Fra Filippo Lippi
Saint Benedict Orders Saint Maurus
to the Rescue of Saint Placidius ~ 1445-50
National Gallery of Art
Category: Art
Fra Angelico
Beheading of St Cosmas and St Damian ~ 1439-42
Musée du Louvre
Matthias Grünewald
Isenheim Altarpiece ~ 1512-1516
Unterlinden Museum at Colmar
5th November 1941, evening
Caesar’s soldiers were vegetarians—Progress of the Germanic race—Racial doctrine camouflaged as religion—Peculiarities of the Jewish mind.
There is an interesting document, dating from the time of Caesar, which indicates that the soldiers of that time lived on a vegetarian diet. According to the same source, it was only in times of shortage that soldiers had recourse to meat. It’s known that the ancient philosophers already regarded the change from black gruel to bread as a sign of decadence. The Vikings would not have undertaken their now legendary expeditions it they’d depended on a meat diet, for they had no method of preserving meat. The fact that the smallest military unit was the section is explained by the fact that each man had a mill for grain. The purveyor of vitamins was the onion.
I changed my ideas on how to interpret our mythology the day I went for a walk in the forests where tradition invites us to lay the scene for it. In these forests one meets only idiots, whilst all around, on the plain of the Rhine, one meets the finest specimens of humanity. I realised that the Germanic conquerors had driven the aboriginals into the mountainy bush in order to settle in their place on the fertile lands.
To-day we’re renewing that tradition. The Germanic race is gaining more and more. The number of Germanics has considerably increased in the last two thousand years, and it’s undeniable that the race is getting better-looking. It’s enough to see the children.
Fifty years ago, in the Crimea, nearly half the soil was still in German hands. Basically, the population consisted firstly of the Germanic element, of Gothic origin; then of Tartars, Armenians, Jews; and Russians absolutely last. We must dig our roots into this soil.
From a social point of view, the sickest communities of the New Europe are: first, Hungary, then Italy. In England, the masses are unaware of the state of servitude in which they live. But it’s a class that ought to be ruled, for it’s racially inferior. And England couldn’t live if its ruling class were to disappear.
The Jew totally lacks any interest in things of the spirit. If he has pretended in Germany to have a bent for literature and the arts, that’s only out of snobbery, or from a liking for speculation. He has no feeling for art, and no sensibility. Except in the regions where they live in groups, the Jews are said to have reached a very high cultural level! Take Nuremberg, for example: for four hundred years—that is to say, until 1838— it hadn’t a single Jew in its population. Result: a situation in the first rank of German cultural life.
With the Aryan, the belief in the Beyond often takes a quite childish form; but this belief does represent an effort towards a deepening of things. The man who doesn’t believe in the Beyond has no understanding of religion. The great trick of Jewry was to insinuate itself fraudulently amongst the religions with a religion like Judaism, which in reality is not a religion. Simply, the Jew has put a religious camouflage over his racial doctrine. Everything he undertakes is built on this lie.
The Jew can take the credit for having corrupted the Graeco-Roman world. Previously words were used to express thoughts; he used words to invent the art of disguising thoughts. Lies are his strength, his weapon in the struggle. The Jew is said to be gifted. His only gift is that of juggling with other people’s property and swindling each and everyone. Suppose I find by chance a picture that I believe to be a Titian. I tell the owner what I think of it, and I offer him a price. In a similar case, the Jew begins by declaring that the picture is valueless, he buys it for a song and sells it at a profit of 5000 per cent. To persuade people that a thing which has value, has none, and vice versa—that’s not a sign of intelligence. They can’t even overcome the smallest economic crisis!
The Jew has a talent for bringing confusion into the simplest matters, for getting everything muddled up. Thus comes the moment when nobody understands anything more about the question at issue. To tell you something utterly insignificant, the Jew drowns you in a flood of words. You try to analyse what he said, and you realise it’s all wind. The Jew makes use of words to stultify his neighbours. And that’s why people make them professors.
The law of life is: “God helps him who helps himself!” It’s so simple that everybody is convinced of it, and nobody would pay to learn it. But the Jew succeeds in getting himself re-warded for his meaningless glibness. Stop following what he says, for a moment, and at once his whole scaffolding collapses.
