Hitler Youth Episode 5 Class notes

Freedom
There is no freedom in Germany to do whatever one wants, and there will be no such
freedom, because otherwise Germany would not exist. §Freedom does not mean taking
advantage of others, stealing from them, without being punished. Freedom does not mean
living as one pleases. Nor does it mean preserving one’s life through cowardice.
§Freedom is choosing to follow the path that duty requires. The others are slaves of
themselves. He is the only free man: upright and proud, master of everything that might
demean him, the best of the nation, the bearer of the state. He has elevated himself. He
does his duty while others take a holiday. But his duty raises him above over his little ego
and makes him free. §Somewhere in the middle of a hot summer, a village’s well dries
up. Day and night, someone works hard to dig a new well. No one gave the order. But for
him it is a happy duty to find water for women and children and comrades. The other
does what he likes. The one is a free man amidst the hard work he has chosen to do. The
other is the slave of his desires and passions. He is a rogue who may say in the pub that
man is born free and can do whatever he wishes. §He who thinks of himself is a slave and
bound; he who thinks of others is master and free.
Faith
Knowledge is that which can be measured by reason. Knowledge alone means nothing
and is dead. §A wish that you can fulfill is called hope. Hope can easily come to nothing.
§But faith can never fail, for faith is strength. Faith springs from your deepest feelings. It
is that knowledge for which there is no explanation through reason. In faith the soul sees
a part of the world order. It has a sense of that which should be, and sees through its eyes
a part of the way that it should and can go. It knows that by going this way it fulfills
god’s command and is working toward the great work that is immeasurable,
incomprehensible. §Because faith sees this and can do it, it is more than human strength.
It is a part of the enormous power that fills all life and all worlds. With faith, a person
walks with the assurance of a sleepwalker. Who can resist him, for he follows the path of
the highest will. He will succeed when he believes. No hand raised against him will 
divert him from his way. The bullet aimed at him will not hit as long has he has not
finished his path, as long as he has not turned from it. §Thousands do not understand the
believing person because their souls cannot see. But what do the faithful care about the
opinion of others, what do those who can see care about the opinion of the blind, what do
those who have become strong care about what the weak think. §The way of faith is the
way of everything great. Before our eyes Adolf Hitler went the way fate led him. He was
filled with it and believed what no reason of the reasonable could see. §The path of faith
is before each of us. Even if it is not the path of fame and honor, it is still the path of duty
and of greatest happiness. To find it means to gain a part of the eternal strength that
moves the worlds. §Because faith is strength, it can do what seems impossible. It is the
foundation for every deed. No one can do anything without faith. No one can even jump
over a ditch if he does not believe he can do it. The highest and most important in a
person is not knowledge and understanding, but rather his faith. Each is worth only as
much as the faith he has. §This new Reich began with faith. The first party rally after the
seizure of power was called “The Victory of Faith.” It grew and became great through
faith. It no longer grew from the faith of one man, but from the faith of us all, and was
borne by the strength of all. More than human strength was present. §Woe to those who
do not believe. They are not on the side of the strength of creation, but rather
annihilation. They are the destroyers of the Reich. §Faith is however stronger than all
other powers that can be found in this world.
Fate
We do not believe in a blind fate that leads people through their lives. We do not believe
that god’s angels protect us in every step that we take and keep us from falling. But we
do believe in a godly will that gives meaning to each each life that is born. Not an
arbitrary generally meaning, but rather each life has its own particular purpose and
meaning. §In the depths of our souls we sense whether we act according to this meaning.
One can call this conscience or something else. It is there. We probably know the right
path. We need only ask. A voice within us gives the answer, and speaks of the godly will
that shows us the path we should go. §This path is our fate. Each has but one proper path.
To follow it makes one happy to the highest degree, even if it is a path that brings only
poverty and toil. §Any path that leads away from the meaning and purpose of life is death
and sin. And even if the path seems ever so pleasant, you will sin every day of your life.
§But you have the freedom to decide which path you want to follow. No blind fate rules
you. You go your own way. §If you follow the law in your own heart, it is the way to
your god. It is the way that comes from eternity and goes to eternity; in all the world
there is never an end, only transformation. There is no death that is not also a beginning.
Everything is part of the enormous plan of the worlds, of which you are a part if you seek
your path. Everything is in development. The joy of creation lives in each. for it belongs
to the builders at work. There is no heaven of pleasure and blessedness. But work and life
alternate in eternal form, whether in the realm of the body or the sphere of the spirit.
§Those who fell for an idea of god — and people and fatherland are such — continue to 
work for it. They become a part of the soul and the strength of their people., They

