The easiest, and therefore the most commonly believed, reason for our misfortunes is that the loss of the War was the cause of the present rot.
Probably there are many who seriously believe this nonsense, but there are even more in whose lips such an argument is a conscious lie. This last applies to all those who are crowding round the governmental feeding trough.
Did not the apostles of world-reconciliation declare that the German defeat merely destroyed a militarism ? that the German people would rejoice in their glorious resurrection ? For was not the whole Revolution ushered in with the phrase that by it victory was with¬ held from the German standard, but that by it alone the German nation would fully attain to liberty at home and abroad ? Was this not so, you lying rascals?
It is characteristic of truly Jewish impudence that the military defeat is now put down as the cause of the collapse, whilst the central organ of all treason, the Vorwärts of Berlin, wrote that this time the German nation was not to be permitted to bring its banners home in victory ! Is this now to be taken as the cause of our collapse ?
The answer to the assertion that the loss of the War is the cause may be answered as follows :
Of course, the loss of the War had a fearful effect on the destiny of our country, but it was not a cause, but a result of causes. All intelligent and well-wishing people well know that an unhappy ending of that life and death struggle must lead to disastrous results. But there were people, unfortunately, whose reasoning powers seemed to fail them at the proper moment, or who, although they knew better, fought against that truth and denied it. They are really the guilty causes of the collapse, and not the loss of the War, as they io4 MY STRUGGLE now suddenly choose to maintain. For the loss of the War was merely the result of their action, and not, as they now assert, due to “bad leadership”. The enemy were