Forever and Ever
by Savitri Devi
Edited by R.G. Fowler
Savitri Devi’s For Ever and Ever
. . . is a book of sixteen “prose poems” written in 1952-53. (From this
point on, I am going to “modernize” the spelling of the title to Forever and Ever and drop the ellipses.)
Forever and Ever is one of three books left unpublished at the time of Savitri’s death. The others are Hart wie Kruppstahl (Hard as Steel), written 1960-63, a tribute to German National Socialists before and after the Second World War, and Tyrtée l’Athenien (Tyrtaios the Athenian), a novel set in ancient Greece, written circa 1964-68, but not finished.
These books were thought lost, but
were preserved by a French friend of Savitri, who informed the Archive
of their existence on 13 April 2006.
Still unknown is the fate of a fourth unfinished book, Ironies et paradoxes dans l’histoire et la légende (Ironies and Paradoxes in History and Legend), begun in 1979 but abandoned after one and a half chapters due to Savitri’s deteriorating eyesight.
On 2 September 2006, the Archive received a photocopy of the typescript of Forever and Ever.
To be more precise, we received a typescript of 65 pages (three
unnumbered front pages, plus 62 numbered pages) comprising the first
fifteen of the sixteen poems. Fortunately, multiple copies of the final
poem, “1953” (“And Time Rolls On . . . ”) survive, and the poem has
already been published.
To celebrate Savitri Devi’s 101st birthday, 30 September 2006, the Archive will publish Forever and Ever one poem at a time.
—R. G. Fowler
I.
1918
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“Es war also alles umsonst gewesen. Umsonst all die Opfer und Entbehrungen, umsonst der Hunger und Durst von manchmal endlosen Monaten, vergeblich die Stunden, in denen wir, von Todesangst umkrallt, dennoch unsere Pflicht taten, und vergeblich der Tod von zwei Millionen, die dabei starben.”—Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, pp. 223-241
Hail, Thou exalted One, Whom I have never seen; maker of a new world—my Leader!
From the dawn of Time, in ceaseless
aspiration, I sought Thee, I, the undying Soul of higher mankind,
strong and fair. I sought Thee in exile, and slavery and shame, unable
to forget the glorious destiny befitting me in spite of all. From age
to age, along the path that leads to certain death, I turned around to
contemplate an everlasting dream; and all my being leaped towards the
Savior and the Lord Who was not there, but Who would come, one day, and
set me free, and give me back the wings of youth; towards Thee,
beloved Leader, Whose name no one yet knew.
When wouldst Thou come? Hundreds of
years rolled by; new Kingdoms rose and fought, and in the mist, of time,
slowly withered away; and gods changed names. One thing remained: the
unpolluted stream of divine blood within the veins of the Gods’ chosen
people, and the dim consciousness in these of a great duty to fulfill.
When wouldst Thou come? From age to age, in the deep slumber of
prosperity, again and again I call Thee. But the bright sky was dead
and dumb.
When once more all was lost, when all
lay in the dust, when songs of hate echoed across the sacred Rhine,
then didst Thou come—unknown; alone; out of the millions who awaited
Thee; just one of them and nothing more, apparently; but one of them in
whom the betrayed gods of Aryandom lived and suffered and shone; one
of them in Whose voice, the voice of the exalted Race of heroes dead in
vain was soon to speak; and one in Whom the chosen lords of Earth,
brothers of the immortal Youth, Baldur the Fair, were soon to hail
their own invincibility. My Leader,—our Leader—Thou was there,
somewhere, unnoticed, on a bed of pain. But it was not the torment of
the body—the maddening torture of Thy burning eyes, blinded by poisonous
gas;—it was not even the atrocious threat of possible unending night,
that gripped Thy heart in agony. It was the news of the betrayal of Thy
country, the humiliation of surrender, and the thought of all those
who had died in vain in four long years. Oh, how the vision of their
day to day dutiful sacrifice haunted Thy sleepless nights!
Thou laidst in mental agony a
thousand times more horrid than any torture of the flesh. And from Thy
blinded aching eyes, tears of powerless rage, tears of shame
inexpressible, of boundless love and hate, rolled forth. No heart was
torn as Thy great heart over the tragic fate of the millions whose
blood was Thine—and mine; for indeed it was the same: Aryan blood.
Out of hunger and strife and devilish
deceit, a new tremendous Power was taking shape in the bleak East.
While on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the entire West, in childish
glee, danced to the sound of drunken tunes, insulting Thy defeated
people. Thou feltst the knife-thrust of their spiteful gaiety hundreds
of miles away, wile all round Thee Thou couldst but see Thy people’s
hunger and despair, and bitterness in harsh revolt against an unjust
fate, against the accusing lies of a whole world.
And at that feeling, and at that
sight, Thy ardent, bleeding heart aches with more love and with more
hate—love for Thy martyred Nation, Thy greater Self, Whose life
mattered alone; fathomless love, to which no sacrifice would ever be
too great, no price too high if it could buy freedom and resurrection;
hate for the workers of disaster, for those aliens whose cunning and
whose wealth had long deceived and bribed the whole ignorant world, and
turned the West against the best of its own flesh and blood.
And love and hate made Thee the Man
who was to be—the Leader long awaited. The world was soon to see,
through Thee, Thy people free; through Thee, the chosen blood protected
and united within the growing Realm; through Thee, the god-like youth
marching along the highways, with songs of conquest, in the morning
sun.
But I, Thy follower, Thy worshipped
to be, Thy seeker through the gloom of Time, had not yet heard Thy
name. Not far beyond the moving frontiers of the Realm, I awaited Thee
unknowingly, deeming myself to be a thirteen year-old maiden, while many
centuries of age indeed I was; while before my dark eyes, fair shadows
of a radiant past appeared and disappeared, reminding me of a
forgotten world; foretelling me the glory of Thy great world to come.
And to the ugly crowd of liars and of
cowards, I turned my back instinctively. Not even for a second did I
feel happy as I heard the bells of victory. Their victory; not mine—I could have said: not ours.
I knew Thee not. (Who knew Thee, then?) And I knew not Thy people. But
at the news of their defeat, my hears was sad, as though the triumph of
their enemies were, in my eyes, the triumph of guile and treachery and
above all, of sickening mediocrity—of all I hated in the world. I knew
Thee not; and yet I sought Thee in my dreams. Thy great Idea was mine;
had been from the beginning, the very yearning of my lonely soul. I
was already Thy disciple, and Thy lover and Thy worshipper . . .
1
“So it was all in vain. In vain all the sacrifices and privations, in
vain the hunger and thirst of sometimes endless months, in vain the
hours in which, gripped by mortal fear, we nevertheless did our duty,
and in vain the death of two million, who died thereby.”—trans. R.G.
Fowler.
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II.
1919
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“Auch das hellenische Kulturideal soll uns in seiner vorbildlichen Schönheit erhalten bleiben. Man darf sich nicht durch Verschiedenheiten der einzelnen Völker die größere Rassegemeinschaft zerreißen lassen. Der Kampf, der heute tobt, geht um ganz große Ziele: ein Kultur kämpft um ihr Dasein, die Jahrtausende in sich verbindet und Griechen- und Germanentum gemeinsam umschließt.”—Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 4701
But yet, I knew Thee not, I knew not
Thy great people. And I did not suspect what possibilities lay within
them, in our times, under my eyes.
Weary of the silly, sickly world
which I did know; full of contempt for the conceited nation that laughs
at everything she cannot understand, and holds in horror all extreme,
uncompromising faiths;—the nation that put forth the world-wide snare:
the “rights of man,” and hates obvious authority and iron order backed
by force of arms, while she adores the unseen slavery of the gullible
mind to lies2;—full
of contempt, also, for the religion that teaches that other great lie:
“the dignity of every human soul,” in the name of a god whom I had
never loved,3
I turned my eyes to far-gone days; to gods and to heroes long dead,
whose names no longer stirred devotion in the hearts of men, I gave my
heart. I wept because I could not bring them back to life again.
The vision of the ancient Rock,—of
the Acropolis, seat of Perfection[,] white and golden beneath Attica’s
cloudless sky;—lived in my memory. And along with it, I adored the
beauty of the manly virtues of heroes like unto the Gods—whether of
those who stormed immortal Troy, three thousand years ago, or of those
no less great, and no less godlike, who, merely a century before the
present day, struggled for Hellas’ freedom, in mountain fastnesses and
on the sea, under the banner of the Cross. And along with it, I
worshipped the beauty of the holy North in by-gone days, before its
racial pride had yielded to the foreign god of meekness; the beauty of
the conquering men—my mother’s ancestors—who, when in a deafening roar,
[an] outburst of monstrous glee, the sky and the Sea challenged each
other’s might, the tempest howled, the thunder growled, and lightning
tore the crumbling clouds, stood in their ships, erect, and beat their
shields in cadence, and answering the furious Voice of elemental
Godhead, sang warrior-like hymns to Odin and Thor.
Where were they now, those supermen?
Where was the spirit of my race, which lived in me? Where was I now to
find men at the hearing of whose songs my heart would beat? Men in
whose words I would detect the spell of pride and power? Whose voice I
gladly would obey?—Men whom I could admire?
All round me I beheld nothing but
credulous and kindly ape, or—which is worse—pedantic apes, well-read,
but without faith, without the urge to fight for Something greater than
themselves and than their narrow “happiness”; something for which men
fight, along their way to supermanhood. And only in the scattered lines
of a few dreamers did I find an echo of my yearning. “Come, O thou
exile of the far-gone times”; said one of these. “The axe has felled the
sacred trees; where swords once clattered, now, the slave doth crawl
and pray. And all the Gods have gone away. Come to them in the gleaming
Walhall, where They await thee!”4
And I, fourteen, and full of youthful
ardor, full of the thirst for sacrifices for Something that would
mean, to me, all that the Gods of Greece and of the ancient North then
meant; and I the daughter of the North and of [the] Aegean all in one,
afire with love for Someone who, to me, would be the embodiment of
resurrected Aryandom—Someone whom I could deify—5I
knew never more to return; over the fair-haired warriors in whom their
spirit dwelt; over the beauty and virility of Aryan man, the pride of
Aryan woman, wife and queen,—mother of men.
Slowly, but steadily, yet Thou wast
rising, appointed by those very Gods whom I adored; to lead higher
mankind to glory and to death, and then, to greater glory still. In Thy
visible garb, thirty years old wert Thou, eternal One, my Savior.
Already, above the noise of catastrophic changes that shook the world,
Thy people heard Thy voice proclaim the message of Thy anxious love—Thy
ultimatum to the Chosen Nation—: “Future or ruin!” Already, to their
depth, Thy inspired words had stirred them. Already a few bold, hard
and true,—young men of gold and steel—had risen at Thy call and given
Thee their all, and sworn to Thee, with joy, life-long allegiance in
absolute obedience.
And just as when, before the storm,
the surface of the sea, still remains calm, and the sky blue, meanwhile
in unsuspected heights, slowly, tremendous whirls appear gathering
scattered water-drops into dark clouds ready to burst; and just when no
sign of new eruption can be shown in or around their silent, empty
craters, down, down, low down in untold depth within the burning bowels
of slumbering volcanoes, the unseen molten basalt boils and roars and
rises day by day; so likewise at the call of Thy compelling love, so,
likewise at the light of Thy inspired, star-like eyes, slowly the
age-old manliness and pride and will to power were roused anew within a
day; and young men heroes.6
And while the land still groaned under the heels of victors who had
made it clear that theirs, in the great councils of the days, in which
silly humanity was told to put its hope,7
from the breasts of the chosen few burst forth the cry that echoes
Thine: “Awake, O nation fated to proclaim the divine right of pure
blood; fated to rise and rule: Germany awake!”
Oh, had I heard the marital cry—the
call to resurrection—and had I also know that along the way of light, I
would be allowed to follow Thee! That I too was invited to the great
sacrifice in honor of the dawn; to the great Feast of Life at which,
expressing my own youthful yearning, minstrels would praise the Gods I
loved in magnificent hymns; to the great processional march in which, I
too, would bear a torch, and I too had my voice to the broadening
chorus, and in which on my right and on my left, and all around me I
would have, as comrades, nay, as brothers, read demi-gods of flesh and
blood! Oh, Had I know thou wast the One whom I had sought from century
to century, and Whom I was still seeking, in ardent adolescent dreams!
And that Thou wouldst welcome in me, the daughter of the outer Aryan
world of North and South; the first-fruits of the love and reverence of
the whole Race for Thee, its Savior, Thee its Leader, Thee its
uncrowned King! Had I but known? . . .
But greater ones than I knew Thee not yet.
1
“We should also retain the Hellenic cultural ideal in its exemplary
beauty. One must not allow the larger racial community to be torn apart
by the differences between individual peoples. The fight which rages
today revolves entirely around grand goals: a culture fights for its
existence, which encompasses the millennia and includes Greece and
Germany together.”—Trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 Savitri refers here to France, the nation of her birth and upbringing.
3 Savitri refers here to Christianity.
4 Leconte de Lisle, “Le Barde de Temrah.”
5 From this point forward, the sentence makes no sense. It is possible that when Savitri prepared the typescript, she left out some words. Those who are never more to return are probably the old Greek and Nordic gods.
6 Again, some words seem to be missing here.
7 Yet again, some words seem to be missing.
2 Savitri refers here to France, the nation of her birth and upbringing.
3 Savitri refers here to Christianity.
4 Leconte de Lisle, “Le Barde de Temrah.”
5 From this point forward, the sentence makes no sense. It is possible that when Savitri prepared the typescript, she left out some words. Those who are never more to return are probably the old Greek and Nordic gods.
6 Again, some words seem to be missing here.
7 Yet again, some words seem to be missing.
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III.