continue to work and grow. They are in reality in us as our better thoughts. §Thus each
creature plays its part, both in body and soul, in the great plan of the worlds. It is god, the
eternal wisdom and the exalted sense of that which is beyond comprehension. When you
submit and follow the path, it is also in you. You understand your part and do what you
can, and whatever happens to you, you will be happy. You carry god in your own heart.
You have overcome death, and if you do die, you live on as a part of the eternal strength
that works continually and creates. §Your fate is the path that is shown to you. Your free
will decides if you follow it and if you fulfill your task.
Birth and Death
Birth and death are the same; they are the two sides of one door. To enter one room
always means leaving another. It depends on which room or which life we are in as to
whether we say “entrance” or “exit,” life or death. §For he who understands it, death
holds no terrors. But he who did not go his proper way in life and sinned will see his guilt
in death. But there is after death no place of torture, no hell. To see one’s guilt is the
severest judgment and at the same time the greatest penalty. Judgment and punishment
are within yourself. §Neglected work can only be made up by double effort. It will once
more be your choice, either to work toward the world plan, or to be its enemy. That is the
only death that there is, to become a force for destruction rather than for creation, and this
death is not physical. It is your free choice to decide on which side you belong, on god’s
or, to use an old term, “the devil’s.” §What we call birth and death is only the door
between two worlds. There is no birth and no death, only change, and we can go
confidently through the door, for all the worlds were created by one hand.
Nature
The divine is powerful in its creatures. It dwells not in walls that people build. They may
be witnesses of its will, but god is in the living. §Our ancestors went into the forests to
find or to honor god. They greeted his light rising in the morning. That was more to them
than a lamp in a man’s hand. They stood on mountain tops because his greatest work, the
starry sky, was nearest there, not covered by a roof of stone. The great spring flowing
from the mountain was more genuine and nearer to god than anything that could flow
from a bottle held by a human hand. §Who dares to say that they were not close to the
living god? §Other peoples may seek refuge in the stone walls of their cities or seek their
god in caves. The true German senses god with holy fear in the life of creation. He prays
to god by honoring his great works. §Who dares to say that God is nearer to us in that
which human beings have built? §The faith of our fathers remains strong in us. Still today
the German wanders through his countryside and is moved by the beauty of the land god
has given him. The summits of his mountains give freedom. He feels eternity amidst the
sea. Flowing water is to him the image of eternal change. §He protects the forest and the
tree and the bush as if they were his comrades. He loves the animals that are tortured and 
tormented in other countries. What to him is part of his household is elsewhere only a
possession. §He sees and honors in everything god’s creation, in the holy earth, in the
wandering wind, in the flickering flames, in which there is always change. Ever again we
stand on the summits of the peaks and wave the torch and feel the magnificent and the
ineffable. §Who dares chide us because our eyes are open?
To Do a Thing for its Own Sake
You should never do anything for pay, but rather always because it is worth it for its own
sake. Did ever a German soldier go to war for the sake of money? He did it for the
Fatherland. He who asks us to be good and pious for money seduces us and draws us
away from god. He is the devil’s advocate, even if he promises us heaven. §God is in the
good that we do, but he is not in a heaven that we will enjoy for eternity. §It is German to
do something for its own sake. Such was always the first and highest service to god in
Germany, and thus it will remain as long as our nation lives and the world is there to
warn us.
Order
The world came into being when order first appeared. It will exist as long as there
continues to be order. It will reach its culmination when it has reached the highest state of
order. §The German has the gift of creating order, living order, whether in the form of
factories, armies or states. An order in which each has his place and his task, in which
everything flows together smoothly as if it were a single body. §The ability of Germans
to create order is evident also in small things, in precision. It shows itself in the German
home, which has no equal in its cleanliness and order. It shows itself in a machine, in an
apparatus, that function so precisely that they are unparalleled in the world. It shows itself
in the German soldier, whose weapon is spotless, whose boots are not missing a single
nail. It shows itself in the SA man or Hitler Youth, whose backpack or locker is perfectly
arranged and maintained. §It always the same German trait. It is not because of the
presence of a spot of the absence of a nail, but rather it because of order itself, because
one must be brought up to do his task as best as is possible and maintain German
accomplishment at the highest level. § Results always depend on small things. A valuable
machine is unusable because one part is not quite right. A machine gun on which
everything depends fails because a grain of sand got in the barrel. §There must be order
for there to be accomplishment, because every accomplishment begins with order. That is
true for each individual part of life, and for the whole of it as well. 

