The Crisis of Civilization
XIII. Germany and the Two Wars
It is not uncommon to hear anthroposophists make the following objection: Why should we bother with ‘scenery’ (and what goes on behind it – Trans.)? God is mightier than any scenery! – This is basically an objection of the sentient soul which – the crude expression may be allowed here – is afraid of contact with the consciousness-soul, as the devil is afraid of holy water. But to speak of God and remain within the sentient soul means to speak sentimental nonsense that has absolutely nothing to do with God. Certainly, God is almighty, but we have to know and consider exactly how his might is revealed at different times, in different epochs, and in the various nations and human individuals. God expects this of us! We cannot love God according to our own fancy, for this might prove to be no more than the love we bear towards our own weakness.
Only if we grasp the great reciprocal relationships within evolution and world history – not just abstractly with our intellect, but with a compassion-filled heart – can we reach the sphere of the consciousness-soul, and then the secret of the reciprocal relationship between God and man will be revealed. This is one of the methodological foundations of Goetheanism, which includes within it the science of history.
The Forbidden Theme
If what has been said in this book is, for some readers, no more than a conceptual game or verbal sparring, a flow of information that is already forgotten, it is pointless for them to continue. It would only stress their nerves and disturb the comfort built up through long years of political and, in some cases, of occult conformism. Outer and inner comfort at any price: this existential principle is adhered to by the modern European who – so we hear quite often in the West – even pursues Anthroposophy as a hobby. And if the Anthroposophical Society and all anthroposophical initiatives, if even Rudolf Steiner’s books were to disappear – the man in question would simply change his hobby and collect stamps or stickers. This does not mean that such a person is not a good human being. No, his problem (which he shares with many people in the East) is a different one: he has simply not developed the organ that would allow him to understand why the destiny of mankind depends upon the destiny of Anthroposophy. For him, the spiritual-scientific communication, for example, that every incorrect idea, particularly in the soul of a human being who has ‘crammed’ into himself a great quantity of occult knowledge, brings about destruction in the world of the spirit, of the hierarchies, is no more than empty words to which he nods his head occasionally. But nothing happens in the ‘mirror’ of his soul, not the slightest ‘stirring’.
This is not intended as criticism, but as an invitation to understand the situation when – as Rudolf Steiner says – gradually the forces of evil will appear. Under these conditions, however, the human being is naturally, in every sphere, far more inclined to surrender to evil rather than engage in the battle to place what appears to him as evil into the service of the good world-development. But without this the sixth post-Atlantean, the Slavic-Germanic, cultural epoch cannot fulfill its task, which consists above all in a continuous perception of the spiritual world, and in spiritual impulses. Connected particularly to this task relative to evil in the 5th post-Atlantean Period, a certain kind of personal darkening can arise for the human being (Nov. 19, 1917, GA 178).
One does not need to be a great esotericist to grasp, at the close of the 20th century, that the ‘personal darkening’ has already begun and is spreading like an epidemic. Is it not the duty of those who have not succumbed to this darkening to help others to avoid this tragic destiny? We do not mean those people who consciously destroy Anthroposophy – from without or within. These we can only help by preventing them from doing evil. But all others are called to save the world through understanding. One of the essential questions to be understood in this connection is the spiritual oppression of Middle Europe.
Of himself, the author could say that he is far from approving of everything that is German. He too dislikes the German ‘four-squareness’, which has never appealed to the Russians (and which Marie Steiner herself refers to in the forward to the Russian edition of Theosophy). But he also understands the other side, namely that Russians too have many traits that may be disliked by other nations. Would this not be a fundamental topic for conversation at a time when the danger grows that the world cultures are losing their common connections because they are leveled down and severed from their spiritual origin, and the danger thus exists that the cultural impulse of Middle Europe is entirely eradicated? All this is of course not only due to a conspiracy of dark forces. Antipathy for the autonomous personality is growing everywhere. The emergent individual ‘I’ calls forth rivalry and opposition. So it was in the Middle Ages, when the collision of egos often ended in a contest with the lance. ‘Gauntlets’ are continuously ‘thrown down’ in our century, only in a different form. Life in the Anthroposophical Society is full of examples. We can note at every step that the weak, the spiritually helpless, are given preference, not with the best of intentions, but simply because they are easier to deal with. Scarcely anyone finds an independent Anthroposophist interesting. He is more likely to be viewed with antipathy, especially if at the same time he does not have power.
What takes place in the relationships between individuals is carried over into the relations between the peoples. It is easy to stir up antipathy towards the Germans, simply because in everything they do they strive to rely entirely on themselves, on their own ‘I’. Whether the result is in every case noble or perfect is not important. – It is bad that nearly everyone, even the person who knows nothing about philosophy, readily nods his head in agreement when Hegel is called a ‘Teutonic’ (in Russian it almost sounds like ‘burglar’) philosopher, when Nietzsche is dragged through the mud, and tasteless anecdotes are told about Goethe etc. I recall an incident in the early ‘Seventies when, during a concert at the Moscow Conservatoire, several Jews left the hall as a sign of protest because music by Wagner was to be performed. The trivial consciousness is easily influenced by an ideology that knows how to exploit human ignorance. It is only because of this that the idea has been imprinted in people’s consciousness that the Germans have been preparing themselves for National Socialism for centuries and now forever remain its secret adherents. The implication is plain: We must keep a firm grip on them and ceaselessly beat them about the head – if not directly, then at least in the figurative sense – so that they doze on in a half-conscious condition. This condition is called ‘re-education’.
Who in the entire world (Germany included, of course) would want to be bothered with the fact, already observed by Mark Twain, that the German language contains only very few harsh, aggressive expletives? Compared to the English boom, burst, crash, roar, blow, thunder, explode, he says, the German equivalents sound like a lullaby.
In the same vein Fritjof Haft, professor at the University of Tübingen, writes in his book Introduction to Juristic Learning (Bielefeld 1988): There exists a sphere where the German language is of unsurpassed force of expression, i.e. when it is concerned with such things as love, family and nature. At the same time even the English toothbrush has greater sound-intensity than the German word ‘Ausbruch’ (‘outbreak’; p. 145).
This surely, one might think, is worth reflecting upon. Indeed, how could such an ‘anomaly’ come about? Did a nation with an ‘inborn’ criminal tendency, with a ‘genetic’ disposition to warmongering, not create the linguistic counterpart of this attitude? On the contrary, the language of this people contains the most astonishingly fine nuances for description of the experience of love, nature and family relationships! But there is no-one in our time who wants to think about this. We prefer to follow the dull total antipathy spread by the suggestive instruments of mass-culture and information, not only towards the Germans but towards the spirit of Middle Europe in general.
The press presents such attitudes as a natural process of development in a democratic society. Anything else that wishes to make its way to people’s consciousness is dismissed as ‘conspiracy theory’. A theory is a theory – some like it, while others do not. It cannot be otherwise. How many theories there are! And every one of them, even the most absurd, still finds supporters. Such things are also heard from the anthroposophical press, despite the fact that there exist dozens of lecture-cycles by Rudolf Steiner on historical symptomatology!
A particularly amusing variation on the ‘conspiracy theory’ is in No. 32 of the Flensburger Hefte. It is based on the following uncomplicated argument: A secret society is an unknown society. Therefore we have no right to speak of secret Masonic Lodges, of ‘Bilderbergers’, ‘Trilaterals’ etc., because they all exist quite publicly. As an empirically-working historian – so C. Lindenberg sums up this line of thought – I would therefore prefer not to bring hypotheses about secret societies into the discussion, because in so doing one places an All-Operator into the world, i.e. a quantity that is logically applicable to anything. As a scientific historian I have to reject this.(1)
We are tempted to ask Herr Lindenberg: If an ‘All-Operator’ were not placed into the world, what would you then say about this ‘hypothesis’? But what kind of empirically-working historian is this, when what we are seeking is the interpretation of facts that is dependent on the political state of affairs? What is the meaning of this lack of logic? What is secret, is unknown; therefore nothing can be said about it! It is just as though a stone were being aimed at someone’s head, but because the stone is wrapped in a towel no-one dares to speak of it, since it does not exist empirically, it is invisible. And if someone is aiming this at the head of a person one happens to dislike, then it is enough to hold ‘strictly’ to the principle of scientific empiricism, in order to expose this head to the assault with the ‘stone’. – How easy one likes to make things for oneself! The ideal embodiment of this empirically-working ‘scientist’ is the proverbial ostrich that tries to avoid imminent danger by burying its head in the sand. It is unclear what a scientist of this kind can have to do with spiritual science. Here a great deal is not empirically given – in the sense that we cannot see, hear, photograph it, etc. (this is how Lenin defines matter). The folk-spirits for example – what right has an empirically-working historian to speak of them? The historian-positivist is at least honest when he declares them to be complete and utter nonsense. We can also understand him when he speaks of ‘contradictions’ in Rudolf Steiner’s communications, because the word ‘Initiate’ is a meaningless sound to him.
Rudolf Steiner was no less an authority on ‘Operators’ than Herr Lindenberg, and for this reason bequeathed to us a comprehensive teaching concerning the background of world politics, thus making possible a healthy, realistic way of looking at things, so that people are shown the true face of the world and are not turned into puppets in the hands of the occult-political manipulators. But now empirically-working scientists appear on the scene, who are wiser than the great Initiates. Unaware of the grotesque nature of their situation, they merely vary the words of the Grand Inquisitor (from Dostoyevsky’s novel) who says to Christ Himself: ‘We know better than you how to become masters of humanity’.
Rudolf Steiner says: In many places outside the actual British Realm, Freemasonry pursues exclusively or mainly political interests. And further: The Lodges knew how to find the channels for imprinting certain directions into people’s thoughts ... then one only needs to press the button and the thing carries on working. In what direction? – Towards seizure of power by the few, using the means that are known in the sanctuary of the Lodge (Jan. 8, 1917, GA 174).
Rudolf Steiner made countless statements that are equally specific. Some more examples: When we look around us today ... , then we have ... Freemasons’ societies ... that are an effective instrument in the hands of the secret societies ... (Feb. 21, 1920, GA 196). The Anglo-American world has its Initiates (June 22, 1919, GA 192). This is just what is characteristic, that in the West the organization of state cannot be understood at all – and France and Italy are entirely infected by it –, unless one takes into account its permeation by the Lodges, just as in Middle Europe one has to take into account the permeation by Jesuitism or other influences (Nov. 3, 1918, GA 185). Even precise details are given: It is a fact that when someone, a powerful minister let us say, needs an Under Secretary of state, it is obviously more to his liking if he can appoint his brother Mason, rather than some other person (Feb. 21, 1920, GA 196). A ‘natural’ basis for corruption thus emerges. As to the question of ‘secrecy’, we can occasionally hear when one or the other name is mentioned: Yes, he is not on the lists of Freemasons. – They have the list already, but are unaware of the fact that the most important people are possibly not on those lists (Jan. 8, 1917, GA 174) etc.
So one could continue indefinitely. But it is not the point to quote dogmatically, nor is it our task to convince people like Herr Lindenberg (they know all this very well and just for this reason throw sand into people’s eyes). What we want to show here is that only with the help of spiritual science will one be able to penetrate the terribly neglected affairs of humanity and understand that not only the Divine Hierarchies are active but that people are very strongly attacked by Ahrimanic and Luciferic beings.
It is
not our
business, as
anthroposophists,
to show how
the Jesuits
deride the
Freemasons and
vice-versa,
how the
Bolsheviks
insult both
groups and are
abused in turn
by them. All
this is the
well-organized
wrangling on
the lower
levels of the
occult
societies. But
why should we
not pay
attention to
the facts they
occasionally
divulge in the
excitement of
their
world-wide
‘game of
dialectics’?
We have our
own methods of
cognition.
They are
strictly
scientific –
spiritual-scientific.
Only with the
help of this
method is a
conversation
possible
concerning the
life and death
of our
civilization.
The “Cartography” of Political Occultism
In order to help us understand the meaning and importance of the First World War, Rudolf Steiner describes its spiritual background. He speaks of the ring of the ‘Midgard-Snake’, ahrimanic in its nature, encircling Europe as a result of the movement of the Norman, Celtic, Germanic and Latin elements in the European population (cf. Feb. 21, 1915, GA 159). We will let this indication suffice, in order not to stray too far from the essential content of the book, and turn to times closer to our own. Rudolf Steiner says in 1918: Can one actually wish that humanity should have simply lived on, without this catastrophe, as it had imagined itself living until 1914? He then refers to what he had already said in Vienna before the war: ... , that, if one has a clear survey of what lives in the world of men, then the relationships between people, social life, appear like a social carcinoma, like a cancerous growth creeping through humanity. ... but from the aspect of eternity things look very different ... They must by no means be taken lightly or superficially. Just as it is true that it is infinitely sad that this catastrophe came, so is it equally true that through this catastrophe humanity was saved from a terrible submergence in materialism and utilitarianism. Even if it is not yet visible today, it will be; it will show itself especially in the middle lands and in the East, where instead of an order that had taken materialism into itself, a chaos is developing. One can certainly not speak without an undertone of suffering, of this chaos that has come over the middle lands and the countries of the East, and which offers little immediate prospect of being transformed outwardly into harmony. But something else is happening. Wherever this chaos spreads, there will be a world that will in the near future give as little as possible to men through the outer physical plane. The blessings of the outer plane will not be great in the middle lands and in the lands of the East. All that can come to men from outer forces will be very scant. The human being will have to take a grip of himself within his soul in order to stand firm ... and ... he will be able to make the decision to go towards the spirit, from which alone the health of the future can come (Dec. 21, 1918, GA 186).
This is the higher view of things. The future of which Rudolf Steiner speaks is beginning in our day. He also says that the human being ‘must’ learn to stand firm. It must be borne in mind that the forces which engender chaos do everything possible to rob men of this steadfastness. In truth, humanity is sawing off the branch on which it sits. Not God condemns humanity to the battlefield, but humanity has forgotten God. And men thereby place themselves in the service of those forces that are hostile to the development of humanity. These forces make use of crises of development, so that renewal cannot arise out of them. In 1915 Rudolf Steiner speaks of countless young people who lost their lives in the war and laid aside their ether-bodies still filled with great life forces. These return again to the world and work for its good if human beings will turn their thoughts to the spiritual world (cf. Jan. 26, 1915, GA 157). But if everything remains unchanged, the sacrifices of the war will have been for naught!
In our examination of social understanding we have here arrived at a point of the utmost importance. The secret occult societies see their principal task in the battle for humanity not only in the use of developmental crises to instigate wars, but also in not allowing the power of sacrifice to be transformed into a noble service for humanity. It is for this reason that the true history of the wars is falsified in every imaginable way, that ‘re-education’ of the Germans and all the peoples of Russia is pursued so intensively, that materialistic mass-culture is propagated, reckless economic enterprises are launched etc. It does not require much intelligence and strength to see how all social illnesses are generated, how after the Second World War the wave of spiritual resurrection and renewal in West and East was extinguished. All this is a unified complex of measures, designed to destroy the fruitful co-operation between those who are living on the earth and those who were obliged to leave it, not out of their own karma but out of the karmic necessity of the world. And then the attempt is made to detach the nations from their hierarchical Leaders. All this must be vigorously resisted, for otherwise there will be no end to suffering.
At
every
news-stand
today, every
meeting of
atheists,
monists,
politicians,
we encounter
ritual black
magic. And
often we find
it in
anthroposophical
gatherings
too. It is
even delivered
to people’s
homes free of
charge, and
this continues
until a man
himself
consciously
says: ‘It is
enough!’ And
if anyone
thinks that he
has to keep
silent for the
sake of
balance and
harmony, which
are in any
case
non-existent,
then this
advice can
only be
followed by
one who has
neither reason
nor heart.