1923
(9th November)
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“Am 9. November 1923, 12 Uhr 30 Minuten nachmittags, fielen vor der Feldherrnhalle sowie im Hofe des ehemaligen Kriegsministeriums zu München folgende Männer im treuen Glauben an die Wiederauferstehung ihres Volkes: . . .So widme ich Ihnen zur gemeinsamen Erinnerung den ersten Band dieses Werkes, als dessen Blutzeugen sie den Anhängern unserer Bewegung dauernd voranleuchten mögen. ”—Mein Kampf, Dedication1
Then came a day when, confident in
Thy increasirng might, in Thy devoted followers and in Thy Destiny,
Thou stoodst in broad daylight against the public powers, slave of Thy
people’s foes, challenging them in an unequal fight; a day when boldly
facing the threat2 of the existing State and its awe-inspiring apparatus3
of repression—its soldiery without ideas, a tool in the hands of
respectable authorities without a soul—Thy few and fiery faithful ones
marched forth to storm for Thee the citadel [of] undisputed power.
Their countenances bright with joy,
their hearts full of that burning love that carries one to the ends of
the earth and never turneth backwards; Thy name upon their youthful
lips, as in all times to come, already linked inseparably with the holy
name of Germany, on they went without fear . . . Sunshine is
beautiful, daylight is sweet[,] and yet, more beautiful, and sweeter
still is death for Thee, death for Thy great Idea to triumph; for Thy
reign to come.
On they went, and no force upon earth
or in heaven could stop the impetus of their conquering step; for
theirs was Germany’s eternal soul after a long time wide-awake and
free; theirs, the message of truth, the spell of resurrection; and
theirs,—in spite of all; after the coming flash of power and of glory,
and following untold years of martyrdom—the lordship of the future;
theirs the world, in its new golden age, after the final crash.
On they went. On its topmost wave, the
great unfurling tide of History that none can alter or arrest, carried
them to their fated goal: to glory in unending time,—but first, to
death. The rifles of the wavering Sate went off, and bullets flew; and
on the ground, in pools of blood, lay sixteen men of those who were the
very best of Germany’s best. Thy faithful ones of early days, Thy
chosen few, men of all trades and of all ranks, (there are no social
ranks, among us who believe in the nobility of Aryan blood alone)[,]
men of all ages too, the oldest over fifty, the youngest just nineteen,
but all young men at heart, all looking to the future, all men who
firmly felt, that, to begin anew, and build in truth and fervor,
trusting one’s fate, it is never too difficult, never too late.
In brotherly equality, in pools of
blood they lay, the first one of an endless list of martyrs of the
Cause of Life in truth, under its modern form; the first to win the
honor of giving up their lives for Thee and for new Germany, their
resurrected Fatherland—and Thine—and; beyond that, new Aryandom, Thy
world-wide dream of beauty,—and mine.
There they lay, while the might that
Thou wert soon to overthrow—the might of those authorities in the
service of foreign wealth—gripped a few other of Thy trusted ones, and
Thee Thyself, and led you all into captivity. On Thee, the heavy
fortress doors were shut for several months.
The newspapers mentioned the fact,
mentioned also the death of the first martyrs. But outside Germany, few
understood how great a happening had taken place; how great a new
upheaval, in joyous sacrifice and death was taking shape.
As for me, on the tragic day on which
the Sixteen fell for Thee, I was hundreds of miles away, standing alone
upon the marble steps of the Parthenon, and gazing at the City at my
feet, and at the distant4 sea.
I was eighteen, and fair to look upon;
yet no womanly sadness brought tears to my eyes. Ardent, but proud,
and already before this birth, marked out to love [none] but Godhead
incarnate, never was I to know the joys and anguishes of human passion,
nor its madness.
I loved a dream, and tears were in my
eyes because I was becoming conscious that it was but a dream. I loved
eternal Greece—that Greece of long ago, that survives in the lofty
columns within the shade of which I stood; also that Greece of
yesterday, bulwark of Aryan mankind in the Near East, who, for five
hundred years, resisted the victorious Turks. I loved the Prince of
Macedon, the fair-haired conqueror, whose march towards the East,
resembled the procession of an irresistible god; the Man who led men of
my race across the Indus River for the second time. I loved, also the
Grecian chieftains who, in 1821, swore to reconquer freedom or die. And
tears were in my eyes because of bitter thoughts.
All round me, in the dazzling midday
light, my beloved Athens spread its white houses, in the midst of
which, a few cypress trees here and there and rows of pepper trees, put
patches of dark green or lines of greenish gray; its white houses that
covered the lower slopes of steep Lykabettus, up to the pine tree wood
I knew so well. Beyond the outskirts of the town, towards the east,
the barren rocks of Hymettus, in light, almost transparent gray, shone
against that same fathomless blue background, and, to the south, the
sparking Aegean, bluer still—deep, violet-blue.
Oh, how beautiful it all was: that
City, from a distance, so white in the sunshine, amidst its clear-cut
hills, and high above all, the everlasting sky; and far around all, the
everlasting sea!
And yet, my heart was sad, for out of
all that beauty, no Grecian voice had yet answered my fiery call to
freedom, and my call to pride. None had agreed with me when I had said
that worse than [the] Turkish yoke was slaver to the so-called “great”
powers who had just won the first World War. And when, leaving the rest
aside, I had recalled the latest blow of fate—the loss of Asia
Minor—and had accused the treacherous Allies and had accused the spirit
they embodied, (the spirit of Democracy) and accused the alien
interests behind their policy, and tried to prompt my brothers to have
nothing to do with them and their soul-killing “culture[,”] no one had
seemed to share my burning indignation; none had echoed my hate.
Had Greece, then, irredeemably lost
every sense of grandeur, and consented to be forever a tool of the
western Allies, a docile instrument of their intrigues, exalted when it
suited them, and the following day insulted and abandoned? Was she no
longer to remain, in opposition to both Turk and Jew, the advanced
guard of Aryandom? The treacherous Allies, by doing all they could to
help the Turks to win the Asia Minor War, acted as enemies of Aryan
blood. But why did not Greece hate them, as I did? Were not the flames
of devastated Smyrna, was not the forced exile of two millions of
Hellenes enough to stir, in her, that selfsame disgust as I felt for
those great money-ridden States that had, six years before, against her
will, dragged her into their unjust war? Was all that not enough to
make her say, with me: “Away! Away from that hypocrisy, which Democracy
stands for! Away, away from the serfdom of the decaying West! Back to
national values; back to the spirit of the national Gods of old,
heralds of Life undying! Back to ourselves[,] to Hellenism,—to
Aryandom!” (The two, in my eyes, were the same.)
These were my thoughts as, on the
memorable day, as I stood upon the steps of the Temple in ruins, and
beheld in its beauty, under the midday Sun, the violet-crowned City.
My Leader, had I then, but known the
deeper meaning of Thy holy Struggle! Had I but understood that the
Sixteen, whose death the papers of [the] following day stated within a
line, had shed their blood for something more tan a new form of
government! Oh, had I seen in them, what they already were: the
vanguard of an endless host of fighters for the rule of the natural
elite of mankind,—the first one in my times to die for my eternal Greek
ideal of domination of the aristoi,—the best, in body,
character and soul! And had I understood, that, in [the] modern world,
the best, according to my heart’s conception, according to the
everlasting standards of health, and strength, and beauty, set forth by
my Greek masters were the elite of Thy inspired countrymen: Thy5 best!
In youthful fervor, then and there, I should have flown to Thee!
Oh, why did I not know? In the heat of
Thy struggle, I should have been so happy; I should have loved Thee
so, from those great early days[.]
Yes, there I was, and Thine already in
spirit, and by the Gods themselves chosen to remain Thine, throughout a
thousand wanderings. Why did I not guess? Who can tell? All
penetrating is the Gods’ insight—and strange, and often disappointing,
outwardly, are their ways.
1 “On 9 November 1923, at 12:30 in the afternoon, in front of the Feldherrnhalle and likewise in the courtyard of the former War Ministry in Munich, the following men fell in true faith in the resurrection of their people: . . . Thus I dedicate the first volume of this work to the common memory of you, its blood witnesses, may you shine on before the followers of our movement.”—Trans. R.G. Fowler
2 Reading “thread” as “threat.”
3 Reading “apparel” as “apparatus.”
4 Deleting a superfluous “the.”
5 Reading “thy” as “Thy.”
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IV.
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“So glaube ich heute im Sinne des allmächtigen Schöpfers zu handeln: Indem ich mich des Juden erwehre, kämpfe ich für das Werk des Herrn.”—Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 701
I had never loved the Christian faith;
indeed, its contempt of the body, its stress upon the love of man,
whichever man he be,—while it forgets to teach love and respect of
living nature, ever beautiful—its fear of healthy and violent2
pride and of the joy of anyone who needs no comfort in this world, no
hope outside[,] had all, and from the start, made me despise it, if not
to hate it.
Yet, for long years, I had known what
open stand to take, before the eyes of all, for or against it. And I
had tolerated it, tolerated it, solely because I had, over and over
again, been told that, without it, the speech and soul of Greece would
have perished wholesale during the long[,] long night of Turkish
domination; because I knew that, before that, the Byzantine Empire bore
for a thousand years, the double stamp of Christendom and of Hellenic
culture; also because I recognized, within the music of the Eastern
Church, the last bond of allegiance of thousands of scattered exiles of
the Hellenic Nation, as well as an echo of I knew not what glory of a
remoter past, or a more national existence, in the light of national
Gods.
I had tolerated it. But never could I
love it. Never could I admire that meekness which it taught; nor that
propensity to exalt the weak and sick in body or in spirit, the cripple
and the unhappy, at the expense of those whom Nature cherishes: the
healthy and the strong, the free and the all-round beautiful.3
Nor could I share that tendency to ponder over lust and greed and
every sin, delighting in perpetual repentance; that craving to seek out
and save what in my eyes was not worth saving; that constant thought
of a dull heaven coupled with a constant aspiration to the dust[.]
Whenever, from a distance, I beheld on
the top of Areopagus, the church erected on the spot where the Jew
taught, for the first time, in Athens, that “God hath made all men out
of one blood”! I felt my own blood boil with shame. “Oh, why, why had
they listened to him, the proud Athenians of the old days?” thought I.
And I remember the story of the conquest of tired Hellas by the foreign
creed. It was not they, the people of the Goddess, who had harkened to
the Jewish lie; it was the many ones of the doubtful origin although of
Grecian speech, who formed the sweepings of Grecian seaports; it was
also the men of Alexandria, and[,] above all, it was the policy of
Constantine whom they called the “Great” that helped the new religion
to take a hold in Greece, three hundred years after the death of Paul.
And I remembered him, more and more dear to me, warrior-like Emperor
Julian, who tried to stem the tide. And I recalled the words of despair
he is said to have uttered on the battlefield, acknowledging the
victory of the Christians, as he died.4 And I recalled Hypatia torn to pieces; and also, for beyond the Greco-Roman5
world, in that proud North, whose daughter I too was, for centuries on
end, the trail of persecution of Aryan Heathendom by zealous Christian
knights.
Just as, in this triumphant eastward
march from victory to victory, fair Alexander had carried Hellenic
might to the hallowed Land of Seven Rivers, through the bright mountain
Pass through which the earliest Aryan warriors had come there long
before, so had, in the course of time, the sickly Jewish creed,
avenging the defeat[s] of Gaza and of Tyre, conquering decaying Greece,
through bribery, and the pure-blooded, virgin North, through terror.
Its world-wide and lasting success was, in my eyes, the sign of the rise
of lower mankind, against the strong, against the fair, against the
Gods’ own children, my people, whether from the shores of the Ionian
Sea or of the German Ocean.
What link of sheer historical
propriety still retained me within that Christendom, which I despised?
And was that link a living fact? In spite of all the usefulness the
Christian Church might well have had, in the dark Turkish days, were
not the spirit of eternal Greece and that of the6
Galilean faith forever incompatible? Did not, in spite of all, an
abyss gape between them; in time and in eternity? And if so, had I not
to choose, once and for all, which path was to be mine? I longed to
feel, in its very birthplace, the soul of historic Christianity—to
see[,] to hear, to know. I longed to let myself and it.7 And so, one April morning in 1929, upon a Christian pilgrims’ ship, I sailed to Palestine.
Upon the glimmering waves between the
many golden isles, the ship carried me away from Greece, over many
hundred miles; away from Greece it took me straight into another
world—into that old Semitic East where the Christian creed was born.
And I beheld the Soul of the Semitic
East, itself foreign to me, domesticated and spoilt for centuries and
centuries by the influence of those rejected ones of history, for whose
unholy might and unseen rule my own decaying continent had toiled
unknowingly, from those dark days it had embraced the Christian faith,
and made the Christian values the basis of its whole outlook on life;
the Jews. And I beheld the selfish, cunning, loveless Soul of Israel
behind the serpentine courtesy of the men in long dark clothes who sold
in the bazaars, no less than in the fanatical glances of the same ones,
whose movements I followed, a few days later, before the Wailing Wall.
And everywhere, in churches and in mosques, and in the malodorous8
winding streets of old Jerusalem, where life has never changed, and in
the new and vulgar brightly-lighted buildings of Tel Aviv; I saw the
selfsame stamp of that beautiless race; the selfsame sign of mankind’s
fall. Even the nomad dweller has fallen at the contact of the Jews. He
had slowly learnt from him to repudiate his age-old tribal pride,
founded upon the brotherhood of blood, and to rejoice, instead, in the
great unity of all the true believers, whoever these may be, and in
their equal right to beget more believers in the Book—in the One God
and in the Prophet—never mind by whom. And I thought,9 even the Bedouin have decayed; what about us, the children of the godlike men of distant midnight shores, who once10
had brought the cult of Apollo to Greece and carried to India the
worship of the Dawn? What about us[,] when our deluded fathers accepted
from the Jew a creed upholding meekness, and charity towards all men
and love of peace as virtues? A creed in which the body no longer
mattered, and in which, as in Islam, the original ideal of pure blood
was looked upon as obsolete?
