by Adolf Hitler
Thus the fact that at that time the union fortunately was prevented, and in part with Italian help, will some day lead to the insertion of the missing link between Prague and Yugoslavia into the French alliance system.
For Italy, however, the prevention of the Austrian union with Germany had been wrong even on psychological grounds. The smaller the fragmented Austrian State remained, the more limited naturally also were its foreign policy aims. A foreign policy goal, conceived on a grand scale, could not be expected from a State structure which has scarcely ………. square kilometres of territory, and hardly ………. million inhabitants. If German Austria had been annexed to Germany in the year 1919-1920, the tendency of her political thought would gradually have been determined by the great political aims of Germany, which were at least possible, that is, for a nation of almost 70000000. Preventing this at that time removed foreign policy thinking from greater aims, and limited it to small old Austrian reconstruction ideas. Only thus was it possible that the Southern Tyrol question could have at all grown to such an importance. For as small as the Austrian State was as such, it was at least large enough to be the bearer of a foreign policy idea which was in keeping with its smallness, just as, conversely, it could slowly poison the political thinking of all Germany. The more limited the political ideas of the Austrian State become in consequence of its territorial limitation, the more will they sprout into problems which can certainly have an importance for this State, but which cannot be viewed as decisive for the shaping of a German foreign policy for the German Nation.
Italy should espouse a union of Austria with Germany if for no other reason than to cut across the French alliance system in Europe. She should further also do this, however, in order to present other tasks to the German border policy germinated in consequence of her incorporation in a great Reich.
Moreover, the reasons which once induced Italy to take a stand against the union are not quite clear. Neither presentday Austria nor presentday Germany can be considered a military adversary of Italy for the time being.
But if France succeeds in bringing a general alliance in Europe into being against Italy, in which Austria and Germany take part, the military situation as such will not at all change whether Austria is independent or whether she is with Germany. Moreover one cannot actually speak of a real independence with so small a structure anyhow. Austria will always [They will always] hang on to the strings of a large power of some kind.
Switzerland cannot in the least prove the opposite, since as a State she possesses her own possibilities of existence, even if on the basis of tourist traffic. For Austria this is already impossible in consequence of the disproportion of the capital of this country to the size of the whole population. Regardless, however, what attitude Austria itself assumes toward Italy, in the very fact of her existence there already lies an easing of the military strategic position of Czechoslovakia which one day, one way or another, can make itself noticeable vis-
à-vis Italy’s natural ally as such, Hungary.
For the Italians, military and political reasons would speak in favour of regarding prohibition of the union as at least without importance, if not as something which answers the purpose.
I cannot conclude this chapter without establishing in detail who in fact bears the guilt that a Southern Tyrol question exists altogether.
For us National Socialists, politically, the decision has been reached. And at least I — who am most violently opposed to millions of Germans being dragged to a battlefield on which to bleed to death for the interests of France without a gain thereby accruing to Germany which would in some way be consonant with the blood sacrifice — I also refuse to recognise the standpoint of national honour as being decisive here. For on the basis of this viewpoint I would sooner have to march against France, which by her whole conduct has offended German honour in quite a different way, than Italy. I have already enlarged in the introduction to this book on the possibility of formulating a foreign policy on the basis of national honour, so there is no further need to take a position toward it. If now the attempt is made in our protest groups to present this attitude of ours as a betrayal or a renunciation of the Southern Tyrol, this can only be correct if, without our attitude, Southern Tyrol would either have not been lost altogether, or were about to return to the other Tyrol in the predictable future.
Therefore I see myself forced once more to establish in this exposition precisely who it was that betrayed the Southern Tyrol, and through whose measures it was lost to Germany.
The Southern Tyrol was betrayed and lost by the activity of those parties who, in long work for peace, weakened, or completely refused, the armament to the German Folk which it needed to assert itself in Europe, and by so doing robbed the German Folk of the necessary power for victory and thereby of the preservation of the Southern Tyrol at the critical hour.
Those parties who, in long work for peace, undermined the moral and ethical foundation of our Folk and, above all, destroyed faith in the right to self defence.
Thus the Southern Tyrol was also betrayed by those parties, which as so called Statepreserving and national parties, looked on this activity with indifference or, at least, without opposing a serious resistance. Albeit indirectly, they too are accessories to the weakening of our Folk’s armament.
The Southern Tyrol was betrayed and lost by the activity of those political parties who reduced the German Folk to being the stooge of the Habsburg big power idea. And who, instead of setting before German foreign policy the aim of the national unification of our Folk, viewed the preservation of the Austrian State as the mission of the German nation. Who, therefore, also in peacetime, for decades merely looked on as the Habsburgs systematically carried out their work of de Germanisation, indeed furnishing them assistance. Thereby they are coresponsible for neglecting the solution of the Austrian question by Germany itself, or at least by the decisive cooperation of Germany. In such a case the Southern Tyrol could have certainly been preserved for the German Folk.