I’ve always said, the Jews are the most diabolic creatures in existence, and at the same time the stupidest. They can’t produce a musician, or a thinker. No art, nothing, less than nothing. They’re liars, forgers, crooks. They owe their success only to the stupidity of their victims.
If the Jew weren’t kept presentable by the Aryan, he’d be so dirty he couldn’t open his eyes. We can live without the Jews, but they couldn’t live without us. When the Europeans realise that, they’ll all become simultaneously aware of the solidarity that binds them together. The Jew prevents this solidarity. He owes his livelihood to the fact that this solidarity does not exist.
Night of 23rd-24th December 1941
The Museum at Linz—Belittling of great paintings by Jewish critics—Incompetence of the bourgeois leaders— The Venus of Bordone.
It occurs to me that already Linz Museum can bear comparison with no-matter-which museum in New York. In the years 1890 to 1900, one could still form great collections. After that, it became practically impossible to lay one’s hand on the truly great works. The Jews mounted guard and monopolised the lot. If I’d had money sooner, I’d have been able to keep in Germany a number of works that have emigrated. It’s lucky I got there finally. Otherwise we’d have nothing left but rubbish, for the Jews do their business in works of real value.
They made use of literature to achieve this. What we should blame is, firstly, the cowardice of our bourgeoisie, and, next, the state of society (for which the bourgeoisie is equally responsible) whereby only a tiny fraction of the population is interested in art. The Jew was able to say to himself: “These Germans, who accept perverse pictures of the crucified Christ, are capable of swallowing other horrors, too, if one can persuade them that these horrors are beautiful!” The people was not concerned in such matters. It was all the affair of the so-called élite, who believed in their own competence, whereas in reality they were not capable of telling the difference between what was beautiful and what was ugly. This set-up was useful to me at the period when, although I still hadn’t much money, I began to buy.
Another thing that was useful to me, in England, was the fact that certain works, by reason of their subjects, did not fit in with the conformist morals of society. So it was that I was able to take possession of the admirable Venus by Bordone, which formerly belonged to the Duke of Kent. I’m delighted that I succeeded in obtaining in England some works of the highest level in exchange for some horrors boosted by the Jewish critics. Those are real forgers’ tactics on the Jews’ part, for they’re perfectly well aware of the worthlessness of the works they’re boosting.
They’ve used this transvaluation of values to buy, surreptitiously and at a favourable price, the masterpieces they had depreciated.
31st January 1942, evening
Possibility of collaboration with France—The era of Italian Fascism— The birth of the SA.
The Jew is so stupid that he himself saws through the branch on which he’s sitting. In 1919 a Jewess wrote in the Bayrischer Kurier: “What Eisner’s doing now will recoil upon our heads.” A rare case of foresight.
France remains hostile to us. She contains, in addition to her Nordic blood, a blood that will always be foreign to us. There must be two Frances. Thus, the French who have compromised themselves with us will find it to their own interests that we should remain in Paris as long as possible.
But our best protection against France will be for us to maintain a strong friendship, lasting for centuries, with Italy. Unlike France, Italy is inspired by political notions that are close to ours. I was thinking of the Italian delegation I received yesterday. I met men who have rulers’ qualities such as are very much to my taste. What handsome individuals, and what a resolute air! Those are men who could play a part at the top level.
The Fascists paid with their blood much more than we did. The story of the conquest of power in Italy is a heroic epic. It always warms my heart to think of it. I can understand their emotion when they once more live through the time of the March on Rome.
Why should such men suddenly become worthless as soldiers? It’s quite simply because they lack a command. The Italian people are idealistic, but the cadres of the Italian Army are reactionary.
It was in 1921 that I first heard Fascism mentioned. The SA was born in 1920, without my having the least idea of what was going on in Italy. Italy developed in a manner at which I was the first to be surprised. I could see fairly clearly the orientation that it would be proper to give the Party, but I had no ideas concerning paramilitary organisations. I began by creating a service to keep order, and it was only after the bloody brawls of 1920 that I gave these troops the name of Sturmabteilung (SA), as a reward for their behaviour.
I had taught them the technique of concentrating their efforts on limited objectives, and at meetings to attack the opponent table by table. But it was confined to that. When the brassard proved no longer sufficient, I equipped them with a specially designed cap. That was after Coburg. The skier’s cap didn’t cost much. It was all done in a very empirical manner. Nothing of that sort was thought out in advance.
