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GERMANY IS SUFFERING FROM A DISEASE
If the first part or foundation of Hitler’s ideology was his conception of Germany as a living organism, the second part—source of what followed—was his belief that the nation was suffering from a disease that might prove fatal. From the earliest days of National Socialism, Hitler was haunted by the specter of a disease within the body politic that could lead to the death and disappearance of Germany. Hitler believed his role as political leader was first to diagnosis or disclose the cause of Germany’s illness; and secondly to act to cure it.
Hitler wrote about the ordinary German politician in Mein Kampf. It would be a mistake to believe, he said, that politicians who were "tinkering around on the national body" were bad or malevolent men. Their activity, however, was condemned to sterility because the best of them saw at most “the forms of our general disease” and tried to combat them, but “blindly ignored the virus." Ordinary politicians knew Germany was ill, but did not dig deeply enough. They were unable or unwilling to seek to identify the cause of Germany’s disease.
Hitler, by contrast, staked his claim to leadership on his capacity to diagnosis and cure Germany’s illness. People would follow a political leader, he said, who "profoundly recognizes the distress of his people," works to attain the "ultimate clarity with regard to the nature of the disease," and then "seriously tries to cure it." From the beginning, Hitler aspired to become "Doctor of the German people."
Hitler said that every distress has "some root or other." It was not enough, therefore, for the Government to issue emergency regulations amounting to "doctoring around on the circumference of the distress” and trying from time to time to “lance the cancerous ulcer." It was necessary, rather, to “penetrate to the seat of the inflammation—the cause." Whether this irritating cause was discovered or removed today or tomorrow was unimportant, the essential thing was to realize that "unless it is removed no cure is possible."?
This was the “insight” that Hitler would promote from the beginning of his career to its conclusion: his belief that the source of Germany’s disease was the Jew. The continuing presence of the Jew within Germany, Hitler claimed, would lead to the nation’s demise. It was necessary, therefore—to affect a cure—to eliminate Jews from within the body politic. Rescuing the life of Germany required removing the Jewish pathogen from within the body politic Hitler conceived of the Nazi movement as a struggle of life against death: between the healthy German organism and the viral Jewish element.
LIFE AGAINST DEATH
What was involved, Hitler believed, was a struggle between the disease from which the nation was suffering and the will of the German people. Hitler challenged Germans: Do you have the insight to perceive the nature and source of the disease? Do you have the courage to rise up and take action against it? To take action against Germany’s disease meant not shirking responsibility. However difficult or painful the course of action, one would take whatever measures necessary to save the life of the nation. Ruthlessness was at the core of this struggle. “We may be inhumane,” Hitler declared, “but if we rescue Germany we will have performed the greatest deed in the world.”
From the beginning, Hitler framed his ideology around this "either-or" conception. "The future of Germany," he said, means the “annihilation of Marxism." Either the "racial tuberculosis" would thrive and Germany would die out; or it would be "cut out of the Volk body" and Germany would thrive.
The nation would "sink" and the German people "through their despicable cowardice" would sink with it.” Or else Germans would dare to "enter on the fight against death and rise up against the fate that has been planned for us." A momentous struggle would ensue to determine "which is stronger: the spirit of international Jewry or the will of Germany."
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