Rudolf Steiner
is not one of
them. But
it is possible – he
says – for
things to be
striven after
in different
ways. Thus it
would have
been necessary
for others to
rule than the
agents of the
brotherhoods
of which I
have spoken.
For then we
would be in
the middle of
peace
negotiations
today, the
Christmas call
for peace
would not have
been shouted
down! (Jan.
30, 1917, GA
174).
Map of Europe: Excerpt from ‘The Kaiser’s Dream’, The Truth 1890
Rudolf Steiner
told the
anthroposophists
of a map of
Europe that
had been drawn
by the secret
societies
already in the
’Eighties of
the 19th century.
With the aid
of this map
the members of
the societies
were trained
for special
tasks –
preparation of
the First
World War.
This map also
foresaw the
division of
Austria-Hungary,
the formation
of a Slavic
confederation
in the
Balkans, the
shifting of
the eastern
border of
France etc.
Rudolf Steiner
closes his
account with
the words:
compare this
map with what
is already
contained in
the note from
the Entente to
Wilson. It is
what was then
regarded (and
intended for
implementation) as
the ideal way
of dividing up
Europe (Jan.
14, 1917, GA
174).
The map says desert in the area occupied by Russia. There it was decided to conduct socialist experiments. And this in the ’Eighties of the 19th century! Whole libraries of books were later to be written, and mountains of corpses piled up, as ‘arguments’ for and against communism. This process is still not finished. When the ‘Perestroika’ was announced, no-one said that the ‘experiment’ was now concluded. The experience of recent years shows that it continues, only the method has been altered.
If we wished to judge these things in the spirit of Herr Lindenberg, we would have to say: My Goodness! Just look at the ‘All-Operator’ Rudolf Steiner brought into the world! – And we would have to express regret over the fact that because of it we can no longer read a newspaper hoax with indifference. But there is yet another way – one can bring forward additional arguments. In the ’Seventies an anti-Semitic ‘blockbuster’, printed in France in Samizdat and entitled Dezionization, was in circulation in the Soviet Union. In it the said map was reproduced. Is this not reason to shout: just look how these communications are used for one’s own purposes!
When Rudolf Steiner spoke of the map he gave the following explanations:
Truly, I speak of this in order to communicate facts of knowledge to you, and not in the least because I want to act in an agitating or political way ... I am very far from wanting to frighten anyone, to persuade anyone to believe this or that or to become anxious in this or that direction ... And if I say these things, I do so on the assumption that you are sensible enough to take them in the right way (Ibid.).
And
this we are
doing – thanks
to
spiritual-scientific
knowledge we
aim to
disperse the
pernicious
effect of the
ahrimanic
assault on the
spiritual and
social life of
humanity. With
calm assurance
we cast aside
all ‘taboos’
of knowledge,
well aware
that Ahriman
flees those
centers where
human beings
recognize a
lie and kindle
the light of
spirit
knowledge.
Rudolf Steiner also points to the fundamentally important fact that Middle Europe with its population of 150 million inhabitants in a territory of 6 million square km was surrounded by the 777 million inhabitants of the Entente States in a territory of 68 Million square km (cf. GA 65, p. 448). Three quarters of the earth’s population lived in the states of the Entente. This figure alone cannot but be of significance for anyone who looks at realities (Jan. 6, 1917, GA 174).
In addition, behind what happened in Austria in July/August 1914 ... there indeed stood financial powers whose origins are possibly not in Austria itself, but for which Austria was an instrument for the achievement of certain things. It was not especially difficult to realize them when one was dealing with the ruling ‘Nibelungen’. But by and large there stood behind the totality of outer and inner factors that led to the unleashing of the world war the expansion of the imperialism of the English-speaking realms ... , that which was able to lead, from every corner, to reasons for declaring war if one ... so wished, that is the transformation of the so liberal politics, the politics that had become so liberal in the middle of the 19th century, into the English imperialism of the 20thcentury (Nov. 9, 1918, GA 185a).
Of course its expansion would not have been crowned with success if Europe and Russia had preserved their spiritual health. But that is another problem. The crises of world development can be resolved in different ways. The very emergence of Anglo-American imperialism, occult-political in its innermost nature, is itself a consequence of the spiritual crisis of civilization, the crisis of knowledge. Therefore the path to its resolution lies solely in true knowledge; but only spiritual science is in a position to remedy the lack of knowledge. And if its representatives do not do this, no-one will. At the same time we should not be surprised that in anthroposophical circles the ‘piled-up wall’ against true social insight will continue to grow ever higher. – Indeed, it is precisely in our circles that the hysterical cries will sound louder than anywhere else in the world against anyone who seriously studies Rudolf Steiner’s historical symptomatology and dares to try and apply it to current situations.
We will not elaborate further in how thorough and comprehensive a way Rudolf Steiner has proven the innocence of Austria-Hungary and Germany in the preparation and unleashing of the First World War.(2) Only an extremely prejudiced, and, in most cases, illintentioned person who serves entirely different aims can convey the impression within our circles that he finds Rudolf Steiner’s communications unconvincing. Let us conclude our discussion of this theme with an indication of the program which Rudolf Steiner presented to the public during the war. It would have been quite different – he said – if in the middle or even in the autumn of 1917 this [social] threefolding had been acknowledged by a country of importance, either Germany or Austria, as a declaration of the impulses of Middle Europe, over against the so-called 14 Points of Woodrow Wilson which had been drawn up from an American standpoint. This would have been a historical necessity at that time. I said to Kühlmann: (3) You have the choice, either you attend to reason now and listen to what is being heralded in the development of humanity as something that ought to happen ... or you will see a time of revolutions and cataclysms.(4) – Instead of listening to reason, we got the treaty of Brest-Litowsk, the so-called ‘Peace’ of Brest-Litowsk. (And later, one might add, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.)
Just
think how it
would have
been – this
can be said
without
presumption –
if at that
time, in
opposition to
the so-called
14 Points, the
voice of the
Spirit had
sounded into
the thunder of
cannon. All of
Eastern Europe
– anyone
familiar with
the forces of
Eastern Europe
knows this –
would have
understood the
idea of
substituting
for Tsarism
the
Threefolding
of the social
organism. Then
what was
actually
supposed to
happen would
have come
about (Apr.
21, 1919, GA
192). But one
did not listen
to the voice
of the Spirit; the
Bolshevik
revolution
took place in
Russia, while
in Germany
National
Socialism came
to power. Thus
the evil chain
of events
began: some
loved England,
the others
loved Lenin
and Rosa
Luxemburg. The
victory over
‘German
militarism’
became the
‘sacred goal’
of West and
East, and
therefore the
impulse of Social
Threefolding could
not assert
itself in
Middle Europe
in order to
save Russia
from the
Bolshevism
which, in its
turn, drove
Germany into
National
Socialism; and
then came the
Second World
War.
The map is taken from the book "Occult Lodges" by Karle Heise. Leipzig 1921
A stern historical lesson was taught, demonstrating how dangerous it is not to take account of the spiritual mission of nations, and how closely the peoples are bound together in a common destiny. It is an extremely dangerous illusion to believe that the good of one nation can be achieved at the expense of others.
Social Threefolding
The lessons of the past were not learnt; people are simply prevented from understanding them rightly. Thus they will be repeated over and over again. And life in the world will progressively worsen. In this way, not only the epoch of the consciousness-soul will be utterly destroyed, but the future of the entire earthly aeon. All that the peoples of the world can now do is to follow the path of mutual understanding and mutual positive influence, mindful always of their individual tasks in the spiritual evolution of the world. At present this can best be understood by those who turn to spiritual science. The more knowledge we draw from it, the greater the weight of responsibility we bear for what happens in the world, and of guilt whenever we refuse to understand the social reality within which all great concerns of humanity now unfold.
There is already a great deal that we have failed to do. But at least we now grasp that the Socialism of the Bolshevik kind and National Socialism are two caricatures, two hideously distorted images of the idea of social Three-folding. If the task of social threefolding was to create favourable conditions for a conscious awakening to the Second Coming of Christ, an event that has taken place in the world of ether-forces since 1933, then Bolshevism and National Socialism represent two forms of the ahrimanic-luciferic resistance against the Christ in His second appearance.(5) These two monstrosities brought endless suffering upon mankind – in order completely to divert man’s attention away from the spirit.
The First World War was the result of a grave spiritual crisis.(6) It demonstrated clearly that the time of the social world-systems from the epoch of the regency of the Archangel Gabriel had expired with the beginning of the epoch of the Archangel Michael. For spiritual reasons, therefore, and not for the reasons thought out by Marx, capitalism had to give way to social Threefolding.(7) But the ‘14-point programme’ of Wilson – who, as we know, is the bearer of the ahrimanic incorporation – was set against it. Parallel to this a ‘socialistic experiment’ was prepared by the secret societies – and exported to Russia. It was known in the occult societies that the impulse of the new sociality streams from the Spirit, that the conditions for this had matured on earth and that the developed self-consciousness of man is no longer willing to endure the last form of slavery – the sale of human labour. It was becoming dangerous to ignore the decree of the spirit and it was impossible to do away with it entirely. Therefore the impulse was given free rein, but in an Ahrimanic sheath. From the beginning both Russia and Germany were subject to attack. It is especially important to know this, in order to understand Russian-German relations in the 20th century. First, one made use of ‘Nibelung’ Ludendorff,(8) who allowed Lenin and his ‘comrades’ passage to Russia in a sealed carriage.
This secret is revealed in the world today. Documented reports are shown on television, but they are always presented in such a way as to awaken the impression that Germany alone is guilty of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, that Germany alone provided the Bolsheviks with money.
Of course, the participation of Germany in these events cannot be denied altogether. But it has to be rightly interpreted and understood. It was Germany’s role to ‘lay a noose around the neck’ of everything that united the destinies of Germany and Russia, of everything they had in common, with the help of the German ‘Nibelungen’ such as Ludendorff. At the same time, Germany was to be compromised with regard to the more distant future that has only now begun. The Russian ‘Nibelungen’ played into the hands of the German ‘Nibelungen’. After they had formed an interim government consisting of members of Masonic Lodges, they proclaimed on the one hand: Fight the war against Germany to the victorious end! – But on the other hand they began to transfer power to the Bolsheviks. An entire system of Lodges laboured at this, including princes and earls of Norman descent, such as Rurikides and other aristocrats.
But
there were
also healthy
spiritual
forces in
Russia; the
support they
needed was of
a different
kind. They
needed an
ideal and this
ideal was to
have been the
realization of
social
Threefolding
in Germany.
But the
Germans were
afraid. If
your
suggestion
were realized –
Rudolf Steiner
was told in
high
‘Wilhelmine
places’–, the
Emperor will
have to
abdicate. Well – he
replied –, if
that is what
circumstances
require, then
so it has to
be. One
did not dare
to take this
step, although
the Emperor’s
time was
already over –
consequently
he had to go,
but the right
moment had
been missed.
Something
similar
happened in
Russia. Here
the
alternative –
Tsar or social
threefolding – did
not apply, the
idea had no
representatives
among the
Russian
intelligentsia
– but the Tsar
ought not to
have abdicated
just at the
time when
Kerensky had
already handed
over all
positions of
power to the
Bolsheviks.
The Tsar
should have
held out to
the very end
(though it is
difficult to
judge whether
at that point
there was any
hope at all
for Russia).
Germany Between the Treaty of Versailles and the Bolshevik Revolution
The combined working of the German and Russian ‘Nibelungen’ was crowned by the Peace-Treaty of Brest-Litovsk through which Russia was handed over to the arbitrariness of the Bolshevik terror. The peace given to Germany was not much better. Ludendorff explained that, if Germany did not lay down its weapons within 24 hours, the greatest catastrophe would happen. But five days later when the capitulation was already signed he admitted that he had erred – there had been no reason to lay down weapons!
How tragic was this mistake? Today we base our judgment on the conditions of the war that was waged then. And here we must realize that the outcome of the war was decisive for the world-situation in the post-war years. By the end of the First World War the forces of the Entente were already greatly weakened, but the most important thing was that everywhere there arose the greatest resistance to the continuation of the war. All means of propaganda were insufficient to hide the fact that it was no more than meaningless slaughter. The millions of human casualties led to the collapse of the whole of Europe. If Germany had held out a little longer, the conditions of peace would have been very different from those laid down in the Treaty of Versailles. Germany would not have been crushed under the burden of enormous reparations, her borders would not have been pushed back at the whim of the Entente.
It is not our intention here to prove the view, almost universally accepted today, that it was the Treaty of Versailles that created the preconditions for the Second World War. Another important fact must be taken into account: the danger of a Bolshevik uprising, which threatened the exhausted country.
There is much material to confirm this, but here too the author wishes to remain faithful to his principles and refer to the statements of Rudolf Steiner, also in the present case. In a lecture given in 1920 he refers to the letter of a German, printed in the Basler Nachrichten, on April 2, 1920. It says: We in Germany must accept that it is necessary to go through Bolshevism. Once we have gone through Bolshevism something better will come – we know not from where! (Apr. 18, 1920, GA 334). In another Basle newspaper Vorwärts there appears on April 2, 1920, the article The Politics of the Soviet Government in the Sphere of Religion. The author signed with his initials only and in it we find the following passage: Religion, which represents a fantastic reflex in the heads of people concerning their relationships to each other and towards nature, is doomed to natural decline through the growth and the triumph of the scientific, clear, naturalistic view of reality that will evolve parallel to the building, according to plan, of the new society. Rudolf Steiner remarks: How many people read this in a newspaper article and recoil as though stung by a viper, because it is the most terrible symptom that can be expressed in such sentences? For one does not think what will come about on earth if what lies within the word: ‘Religion ... ‘ were to be realized in practice (June 13, 1920, GA 197).
What can we say today? – There is no-one who would recoil! Two years ago the autumnal Festival of the Archangel Michael was celebrated in Dornach under the motto of a statement once proclaimed by Rosa Luxemburg. The weekly Das Goetheanum wrote about it and no-one recoiled as though stung by a viper.(9) This can only mean that the Members of the AS/GAS are asleep. This kind of provocation serves as a form of medical evidence to prove the death of the ‘patient’ beyond a doubt. – But here we are digressing too far from the theme.
In 1921 Rudolf Steiner spoke of a Jesuit book in which we read: For all those who take Christian principles seriously, those to whom the well-being of a people is a concern of the heart, those who have taken the words of the Saviour ‘Misereor super turbam’ (I have pity on the masses) deep into their souls, for all these the time has now come where, borne along on the undercurrent of the Bolshevik tidal wave, they can work with and for the nation with far greater success. Do not be hesitant. Radical and all-round opposition to ‘capitalism’, therefore! – to the exploitation of the people and its impoverishment through usury; greater emphasis on the duty to work, also for the upper classes; the provision of decent living-quarters for millions of compatriots, even if this means the occupation of palaces and larger dwellings; the exploitation of natural resources, of water and air power, not for trusts and syndicates but for the benefit of all ... the use of the idea of the system of councils (Rätesystem) ... alongside parliamentary representation of the masses ... in order to prevent the ‘isolation of the masses from the state apparatus’, rightly criticized by Lenin ... (Apr. 29, 1921, GA 204).
A Russian, reading these words, will exclaim: Pah, that is Bolshevik propaganda through and through! True enough, so much has been achieved with and for the nation! But what have the Jesuits to do with it? And who told them about the profound nature of the system of councils as a form of State serfdom?
