Fascism and Its Practical Results

By Joseph Goebbels

By Dr. Joseph Goebbels Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

Preface

The special lectures given by leading politicians and scientists at the German University for Politics, which cover all areas of the National Socialist worldview and policy, such as state and cultural philosophy, racial science and racial care, legal and state doctrine, domestic policy, economic, financial, and social policy, defense policy, foreign policy, and special areas of general policy, will be continuously published in this series of writings.

These writings are intended to provide the scientist, the political leader in the new Germany, and anyone politically interested with the scientific foundations of the National Socialist worldview and an understanding of the measures taken by the government of Adolf Hitler.

The writings of the German University for Politics are meant to further permeate the German people with National Socialist ideology and to educate them in the spirit of the national community.

Fascism and Its Practical Results

As the guiding theme of my explanations, I want to choose a word from Heinrich von Treitschke, which Mussolini occasionally referred to - that "men make history." It would be misunderstood if one were to think that the man is exclusively and solely decisive for the political and historical shaping of the life of nations. It is to be understood that men shape the raw material mass, that the raw material mass itself is not called to lead and guide political formations, and that it requires the organizing hand of the creative individual. The politician is an artist. For him, the raw material mass is always just moldable substance. Perhaps the greatest result of political work is to shape a people out of the raw material mass of humanity and then elevate this people to national-political significance.

One cannot understand Fascism and modern Italy without Mussolini. Mussolini stands at the beginning and the end of the political development that we call Fascism. Fascism is a phenomenon that first entered the world of appearances with Mussolini. Fascism received from Mussolini not only idea but also form, shape, and organization. Thus, modern Italy bears in all its expressions of life the unmistakable, deeply impressed stamp of this unique personality.

Mussolini himself is a phenomenon of will and idea. Precisely for this reason, he appeared so detached, so incomprehensible amidst a world of political phenomena that were no longer the work of personalities, but of groups, parties, and organizations. He first appeared as a type, as an individual, as a man among the squabbling crowd of Democrats, syndics, and union secretaries. For the first time, a distinctly political personality emerged in him, who tried to view political questions from a political standpoint and not from a material-mechanistic one. This is why Mussolini became the trailblazer of modern Italy. He made the first attempt in the world of liberalism, materialism, and parliamentarism to unite people in a new organizational form, to give them a new social and national ideal. This is his greatest historical merit, that in the course of this political development he first demonstrated to the world the attempt to subdue Marxism itself. This had never been attempted before. Above all, because it was considered an insoluble and impossible task. Difficulty upon difficulty piled up against him. Nevertheless, Mussolini was the first to remove Marxism as a political phenomenon from the world of facts, the first to provide the classical proof that Marxism as a labor movement can be overcome, not from reactionary, but from social motives. Fascism was the first power-political process against liberalism, that intellectual worldview that began in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille and, in severe revolutionary convulsions, conquered one country after another and finally led the peoples to sink into Marxism, democracy, anarchy, and class madness. Mussolini replaced it for the first time with a national sense of community, which united classes, estates, confessions, and professions into a new national community of fate on a new platform.

This is essentially a revolution, for Mussolini was clear from the outset that this goal could never be achieved by haggling or negotiating with the world of liberals and democrats. It was also not about somehow attempting to make peace between two intellectual principles that stood diametrically opposed to each other. It was about eliminating one intellectual stance and replacing it with another.

It was the breakthrough of youth, that youth which had gone through the hellfire of the World War and had indeed gained a different perspective on political matters than the liberal-democratic world ever considered possible. Therefore, it is quite natural that Fascism was not understood in its beginnings by the older generation of Italy and simply could not be understood, because what Mussolini introduced into the world of appearances at that time was so new, so modern, so "unprecedented" that the world could not grasp it. But even here, Schopenhauer's word becomes true, that the paradoxes of today will be the trivialities of tomorrow. I am firmly convinced that the political direction that we today in Italy call "Fascism" and that we in Germany call "National Socialism" will gradually permeate all of Europe, that there can be no more inhibition and obstacle against it, and that the future of our continent depends on the breakthrough of this political phenomenon.