I gazed at those who had come with me
to Palestine—people from Greece—and I measured the distance that
separated them from the Heathen Greeks of old, as I had never measured
it before in some of them[;] under a skin-deep Christian faith, the
eternal Soul of Greece still shone, invincible, and ever-ready to
reassert itself. Others11
I beheld, but Christian Levantines, product[s] of long decay. I
suddenly recalled the dome of the great church erected to Saint Paul
upon the top of Areopagus, under that same blue sky on the background
of which the ruins of the old heathen Acropolis appear in all their
untarnished splendor. All around me, that same oppressive style, so
different from all that real Greece created; all around me, that
foreign atmosphere, that mysticism of [the] Semitic East, so different
from the spirit of our cult of Rhythm and Form, of our cult of Health
and Light—our Aryan cult, faithful to this fair earth. I shuddered at
the contrast, more deeply than ever before. And from the inner feeling
of my own everlasting Self, of my own Race, of which at last I was
fully aware, and from the inner vision of my own dream of an ideal
world, [I] formulated in my heart the long-delayed decision on which my
whole life was to rest: “Away from Jewry! Away from the Christian
spirit, the subtle poison poured out to us by the Jews, well-guided by
the instinct of their race [to] emasculate our bodies and kill our
Aryan pride! Away from all that, and back to what we would have been
today, had Paul never set foot in Athens or, had divine Julian been able
to arrest the overwhelming tide! No further compromise with a foreign
tradition in the name of the memory of the Eastern Empire: Eternal
Greece, and beyond her, indestructible Aryandom of North and
South—higher mankind—must pass before the lure of a mere thousand years
of history.”
Thus did I feel in those old churches
built upon the famous spots holy to every Christian; in the monastery
where I remained, and in the glittering mosque of Omar, that I visited,
and in the streets of old Jerusalem, and on Mount Zion. Thus did I
feel along the roads of Palestine, upon my way to towns and villages
bearing biblical names.
Hundreds of miles away, among Thy
blessed people, under Thy leadership, my dream was taking shape. And
day by day, in hope and in increasing strength, in confidence and joy,
Thy people were growing into a rising tide[.] And Thou wast waiting for
the Day when that tide would break down the barrier within which the
frightened world was trying in vain to keep it.
And I was soon to understand; and I
was soon to admire Thee; and I was soon to love Thee, alone of all the
sons of men in our times.
From far, within my heart, I watched
the tide gain power. I admired its impetus, and recognized in it the
Force that had once given Greece to the Aryan Race, and the East to
conquering Greece. Already, in the realm of the invisible, my life-long
yearning met Thy masterful will-power, and paid to Thee the tribute
that I was one day to express in word[s] of burning faith; the lasting
tribute of the brothers of Thy people from the whole world—the love of
the whole Race.
1 “Thus I now believe myself acting in accordance with the almighty creator: By defending myself against the Jew, I fight for the work of the Lord.”—Trans. R.G. Fowler
2 Reading “violence” as “violent.”
3 Replacing a question mark with a period.
4 “Vicisti, Galilaee” (“You win, Galilean”—or, as it is usually rendered, “Thou hast conquered, Galilean”).
5 Deleting a superfluous comma.
6 Deleting a superfluous “of.”
7 This sentence makes no sense as it stands, which leads me to think that words were either omitted or mistyped when the typescript was prepared.
8 Reading “malodorant” as “malodorous.”
9 Replacing a semicolon with a comma.
10 Deleting a superfluous comma.
11 Deleting a superfluous “I” from the beginning of the sentence.
2 Reading “violence” as “violent.”
3 Replacing a question mark with a period.
4 “Vicisti, Galilaee” (“You win, Galilean”—or, as it is usually rendered, “Thou hast conquered, Galilean”).
5 Deleting a superfluous comma.
6 Deleting a superfluous “of.”
7 This sentence makes no sense as it stands, which leads me to think that words were either omitted or mistyped when the typescript was prepared.
8 Reading “malodorant” as “malodorous.”
9 Replacing a semicolon with a comma.
10 Deleting a superfluous comma.
11 Deleting a superfluous “I” from the beginning of the sentence.
--------------------------------------------------
V.
1932
______
______
“Alle großen Kulturen der Vergangenheit gingen nur zugrunde, weil die ursprünglich schöpferische Rasse an Blutvergiftung abstarb.”—Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 3161
“Away, away to India; away to the
hallowed country where the Aryan Gods have never died and need not be
revived!” thought I. “Greece has become the prey of money-grabbing
foreigners, and the victim of alien Gods and alien teachings; and I
cannot do anything to awake her sleeping soul; over and over again her
children have reminded me that I am nobody and that my voice has no
echo in any heart.
“In resurrected Germany, no doubt, the
everlasting spirit of the best people of my race, is growing day by
day more powerful and He is there. But would He really welcome me, an
Aryan from abroad, as one entirely his own? Would his people believe me
when I say that I love and admire them? In my own land nobody has
believed me yet. No, better be a foreigner in a far-away land, a
western Aryan Heathen in the last citadel of Aryan culture in the
East—rather than in the very midst of the one land in Europe where my
own spirit is rising day by day! So let me go! One day I shall come
back.”
Thus thought I as the ship sailed on,
further and further south,—down the Red Sea,—and carried me I knew not
where or for how long—[.] Standing alone upon the deck, I watched the
innumerable stars in the dark sky and, now and then, as I cast down my
eyes, the phosphorescent circles of innumerable jellyfish in the dark
waters. Gliding between the two gorgeous infinities, I felt my
nothingness but also realized the ineffable tuning of all my being to
the silent music of the Universe. My unsuspected destiny, I knew, was a
detail in a huge Destiny by far transcending me. And all that I did had
to be. And from the stars and from the depth of the dark shining
waters, I felt the unseen forces guiding me and carrying me (never mind
through what wanderings) where I was bound to go: to the fulfillment
of thousands of years of yearning; to the glory of a new youth in Thy
new world—to Thee, the everlasting Friend; the One Who comes over and
over again.
And every radiant dawn and every fiery
sunset that I admire upon the sea, brought the world nearer the great
blessed Day of Thy Seizure of Power, while I sailed further and further
away, . . . Yet, along my own path, nearer to the outlandish post from
which my fate had willed that I should fight for Thee, forever near
Thee in spirit, for Thy unseen and broader Realm extends above all
boundaries to wherever Thy faith in Health and God-made Order, lives in
Aryan hearts.
* * *
I reached Aryavarta, the Land of many
races, where teeming millions to this day, honor the fair descendants
of the ancient bards of my own race, as gods on earth; where neither
gold or might, nor learning, nor anything that man can conquer, but
purity of blood alone is2 treasured for six thousand years.
And then I saw the wondrous sight:
Rameshwaram, the temple erected by the faith of millions to the glory
of the fair immemorial Aryan hero Rama, Conqueror of the South. I saw
its many-storied gopurams towering far above the flimsy roofs
and dusty crowded streets of the Dravidian village in holy festive
mood. And to the sound of music never heard before, I passed under its
doorway, I too draped in bright silk, I too with jasmine flowers in my
hair like the daughters of India, I the ambassador of distant western
Aryandom to the surviving stronghold of Aryan faith in the Far South.
And at the entrance, on the right and on the left as though it were
welcoming me, I saw, in gleaming vermillion, the well-known Sign, the
old Wheel of the Sun—our Sign. And tears came to my eyes[.]
I walked along gigantic corridors,
past endless rows of stately pillars through which I could behold no
end of halls, more pillars and more corridors. My footsteps sounded
strange upon the pavement, and in the voice that sprung from my own
lips I could not recognize my voice. I wandered in elation, as in a
world of dreams. Music of flutes and kettledrums resounded through the
echoing halls, full of the scent of burning incense and fresh flowers.
Dusky velvet-eyed men, all clad in white, and dusky women clad in many
colors and full of strange serpentine grace, passed by like shadows.3
And suddenly night came—the warm
tropical night heavy with perfume and alive with hunger and with lust,
with the great life of forest and of jungle. And the Full Moon of
Vaishakha shone in the violet sky, shedding its phosphorescent light
over the mighty towers and sculptured domes and outer walls and
colonnades and over the still surface of the sacred tank, while growing
darkness filled the halls and more offering-bearing crowds poured in
from every doorway. And I stayed on and on—to watch, to feel, to know
the Feast of living Aryan Heathendom in a strange land; the homage of
the conquered South to the deified northern Warrior and King, Rama,
now, in our times, after thousands of years.
And then, out of the darkness came the
blast of music and the thundering throbs of drums, and light
appeared,—the light of burning torches held by a hundred men. And,
suddenly, in the light, I saw a row of sacred elephants emerge in
glittering array; seven of them, with ritual stripes of vermillion and
sandal[wood] paste upon their massive foreheads, and scarlet cloths
with golden fringe hanging down from their towering backs. The
processional chariot of Rama and of Sita, followed, covered with flowers
by the handful on its passage. And the red glow of torches shone upon
the dusky faces, many of which were regular and beautiful. And the
half-naked youths who drove the elephants and those who bore the
torches seemed as though they were likenesses of Grecian gods in living
bronze.
I watched them pass; I watched them
go, further and further away along the echoing pillared corridors and
around the moonlit sacred tank. And for the second time my eyes were
filled with tears. For in a flash my mind went back to Europe where I
had so many times and for so long dreamed with nostalgic sadness of
that unbroken Pagan ritual; to Europe where, I knew, Thou4
wast calling Thy people to a new rising of the Aryan spirit, nay to
the borth in them of a new Aryan soul, with all the decorous display
and all the pomp that young creative faith could put forth when allied
to the spontaneous love of order and of beauty. I thought of other
torch-processions of the new rising Germanic creed of pride in racial
purity, in which the fire-bearers were tall, athletic blond young men,
sons of that hallowed North whence long ago both Greece and India had
drawn their noblest blood and the new light that was to make them
everlasting. “At last, after so many centuries of demoralization
through the poison of Christian-like equality, the eternal values of my
race [are] again being upheld, in broad daylight on my own continent,”
thought I, for the millionth time. “But why had they ever been brushed
aside? Why did the Jewish teaching ever conquer our fathers?”
And all through these fifteen hundred long years, during which Europe had5
been worshipping her Jewish god and lowering herself before his
priests, and exalting moral standards of human brotherhood destined to
give her soul to Israel, there in the Tropics, far away, India’s dusky
millions had clung most faithfully to Aryan gods; here, when the moon
was6
full during the month of Vaishaka, year after year men had come forth
in crowds to honor Rama, the Aryan conqueror of Celyon; here throughout
India’s stormy history, through invasions and through wars, and in
spite of all the leveling creeds imported by crusaders of equality and
sneaking preachers of humanity, the time-honored caste hierarchy had
preserved pure blood, and kept alive a handful of real Aryans; here
every man, even among the lower races, believed in racial hierarchy,
and knew his place—believed in our principles, in our faith, in our
world New Order, without being aware of it.
Around the moonlit sacred tank, slowly
moved the procession. And one after the other, for a while, the
intricately sculptured pillars were lighted up by the scarlet glow. And
kettledrums and flutes and clashing cymbals mingled their deep
vibrations and their high-pitched notes, in deafening outlandish music
under the luminous infinity of the sky. And coils of incense filled the
air,—the offering of the South to the great Aryan hero, now yesterday,
and in all times, foreshadowing the future homage of varied races of
all climes, the homage of the conquered world to the godlike Race; to
Thee,7 my Leader, to Thy people; to the everlasting noble blood, fated to rule, both Thine . . . and mine.
I shut my eyes, and though of the
great miracle that Thou wast working far away: of the new Europe of
our dreams. And amidst the solemn mystic roar that held me as though
under a spell, that roar of joyous fervor, centuries old,—and amidst
the smoke of incense and the jasmine breath of that bright southern
night, untold elation filled my heart. And blending in a dream the
age-old homage of the South, that I admired, with the tremendous hope
of Thy power and glory, I thought, in an ecstatic smile: “. . . and
tomorrow, the whole world!”
1
“All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally
creative race died of blood poisoning.”—Trans. R.G. Fowler
2 Deleting a superfluous “a” after “is.”
3 Inserting a paragraph break here.
4 Replacing “thou” with “Thou.”
5 Deleting a repetition of “had.”
6 Deleting a superfluous “in its” after “was.”
7 Replacing “thee” with “Thee.”
2 Deleting a superfluous “a” after “is.”
3 Inserting a paragraph break here.
4 Replacing “thou” with “Thou.”
5 Deleting a repetition of “had.”
6 Deleting a superfluous “in its” after “was.”
7 Replacing “thee” with “Thee.”
----------------------------------------------------
VI.
1933
(30 January)
______
______
“Für was wir zu kämpfen haben, ist die Sicherung des Bestehens und der Vermehrung unserer Rasse und unseres Volkes, die Ernährung seiner Kinder und Reinhaltung des Blutes, die Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit des Vaterlandes, auf daß unser Volk zur Erfüllung der auch ihm vom Schöpfer des Universums zugewiesenen Mission heranzureifen vermag.—Mein Kampf1
Then came the Day of days, the Day of
joy and power, the birthday of the reborn West; the Day when after
thirteen years of superhuman struggle Thou tookest2
in Thy hand the destiny of those whom Thou so lovedest—of those whom
all the Gods had willed; in our wondrous times, to be the strongest and
the best.
