Weekly Fuhrer Friday Quote
Fuhrer Friday
The joy of responsibility in the framing of great decisions in the struggles of nations will, of course, be all the greater the more the actors, by observation of their Folk, can conclude that even a miscarriage will not be able to destroy the nation's vital strength. For in the long run a Folk, inwardly healthy at its core, can never be effaced through defeats on the battlefield. Thus insofar as a Folk possesses this inner health, with the prerequisite of a sufficient racial importance, the courage for difficult undertakings can be the greater since even the failure of the same would not, by far, signify the downfall of such a Folk. And here Clausewitz is right, when in his principles he asserts that, with a healthy Folk, such a defeat may repeatedly lead to a later resurgence, and that, conversely, only cowardly subjection, that is, a supine surrender to fate, can lead to ultimate destruction. The neutrality, however, which is today recommended to our Folk as the only action possible, is really nothing but a volitionless surrender to a fate determined by foreign powers. And only therein lies the symptom and the possibility of our decline. If, on the contrary, our Folk itself had undertaken abortive attempts to achieve freedom, a factor that could be beneficial to our Folk's strength would lie in the very manifestation of this attitude. For let it not be said that it is political sagacity which holds us back from such steps. No, it is a wretched cowardice and a lack of principle which in this case, as so often in history, one tries to confuse with intelligence. Obviously a Folk under the duress of foreign powers can be forced by circumstances to endure years of foreign oppression. But the less a Folk can seriously do outwardly against overpowering forces, the more, however, will its internal life press toward freedom and leave nothing untried that could be suitable for changing the momentarily given condition one day by staking such a Folk's entire strength. One will then endure the yoke of a foreign conqueror, but with clenched fists and gritted teeth, waiting for the hour which offers the first opportunity of shaking off the tyrant. Something like this can be possible under the pressure of conditions. But what presents itself today as political sagacity, however, is as a matter of fact a spirit of voluntary subjection, of unprincipled renunciation of any resistance, indeed the shameless persecution of those who dare to think of such a resistance and whose work obviously could serve their Folk's resurgence. It is the spirit of inner self disarmament, of the destruction of all moral factors which one day could serve a resurrection of this Folk and State. This spirit can really not give itself the airs of political sagacity, for actually it is a State destroying dishonourableness.
Adolf Hitler -Zweites Buch, Hitlers second Book Chapter X Pg-117 Natonal Socialist Foreign Policy