It will be the form of Europe that we strive towards. Mussolini had the great fortune of being the first to realize it in his state through the Italian people. Revolutions themselves are never international; the storming of the Bastille was a typically French event. But revolutions spread internationally; they target a political system, a sentiment, an intellectual stance that, understandably, is also different in different states. But at the end of every revolution, there is always a newly reorganized continent. It could not be prevented that those who stormed the Bastille in 1789 became standard-bearers of a new Europe decades later. This sometimes takes years, often decades, but it lies in the inner dynamics of such historical processes and does not change the inexorable logic with which they tend to unfold.

It is similar with the March on Rome. The March on Rome was a signal, a storm sign for liberal democracy. It was the first attempt to smash the liberal-democratic intellectual world and replace it with a new kind of communal and cooperative thinking. In this sense, Mussolini's statement that Fascism is not an export commodity should also be understood. This does not mean, as he confirmed to me, that Fascism is a unique Italian event from which other countries remain completely unaffected, but rather the opposite: Fascism is the typically Italian form of this new stance, just as National Socialism is the typically German form, and that in other countries—say, in England, France, or in Russia or Austria—it will take on a different form. But at the end of this breakthrough, there will be a Europe that, instead of binding itself internationally, remains on national grounds, a Europe that seeks its appropriate form in each nation according to the state, people, and character of the individuals, but whose overall forms originate from the same intellectual root, and after 10, 20, or 30 years, Europe as a whole may present a different picture than that which is overcome by this intellectual stance.

I will attempt to examine Fascism based on its actual ideological roots. It is up to each individual to draw parallels with the concurrent phenomenon in Germany.

Fascism is essentially anti-liberal, and not just in effect, but also in intellectual principle. It has practically overcome that liberal world in which man was measured only as man, only as a number, but not as a personality. Fascism has, for the first time, replaced the usual exorbitant mass delusion with the principle of a new personal leadership of the state, the economy, and the industry. Naturally, with such pronounced emphasis on the idea of personality, an equivalent had to be created for the people. This received its organizational form in the fascist system of corporations. On the one hand, a clearly defined, thoroughly thought-out idea of personality, and on the other, that idea of corporations which encompasses all creative people in a national community of fate.

But Fascism is not only anti-liberal, it is also anti-pacifist; and here we encounter its first enigma, as it is anti-pacifist and yet maintains peace. How can this be explained? Pacifism is, by its nature, a radically democratic idea. It is practiced in reality, but always only by exponents of liberal democracy, by party leaders, mostly representatives of interest groups, trade union secretaries, and syndics, often also lawyers and attorneys. It is natural for these people to attempt to transfer the methods and means of their own profession to the world of political realities, without necessarily wanting to. Herein lies the crux of the decline of the liberal world, for its parties were nothing more than interest groups, and thus had to consider issues of national politics from the perspective of their given interests. The lawyer is all too easily tempted to carry the methods of the courtroom to the parliamentary tribune. It is simply the case that there can be no honest hatred and no honest love here. While they argue in front of the public, they fight battles of succession. Battles that are no longer battles, and advocate worldviews that they do not truly mean as they speak them. They argued over problems that were not problems behind the scenes, and outside in the lobbies, they walked arm in arm, heart and soul. It is clear that people of this kind have no sense of the measure of humility and reverence that a person must possess towards their people if they truly rose from it. They also see the people only as an interest group and thus evaluate it as they do other phenomena of their interests. Europe has never experienced and seen as much as it did when lawyers governed it; mainly because they never participate in the war themselves but always cleverly have others fight it. To hide and conceal this disgraceful practice from the deceived people, they invented what we call pacifism. In the salons, they indulged in the luxury of humanity, but otherwise, as Mussolini once said, they were ravenous wolves in dress coats and top hats. Fascism declared war against this. It called things by their name with ruthless cruelty. It did not reject war per se; but it only dared it when it was the last, very last means to secure the existence of its people. I am convinced that Europe, when organized nationally, will be much better able to maintain peace than this Europe of liberal spirit. Nationalists always understand each other better than liberal democrats. Nationalists stand on the same ideological ground. They not only defend the honor of their own people, but they also respect the honor of others. Thus, Mussolini's anti-pacifism inherently included a great, bold, and daring love of peace, which also drove him to represent and defend Germany's rights before the world at a time when that was still unmodern and unpopular.