If we still remember the content of the earlier chapters of this book, we can answer this question without difficulty. Think of the deep affinity between Jesuitism and Americanism, of the Russian author K. S. Mereshkovsky, remember that Rabbis and Monsignori sit together quite amicably in the high degrees, and, finally, remember the tactic of the ‘two daggers’.
It was not in vain that Lenin waited so long in Zürich, in a bourgeois country. When one searches through the archives and libraries of Western Europe, scans the bundles of newspapers from that time in English, German and other languages, it is easy to conclude with certainty that Germany was threatened by the Damocles sword of a Bolshevik revolt. Our ‘dictators of the proletariat’, feverishly busy at the time carting entire wagonloads of gold, diamonds and art-treasures from Russia to Europe, were proclaiming loudly that Bolshevism would soon have gained victory there too, and one would then be able to bring everything back. Clara Zetkin wrote openly in Berlin how the streets would be renamed once Bolsheviks were in power.
Thus Germany too, after untold sufferings, was threatened with the reign of terror that had already descended upon Russia. How terrible, how insatiable this reign is in the perpetration of evil, was known in Europe right from the beginning. In the first years after the revolution in St. Petersburg hundreds of thousands of emigrants came to Europe and told of the unimagined misfortune that had come over humanity, and spoke of it as something without equal in world history.
The situation in Germany in those years reminds us literally of that in Russia from February to October 1917. In order therefore to understand the choice made by Germany(10) at that time, one must make a comparative analysis of the events in both States. In Russia it had only become clear after the Bolshevik revolution what kind of power was ruling the state. One had meekly accepted much fine-sounding talk, similar to that in the Jesuit book (compassion for the masses, etc.). On the other hand a gigantic conspiracy (not a ‘conspiracy theory’) was at work and invaded like a cancer all ‘cells’ of society. With the help of this conspiracy it was possible to eliminate all rational thinking forces in Russia. The masses were subjected to the influence of inspirations and suggestion; the press and public proclamations were used and tasks assigned to specially-trained agitators and speakers. But the use of a hitherto unknown terror opened the eyes of many and they stood before the question: How can the plague of Bolshevism be overcome? Under those conditions there was only one way – the setting up of a military dictatorship and the declaration of a state of war in the land.
In our time, where only cries for democracy can be heard in East and West, it is extremely difficult to come to an understanding of such questions. In making such a statement we do not wish to step forward as an opponent of democracy, nevertheless it is our conviction that a true democracy is only possible under the conditions of social Threefolding; in the absence of these it is no more than a convenient pretext for groping in the dark. Here too we would refer to a statement of Rudolf Steiner. This so-called democratism (of the English kind) – he says in an article – is suited only to make the people of Middle Europe into a part of English-American world domination, and if in addition we were to become involved in the so-called inter-State organization of the present Internationalists, we would have, as Middle Europeans, the wonderful prospect of being always outvoted within this inter-State organization (GA 24, p. 340).
This is
the holy
truth! No
other verdict
is possible.
Exactly the
same applies
to Russia. It
is no less
than the formula
of the
‘Perestroika’. But
in former
times too, in
the period of
the so-called
‘cold war’,
the principle
was used, if
in a veiled
form. The
origins of all
phenomena of
this kind are
to be sought
in the first
quarter of our
century and
even in the
last third of
the previous
one.
In this way the darkness that spread over Europe in 1914 turned in 1917 into an ‘Egyptian darkness’. Only through the strictest discipline could the assault of the infernal forces be arrested. In Russia the search began for a personality able to assume the powers of a dictator. General Kornilov was approached. He was at first undecided – even amongst the generals the spirit of democracy prevailed at the time. But finally circumstances forced him to act. The atrocities of the Bolsheviks were gaining the upper hand and there was simply no choice. Thus the ‘White movement’ was formed, but the moment for setting up a dictatorship had already been missed and the civil war broke out.(11) Kornilov put himself at the head of the ‘White Army’, but a program was lacking that could have inspired people, that could have aroused more enthusiasm than the false promises of the Bolsheviks to share out the land and factories. ‘Loyalty to the Entente’ was proclaimed, and it was just this Entente that brought the downfall of the ‘White Army’ by sending its advisors, through whom it worked in the inter- est of the Bolsheviks. All this is described in detail in the books of those who participated in the events. General P. N. Krasnov for instance, participant in the White movement and author, reports openly in his novel From Double Eagle to Red Banner that the representatives of France and England in the ‘White Army’ were members of Masonic Lodges and, through the mediation of Russian Freemasons, were active on both the ‘white’ and the ‘red’ side. General Denikin indicates the same in his memoirs.
This is how events unfolded in Russia, and exactly the same would have happened in Germany. The Germans, however, knew what a Bolshevik victory would have meant: the complete physical annihilation of entire social strata – not only the bourgeoisie, but also the intellectuals, the clerics, a large part of the farming community, the entire middle class, small business entrepreneurs, the petty bourgeoisie and the merchants. For in Russia even those were destroyed who had completed a secondary education, and, under the pretext of the economic elimination of farmers with large estates, the healthiest stratum of the peasantry was eradicated. Lenin declared openly that the Bolsheviks were ready to eliminate as much as 90% of the population for the sake of retaining power in their own hands. It seems as though they would even have sacrificed 99%, because after all no more than a few specimens of humanity are needed for the artificial breeding of a ‘new man’, the happy inhabitant of the ‘earthly paradise’.
The German communists had similar views.(12) Meanwhile chaos, hunger, unemployment ruled the country, cities and industry were destroyed, and on top of all this there lay the burden of the immense reparations. When the Golem of Bolshevism raised its head over the devastated country, no great intelligence was needed to understand that Germany, like a person facing certain death, had to make some desperate movement in the hope of a last chance of survival.
This is how it was in France, when the Vendée, driven to despair by the terror and the dictatorship of the Jacobins, armed itself for an uprising. Shortly after this, Napoleon was enthusiastically embraced by the entire nation, which followed him in his adventures. So it was in Russia, where the desperate self defence before Bolshevism continued until 1941, when even the attack from outside was experienced as a liberation, and 4 million soldiers not only surrendered but were ready to fight against the hated power in their own country – but it turned out that what came from the West was just as much of a plague.
We must always keep these things in mind if we want to understand why the Germans supported their dictator who declared himself to be an enemy of Bolshevism. The first fascist organizations were formed as resistance-groups against the communists, and for a long time there was sporadic street-fighting between these groups, with the communist assailants thoroughly beating the national socialists.
A dictatorship is certainly not an ideal way out of a situation. But what else can one do if the choice is between two dictatorships, one of which has already shown its savage face? More recently the Americans made a film about Stalin in which they show that Stalinism was worse than National Socialism. The Americans say today that Stalin outdid Hitler in evil. (Churchill said after the war that the wrong pig had been slaughtered.(13)) We may therefore conclude that Germany chose the lesser of two evils. Thus Russia is experiencing today a wave of renewed pogrom-propaganda, behind which the outlines of a new dictatorship grow visible, whereas Germany is strengthened again and has been able to provide its citizens with decent living conditions! Germany did not have to pay so dearly for the consequences of National Socialism as Russia did for those of communism, which continue to this day and will, so it appears, finally bring us to the grave after all. At least the National Socialists did not eliminate millions of their own compatriots. Officers and Generals knew how to take care of their soldiers during the war. For the Bolsheviks the war was simply a convenient way to continue the genocide. One tries now to make Stalin responsible for all this, as though the senseless operations of Kharkov, Kiev and the Crimea that costs hundreds of thousands of human lives had been solely the work of his hands. But it has been frequently noted that wherever another leading member of the ruling clique, Voroshilov, had a part to play, the Soviet army had to suffer overwhelming defeats etc.
As a
result of the
war the USSR
lost 27
million lives
on the fronts
alone –
Germany lost
six million,
more than one
million of
these at
Stalingrad,
where a
‘prominent
Nibelung’ –
Paulus – led
the military
action. After
imprisonment
as a P.O.W. he
remained in
the ‘German
Democratic
Republic’.(14)
After
the war nearly
one million
German
soldiers and
officers – all
of them young
– died in the
prisoner-of-war
camps of the
Western Allied
forces. One
million
Russian
emigrants were
forcibly
handed over by
the British
via Vienna to
the Soviets –
where certain
death awaited
them – as was
generally
known. Thus
are revealed
the secret,
the true aims
of the war.
They consisted
in the widest
possible
elimination of
the population
of Middle and
Eastern
Europe. Why? –
The purpose
behind such a
course of
action has
been explained
here in
detail.
The Crisis of Social Understanding, and its Causes
From whatever point of view we look at it, all this is cruel arithmetic. But no-one should accuse us of leniency to National Socialism. We merely recommend that the events should be looked at as they actually took place, because mankind is about to see them repeated. The hellish face of Bolshevism was more terrible than the Nazi regime, but a Nuremberg Trial has not to this day passed judgment on it. Some farcical proceedings were arranged in Moscow and Berlin, and the court decided: ‘The Party’ – you see! – ‘overstepped its authority’. This was the only offence! – The cannibals forgot to use a knife and fork!
How could this happen? – Simply because the Nuremberg Trials took place immediately after the end of the war and in the general confusion it was possible to wipe out all the evidence. Under present conditions the question can be asked: Who are the judges? It became clear in Honecker’s trial that he had intended to bring something to light; but Ceausescu had to be executed swiftly, without court proceedings or lawful judgement.
It is not difficult to guess that, if the Germans had won the War, Roosevelt, Churchill etc. would be spoken of as Nazis are spoken of now. And it would be entirely justified. Let us remember Dresden. In the course of a single night hundreds of thousands of women, children and old people are killed – for a single reason: Germany must be punished! Then Japan is punished.(15) The war has already ended, but the number of casualties grows still further – by millions! But double-standards are applied. Let us take the example of General Vlasov’s army and the ‘Red Chapel’.(16) Vlasov’s soldiers tried to fight against Bolshevism – but not against Russia – with the help of the Germans. The Red Chapel fought against the Nazis – for the victory of Bolshevism in Germany – with the help of the Bolsheviks. Nevertheless, Vlasov’s soldiers are regarded as monsters, traitors, whilst the members of the ‘Chapel’ are heroes; this is also the way Anglo-American propaganda presents it. The examples could be continued indefinitely, and still no-one becomes wiser.
Rudolf Steiner warned: ... things that make up the modern life of culture cannot be maintained in the long run, if something enters this modern cultural life that has arisen out of it, but contradicts it in the most radical way. But absurdity lies in the fact that things are brought forth out of life itself, that then contradict it. We must therefore prepare ourselves for the eventuality that difficult times may come for our movement also. They will not lead us off the right course if we have taken into ourselves inner certainty, clarity and the right feeling for the meaning and the nature of the movement; if in such difficult times we are able to look beyond the individual-personal ... if we are able to turn our gaze towards the matters of critical concern for humanity. The greatest is this: to gain an understanding for a mode of thinking that is true to reality. – Everywhere, at every step, we see the impossibility of finding a mode of thinking that is true to reality. The heart has to be engaged in such a question, then we will not be led astray through all kinds of egoism (Jan. 30, 1917, GA 174).
It is egotistical when many anthroposophists respond with nothing but an expressionless gaze and a polite nod when the fact is mentioned that Bolshevism cost us 100 million human lives. If they are asked: ‘Did you read the GULAG Archipelago?’ – they answer: ‘Yes, I know that book, I leafed through it once. But read it? Oh no, it is too thick. Why do you Russians always write such thick books?’ But when the conversation turns to German history, together with the key to understanding we have given here, then something happens to this same person that forces us to change the subject, so as to prevent them from having a brain seizure. It is understandable why this should be. The lie has already ‘struck’ the ether-body of the human being. When a true word is spoken, irregular ‘beats’ occur in the interplay of nervous system and circulation, resulting in hysteria. The spirit-being of the lie causes a mutiny in the astral body, and cannot be exorcised by arguments or explanations since it is already rooted in the ether-body, into which it enters by way of the rational soul which has been suggestively influenced by the press. A person of this sort, when confronted with truth, experiences fits of suffocation and a rush of blood to the head. A discussion with him is therefore senseless, foolish and dangerous. To stick to his old prejudice – to the lie – is for him a question of being and not only of consciousness. We can find these people everywhere today: in Germany, Russia, politically engaged or non-political; and not a few are to be found even among anthroposophists. One must learn to grasp that they are not anthroposophists, as little as, for instance, the Jesuits are Christians.
Rudolf
Steiner spoke
of the above
in Jan.
1917, before the
monarchy was
overthrown in
Russia. It
would be wrong
to believe
that he was
merely
pointing to
the imminence
of this event.
He was, of
course,
referring to a
whole complex
of events that
we are unable
to disentangle
even today
because we try
to do this in
too simple a
way. But we
need to
consider and
to grasp wide
historical
connections.
Already in the
years 1870-71,
says Rudolf
Steiner, the
so-called Alsace
question arose
between
Western,
Central and
Eastern Europe
as an
insoluble
problem. People
who stand
within reality
knew already
that this is
an insoluble
problem ...
There stood
before the
gaze of their
souls what
special
preconditions
were being
created for
the future of
Europe through
what happened
there, they
saw how the
urge will
arise in the
West to call
upon the
entire East (Oct.
19, 1918, GA
185). Since
then we have
learnt that
these
preconditions
were enough to
unleash two
World Wars, and
they are not
exhausted yet.
– ‘No!’ – the
anthroposophists
immediately
reply – ‘only
one! Maybe one
can with some
reluctance
accept Rudolf
Steiner’s
claim that
Germany was
not
responsible
for starting
the First
World War; but
the Second is
the fault of
Germany, and
only Germany!’
The facts are
powerless in
the face of
this outcry –
nevertheless
we should
always return
to the facts.
Those who cry
out will come
and go but the
human race
endures, and
so will its
history.
Who is to Blame for the 2nd World War?
It has generally become an axiom in the world at large that the Germans are always guilty of everything. For mass-consciousness this is a very convenient formula, a role popularly called by the name ‘whipping boy’. Such a boy is always there as someone to vent our spleen upon and to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for us. Once in a while an anthroposophist is required as a whipping boy – then people start to talk of Rudolf Steiner’s mistakes. He foresaw this too. For we must be clear – he said – that the time can come again – today I choose my words very cautiously and therefore say: can come –, when, because peace is not wanted at all, the conflict will be ferocious, maybe still more ferocious than it has already been, if something does not come from one side or another to prevent this ferocity. Then the possibility will be found again to talk of the atrocious deeds of Middle Europe, and under the ruins and the rubble one will bury the fact that one could have prevented these atrocious things oneself if one had not responded to the appeals for peace with the bellowing of a bull. It lay after all in the hands of the forces of the periphery to bring about peace. But the time will come ... where it will again be said: The Germans are doing this or that in violation of all rights of nations (Jan. 8, 1917, GA 174). These words have to do with the Second World War!
There is a lecture by Rudolf Steiner in which he speaks directly about the Second World War, or – more precisely – about the Second World War in its inseparable connection to the Third. Our research merely confirms the correctness and depth of his foresight, the view of the world founded this time not on super sensible experience, but on an analysis of the political, cultural and spiritual tendencies in the world during the first third of our century. He says: There are a number of people already – and this number will quickly grow –, who grasp that it is entirely impossible to go through anything else but a revolution if one continues to work in the old sense. Just as in the old sense people were told: we have to wage a war in order to quell the revolution in our own country, so nothing other is meant than that work has to be done, particularly amongst those people of the West who are versed in the old way of thinking, to prepare the ground for the Second World War. There is no other way than, in order to overcome inner Bolshevism, to work in the West towards the Second World War. You can hear the cry from the lower strata of society: World-revolution! This idea of world-revolution can only be shrouded in a fog through the unleashing of this Second World War catastrophe. There cannot be any other way (Jan. 2, 1921, GA 338, Dornach 1986).