The SS started with formations of seven or eight men. In these we gathered the tough ‘uns. Things developed spontaneously, and subsequently acquired a speed comparable to that of developments in Italy. The Duce himself has told me that at the moment when he undertook the struggle against Bolshevism, he didn’t know exactly where he was going.
From the cultural point of view, we are more closely linked with the Italians than with any other people. The art of Northern Italy is something we have in common with them: nothing but pure Germans.
The objectionable Italian type is found only in the South, and not everywhere even there. We also have this type in our own country. When I think of them: Vienna-Ottakring, Munich-Giesing, Berlin-Pankow! If I compare the two types, that of these degenerate Italians and our type, I find it very difficult to say which of the two is the more antipathetic.
Night of 20th-2ist February 1942
The spirit in peril—The observatory at Linz—
The fight against falsehood, superstition and intolerance.
Christianity is the worst of the regressions that mankind can ever have undergone, and it’s the Jew who, thanks to this diabolic invention, has thrown him back fifteen centuries. The only thing that would be still worse would be victory for the Jew through Bolshevism. If Bolshevism triumphed, mankind would lose the gift of laughter and joy. It would become merely a shapeless mass, doomed to greyness and despair.
The priests of antiquity were closer to nature, and they sought modestly for the meaning of things. Instead of that, Christianity promulgates its inconsistent dogmas and imposes them by force. Such a religion carries within it intolerance and persecution. It’s the bloodiest conceivable.
In their fight against the Church, the Russians are purely negative. We, on the other hand, should practise the cult of the heroes who enabled humanity to pull itself out of the rut of error. Kepler lived at Linz, and that’s why I chose Linz as the place for our observatory. His mother was accused of witchcraft and was tortured several times by the Inquisition.
There’s no greater privilege, in my view, than to play the part of a patron of the arts or the sciences. Men would certainly have regarded it as a vast honour to be allowed to encourage the career of a man like Richard Wagner. Well, it’s already a great deal gained that people like him are no longer burned alive!
I shall not cease to think that the most precious possession a country can have is its great men. If I think of Bismarck, I realise that only those who have lived through 1918 could fully appreciate his worth. One sees by such examples how much it would mean if we could make the road smooth for men of talent.
It’s only in the realm of music that I can find no satisfaction. The same thing is happening to music as is happening to beauty in a world dominated by the shavelings—the Christian religion is an enemy to beauty. The Jew has brought off the same trick upon music. He has created a new inversion of values and replaced the loveliness of music by noises. Surely the Athenian, when he entered the Parthenon to contemplate the image of Zeus, must have had another impression than the Christian who must resign himself to contemplating the grimacing face of a man crucified.
Since my fourteenth year I have felt liberated from the superstition that the priests used to teach. Apart from a few Holy Joes, I can say that none of my comrades went on believing in the miracle of the eucharist.
The only difference between then and now is that in those days I was convinced one must blow up the whole show with dynamite.
24th February 1942, midday
How great artists can serve their country.
I’ve learnt that young Roller has just fallen at the front. If I’d known that he’d gone out! But nobody told me. There are hundreds of thousands of men who could serve their country in no better way than by risking their lives for her, but a great artist should find another way. Can fate allow it that the most idiotic Russian should strike down men like that? We have so many men seconded for special duties!
What harm could it do to add to their number the five or six hundred gifted men whom it would be important to save? Roller is irreplaceable. We had only Sievert, Arent and Praetorius—Austria had given us the young Roller. Why didn’t Schirach warn me? I saw his Friedenstag. What a lovely thing! The young Roller was a brave man. Before the Anschluss he would have had to leave Austria. I’m convinced he went out as a volunteer.
I could have sent him anywhere at all, for personal reasons, if he hadn’t insisted on staying in Vienna.
27th March 1942, midday
Jewish influence on German art
—Painting in Germany.
It’s striking to observe that in 1910 our artistic level was still extraordinarily high. Since that time, alas! our decadence has merely become accentuated. In the field of painting, for example, it’s enough to recall the lamentable daubs that people have tried to foist, in the name of art, on the German people.