The third principle that Fascism advocated was the fight against anonymity. Liberal democracy never puts its name to its cause. It prefers to remain unrecognized, and its real rulers do not stand in the glaring spotlight of public life, but usually stay behind the scenes. Today they are a democratic party, tomorrow a state party, and the day after tomorrow they are supposedly no longer present at all. This type of politics found its decisive form in Italy in Freemasonry. It was therefore in the nature of things that Fascism, from its anti-liberal and anti-pacifist stance, had to declare war on Freemasonry until it was destroyed. For Freemasonry was also identical with the intellectual center of Marxism. Social Democracy, Marxism, and Freemasonry differ only in nuances and methods. In their way of thinking and acting, they are fundamentally the same. Mussolini replaced this concept with the principle of full responsibility. He and his party assumed power, not to evade responsibility in its execution, but to solemnly lay it openly on their shoulders before their own nation and the entire world. This necessitated the fight against that false type of humanity, which we all came to know all too well in the liberal-democratic intellectual world. One is humane towards the weak, humane towards the sick, and thereby becomes inhumane towards strength and health. One is humane towards the individual, only to become inhumane towards the nation. One preaches a false, hypocritical humanity and an attitude towards society that arises from deceitful stances, without having the humanity to overcome one's own faults. Mussolini did just that. Ruthlessly and harshly, he tackled the evils of his time; in a multi-year sacrificial struggle, he eradicated them. With root and branch, the false ideal of humanity of liberal democracy was destroyed and replaced by a masculine heroism that encompasses not only the individual circles of politically active people but today includes the entire nation. Above all, its best part: the Fascist youth. This youth is unrecognizable; such pride, defiance, and inner peace, such boldness and daring were never seen in the faces of people from southern countries. This is Mussolini's work: a heroism that is great, brave, and noble, that pushes itself to sacrifice for the nation, sees in service to the people the highest and most desirable goal of a man, and therefore also has the strength and courage to forgo material advantages.

It is quite natural that this youth today also represents the political face of young Italy. Perhaps the greatest misfortune of Europe in 1914 was that the nations were governed by old men, that there were no young men at their head, but those who knew that if war broke out, it would not be their generation that had to fight it. This aging process dragged on beyond the war. It was the most insulting and provoking thing for the youth returning from the trenches that despite the purgatory they had left behind, nothing had changed in the political shaping of their nations. It is no wonder that Mussolini's ideas ignited among the people, that the beginning of the Fascist movement was a matter for the front-line fighters, that he referred to this front spirit and made it the propagandistic pathos of his young movement. He led the youth to the front, knowing that they would quickly learn what they lacked in the routine and technique of governing. But what they brought with them could not be learned: the courage to dare and commit fully, to pursue politics with a long-term vision without being tormented by the fear of not living to see the successes. This is also the most valuable aspect of this youthful leadership of the state, that it does not have a life behind it, but ahead of it, that it has unlearned the fear of death to regain reverence for it, that it sees things as they are, without sentimentality, false pathos, or detached romanticism. It replaces all this with a new kind of thinking, a kind of steely, iron, masculine, heroic romanticism that is to fill this century; this youthful Fascist Italy is bursting with creative power. It still has the courage to tackle problems, even if they seem unsolvable, to take them in hand precisely because of this. This youthful Fascist Italy can dare something because the bloom of the nation is truly at the head of its state. It is possessed by the ambition to make history and really has the power in its hands to use it, unhindered by party and interest groups. Fascism is the idea of a man, sprung from the ingenious mind of his unique personality; but this idea ignited, it lay unspoken in the air. Mussolini belongs to those rare people of whom Goethe once said: "And when man falls silent in his agony, a god gave me to say what I suffer." He could cast into words and shape into deeds the mood lying in the air, this new heroic-masculine attitude already hinted at in contours. He had the strength to push from the unconscious and subconscious into the bright light of consciousness. Fascism has grown from the idea of an individual to the belief of a party, and the belief of this party became the self-evidently accepted worldview of a people, the future hope of an entire nation. There is no need to prove that the man who accomplished this grand work is a person of particular type. Efforts have often been made from various sides to give the phenomenon Mussolini an apt interpretation. It has been done from the Jewish side and attempted in their own way by the Marxist and reactionary sides. I have the impression that all these efforts miss the mark. Mussolini is more than a Caesar, more than a party leader.

In him, youth and will are concentrated. That alone would be enough for political shaping if he had the power and if there were no forces and people capable of taking it away from him. But a man who rises from the people, who relies on the trust and following of this people, needs one more thing: direct contact with the people, that mysterious charm and aura that tends to surround men who are called favorites of the people. Something indefinable and unspeakable, a kind of kindness and masculinity, of well-understood modesty, but also self-assured greatness and heroic strength, this is what Mussolini has. This has allowed him to find his way to the heart of the Italian people, a man of instinct, a man with a fine touch.