There, like an ocean, stood the
immense expectant crowd, restless and hopeful,—loving—but not yet daring
to be sure; waiting to greet the long-awaited news; waiting to know
that Thou hadst won; waiting to live the finest hour in the long life
of struggling Germany,—the opening of the New Era, culmination of all
the patient daily heroisms of recent years and of all those of yore.
Minutes succeeded one another, and each one seemed an hour. Within
thousands of breasts, hearts beat faster and faster as time went on.
Every man held his breath. As the parched earth awaits the fecundating
rain after the long ordeal of the arid season, in lands where
rain-failure means death, as the world wrapped in gloom awaits the
coming Dawn, so did Thy people on that day, gathered in growing
thousands before the Presidential Palace of the Reich await the magic
words: the announcement of Thy triumph—and of theirs.
There was a movement in the crowd,
and, for a second, utter silence. And in that solemn silence rose the
voice of Thy close friend and faithful fighter of the early days, first
in the Land after Thyself.3
And the voice said: “Our Leader is in power!” For another second, there
was silence,—a different silence; the silence of the thirsty earth
communing with the heavens in the first drop of rain, as wind abates,
the silence of unutterable joy verging on ecstasy. And then, out of the
frenzied human ocean, one thunderous outcry burst forth all of a
sudden, echoing the single voice and amplifying it a hundred
thousandfold; one long-resounding elemental outcry, one endless roar of
joy,—voice of Thy people; Voice of God Who within Nature’s Chosen ones
abideth,—: “Our Leader is in power! We are free!” And men4
shook hands with one another; and women threw themselves in one
another’s arms for joy; and tears of joy ran down their beaming faces.
Then, slowly did the enthusiastic
crowd disperse in all directions, each man or woman, youth or maiden,
carrying far and wide the glorious tidings of the Day: “Our Leader is
now in power! Germany is risen!” And through the length and breadth of
the yet mutilated Land, bells rang, and drums and martial trumpets
resounded, and their music had not for centuries expressed such
happiness. From every window broad flags hung, bearing the sacred Sign
both of the Sun and of the Aryan Race. And along the crowded streets,
under those endless rows of waving banners blood-red, black, and white,
the now immortal Storm Troopers, whose constant sacrifice and bitter
struggle had carried Thee to power, marched full of pride singing the
immortal song.
And throughout every land recently
torn away from Thy defeated Fatherland, and throughout every land in
which Thy people lived, cut off from the main Realm by artificial
frontiers, be it for centuries, an immense hope greeted the glorious
tidings, by now broadcasted to the world: the hope that soon the
brotherhood of blood would be the only link uniting all Thy people in
one proud greater Reich; that soon under the impetus of Thy new living
faith, all artificial boundaries would fall; that soon, in freedom,
strength, and joy, Thy people would expand towards the east, towards
the west, in spite of other nations’ jealous opposition, fulfilling the
great destiny allotted them by Nature, whether in peace or in war.
* * *
The age-old enemies of higher mankind
were aghast; for in that loud outburst of frenzied joy that echoes from
new Germany throughout the world, as well as in that immense silent
hope that they could not suppress, they heard the death-knell of their
long-established rule and felt the first signs of the end of their
ascendancy—forever. They hated Thee and dreaded Thee. And in their
secret councils, they started to prepare the satanic network of lies
and of bargains by which they planned to stir against Thee and Thy
people the stupid fury of the great unthinking human herd of every race
and tongue,—of that dull universal herd that knew Thee not and could
not feel the beauty of Thy dream.
A few among the better men of the
wide world beyond Thy realm, welcomed Thy rising as the Dawn which they
themselves awaited. And fewer still had been awaiting it as long and as
consistently as I.
As one salutes from the seashore the
Sun millions of miles away, so greeted I from afar the news of that
tremendous Day; so welcomed I the announcement of Thy power; so did I
worship Thee within my heart, my Leader, Giver of a new pride and faith
to every Aryan worthy of this race, now and forever more!
And as the echo of Thy people’s joy
reached me, I thought of the stupendous dream that had been mine for
ages: the dreams of real Aryan leadership throughout the world. Alone
in our times couldst Thou make that great dream become a living fact.
Alone a world under Thy rule could be that place of order and of
beauty, that healthy Heathen world that I so long had craved5
for. And in my heart I longed to see Thy conquering spirit smash all
the man-made creeds of false equality. And in my heart I longed to see
Thy conquering Greater Reich extend, one day, to every shore; the
brotherhood of Aryan blood abolish man-made boundaries; and Thy
inspired followers—the élite of the world—rule the whole earth, forever
more!
1 “We
must fight to secure the existence and continuation of our race and
our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood,
the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may
mature in order to fulfill the mission assigned us by the creator of
the universe” (1939 edition, p. 234)—Trans. R.G. Fowler. (The original text is emphasized throughout.)
2 Replacing “tookedst”
3 Hermann Göring.
4 Reading “man” as “men.”
5 Reading “craven” as “craved.”
----------------------------------------------
VII.
1935
______
______
“. . . eine neue Weltanschauung und nicht eine neue Wahlparole.”—Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 2431
A beautiful medieval town, full of the
joy and pageantry of our grand new era: old Nuremberg. Houses with
slanting roofs, crossed wooden beams, and latticed windows, and
flowerpots on every windowsill; and, hanging large and bright from
these, thousands of blood-red flags bearing the holy Sign—the
immemorial Swastika—in black in midst of a white disk; cathedrals in
the gothic style, with sculptured spires reaching the sky, and statues
of the Virgin-mother and of bygone saints proclaiming the aspiration of
the soul towards the Unattainable. And marching past their doors and
past those houses of another age, the Young Men of today singing
triumphantly the song of pride and resurrection—blended in one: the
old; the new; eternal Germany; eternal western Aryandom once2
more awake out of its Christian slumber. And in the immense Stadium
near the town, under the eyes of half a million people, the Reichsparteitag, the ritual consecration of that miraculous awakening, in untold splendor, lasting days and nights.
In the sunshine: the sacrament of
Labor; the worship of the Earth in her fecundity, and of the strength
and skill of Aryan Man, her fairest child, her pride, the brightest
fruit of her delight in the Sun’s long embrace; the sacrament of the
creative skill of Aryan Man as corn grower and miner3
and weapon-maker, and worker of the wonders of the lightning-power, in
harmony with [the] ends of life and truth, in harmony with the great
purpose of the Sun on earth—the rule in glory of the Sun4-born race.
With martial music, songs and flags,
bearing upon their shoulders the sacred Instruments of Labor—the Spade
that opens Mother Earth to the life-giving Sun-rays—in came the proud
young men, in squadrons of twice nine; behind them came the
labor-Leaders, and the girls—the healthy working mothers of tomorrow,
serene and strong as Mother Earth. And as parading soldiers present
arms, so did these youths, in ceremonial gestures, present their
spades, weapons of peaceful power. And loud and clear, between the
martial songs evoking those who died for Germany during the liberation
struggle; between two solemn tunes played on the throbbing drums, their
young voices repeated the ritual formula: “Ready are we, indeed!”—ready
to till the divine Land, the Fatherland, whose life is ours; ready to
make it prosperous[;] ready to make it great.
And Thou spokest to them and to the
many thousands, my beloved Leader—Our Leader! And [from] thousands of
breasts came forth the rhythmic cry of frenzied pride and joy—and
love—the cry of Thy new Germany[:] “Sieg! Heil!”
* * *
|
In the dark night, the Sacrament of
Silence—and Thy apotheosis, O my Leader, along with that of Germany,
in the Temple of Light.5
In the granite immobility, there stood
the Brown Battalions, in thick formations between which stretched long
straight empty spaces. A living picture of the conscious few, who,
throughout endless Time, had kept Thy everlasting truth alive within
their hearts, and watched, and hoped against all hope, and waited for
the long-desired Aryan Dawn;6
they stood in heavy darkness awaiting Thee. With them, the thousands
waited, in utter silence and without a ray of light upon their faces.
Then, suddenly, as Thou stepped7
forth into the largest avenue that led to Thy exalted Seat, hundreds
of blue transparent pillars, columns of dreamlike light—struck the dark
sky from countless hidden sources all round the outer walls of the
great Stadium, surrounding Thee as Thou walked8
on; surrounding Thy motionless Fighters, and all the silent,
spellbound crowd; cutting off from the world the privileged
enclosure—the consecrated space—where first among all Aryans of the
West, Thy people were communing with their own proud soul, becoming
conscious of the Godhead of their Race.
Thou reached9 Thy place above the crowd—above the broader outer world—and Thou stood10
in silence; the silence of five hundred thousand men standing together
intently, in common faith, in common prayer, in common adoration of
that One real God: their Nation’s Soul; their Race’s[;] the bright Soul
of the Sun awake within themselves. In silence, utter silence didst
Thou wait with them—the silence of the grave before the stir of
resurrection, the silence of primeval Night, mother of everything,
before the stir of Life.
Then slowly, from the limits of the
Stadium—slowly and silently—endless processions of flag-bearers poured
in between the thick formations of the Brown Battalions. Under the
ghostly blue reflected light of that unearthly row of phosphorescent
columns that held the Stadium in a magic circle, on they went; and on
them, rested a ray of light. On they went, bright red streams
converging at Thy feet, slowly and silently—streams of the new
life-blood,11
irresistibly quickening that immense body lying in the darkness in
deathlike immobility. And silence reigned; the magic silence in which
creative forces work irresistibly; the ecstatic silence in which
creative love communes with God, that is to say, with everlasting Life.
Silence, for half an hour, for an hour, or more? And then, all of a
sudden, like a creative spell out of that radiant stillness, the songs
of life and pride and conquest; and then, Thy speech, from that high
place, from that first altar of the new Aryan Faith—Thy speech to
Germany in adoration before Thee, and, beyond Germany, to me, six
thousand miles away, to whom the waves of aether carried it; to the
whole Aryan Race. And then, those songs again: the Song of the dead
hero, Horst Wessel, now alive, forever and forever, and the well-known
national anthem: “Germany above all . . .”
“Above all?” did then many ask within
their hearts, already with suspicion and hidden jealousy. And the songs
and Thy people’s cheers, and Thy voice and Thy silence, and theirs,
all echoed: “Yes!” And I, remembering the centuries bygone, and that
long fruitless, hopeless struggle of Aryan man against the Jewish yoke12
from the day Paul of Tarsus had set foot in Athens, thought: “Why
not? Yes, why not, my Leader’s countrymen, if ye be worthy of Him and
worthy of your task? If ye can lead us all to freedom and to glory, as
He leads You?”
* * *
|
In the sunshine, the Sacrament of Consecration of the flags.
Thou hadest in Thy hand the “Flag of
Blood,” the one that the Sixteen first Martyrs bore, when, in their
vain attempt to carry Thee to power, they fell; for Germany and Thee,
twelve years before. And in Thy other hand, Thou heldest the new
flags—the ones that were to inspire Thy many younger Fighters with the
burning faith of the old; the ones that were to carry forth, along the
highways, south and north, and east and west, to all Germanic people
still outside the Reich, Thy great message of unity and pride and
strength within their folds.
Through Thee, the Leader and the
Savior, though Thee, the living Reich—the priest of the National Soul;
that very Soul itself—ran the mysterious power of the dead; the magic
power of boundless love and pure blood[,] shed for love’s sake without
regret; the magic power of blood on which all greatness lies. It ran
into the bright-red folds of the new flags’13
snow-white disk, and the age-old Sign of Power which in the disk they
bore[:] the holy Swastika, Sign of the Life force in the Sun among the
ancient Aryans, Sign of the new Awakening of Germany and of the Aryan
Race, Thy Sign, our Sign, forever more.
And it gave them the virtue of the
“Flag of Blood”; the virtue of the dead who fell for Thee to rule, and
for Thy people to become, in Europe and Beyond the narrow boundaries of
Europe, the herald of Awakening Aryandom.
I was not there. From far away, I watched the new stupendous rites: the first rites of the new civilization that I had craved14 for, age after age, since the decay of Aryan man[.]
I was not there—alas! And yet I felt
that the Day of my dream had come, at last, that the old pride of the
Sun-born had won against the lying teachings that Aryan man had once
acclaimed, to his disgrace; that my own cult of health and strength and
youthful manly beauty, my double aspiration at the same time Nordic
and Grecian, my ever-living Soul, silenced and mocked for fifteen
hundred years, had won, through Thee and through Thy15 Nation[.]
I watched Thee transfer to the age-old
Symbol of our Race, that marked Thy flags, the fluid of rejuvenation,
the magic virtue of the modern heroes’ blood. And in my heart, I hailed
the blessed colors, and thought: “May I see Thee wave over East and
West, Sign of the domination of the Sun-born, eternal Swastika, Sign of
the Best!”
1 “. . . a new worldview, and not a new election slogan.”—Trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 Deleting a superfluous repetition of “once.”
3 Reading “minor” as “miner.”
4 Deleting a superfluous repetition of “Sun.”
5 Deleting “(1)” following “Light,” probably the indication for a footnote that was not, however, written.
6 Replacing a comma with a semicolon.
7 Replacing “steppedest.”
8 Replacing “walkedest.”
9 Replacing “reachedest.”
10 Replacing “stoodest.”
11 Reading “live” as “life.”
12 Reading “joke” as “yoke.”
13 Reading a comma as an apostrophe.
14 Reading “craven” as “craved.”
15 Capitalizing “thy.”
VIII.
1938
______
______
“Würde man die Menschheit in drei Arten einteilen: in Kulturbegründer, Kulturträger und Kulturzerstörer, dann käme als Vertreter der ersten wohl nur der Arier in Frage. ”—Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 2431
And years rolled on. And Thy
astounding power extended undisputed over the ever-greater Reich. And
the wide world—the world of the deluded—experienced increasing awe at
the sight of Thy greatness—and I adored Thee all the more.
