Letter on Jewry

If the threat with which Jewry faces our people has given rise to undeniable hostility on the part of a large section of our people, the cause of this hostility must not be sought in the clear recognition that Jewry as such is deliberately or unwittingly having a pernicious effect on our nation, but mostly in personal intercourse, in the poor impression the Jew makes as an individual. As a result anti-Semitism far too readily assumes a purely emotional character. But this is not the correct response. Anti-Semitism as a political movement may not and cannot be moulded by emotional factors but only by recognition of facts. Now the facts are:
To begin with, the Jews are unquestionably a race not a religious community. And the Jew himself never describes himself as a Jewish German, a Jewish Pole or a Jewish American, but always as a German, Polish or American Jew. Never has the Jew absorbed more from the alien people in whose midst he lives than their language. And no more than a German who is forced to use the French language in France, the Italian language in Italy, and the Chinese language in China, thereby becomes a Frenchman, an Italian, let alone a Chinaman, no more can we call a Jew who happens to live amongst us and who is forced to use the German language, a German. And even the mosaic faith, however great its importance for the preservation of that race, cannot be the sole criterion for deciding who is a Jew and who is not. There is hardly a race in the world whose members all belong to a single religion.

Through inbreeding for thousands of years, often in small circles, the Jew has been able to preserve his race and his racial characteristics much more successfully than most of the numerous people among whom he lives. As a result we have living amongst our people, an alien race, unwilling and indeed unable to shed its racial characteristics, its particular feelings, thoughts and ambitions and nevertheless enjoying more political rights than we do. And since even the Jews feelings are limited to the material sphere, his thoughts and ambitions are bound to be so even more strongly. The dance round the golden calf becomes a ruthless struggle for all those goods that we feel deep down are not the highest and not the only ones worth striving for on Earth.

The work of the individual is no longer determined by his character, by the importance of his achievement for the community, but solely by the size of his fortune, his wealth. The greatness of the nation is no longer measured by the sum of its moral and spiritual resources, but only by its material goods.

All this results in that mental attitude and that quest for money and the power to protect it which will allow the Jew to become so unscrupulous in his choice of means, so merciless in their use for his own ends. In autocratic states he cringes before the "majesty" of the princes and misuses their favours to become a leech on the people.

In a democracy he vies for the favour of the masses, grovels before "the majesty of the people" but only recognises the majesty of money.

He saps the princes character by Byzantine flattery, national pride and the strength of the nation by ridicule and shameless seduction to vice. His chosen weapon is public opinion as falsified by the press. His power is the power of money he accumulates so easily and endlessly in the form of interests and with which he imposes a yoke upon the nation that is the more pernicious in that its glitter disguises its dire consequences. Everything that makes the people strive for greater things, be it religion, socialism, or democracy, merely serves the Jew as a means to the satisfaction of his greed and thirst for power. The result of his work is racial tuberculosis of the nation.

And this has the following effect: purely emotional anti-Semitism finds its final expression in the from of pogroms. Rational anti-Semitism, by contrast, must lead to a systematic and legal struggle against, and eradication of, what privileges the Jews enjoy over other foreigners living among us. Its final objective, however, must be the total removal of all Jews from our midst. Both objectives can only be achieved by a government of national strength, never by a government of national importance.

The republic owes its birth not to the united will of our people, but to the underhand exploitation of a series of circumstances that, taken together, express themselves in deep dissatisfaction. These circumstances, however, arose independently of the political structure and are at work even today. Indeed, more so now than ever before. Hence a large part of our people have come to realise that it is not by changing the structure of the state as such that our position can be improved, but only by the rebirth of the nations moral and spiritual forces.

And this rebirth cannot be prepared by the leadership of an irresponsible majority influenced by party dogmas or by the internationalist catch phrases and slogans of an irresponsible press, but only by determined acts on the part of nationally minded leaders with an inner sense of responsibility.

This very fact serves to deprive the republic of the inner support of the spiritual forces any nation needs very badly. Hence the present leaders of the nation are forced to seek the support of those alone who have benefited and continue to benefit from changing the form of the state, and who for that very reason became the driving force behind the revolution - the Jews. Disregarding the Jewish threat, which is undoubtedly recognised even by the present day leaders, these men are forced to accept Jewish favours to their private advantage and to repay these favours. And the repayment of these favours does not merely involve satisfying every Jewish demand, but above all preventing the struggle of the duped people against their deceivers, by sabotaging the anti-Semitic movement.

Yours truly

Adolf Hitler

A letter written to Karl Meyer on September 16, 1919.