The Roots of National Socialism
ByDUTTON,$3.00
THERE is a right way and there is a wrong way to set about the task of revealing the intellectual and psychological background of National Socialism. The wrong way, which is unfortunately the easier and the more frequently practised, is to string together a long number of disjointed citations of the most stupid, bloodthirsty, and chauvinistic things that Germans have said during the last two or three centuries. Books prepared in this way may supply quotation tags for wartime pep talks. But they are of little permanent value because they are dull reading and they could be too easily paralleled by running through an anthology of cranks in other countries. Mr. Butler refreshingly conducts his investigation into the roots of National Socialism along other and more promising lines. Unlike some zealous compilers of German verbal atrocities in this war and its predecessor, he is obviously at home in the fields of German history and culture. He selects figures who have influenced German thought and action during the last century, integrates them intelligently with their time and circumstances, and thereby gradually produces a well-rounded, plausible picture of the historical elements and widely accepted ideas that made it easier for Hitler’s monstrous leviathan state to acquire the mastery over Germany. As he shows, the roots of autarchy are to be found in the philosopher Fichte and the economist List, and a pre-war publicist named Duehring anticipated much of the anti-Semitic legislation of the Third Reich. The result of this method is a searching, penetrating commentary on certain dangerous trends in German culture, all the more impressive because the author never falls into hysteria or exaggeration.
W. H. C.