the following : Will it help our nation now or in future, or will it injure it ?
We have to consider, moreover, that the question of recovering territories which a nation and State have lost is always first and foremost one of recovering political power and independence for the Mother country, also that in such a case the interests of lost territories must be ruthlessly ignored as against that of regaining the Mother country’s freedom. For the liberation of oppressed and cut-off splinters of a race or of the provinces of an Empire is not effected by reason of any desire of the oppressed population or of a protest by those who remain, but by whatever means of power is still possessed by the remainder of the Fatherland, which was once common to all.
It is not by flaming protests that oppressed lands are brought back into the embrace of a common Reich, but by a power—or combination of powers.
It is the task of the leaders of a nation, in their domestic policy, to forge that power ; in their foreign policy they must see that the forging is done, and they must seek men to wield the weapon.
In the early chapters of Mein Kampf I described the half-heartedness of our policy of alliances before the War. Instead of a sound territorial policy inside Europe, they preferred one of colonies and trade. This was the more ill-conceived, since they hoped in vain thus to escape having to make the decision by arms. The result of this attempt was that, whilst hoping to sit upon all the stools, they fell down, as usually happens, between them all, and the World War was the final retribution imposed on the Empire for its bad leadership. The right way should have been to strengthen the Empire’s power on the Continent by winning fresh territory in Europe.
But since the fathers of the folly of our democratic Parliament refused to consider any regular scheme of preparation of defence, any plan for