It is an astonishing fact that there is one (only one) person – not in the West, not even in Middle Europe, but in Russia – who exposed the lie of the Second World War. We refer to Viktor Suvorov and his book The Icebreaker. Destiny prepares strange paths indeed for the people of this century. We can say that this man walked by the throne of Satan himself and yet was able to reach the light of day through his own strength. As an outstanding military specialist and an unusually sharp-minded analyst he proved irrefutably that the Germans started a preventive war against the USSR. We will not go into details of the book here, as it needs to be read in its entirety.(17) Discussion is impossible with anyone who does not do this (it is published in various languages). Many in Russia as well as in Germany will not read this book, for the reason given above: It triggers off irregular heartbeats in the interplay of nervous system and blood circulation. A person who has adopted the English-Soviet-American version of the cause of the War risks suffering a collapse after reading this book.
Suvorov’s position is unshakeable in that he refers to sources accessible to the public, and to the testimony of Soviet generals. For example, at the end of the book he quotes Admiral Kuznetsov, a witness of the highest rank: J. V. Stalin made preparations for a war – extensive and all-round preparations – ... Hitler thwarted his plans. (This is one eyewitness testimony out of hundreds!) On the other hand, Suvorov writes, General Field Marshall W. Keitel said: ... aggression was prepared by the Soviet Union. Germany merely protected herself from the unavoidable aggression by carrying out the preventive strike. Both say the same thing!
In this connection Suvorov asks a question of tremendous importance, he addresses the conscience of his contemporaries, wherever in the world they may live. But to this day conscience has remained silent, thus bearing witness to the stark and merciless character of the spirit of our times, the spirit of cowardice, betrayal and opportunism. Suvorov writes: It is clear to me that the judges of the ‘International Tribunal’ in Nuremberg did not have the wish (or the professional honesty) to find those truly responsible for the war. But I cannot understand why the same ‘judges’ did not immediately reassemble in Nuremberg after the revelations of Admiral Kuznetsov, in order to lift a part of the guilt from Keitel, Jodl, the German Wehrmacht, and from Germany as a whole?
My
Lord Judges,
would you
please explain
to us your
strange
attitude? The
accused of
Nuremberg did
not plead
guilty to
aggression
against the
USSR. The
‘offended’
side has
admitted that
no-one carried
out an act of
aggression
against them,
that on the
contrary, the
‘offended’
party was
preparing an
at- tack. How
can it be,
Lord Judges,
that you were
in such a
hurry to hang
Keitel and
Jodl but that
you are now in
no hurry to
hang
Kuznetsov,
Zhukov,
Molotov? Why,
Lord Judges,
do you
maintain your
accusations
against
Germany, but
hesitate to
press charges
against the
USSR?(18)(19)
Bolshevik and National-Socialist “Chess-Moves”
‘But who are the judges?’ – we ask again. Today it is all those who repeat at every opportunity and without a second thought: the Germans committed a crime ‘against all international rights’; all those who are ‘ashamed’ to admit to being Germans. – ‘You didn’t see’ – so goes their cry – ‘that the Germans gave unanimous support to Hitler!’ – No, I didn’t see it – I reply –, but I have seen unanimity enough of the Soviet peoples in their ‘acclamation’ of a whole gallery of tyrants and torturers. And I know what this ‘unanimity’ is worth. I am not the only one to have noticed that these two kinds of unanimity are alike as twin brothers.
There are differences too, but they have to be sought for where it is forbidden to look. Let us trespass against this restriction. First of all we would remark that the impulse of social Threefolding in Middle Europe was the only alternative to the slide into chaos. And it had the same significance for Russia. Those in the occult societies who prepared the world war were preparing mainly for war against social threefolding. Thus it was not so much the economic destruction of Germany and Russia that was the primary goal of these forces, but rather the falsification of social threefolding, which represents the greatest obstacle on the path to their far-reaching goals. In Russia an ‘experiment’ is begun – an ahrimanized caricature of social threefolding. Owing to the spiritual conditions in Russia the experiment soon starts to ‘founder’. So antisocial is the condition that arises, that – as Rudolf Steiner says – neither the English, nor the North American, not to mention the French or any other government will find a means to counter it ... But one power can cope with it: and that is the power of Rome ... Rome is able to impose a system of domination, because Rome has the necessary instruments of power to do so (June 6, 1920, GA 198).
Rudolf Steiner says this on June 6, 1920. But then the decision had already been taken to part company with the ‘Lenin Guard’. Thus the seizure of power by Stalin and his clique was already predestined! In 1920 a transfer of power began, from the representatives of the Western secret societies to the representatives of the occult-political forces of Rome; naturally the decision came from the highest unified center. Rome’s ‘means of power’ are known – the ‘lowering’ of the spirit to the level of primitive catch-phrases and slogans, the play on national ambitions, the rearing of happy idiots – and all this in a situation where we already feel the axe in the back of our neck. With Stalin Russia virtually entered its ‘Paraguay-Phase’.
Events took a different course in Germany. There the forces of the Western secret societies had been rebuffed right from the beginning, and one would assume that the ‘forces of Rome’ had a hand in this. With good reason Rudolf Steiner speaks of Middle Europe as being pervaded by Jesuitism (cf. Nov. 3, 1918, GA 185). Through taking advantage of the natural aversion of the Germans to Bolshevism, Jesuitism created a luciferized caricature of social three-folding. In Russia the call went out to ‘renew’ everything. In Germany the restoration of the Middle Ages takes place, to the sounds of the ‘music’ of the old ‘Nibelungen’-inheritance. In either case, the two world powers ‘reap’ the ‘dividends’, which can be easily proven. Rudolf Steiner says: If the ideals of Berne social democracy (meaning the Congress of Berne of 1919) were to be fulfilled, then towards free America ... all free forces would of necessity drain away ... [so that] Europe falls into pauperism and America becomes rich; not through some injustice, but through the folly of European social politics (Feb. 15, 1919, GA 189). At the time it was not possible to realize those ‘ideals’; their success was all the greater in 1945. Though outwardly Russia stood irreconcilably against the world bourgeoisie, for years it supplied the latter continuously with cheap raw materials etc. Consider the value of the grain imports from the USA alone over the past 30 years, with the simultaneous conscious destruction of one’s own agriculture! On Jan. 6, 1993 the most liberal newspaper Moskovski Komsomolets reported that, owing to the critical situation in the capital, it had been decided to bake bread with the imported flour which, however, becomes hard and inedible after two or three days – one had no recipe for baking bread with American flour. And this one had woken up to in 1993! What then had happened to the imported grain from the USA in the previous years? Had it been fed to the cattle? But on the one hand this would have been terribly expensive; on the other – there is no meat either!
R. Riemeck writes in her excellent book Middle Europe – Balance Sheet of a Century of the three forces that have determined the fate of Europe – The United States, Russia and the Vatican. That which was not yet possible in 1919 was accomplished in 1945: the destruction of the Middle. Through the First World War the Danubian Reich was dissolved (thanks to the ‘right to self-determination’), through the Second World War it was possible to crush Germany (with the involuntary collaboration of Hitler). Looking at this event we must think again of the secret maps of the ’Eighties of the 19th century.(20) And she ends her book with the following words: Neither in the First nor in the Second World War did everything go according to plan.(21) R. Riemeck’s statement that Germany has become a victim of its own ruling class is true. In addition to this, however, the fruits of ‘re-education’ start to show, there are ‘disorders’, ‘rhythmic disturbances’ in the spiritual and organic structures, and R. Riemeck arrives at the following conclusion: Germany heaped upon itself a heavy burden of guilt not only towards other nations but also towards its own folk-spirit'(22)
These are contradictions through which Western thought is led into a blind alley and – we dare to assert – calls up a third world-wide conflict, after which the human capacity to think will most likely be abolished altogether. But so long as things have not reached this point it is our task with unstinting energy to take the path out of the blind alley and the wilderness, forwards to the path of history and evolution.
When
the ‘socialist
experiment’
was being
prepared in
Russia,
alternative
possibilities
had also been
thought of.
Rudolf Steiner
pointed for
example to
bank- notes
bearing the
Swastika, that
had been seen
in the
possession of
Russian
diplomats.(23)
If the
civil war had
dragged on, or
the Bolsheviks
had been
routed between
February and
October 1917 –
who knows
whether the
world would
not today
speak of a
Russian
Fascism? In
Germany the
Bolsheviks had
not been
allowed to
come to power,
hence one of
the
alternative
solutions was
applied here.
It must not be
forgotten
that, since
the First
World War, no
people of the
earth can
resist any manipulation
whatever that
is undertaken
against it.
George Orwell
wrote a
utopian novel,
but it should
be clear to
everyone that
all that he
describes
could in
reality just
as well be
done to
England.
Speaking of the above-mentioned map Rudolf Steiner remarks: Nothing special has been said about the Scandinavian peoples; it seems as though they will probably be granted a really long period of clemency (Jan. 14, 1917, GA 174). This is the solution to the riddle of the relatively happy liberalism existing in the Northern European countries. But of the U.S.A. Rudolf Steiner says that free thinking will have come to an end in the year 2000. Of this there can be no doubt. It will then become apparent that not only the Russians, with their inclination to slavery, and the eternal militarists (the Germans), are capable of creating Imperiums of evil, but the freedom-loving Anglo-Saxons have this capacity too.
These are the realities and we cannot fail to grasp the fact that in these worldwide ‘games’ the peoples have been assigned the role of eternal ‘martyrs of history’, and that with modern methods of oppression it is enough to bring together a small number of the mob that exists in every nation, in order, with their help, to rule over millions of people, torment them in camps, execute them, slaughter them with pickaxes (Cambodia), convert them into living dead, into zombies etc.
Rudolf Steiner wrote in 1920 that, if one were to continue ‘state-political’ activity in the traditional sense in Europe, in Germany, then one would see in the near future another monstrous form arise out of declining Bolshevism. A form to which they (those active in this way) would have a closer affinity than Russian Bolshevism (GA 24, p. 185).(24) And that is what happened. The principle of the ‘two daggers’ works on the level of entire nations. In their flight from the Golem of ahrimanized Bolshevism the Germans were unable to keep their balance and realize Rudolf Steiner’s idea of social threefolding, but fell into the arms of the luciferic Golem of political Romanism. That this is what it was, can be gathered from a lecture of Rudolf Steiner that is very well known among anthroposophists, in which he says that the representatives of the principle of the Catholic Church were intending in the very near future to reconstruct the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation with the aim of eradicating the anthroposophical heresy with fire and sword. And National Socialism was this ludicrous attempt: Under the guise of reconstructing the Imperium there occurred a virtual repetition of the Thirty Years War, instigated at that time by the Jesuits with the aim of eradicating the heresy of the Reformation (Feb. 1, 1920, GA 196).
For the
reader who
needs
confirmation,
through later
testimonies,
of Rudolf
Steiner’s
social-historical
communications
we would like
to quote a
remarkable
source – a
book that
already
existed in the
anthroposophical Samizdat 40
years
ago.
The author’s
name has so
far not been
revealed to
us; he signs
only with the
initials
S.C.R. Written
in 1956, it
has nine
chapters, all
of which are
devoted to the
same complex
of questions
as the present
book. In one
chapter S.C.R.
presents an
article by the
Finnish
historian Dr.
Werner Knapke
entitled Jesuit
Power Politics
– the Rise of
National
Socialism which,
despite some
onesidedness,
provides a
very good
illustration.
S.C.R. writes
in his
introduction: Whoever
takes the
trouble to
study Catholic
literature and
the journals
of the
Catholic
world, in
Germany and
abroad, from
the period
1932-1938,
will find,
from this side
too, the
connection
between
Jesuitism and
National
Socialism
absolutely
proven ... It
is clear to
anyone who
looks, even a
little, behind
the scenes of
the history of
the past few
decades, that
Hitler was an
instrument of
Jesuitism and
other forces,
which, through
the use of
ceremonial
magic to
influence him
via the
ganglion
system,
prepared him
for the task
of destroying
the German
nature and
character ...
that Hitler
was a manifest
instrument of
certain occult
forces with a
definite task,
the
destruction of
the
‘I’-impulse of
the Germans
... Hitler was
made executor
of the will of
Wilhelm II, as
Lenin and
Stalin were
executors of
the will of
Tsarism.
Concerning the books of Karl Heyer (When the Gods Forsake the Temple) and Prof. Wilken (Spiritual Scientific Lines of Development) S.C.R. says that they provide an excellent characterization of the nature and meaning of National Socialism. But they do not advance to the real connections, and its relation to Jesuitism and Americanism.
In
the article by Dr. Werner
Knapke we read: Who was
the great victor in the First
World War? Only the Papacy.
The House of Hohenzollern was
shattered as the supreme power
of Protestantism – Tsarism
also was destroyed as the
support of the Greek-Orthodox
Church!
Regarding the Second World War
Knapke speaks of Jesuit-led
‘Axis-Fascism’ and
quotes Stampa,
June 9, 1941, to the effect
that Hitler
and Mussolini are organizing
Europe in accordance with the
Papal Encyclical of Pius XII.
– Rerum Novarum.
Knapke further says that
no-one had access to Hitler in
the fortress of Landsberg, only the
Jesuits went in and out, day
and night, to see him. The
first to pave the way for him
was the Jesuit Brüning
who was unable to stay in
power, as wakeful Prussian
Protestantism felt
instinctively repelled by this
Jesuit. Another figure had to
appear – the Jesuit of highest
degree von Papen ... whose
appointed task it was to pave
the way for the man who wanted
to be a new
‘pseudo-socialistic’ Ignatius
of Loyola. Who does not recall
how Hitler hurried to the
German Papal
observer immediately
after every Reichstag
election, or to the personal
friend of Pope Pius XI ...
Cardinal Faulhaber, and to
Pacelli (the present Pope Pius
XII)? [Von Papen] brazenly
declared that the ‘Third
Reich’ would realize the
principles of the Papacy in
theory and practice ... On the
Day of Catholics 1939 in
Frankfurt am Main all German
and foreign Catholics are
admonished to support Hitler’s
Nazi dictatorship. And Knapke
points to Hitler’s first
governmental act: Concordat
with Rome! (p.
2-7).
Here we conclude the quotes from this Samizdat-book, which ought really to have been published long ago. Its author to an extraordinary degree understood very shortly after the war the questions discussed in our book. Only social indifference, intellectual laziness or cowardice can make it possible for us to imagine the history of the 20th century as it is presented by the interested powers behind the scenes, through historians, journalists and numerous ‘anthroposophists’.
