only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was a process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned the German language and is willing to speak German for the future, and even to cast his vote for a German political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a process of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all the outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that would produce a process of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization but the annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded by external force in compelling the people whom they subjected to speak the tongue of the conqueror and that after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and that thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered.

What makes a people or, to be more correct, a race, is not language but blood. Therefore it would be justifiable to speak of Germanization only if that process could change the blood of the people who would be subjected to it, which is obviously impossible. A change would be possible only by a mixture of blood, but in this case the quality of the superior race would be debased. The final result of such a mixture would be that precisely those qualities would be destroyed which had enabled the conquering race to achieve victory over an inferior people. It is especially the cultural creativeness which disappears when a superior race intermixes with an inferior one, even though the resultant mongrel race should excel a thousandfold in speaking the language of the race that once had been superior. For a certain time there will be a conflict between the different mentalities, and it may be that a nation which is in a state of progressive degeneration will at the last moment rally its cultural creative power and once again produce striking examples of that power. But these results are due only to the activity of elements that have remained over from the superior race or hybrids of the first crossing in whom the superior blood has remained dominant and seeks to assert itself. But this will never happen with the final descendants of such hybrids. These are always in a state of cultural retrogression.

We must consider it as fortunate that a Germanization of Austria according to the plan of Joseph II did not succeed. Probably the result would have been that the Austrian State would have been able to survive, but at the same time participation in the use of a common language would have debased the racial quality of the German element. In the course of centuries a certain herd instinct might have been developed but the herd itself would have deteriorated in quality. A national State might have arisen, but a people who had been culturally creative would have disappeared.

For the German nation it was better that this process of intermixture did not take place, although it was not renounced for any high-minded reasons but simply through the short-sighted pettiness of the Habsburgs. If it had taken place the German people could not now be looked upon as a cultural factor.

Not only in Austria, however, but also in the Reich, these so-called national circles were, and still are, under the influence of similar erroneous ideas. Unfortunately, a policy towards Poland, whereby the East was to be Germanized, was demanded by many and was based on the same false reasoning. Here again it was believed that the Polish people could be Germanized by being compelled to use the German language. The result would have been fatal. A people of foreign race would have had to use the German language to express modes of thought that were foreign to the German, thus compromising by its own inferiority the dignity and nobility of our nation.

It is revolting to think how much damage is indirectly done to German prestige to-day through the fact that the German patois of the Jews when they enter the United States enables them to be classed as Germans, because many Americans are

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NOTE: Concerning the text from pages 218-219 which reads as follows:

"Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was a process of forcing other people to speak the German language."

Please see the following:

 

Dear Christogenea,

There is at least one very bad mistake in Murphy’s translation of Mein Kampf which you should correct. In Book 2 chapter 2 on the bottom of p. 218 (continuing to the top of p. 219) of your on-line text (p. 303 of Murphy’s printed book) it reads: “Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards human beings.” This is exactly the opposite of what Hitler says. A correct translation would be: “can be carried out only on the land (or ground) and never on men (or human beings).”

The Reynal-Hitchcock translation of the passage (p. 588) reads: “Even in Pan-German circles one could at that time hear the opinion that Austrian Germanity, with promoting help on the part of the government, could very well succeed in a Germanization of the Austrian Slavs, whereby, however, one did not in the least see clearly the fact that a Germanization can only be carried out with the soil and never with men.”

The German text for this passage (p. 428) is: “Selbst in alldeutschen Kreisen konnte man damals die Meinung hören, daß dem österreichischen Deutschtum unter fördernder Mithilfe der Regierung sehr wohl eine Germanisation des österreichischen Slawentums gelingen könnte, wobei man sich nicht im geringsten darüber klar wurde, daß Germanisation nur am Boden vorgenommen werden kann und niemals an Menschen.“

The Reynal-Hitchcock translation is more accurate generally than Murphy, but is at times almost unreadable. I like your site. Good luck.

Best,
George F. Held*

*See George's Links page at the Christogenea Mein Kampf project by clicking here.

Click here for a page scanned from the Ford translation to see how they handled the passage in question.