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a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition
by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain
that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among
us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and
our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most
horrible of crimes - crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure
- reach the light of day? If the German people are already so corrupted
and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand, frivolously trusting
in a questionable faith in lawful order of history; if they surrender man’s
highest principle, that which raises him above all other God’s creatures,
his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive action and turn
the wheel of history and thus subject it to their own rational decision;
if they are so devoid of all individuality, have already gone so far along
the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass - then, yes,
they deserve their downfall. Goethe speaks of the Germans as a tragic people,
like the Jews and the Greeks, but today it would appear rather that they
are a spineless, will-less herd of hangers-on, who now - the marrow sucked
out of their bones, robbed of their center of stability - are waiting to
be hounded to their destruction. So it seems - but it is not so. Rather,
by means of gradual, treacherous, systematic abuse, the system has put
every man into a spiritual prison. Only now, finding himself lying in fetters,
has he become aware of his fate. Only a few recognized the threat of ruin,
and the reward for their heroic warning was death. We will have more to
say about the fate of these persons. If everyone waits until the other
man makes a start, the messengers of avenging Nemesis will come steadily
closer; then even the last victim will have been cast senselessly into
the maw of the insatiable demon. Therefore every individual, conscious
of his responsibility as a member of Christian and Western civilization,
must defend himself as best he can at this late hour, he must work against
the scourges of mankind, against fascism and any similar system of totalitarianism.
Offer passive resistance - resistance - wherever you may be, forestall
the spread of this atheistic war machine before it is too late, before
the last cities, like Cologne, have been reduced to rubble, and before
the nation’s last young man has given his blood on some battlefield for
the hubris of a sub-human. Do not forget that every people deserves the
regime it is willing to endure!
From Freidrich Schiller’s The Lawgiving of Lycurgus and Solon: Viewed in relation to its purposes, the law code of Lycurgus is a masterpiece of political science and knowledge of human nature. He desired a powerful, unassailable start, firmly established on its own principles. Political effectiveness and permanence were the goal toward which he strove, and he attained this goal to the full extent possible under possible under the circumstances. But if one compares the purpose Lycurgus had in view with the purposes of mankind, then a deep abhorrence takes the place of the approbation which we felt at first glance. Anything may be sacrificed to the good of the state except that end for which the State serves as a means. The state is never an end in itself; it is important only as a condition under which the purpose of mankind can be attained, and this purpose is none other than the development of all man’s power, his progress and improvement. If a state prevents the development of the capacities which reside in man, if it interferes with the progress of the human spirit, then it is reprehensible and injurious, no matter how excellently devised, how perfect in its own way. Its very permanence in that case amounts more to a reproach than to a basis for fame; it be comes a prolonged evil, and the longer it endures, the more harmful it is....From Goethe’s The Awakening of Epimenides, Act II, Scene 4. SPIRITS: Please make as many copies of this leaflet as you can and distribute them. |