The entire history of the Roman battle against the spirit bears the imprint of a unified style. During the Thirty Years War, which has been thoroughly erased from European memory, everything living was stifled at birth. The entire population of Europe was punished, apparently according to the Leninist principle whereby 90% of the population is expendable if only the goal is attained. Whether it be Lenin or Trotsky, Hitler or Stalin, or the leaders of the Anglo- American nations – they are all beyond good and evil in their actions where the destruction of the living spirit is concerned, and we should not deceive ourselves. Bormann wrote in 1939: [The] Führer [has] decided: members of the Anthroposophical Society ... are still more dangerous than members the Lodges, because they infect far more people with their ideas.(25)(26)
It would be good if anthroposophists would at least learn from these examples to stand towards their actions with a true sense of responsibility. Very often the foes of Anthroposophy understand better than its friends the great importance it has in the world. In the enemies’ eyes the greatest sin of Anthroposophy lies in its daring not to be guided by the forces behind the scenes. And a relentless battle is waged against this ‘sin’ of ours. Only the methods change. It seems as though we have now arrived at the fatal threshold. At any moment they will have made ‘virtuous’ people out of us and we will be ‘like all the rest’: easily led by the Brothers of Shadow. Among themselves (in the high degrees) they have no insoluble problems, whatever turn the battle may take in the laymen’s world. The decisive battle is being waged against the heavens.
Everything
possible is
done in the
world to
obscure this
fact. Much can
be discovered
over the
course of
years, but not
this – so they
think. Hence
the enormous
difficulty in
gaining
clarity about
the true
causes of the
World Wars. –
The devil
shows his
hooves in
order to hide
his horns,
then presents
the horns in
order to
distract from
the hooves.
Who can seize
the devil by
the horns and
hooves
simultaneously,
and cast him
into God’s
wide world?
Only on this
condition can
human beings
devote
themselves
again to their
own true
concerns.
R. Riemeck writes in the above-mentioned book that Hitler had not intended to fight a war in the West. As late as August 1937 he said: I want to live in peace with England and conclude a final treaty. When he marched into Poland he did not expect England to declare war on Germany. The interpreter who handed Hitler the note from the British Government, Schmidt, reports: Hitler sat there as though transfixed and stared into space ... After a while, that seemed to me like an eternity, he turned to Ribbentrop who had remained motionless at the window. ‘What now?’ Hitler asked. Thereupon Schmidt entered the vestibule and reported what had happened. Göring said: ‘If we lose this war may God be merciful to us.’ Goebbels stood in a corner silent and Schmidt concludes with the words: ‘All around I saw downcast expressions.(27)
What does this show? These are, so to speak, the ‘hooves’. The ‘horns’ peep out on the other side: eyewitnesses speak of the despondency of Stalin, of ‘alarm’ in the Kremlin. What an unusual case! Nothing but surprises and unexpected events! These people are directing world politics, have knowledge of the enemy’s every move through a wide network of espionage operating deep in their territory and, when the other acts, it comes as a complete surprise. Even Suvorov’s book brings only partial clarity in this matter.
If Hitler did not intend to fight against England in 1939, still less did he intend to invade the Soviet Union at this point, nor yet one year later, because scarcely a year lay between the elaboration of the ‘Barbarossa’ plan and the beginning of the war. What then did Hitler want? If one looks at the events occurring on the surface, which were greeted with enthusiasm even by those at the pinnacle of power – half-amateurs as they were after all – then the plans of National Socialism extended no further than the establishing of a kind of ‘Holy Roman ... ‘etc., but on a new – socialistic – basis. This was sufficient to completely paralyze a free spiritual development in the center. In the East Stalin and his ‘comrades’ pursued the same goals. The seeds of the spirit were negligible in the Anglo-Saxon world.
But if
we were to
assume this
intention to
be the final
truth of the
matter, then
this would
mean to forget
the map and to
ignore the
‘socialistic
experiment’
that leads the
secret
societies of
the West to
world-domination.
In 1941 the
world came
into a
situation
reminiscent of
George
Orwell’s novel 1984, which
also speaks of
the necessity
of
concentrating
the global
battle-concept
in a unified
center. This
is exactly
what happened
in 1941, and
it is vitally
important to
understand
this above all
else. In
addition,
world
occurrences
since 1914
must be
recognized and
grasped as a sequence
of events
linked
together
through a
process of
reciprocal
determination.
The Russian-German Tragedy
Supposing the ‘White movement’ had won in Russia, the card of National Socialism could possibly have been played with us, and Bolshevism would have come to power in Germany. Then Germany and Russia would have exchanged roles. A new Entente would have come from Germany and destroyed ‘the hydra of Russian Fascism’.(28) The war would have taken place nevertheless, but the fate of Russia after the war might have been similar to that of West Germany. But this would have meant the rise of Russia, which was not to be permitted, and so the ‘Reds’ won.
The role of our ‘Whites’ passed to Germany, for National Socialism was experienced in Germany as a kind of ‘white movement’ fighting the ‘red pest’. But then we have to understand the Second World War as a continuation of the civil war in Russia. With the only difference that the civil war was more difficult to control than the Second World War. There were still relics of the old state sovereignty existing at that time.
The plan of the Second World War was as follows: The principle task always remained the same – the greatest possible destruction of the population of Middle and Eastern Europe, because it is the bearer of spiritual renewal. These are, and we stress the fact yet again, the same goals as those pursued in the First World War and the Thirty Years War, and also by Rome through the Crusades. It would be ridiculous to believe that the clique of Lenin and Stalin, which pursued a policy of genocide against the peoples of Russia, would spare the population in an external war. On the contrary, it saw in this a welcome opportunity to continue the genocide.
In Germany in 1944 a revolt could have taken place that would have brought an end to Hitlerism – the main evil, in the view of the Allies (if they are to be taken at their word(29)). But the opinion is not silenced yet, that the English side betrayed the conspiracy – which seems entirely plausible, since the war was fought against the German people, and the aim was to achieve the greatest possible destruction and unconditional surrender. Something similar happened recently in the war of the USA against Iraq. This war too, as stated in an issue of Das Goetheanum, was founded on the principle that the USA first created a dictator in order then to go to war with him.
For the attainment of this goal Hitler was given the opportunity to subjugate the whole of Europe with comparative ease. To set Germany alone against the Soviet Golem – would have been naive on the part of the Soviet Union. Readers are again urged to study Suvorov’s book, because he describes there in great detail the mighty battalions of war that were made ready in the Soviet Union for the invasion of Germany.
But it was not enough to reinforce Hitler with the resources of the whole of Europe. He also had to be given the opportunity to attack first. That a war would in any case have ended in defeat for Germany is very convincingly argued by Suvorov. But to ensure that both sides would thoroughly exhaust their forces and destroy each other, Hitler had to deliver the first blow.
Preparations for the invasion of Germany were conducted in the USSR in such a way that everything possible was done behind the scenes to prevent the USSR from delivering the first stroke. In fact the successful attack of the German army was arranged in the USSR under the cloak of preparations for the war. This explains the mystery of the terrible defeats of the Soviet army in the first months of the war. Suvorov describes how good roads led from the center of Russia to its borders, how all defences had been destroyed, barricades on the frontier were dismantled, etc. Outwardly it looked as though ‘the mouse did not stand a chance’ – the USSR was preparing an attack. But there are a few ‘nuances’ to this whole story.
The great pogroms in the highest command of the army belong here as well. There were too many people there who took Trotsky’s idea of the permanent and world-wide revolution too seriously. Even Suvorov’s book leaves a number of questions open in this connection. We are inclined to believe that he deliberately omitted some things, so as to give the reader the opportunity to think for himself. Let us consider, for example, the episode of the destruction of the mighty fortifications that extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea. They were mightier than the ‘Mannerheim-Line’ and, as Suvorov rightly says, had the German army encountered it in 1941, the Soviet army would have been in Berlin much sooner. This whole line of defence was blown up. Why? Suvorov writes that it could have been kept for an emergency, as in England, for example, defences were not destroyed even after the war. Indeed, when preparing an offensive war the risk of a retreat can never be ruled out entirely.
Suvorov writes that the system of defences prevented the masses of Soviet troops from concentrating secretly at the German border [because] it would have hindered the provision of the Red Army ... The secured territories as it were pressed together the transport columns.(30) This explanation does not stand up to critical examination. We therefore find it hard to accept that Suvorov, the gifted analyst, believes this version. The defence system consisted of bunkers well hidden under the ground, and of underground passages. Only the small safety-trenches of the shooting ranges were outwardly visible. Countless transit routes could have been made through this defence system.
Furthermore, Suvorov himself says: ... we have absolutely no answer – not even a false one – to the question: Why was it destroyed?(31) Or another riddle: The commander-in-chief of the troops of the NKVD(32) in White Russia, I. A. Bogdanov, decides on June 18, 1941 to evacuate the families of army personnel. Why does he do this? If one is so sure of a successful invasion that even the defences are destroyed, which guarantee the safety not only of the families of army personnel, but of the entire nation, then after the outbreak of war, the families could have remained behind in the hinterland which was receding even further from the theatre of war. But now what do we read? Suvorov says the following: Meretskov, Zhukov and Beria are to blame for the German army’s advance to the centre of the country. Did Stalin have them shot? No, soon afterwards they were all raised to the rank of Marshal.(33)
During the session of the Politburo on June 21, 1941 the head of the military secret service (GRU), Golikov, is asked whether he can guarantee that Germany would not attack. He gives this guarantee. What did Stalin do to Golikov? – Suvorov asks. Already on July 8 Stalin authorizes Golikov to travel to Great Britain and the USA and gives him personal instructions. After the successful visit Golikov takes over the chief command of armies and fronts ... , etc. After Stalin’s death Golikov rises still higher and becomes a Marshal. When we recall the fate of his predecessors – concludes Suvorov – during whose terms of office nothing had happened comparable to the invasion of German troops, and we compare it to the fate of Golikov, then there is no end to our amazement.(34)
Suvorov presents several more facts which suggest thoughts to the reader, that he himself does not express. Before the war, for example, enormous tunnels for a government control-point are dug under the strictest security measures into the rocks of Shiguli (a hill on the Volga) not far from the city of Kuibishev. In order to deceive German intelligence a hydroelectric power-station was built right next to it, and in Sverdlovsk the foundation-stone was laid for a bogus project. What, one asks oneself, is the purpose of the control-point on the Volga, if all defences on the Western frontier are destroyed and one is preparing for a war exclusively on enemy territory? It can only mean – that everything was a gigantic bluff! The intention was to fight differently, and the tunnels were used as planned.
Or another, seemingly trivial but nevertheless significant event. Zhukov, on the point of traveling to the troops standing by for the invasion – is ‘purely by chance’ – held up in Moscow for several hours. Failing this, he, the supreme commander, would have been caught up in the midst of the terrible slaughter of the German attack.
Hitler had thus been provided with all the conditions necessary for a successful ‘first strike’, and thereby the chances on both sides were somewhat balanced out. But everything was prepared for the subsequent defeat.(35) Hitler began Operation ‘Barbarossa’ without no preparation! – Suvorov writes. Why Hitler did this is likely forever to remain a mystery ... Hitler did nothing to prepare his army for war with Russia.(36) There was no warm clothing for the soldiers; the weapon-grease was not frost-resistant. Where the lines of defence were concerned the German generals behaved similarly to the Russians. The imposing security installations along the old German border (the ‘Siegfried’ line) were abandoned and never again occupied by troops.(37)
This was the situation. Consequently neither Hitler’s nor Stalin’s actions seem mysterious any longer. We need only to add that the survival of people chosen for the conscious execution of plans of this magnitude, is guaranteed. Thus it would be – according to our personal opinion – naïve to think that Hitler shot or poisoned himself. The people who brought those lives to an end were either amateurs or they were eliminated in the last moment. But those who were blind instruments in the hands of the mighty, and carried out orders in ignorance, were simply hanged.
The bitter truth of the history of the Second World War is that, if Germany had not invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, the Soviet army would have occupied Berlin two or even three years sooner – say, on May 9, 1942. Two weeks later they would already have marched into Paris and Rome and, another month later, into London. It is said that Bolshevik-Socialist Russia freed the world of the ‘Fascist pest’. Let us suppose that this was the case. But then the contrary assertion is also true, namely, that National-Socialist Germany saved at least a part of Europe from the ‘Bolshevik pest’. Anyone who does not agree with this conclusion must subscribe to the corresponding orthodox-Soviet position hailing the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 as the most glorious moment in Russian history, which was followed by decades of ever more unbounded happiness and which, furthermore, was about to spread across the whole world, etc.
National
Socialism
would then be
a natural product
of
‘decomposing’
capitalism,
whose most
glowing
representative
is the USA –
the bastion of
freedom and
democracy!(38)
In
order to find
a way out of
this truly
diabolical
‘dialectic’,
we need to
grasp that 20th century
mankind has
been condemned
to the
immeasurable
sacrifices of
human beings
for the sake
of one goal:
to allow
criminal
politicians in
their pact
with the
infernal
forces to rule
over this
humanity with
complete
arbitrariness.
And so long as
one celebrates
the victory of
‘Bolshevism’
or ‘American
democracy’
over
‘Fascism’, (ambiguities
suggesting a
victory of the
‘people’ are
no more than a
deceptive
chess move), of
‘Humanism’
over the
‘Forces of
Darkness’,
etc., so long
as human
beings do not
recognize the
true origins
of their
sufferings –
then these
sufferings and
the dark
occult-political
stratagems of
war will never
cease. Solely
by reason of
utter
irresponsibility,
of lack of
morality, of
boundless
stupidity,
blame will
invariably be
heaped on the
head of this
or that
nation, or
nations.
Nationalism
in Germany:
its Nature and
Origin
At the close of this chapter a few words need to be said about anti-Semitism, which constituted a significant part of national-socialist ideology. We do no more than repeat a proverbial truth, no doubt, when we say that any ideology that works with means of mass-suggestion has to be extremely simple and provide an elementary picture of the enemy. This picture of the enemy needs to work more strongly than that propagated by the rival ideology. In Russia this had not succeeded, because ‘the white movement’ was a natural protest movement and the groups of which it consisted were inspired by a variety of different ideals. Within its very broad spectrum was to be found a continuation of all the manifold spiritual, social, political and religious ideals that were alive in Russia before the revolution.
Not so in Germany. The natural protest against the onslaught of Bolshevism was taken there merely as a basis for the substitution of the picture of the bourgeoisie as the enemy of all peoples, developed also by the German communists, by the picture of world-Jewry – also as the enemy of all peoples. As to the immediate motive that led to the choice of this particular picture as a target for hostility, this was quite clear to everyone.
Now we have to touch on a question, at the risk of unleashing a whole avalanche of extremely emotional charges of anti-Semitism. Such charges will be fabrications, as we will attempt to demonstrate with the utmost thoroughness, though in most cases this proves to have no effect. This we simply have to accept, for what would be the meaning of a ‘quest for truth’ if, even in one case, we were to be untruthful? We will begin by stating a fact that is common knowledge in Russia, but whose mention is taboo. There is no official prohibition, nor has there been any attempt to refute it (which is hardly possible since it is an easily-proven historical fact). In spite of this one has succeeded in bringing it about that anyone who draws attention to it is immediately labelled an ‘anti-Semite’. But we will point it out nevertheless. In the years following upon the Bolshevik October Revolution of 1917 more than 90% of the upper echelon of government power in Russia – the Russian Central Executive Committee, the ministries (commissariats), the Cheka – consisted of Jewish personalities, many of them emigrants who had come to Russia in 1917. There is no reason whatever to consider this a mere coincidence. Nor can it be looked upon as natural. In the USA for instance one would not say that it is obvious that the highest echelons of government should be staffed with Blacks, nor would the French willingly accept to be governed by the Arabs, etc. But in this connection we must recognize that the Marxist-Leninist International began its triumphal progress across the planet according to the racial principle. It therefore called forth its antipode – National Socialism – according to the same principle. Thus the strictly racial selection of the citizens of the state of Israel, the racial integration of the Arab world and also of the Black people in the USA etc. can clearly be traced back to this race-Internationalism. This hapless initiative simply does not come to an end – or rather, its end is imminent as a complete breakdown of civilization, which threatens to degenerate into a world-wide racial conflict. Hence it is by no means the anti-Semitism of ill fame that makes it necessary to examine this question. It is far too comprehensive to be confined to some antipathies between the nations, even though all the radio and TV-stations in the world are dedicated to the single task of glossing over the causes of this world tragedy. But if we do not want to repeat the mistakes of history we must recognize and acknowledge them.
