All this certainly completes the picture of the analysis, but it brings to light only partial knowledge and partial truth. The deepest, and the fatal, reason for the Hitler phenomenon lies in the metaphysical domain.
In the final analysis the second World War was unavoidable. Anyone, however, who regards the world and its phenomena only from the standpoint of economics may arrive at the conclusion that both world wars could have been avoided if the resources of the earth had been reasonably distributed. Economic factors alone can never change the face of the earth; therefore, the change in the German people’s standard of living, and the demoralization of the national soul by the Treaty of Versailles, inflation, serious unemployment, and other factors formed a foundation for the advent of Hitler. It is possible that catastrophes may be delayed for years or decades, if certain external living conditions make the relationship between different nations and peoples ostensibly happier. At no time, however, can a misguided idea be destroyed through economic measures alone, and deprived of its power to injure the individual and the nation, unless mankind can overcome such ideas and replace them by better ones.
“In the way in which the name of God is used by the peoples and nations,” says the famous Donoso Cortes, “lies the solution of the most-feared problems.” Here we have the explanation of the providential mission of the separate nations and races, the great changes in history, the rise and fall of empires, conquests and wars, the different characteristics of the nations, and even their changing fortunes.
M. de Menthon has tried to make an intellectual analysis of National Socialism. He speaks of the “sin against the spirit,” and sees the deeper causes of this system in estrangement from Christianity.
I wish to add a few words. Hitler was not a meteor, the fall of which was incalculable and unpredictable. He was the exponent of an ideology which was in the last resort atheistic and materialistic.
There is every reason to reflect that, although National Socialism is eliminated through the complete defeat of Germany, and although the world is now free of the German threat as proclaimed by all nations, there has been no decisive change for the better. No peace has filled our hearts, no rest has come to any corner of human existence. It is true that the collapse of a powerful state with all its physical and spiritual forces will be felt for a long time, just as the sea is stirred into motion when a rock is thrown into calm water. But something much more is happening at present in Europe and in the world—something quite different from the mere ebbing away of such a wave of events.
To retain the comparison, the waves rise anew from the deep; they are fed by mysterious forces which constantly emerge anew. They are those restless ideas, aiming at the disaster of nations, of which I spoke. And nothing can disprove the truth of my words when I maintain that victor and vanquished alike live in the midst of a crisis which disturbs the conscience of individuals and of nations like a monstrous and apparently inevitable nightmare, and which causes us to look beyond the punishment of guilty individuals toward those ways and means which can spare humanity an even greater catastrophe.
In the Confessions of a Revolutionary the clear-sighted socialist Proudhon wrote the memorable words: “Every great political problem contains within itself a theological one.” He coined this phrase one hundred years ago. It is most timely that the American General MacArthur, at the signing of the Japanese capitulation, is said to have repeated the essential meaning of these profound words by saying: “If we do not create a better and greater system, death will be at our door. The problem is, fundamentally speaking, a religious one.”
History is made by changes in religious values. They constitute the strongest motive power in the cultural progress of humanity. Permit me to show you in a few bold outlines the intellectual and historical forebears of National Socialism.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, it is 1 o’clock, and I must say that the last two pages which you have read seem to me to have absolutely nothing to do with Crimes against Humanity, or with any case with which we have got to deal. I suggest to you that the next pages, headed “Renaissance, Subjectivism, French Revolution, Liberalism, National Socialism” are equally completely unlikely to have any influence at all upon the minds of the Tribunal.