[ p. 31 ]
With National Socialism a new conception came into power which is in absolute contradiction to the ideas upon which international life has hitherto been based by all states, democratic or autocratic. A very serious examination of this new conception is necessary in order to avoid the final destruction of a democratic world order and in order to be able to pursue a realistic policy and stop making politics in a vacuum.
This destructive conception, which has had such a devastating effect in the course of a few years, is the National Socialist theory about the “Nation.” To know exactly what we mean when we speak about “Nation” is of the greatest importance, as this is the starting point of all political action in the relationship between peoples.
According to the democratic thesis, accepted by all the Western countries and unchallenged during the past century, Nation is the totality of the population composed of all races, believing in all religions, speaking all languages, united by the same ideal in the same state.
National Socialism has replaced this theory by another [ p. 32 ] one, according to which the “Nation” (Volk) is the totality of a people of the same race, of the same language, of the same origin—“Volkstum”—independently of the state or states in which they reside.
‘These two conceptions are fundamentally opposed to each other.
The democratic conception clearly defines the units of international life and permits the development of a policy the basis of which is fixed. These units are the formations: States. According to this theory, the nations, “Great Britain,” “Germany,” “United States of America,” “France,” “Brazil,” are clearly defined. All international acts, conventions, treaties, alliances, the organization of the relationship among the different peoples can be based on well-founded components.
The Nazi theory entirely reverses this established order. The “Reich” is, of course, a state as before and like the others, but it is not identical with the juridical form of the “German Nation.” Naturally, a Prussian or a Bavarian is a German as before, but according to this theory, Rumanians in Transylvania, Americans in Minnesota, and Brazilians in Sao Paulo, if they are of German descent and origin, belong equally to the “German Nation,” must owe allegiance to the German Reich and must be in the services of the German Government.
According to this theory, a nation is a physical and psychological construction and essentially a racial and cultural community, and not a politico-territorial construction. The German Nation, therefore, is not conditional to the German [ p. 33 ] State, as “Nation” and “State” are two entirely independent conceptions.
Hitler says in Mein Kampf that the German Reich as a state embraces all Germans, not only in order to maintain racial elements of this nation everywhere, but also to raise the German Nation to a dominating position all over the world. The German Minister of Interior Frick, in a pamphlet designed for Germans residing overseas, says that every American of German blood must always remember wherever he may find himself that he is a part of Germany. And the Nazi theoretician Alfred Rosenberg, in his Myth of the Twentieth Century, declares that “the infamous conception of the state of the nineteenth century must be crushed.”
Naturally, scientists, statesmen and public opinion in democratic countries rejected this National Socialistic doctrine about the Nation, but they rejected it with a benign smile and with that conceited self-assurance which is so characteristic of our generation. The democratic nations did not want to take seriously these “unreasonable” views and did not believe that they were in any way menacing their institutions and their existence. And when these theories were put into practice in Germany, they thought that this was a German internal affair which could not in any way affect the internal life and policies of the democratic peoples. They also firmly believed that Germany and the other totalitarian powers with their conceptions of the “Nation” could well exist and live side by side with the democratic countries with their democratic-juridical conception of the “Nation.”
[ p. 34 ]
In reality, this was identical with allowing wolves and sheep to live in the same fold. The acceptance of the Nazi conception of the Nation permitted the Nazi Government the untrammeled organization of racially Germanic citizens in Denmark and Brazil, in Yugoslavia and Chile, in France and the United States, and in practically all countries in the world, This organization meant not merely the maintenance of cultural bonds with the Fatherland. It meant the education of these foreign citizens of German descent in a National Socialistic and anti-democratic sense; the training of them in military formations; the drilling of them in espionage and sabotage work, inculcating ideas in them and fostering attitudes hostile to the states in which they were living; the turning of them into military shock troops against the countries of which they were, in a democratic sense, the Nationals.