This was therefore the tip of the iceberg of Bolshevik power, the circle of people the work of whose hands was the Bolshevik revolution, terror etc. In the lower levels of the hierarchy of power their involvement was less, but still astoundingly high; and besides, these people usually held the key positions. Altogether the Bolsheviks were actively supported in the country as a whole by around 1.5 million Jews. And this circumstance undoubtedly represented their national tragedy, since without this support the Bolsheviks could not have remained in power.
Even the oppression which the Jews had to endure in Tsarist Russia cannot be accepted as an excuse, since the February revolution had already granted them all civil rights. There exist numerous authentic documents no-one has so far discredited. For example the words are known of the American banker Jakob Schiff, who telegraphed the following message to Milyukov, a member of the interim government: Allow me, an irreconcilable enemy of the autocratic tyranny that has relentlessly persecuted our co-religionists, to extend my congratulations to you and thereby also to the Russian people ... and to wish you personally and the members of the government every imaginable success in your great work. Another member of the interim government, Prince G. E. Lvov, said in a response to the greeting of N. M. Friedman, the president of the Jewish Political Bureau, on April 16, 1917: You were absolutely right when you pointed out that it was a great honour for the interim government to take from the Russian nation the shame of the absence of rights for the Jews. State-duma (parliament) Member N. S. Chkheidze, one of the most active participants in the February Revolution, can also be quoted. He said that one of the most important results of the revolution was the destruction of the main citadel of autocracy – the oppression of the Jews.
But for some reason all this proved not to be enough. Immediately after the Revolution a Samuel Roth wrote quite candidly in a book with the suggestive title Now and Forever, New York, 1929: Where once we were oppressed and persecuted, we are now – the proud and merciless persecutors ... We, the Jews, have gained freedom [in Russia] and have mightily avenged ourselves on our enemies.
The question remains whether we can dismiss declarations of this kind as empty chatter, for which no-one is responsible. Can we judge history by pretending that these statements and documents do not exist? We would be glad to hear a variety of constructive opinions on this, but it is unlikely that anyone will be eager to divulge them. On the other hand we can, already now, imagine the terrible breathing-difficulties they have provoked in some of the few readers who have advanced thus far in the book. We can assure you that we would much prefer to write about more pleasant things, but not at the price of serving the spirit of Ahriman.
However, the spirit of truth also requires that I dismiss those who over-emphasize the idea of the Jewish quest for world-domination. Otherwise we would call in question everything that has been said in this book so far. This we will not do. We still adhere to the principle according to which a people cannot be blamed for what a small part of that people does to it and to other peoples. If the Russians are offended when someone speaks of ‘Russian Bolshevism’, then why should other nations not have the right to react in this way too, in similar situations? But this cannot always be done openly. Thus the Jews also are, with respect to the manipulations to which some of them have yielded, almost as unfree in their criticism as the Russians were in the time of Bolshevik rule. The time will certainly come when the Jews themselves will say quite freely what we are describing here. For already now there are individuals among them who use their healthy common sense and have the courage to break some of the taboos forbidding one to call things by their proper name. Strange as it may seem, in the first years after the Bolshevik revolution Winston Churchill came out openly on their side. In 1920 in the Illustrated Sunday Herald of February 8th he wrote.: ... there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country thoughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life, and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew living in England would say: ‘I am an Englishman practising the Jewish faith.’
... In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.
Then we read further in Churchill’s article what we have already said on the basis of other sources. Thus anyone who wishes to accuse us of prejudice will have to redirect his accusation to Churchill, who continues: There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably out-weighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. (Lenin is no exception either.) Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Chicherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krasin or Radek – all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses. The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people (emphasis by the present author).
We merely repeat a generally-known fact when we say that a certain section of the Jewish people allowed themselves to be made into tools of occult Orders and Brotherhoods, who had begun a terrible social experiment in the world. This fact is documented from start to finish.(39) And now we should call to mind the forerunners of Soviet Bolshevism and the people who prepared the Bolshevik uprising in Germany. They were Marx, Engels, Lassalle, Bernstein, Katsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin etc. If we are able to think realistically it must become clear to us that the Nazis, in their attempt to oppose communism, could not do otherwise than to use the card of anti-Semitism; which was played into their hands in the most unrelenting way.
In order to complete the picture we refer again to Count Kalergi. In the first part of Practical Idealism, which he wrote in 1920, he makes the following declaration: ... the Jewish leaders of Socialism ... to these Jewish prophets of the present day, who are preparing a new world epoch, the Ethical is paramount in every sphere: politics, religion, philosophy and art (p. 27-28). What reason does he give for this? Because ... Einstein is at the forefront of modern science... Mahler at the forefront of modern music ... Bergson at the forefront of modern philosophy ... Trotsky at the forefront of modern politics (p. 51-52).
For our own part we wish to emphasize straight away that it would never have occurred to us to think of Mahler’s nationality, because his music is deeply rooted in the musical tradition of Middle Europe. Regarding Einstein we would remark only that no article could be published in the Soviet Union – regardless of its scientific accuracy – that criticized or corrected his theories. To place Bergson at ‘the forefront of modern philosophy’ is simply ridiculous; if Trotsky is placed at the forefront of modern politics, our only reaction is to weep. But Kalergi makes no such assumptions when he continues: ... The Jews are the lap out of which a new, spiritual aristocracy of Europe arises ... (p. 51). A view of the history of the Jewish people explains its advantage in the struggle for the leadership of humanity (p.49). The Jews as a people experience the eternal battle of quantity against quality, of inferior groups against superior minorities (p. 52), etc.
With his doctrines this strange but by no means stupid Count builds the foundation for a peculiar racial theory. Normally – he writes – the rustic human being is a product of inbreeding, urban man of miscegenation (p.20) and further: incest strengthens the character, and weakens the mind – cross-breeding weakens the character, and strengthens the mind ... creates original personalities (p. 22-23).
And now the reader must recall the declaration by Kalergi quoted earlier, about the Euroasiatic-Negroid mixed race into which all mankind(40) has to be transformed, and we arrive at a kind of end result to which he wants to lead us. According to his doctrine it is more auspicious and progressive to be of mixed race than a product of inbreeding, which is why the races are to be mixed. But not all of them: ... the Jews ... [are] inbred people. And the same time they are chosen: ... to be in their most outstanding representatives the leaders of urban humanity ... (p. 28); ... the superiority of their spirit predestines them to be a primary factor of an aristocracy of the future (p. 49).
Thus it appears that humanity, strengthened in mind though racial mixing, ‘mutates’ to original personalities, who are ruled by the Jewish aristocracy with its weak mind as a consequence of inbreeding!
It is pointless to search for any kind of logic in Kalergi’s racial studies. His ideology is such that it can last only as long as it is forbidden to think anything but what the State allows. It is therefore not by chance that Churchill founded the ‘European Union’ together with Kalergi in order to promote the realization of the latter’s ideology.
But if, in spite of this, we think about it in a logical and unprejudiced manner, we arrive at the conclusion that there is no substantial racial-ideological difference between the works of T. Kaufman, the book Practical Idealism, and Mein Kampf. And if there were differences – who could explain them? – But, please, only with facts at your disposal, and not with eyes popping out of your heads with anger. We, the inhabitants of Russia, have a right to ask such questions, because Russia has immeasurably more to do with the Jewish leaders of Socialism than any other nation. Many books have been written about its ethical and qualitative superiority as against the ‘quantity’ of inferior groups of the Russian population. Let us recall just one fact: when the man at the forefront of politics, Trotsky, organized the Red Army under total force, he gave the order to shoot the entire family of anyone who fled from this army or deserted to the ‘White Guard’.
It is a human tendency to banish the past from memory. The process is hastened by the fact that everything possible is done in our world to make us lose our connection to the past. One can scarcely find an older person today who would recall the contents of the newspapers of the ’Twenties or ’Thirties. But if someone still does have memories, no argument takes place, otherwise quite indisputable facts would come to light. Thus people who have retained their memory are stigmatized. These are evil political machinations that do not belong in the circle of anthroposophists.
We suggest to the reader who has accepted the far-reaching conclusions regarding ‘inborn’ German ‘militarism’ and ‘racism’ that he test himself, by guessing who made the following statement: The impending world war will not only make the reactionary classes and movements, but entire reactionary peoples, vanish from the face of the earth. And this too is progress! It is a statement by Karl Marx.
Let us turn to times closer to our own. In the Daily Express of March 24, 1933 the bold headline appeared on the front page: JUDÆA DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY – Jews Of All The World Unite In Action – BOYCOTT OF GERMAN GOODS. Was the German capitulation to be expected immediately there- after? But matters took a still more serious turn. The Jewish Chronicle said (Mar. 3 Issue) in 1939: The Jews will not allow peace, however much the statesmen and pacifists may strive for it.
In 1934 an eminent representative of the Zionist movement, V. Shabotinsky wrote in the Jewish newspaper Our Language: Germany is trying ambitiously to become a great nation and to retrieve her lost territories and colonies. Our Jewish interests, however, require the contrary – a final elimination of Germany. The German people as such represents a danger for us. Therefore we cannot allow that Germany under its present government should become even stronger than it already is.
The declarations quoted here should not only be justified by the seizure of power by Hitler. In 1932, before he came to power, Bernard Lecache (Lekah), President of the Jewish World League in Paris, delivered a statement that was repeated later, in 1935, in The Jewish Bulletin of July 27: Germany is, for us, State-Enemy No 1. And it is our task to declare war on it without mercy.(41) We – the Jews – are the strongest nation in the world because we have the power and know how to use it.
In 1938, in the June issue of the journal The American Hebrew, the following frank admissions appeared (p. 108): The coalition of England, France and Soviet Russia will sooner or later halt the triumphal procession of the Führer inebriated by success. By chance or intentionally, each of these nations has a Jew in a most important position.
The lives of millions lie in the hands of non-Aryans. ... President Leblanc is no more than a figurehead, but Duvalier took the burden on to himself for only a short time. Léon Blum (the French Prime Minister) is an outstanding Jew; he alone is to be reckoned with. He can without question still become a Moses leading the French nation at the right moment.
And Litvinov (the Soviet minister of foreign affairs, mentioned by Churchill) – He is a great Jew, the right hand of Stalin, that little tin soldier of communism (emphasis by the present author). Litvinov has become so important that he outshines every comrade in the (socialist) International, apart from the pale-faced guardian of the Kremlin (Lazar Kaganovich) ... It was he, who bought Roosevelt ... And Hore-Belisha (war minister in England) ... These three sons of Israel will join together to send the mad Nazi dictator to the devil ... Europe is doomed.(42)
If someone claims that statements and declarations of this sort, as they were often made in the ’Twenties and ’Thirties and which were unquestionably known in Germany, were not grist to the mill of anti-Semitism, then he is, or is at least pretending to be, stupid. But something else is true also. By no means all Jews, maybe only very few, condoned such provocative statements. Since they were uttered all the same, we must grasp the fact that those responsible for the forged document, known to us as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, in no way confined themselves to forgery but are working tirelessly to this day to make the forgery appear to be an original!
A Soviet song says: We are born to make the fairy-tale come true. Bolshevism has seemingly been pushed off the stage of world events. But the uncanny ‘fairy-tale’ of the Protocols is burgeoning into a frightening, spectral existence. To free them from this existence, it is necessary meticulously and exactly to research the historical facts and distance oneself loudly and audibly from any untruth. For Rabbis and Monsignori sit together somewhere and throw the world from one catastrophe into the next. They are ‘Internationalists’ in the sense that they are almost indifferent as to who is serving as cannon fodder for their occult-political manipulations – Germans, Russians, Americans, Jews, Serbs, Arabs or others.
Who is not accused of anti-Semitism today? Yet we need to investigate the origins and purpose of these accusations. The Russians were accused even before the Germans. The opinion was held that the Russian ‘White Guard’, which resisted the frenzy of Bolshevism, was imbued with anti-Semitism. But these people simply saw who the Bolshevik commissars were, who led the divisions of the Cheka(43) throughout Russia, etc. But the White Guard by no means turned against all the Jews, because among them there were quite a number who refused to defect unconditionally to the Bolshevik camp, and they were subjected to reprisals, or forced to leave the country. – ‘But’ – someone will object – ‘you say nothing about the annihilation of the Jews in the Second World War!’ No, this is not the case. It will be spoken of later.
In conclusion we would emphasize that the Germans – as also the Russians – can find the way only ‘vertically’ out of the present situation, i.e. through an appeal to the spirit, which includes an appeal to the truth. And it is just for this reason that they are so mercilessly bent down towards the earth – so that they cannot find this way out. Everybody has to decide for himself whether he wishes to further this tendency to bend them down.
Nothing
will be
accomplished
on the outer
plane. There
can be no
restoration of
State-sovereignty
or of
independent
politics. From
our own
subjective
point of view
we even tend
to sympathize
with
Chancellor
Kohl. He
continually
gives in,
makes
compromises.
But he has no
choice, and
after all –
Germany exists
and is at
least
economically
successful.(44)
If it
were to show
the slightest
recalcitrance,
the most
radical
Right-wing
groups would
immediately
assemble as if
by secret
command, they
would shoot
out of the
ground like
mushrooms and
win victories
in the
elections. Or
a wave of
terrorism
would sweep
over the
country. The
world press
would begin
shouting:
Look, the
Germans again
harbour bad
intentions
against all
the nations of
the world! The
most varied
sanctions
would be put
into place
with the help
of the UN.
Kohl hopes to
buy himself
freedom from
all this. He
can – for the
time being.
But the moment
when it is
decided behind
the scenes to
make an end of
Germany, he
will be unable
to avert. The
Germans will
then go into
exile and the
downfall of
civilization
will be
imminent, for
it is as
impossible for
civilization
as it is for
the human
individual, to
exist without
an ‘I’. but
such a future
can be
forestalled if
enough people
can be found
to direct
their plea for
the sake of
humanity in
spirit and
truth to the
divine
hierarchies.
Addendum to chapter 13
With the publication of The Icebreaker Suvorov broke, whether consciously or unconsciously – it is not for us to judge –, the secret ‘convention’ that for 50 years has made East and West keep silent about the true background of the two World Wars. Therefore it was interesting and important to see how the other side – the post-Soviet ‘Eurasians’, the ‘Polarians’ (we will speak of them in chapters 17 and 18) – would react to it. Now they have reacted at last. An article by the Moscow author Anatoli Lanschikov appeared in the magazine Nash Sovremennik (No. 5, 1994) entitled The Icebreaker sails to Ramm. In view of its overall content it can certainly be considered significant. It is of course tendentious, has been commissioned for ideological reasons and is therefore not written for the sake of finding the truth. It is significant because the side that to this very day has held to the original Soviet version of the beginning and origins of the Second World War lays aside the rules of ‘Soviet etiquette’ so to speak, and admits to having access to a fund of information that flatly contradicts the official version.