From many thousand miles away, where
Fate had willed that I should stay, I spoke according to Thy spirit in
the name of truth everlasting. Alone, I walked along Thy way, never
forgetting that, one day, I would return, and see Thee in Thy glory,
That, one day, to me among all, the untold privilege would fall, in the
language of future times, to tell the Aryans of all climes, the
unsuspected meaning of Thy story.
I traveled and I spoke. From balls in
Indian towns, from shady places under banyan trees throughout the
Indian countryside, I stirred, in countless dusky black-eyed people,
both age-old loyalty to Aryan Gods and hatred of the modern yoke of
money—and in an Aryan minority our common racial pride. I spoke of the
twilight of Western Heathendom and of the early days of the dark era in
which the Jewish creed of Man prevailed at last against the Aryan
creeds of life. And I quoted the bitter words in which Emperor Julian,
dying upon the battlefield, is said to have expressed the despair of his
heart at the sight of that world that he had tried in vain to rescue
from decay: “O Galilean, thou hast won!” I exalted eastern Aryandom,
silent, but still alive in old caste-ridden India—faithful in its
expectant immobility. I fought, with all the fire of my heart, the
leveling creeds of Man—the Jewish creeds, whatever the garb
in which they might be clad. And I spoke of Thy glorious Dawn, and of
the coming days in which the racial aristocracy of East and West would
stand together2
hall the divine truth preserved in immemorial Aryan Writ. And many
times I quoted Thee, Soul of the new world-wide Awakening; Son and
Avenger of the Aryan Gods both Germanic and Grecian, Savior who hast
answered at last, the sixteen hundred year old call of him who failed.
In the tropical atmosphere rang Thy eternal words, Thy3
words of truth and pride, expressed by me in a different tongue. And
many dusky faces would brighten, and many people clap their hands, for
in those words the crowd could recognize the Wisdom that had governed
India in immemorial bygone days. And many a fairer face among the
crowd—a face with noble features and with thoughtful eyes—would look
intently up to me, for in whose words the few would hear and feel the
echo of that Aryan Wisdom that their forefathers from the glorious
distant North had brought with them to be the wisdom of all lands. And
once and old man came to me when I had finished speaking, and said,
alluding to thy words: “From which most4 hallowed Writ of Ancient days have you quoted this truth?”
And tears came to my eyes as I
measured the bridge that thou hast thrown over the stream of Time
between our world and its remotest youth, between Thy beloved people
and the fair warriors of their race—of our common race—by whom the
Aryan fame filled India so long ago; over the immensity of space,
between Thy beloved Land and any land where lives and rules the spirit
of the Aryan race. I suddenly remembered that I stood on the very border
of the Aryan world—hardly a hundred miles away from Burma and from
China. And my heart leaped within my breast as I uttered Thy name.
* * *
And then, I met the wisest of the
southern Aryans, the silent Friend who understood the meaning of Dawn,
and who, through written word and thought; and patient action in the
dark, was planning and preparing the staggering extension of Thy grand
New Order to all the world.5
And the Wise One told me: “Go back,
where duty calls you! Go back, the time has come; go straight to Him
who is the Leader of the West, for He6 alone your burning faith will fathom, for He7
alone your love and hate will welcome and give you all the means to do
your best. Don’t remain here; go straight to Him, who is Life and
Resurrection; to unsuspected fields of joyous action without regret and
without rest!”
“In a year’s time or a little more,
when I have done all that I can do here; when, in immense Aryavarta,
more people understand why I have come and are ready to hail our
spreading light, then I shall go—and tell my brothers: ‘See! Through
Eastern ways, with Eastern words, and with that understanding which
freedom from all ties save yours has given me, I have hastened the
fulfillment of the age-old dream of Aryan domination; of your great
dream of world-wide might!’”
But the wise One replied: “God now: for it will be too late in a year’s time!”
Why did I not believe him? Conscious
of Thy great heathen Dawn, why did I stay so far away from danger and
from duty? What made me blinded to all the signs of the threatening
storm? In spite of all my love and hate, what held me back? An evil
fate—or glorious plans of which no man could know? Plans of the Gods
almighty?
1 “Were we to divide mankind into three kinds: culture founders, culture bearers, and culture destroyers, then probably only the Aryan could be considered as representative of the first”—Trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 From this point on, the sentence makes no sense. It is likely that some words were omitted when the typescript was prepared.
3 Capitalizing “thy.”
4 Reading “mos” as “most.”
5 Savitri refers here to her husband A.K. Mukherji.
6 Capitalizing “he.”
7 Capitalizing “he.”
------------------------------------------
IX.
1940
______
______
“. . . und da, als der Tod gerade geschäftig hineingriff in unsere Reihen, da erreichte das Lied auch uns, und wir gaben es nun wieder weiter: Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt!”
—Mein Kampf1
Which one of us does not, today, with
tears, remember that great year among all years: glorious 1940? Which
one of us does not with bitterness look back to those staggering days,
in which the noise and flames and smoke of spreading war answered on
Thy behalf the world’s unjust attack?
O great One, Leader of the best, from
Thy young Reich, towards the east, towards the West, towards the
hallowed North, on land and sea and in the skies, in irresistible
formations, Thy men of iron poured forth, for Thee, for greater Germany
and all that Germany implies. The song of freedom, pride, and power
accompanied their onward march across the boundaries of seven nations.
And there was nothing that could halt their godlike thrust . . . And
from its northernmost promontory facing the Pole, down to the smiling
shores of the great Inner Sea, the continent that had believed the
Jewish2 lies,—the continent that had rejected Thee—lay at Thy feet within the dust!
Unforgettable days and
nights of permanent elation, when every blessed hour brought me through
subtle aether-waves, along with Thy beloved voice, the joy of further
victory! When both the sunlit earth, so bright in its tropical glory,
and all the countless lights of starry space seemed to tell me:
“Rejoice! The Western Resurrection that you have waited for so long has
come at last; and He, the Savior Whom you loved unknowingly for
centuries, and Whom you hailed but yesterday as Leader of his people and
of all those who recognize and who welcome his people’s place in
history, now rules the Aryan race according to your dream!”
From the other end of the earth, I watched the fire of war spread.
The sky was blue; the Sun was hot; the
joy and pride of conquest made my face beam. Stronger and stronger in
my heart grew the sweet certitude of Thy invincibility. One day, —I
knew not when, but, surely, thought I, “soon”—I would go back and see
all Europe under Thee . . . It mattered little, then, whether I were or
not, for the time being[,] on the spot.
I pictured in my mind Thy endless rows
of armored tanks, rushing through woods and moors and through deserted
towns along the international highways; through mud and sand, along
the river banks. I pictured in my mind Thy fleeing enemies under the
pouring rain—the roaring sea before them, the angry sky above them, the
dark night all around them, Thy battalions behind them—nearer and
nearer every second—and in their hearts, more powerful than all, the
overwhelming terror of Thy name!3 I pictured4
in my mind the famous Arch of Triumph; the no less famous Avenue, pride
of the conquered Capital; and under it, and along it, the
unforgettable parades!5
There stood and marched those who, in
Ypres and elsewhere, had fought alongside Thee during the first World
War; those whom within the grip of death, had sung along with Thee, the
conquering Hymn of love in which echoed the call of joyful Duty:
“Germany, Germany above all . . . !” There stood and marched also, like
unto living Nordic gods, Thy fair and strong Young men, hope of the
resurrected Reich, hope of the Western world, messengers of everlasting
Aryan faith.
Moving in incredible order, there they
were, the ones I had been longing for[,] ever since the decay of
Aryandom—over two thousand years; the ones I had been seeking in the
immortal forms of bygone Grecian gods, and the immortal characters of
Aryan heroes held as gods in India to this day: the real earthly
“shining ones”: my better brothers and Thy sons!
And as they went the music played, and
as they went they sang the new hymn of the Strong and Free,—the Song
of the young Hero, who, ten years before, had died for Thee: “Along all
highways, ever soon, will our banners flutter; slavery is to last only
a short time more!”6
And there indeed, the holy blood red flags, bearing within their midst
in black on white the eternal Swastika, fluttered triumphantly above
the glittering helmets, above the cadenced March, above the conquered
Continent, in the warm air of June.
* * *
From the Eastern world far away, where
I then stood, a cry had sprung—a cry of admiration, for thee, for
those who followed Thee; for Thy young resurrected nation.
One day, a dusky youth of the Far
South greeted me with amazing words, as though the Gods had chosen to
express their unshakable wisdom through his mouth. “Fair Lady, believe
me,” he said, “I too within my heart adore your Leader, now Lord of the
West!—For He has come to overthrow the money-power in the world; for
He has come in order to set up the wisdom of the Shining Ones Who
conquered us in Bygone days—the Aryan Wisdom of all times; the Wisdom
of the Best—against the Christian way of Life[,] in order to fulfill the
words of the most holy Writ: ‘Age after age, I come . . .’; for He is
God in human garb, the One Who never fails.”7
Another day, a fair-skinned man in
orange-colored robes—a man of those who look beyond the Realm of
Time—sat by my side and told me: “Your Continent has now within its
midst another Incarnation of the great World-Sustaining-One. No longer
weep over its long decay! But follow Him, and you shall win, in the
long run. The struggle of today is but another phase of the perennial
Struggle. And He is Light and Life come down to earth again to lead the
Aryan World once more along the glorious Way!”8
And in the glaring homage of the
village youth, echo of popular insight[,] as well as in that of the
serene ascetic, I heard the world proclaim in space and time, that Thou
was right, and foreign men on9 foreign shores, age after age, in speeches yet unknown, exalt Thy wisdom and Thy might.
And I was happy, even though so far away. And I too sang the conquering Song, with my right arm outstretched, while the10 Wise One, the truest of our true Allies, now bound to me through solemn mystic ties,11
stood by my side and smiled, as though his eyes could see, beyond six
thousand miles of land and sea, the Parade of Thy trusted Bodyguard
along the conquered Avenue, the rush of Thy glittering planes across
the sky.
* * *
Oh, great days! We were all so happy;12
then Before our eyes, we saw the map of the expanding Reich unfold
itself in all directions; and all our dreams materialize! In the glory
of our reborn heathen civilization, ahead of us, we saw, a future of
world domination, that was never to fail . . .
Oh, great days! Whether on the spot or
far away, we watched the Gods come down from heaven at Thy call, and
fight for Thee. We were so happy, then!—And I, the happiest of all!
1
“. . . and then, as Death, straightforward and businesslike, reached
into our ranks, the song also reached us, and we took it up and passed
it on: ‘Germany, Germany over everything, over everything in the
world!’” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 181)—Trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 Capitalizing “jewish.”
3 Referring to the evacuation of fleeing British and French troops at Dunkirk from 26 May to 4 June 1940.
4 Reading “picture” as “pictured.”
5
Referring to the German army’s entry into Paris on 14 June 1940,
during which they paraded down the avenue des Champs-Élysées beneath
the Arc de Triomphe.
6 “Die Fahne Hoch” by Horst Wessel.
7 The young man was named Khudiram, and Savitri relates his story in her essay “Hitlerism and the Hindu World,” The National Socialist,
no. 2 (Fall 1980): 18-20. It is available online under its original
title, “Hitlerism and Hindudom” at the Savitri Devi Archive,
www.savitridevi.org.
8
Probably Swami Satyananda, the leader of the Hindu Mission in Calcutta,
who seems to have been the first to suggest to Savitri that Adolf
Hitler was an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, the sustainer of order.
See And Time Rolls On, 24, 119.
9 Deleting here the superfluous phrase “on foreign man.”
10 Deleting here a superfluous repetition of “while the.”
11
Savitri Devi and A.K. Mukherji were married in Calcutta in a civil
ceremony on 29 September 1939 and in a religious ceremony on 9 June
1940.
12 Substituting a semicolon for a comma.
-------------------------------------------------------
X.
1942
______
______
“Nun weiß der Jude zu genau, daß er in seiner tausendjährigen Anpassung wohl europäische Völker zu unterhöhlen und zu geschlechtslosen Bastarden zu erziehen vermag, allein einem asiatischen Nationalstaat von der Art Japans dieses Schicksal kaum zuzufügen in der Lage wäre. . . . Er scheut in seinem tausendjährigen Judenreich einen japanischen Nationalstaat und wünscht deshalb dessen Vernichtung noch vor Begründung seiner eigenen Diktatur. So hetzt er heute die Völker gegen Japan wie einst gegen Deutschland . . . .”
—Mein Kampf1
To the furthermost Isles of Dawn, the struggle now extended . . .
More and more irresistible, the
war-cry of those distant Isles had burst forth at the Gods’ command,
and within space invisible, over a stretch of fifteen thousands miles
of hostile land, with that of our martial Song, its echo had blended.
These were also great days,—days of
expanding power, in which, as though on their way to a feast, Thy yet
unvanquished armies marched, full of self-confidence and joy, across
the Russian plains, further and further east; while further still one
could admire a world ridding itself of foreign chains at Japan’s call,
amidst the Pacific on fire.
Across the Russian plains, from North
to South, from West to East, as though they were going forth to meet
and greet the Rising Sun, on went Thy inspired Armies, that seemed
invincible; Thy Special Storm formations,2
spreading along their way, through lands that seemed unreachable, the
fear of Thee into the hearts of newly conquered nations, further and
further every day, and rounding up, as they advanced, and sending to
their doom—their proper place—the arch-enemies of the Aryan race!3
From faraway Japan, through conquered
Indo-China, through the Isles of the Southern Seas, and the thick
jungles of Malay and those of Burma, from East to West, from South to
North, our bravest allies poured forth, suddenly like a swarm of bees.
