The second group does not believe that State authority is the one and only object of the State, but that furtherance of its subjects5 welfare has something to say in it. Thoughts of “freedom”, wrongly under¬ stood for the most part, intrude themselves into this group’s conception of the State. The fact, by itself, that the form of government exists is not sufficient reason to consider it sacrosanct, but it must stand examination as regards suitability. We meet most of the supporters of this view amongst our normal German bourgeoisie, and especially amongst Liberal Democrats.
The third group is the weakest numerically. It sees the State as a vehicle for realizing very vaguely imagined tendencies towards a policy of might by a unified nation all speaking the same language.
It was truly distressful to see how, during the last hundred years, people holding these opinions—in all good faith, most of them—played with the word “Ger¬ manize”. I remember how in my own youth this term led to amazingly false conceptions. In PanGerman circles one heard it suggested that with help from the Government, Germanization of the Austrian Slav population might be successfully carried out.
It is hardly imaginable that any one should think that a German could be made out of, say, a negro or a Chinaman, because he has learned German and is ready to talk it for the rest of his life, and to vote for some German political party.
The process would mean a beginning of bastardiza¬ tion of our race, and in our case not Germanization but destruction of the German element.
Since nationality, or rather race, is not a matter of r54 MY STRUGGLE language but. of blood, it would only be possible to talk about Germanization if the process could alter the nature of the blood of the person subjected to it. That, however, is impossible. It would have to take place, then, by mixing the blood, and that would mean lower¬ ing the level of the superior race.