Article by Reinhard Heydrich in Das Schwarze Korps.
Source: Das Schwarze Korps, 1935.
...Our task
Recognising our foe is a major imperative in our struggle. We know only his goal, his changing methods and the forms he appears in. What changes are necessary in us, in our movement, in order to adapt to the changing struggle? First, we have to be aware of the fact that the state apparatus, especially the state police, cannot lead the battle on their own. The police can only deal with such hostile behaviour as can be defined in legal terms. This reduces the police to an agency of defence. Ideological enemies can only be subjugated in a spiritual battle of world-views. After the first months of the revolutionary conquest of state power, co-ordination (Gleichschaltung) began to be undertaken. When some of our fellow combatants did not endorse the importance of this change in the form and means of battle, the term “from revolution to evolution” was coined, i.e. from external seizure of power to the spiritual and ideological conquest of everybody. What does this new form of struggle demand of us, the SS? We have to improve ourselves. We have to discipline ourselves, to deepen and follow the principles of our worldview, given to us by the Fuehrer. We have to ideologically co-ordinate ourselves so that all of us think alike of our enemies and fundamentally exclude them, without making any personal selfish or compassionate exceptions. In order to preserve our people, we must be harsh in the face of our enemy, even at the cost of hurting an individual or being condemned as rabble-rousers by some probably well-meaning people. Should we not fulfil our historic role as National Socialists because we have been too humane and objective, there will be no mitigating circumstances when our conduct is being evaluated. It will merely be said: they have not fulfilled their role when facing history. If someone is our enemy, he is to be vanquished subjectively and without exception. If, for example, out of false compassion, every German should make an exception for “only one decent” Jew or Freemason whom he knows, we would end up with 60 million such exceptions. We have to work on our character and accomplishments. We have to deepen the positive elements of our German genetic assets. With all severity, we must be virtuous, we must exhibit extreme loyalty, and there should be no camaraderie better than ours. With even greater harshness we have to uproot any shortcomings and deficiencies from within our own ranks. In order to prove the truth of the principles of our community...we have to eventually become the best in all areas. In the framework of military service we have to supply the national army with the best recruits. We have to always be the best in sports. In all professions, the rule must be that SS men with political awareness are the best professionals, both in studies and in practice. Our high achievements ought to render the “apolitical”, pure professional superfluous. We have to broaden our knowledge about our ancestors…the understanding of all the values God has given to our people: our blood, our way, our true historic past. Added to this is our matured nationality, with its roots in ancient times... We must live an exemplary life according to the eternal principles set by the Fuehrer, and to reach out in a positive form, using our ideology to prevail on those people whom character has prevented from taking part in the process of Gleichschaltung (co-ordination) of the first months. All these people, who could not appreciate the content of our ideology because of some formal deficiency, have to be personally won over. They are to be persuaded one by one by our accomplishments, by the strength of our faith. Our role as members of the National Socialist Movement is to become a small link between the illustrious cultural past of our people and the coming thousands of years of German national history. We, the SS, wish to become the ideological front soldiers and Storm Troopers of the Fuehrer's idea, and at the same time to be in the service of the State Police as the defence corps of the National Socialist State.
