Bismark’s Empire was free and unbound. It was not weighed down by wholly unproductive financial obligations, such as the present Dawes-Germany has to carry on her back. Its expenditure was confined to a few absolutely necessary items of domestic importance. It was, therefore, well able to do without financial supremacy and to live on the money contributed by the provinces ; and naturally the fact that the States retained their rights of sovereignty and had com¬ paratively little to pay to the Empire, contributed to their satisfaction in being members of the Empire. But it is both incorrect and dishonest to wish to make propaganda with the assertion that whatever dissatis¬ faction there existed was attributable solely to the financial bondage suffered by the States at the hands of the Empire. No, this was truly not the case. The wane of joy in thought of the Empire should not be attributed to loss of sovereign rights, but it is rather the result of the miserable way in which the German nation was then represented by its Reich.
Thus the Reich to-day is forced for reasons of selfpreservation to curtail more and more the sovereign rights of the individual countries, not only from the general material standpoint, but on principle also. For, seeing that it is draining the last drops of the blood of its citizens by its policy of financial squeezing, it is forced to withdraw the last of their rights, unless it is prepared to see the general discontent flame up into rebellion.
« We National Socialists have therefore to admit the following basic principle :
A powerful National Reich, guarding and protecting the interests of its citizens abroad in the widest sense, is able to offer liberty at home ; then it need have no anxiety for the solidity of the State. On the other hand, a powerful National government may take responsibility for large incursions on the liberty of individuals as well as of the States without risk of weakening the Empire idea, if only each citizen recog¬ nizes that such measures are measures aimed at making his nation great.