For Lanschikov, Suvorov is a traitor who placed himself in the service of the West and is therefore widely commended there. But this is not true. For also in the West The Icebreaker has largely met with a hostile response and a conspiracy of silence. Historians speciously promise to look into Suvorov’s arguments at some point. But for us something else is of importance. The article is interesting because its author, no doubt in retaliation for the breach of ‘convention’, brings forward facts that were kept secret even in the most tense periods of the ‘cold war’. He writes: In practice it, normally happens that the defeated side is declared guilty. But if we proceed strictly from the point of view of history, then France and England started the Second World War when they declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. This is a historical fact (p. 175).
Lanschikov accuses Suvorov of being influenced by the official, entirely false doctrine of ‘Agitprop’.(45) An admission of this kind, in which the post-Soviet ‘Right’ is in agreement with the ‘Left’ – the ‘democrats’ – is very remarkable. But what the Moscow author then writes goes, to an extraordinary degree, against the grain of neo-Bolsheviks as well as all the Western and pro-Western democrats: Of course the ‘Agitprop’ will yell straight away: Germany attacked Poland first, and only then did England and France ... This is all true, but we observe that Hitler first of all made some territorial claims on Poland. And if a Munich-38 was possible, why not also a Munich-39? I understand, the Poles are not Czechs, the Poles are a proud and combative people. But in addition to the Polish national peculiarities there was the Franco-Polish convention of May 19, 1939, which said that ‘France would lead an offensive action against Germany with the remainder of its troops15 days after general French mobilization’.
But on August 23, 1939, four months after the signing of the convention with Poland, the French General Hamelin suddenly reports to his government that the army would not be ready to carry out a serious attack for another two years.
And Field Marshal Keitel testified before the Nuremberg Court:’ We, the military, were always expecting the French attack during the Polish operation, and were very surprised when nothing happened ... In the case of an attack the French troops would have encountered very weak resistance and not a serious German defence.’
‘If in 1939 we did not experience a shattering defeat’ – General Jodl confirms – ‘then only because during the Polish operation around 110 French and English divisions, stationed in the West, took no action against 23 German divisions.’
... The American journalist William Shirer, author of ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’, assesses thus the war of Germany against Poland: ‘Nothing happened in the West ... soon it (the war) was being called the ‘peculiar war’.’ On September 20, 1939 Shirer wrote in his diary: ‘All the Germans I have spoken to are utterly convinced that not a month will go by before we will have peace.’ They had every reason to think so, since Hitler had declared one day earlier: ‘I have no intention to fight a war against England and France.’ The Italian foreign minister Ciano Galeazzo remarked at that time: ‘For Mussolini the thought that Hitler wages a war and – what is even worse – wins it, is simply intolerable.’
Lanschikov also mentions other facts. But above all – he writes – the French were expecting peace (the majority of the Cabinet Ministers spoke in favour of a peace conference). This is understandable. As a result of the defeat in the German-French war (1870/71), France was forced to pay Germany five billion Francs in reparation, but as a result of the victory in the First World War the ‘allied payments’ of France to the United States and England were four times higher than this ... reparation.
And Lanschikov addresses the following words directly to the author of the Icebreaker: Thus the French will wait in safety on the ‘Maginot Line’, the English on their islands and the Russians on the ‘Stalin Line’ (blown up immediately before the war!) while Hitler begins his ‘stroll’ through the rest of Europe ... Is this not marvellous indeed? It surprises you, Mr. Resun (Suvorov’s real name), that the government of the USA for some reason sold the license for the production of the S-47 tank to Stalin before the beginning of the war. Are you not, Mr. Resun, equally surprised for example by the circumstance that the Americans prepared an enthusiastic reception in 1937 for the Soviet military flyers Chkalov, Baidukov and Belyakov, who were the first to complete the Moscow-North Pole-Vancouver flight without a stop, and that they soon after welcomed another group of military aviators (Gromov etc.) who dared to fly the same route?
The Soviet military aviators ... reconnoitred the route, the path into the USA – the Americans ought surely to have panicked, but they rejoiced, welcomed the Russian aces. And in addition sell the license to produce the newest type of tank to the USSR. What a foolish nation ...
We cannot help but think of the intimidating military parades on Red Square and the flying demonstrations in Tushino.(46) These were after all held for the diplomatic corps and the foreign guests: the potential allies were to rejoice – the enemies tremble.
I cannot speak of the enemies, but the potential allies rejoiced, and not too little. The USSR was virtually flooded by authors like Barbusse, Romain Rolland, Feuchtwanger ... The latter wrote at the time: ‘When one comes from the oppressive atmosphere of lying democracy and hypocritical humanitarianism into the pure air of the Soviet Union, then breathing becomes easy ...’
Lanschikov also demands a revision of our ideas concerning the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Hitler. Again he quotes W. Shirer: President Benesch ... had no other choice than to submit. England and France had betrayed his country; nay, they were even on Hitler’s side. At the same time Hitler conceded after the destruction of the Czech defence system in the Sudeten: What we got to know about Czech military power after Munich – appalled us – we exposed ourselves to great danger ... I now understand why my Generals were holding me back.
Field Marshal Manstein testified during the Nuremberg trial: If Czechoslovakia had decided to attack, its defence system would have held without a doubt since we had no means of breaking through it. Poland too was not so helpless, by far, as we have been led to believe.
There are a number of other historical facts of the prewar period that challenge the traditional image of the polarizing crystal-pure forces of good and the forces of absolute evil. Hitler allowed Poland to occupy small parts of Czechoslovakia (the Teshin region with a population of 228,000), which Poland did. He allowed Hungary the annexation of Ruthenia with a population of 772,000. Or the following: After the signing of the peace-treaty between the Bolsheviks and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) the latter were freed from the repayment of any debt to Russia and were paid sums totalling 22 million gold rubles by a country that was itself in great need.
Another conclusion drawn by Lanschikov is of great interest. In 1937 Stalin received, despite the show-trails, much strong support from the European anti-fascist movement, to which not only the communists belonged. The ‘great manoeuvres’ in Spain (meaning the war) made visible the final constellation of forces: Hitler, Mussolini, General Franco on the one side; on the other the bloc of anti-Fascist states within which the Soviet Union bore the role of the most important military force, i.e. the force of attack.
This is where the reasons must be sought, for the glorification of Stalin, for the attacks on the Russian anti-Communist emigrants in France, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria ... If Hitler did not start the Second World War, then, according to logic and facts it was started by the bloc of anti-Fascist states, within which the roles were very clearly determined in the year 1937.
Lanschikov introduces a number of nuances into his article, which prove the necessity of the Soviet preparations for war and are meant to show Stalin to be Russia’s, albeit cruel, but only saviour. But if the reader has understood our book he will not run into this ‘dagger’.
The supplementary remarks to this chapter show once more the abundance of historical facts and well-founded reasons for the conclusions regarding the aims, the causes, and character of the two World Wars, also regarding the question of blame, which we have already arrived at on the basis of spiritual-science. To those who are unprejudiced but are still unable to free themselves from the hypnotic effect of the mass-media we suggest that they should reflect upon two questions put by Lanschikov to Suvorov:
Who is the most guilty for, and at the same time the actual instigator of, the First World War; Stalin, after all, was at that time still in political swaddling clothes and Hitler folded in political nappies?(47)
Why
did the very
good Roosevelt
and the merely
good Churchill forge
an alliance with
the very bad
Stalin and not
with the
merely bad
Hitler, who so
much sought
friendship
with England?(48)
2nd Addendum
to chapter 13
After the publication of Suvorov’s new book The Last Republic (Why the Soviet Union Lost the Second World War; part I) in early 1996, we cannot do otherwise than present some facts that will startle and, as historical facts, still further confirm the conclusions we have already come to.
Suvorov brings substantial arguments to challenge established opinion concerning the seizure of power by the National Socialists. He writes: In July 1932 The National Socialists obtained 13,7 million votes, but not an absolute majority. This was the high point, followed by a decline. In the space of four months Hitler lost approximately two million votes. But the losses continued at an even greater rate. By the end of 1932 the distribution of political forces in Germany looked like this: National Socialists 11,8 million, Social Democrats 8,1 million, Communists 5,8 million (p. 109 of the Russian edition).
Now the fateful question arose: with whom will the communists form a coalition? They had two choices: The first, to form a coalition with the Social Democrats in order to win the elections ... Then, to share the portfolios: the larger part of the ministries would go to the Social Democrats, the smaller – to the communists ... The second: to support the National Socialists. The outcome of this was easy to predict: Hitler, after coming to power, would send the Social Democrats, and also the Communists, to concentration camps. ... Herr Thälmann put forward exactly this – he supported Hitler (p. 113-114).
He did so, in order that the German Communist Party would become a respectable political force, but it did not draw its strength ... from the tenement houses where workers lived in Berlin, or from the steelworks of the Ruhr ... but from communist Russia ...
At a time when the National Socialistic ideologist Alfred Rosenberg had not even picked up his pen to write about the inferiority of the Slavs, the Soviet communists were already destroying millions of them ... Our concentration camps were the invincible economic force, the granite foundation for the German communists (p. 90-100).
The other fact in Suvorov’s new book relates to the beginning of the war. The reader can be deeply struck by the frank approach of the author and his symptomatological insight. He speaks of the topographical maps with which all military units are always supplied (in great quantities) since an army without such maps remains blind. Suvorov describes how many of the Soviet troops, who had been assembled at the Western border on June 22, 1941, were left entirely without topographical maps. He lists a number of eyewitnesses. One of the statements: The only copy of the map (division commander General Major H.J. Biryukov writes in his memoirs in 1962) that I could beg from the Chief of staff of the 21st mechanized corps, was taken away from me by our corps leader General Major J. P. Karmanov (p. 249).
Stalin’s son Yakov, who had been taken prisoner, said during the interrogation: The maps misled the Red Army because contrary to all expectations the war took place on the Eastern side of the border (p. 288).
As a war-expert, Suvorov proves irrefutably: The lack of maps in units, troops, and divisions of the Red Army had catastrophic consequences. It is impossible to guide them without maps. No matter how well-armed the division, how clever the commander, how courageous and experienced the soldiers, the division without maps remained an aimless herd. Such a division will suffer defeat and expose the hinterland to the enemy, where more strong and mighty, but undirected and therefore useless divisions are waiting. The Soviet field artillery had the best cannon in the world – and more of them than all other armies combined. But because of the lack of maps it was impossible in the first months of war to use such an artillery. A non-steerable infantry without the support of artillery was forced to retreat (simply run) thereby baring the front. After the infantry had had to abandon the front, it also surrendered to the enemy the shooting ranges and strategic supplies, border airfields, artillery – which are defenceless without coverage from infantry. The tanks without maps wandered about ... That was the end of the professional army ... (p. 254-255).
But why did the army not have these topographical maps? They had been printed in time and in vast quantities on the best paper and brought to the border regions where they were destroyed upon retreat or fell into enemy hands. Several thousand tonnes of these maps, around 200 million copies, had been prepared for all fifteen armies of the top strategic level. This was a case without example in world history.
Unable to find an explanation for this event, Suvorov presents a dialogue, that sounds like black humour, between General M. K. Kudryavtsev – the head of the military-topographical service in the country – and army General G. K. Zhukov.
Kudryavtsev : Georgi Konstantinovich (i.e. Zhukov), I have just decided to send off all our supplies of maps to the German border.
Zhukov: Hah!
That’s fine!
But what for,
Markus
Karpovich (i.e.
Kudryavtsev )?
–
Just like
that, I just
had the idea.
– Did
you not think
of a reason?
– I am in an awkward predicament. All day long I think, all night I think, I cannot come up with a reason. I have just decided to send them all to keep them there. There is no necessity or reason for it. I am sending all 200 million. When the Germans come, all the maps will fall into their claws with one swoop. Do you understand?
– Yes, I understand, I understand.
– Very well then. I will follow the order, Georgi Konstantinovich.
– Good, Markus Karpovich. Take all our supplies of maps straight to the border. As close to it as possible! Suvorov concludes: Funny, isn’t it? How I could think up such a situation! (p. 264).
Nobody has been punished for this ‘misdeed’ that caused the loss of the entire professional army, Suvorov exclaims in amazement. Therefore, he continues, I make the following offer: let us publicly proclaim Zhukov Georgi Konstantinovich an idiot. Let us pull down his statues and smash them to pieces, or let us together search for the reason why the places where the maps were stored (as well as the staff, information centres etc.) were situated ‘as close as possible’ to where they were lost in the first exchange of fire with the enemy (p. 268).
Marshal Zhukov was of course no idiot – that is an axiom. All we have to do is look for a fitting cause for the unparalleled ‘mistake’. Let us imagine: For days and weeks the core troops travel in thousands of trains to the Western borders. They are ordered to disembark at an unknown destination, far from large towns, often in deep woods. In this case officers would at least casually study on the maps the future destination, where at least some war exercise would await them. The topographical maps are travelling in the same direction as the officers, but ... separately, in other carriages! We now ask, what kind of maps were they? Suvorov does not answer this question. Let us assume that they were maps of Poland, Germany etc. But even in this case maps of the border regions of the Soviet territory would need to be available since the troops absolutely had to find the connection at every new point of transfer.
And finally, even if only the Soviet invasion was planned, which Hitler pre-empted by one or two weeks, this undertaking was not only dangerous but also senseless: to delay the supply of topographical maps to the troops until the very last moment, only to stand before the impossible task of delivering 200 million maps to fifteen armies within a few days! Under complete secrecy the maps could have been distributed in sealed packages where they were needed: with the troops. Maps that covered an area of no more than 50-100 km of foreign territory (assuming the scale of 1:100,000 for topographical maps) could hardly arouse suspicion.
From all that has been said and much more that Suvorov describes in his books, there is only one logical consequence to be drawn: The Soviet cadre army, consisting of millions of soldiers, was not only blind but bound hand and feet and transported to the Western frontier for one purpose: its destruction. For – we repeat – the main purpose of the Second World War was the greatest possible destruction of the population of Eastern- and Middle Europe. In order to prolong the war and ‘balance’ out somewhat the chances of Hitler and Stalin it was necessary to sacrifice the entire cadre army of the USSR and then put together an army of reservists. Therefore the theory that Stalin had prepared an attack on Hitler, but that the latter had forestalled him, is also no more than a half-truth.
Suvorov sees as his main task the exploding of the myth of the Soviet Union’s ‘non-preparedness’ for the war. He never ceases to be astonished at the colossal forces that support and spread this myth in the writing of world history. This puzzlement would vanish immediately if Suvorov could understand that the way to the solution of the riddle leads behind the scenes of the ‘Pandora’s box’ that has showered our century in such ‘abundance’ with unspeakable suffering.
If the five to six million people who died or were taken prisoner in the first few months had been killed by Stalin and his helpers or had been sent to the GULAG, it would not find special mention either in Soviet or in Western historiography. But since this took place with the help of another country in a state of war, a quite new working-principle of world power was demonstrated. The elimination of human beings, the destruction of countries – formerly the unavoidable and tragic consequence of war – is from now on the principal aim. The elimination of peoples, the battle against humanity – this was demonstrated by the tragedy on the Soviet-German border in the summer of 1941 (and then throughout the entire World War). Anyone who has read with inner participation Solzhenitsyn’s GULAG Archipelago and the memories of those who witnessed the Bolshevik revolution, of the civil war and the ‘purges’ is in a position to understand this horrific truth. Those who came to power in Russia in 1917 demonstrate a unified ‘style’, a unified goal: the relentless battle with the peoples of our land and mass-destruction with all available means. At the beginning of the Second World War this ‘style’ and goal acquired a world-wide character, a character reaching beyond the boundaries of the sense world, as will be shown in the following chapters, particularly in chapter 16. We wish to conclude this addendum with a further thought.