In ten minutes, we agreed during the first conversation. All the problems of the party, the revolution, the corporate system, the merging of the party into the state, the image of the state itself and its content, he feels instinctively. There are people with whom a genuine National Socialist can practically converse in hyphens. Mussolini is one of them. There is no need to discuss problems in detail. They are already completely clear and defined in hints. He has the heart of the Italian masses like no other. And those Marxist routine speakers who talk about an Italian "dictatorship" can only be compared to the famous tanners whose hides have swum away. This appears ridiculous, childish, and naive to those who actually know the situation. The Italian people and the Italian development have long since moved on from these things. The word Marxism no longer exists, and the word Bolshevism only appears in dictionaries but no longer in the harsh reality of life. It may not be entirely understandable to us, but for Italian terms, it is the ultimate crown of this people's faith in the man, the phrase "the Duce is always right." This phrase can only be coined in a people whose overwhelming majority is blindly convinced that he is right. Otherwise, it would appear ridiculous and absurd. It would not be effective at all. "The Duce is always right," this gives an immense amount of trust and willingness to dedicate, and thus also an undeniable national capital with which practical realpolitik can be conducted, so that there is really no need to waste any more words about it. He is the ideal of the Italian youth. Every Balilla boy wears his picture on his chest, and every Italian citizen carries his picture in his heart. He is the man of the workers and the man of the farmers and understands the people and therefore prefers to be among them, and he knows that it is not just about conquering power with the people, but what is even more important, about anchoring power in the people.

We have experienced two types of soldier in Prussia-Germany: the somewhat broad and hard, stocky type, and the slim, slender one. I would like to see the latter in the ideal image of Helmuth von Moltke, a general who not only knew how to wield the sword but also the pen, and in his Turkish letters shows a style as if he were a born artist. I would like to see it in that lonely Friedrich, who knew how to handle words and the flute. It is a kind of masculine heroism that such types of great soldiers sometimes suppress the artistic urge within themselves to entrust themselves to the historical. I believe I can recognize something similar in Mussolini: a man who is as much a soldier as he is an artist, who instinctively senses things and feels the problems in his fingertips, and therefore cannot really make mistakes. He may be mistaken in trivialities, but in principles, he will walk with the certainty of a sleepwalker. If I may say a daring word, I would almost declare: Mussolini is a Prussian Roman! A Roman with Prussian discipline, Prussian joy of work, and Prussian heroism, a type that could thrive in this uniqueness only on Roman soil. His work is the Fascist Party, and he is the center of this Fascist Italy. And this also proves his instinctively sure view of things, that Mussolini does not start at the top, but at the bottom. He would have had the possibility to start at the top sooner than Hitler, for he was already at the top, at the head of a great party. But he began from the bottom and worked from the root, not from the crown, for he knew that from the root, he would rise to the crown, but never from the crown to the root. That was the essential thing.

A man of such heroic self-assurance had to take the standpoint from the beginning: if this organization wins, then it deserves to win one hundred percent. This organization cannot be created to negotiate with other parties, nor to tolerate other gods beside it. This party risks everything. Either it loses, then it loses everything, or it wins, then it wins everything. Therefore, in heavy, repeated blows, he smashed the others to the ground. Today, in Italy, one cannot imagine that there were once other parties, the Social Democrats, Anarchists, Communists, or Populari. All of that belongs to the past. But with this, Fascism also became the political organization of the people. A people need a supporting framework. One must give it a skeleton. This, however, can be varied. It can be in the form of an order, an army, or an organization, it can also be a party, but there must always be a minority in the people that points the way. In ancient Rome, it was the nobility, in Prussia, it was the army, in Fascist Italy, it is the Fascist Party, and in National Socialist Germany, it is the National Socialist Movement. However, the skeleton must not stand beside the state; it must stand within it. The state must be built around this skeleton because if it loses it once, it collapses in on itself. The great problem of the development of Fascism was therefore to incorporate Fascism as a function into the state. This political organization must not stand beside or behind the state; it must merge with it and instill in itself the conviction that it is actually the state. The majority may give the generality the stamp, but the minority makes history.