Since that great night on which the world had seen, amazed, amidst the
thunder of exploding bombs, in lurid light, a hundred4 burning ships trying to flee from Pearl Harbor ablaze,5 one place after another6 had surrendered to those who in the Pacific now fought for Thee.
Hong Kong; Manila, Saigon, Surabaya,
Penang, and soon Kuala Lumpur were in their hands[,] and every dawning
day brought news of further conquests, until, exactly 2602 years after
the Empire of the Rising Sun is said to have been founded, burst forth,
to the four corners of the world astounded, the most staggering news
of all: that of the fall of7 Singapore.8
With that stronghold, which had, so
long, seemed inexpugnable, it was as though our enemies had lost the
bastion of their might. Joy unutterable, and frenzied hopes and dreams
of domination filled out hearts and made our countenances bright. And
while the Wise One who, in patient secrecy, had made it possible for
Thy Allies to win their way through Burma, quietly smoked his water
pipe, I paced the marble floor in proud elation, and sang the Song of
war, like on the Day the vanguard of thy hosts had entered conquered
Paris,—like on Pearl Harbor Night.
* * *
Great days indeed were these! Before
the lightning thrust of Thy gallant allies, the enemies of Thy New
Order fled in terror, along the dusty roads and through the swamps,
while behind them filling the bright-red sky, slowly unfurled itself in
thick black coils the smoke of hundreds of burning oil tanks, or else,
hard-pressed on every side, they rushed here and there in dismay,
seeking in vain, within the jungles all ablaze, a miraculous way by
which to flee and hide; two mighty hunters9 led the chase: the fire10
crawled and ran and roared under the trees, and, calmly awaiting them
outside, ready to shoot them dead as they came out[,] our efficient
friends the Japanese.
Soon fell Rangoon and Mandalay . . .
The gallant warriors of Dawn steadily pushed on and on, up the great
Irrawady Valley and beyond; though plains and hills and forests,
without rest, nearer Bengal, nearer Assam, nearer Upper Hindustan,
where East meets West, a few miles further every day. And though a
solid chain of trusted men, the Wise One sent them messages, so that
more of Thy enemies11
might perish at their hands. And we waited to welcome them as they
would reach Calcutta, and past our house march forth on the way west,
on their way north, to further lands.
Oh, it was sweet to watch them come!
And it was sweet to know, that through our humble agency, more
thousands of Thy foes—more servants of the world-wide Money power,
traitors to their own race; more men of those who were now pouring fire
upon Thy beloved people—would perish in their turn within the flames,
in Burma’s jungles far away, or be sent off to toil for Thy allies, no
one knew where on Asian soil! And it was sweet to see the impact of Thy
armies break all resistance within mighty Russia, and thy Young Men
march on and on and on, towards the Caucasus, towards the Volga, towards
the endless Lands of Dawn.
* * *
We all thought Stalingrad would fall,
and we all thought Calcutta would soon be in Thy Allies’ hands. As
warm sunbeams fill golden space, and then suddenly vanish,12
were to leave no trace but that of bitter disillusion within our
hearts, carried us right beyond the realm of dire reality; for then we
felt, for then we though, in all sincerity, that we had won . . .
By the Wise One I sat, picturing in my
mind the endless eastward thrust of Thy victorious legions, for the
Greater Reich and for Thee, from the shores of the Caspian Sea, past
Bukhara and Samarkand, and through restless Afghanistan—through unknown
regions—down to the heart of Hindustan. I pictured them along the old
Conqueror’s Road that Alexander took when Fate had willed him to bring
war to meditative India, the road the ancient Aryans followed four
thousand years before. I pictured them, as though their coming were a
certitude. I pictured them along the Kabul Valley, and then within that
haunted solitude of brick-red rocks and bright-blue sky, full of
hallucinating beauty, that leads to Jamrud and Peshawar. I pictured
them,—the same ones who had stood in the great Party Rallies—glad the
command of duty had sent them there, singing along their way the
well-known song: “We shall march further on, even if all should fall to
pieces; for Germany belongs to us today, and tomorrow . . . the whole
world!” The mighty rocks sent back the spell-like words[,] and the
vibrations of the horns of brass mingled13
their grandeur with the grandeur of the site. And in the dry,
transparent air, the red and brown hills seemed more bright, with their
chaotic outlines and dark shadows. And in the sunshine fluttered the
proud Swastika flag, red and white. And on they went, Thy soldiers,—my
brothers bold and fair—like their forerunners of Antiquity, through the
historic Khyber Pass!
They would indeed “march further on,”
and reach imperial Delhi; and there Thy brave Allies would meet . . .
And war would end, and I would see both Lands of Dawn and Lands of
Sunset at Thy feet;—redeemed and free. And between the Far East,
extended realm of the Sons of the Rising Sun and Thy extended Realm,
the Aryan West, the Wise One, hidden worker of great deeds, and of all
Thy allies the best, would rule the South, from Ceylon to the Russian
border, in faith and truth, according to the needs of Thy new Order.
And under him in spirit no less than in name broad Hindustan would
rebecome again!
And I would stand by Thee in happiness
and glory, I, the Link between West and East and between North and
South, the eternal Aryan Soul in woman’s earthly garb, and in the
famous marble hall in which has stood the Peacock Throne,14 in the name of strange multitudes unknown to Thee and to Thy15 people; my eyes and heart fixed upon Thee alone, hail thee as Leader of the reborn world—my Leader!
* * *
Oh, why did that great drama not
become true? Why did a hostile Fate suddenly change the course of
things, and, kindling treachery on every front abroad, while letting
loose the hell of hate over Thy Fatherland in streams of fire, set out
to break Thy eagle’s wings? Why16
was it so that before they could reach to mastery over the Sunset
Lands, Thy beloved people fair and bold were first to hold the palm of
martyrdom within their hands?
1 “Now the Jew knows all too well that he, with his thousand-year adaptation, is probably able to undermine European peoples and educate them into raceless bastards, but in an Asiatic national state like Japan he is hardly in the position to promote this fate. . . . In his thousand-year Jewish Reich he dreads a Japanese national state and thus wishes it annihilated even before founding his own dictatorship. So today he incites the nations to hate Japan as he once did against Germany” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, pp. 723-24)—Trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 The Einsatzgruppen.
3 The Jews.
4 Deleting a superfluous “of.”
5 On 7 December 1941.
6 Substituting “another” for “the other.”
7 Replacing “to” with “of.”
8 On 15 February 1942.
9 Probably a reference to two Japanese commanders, whose identity can only be guessed.
10 Deleting a superfluous “that” at this point.
11 Deleting a superfluous comma.
12
A few words seem to have been omitted. Their probable sense is that the
aforementioned dreams vanished leaving only disillusionment.
13 Reading “mingles” and “mingled.”
14 At the Red Fort in Delhi, the seat of the Mughal Emperors.
15 Inserting “Thy.”
16 Reading “Thy” as “Why.”
----------------------------------------------
XI.
1945
______
______
“Was folgte, waren entsetzliche Tage und noch bösere Nächte—ich wußte, daß alles verloren war. Auf die Gnade des Feindes zu hoffen, konnten höchstens Narrens fertigbringen oder—Lügner und Verbrecher. In diesen Nächten wuchs mir der Haß, der Haß gegen die Urheber dieser Tat.”
—Mein Kampf1
Three more years of desperate struggle against the forces of disintegration2;
against the unseen Money-Power; its growing armament and all its lies;
three more long years in which the Jew’s allies sought in vain to
destroy Thy Nation in endless streams of phosphorous and fire; three
more long years in which, before the eyes of the bewildered world, Thy
people stood the test, and in the midst of smoking ruins, fought the
East and fought the West, as only gods could fight, and would have won
in spite of all—who knows?—had not increasing treachery given new
weapons to Thy foes!
But then,—after those months and
months of untold sacrifice—our darkest hour: surrender, with the trail
of misery and bitterness that it implies; the desecration of Thy
Eagle’s Nest by Jews and slaves of Jews,3
and proud Germany torn in four between her persecutors; and
Thou—visible Soul of everlasting Germany, the Founder and Head of our
new faith of health and pride—with Thy whole life’s creation, dead—so
the news said!
Oh, who will ever, now or in the future, tell the tale of hatred and of rage of those atrocious days? The tale of mad despair,4
of our passage into hell? The tale of the last ones who fell in
Libya’s burning sands, or on the parched and shattered earth of their
own Fatherland, or in the snow and frost of the Russias’ Grim, white
plains, on every battlefield, in loving faith, thy holy name upon their
lips—up to the end—for honor to be safe, while they knew all the rest
was lost? The tale of the survivors, of the survivors of the titanic
fight, driven into captivity for knowing Thou wast right? The tale of
Thy uprooted people of all the eastern parts of the great Reich,
fleeing before the Russian host in the cold night only to meet, wherever
they would go, the sight of more invaders—more agents of the Jewish
might and self-ordained crusaders against our creed of Life and Light?
The tale of Thy whole Nation under the horrid fourfold Occupation which
then barely began and was to last no one yet knew how long.
* * *
Oh, to sleep—to forget, and never
to awake, never again to know that once upon a time a wretched world
existed in which out of the slime of mediocre, dull humanity, a godlike
Nation had arisen, at the call of a godlike Man believing in her own
invincibility, and lived and toiled and sang, in youthful joy and
glory, six great years long,5 and then, the stupid fury of that mean and jealous world, for another six years resisted? Oh, to sleep,6
to forget; never again to know, that under Thy New Order, firmly set in
for centuries, all could have been so beautiful, but that,
forevermore,7
because in spite of a series of Victories, we lost this war, it would
hopelessly be just as before Thy dawning power—and worse, far worse;
that this would be a God-forsaken world, full of our persecutors’ fame;
a world in which, henceforth, men would be taught to hate Thy people
and to curse Thy name! A world in which the very children of Thy
trusted ones, now full of bitterness like I, would slowly have to learn
to love Thy enemies or learn to lie! Or to sleep—to forget,8 to die! Of this tragic collapse of Thy splendid great Reich, not to know a thing anymore!
Thus thought I as I wandered, all
alone, from place to place as far from crowded cities as it was
possible, in order not to hear or read the news, in order not to know
when the dark day I dreaded—the last day of the hallowed Reich—would
be. Beyond the forms and colors of all things visible, two inner
nightmares haunted me: the vision of Thee in the midst of Germany in
ruins, and that of my own wasted life away from Thee.
Why had I not been all these long
years at Thy side? For Thee and for the truth I had loved all my life,
why was I not there now to fight—and die—with the two Words of faith
and pride upon my lips, as thousands of my brothers? I who had always
seen in Thee the Child of Light; I who from miles and miles away had
cheered Thy growing might, but had never seen Thy glory,9
now pictured to myself, with tears, Thy tragic face against the
background of the crumbling Reich. And like the deep thrust of a knife
into my heart, the maddening thought come back, ever and ever more: in
this hour of agony when all was lost, oh, why was I not there, to
fight, to die, with the Reich’s last defenders, for all that I adored?
Oh, to sleep, to forget, now I
could do no more! While in the distant West, events would take their
course, in definitive nothingness, to lie—to rest—freed from the
nightmare of surrender, freed from the nightmare of remorse for not
having laid down my life in action at Thy side, in absolute
unconsciousness forever to abide!
Thus thought I as, alone, in
mountain fastnesses, or on the beaches, I would roam and roam. Facing me
with noise and foam, the waterfalls and torrents, and facing me, the
swelling Ocean tide, all seemed to say: “Come! Just a step into the
depth, and you will be forever free, away from the haunting sight and
thought of all your comrades’ plight, away from the knowledge of the
breakdown of their Nation, exalted home of all you love, away from the
torment and horror of this hopeless world: you need,10 indeed, only to take a step into the roaring depth, in order to sleep—to forget!”
* * *
And yet that step I did not take.
For stronger even than despair within my bleeding heart was hate—hated
of those who had brought about that awful fate upon Thy beloved11
Nation. And stronger than the horror of the long nightmare was one of
great aspiration: the will to live for sweet revenge’s sake.
The will to live, in order that,
one day, even if I never should see the resurrection of Thy great Reich
in all its might, I should at least admire the coming scenes of the
tremendous Play of Action and Reaction—heavenly nemesis, tardy but
unavoidable;—in order [that] I should see our persecutors fight among
themselves, and set each other’s towns on fire; and that, remembering
the untold suffering and the dismay their planes had once brought
Germany night after night, I should then rejoice at the sight: In order
that I should at least watch them—the everlasting foes of Aryan man,
the real Killers of Thy people; and all those who now stood on their
side, against Thee, against us—weep in their turn, and writhe, and
burn, and die to my delight!
Yes, I would live, decided I,12
though life could only be one long torment for me; I would renounce the
blessed peace of endless sleep and of forgetfulness, suffer the horror
of defeat and all the hopelessness of a world henceforth ruled by
those who hated Thee—suffer it all, be it for years, only wait and see
that world in terror reap, in the long run, the fruits of its alliance
with Thy foes.
In the meantime, the long-drawn nightmare had begun.
1 “What followed were horrible days and even worse nights—I knew that all was lost. To hope for the mercy of the enemy, only complete fools could bring that to pass—or liars and criminals. And in these nights, hatred grew in me, hatred of the authors of this deed” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, pp. 225)—Trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 Reading “disintegrating” as “disintegration.”
3 Inserting a comma.
4 Inserting a comma.
5 Inserting a comma.
6 Inserting a comma.
7 Inserting a comma.
8 Inserting a comma.
9 Inserting a comma.
10 Inserting a comma.
11 Reading “loved” and “beloved.”
12 Inserting a comma.
-----------------------------------------------
XII.
