. And how they laugh at the whole process of Entnazifizierung! “Dieses Affenspiel”—“that monkey play’’—that is what they call it. That is, in fact, what we all call it. If only the representatives of the Occupying Powers could see and hear us laugh when we are among ourselves! It would do them good. It would destroy some of their silliest illusions and strike a blow at their vanity; it would teach them how contemptuous the whole country feels about their precious “de-Nazification” effort. It would show them how lightly we consider all that they take such pains to quack at us, and force them at last to realise that, save of course for the cash they get out of it, the whole business is just what we call it: a monkey play.
But perhaps they love the cash so much that even that knowledge would not induce them to stop the nonsense.
I have told some of them myself what we think of them and their de-Nazification—not in the hope that they would put an end to it a day earlier, but merely for the pleasure of hurting that insufferable vanity of theirs. The trouble is that vanity refuses to admit facts that might hurt it and also that I cannot afford to risk harming our friends by exhibiting too precise facts, for the sterile satisfaction of wounding our enemies’ vanity. If I were not pledged to silence by the very nature of my connection with the people concerned, I could have told the bloated political reformers of a few cases of which any single one would be enough to shake a Democrat’s faith in de-Nazification. The case of Fräulein S, for instance.86
Fräulein S is a most sympathetic young National Socialist of under thirty, employed by the French Military Government, somewhere in the French Zone. I met her in a railway station, a day or two after my second entry into Germany, and have learnt to love her more and more ever since. Her first words to me, after I had told her I was intending to write a book about present-day Germany, were: “Don’t believe all ‘those people’ will tell you about us, Germans. See and judge us for yourself. That is my only request.” I! Fancy me believing anything of what the enemies of the New Order would tell me about Hitler’s people! But how could the girl guess?
I looked up at her with the grieved face of one who feels accused of a thing he would never dream of doing. “You do not know who I am,” I said; “otherwise you would never tell me that.”
We were standing amidst ruins. In the girl’s tall, athletic figure, in her healthy face, in the metallic gloss of her ash-blond hair in the morning sunshine, I saw the symbol of Germany’s invincible vitality. I recalled in my mind the sight of the whole country laid waste by the Allied bombs and thought, “Mortar and stone. That can be rebuilt. As long as this magnificent youth is alive, nothing matters really.” Against the background of the torn and gaping buildings, I imagined a procession of new Storm Troopers, in the resurrected National Socialist State—the irresistible future—and I smiled. Was Fräulein S to be the leader of a hundred younger Hitler Maidens in those days of my dream? I wished she would be. And then I at last asked the girl: “Have you kept the ideals that once inspired you, here in Germany?”
She seemed a little surprised at my question; and a little uneasy. “Do you mean ‘those’ ideals?” she said, referring to those that no foreigner in Germany today professes to admire.
“Yes,” I replied; “I mean the National Socialist ideals.”
“Some of us still adhere to them in the secrecy of their hearts,” she said.
“Do you?” asked I. “Whatever you might say, you have nothing to fear from me.”
She hesitated a second, and then probably reflected that I would not have spoken so openly, had I been some “agent provocateur.” She replied firmly: “I do.” My face brightened, and I took her hands in mine.
“Come and have a cup of coffee with me,” I said, “and I shall tell you who I am and why I came.”
We went to a café, and there, in a corner, after half an hour’s conversation, I gave her a handful of my leaflets.
“You wrote these?” she asked me, as she read one, carefully hiding the Swastika printed at the top.
“Yes. I.”
“And you managed to cross the border with them?”
“Yes, with over six thousand. I was lucky.”
“And what if you had been caught?”
“I was prepared for the worst. It is the only thing I can do, now, in ’48, for my Führer and for you, his people, whom I love.”
The girl was gazing at one intently. She got up. “Come,” she said, “come to my home. You are the first foreign Nazi I have ever met. But please, for heaven’s sake, not a word of politics to my old parents!”
“Why? Are they against us?”
“Goodness no! On the contrary. But they would be scared at the thought of what might happen to me if I associate with you. And I wish to associate with you, now that I know. I shall do all that is in my power to help you—or rather to help Germany through you, her faithful friend. I am so glad I met you!”
On the way to her house, she told me that her old father and mother were dependent upon her for their livelihood. She had a good job in an office of the French Military Government.
“Why you, with those people?” I asked her.
“We have to live,” she replied, “and jobs are not easy to get. Moreover, is it not preferable that I should have the post, rather than some anti-Nazi?”
I agreed that it was. Still, I felt a little uneasy, being by nature an uncompromising person, and being also a newcomer in occupied Germany.
“Do ‘they’ know your views?” I asked.
“I should think not! Why should they, anyhow? I told them the ordinary tale: that I was ‘forced’ into the Party ‘as nearly everyone was.’ And the fools believed it. They will believe anything that tends to point out that their so-called insight into German affairs is correct. And who cares, after all, what they believe? All I want is well-paid work to keep my house going. Those people think they have ‘converted’ me. I think I am exploiting them.”
I could not help admitting that there was much to be said in support of the girl’s attitude. What else could she do, without causing her parents to suffer?
We became good friends. And on several occasions Fräulein S helped me substantially, actually taking serious risks—endangering herself and her parents—for the sake of the National Socialist cause. That alone, in my eyes, proves that she is genuine. Nobody would have done what she did without being sincerely devoted to our Ideolog
y. Yet, only a month or two before my arrest, the girl informed me that she was to be de-Nazified. I was grieved to hear of it. I took it as a matter of personal shame. To me, the idea of a comrade going through that humiliating process, was nearly as unbearable as that of a younger sister being outraged by some undesirable man.
“Why?” said I. “Must you really do it?’
“I have to,” she replied, “or else, abandon my parents to starve. I have no choice. It is a part of the routine. All former Party members who are now in service of the French military government must go through that formality or give up their jobs.”
And she told me of the questions she would have to answer in writing, stating that she no longer adhered to our socio-political principles and our philosophy of life—she, Fräulein S, of all people!
“I know,” she added, “how much the whole business disgusts you. It does me, too, believe me. It means writing and signing a heap of blatant lies. But what else can one do in the circumstance?”
“What would happen if one boldly wrote the truth?” I asked, knowing all the time what the answer would be.
“One would just be turned out of one’s post without being allowed to hold another in one’s own line; and one would be replaced by a person willing to lie—or by some real anti-Nazi, which would be still worse.”
She paused for a second. “I know how the disgraceful show disgusts you,” she repeated. “But you are free. You can afford to be truthful. You can afford to be defiant. Nobody is depending on you for his or her livelihood. Nobody will suffer with you, if you suffer. So you can do what you feel—what we all feel—to be right. I cannot. Very few of us can. This is the tragedy of the matter: we are given the choice to lie or to die. That is Democracy, as you know yourself.”