Honesty
There should be nothing false in you! The Jew is dishonest. He is born that way and is
ever full of deceit. You are born to be honest and to remain honest. Your face does not
lie, your words are true, your actions are clear and can stand before all. §You will say no 
word about a comrade that you cannot say to his face. If you do so, you destroy the
community and injure your honor and that of the other. You become dishonest. §You
would not think of stealing ten pfennig from a comrade. How trivial that is when
compared to stealing honor from someone who does not realize it, who is unable to
defend himself. Compared to that, the thief one puts in prison has committed but a small
offense. Possessions are of less value than honor. A thief has more honor than a
slanderer. The first demand of honor is that one holds the honor of others as their highest
possession. The next demand of honor is that one respects the property of others, which
they have earned by hard word and industry. §It must again become such in Germany that
one can leave one’s doors unlocked at night. It must again be such that every lost piece of
property is returned and that one can trust unknown citizens with one’s money and
possessions. §We want once again to have the honor of a farmer. It should be as it still is
in the north, where one can leave one’s house and land without locking the door, because
there is no dishonesty. §An end must be made of all dishonest behavior. It should be
wrung out of us. There should be a new generation in Germany, honest in word and deed,
because honor is to it more necessary than life itself. And woe to him who sins against it.
Property
In the National Socialist state, there is no longer property with which the individual can
do with whatever he wishes. There is no unlimited right of property, only a right that has
been earned to administer it for the good of the whole. §Property is a loan. One may
certainly use it, but only to advance the interests of the whole. §A farmer has a field. It
belongs to him. And it should belong to him, for his ancestor tilled it, his fathers toiled on
it. It belongs to him as long as he tills it so that food for other citizens grows on it. But the
field must be taken from him if he leaves it fallow because he is too lazy or unambitious
to till it. §A house! Why shouldn’t a German have a house, a home for his children. The
apartment in the city has taken a piece of the fatherland from the German. His own house
and garden give him again a piece of Germany, and he has a right to that. § But it is not
an unearned gift. Property must be earned by the work of the hand or the mind. The
ambitious and hard-working settler in newly-won land will plow more land for himself
and his children than others. Is that a failing on his part? He grows grain not only for
himself, but also for others. What he grows is his property. §But he who through
treachery and deceit gains possession of that which the mind and hands of others have
created is a thief and a deceiver. He is like the swindler and the Jew who, without
creating anything themselves, live greedily from that which they steal from others using
corrupted justice. To eliminate them in Germany is our highest law. Once Germany’s
forests were freed of wolves. In the same way, Germany must be freed of those who are
worse and craftier than wolves.
Law and Justice
It is better that the individual suffers under the law than that there be no law. §Law 
defeats arbitrariness, for all are the same to it. Humanity is not permitted to exercise
supreme justice. But the law gives the individual judge the measure of justice and
punishment. Justice no longer rests on what the individual thinks, but rather the law must
be anchored in the sentiments of the whole people. That is the case when a people has its
own law, not that of another people. §The state is founded on justice. Injustice destroys it.
A state without justice is the playground of freebooters and highwaymen. The farmer, the
worker and the citizen need law to protect their labors. Law protects honor, life, marriage,
possessions, all those things that we want and must have as the foundations of our state.
The judge, fully independent, projects justice. The policeman is not the representative of
some arbitrary order, but rather of that which a people finds good and right. §No sacrifice
is too great in the cause of justice. “It is better that my son die than justice perish in the
world,” a great Prussian king once said. §We want justice once more to rule in Germany,
that great, unwritten justice that came to us with our blood. It should be the law in
Germany that all obey this justice. §Justice is not that which serves the individual, but
rather that which serves the people. That is the supreme law of National Socialism, to
which all must bow.

Building a Life

Life begins in youth. It reaches its high point in the man and the woman. It sinks like the
sun into old age. §One must see life as a whole, as a natural process, which is perfected in
each moment. There is nothing wrong in youth or age. Youth is youth and old age is old
age, neither good nor bad, but rather only natural. §Youth is hope, maturity becoming.
Youth means the possibility of a proper life and great deeds. If one sees in youth the signs
of a coming bad and useless life, that is the worse reproach, for the greatest gift is being
wasted. §Youth does not have the goal of remaining young, but of becoming man or
woman. In a man is found courage and strength, seriousness and experience. Life follows
its course to great deeds. For the man as well as the woman. §After the great battle is
fought and the heavy work done, people have formed themselves inwardly and
outwardly. Body and soul have shown what they are, where they belong, whether to the
strength that builds or to that which destroys. The softening of age comes. The
impatience of youth, the strength of the man, fade. A wide vision comes, the clear
knowledge of the what is valuable and useless in this world. §After a person has fought a
good fight, his last expression is the best, because it reveals the greatness of his life. It
reveals all, need and toil, struggle and joy, and a reflection of the world to come. We
sense that when we see the death mask of Frederick the Great. Is there a face that speaks
more eloquently to us? §He who has fought such a fight earns honor in old age. Failing to
respect the aged is a failure to respect life itself. §“I spent myself in the service of the
Fatherland,” Bismarck said. Who should not honor those who have grown old and worn
in such a cause. Or do we want to honor those who say: “I have avoided service to the
fatherland?” §Each stage of life is good: youth full of hope, maturity in the fullness of
strength, the old filled with honor. Nothing deserves honor more than that which is
greater than we are!