Very soon, Mussolini appointed the Secretary General of his party to the cabinet, giving him the rank of an acting minister. This integration into the state naturally continued downward, so that today, after ten years of development, it can be confidently said that Fascism and the state are essentially the same. Thus, the connection to the people was also established. Woe to the government that assumes full responsibility and sees its connection to the people only in the legal means of its power! Woe to the government that relies on nothing but the bureaucratic civil service and its police! A regime will only endure if it finds its support in the people themselves. And it can only do this if it pursues the politics of the people. This means: Fascism, like National Socialism, is the proud prerogative of a minority. However, this minority does not represent a thin upper class that, sitting in the capital, determines the fate of the state; instead, this upper class is hierarchically integrated into the entire people. The first forms the peak. The peak thickens downward and constitutes the entire inner skeleton of the Italian state and social structure. This party was the bearer of the revolution; it is also by its own right and claim the bearer of the Fascist state. The supreme leader of the state is the supreme leader of the Fascist party. It is the tangible expression of Fascist will, Fascist thinking, and action. Without Fascism, Italy today can hardly be imagined. Fascism has permeated the Italian people to the last member. It has completely taken hold of the youth, who grow into the state knowing nothing else but it. The young Fascist has the dark feeling that a similar process is currently taking place in Germany. The reception by the young Fascists was so warm that it could not be explained by a mere coincidence of general political interests. There was more to it, namely the feeling: "We share the same spirit. What you want for Germany is actually the same as what we strive for in Italy." This feeling opens up a new world within us.

Revolution and revolt are two different things. What we experienced in 1918 was a revolt. What we are experiencing today is a revolution. What Italy endured before the takeover by Fascism was a revolt. What Mussolini did and is still carrying out today is the Fascist revolution. Revolutions remain bound to tradition; they have a conservative character, they do not destroy for the sake of destruction, they only destroy what must be annihilated so that the new can have space to live. Fascism and Mussolini have also retained many things that do not directly belong to the essence of Fascism. This young party is as bound to tradition and as filled with reverence for its own historical past as a thoroughly conservative party could be. The great thing is that it is already forming its own traditions from its own historical past. Every Fascist is rightly convinced that the history of his party is the history of Italy. The dead of the Fascist movement are venerated as saints of the nation and held up as shining examples to the people. The dead Fascists march, as one of our songs says, in spirit with the ranks of the living.

Thus, the party itself has almost become the kneading machine of the Fascist people. Through it, the raw material passes, and from it emerges the shaped mass that can be integrated politically, with which one can maneuver and which now comes forth as a formed entity from the hands of the great political artist.

The regime protects itself without police, without means of power; the strength of the people is also the protection of the Fascist regime. This sect has indeed risen to become the masses, from the masses to the people, from the people to the nation, so that today one can only speak of Italy if one means Fascism and the great personality of its leader. In Western Europe, there is often the view that Italy's intelligentsia is hostile or at least reserved towards the Fascist regime—a foolish rumor invented by the intellectual makers of the West out of sheer fear. There can be no talk of this in the slightest. For what remains of the intelligentsia outside of Fascism has long since dried up. There is no longer any need to engage with it. It is beginning to—this is the worst thing that can happen to intellectualism—become downright boring. No one cares about it anymore. Meanwhile, life goes on its unrelenting course, while the young movement stamps the forms of a social reordering out of the ground. The entire nation has been transformed and restructured differently, the broad masses and their leader are filled with an unbridled creative desire, with the will to wrestle with problems. What does it matter if a few outdated intellectuals still stand whining and grumbling by the wayside where Fascism has begun its triumphant march?

The Fascist film is today at the beginning of a new creation; it is still small, but it is starting to gain significance. We ourselves have seen a number of their works in Germany. While we are ahead in terms of technology, we still lag behind Italy in the will to shape the great destiny of the people. That, in my opinion, is the essential point. Everything else can be learned. Routine and technique are things that anyone with common sense can acquire. What cannot be learned is the spirit that fills things, the impulse that stands above them. Fascism has made the first attempt to put film directly in the service of the state. I cannot give a definitive judgment at the moment on whether this has succeeded, nor would I know if it should be imitated in Germany. As I emphasized at the outset, each nation has its own nationalism, and it would be disastrous to try to blindly and indiscriminately adopt that of another nation. Fate does not make it that easy for us. We must think for ourselves and try to bring the legality of the new state into harmony with the characteristics of the German people.

