Hermann Rauschning (2)

The essence of Nazism

Nazism succeeded by disguising itself as an ally to a wide variety of Germans, even where this required obvious self-contradiction, as in the case of monarchists and socialists. Adding to this confusion, many members of the Nazi party itself, especially at the lower levels of the hierarchy and in the earlier years of the movement, would also have been taken in by such disguises. Which of these self-portrayals was the genuine one? Rauschning says that at its core, National Socialism was neither nationalist (right-wing) nor socialist (left-wing), but nihilist: concerned with the pursuit and celebration of unlimited power and energy for their own sake, with the liberating effect of violence, and with the elimination of ethical constraints. Every positive value was seen by Nazism as an obstacle to its open-ended domination, and therefore systematically demolished. The public Nazi ideology was merely a rationalization of the use of force. Nazism achieved power "almost without the slightest tangible ideas of what it was going to do" with it (Germany's Revolution of Destruction, p. 24). Neither nationalism nor even racism is an essential feature of mature Nazism.

This nihilism put Nazism in diametric opposition to conservatism properly so-called, whose own core is the concern for the preservation of traditional values, especially those deriving from Christianity. Conservatism and Nazism are both anti-liberal, but conservatives oppose liberalism as the destroyer of values, while Nazism seeks in effect to complete the work of liberalism, by destroying those values which remain after liberalism has collapsed, so that it can erect a totalitarian despotism in the spiritual desert.

For the very reason that we [conservatives] acknowledge the eternal values of the nation, and of a political order rooted in the nation, we are bound to turn against this revolution, whose subversive course involves the utter destruction of all traditional spiritual standards . . . . These values are the product of the intellectual and historical unity of Western civilization . . . . Without these, Nationalism is not a conservative principle, but the implement of a destructive revolution . . . . (p. xii)

The sole ethical value within the Party was loyalty to superiors, without which the Party, which encouraged rivalry between its constituent branches as a device for mutual supervision and for refining the tactics of violent self-aggrandizement, would have instantly disintegrated into rival gangs.

Rauschning was writing at the end of the peacetime phase of the Nazi régime. The war which followed provided a different kind of environment for Nazism, permitting it to draw upon the reserves of German patriotism in much the same way as other governments fighting for their existence with the support of their people. If Hitler had not entered into war, Nazism, according to Rauschning's analysis, would have continued on its aborted path of cultural destruction within Germany, first dominating then obliterating the Church, high culture, science, the army, national customs, private property, the economy, and the family. The future would be the "all-pervading atmosphere of barracks and prison" (p. 94). Human individuality, since it could not be dominated, would have to be destroyed too. Nazism would even destroy its own élites, replacing them with a succession of more radicalized younger generations. Anti-Semitic outrages were merely a foretaste of and a training for what was in store for the whole population. Nazism acted like Bolshevism, with the difference that Bolshevism openly announced its destructive intentions, while Nazism professed to uphold what it destroyed.

One has the feeling that Orwell may have had Rauschning in mind when he wrote 1984. A basic difference between their respective visions of the future, however, is that Rauschning sees that it is impossible for a nihilist régime to be stable or long-lasting. Rauschning stresses repeatedly that it is in the nature of a nihilistic movement such as Nazism to live by devouring everything in its path, that the "permanent revolution" cannot be stopped from within until it has reduced its host society to complete exhaustion and atomization. There will be no "thousand-year Reich": long before that time has elapsed, the régime will have eaten away the foundations of its own existence. The Nazi élite itself has a strong subconscious sense of the short time left to the Reich, Rauschning asserts (p. 50). But the temporary nature of Nazism is of little consolation, because the people emerging from the ruins will be spiritually crippled, scarcely recognizable as human beings. Nazism naturally wishes to extend its power over the whole world, and if it succeeds the whole of humanity will suffer this fate.

The self-destructiveness of Nazism is not obvious, because the monster temporarily thrives on what it consumes. Every constructive value is first pressed into the service of Nazi power before it is destroyed by its subjection to base nihilism. Nazism acts very much like an addictive stimulant for the host society; its vaunted achievements are "essentially nothing more than a squandering of existing reserves" (p. 95). For example, Nazism was wrecking the economic and military institutions of Germany, but these were still strong enough to make Germany a formidable military force in World War II. Rauschning emphasizes in this connection the role of propaganda: it is a mistake, he argues, to expect that this will remain effective indefinitely. Propaganda has to be continually heightened in order to remain effective (p. 87); once it works the soil to death, the result will be complete apathy. Thus the Nazi, not the Jewish scapegoat, is the true parasitic drainer of the national life-blood (p. 99).

Rauschning now and then attempts to reason his way out of the vicious circle of progressive destruction, but in his more consistent passages, he offer little hope that Nazism can be reformed from within. A constructive political opposition grows less likely, because its leaders would require "genuine faith in the practical importance of the things of the spirit", and this is steadily being wiped out in Germany. Nor would the people, deadened to the political slogans that have been abused by Nazism, be likely to rally to such an opposition (p. 101).