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...by Francis Parker Yockey
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In one of its results, the Second World War showed the entire world that the Age of Nationalism is forever past. Precisely those nations whose enmities had reached such fantastic proportions in that Age ceased to exist as political units. There is no relation of cause and effect here, for the Nation-Ideas have a certain life-span, just as every aspect of a Culture's existence, and every Western nation died when it was organically its turn. The last phase of a Nation-Idea is its political one.1
The oldest of the Western nations, the first to have attained the political phase of its development, was Spain. Its great period began with the unification of Aragon and Castile and reached its summit with the world-ascendancy of Charles V. The last act of Spanish history was the revolt against Napoleon, and even then the resistance was more primitive and racial than national. After that period, Spain no longer played an independent role in Western history, though, of course, it retained a common Destiny with the Western Culture, and was conscious of it. France entered its political phase in the time of Richelieu and appeared in Western history as a spiritually independent people until the turn of the century. The last affirmative act of this nation manifested itself in 1914 at the Marne. Austria was a Great Power from the time of Charles V until 1900, although in the course of the 19th century it became less and less sure of itself. The linguistic form of the Nation-Idea in the Western Culture, which dominated that century, weakened the Austrian Idea to the point where Austria's last independent political act— the ultimatum to Serbia in June, 1914— was dictated more by pride than politics.
England's political history as a nation extends from Cromwell to Joseph Chamberlain. Before Cromwell, there was no WorldIdea in England, and after Chamberlain, an Idea no longer existed, could no longer exist, for national extinction, like every other organic phenomenon, is irreversible. Between 1600 and 1900, England's power increased to the extent that in 1900 it controlled by its fleets and armies 17/20ths of the surface of the earth. Spiritually, the entire Western Civilisation— particularly from 1750 onwards— was Anglicised. The thought- and action-systems of 19th century were English: Marxism arose on the basis of English capitalist economics; Darwinism reflects the English individualistic-competitive world-outlook; Materialism, Legalism, Capitalism, Social-Ethics— all are of English provenance, and they were the foundations of the 19th century.
The Boer War occurred at the turning-point. At that time, wrote the Englishman Christopher Sykes, England suddenly became the most hated country in Europe. All at once, the spiritual centre-of-gravity shifted: Darwinism succumbed to the Mutation Theory of de Vries, the class-warfare of Marx to the organic State-Socialism of Bismarck, social-ethics to Political Ethics, Sensualist philosophy to the idealist, laissez-faire to state-intervention in the economy, Liberalism to the precursors of the Reawakening of Authority, pacifism to the reassertion of martial virtues, and daydreams of an eternal peace were shattered in the global arena of the Age of Absolute Politics.
This was the end of the intellectual-spiritual Anglicisation of Europe— but not of America, for colonies have their own organic rhythm, as the History of High Culture shows, and all colonies are perforce Culturally-retarded. And it was the beginning of the new Nation-Idea of the West: the entire Culture itself constituted as a Nation, i.e., as an Imperium.
As nations, Germany and Italy were destined by the advent of the new Age, namely that of Absolute Politics, to be stifled before they had yet lived through the mature political phase of their existence. Unlike France, Spain, Austria, and England, however, these two nations are inwardly alive, i.e., their Nation-Idea, their National Mission, is not fulfilled.
Spain fulfilled itself before the Age of Nationalism, France and Austria during that Age, England and the Age of Nationalism unfolded concurrently, and Germany and Italy must fulfil themselves after the Age of Nationalism. Thus these two nations will not fulfil themselves in a nationalistic form in the old sense of the word. They will fulfil themselves as the custodians of the Destiny of all Europe, and the new Nation-Idea of Culture-as-Nation will be the instrument of their fulfillment
As political units, of course, Germany and Italy are dead. It lies beyond all possibility that one or the other could ever regain its sovereignty except as part of a sovereign Europe. Both stand in the shadow of America and Russia, which falls over all Europe. However, the German and Italian peoples possess the instincts that alone guarantee a role in History. The three great instincts upon which all power is based are: the absolute will to self-preservation, to procreation, and to increasing power. The first and last instincts directly describe superpersonal organisms, the second only indirectly through the human beings that compose the body of the higher organism. A nation that welcomes foreign troops is no longer fit to live— such a thing is rendered impossible by the absolute instinct for self-preservation, which excludes submission to any other organism, whether “friend” or “foe.” A nation in numerical decline is moribund: the size of the population is the result of the National Mission. A nation that no longer strives for power and possessions is dying, and the actual renunciation of power— even by traitorous churchills— means the nation is dead, for a living nation simply does not surrender its power.