What is impressive about this young Italy is its daring to build. We are now starting to do the same in Germany, not because we have imitated Fascism, but because it is our firm conviction. Nations and men will never be immortalized through reforms in this or that area of daily life, but always only in indestructible stone. One must have the gift of presenting eternal stone as a monument to the entire people. And that is the case in Italy. All of old Rome has been rebuilt, buildings torn down, a gigantic marble forum erected on the outskirts. Roads are being built with solidity, length, breadth, and stability unparalleled. One might assume that the Italian people have no internal connection to these things, that the common man says what does the Roman Forum matter to him. For, after all, only the cars of the rich drive on these roads—but the opposite is true. Every Italian is convinced that it is his Forum, that these are his roads, created by the immortal Italian creative spirit at a time when the entire rest of the world was shaken by crises. We must also achieve this in Germany, the will to immortalize oneself in stone must no longer remain the privilege of individual men, it must become the pride of an entire people. The entire nation must be filled with the will that in two thousand years the traces of our work and our lives will still be recognizable in the remaining monuments.

The Italian press has been regulated by a new law. We too will soon be forced to define the rights and duties of the German press in Germany. Some aspects of the Italian press system are usable for us, but much does not correspond to the character of the German people. One thing is certain: we must involve the German press in the responsibility of the state because the right to write newspapers is a duty towards the authorities. If a state requires a doctor to be licensed by it, how much more does it have the right to approve a man of public opinion who can poison and influence entire classes of people. This does not mean a uniformity of public opinion, but it does mean that a nation must have a prevailing opinion on major and fundamental issues. It is not acceptable for one person to say, "Property is theft," and another, "Property is high culture," for one to see religion as the fulfillment of all human longing, and another as the opium of the people. One must either commit to one or the other. One may have different views on trivial matters, but the principle must remain the same. If this is not the case, it becomes necessary for the leaders of the state or the people to bring about this uniformity, even if it harms one or another individual. We are not placed at the top of the state to spare individuals but to fight for the right to live of the people.

All of Fascist Italy is bursting with strength and self-confidence. The wonderful thing about it is that no one believes they are finished. There is always a new beginning, always problems tackled from another side, developing things in a continuous flow. Over and over again, they run unafraid against obstacles, and the people feel that they are truly governed by the best and in the best possible way. This is also evident in the faces of the people. I would almost say that every man on the street has become a propagator of the Fascist idea. You can already see it when you cross the border and see the first militia soldier: such Roman grandeur and strength and masculine self-confidence can hardly be found in Europe. Each one expresses through his demeanor: "I am a child of this Fascist Italy, I am a descendant of the proud Romans."

This became most vividly clear to me during my visit to Littoria. Today, there might be debates about whether it will ultimately succeed in reclaiming that swamp area for the nation. It is not even up for debate whether it will succeed in settling 80,000 people there. That is a secondary question. The value lies in having the courage to undertake such endeavors and not hesitating to tackle them. The decisive factor is that a man makes the decision to reclaim this province for the people in the midst of peace and then musters the strength to make this conquest the concern of the entire nation. For every Italian, Littoria is a jewel box: our city, our province, our work, the work of Fascism. You can see it in every worker in the Pontine Marshes. They do not live luxuriously; they certainly do not lead a life of indulgence, but they are all Fascists, all of them! Filled with this brilliant creative will, even if it manifests primitively: "We are reclaiming a province. What two thousand years could not achieve, we, the Fascists, we, who have returned from the front lines, our Mussolini is achieving." It is impossible to measure how great this capital of national confidence is. It seems as if the Italian nation, through Fascism, is filled with a demonic obsession for work. Everything is creating, everything is rushing, everything has tempo and attitude. Everything is working, everyone wants to work. You get the feeling that everyone is thinking: "We have no time to lose. We will not live so long that we can afford to be lazy." The symbol is, so to speak, the tractor. And when you see it cutting through the swamps, with two almost sunburnt young Fascists sitting on top, singing to the howl of the machine, you are filled with admiration for what has been made of this people and what nations can achieve when led by real men! You also get this feeling when you drive over the wonderful roads that crisscross this country. Incidentally, this is an effective propaganda for Fascist Italy for its foreign visitors. A grand design! They have cost a lot of money, enormous effort! And yet they are the pride of the Italian people. You no longer see tiredness in Italy. It is as if this people have adopted Wilhelm I's motto: "We have no time to be tired."

