Gothic And Viking: Two Types of Internationalist Germanic Man

In briefly summarizing what we have discussed so far, the following picture emerges: Every endeavour of a political, cultural, or economic nature which is based upon ostensibly humanist ideals, or which makes its position towards folkdom dependent upon any kinds of terms and conditions, cannot be regarded by we National Socialists as a clear commitment to folkdom. We commit ourselves “wholeheartedly,” i.e., without qualifications or reservations, to our Volk, who are a community of culture and a community of fate. Whether they choose this or that form of government, or this or that economic constitution, whether they are the best Volk or the worst, is of no consequence to us. In our eyes however they truly are the best, because they are a Volk of producers, i.e., a people who are creatively inclined and who are therefore thoroughly multifaceted in everything that they do. In spite of the fact that the individual can only produce in association with others, i.e., within the “working-community” as O. Dickel terms it in his book The Resurrection of the West, and although we are as a people – to make use of a bromide – fanatical clubgoers, it is still difficult to bring us all together under one roof. Consensus is not easy for us; in other words, we are not a herd-race [Herdenvolk]. That may be regrettable at times, yet it is one of the purest, most productive aspects of our Germanic heritage; it must not be excised, because it enables us to yield the highest of achievements.

This characteristic is what distinguishes us from other races; we should not concern ourselves with seeking to emulate or to understand them. We will never penetrate their spiritual and intellectual world, and they will never penetrate ours. That is why we hold the opinion that it is folkdom which defines the natural limits of our abilities; for this reason we reject internationalism (cosmopolitanism, pan-folkdom), no matter what motives it may arise from and no matter what guise it may be garbed in.

Of course, internationalism – albeit an internationalism on a grander scale, one which has nothing to do with the caricature of today, which manifests in the form it does as a consequence of ignorance – has always run like a crimson thread through German history. It arises from two different sources, because two different peoples are its representatives. Both are Germanic, both have an intrinsic, Faustian urge toward the infinite. Whether they like it or not they are compelled to seek out vast expanses, which in political terms means to strive after world conquest. One is Gothic Man. He is personified by our medieval kings and Kaisers. As the Godhead’s elect they felt themselves called to rule over Christendom. In the decaying Rome of the centuries around the turn of the first millennium they established order, and lifted the papacy out of the filth and depravity. That was their destiny, for this purified papacy became the most dangerous enemy of German kingship in the struggle for control over Christendom. While we may upbraid them for this, we must still admire these royal dynasties, the Saxons, Salians, and Staufens. The very same universal idea was alive within the knightly orders, and then passed over to the Spaniards. The Viennese Court of the Habsburgs inherited it from them. It still lives on today within the Papal Church. It is therefore no wonder that the Catholic International finds such tireless advocates upon German soil.

The second sub-type of Germanic blood which is representative of the idea of world conquest constitutes those men who have Viking blood in their veins. They share the compulsion for far horizons, for unmeasured expanses. But what drives them is of a fundamentally different nature than what drives Gothic Man. They seek to conquer in accordance with the right of domination, not in service of a divine idea. Their goal is to acquire riches, to seize plunder. Such people created the British Empire. There were always some of this type in Germany, too; an inner urge previously drove them to the West, to America, because they felt that in Germany there was insufficient land available to satisfy their compulsive need for activity. Already akin to the Anglo-Saxons in their thinking and feeling, once far afield they quickly became fully Anglicized. After the founding of the new German Reich this class of people also found an opportunity for activity upon German soil.

-excerpted from “National Socialism: An Introduction to its Foundations and its Goals” by Rudolph Jung (1919)