The Southern Tyrol was lost in consequence of the general aimlessness and planlessness of German foreign policy which in the year 1914 extended also to the establishment of reasonable war aims, or prevented this.
The Southern Tyrol was betrayed by all those who, during the course of the War, did not cooperate to the utmost in strengthening German resistance and aggressive power. As well as by the parties which deliberately paralysed the German power of resistance, as well as those who tolerated this paralysis.
The Southern Tyrol was lost in consequence of the inability, even during the War, to undertake a new orientation of German foreign policy and to save the German element of the Austrian State by renouncing the maintenance of the Habsburg great power State.
The Southern Tyrol was lost and betrayed by the activity of those who, during the War, by raising the sham hope of a peace without victory, broke the German Folk’s moral power of resistance, and who instead of a manifestation of the will to wage the War, brought about a peace resolution that was catastrophic for Germany.
The Southern Tyrol was lost by the betrayal of those parties and men who even during the War lied to the German Folk about the non existence of Entente imperialistic aims, and thereby duped our Folk, estranged it from the unconditional necessity of resistance, and ultimately induced it to believe the Entente more than those who raised their voices in warning at home.
The Southern Tyrol was further lost by the grinding down of the Front, attended to by the Homeland, and by the infection of German thinking by the fraudulent declarations of Woodrow Wilson.
The Southern Tyrol was betrayed and was lost by the activity of parties and men who, beginning with conscientious objection to military service up to the organisation of munitions strikes, robbed the Army of the feeling of the incontestable necessity of its struggle and victory.
The Southern Tyrol was betrayed and lost by the organisation and the execution of the November crime, as well as by the contemptible and cowardly t
olerance of this ignominy by the so called Statepreserving national forces.
The Southern Tyrol was lost and betrayed by the shameless acts of the men and parties who, after the collapse, defiled Germany’s honour, destroyed the esteem of our Folk before the world, and only thereby encouraged our adversaries to the enormity of their demands. It was further lost by the contemptible cowardice of the national bourgeois parties and patriotic leagues who dishonourably capitulated everywhere before the terror of baseness and villainy.
The Southern Tyrol was finally lost and betrayed by the signing of the peace treaties, and with this by the legal recognition of the loss also of this area.
All the German parties together are guilty of all this. Some have knowingly and intentionally destroyed Germany, and others in their proverbial incapacity and in their cowardice, which cries out to heaven, not only did nothing to stop the destroyers of Germany’s future, but, on the contrary, they actually played into the hands of these enemies of our Folk by the incapacity of their direction of domestic and foreign policy. Never before has a Folk been driven, like the German Folk, to ruin by such a marriage of baseness, villainy, cowardice and stupidity.
In these days we have been afforded a glimpse into the activities and effectiveness of this old Germany in the field of foreign policy by the publication of the War Memoirs of the head of the American intelligence service, Mister Flynn [note 14].
I let a bourgeois democratic organ speak on this matter only for the purpose of a broader understanding.
(26th of June, 1928)
How America Entered The War
Flynn Writes About The Diplomatic Secret Service — By F. W. Elven, Correspondent Of The München Latest News — Cincinnati, Mid June
William J. Flynn has published a part of his War Memoirs in the weekly Liberty, which is much read here.
During the war, Flynn was the Head Of The United States Secret Service. The Service encompasses the whole country, and is brilliantly organised. In peacetime it primarily provides for the personal security of the President.
Its attention is enjoyed by whatever else in the national capital is in need of protection, or thinks it needs so. It keeps under surveillance all doubtful elements somehow suspected of connections with political tendencies hostile to the government and its spokesmen. During the war its principal task was to keep an eye on those who more or less loudly had made themselves noticeable in opposition to the war, or who merely were suspected of not being in agreement with the Wilsonian war policy. Germans also enjoyed its special care, and at that time many fell into the traps which had been laid everywhere by the Federal Secret Service.
From Flynn’s memoirs, however, we learn that the Secret Service had been assigned an important mission even before our entry into the war. In the year 1915, a full two years before the declaration of war, the most efficient telephone expert was summoned to Washington and assigned the task of arranging the leading telephone wires to the German and Austrian embassies in such a way that Secret Service officials could tap every conversation from any source that was held between the ambassadors and their personnel, as well as every conversation emanating from the embassy offices. A room was set up with which all the wires were linked in such an ingenious way that not even a single conversation could be missed. Service men sat in this room day and night, dictating the overheard conversations to the stenographers seated beside them. Every night the head of the Secret Service Bureau, that is, the author of the article in Liberty, received a stenographic report of all the conversations held in the preceding twenty four hours, so that on the very same evening he was able to communicate everything important to the State Department and to President Wilson.