Mussolini cares for the people not only during but also after work. The Fascist party has established a huge organization with several million members. It includes: people's theaters, people's games, sports, tourism, hiking, and singing, all supported by the state. It was in Verona that I saw the Thespian cart standing in the marketplace, a stage set up. They were performing. Then I saw tennis courts, football fields, hospitals, maternity clinics, large gardens where people stroll, all fantastically bold in design. Exemplary social facilities, right in the middle of Rome. I saw the Forum Mussolini, a huge sports complex, filled with youthful life from the Opera Nazionale. How must this affect the man on the street! He is never left to himself. The state takes him by the hand, guides him. He can go to the cinema, theater, and concerts at the cheapest prices. He is never alone. The state is his ultimate refuge. He does not see the state as a tax collector but as his sanctuary, a social enterprise of impressive character and gigantic scale. And not only for the living but also for future generations. Mussolini is a friend of children. He creates every social opportunity that can increase the birth rate. He has built maternity clinics so clean, so hygienic, so modern. I do not know if the social welfare systems in all the countries that judge Fascism are as well-established! I also do not know if Marxism, had it come to power, would have accomplished something similar. The traces it left in Germany, at any rate, do not bear witness to this! It is childish to say that Fascism is a matter of the rich. On the contrary, Fascism is a matter of the people! I never saw anyone speak so warmly and from the heart about workers and farmers as Mussolini himself. He knows that the nation's strength lies in the broad masses, that without them no politics can be conducted, that a regime can only be immortalized through the people, and that fate has entrusted him with the great task of shaping these people and making them politically mature. It is acknowledged that only small parts of the departing generation can understand Fascism. This is also the case in Germany. They can quietly stand outside, for fate has not called them to play on the stage of this life. Fate has placed them in the audience. It is different with the coming generation. A young state can never do without it. We National Socialists can therefore understand why Mussolini had to negotiate with the Vatican on the youth issue, why he could not make concessions on this. He could never do without his youth, for that would mean giving up eternity. Every Italian boy belongs to the state. A Berlin newspaper recently rightly pointed out what this means for a people as fond of children as the Italians, what a vote of confidence it is that Italian mothers entrust their children to the head of state. When you come to the Forum Mussolini, you can see the Balilla boys doing gymnastics and their free exercises on the green lawns. And up on the marble benches sit the mothers—a large community. Commands are transmitted through loudspeakers, and every boy's eyes already shine with manliness. You can already see in their entire demeanor how disciplined this youth is. They are all future soldiers, soldiers of Fascism, and this youth has ingrained in every fiber: "Italy is a first-rate nation!" Mussolini has given the Italian people back their faith: We belong too! We are fighters for the idea. You cannot move on from us as if nothing happened! A youth for whom the Duce once coined the classic phrase: "Book and rifle!" These are the symbols of this new youth. Knowledge and power, brain and strength, in these two expressions we will shape the new state. Let's wait another ten years! Then there will be nothing else because nothing else will be known. Then everything will be Fascist, and then it can naturally nuance and differentiate itself. For that is the essence of a new revolutionary idea: it does not make everything uniform, but only wants to standardize the principles. And the harder and more uncompromising these principles are, the more generous and powerful the effects can be.

Fascism did not come to power without sacrifices. The Fascist movement laid to rest almost five thousand dead in its struggle for victory. These dead are now the regiments leading the Fascist revolution. You become aware of this when you view the brilliantly constructed Italian Revolution Exhibition, an exhibition of Fascism from the first day of its birth, from Italy's entry into the war to the moment of its takeover of power. It is moving when you suddenly stand at the end of this exhibition in front of a small room with smeared wallpaper, a small shelf at the side with a milk bottle, a small desk with a dusty telephone, a dried-up inkwell, and a few hand grenades to the side: this was Mussolini's office at the "Popolo d'Italia." It was with this telephone that he refused to come to Rome to negotiate. From this telephone, he dictated the sentence: "We are not bringing you a ministry; we are bringing you a government." And if you look out from this unassuming room into a corridor, you will see the memorial hall of the Fascist movement, a large circle with an immobile Fascist soldier standing in front with a fixed bayonet. And up at the dome, you will find the word "Presente, presente: Here, here!" thousands of times. That was the call of the Fascist legionaries when one fell, and the commander read out his name. Here, the proud youthful song of the Fascista giovinezza resounds day and night in eternal repetition. This is how a revolutionary movement, which has been in power for ten years, honors its dead. This is how it is rooted in traditions, built into the great past of the Italian state, without losing the courage to boldly and confidently look into the future. Within this exhibition, one is constantly reminded of Germany. There you see black shirts, covered in blood, worn by fallen Fascists. There stands a chair from a city council meeting, where a Fascist was shot in the midst of the session. There are Mussolini's youth letters, and statements from his teachers declaring him unfit for a scholarship due to his lack of intelligence. A piece of a bridge is cut out and rebuilt, where a Fascist boy held onto the railing as he was thrown into the raging stream and had to die because his hand was chopped off. All of this is like what we have experienced. The effect will be the same. We will find different forms of our political will, but the path is the same. Do not be under any illusions that this movement could tolerate parties alongside it, that it would ever share power with others, or that it would recognize another group as having a part in the spoils it has conquered alone. That is what Fascism teaches and what the development of the National Socialist movement proves. Both are filled with the fervent breath of youth. What has transpired in these twelve years in Italy is a revolution, and at the end of revolutions, states and nations look different than at their beginning.