The great nation-forming Ethic in this stage of European history is the Prussian-German Idea of Ethical Socialism. Only this living, wordless Idea can banish the overshadowing extra-European powers, form the European Imperium, and lead the West to the fulfillment of its World-Mission. Imbued with the new Ethic and free of petty-statist 19th century nationalism, the European nations will climb out of the abyss as a unity, or they will never climb out at all.
Germany is the only surviving nation of Europe that contains formative possibilities, and so it has become identical with the West. Since the Destiny of Europe is at once that of the Imperium, which can take only an Authoritarian Socialist form, Prussia-Germany is the custodian of the Destiny of all Europe. This is an organic fact, and it is wholly independent of human logic or wishes. Destiny is at work in what exists, not what disgruntled old men wish existed.
This relationship of Germany to Europe was confirmed by the Second World War. While the War continued, there was power based in Europe. The very moment the European phase of the War ceased, there was no longer any power in Europe, all power-decisions being made in Washington and Moscow or with their permission.
The German resistance to the American Russian invasion was no 19th century nationalism, since the whole Culture-bearing stratum in Europe took part in this struggle and troops for the battles came not only from German-speaking territories, but voluntarily from every other part of Europe as well.
Words that in the 19th century described Nation-Ideas, describe in the 20th century only geographic areas. Today the words German, Spanish, English, Italian, French describe only languages and territories, but no longer peoples, nations, political units or superpersonal Ideas. Since a mysterious force inheres in the words when they are used polemically, a policy for European Liberation that would attain success will not use the geographic and linguistic words, England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany in a political sense, but will use the word Europe alone.
The advance of History has destroyed the old significance of these words, and a dynamic policy needs its own terminology. Today 19th century nationalists are the instruments of the occupying forces, which follow the old maxim: Divide et impera. What European would dare speak openly in favour of the American occupation of Europe ? What European would declare himself against Europe's organic Unification, against its resurrection as a sovereign unit of Culture-State-Nation-People-Race?
Using the old appellations of nationality, one can say without paradoxical intent that in the 20th century an Englishman, an Italian, a Spaniard is a German. In this century, it is of scant importance what language a European speaks and in what geographic area he was brought up. Of importance only is the spirituality that permeates his inner life. Europe's churchills and toynbees prove that it is possible for Americans to be born and raised in Europe. The example of Mussolini shows that an ethical Prussian can be born and raised in the Romagna, and the examples of Ezra Pound, William Joyce, Robert Best, Douglas Chandler, and others show that Europeans can be born or raised in America.
In this century the idea of vertical race is dead. We can now view race only in horizontal terms-the race one feels in oneself is everything, the anatomic-geographic group to which one belongs means nothing.2 In this stage of our Cultural development, the principle of individuality reasserts itself, as it asserted itself in the earliest days of the Gothic. During the dark age of Materialism, it was believed that heredity and environment were everything; with the decline of Materialism the human Soul regains its former dignity. Everyone must now openly admit that the engrafting of the outworn nonsense of the vertical race notion onto the glorious European Resurgence of Authority brought about by the European Revolution of 1933 was an enormous tragedy— all the more so since the coupling of these two ideas was in no way necessary or even logical.
In the Classical Culture, any man who was ethically equal to the Inner Imperative of Roman spirituality could rightly say: “Ciuis Romanus sum. “ In this, our Western Culture is somewhat akin to the Classical. Our touchstone of comradeship and belonging is spiritual-ethical, not the old one of birth-place, cephalic-index, eye-colour. In the 20th century, the century of elective affinities, materialistic tests are pure stupidity.
One last word on the relation of Germany to Europe. The adoption of the German formative-ethic of Authoritarian Socialism by all Europe means, of course, the automatic disappearance of Germany as a petty-state. The Anglicising of Europe in the 19th century did not mean the Europeanising of England, for the 19th century was the age of petty-nationalism. However, with the coming to an end of that age, the ethical Germanisation of Europe is simultaneously the Europeanisation of Germany. In Germany, as elsewhere, petty-statism is dead. Europe will have a Prussian-ethical Future, or none at all. Either Authoritarian Socialism will win its victory and liberate Europe from its enemies, or else Europe will be reduced permanently to Chinese conditions. Either Europe will unite in this Ethical Idea, or it will ever remain a collection of provinces over which the Outer Forces will wage their wars of plunder.
The test of rationality is completely invalid in History; the test in that field is organic possibility As to Politics, Europe has but one organic possibility, the Imperium, and but one Ethic, Authoritarian Socialism. The nations are dead, for Europe is born.3
What names this mighty Imperium will bear in History, what language its people will speak, where its capital will be— these are secondary questions for us in the middle of the 20th century, and no one alive today will decide them. All that matters now is that unless Europe forms itself into an indivisible national-political entity by dint of its nation-building Ethic of Authoritarian Socialism, the Europe of 2050 will be essentially the same as that of 1950, viz., a museum to be looted by barbarians; a historical curiosity for sight-seers from the colonies; an odd assortment of operetta-states; a reservoir of human material standing at the disposal of Washington and Moscow; a loan-market for New York financiers; a great beggars' colony, bowing and scraping before the American tourists.