Let us bear in mind the time this installation was created, at the beginning of the year 1915, that is, at the time when the United States still lived in peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, and Wilson never tired of giving assurances that he harboured no hostile intentions against Germany. It was also the time when the German Ambassador in Washington, Count Bernstorff, neglected no opportunity to show due appreciation of Wilson’s friendly disposition and feelings for Germany and the German Folk. It was also the time when Wilson gave his confidant Baruch instructions to begin the gradual mobilisation of industry for war; also the time in which it became increasingly obvious, as the American historian Harry Elmer Barnes also sets forth in his book On The Origins Of The Great War, that Wilson was firmly decided to enter the war, and postponed the execution of his bellicose plans only because public opinion first had to be won over for these plans.
Flynn’s memoirs must finally remove the ground from the foolish chatter that Wilson was pushed into the war against his will by German submarine warfare. The tapping of the telephone wires leading to the German embassy took place with his knowledge. We also learn this from Flynn’s memoirs. The author adds that the material thus gathered against Germany contributed considerably to the eventual break. This can prove only that this put means in Wilson’s hands to win public opinion for the war long planned by him. And in fact this material was wholly and ideally suited for it. The Memoirs confirm to the fullest extent what unfortunately must still be said, that Germany at that time was represented in Washington in a downright incredibly incompetent and incredibly unworthy way. If we hear that in one passage Flynn writes that the stenographic reports prepared for him daily contained enough material to keep a divorce lawyer busy for months on end, then we get a general idea of what went on.
The Secret Service maintained women agents in Washington and New York whose job it was to sound out the members of the German Embassy, Bernstorff included, whenever anything important happened. One of these woman agents kept a better class apartment in Washington in which the gentlemen met their ladies, and where occasionally even Secretary Of State Lansing dropped in to hear what was new. On New Year’s Day, 1916, when the news of the sinking of the liner Persia became known in the national capital, Bernstorff telephoned five women one after the other in order to make sweet compliments to them and to receive similar compliments in return, although in view of the mood which news of the sinking of the Persia had left behind in the State Department and the White House, he really could not have been lacking in more serious pursuits.
One of the ladies complimented Bernstorff on the fact that he was a great lover, and always would be, even were he a hundred years old. The rest of the gentlemen of the embassy were not differently built. One, whom Flynn designates as the best diplomatic aide in the embassy, had a lady friend in New York, a married woman, with whom he had a daily telephone conversation which each time cost the German Reich twenty dollars, and whom he visited frequently. He told her about everything that happened, and she then took care to bring this information to the right places. Even quite vulgar remarks about Wilson and his consort were made during the telephone conversations, and thus we can without difficulty imagine that thereby the mood of the White House vis-à-vis Germany did not get any friendlier.
From the conversation held at the beginning of March, 1916, we learn how little the embassy knew about the country and the Folk, and with what childish plans it concerned itself. At that time a bill introduced by Senator Gore lay before Congress to the effect that a proclamation be issued warning the American Folk not to use armed commercial vessels. President Wilson most bitterly fought against the proposal. He needed the loss of American lives in order to incite feelings against Germany. People in the German embassy knew that the prospects of the bill were not favourable, so they earnestly concerned themselves with plans to buy Congress.
Only at first they did not know where to get the money. On March 3rd, the Senate decided to postpone the Gore Bill provisionally. The vote in the House was supposed to follow a few days later. So the plan first to buy the House was further eagerly pursued, but in this case at least Bernstorff was reasonable enough to advise against the plan decisively.
The reading of the Flynn article must leave a feeling of deep indignation in the veins of e
very man of healthy German blood, not only over Wilson’s treacherous policy, but rather, and especially, over the incredible stupidity with which the German Embassy played into the hands of this policy. Wilson duped Bernstorff more and more from day to day. When Colonel House, his adviser, returned from his European journey in May, 1916, Bernstorff travelled to New York to meet him there. Wilson, however, who vis-à-vis Bernstorff had acted as though he had no objections to this meeting, secretly instructed House not to have anything to do with the Count, and to avoid him at all events. Thus it happened. Bernstorff waited in New York in vain. Then he went to a nearby beach and let himself be photographed in a bathing suit with two lady friends in a very intimate position.
The photo accompanies Flynn’s article. At that time it fell into the hands of the Russian Ambassador Bakhmateff, who had it enlarged and sent it to London, where it was published in the newspapers under the caption, The Dignified Ambassador, and it rendered a capital service to Allied propaganda.
This is what the München Latest News writes now. The man thus characterised, however, was a typical representative of German foreign policy before the War, just as he is also the typical representative of the German foreign policy of the Republic. This fellow, who would have been sentenced to hanging by a political tribunal in any other State, is the German representative at the League Of Nations in Geneva.
These men bear the guilt and the responsibility for Germany’s collapse, and, therefore, also for the loss of the Southern Tyrol. And with them the guilt falls on all parties and men who either caused such conditions, or covered them up, or also tacitly countenanced them or did not fight against them in the sharpest manner.
The men, however, who today brazenly try to deceive public opinion anew, and would like to aver that others are guilty of the loss of the Southern Tyrol, must first give a detailed accounting of what they have done for its preservation.