1946
______
______
“Wahrlich, auch diese Helden verdienten einen Stein: ‘Wanderer, der du nach Deutschland kommst, melde der Heimat, daß wir hier liegen, treu dem Vaterlande und gehorsam der Pflicht.’”
—Mein Kampf1
In the dull sky, above the greenish
sea, out of the mist, appeared a great red Disk. And with their mighty
wings wide-open to resist the bitter blowing wind, the screaming gulls
passed by. And there stood I, upon the upper deck. As far as I could
see: the rolling waves under the rising Sun, bright red and without
rays. All I could hear: the howl of the cold wind,2
the seagulls’ dismal cry. And there stood I upon the sea, nearing the
coast of Europe after days of voyage—after years of absence—and
thinking of the horror of existence among the fools and criminals who
hated Thee.3
Less than a thousand miles away
from where the steamer sailed, I knew Thy Fatherland now lay under the
victors’ heel—a stretch of devastated continent; I knew the millions
who hailed Thy holy name all through these years, now walked in silence
and hunger along the Way of blood and tears. And indignation, hate,4
and anger grew at that thought within my heart. For though I could
imagine the great inexorable Wheel of Destiny, slowly and steadily,
rolling on and avenging us, one day, I knew the blessed hour was yet
too far away for me to feel it coming. And I wept. But as I saw the
Disk so gorgeous in the midst of wind and fog, above the sea, “The
everlasting Sun,” thought I, “has never failed!” And so, while all lies
Waste at our persecutors’ feet, the everlasting Truth Thou hast
proclaimed remains and shines, although ignored, unaltered above ruin
and defeat. And in my heart once more [I] worshipped thee.
Darker and darker grew the mist;
dimmer and dimmer grew the sight of railway road and countryside, of
suburbs and of city. And night succeeded day. So near and yet so far
away, again the blood-red Disk hung in the dull grey sky. And day
succeeded night.
The story of my brothers’
humiliation, presented as a talk of victory, was shouted out to me
unceasingly, from private and from public places, from morn to sunset
and from then to morn, along with nauseating sermons about “rights,”
freedom, and human dignity,5 and our “re-education,” so that a “better world” could dawn for all men of all races . . . and evil, jewish-looking6 faces would grin at me while they insulted Thee. And thus the long nightmare dragged on . . . and on.
The long nightmare . . . the vision
of the ruins of thy new Reich that was to us the one inspiring Force of
Western Aryandom, its only living Soul; the vision of our foes now
able to enforce their lying “liberty” upon the world, from pole to
pole;7
of our foes, complacent tools within the hand of the almighty Jew,
gloating over the charred and blasted walls, the miles and miles of
martyred Land, that had been happy Germany, and in the name of
christendom,8
inviting us to become fools like they themselves, and to forsake all
that we hold as truth now and forever; the vision of the felling of the
great holy woods—ten thousand trees a day—and of the factories blown
up or steadily dismantled and bit by bit carried away; and above all,
more sinister than all,9 and more heart-rending, day after day, for months unending, the news of the infamous Trial10—of the long torture of the Twenty-One, and of the condemnation on that most shameful day in all the long life of the West,11—and
then, in the dim light of the following morning, the vision that will
stay vivid within our hearts until we die, a thing of indignation and
of horror: fluttering in the wind, the bodies of the best of those who,
at thy side, had led [the] German Nation along the way of pride!12
The vision of the end of all we loved and wanted; of all we hade been
living for; the knowledge that, in the wide world, that we had nearly
conquered, there was no hope of our return to power, nay, no place for
us ever more!
Our truth might Win, one day, but
when? In the meantime, Thy hallowed Reich lay torn and devastated. Thy
greatest followers were dead or in captivity, Thy people hated; Rebels
against the downward rush of Time, all those who still revered Thee,
were foreigners in every clime,13
exiles upon this earth, if not, with fury unabated, crushed in the
name of “liberty.” How long? How long would all this last? No one could
tell. Apparently, for every one of us, this world had become hell, and
was to remain so, forever.14
But when Thy foes cried out to us: “Give up your Leader’s Faith, and take to ours and be free to come and go,15 to buy and sell,16
to speak and write!” we answered: “Never! Disciples of the Child of
Light whether in ruin or in glory, faithful to Him whatever you might
say or do,—‘faithful when all become unfaithful’—we [would] rather die
with Him than rule with you! We [would] rather be defeated, knowing we
fought for what is right, than share the comforts of the fools whom
Israel has cheated; we [would] rather sink into the starless night of
dreary day-to-day oblivion, knowing ourselves to be without fault in
our Leader’s sight, than yield to you and share your hated might!”
* * *
The long nightmare dragged on and
on . . . But in its midst, though no ray of hope had shone,—though we
knew not whether we were again ever to rise,—our will to stand in spite
of all against the money-power, and to resist; our will never to
compromise, was like a ray of fire; a ray of fire in the dark night
before dawn.
1
“Truly, these heroes deserved a monument: ‘Wanderer, you who come to
Germany, tell your homeland that here we lie, true to the fatherland
and obedient to duty’” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 224)—trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 Inserting a comma.
3
Savitri actually returned to Europe in November 1945, embarking on 2
November 1945 from Bombay and disembarking on 15 November in
Southampton, where she took the boat train to London. Savitri relates
other events from her return-voyage to Europe in “Heliodora’s Homeward
Journey,” chapter 6 of Long-Whiskers and the Two-Legged Goddess, or the true story of a “most objectionable Nazi” and . . . half-a-dozen cats (Calcutta: Savitri Devi Mukherji, 1965).
4 Inserting a comma.
5 Reading “‘right’freedom and human dignity” as “‘rights,’ freedom, and human dignity.”
6 Not capitalizing “jewish” in accordance with Savitri’s practice elsewhere in the typescript.
7 Inserting a semicolon.
8 Savitri does not capitalize “christendom,” perhaps for the same reason she does not capitalize “jewish.”
9 Inserting commas around “more sinister than all.”
10 The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
11 Capitalizing “west” according to Savitri’s practice elsewhere in the typescript.
12 Savitri is referring to the 15th and 16th of October 1946.
13 Inserting a comma.
14 Inserting a paragraph break here.
15 Inserting a comma.
16 Inserting a comma.
-----------------------------------------------
XIII.
1948
______
______
“. . . die Menschen gehen nicht an verlorenen Kriegen zugrunde, sondern am Verlust jener Widerstandskraft, die nur dem reinen Blute zu eigen ist.”—Mein Kampf1
Ruins, ruins, and still more ruins . . . unending rows of crumbling walls; deserted streets in which lay heaps of wreckage;2
stations of which the charred and gaping halls open to wind and rain,
led out to further sights of devastation; and in the midst of all that
desolation, the haggard faces of Thy countrymen: of those who to the
bitter end, had fought for Greater Germany her power to retain, for us
to behold, under Thy strong protection, the long-awaited Western
Resurrection; thus stretched over hundreds of miles before my eyes, the
torn and bleeding body of Thy nation. Under the purple glow of dawn or
sunset, under the phosphorescent light of the full moon, under the
lonely Crescent in the midst of cloudy sky, under the splendor of the
starry night, always and everywhere the same heart-rending sight: ruins,
ruins,3 and further ruins; all that was left of Thy proud Reich;4 all that was left of Thy great life’s creation; all that was left of Thy astounding might!
My Leader! Thou hadst seen, with Thy own eyes, those town ablaze and Thou hadst seen the charred5
walls still smoldering, the twisted iron bars still hot, the very earth
itself, soaked through with phosphorus, still burning on, for days and
days;6
and Thou hadst seen the corpses of Thy people—those who love and
trusted Thee, and whom Thou lovest—stuck in the molten tar of Those now
long-deserted streets, in which they had just met a most appalling
fate;7 and from the cellars, thou hadst smelt the stench of death!
Who can, in any tongue, relate Thy
immeasurable torment? In a flash, wherever I went, I pictured to myself
Thy worn and tragic Face, against the background of that horror
brought upon Thy dear Germany by the enemies of our race and their
allies, the traitors, slaves of Jews. My heart full of relentless hate,
I saw in the very midst of her towns in ashes, their brand new, vulgar
“Clubs of Victory,” and, before Thy famishing people, their soldiers
reveling and gluttony and luxury. And every day I heard the selfsame
news: systematic destruction of everything Thou hadst done; further
death-sentences against Thy true disciples, and further misery, and
further humiliation for all those who, along with them, had fought
under the blood-red Banner, bearing the most-holy Wheel of the Sun.
* * *
“Ruins, ruins, and further ruins,”
thought I, as I went by; “Years more of persecution, years more of
martyrdom, but resurrection, and sure and terrible revenge, and lasting
domination—in the long run!”
Oh, Why had I not come before, and
been, along those streets, now desolate and silent, one of the millions
who had greeted Thee, in Thy great days of undisputed rule, before the
war? Why had I not, at least, arrived in time to fight in Thy own
Land, among Thy beloved people, in defense of Thy everlasting
Principles and of Thy might?—I, who had loved Thee so much more, than
many of those who had seen the glory that was Thine! But now that all
lay waste in mud and gore, I knew I was to be a Sign: a fiery Song of
hope amidst despair, a Voice amidst the ruins: within the nightmare
horror of the present fall, the Shadow of the unexpected future, and
its living call. I was to stand in the sunshine, and tell Thy wounded
Germany—The mute8 thousands who still believed in Thee, and even those who no longer did—that Thou wast right in spite of all.
And lo, as I obeyed the deep inner
dictate of love and faith, and went about from place to place,
first-fruits of the religious reverence of distant men of Aryan race
towards both them and Thee, and whispered to Thy people at my side,
however late, the mystic words of confidence and pride, I saw many a
tired face look passionately up to me, as though, beyond the rows and
rows of shattered walls and wreckage, and all the humiliation of the
passing hour, the ardent eyes could clearly see, thanks to the magic of
my message, the unbelievable return of old prosperity and power.
And as I put into their hand my
written exhortation to stubborn day-to-day resistance, and quietly went
on to do the same, numberless times again, throughout the Land, their
glance would follow me with sympathy into the distance, and their heart
would be with me wherever I would go. Not one of them betrayed me,
even though they knew our persecutors would surely pay them well for
doing so. In midst of utter destitution and hunger they had lived
already three long years, but even so, there was no such reward, no
such temptation, as could prompt them to help the standing foe9
against the faithful friend. And lo, brushing aside all fears, they
took me under their protection, and I would come and I would go, safe
in the midst of hell,10 and keep on bearing witness to Thy11 glory: of all Thy12 eighty million countrymen not one would tell the enemy what I had said and13 done; and all was well.
How many times have I not then, with tears, standing before the ruins,14
thought of Thy Reich of recent years! How many times have I not, then,
remembered the glorious weeks, when, from the remote East, my mind and
heart rushed forth to meet Thy coming host! Now that Thy land in ashes
lay dismembered,—four hated victors’ prey,15—now
that, outwardly, all was lost, I had arrived at last from far away, to
fight and wait amidst the common hardships and the common dangers, I,
the least among Thy faithful ones,—day after day. And of Thy starving
countrymen,—of those now silent eighty million whose voice had cheered
Thee in the past—not a single one had been willing my humble effort to
betray!
Even more so than in the days of
Glory, I loved them even more so than when, along the way to snow-clad
Caucasus and to the Caspian, Thy armies marched in conquering array;
even more so than when I had awaited their coming through the Khyber
Pass.
For three long years, with fury
unabated, the evil jewish force had sought to crush that spirit which
had wrought such wonders in Thy name. But I had come and I had fought
only to see, erect and free, in faces emaciated, in thousands of proud
eyes radiated, fearless and without blame, the German Soul, always the
same.
And suddenly, as in a dream, my mind
flew back to one great scene twenty-four centuries ago: on his
death-bed in Babylon, I heard the prince of Macedon tell coming
generations the Gods’ decree that they should know, and give “the
worthiest,” once and for all, the domination of the world.
And from the bottom of my heart, in
boundless admiration, I hailed in those who stood the test, “the
worthiest” in the full sense of Alexander’s word, and in thy superhuman
Nation, the future ruler of the West.
1 “. . . men do not perish from lost wars, but from the loss of that power of resistance that only pure blood possesses” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 324)—trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 Inserting a semicolon.
3 Inserting a comma.
4 Inserting a semicolon.
5
Replacing “calcinated” with “charred.” “Calcinated” is not an English
word. Savitri was almost certainly thinking of the French adjective “calciné,” meaning charred, incinerated, burned to a crisp.
6 Inserting a semicolon.
7 Inserting a semicolon.
8 Replacing “dumb” with “mute” to prevent a misunderstanding of Savitri’s intended meaning.
9 Deleting a superfluous “against” followed by a comma.
10 Inserting a comma.
11 Capitalizing “Thy.”
12 Capitalizing “Thy.”
13 Inserting an “and.”
14 Inserting a comma.
15 Inserting a dash.
-----------------------------------------------
XIV.
1949
______
______
“Allein unser Denken und Handeln soll keineswegs von Beifall oder Ablehnung unserer Zeit bestimmt werden, sondern von der bindenden Verpflichtung an eine Wahrheit, die wir erkannten.’”—Mein Kampf1
Of all ambitions in the world there is
no higher one than that of being, in these times of trial, one of the
few whose self-denial will help to clear the way for Thy return; one of
the unknown few who burn with love and hate, as ardently as ever, and
stand by thee alone against an evil fate; one of Thy dedicated ones who
stubbornly remain upon the field when all is lost, however much they
might yet have to learn, whoever much they might have to wait,
determined to begin again, by any means, at any cost, knowing it is
never too late.
Of all the pleasures in the world
there is no greater one than to defy Thy enemies, whether in broad
daylight or secret action, and to proclaim, against the overwhelming
might both of the Red Front and Reaction, that Thou wast always right.
