A Corpuscle In The Bloodstream Of His Folk

The following is an excerpt from the 1934 play, Schlageter, by the National Socialist poet, playwright, and president of the Reich Theater and Literature Chamber, Hanns Johst (1890-1978).

August: You won’t believe it, Papa, but that’s the way it is. Young people don’t pay much attention to those old slogans any more. They’re dying out and the class struggle is dying out.

Schneider: So, what do you live on then?

August: The Folk-community!

Schneider: And that’s a slogan?

August: No, it’s an experience!

Schneider: My God! Our class struggle, our strikes, they weren’t an experience, eh? Socialism, the International, were they fantasies maybe?

August: They were necessary, but they were historical experiences.

Schneider: So, the future therefore will have your Folk-community. Tell me, how do you actually envision it? Poor, rich, healthy, upper, lower, all this ceases with you, eh? A social land of Cockaine, eh?

August: Look, Papa, upper, lower, poor, rich, that always exists. It is only the importance one places on this question that is decisive. To us, life is not chopped up into working hours and furnished with price charts. Rather, we believe in human existence as a whole. None of us regards making money as the most important thing. We want to serve! The individual is a corpuscle in the blood-stream of his Folk.

Schneider: That is the romanticism of adolescence! Redemption of the Folk through minors. Rub your nose in reality first! World views aside for now, let’s talk about some- thing concrete: What is the attitude of your corps and your “Folk-community” toward passive resistance?

August: We want to turn it into a Putsch into a national uprising.

Schneider: Turn it into a Putsch!?

August: I must say that you, as an old revolutionary, stress the word “Putsch” rather oddly. The government either will march with us or it will vanish!

Schneider: You are talking to a regional president, and he tells you that the government will raise hell with putschists! Your father is an official of the state, which considers passive resistance right and proper!

August: And your son is a revolutionary!

Schneider: We oldsters are not as stupid as you youngsters imagine. To you, Schlageter and his cronies are national heroes, but to us here, they are just an event. Schlageter is a dead man if he doesn’t obey orders. The governments of Europe are agreed that the last adventurers, fanatics, and bandits of the world war must be exterminated with fire and sword!

August: I can only say that I have no idea of what a battle is in which barrages, flame- throwers, tanks, or any such equipment is decisive. We young Folk who stand by Schlageter do not stand by him because he is the last soldier of the World War, but because he is the first soldier of the Third Reich!!

The above excerpt shows us the overriding significance of the Folk-community to the National Socialist movement. The “Putsch”, or national uprising, envisioned by the German National Socialist revolutionaries was not comprehendible to old-line socialists such as August’s father. They understood a Putsch only as an armed revolution of violence and bloodshed. But the National Socialists envisioned it as a revolution in thought, a mass change of consciousness from the usual selfishness and materialism promoted by the internationalist state, to the natural idealism inherent in those who feel themselves to be a “corpuscle in the bloodstream of the Folk”—those who always consider the welfare of the Folk above personal interests. When a significant number of the population has this Folk-consciousness, the state, no matter how repressive, must give way to the will of the Folk-community. Any government can be brought to ruin not by “passive resistance”, but by a very active mass refusal to participate!

Adolf Hitler uniquely understood the necessity of a Folk-community to a political movement. This is why National Socialism is a revolution in thought. This revolution in thought, this change to Folk-consciousness, begins first with the family, then the immediate neighbors, and then on to the rest of the community. In each locality, this Folk-consciousness fosters an organic Folk-community, in harmony with the immutable laws of Nature. All of the various local communities, bonded and empowered with this burning sense of Folk-consciousness, combine to form the greater Folk-community. When this kind of support base exists (or is created), all political activity is viable and powerful—as it was with National Socialist Germany.

Just as a Folk-community starts with one’s own neighbors, so does political activity. Adolf Hitler started in his own neighborhood, Munich, testing the viability of his propaganda first on his own neighbors. He knew their concerns and he spoke to them at their own political level. He gave them a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose by treating them as an integral part of the Folk-community. In short order, his leadership and political philosophy were proven by the tens of thousands of registered supporters right there in Munich. Only when he had sufficient support in his own neighborhood did he extend his political activities—along with the Folk-community to larger political arenas. This is political reality!

Unfortunately, today’s racial revolutionaries, National Socialist or otherwise, always seem to put the cart in front of the horse. Invariably, they begin their political declaration by opening up a “national” (sometimes even “international”) headquarters, and then try to get their message out to the masses with the usual leaflets, stickers, telephone messages, and perhaps even on some obscure and little attended television or radio station. Needless to say, few of the masses ever hear of them.

Out of the millions of Whites in this country, it is not difficult to get a few hundred members or subscribers scattered all across the country. This may look good on a mailing list, but this does not constitute any sort of Folk-community. Politically, it is completely insignificant, and it requires no real leadership or even an intelligent political philosophy. But even such a paltry number would be very significant—and very politically viable—if those few hundred supporters were all in the neighborhood of their head- quarters! This would show some talented leadership and probably a brilliant political message—and, even more important, the beginning of a Folk-community.

We must face reality. If we can’t get the support of our very own neighbors, around whom we live, work, and with whom we have personal contact, then how can we possibly believe that we can get the support of any sizeable portion of the millions of Whites in the national population? If our very own neighbors are hostile to us or disinterested in our message—regardless of its veracity or even its urgency—then obviously we are wasting our dwindling time.

There is another political reality which we must face. In this country, at this time, the members of the existing White communities, rural or urban, may very well not have the desire or the will to be a Folk-community! If this is the case, then all of today’s racial political activities are in the realm of fantasy. However, even this does not constitute defeat and oblivion. If we determine that the White population cannot be rallied to Folk-consciousness, we still have the option to go underground (for obvious security reasons) and begin building our local Folk-communities from scratch, from the few aware Aryans we can find in our own areas. This will, of course, probably lengthen our struggle, but we can still succeed.

We don’t have the time to indulge ourselves with any more fantasies, revolutionary or political. The forces of evil are getting stronger and bolder every day. Newsletters, stickers, talk shows, or obscure radio and TV broadcasts have accomplished little. It’s time for political reality. It’s time for revolutionary leaders to prove their leadership and their political philosophies by taking their message to their very own neighbors. If they can’t even get their neighbor’s support, then it’s pure fantasy and an obvious waste of everyone’s time to proclaim national or international audiences. If they can’t get their neighbor’s support, then they need to reevaluate themselves, their message, and their alternatives. However, if someone does get the support of his or her neighbors, we all need to add our support and carry that message to our neighbors! Otherwise, it is probably time to go underground. This is a political reality which Adolf Hitler anticipated before the end of the war:

“It may happen that I cannot win victory at once in this coming war; we may be forced to interrupt it. Then we will all be back underground. But after some years, when the weak and inefficient democracies will have utterly failed to solve the world’s postwar problems, then we will suddenly break loose from underground and our stupefied enemies will discover all too late that millions of their own youth, misguided by weak education, disappointed by democracy’s failure, will be on our side. Victory in this Third World War will be quick and easy.“

The dark age forces stand in violation of every law of Nature, and as such they are doomed to sooner or later collapse from their own weight of decadence and degeneracy. So long as there are still dauntless, idealistic Aryans who understand political realities, National Socialism shall ultimately prevail.

-Jost Turner, “Political Realities”