In conclusion, a few consequences. I do not need to go into detail here, as the clarity of the results is so striking and unequivocal that there is no need to speak of them.

Fascism is ten years ahead of us, not absolutely, for in the twelve years of our opposition, we have already done much of what it had to do only after taking power. But it has had time to grow into the state for ten years. We must catch up on that. Not everything it has created is usable for us. However, the spirit in which it is done, the impulse that stands above everything, the will that drives everything, and the motor that sets everything in motion are the same. The decisive factor is that we succeed in bringing the youth to the leadership of this state, for old age may be superior to youth—I do not know in what way. But youth is always right. For youth sees things unspoiled, without inner inhibitions. It does not put a "but" or "although" behind every "yes" and "no." It says "yes," and it says "no." The state can suffer no harm if it is led by youth. Napoleon once said: "I want young generals and old majors." What young generals lack in technique and routine, the old majors must bring. But youth is called upon to give the state its spirit and to leave its mark. What we must further learn from Fascism: a revolution must make no compromises! A revolution is either a revolution, or it is nothing! A revolution has the historical duty to make a clean sweep and not to feel sentimental inhibitions. It is in the nature and trajectory of a revolutionary development that much must be eliminated. If old forms cannot die, then what falls must be pushed further. For nations are not there to be broken by old forms, but forms are there to give shape to nations. No compromises! This means one has either all the power or none at all. When youth comes to the leadership of the state, it must work, work more than the old. It must never tire and must impose its pace on the whole state. There is too much slow work in governments. One must dare to tackle things and have the courage to leap over the barriers of bureaucracy! What is done must be done for the people and with the people. A revolutionary regime must never find itself in opposition to the people. Do not tell me that unpopular things cannot be made clear to the people. Of course, they can! One must have the gift of speaking with the people. The people are not as unreasonable as those who scold the people for being unreasonable. The people know what they want, and they also know what is possible and what is impossible. One must only give the people an inner participation in things, and they will then have the courage to endure the unpopular because it seems necessary to them. A people can do everything in the end if they want to, and if they have leaders who instill this will in them, especially a people of the rank of the Germans. We have made the gravest mistakes in recent years because, instead of tackling a crisis, we always said: "But this is really the gravest crisis! It is the gravest crisis in a hundred years." That does not give a people the courage to work and to tackle things. Much of what the people do is ultimately just a historical miracle. One must give them blind faith, crystallize an authority that is untouchable in itself, as an inalienable capital of national trust. Just as Italy believes in its Duce, so must Germany believe in its Führer. Even if the Führer were to make a mistake once, that is his human right. A right that is granted to every other human being as well. That is not even up for debate. What is up for debate is whether there is a central power in the state that is recognized by all and represents the great capital of national trust.

There can only be one will, one determination in the nation, and this can only be mobilized by one organization. In ten years, we will be a united Germany, just as Italy is a united people today. We will find each other in these years and regain the strength to deal with all difficulties. We only need to have the faith that we can do this. Then it will also succeed. We are standing in Germany today at the dawn of a great historical development. We ourselves cannot grasp its breadth because we are children of this time. The greatest internal and external problems have been placed in our hands to master. We have no reason to view them as insurmountable. We just have to tackle them, we have to have the faith that we can master them. Adolf Hitler shows us the way!