There is no greater satisfaction than to behold the growing misery of
that despicable humanity that hated Thee so readily, and fought but
yesterday against our creed of life, to feel that their short victory
has brought nothing but further strife between Jews’ allies. There is
at present no delight so thrilling as to see their camp divided, and to
hope that, one day, one will look at them fight, and to know that while
the fools, who were so long the Jew’s best tools, will die during the
Third World War, Thy faithful few will lead the Second Struggle for
freedom and for might, and rise and rule, upon the ruins of the
world—forever, in the glory of Thy light!
Firm in one’s faith in Thee, that no power can shatter, when one shows that, what can all the rest matter?
And even if our final Day were not to
come in one’s lifetime, still one would have the holy joy of Duty done
and of lasting defiance; still one would be, in spite of all, among the
strong, among the free, who scorn the degrading alliance of the Dark
forces; still one would feel proud of one’s place among the fighters
for the honor of the Aryan race—unwavering like any one of them, in
one’s limitless love of Thee, that nothing mars; free, even behind
prison bars.
* * *
Thus did I feel while in my cell I
worked and sang, and wrote. My cell was small. They sky, was bright.
From its blue aether, so remote, as He pursued His daily course,2
The Sun, through the high window, projected slowly moving lines of
light, upon the wall. And I was happy. All was well, thought I, as long
as I could write,—also, as long as I could see, now and then, the best
one of all the women who, with me, were there for having loved and
served the truth and Thee.
Beyond the iron bars and the high
walls, beyond the heavy prison doors, in the struggling world of the
free, men came and went and children played; and fruit trees blossomed
and green fields and woods displayed their splendor in the spring
sunshine, while, just as beautiful as in the days Thy people greeted
Thee with arms outstretched, between its smiling hill, on flowed the
sacred Rhine. Over the charred and crumbling stones, that had been
walls of happy homes, regardless of the work of strife wrought by the
Jewish powers, tender green creeper with pink flowers grew as a glaring
Sign of everlasting life. And in the devastated forests, from the live
roots of every fallen tree, new shoots full of fresh sap took birth,
and thrived invincibly, out of Germany’s holy earth.
But happier, in spite of all, than
anyone in the broad outer world—happy in the communion of our
unchanging love of Thee—were I and she.3
We talked of nothing but the splendid
days in which Thou wast all-powerful, and those even more beautiful in
which Thou willst return. And we were happy in the praise of all Thou
art and all that Thou hast done; in the anticipation of the final
annihilation of all the forces that stood in Thy way, and brought
disaster on thy Nation, in the hope that we shall, one day witness Thy
enemies crushed in their turn.
As I beheld the warrior’s wife, the
worthy daughter of Thy Land, I felt that I had fought and loved and
waited all my life, to earn the privilege of holding out my hand to her
within that prison cell. In her blue eyes shone all the pride of those
who struggled on Thy side for these last thirty years and who have
now, in man-made hell, retained unflinchingly their faith in Thee,
while in my dark eyes full of fire and tears, forgotten centuries of
yearning for living earthly godhead in its strength and beauty, told the
martyr of Duty all my unending admiration, while in my voice,4
drowning the wail of misery present and past, rang as a hymn of
triumph, a whole world’s future adoration: the happiness of Aryan man
standing by Thee of his own choice, hailing, in Thy fair people, his
age-old gods in flesh and blood,—one day, at last!
And we were happy till the day the
enemy discovered our secret meetings in my cell, and separated us—for
how long? Who can tell?
* * *
For however long it might be, nothing
can shake or lessen the faith of both of us in Thee. And nothing also
can destroy, nothing can slacken, the holy bond of Comradeship now
linking her to me.
Whether still behind iron bars, or wandering upon this sunlit earth that Money owns,5 so long as6 Thy spirit has not won,—so long as7
the Gods invisible have not ordered Thy return,—neither of us, and
none of those who, like us, lived and fought for Thee, can now ever
again be free, save in the realm inviolate of will and thought, of love
and hate.8 So long as9
our second Day has not yet dawned upon Thy Land, we are all prisoners,
whatever we might do in this wide world, wherever we might stand. But
prisoners who know that they shall one day be the rulers of a reborn
world, with Thee, through Thee, for Thee, and beyond Thee, for that
true race of Gods: that coming Aryan mankind which is Thine—and mine.
United in our love of Thee
forever and forever, she and I, and all those who walk along our Way,
will keep on fighting for the resurrection of the great Reich, and
waiting for Thy Day.
1
“Yet our thoughts and actions should in no way be determined by the
approval or disapproval of our time, but by our bound duty to a truth
we have recognized” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 435)—trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 Inserting a comma.
3 Hertha Ehlert.
4 Inserting a comma.
5
“Owns” is conjectural. The typescript contains an ambiguous
conglomeration of letters: the word “wars” with the letter “o”
superimposed upon (or beneath) the “w.” Since “wars” makes no sense,
and since a typed “n” could be misread as “ar” in retyping a draft, and
since “owns” does make sense in the context, I think it a reasonable
reading.
6 Inserting “as.”
7 Inserting “as.”
8 Replacing a comma with a period.
9 Inserting “as.”
----------------------------------------------
SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf, 4 February 1907-8 June 1951.
XV.
1951
______
______
“‘Die Richter dieses Staates mögen uns ruhig ob unseres damaligen Handelns verurteilen, die Geschichte als Göttin einer höheren Wahrheit und eines besseren Rechtes, sie wird dennoch dereinst dieses Urteil lächelnd zerreißen, um uns alle freizusprechen von Schuld und Fehle.’”—Mein Kampf1
Full of bitterness of deeds bygone,
full of the distant rumblings of the coming storm, six gloomy years had
rolled into the past. One could have thought the victors had, at last,
renounced their frenzied lure of persecution; that after all the stupid
fury that had been released, their lust of murder was appeased. One
could have thought that sense of growing danger would incite to reason.
One could have thought the men whose treason to their own race had
brought about the fall of Thy great Reich, and silenced our conquering
war-songs for a time, even if they have not as yet become aware of
their delusion, would hesitate before committing their most abominable
crime.
And yet, in spite of the outcry of
grief and indignation that sprang from every German heart, at the news
of the foe’s decision; in spite of restless crowds around the Landsberg
prison; in spite of my own pathetic appeal to those who should have
had more vision, and all I did to win the right to die in the place of
the Seven Heroes, nothing could stop the frightful wheel of Destiny
from rolling by.
And one by one out of their cells,
they walked calm and upright, knowing they were to meet their doom. And
with Thy holy Name and that of Germany upon their lips, and with the
love of Thee, always the same, within their hearts, and with the
inspired flame of pride within their tearless eyes so bright; with the
serenity of duty done, and with the awareness of reconquered power, and
of the glory they had won during those six long years of gloom, and of
the immortality that now began for them in that atrocious hour, one by
one they were hanged—in alphabetic order, first six, then five, then
four, then three, then two, and at last one, fearlessly waiting for
their turn.
And thus they passed into eternal
light, last martyrs of the first phase of the Struggle for freedom and
for might, and first ones of its second phase; heralds of Dawn,
proclaiming Thy return—whether in spirit only or in flesh also, it
matters little—form the midst of our present plight, upon that tragic
late-spring night.
* * *
Wherever Thou might be on this earth,
or in the radiant Dwellings of heroes ever young and strong and free,
my Leader—our Leader—dost Thou know the last part of the story of the
seven Martyrs who have loved Thee so? Dost Thou know how they died for
Greater Germany to rise out of tomorrow’s war and chaos, and rule the
West forever in Thy name? Along the path out of these days of trial,
once more to domination and to fame, they walk in spirit at the head of
us who have been Thine, and Thine remain.
They walk ahead of us and guide us
unfailingly to the one goal: the resurrection of Thy Reich as Thou hast
dreamed it: one State, one People, and one Leader; one blood, one
heart, one conquering will; one super-human Soul.
No more than the Sixteen
blood-witnesses of early days and the Eleven of Nuremberg, whom we
revere and praise; no more than all Thy faithful ones, who died for
Germany to raise the holy Swastika high above every Sign in space and
time, did the exalted Seven give up their lives in vain. They died for
us to conquer; for Thee to come again; for Germany to live—and reign.
1 “‘The
judges of this state may calmly condemn us for our previous deeds, but
History, as goddess of a higher truth and a better justice, will one
day smile as she tears up this verdict and acquits of all fault and
resonsibility.’” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 780)—trans. R.G. Fowler.
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XV.
1953
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“. . . die Menschen gehen nicht an verlorenen Kriegen zugrunde, sondern am Verlust jener Widerstandskraft, die nur dem reinen Blute zu eigen ist.”—Mein Kampf1“Ein Staat, der im Zeitalter der Rassen-vergiftung sich der Pflege seiner besten rassischen Elemente widmet, muß eines Tages zum Herrn der Erde werden.”—Mein Kampf2
And time rolls on . . . and every
empty day that slowly fades away, as uneventful as any other one, into
the mist of unrecorded history, brings us, along our strenuous way,
nearer the heart’s desire of the revengeful, nearer the doom of those
whom we resist, nearer the unfailing end of this atrocious night,
nearer the yet well-hidden goal for which we fight,—the one unchanging3 dream for which we live, while we never forget, never forgive.
And time rolls on . . . and every
dreary hour that passes by into eternity, glaringly shows the soundness
of our claim, and tells the world the inanity of Thy enemies’ victory,
while bringing Thy dismembered Nation new strength and new prosperity,
new hopes of unity, with the increasing certainty of our return to
power, and both our persecutors further fears of unavoidable annihilation.
And thus we march invincibly towards our lofty Aim, along the Way of blood and tears. It matters not what price4 we gave, it matters not what price5
we shall yet give, to see all those who hated Thee descend into the
grave after they groan under our whip for years and years,—while6 we never forget, never forgive.
And time rolls on . . . and every passing7
second brings us further away from the long nightmare of defeat; nearer
the glory of our dawning Day; nearer the time we shall begin again;
nearer the morn of Thy unending reign, when Thy adoring People will8 repeat the now forbidden words of faith and pride in frenzied spell-like cheers,9
and when, for countless scores of years, the nations of the West that
have refused to side with Thee, and fight the common foe, and live,
will lie in ruins at our feet,—while we never forget, never forgive.
And time rolls on . . . With us, they had not reckoned,10
when setting forth their vast utopian schemes. They thought Thee dead,
and us also; they thought our faith had slackened; they thought,—the
fools—they11
could rely upon our loyalties to values which we hate; they thought
they could send us to die, without us ever asking why, while12 we had grown too weary to say “no.” They thought they had become the masters of our fate; but13 here we rise, and here we stand, and give the world to understand that we shall never fight but for our same old dreams:14
for honour and for might, and what we know is right; for the joy of
asserting the privileges of our birth; for Thee, for Greater Germany,
for Aryan rule upon this earth—the Gospel of perennial Truth in its new
form, which we came to proclaim, and, which is more, to live, while we
never forget, never forgive.
And time rolls on . . . Nothing can
break our spirit, nor alter our allegiance to Thee and to the German
Reich, home of the best, stronghold and hope of Aryan mankind in the
West. Of all Thy enemies might15
say or do to gain our favour that they so require, nothing can shake
our faith, nothing can ever mar our loyalty to the old oath; nothing
can kill our will to rise again. Every new step the former “great
Allies” take towards us we meet with a new grievance; no threat can
force us to believe their lies; no bribery can keep our hearts from
hating both.16
Happier as the storm draws nigh, we
wait and watch events go by . . . We wait and watch the signs of war—the
hopes of liberation; the coming chances of Thy Nation to seize the
lead of Sunset Lands once more. And we are confident in our own
strength and we are grateful to the immortal Gods who made us free,
serene even in hell and loving only Thee, having nothing to lose and
all to give—faithful when all become unfaithful, while we never forget,
never forgive.
1 “. . . men perish not from lost wars, but from the loss of that power of resistance found only in pure blood” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 324)—trans. R.G. Fowler.
2 “A state that, in an age of racial-poisoning, dedicates itself to fostering its best racial elements must one day become master of the earth” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 782)—trans. R.G. Fowler.
3 Later versions: “undying.”
4 In later versions “what price” is replaced by “how much.”
5 In later versions “what price” is replaced by “how much.”
6 In later versions “while” is replaced by “for.”
7 In later versions “passing” is replaced by “fleeting.”
8 In later versions “shall” replaces “will.”
9 In later versions this reads, “when Thy adoring people shall repeat, in frenzied, spell-like cheers, the now forbidden words of faith and pride.”
10 In later versions “did not reckon.”
11 In later versions a “that” appears before “they.”
12 In later versions “when.”
13 In later versions “and” is replaced by “but.”
14 In later versions “dreams” appears as “dream.”
15 In later versions “might” is replaced by “can.”
16 In later versions “both” is emphasized.
2 “A state that, in an age of racial-poisoning, dedicates itself to fostering its best racial elements must one day become master of the earth” (Mein Kampf, 1939 edition, p. 782)—trans. R.G. Fowler.
3 Later versions: “undying.”
4 In later versions “what price” is replaced by “how much.”
5 In later versions “what price” is replaced by “how much.”
6 In later versions “while” is replaced by “for.”
7 In later versions “passing” is replaced by “fleeting.”
8 In later versions “shall” replaces “will.”
9 In later versions this reads, “when Thy adoring people shall repeat, in frenzied, spell-like cheers, the now forbidden words of faith and pride.”
10 In later versions “did not reckon.”
11 In later versions a “that” appears before “they.”
12 In later versions “when.”
13 In later versions “and” is replaced by “but.”
14 In later versions “dreams” appears as “dream.”
15 In later versions “might” is replaced by “can.”
16 In later versions “both” is emphasized.
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