This undermining of the democratic nations became so strong that it was one of the main weapons of the totalitarian powers in their world war of conquest against the democracies, and in many cases it was sufficient to prepare the victim countries for military occupation without any noticeable resistance. The democratic powers were entirely helpless and unable to defend themselves against this devastatingly powerful political-warfare machine which the National Socialist Government, based on the racial conception of the Nation, built up during several years quite openly and visibly.
To prevent an American or a French citizen from saying and writing what he thought was against the constitutional guarantee of free speech, and according to the existing democratic [ p. 35 ] principles, it was impossible to differentiate between Joyal democratic citizens and such citizens who were obviously the enemies of the state and the agents of the antidemocratic powers. The democratic governments were able to differentiate only between “citizens” and “aliens,” as they were defined according to the existing democratic laws, however inadequate and insufficient they apparently were. Nothing was done in this respect in the democratic countries until it was too late, and then in desperate moments, the only thing that was done was the rounding up of “aliens,” most of them the most passionate fighters for democracy, and the first victims of the Nazi political conceptions.
Nothing could be done concerning those many thousands of Danish, American, Yugoslav or French “citizens,” who with all their power worked and fought for the destruction of the country of which juridically they were citizens, and for the victory of Nazi Germany in whose service—consciously or unconsciously—they were. If a small number of these “citizens” was arrested, it was due to the fact that in one way or another it was possible to build up cases based on accusations against them which were different from their real crimes.
It is a foregone conclusion that this state of affairs, wherein a democratic state can be undermined and destroyed from within by its own citizens entirely through the present interpretation of the democratic conception of the Nation, is intolerable, and self-contradictory. We must set a clear and unequivocal definition of the notions of “Nation” [ p. 36 ] and “National,” if we want to prevent the total destruction of democratic institutions everywhere. z
The democratic conception of the Nation is the only political corollary of Christian principles. According to Christian principles, every man is made in the image of God and is equal in the eyes of God if he accepts the symbols of Christianity and the authority of the Church. It, therefore, must be regarded as an axiom of organized democracy that all citizens must be equal, provided they abide by the laws of their country and accept the authority of democratic constitution. It is a revolting creed that men should be debased to animal breeding and be classified according to color of hair, number of teeth, or the origin of their grandmothers.
But the democratic conception of the Nation, which endows each citizen with equality and the right to enjoy all the privileges of that status, can only be for such individuals who on their part accept this democratic conception and the authority of the laws expressing this conception. There is no place in a democratic state for any individual who is not 100 per cent loyal to these democratic conceptions. To repudiate them, to preach racial theories, or any other views opposing the democratic conception of the Nation, to be in any way in the service of foreign governments, championing NaziFascist principles, must be regarded as crimes of the most serious nature, punishable in peace time as rigorously as are acts of treason in times of war.
The democratic conception of the Nation must be clearly interpreted and such interpretation must be expressed through legislation which would assure a free and democratic way of life to all those who believe in a free and [ p. 37 ] democratic way of life, but which would impose severe penalties on all those who use freedom and democracy as their tools with which to destroy the free and democratic way of life,
Without such a new interpretation and legislation, the democratic nations are entirely at the mercy of their enemies—the Fascist totalitarian states—who under present conditions have all the facilities with which to destroy democracy from the inside. Restriction of immigration, or control over aliens, is a very naive attempt to ward off this danger. All the leading fifth columnists and traitors, all those who really had power to help the Nazi and Japanese conquests, were Nationals of their own countries. The German, Italian or Spanish political refugees were at the last moment put into concentration camps, but Laval, Baudouin, De Brinon, Quisling, Mussert, Tiso, as well as thousands of their henchmen, were looked upon as patriots, until they were able to give the final blow to the free institutions of their own peoples.
It is imperative for those few countries who still enjoy democracy to become fully aware of the realities of the crisis, and to understand that Laval and Quisling and Antonescu are not in power because they were criminals and traitors, but because the existing laws of their respective countries, as long as they were democracies, did not provide the legal means to the democratic governments to prevent their subversive anti-democratic acts and actions, and gave them full liberty to destroy liberty.