We may possibly live to witness the unveiling of all or nearly all of the secrets connected with the revolution in Russia and with the Second World War. To find the answer to the question, who will do this and why, and what will happen after that? – is the task of independent research.
Notes:
1.
Flensburger
Hefte, No.
32, p.
129-130.
2. We must mention a few more facts. Rudolf Steiner says: For me a most important basis for judgment is given, when I know that the personality (Moltke) singled out by circumstances to make the decision: Must we attack now or not? – was four days earlier in no position at all to concern himself with the situation in Europe, but is spending a carefree time ... in a resort (Karlsbad) (Nov. 10, 1918, GA 185a).
The German ambassador in London, Lichnovsky, asked the English Minister for Foreign Affairs on August 1: Would England remain neutral if the Germans did not infringe the neutrality of Belgium? – And this question was given an evasive answer! (The treaty regarding Belgium’s neutrality was signed in 1839, but Germany was founded as a State in 1871.) When he did not receive an answer, the German ambassador asked a further question, namely what the conditions are for England to remain neutral. This means: England was permitted to lay down the conditions under which it would remain neutral ... Great Britain did not want to give an answer to any such inquiry. On August 2nd, the following day, Edward Grey spoke before the English Parliament and did not mention a word of the conversation with the German ambassador. If he had said something about it, this session of Parliament would have taken a different turn! (Dec. 30, 1916, GA 173).
And what did the ‘Nibelungen’ do? For example, Kaiser Wilhelm was caricatured in the newspapers during the war as a cannibal, ready to devour the entire world.
In 1908 he said in an interview with the English Daily Telegraph: England has only one friend in Germany – myself. He explained further that an alliance had been suggested in previous years by Russia and France, and England owes it to him that this alliance did not come about – so much does he love England. – When the invasion of Belgium was being prepared, it was kept secret from him, the Emperor, the Commander-in-chief – until July 29, 1914. They knew: ... if he had been told today, tomorrow the whole world would have known about it, if Sven Hedin and so on, who so admired him, had come to see him (Nov. 16, 1918, GA 185a).
This Sven Hedin (1865-1952), well-known as a Swedish traveller, played a significant part in preparations for the Bolshevik revolution in Russia; at the same time his name appears in the annals of the history of the National Socialist rise to power. Years later, symptoms become visible to which Rudolf Steiner had already pointed.
4.
At times
‘anthroposophists’
come to us in
Russia from
the West, who
tell us that
Rudolf Steiner
had thought
like Karl
Liebknecht and
Rosa
Luxemburg, and
that many of
his statements
even accord
with those of
Gorbachev!
No-one
contradicts
them, because
they are still
in a profound
sleep
socially, as
in the time of
Bolshevism. In
the outer
world
Anthroposophists
are accused of
magic,
conspiracies
and Heaven
knows what
else. The
Orthodox
Church Council
(the most
secular
council of the
Or- thodox
Church abroad)
does not allow
them to take
part in Holy
Communion.
5. In our book Triune Man of Body, Soul and Spirit in the Light of Anthroposophy we have addressed at length the question of why the Second Coming began in 1933. The relationship of time and space plays a role here, in its totality expressed in the number 19 (12+7), etc.
6.
Literature has
handed down to
us an
impressive
picture of
this crisis.
Think only of
the novel Der
Zauberberg
(The Magic
Mountain) by
Thomas Mann,
in which it is
shown how the
two
world-forces
of which we
speak, wage a
battle over
the ‘I’ that
belongs to
Middle Europe.
7. This is why only a dimmed consciousness could perceive a connection between Rudolf Steiner’s views and those of Rosa Luxemburg and Mikhail Gorbachev. Socialists of all shades (at least in Russia) maintain now that Marx’ evaluation of capitalism was wrong, that the future belongs to capitalism!
8. It may be of interest to learn how Rudolf Steiner characterized Ludendorff. He emphasizes that the judgment that Hindenburg and Ludendorff were ‘great men’, ... truly spread with the force of an epidemic, when in truth they were no great men at all, not even from the standpoint of their profession ... [In Berlin] there stands a hideous wooden effigy of a person, the ‘Hindenburg’, big, gigantic, into which every patriot had to drive a nail ... (GA 186). One year later he says about his logic: He is the one to have earned the ‘great distinction’ of having been decisive in Lenin being transported through Germany and into Russia in a sealed carriage. He is the actual importer of Bolshevism into Russia. He does not dare to deny this openly in his book, although he dares a great deal. This is why he says the following: ‘To bring Lenin to Russia was a military necessity; but the political leadership should have averted the terrible consequences; this it failed to do.’ – You see, that is the logic of this gentleman (Nov. 14, 1919, GA 191).
The intention of Rudolf Steiner to set up a news agency in Zürich in 1916, to establish an independent information service, so that something would be there to counter the wild flood of lies about Germany in the Allied press, was prevented by the same Ludendorff. Rudolf Steiner says on Jan. 2, 1921: It had progressed so far that ... it looked ... as though we might be able to move to Zürich within the next few days in order to set up the press agency. The next day the annulment came from the main headquarters ... with the information that so many people in Germany are waiting for such a post that an Austrian cannot be selected for it (GA 338, 1986; Publisher’s Note).
13. On July 30, 1952 before the House of Commons.
14. The Moscow journal Cherniy Yashchik reported in 1994 that all the German soldiers who were captured at Stalingrad were packed into goods wagons and left standing in the frost until they were dead. According to German reports only 6000 prisoners returned home.
As to Paulus, a similar figure existed in Russia in the First World War. The outstanding Russian general Brussilow (also an aristocrat), loved by the Tsar (as Paulus by Hitler), deserted to the Bolsheviks after their successful revolt. The question: Could he gain victories in a World War? – Of course not. He did not win, with one exception. But then, Paulus, too, advanced as far as the Volga.
15. In his voluminous work Tragedy and Hope – A History of The World in Our Time (London/New York, 1966) Carroll Quigley concludes the chapter on the 2nd World War with the words: All this personal tragedy and material damage of untold billions of dollars was needed to demonstrate to the irrational minds of the Nazi, Fascist, and Japanese militarists that the Western Powers and the Soviet Union were stronger than the three aggressor states and, accordingly, that Germany could not establish a Nazi continental bloc in Europe nor could Japan dominate an East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. This is the chief function of war: to demonstrate as conclusively as possible to mistaken minds that they are mistaken in regard to power relationships. But, as we shall see, in demonstrating these objective facts in order to change mistaken subjective pictures of these facts, war also changes most drastically the objective facts themselves (S. 827). C. Quigley was Professor of History at the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University (the leading Jesuit university in the U.S.A.) formerly taught at Princeton and at Harvard. Bill Clinton called Prof. Quigley ‘the father of his political ambitions ...’ (Tagesanzeiger, Zurich, 5.11.1992; Publisher’s Note).
16. ‘Red Chapel’ – an espionage organization operating in Western Europe from 1936. It worked for the USSR and was directed from Moscow via Paris and Brussels (Pub- lisher’s Note).
17. Published in English The Icebreaker, Viking Press, 1990, ISBN 0241126223, currently out of print. Volume II was published in Moscow in 1994 under the title The Day M.
18. If we have retained a last shred of historical conscience it is impossible to ignore a further, essential aspect of the question. It is of the kind described by one of its most eminent representatives, the first President of the Jewish World Congress, Nahum Goldman, in his book The Jewish Paradox (Hamburg, 1992): During the War the Jewish World Congress in New York had founded an Institute for Jewish Questions
... Its leaders were two Jews from Lithuania, Jacob and Nehemiah Robinson. According to their plans two absolutely revolutionary ideas were developed: The Nuremberg Court and the German reparations.
The meaning of the International Court in Nuremberg is not quite correctly evaluated today. For according to international law it was impossible at that time to punish military personnel who had been carrying out orders. It was Jacob Robinson who had this extraordinary, sensational idea. When he put it to the jurists of the American Supreme Court, they thought he was mad. ‘What did the Nazi officers do that was so unusual?’ – they asked ... We had great difficulty convincing the Allies; the English were inclined to oppose it, the French were uninterested ... Finally we were successful because Robinson succeeded in convincing the American Supreme Court Judge, Robert Jackson (p. 166ff).
19. Viktor Suvorov, Leodokol (The Icebreaker), Moskau, 1992, p. 487-489.
23. In the first years of the ‘Perestroika’ such banknotes could be bought in Moscow second-hand shops.
24. The quote is from the book Thoughts during the Time of War. Herr Lindenberg wishes to convince us that Rudolf Steiner regretted having written the book and expressed his unwillingness to print a further edition. Rudolf Steiner, he writes, did not want the book to be published in a second edition. Personally I regret that he did not say openly ‘I do not want to see this book published because in it I proceeded from assumptions that are untenable’. But he did formulate this implicitly. (cf. Flensburger Hefte, No. 32, p. 133 and also the rororo Monograph by Lindenberg on Rudolf Steiner (where on p. 110/111 he suggests this attitude; Publisher’s Note).
25. With people of this kind the truth is always mixed with the lies whatever they say. Unfortunately, Anthroposophy attracts far fewer people than the Lodges – at a rough estimate, two to three hundred times fewer. The reason is that Anthroposophy con- tains within it a real spiritual force capable of disturbing the activity of the forces of darkness.
35. In May 1995 the memoirs of G. Klimov in which he describes his escape to the West appeared for the first time in the Moscow bookstores. The book had already appeared in Germany in 1952 under the title The Berlin Kremlin. Klimov describes how the first period of war between the USSR and Germany began on the day of the signing of the Soviet-German friendship treaty ... (p. 57). Every Soviet general-staff officer will laugh out loud if someone insists that Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union came as a surprise to the Kremlin ... Several weeks before the outbreak of hostilities on the Soviet-German front, many people in the Soviet Union heard reports on the English radio about the gathering of 170 German divisions on the eastern borders of the Reich. And the innocent lads in the Kremlin would have had cotton wool in their ears?! ... The Kremlin knew the balance of power very well, far better than the German High command. Despite the immense preparations for war it knew itself to be at a disadvantage. The only chance of avoiding a catastrophe was to wear out the enemy in a long-drawn-out war, making full use of the endless expanses of the country and Russia’s material and human reserves (p. 57/58).
The intended lines of retreat were already at this time determined in broad outlines, estimated casualties and available reserves were weighed up; the outermost point of retreat was already marked as Stalingrad. Dozens of millions of human lives were cold-bloodedly operated with on paper. Already then the war was divided into phases. Already then it was calculated exactly what had to be kept in reserve for the ‘third phase’. Everything else ... was condemned to be sacrificed in the ‘second phase’. When the war broke out the soldiers were sent to the front with old, utterly useless equipment; even the unsurpassed Model 1891 rifles were not available. At the same time dozens of millions of complete sets of the most modern equipment, rifles and automatic weapons, lay hidden away in sealed arsenals, packed carefully for long-term storage ... It happened that such arsenals burned out under gunfire or fell into German hands – not once did they come to be distributed in time to the troops ... Sixty-year-old men and women were sacrificed to the ‘defensive phase’, while the reserves for the ‘third phase’, the ‘phase of attack’, waited in the far East of the country, with rifles at the ready, for their deployment. It was no secret to the staff-officers that in 1945 huge quantities of weapons came to the front, a large part of which bore a production-mark from pre-war times (p. 59/60).
38. It is symptomatic in the highest degree that regardless of the extreme antagonism of the so-called ‘democrats’, ‘neo-Bolsheviks’ and ‘Nationalists’ of various shades in Russia today, they all agree on one point – namely, that Germany represents the eternal enemy of Russia and a permanent threat from the West. In 1994 a memorial to Victory Day was erected in Moscow with the utmost haste, which consumed vast sums of money (newspapers reported that the project had been developed in Germany and with it Hitler wanted to immortalize his victory over the USSR). Those of the ‘Left’ as well as the ‘Right’ considered this construction more important than help for the starving, dying population. Antipathy towards the Germans unites the warring groups in an amazing way and this is also the reason why it is not put to rest. In this way one can, after all, torment the starving country at one’s pleasure, in order then to lift it out of the mire a little and say: ‘Rejoice! You saved the world from the Fascist pest!’ – And this land even if it is already half-unconscious will jubilate for the hundredth and thousandth time, after which it can be exposed, now from the left, now from the right, to new adventures again.
39. Rudolf Steiner also pointed this out to his listeners. In one lecture he speaks of those involved in the signing of the Brest-Litowsk pact. A certain Mr. Joffe and a certain Mr. Kamenev, actually called Rosenfeld, were among them. Trotsky’s name is Bronstein; Joffe is a rich merchant from Cherson. The lawyer Kerensky (later President of the interim government) was successful in 1915 in the lawsuit against Kamenev, in providing evidence that the accused had not prepared the downfall of Russia, but had always fought against the Lenin secret pact (Jan. 8, 1918, GA 180).
Rumours go around today (in the anthroposophical press) that Rudolf Steiner may well have been inclined to anti-Semitism. No-one is spared this ideology. But in his lifetime, the newspapers styled him the protector of Judaism (cf. Oct. 1, 1917, GA 177).
40. In the course of the present civil wars in the Caucasus and in former Yugoslavia the huge number of rapes is often mentioned. The question arises: is this already the beginning of the realization of Practical Idealism, the program of general cross-racial mixing? I ask this without any ‘black humour’. For what humour could there be, when the leading ideologist of Pan-Europe, supported by another at the forefront of politics (Churchill), declares quite seriously that the Russians owe their best soul qualities to the rape of the Slavic women by the Mongols and Tartars?
41. This question has yet another aspect. If we take seriously all the declarations of war against Germany quoted here – and we have no reason to do otherwise – then we must bear in mind that all of them were successful. This being so, however, the responsibility rests with the victors, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner in a quote given at the end of chapter 12.
42. Remarkable things of another kind can also be found there, which we will speak about in due course. The article The crucifixion of the Jews has to end was published in the same magazine on October 31, 1919 by a certain Martin H. Glynn, former governor of the State of New York. He writes: From across the sea (i.e. Europe) six million men and women call to us for help, and eight hundred thousand little children cry for bread. ... six million men and women are dying from lack of necessities; eight hundred thousand children cry for bread ... In this threatened holocaust of human life ... because of a war that is being fought to throw despotism into the dust ... because of this war for democracy six Jewish million men and women face death by starvation on the other side of the ocean, and eight hundred thousand Jewish infants cry for bread.
43. Cheka – Russian abbreviation for ‘Extraordinary commission for the fight against counter-revolution and sabotage’; from 1922 GPU, then NKVD, now KGB (Publisher’s Note).
44. But in the world everything is full of alternatives. Let us remember again Clinton’s declarations during his visit in Berlin in 1994.
45. From Agitation and Propaganda. An institution for the ideological indoctrination of the masses (Publisher’s Note).
46.
The old
airport in the
close vicinity
of Moscow
(Publisher’s
Note).
47. The recent work of Thomas Meyer on Moltke provides much additional material on this question.
48.
In 1995 the
war historian
Volkogonov
(Moscow) and
G. Gorodietsky
– a specialist
connected with
Institutes
devoted to
Russian
affairs
research in
Tel Aviv and
elsewhere in
the West –
tried to
refute
Suvorov.
Volkogonov
appeared on
TV,
Gorodietsky
published The
Icebreaker-Myth. Both
merely showed
once again
that there are
no facts to
refute
Suvorov. This
is a great
pity, because
the more
unanswerable
Suvorov’s
position is,
the smaller
the hope
grows, that
the worst
prophecies for
our time will
not come true.
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Chapter 14 |