This was quite especially the case during the Weimar Republic, and that clearly demonstrated the disastrous influence of the Jews in matters of art. The cream of the jest was the incredible impudence with which the Jew set about it! With the help of phony art critics, and with one Jew bidding against another, they finally suggested to the people—which naturally believes everything that’s printed—a conception of art according to which the worst rubbish in painting became the expression of the height of artistic accomplishment. The ten thousand of the élite themselves, despite their pretensions on the intellectual level, let themselves be diddled, and swallowed all the humbug. The culminating hoax—and we now have proof of it, thanks to the seizure of Jewish property—is that, with the money they fraudulently acquired by selling trash, the Jews were able to buy, at wretched prices, the works of value they had so cleverly depreciated. Every time an inventory catches my eye of a requisition carried out on an important Jew, I see that genuine artistic treasures are listed there. It’s a blessing of Providence that National Socialism, by seizing power in 1933, was able to put an end to this imposture.
Genuine artists develop only by contact with other artists. Like the Old Masters, they began by working in a studio. Let’s remember that men like Rembrandt, Rubens and others hired assistants to help them to complete all their commissions.
Amongst these assistants, only those reached the rank of apprentice who displayed the necessary gifts as regards technique and adroitness—and of whom it could be supposed that they would in their turn be capable of producing works of value. It’s ridiculous to claim, as it’s claimed in the academies, that right from the start the artist of genius can do what he likes. Such a man must begin, like everyone else, by learning, and it’s only by working without relaxation that he succeeds in achieving what he wants. If he doesn’t know the art of mixing colours to perfection—if he cannot set a background—if anatomy still has secrets for him—it’s certain he won’t go very far! I can imagine the number of sketches it took an artist as gifted as Menzel before he set himself to paint the Flute Concert at Sans-Souci.
It would be good if artists to-day, like those of olden days, had the training afforded by the Masters’ studios and could thus steep themselves in the great pictorial traditions. If, when we look at the pictures of Rembrandt and Rubens, for example, it is often difficult to make out what the Master has painted himself and what is his pupils’ share, that’s due to the fact that gradually the disciples themselves became masters.
What a disaster it was, the day when the State began to interfere with the training of painters! As far as Germany is concerned, I believe that two academies would suffice: in Düsseldorf and Munich. Or perhaps three in all, if we add Vienna to the list. Obviously there’s no question, for the moment, of abolishing any of our academies. But that doesn’t prevent one from regretting that the tradition of the studios has been lost.
If, after the war, I can realise my great building programme—and I intend to devote thousands of millions to it—only genuine artists will be called on to collaborate.
Berghof, 1st May 1942, midday
Architectural problems—Our architects must plan on a grand scale—Bayreuth, Weimar and Dresden—Development of cultural life.
I am very grateful to Professor Giesler for having so successfully transformed the Schloss Kiessheim, which is to be our Guest House for distinguished visitors and which was opened in its new rôle by a visit from the Duce. The general lay-out, which corresponds so closely to my own ideas of spaciousness, pleases me particularly.
Giesler has planned on a grand scale. He has succeeded in leaving vast spaces between the portals and the staircase, and between the staircase and the entrance to the reception halls.
A sense of spaciousness is important, and I am delighted to see our architects planning on broad and spacious lines. Only thus shall we avoid the springing up of more towns in which the houses are cluttered up almost on top of each other, as one sees in Zwickau, Gelsenkirchen and so on.
If I were banished to a town of this kind, devoid of all beauty, I should lose heart and happiness just as surely as if I had been banished from my fatherland. I am therefore determined that some measure of culture and beauty shall penetrate even into the humblest of our towns, and that, step by step, the amenities of all our towns will reach a higher level. There is a lot of truth in the assertion that the culture of a town is dependent upon its traditions. Bayreuth, Weimar and Dresden afford classic examples.
It is not sufficient that a town should have a museum which the students occasionally visit; our representative must see to it that the men of the Labour Service and the Wehrmacht find it worthy of visit, and that gradually in this way the interest in, and the appreciation of, art will be aroused throughout the masses of the nation. The eye of the children must be weaned from the niggardly and trained on the grandiose, for only thus will they learn to appreciate both the ensemble and the finer points of any work of art.