In the face of Europe's terrifying position between the Second and Third World Wars, the old differences between the remnants of the old Nation-Ideas collapse into nothing. Every man of significance in our times is History-oriented, for one cannot profoundly understand our times, their Inner Imperative and Mission, unless one ponders deeply the meaning of Leibnitz' aphorism: Le present est charge du phase et gros de Pavenir. In his inner life, Western man now cannot take sides in the bygone struggles between Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus, Olivares and the Cortes, Richelieu and the Fronde, Stuarts and Parliament, Bourbons and Habsburgs, Church and State, England and Spain, Italy and Austria. Today the loftier European identifies himself with both sides in these titanic struggles, with the totality of our precious Western History, for that History is his own spiritual biography written before him in large letters. He, too, had his Gothic, Reformation, Enlightenment, and rationalist-revolutionary phase— his youthful religiosity and crusades, his Democratic-Liberal-Communist phase; and now, in his fullest maturity, he has entered, spiritually and materially, the Age of Absolute Politics, in which the struggle is planetary and its motive Cultural. That means not 19th century petty-states and nations, but that only the Culture-State-Nation -Imperium can take part in it.
With its successes and failures, its “flaws” and brilliancy, its advances and retreats, Western History describes ourselves. Even with the first World War, we are still able to experience inwardly what both sides felt. But with the Second World War, the higher type of European experiences only one side, for that War was in its main aspect a war of the West against Asia, and all men of the West who, knowing that, sided against the European Imperium were traitors to the West, inner enemies of their own Culture. In 1914, it was England versus Germany, but in 1939 this was no longer the case. By 1939, the England of Walpole and North, Canning and Gladstone, Kitchener and Joseph Chamberlain was dead and buried. Replacing it was the “ England ” of Eden and Churchill, Cooper and Belisha— not even a recognisable caricature of the youthful England of the Independents. These were no far-sighted Empire Builders with unerring power-calculations, but only liquidators of the Empire, American agents, greeters of the “valiant Red Army.” As their enemy they named the European Culture, the organism of which England is a vital part and with which it will always share a common Destiny. Every English statesman of the old tradition would have recognised the growth of events during the third decade of the 20th century from a European to a global scale. But these wretched epigoni with their boundless jealousy and muddled instincts closed their eyes to it and sold the English Island to the Washington regime for a little pseudo-power and the fleeting glory of a suicidal “victory.”
In this historical orientation, the Westerner of the higher type, who alone has Cultural value and significance, regards events in which the West was pitted against the Outer Forces with a completely subjective eye. Thus he sees in the Crusades, for example, only one side of the question— I am speaking here not of any ethical, religious, moral, aesthetic, or other such questions, of course, but solely of the organic question of identity. He is for Charles XII against the Russians, for England against the Indian Mutiny, against the Zulus, and against China in the Opium War; for the Teutonic Knights against the Slav at Tannenberg; for Maximilian against Juarez; for the American Colonists in the Alamo against Santa Ana; for Napoleon against Russia; for Mussolini against the negroes of Abyssinia; for the Hero and his Army against Russia in 1941-1945. In these events, it was left only to chance which of the Western nationalities fought the Barbarian. The victory of any Western nation over an outer military force, whether Chinese, Hindu, Zulu, Islamic, was a victory for all Europe and its colonies. Any European who gloats over the defeat of a Western nation brands himself politically and Culturally feeble-minded. For what distinction does the Barbarian make between the Western nations? During the Second World War, the Japanese called the Germans “friendly enemies” and the English “hostile enemies.” To Jewry all men of the West are “goyim;” to Islam they are “giaours” and “Franks,” and in Persia during the First World War Walmus had the greatest difficulty in making clear to the tribal chieftains why the two “Frankish” powers were fighting each other. For a European to emphasise any trifling differences between the Western nations today is stupidity, if not treason.
Yet Anglophobia, the mode of yesterday, is back in style again; Germanophobia has been transformed by the Outer Forces of Washington and Moscow into a veritable hate-religion for the masses. In this direction lies the Sinoisation of Europe.
Treasonous propaganda in Europe between the Second and Third World Wars has its origin with the Outer Enemies of Europe. Spreading it is taken care of by the Inner Enemy of Europe.
1: Cf. IMPERIUM, pp. 328-353. 40
2: Cf. IMPERIUM, pp. 273-316.
3: Cf. IMPERIUM, p. 58 ff., 110 ff., 613 ff.
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