We have demonstrated that fascism is not a problem of Hitler's person or of National Socialist party politics. It is a problem of the masses. We have shown how it is possible that pauperized masses give themselves over with such enthusiasm to an arch-reactionary party. In order to arrive at the practical consequences which result from this for sex-political work we must turn our attention to the symbolism which the Fascists use in putting the revolutionary structures of the masses into reactionary fetters. They themselves are not conscious of their technique.
In the SA (the military organization of the party), National Socialism brought together largely workers with vague revolutionary but at the same time also reactionary feelings, mostly unemployed workers and adolescents. For this reason, the propaganda was full of contradictions, varying, as it did, from audience to audience. It was consistent and unequivocal only in the management of the mystical feelings of the masses.
Talks with National Socialist followers, particularly with members of the SA, showed clearly that the decisive factor in winning over these masses was the revolutionary phraseology of National Socialism. One heard National Socialists deny that Hitler was representing capitalism. One heard SA members warn Hitler not to betray the cause of the „revolution“. One heard other SA people state that Hitler was the German Lenin. Those who shifted to National Socialism from Social Democracy and the liberal parties of the middle were revolutionized masses who previously were unpolitical or politically undecided. Those who shifted from the Communist party were partly revolutionaries who did not comprehend the many contradictory slogans of the [84] Communist party, and partly people who were impressed by the external make-up of the Hitler party, its military character, its parading of strength, etc.
Among the symbolical means of propaganda one is first struck by the flag symbol.
Wir sind des Heer vom Hakenkreuz
Hebt hoch die roten Fahnen,
Der deutschen Arbeit wollen wir
Den Weg zur Freiheit bahnen . 1
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1 We are the army of the swastika
Lift high the scarlet banners
For German labor we will strive
To pave the road to freedom.
The emotional content of this text is unequivocally revolutionary. The National Socialists also used revolutionary melodies which they made people sing with reactionary texts. Identical methods were used in political formulations which appeared by the hundreds in Hitler's newspapers: The political bourgeoisie is on the point of leaving the stage of historical influence. Its place is being taken by the hitherto suppressed rank of the people who work with their fists and who work with their brains, the working people who are going to fulfill their historical mission.
The undertone of Communism is unmistakable here. The revolutionary character of the National Socialist masses was clearly expressed in the adroit design of the flag.
About the flag, Hitler wrote: In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work, which as such always has been and always will be anti-semitic. (MEIN KAMPF, p. 496f.)
[85] The red and the white appeal to the contradictory structure of the average individual. What remains unclear is the emotional role of the swastika. Why does the symbol lend itself so well to the provocation of mystical feelings? Hitler contended that it was a symbol of antisemitism. This significance, however, is acquired only at a very late stage in history. Apart from that, there remains the question of the irrational content of antisemitism. The irrational content of the race theory is explained by the misinterpretation of natural sexuality as „filthy sensuality“. The Jew and the Negro mean the same thing to the Fascist, the German as well as the American. The race struggle against the Negro in America takes essentially the form of sexual defense: the Negro is thought of as the sensual brute who rapes white women.
Hitler wrote concerning the occupation of the Rhineland by colored troops: Only in France does there exist today more than ever an inner identity between the intentions of the Jew-controlled stock exchange and the desire of the chauvinist-minded national statesmen. But in this very identity there lies an immense danger for Germany. For this very reason, France is and remains by far the most terrible enemy. This people, which is basically becoming more and more negrified, constitutes in its tie with the aims of Jewish world domination an enduring danger for the existence of the white race in Europe. For the contamination by Negro blood on the Rhine in the heart of Europe is just as much in keeping with the perverted sadistic thirst for vengeance of this hereditary enemy of our people as is the ice-cold calculation of the Jew thus to begin bastardizing the European continent at its core to deprive the white race of the foundations for a sovereign existence through infection with lower humanity. (MEIN KAMPF, p. 624)
We must train ourselves rigidly to listen attentively to what the Fascist says instead of brushing it off as nonsense or fraud. We begin to understand better the emotional content of this theory which sounds like a paranoic system when held together with the theory of the „poisoning of the national body“. The [86] swastika, too, has a content which is apt to stir the depths of the emotional life, but in a way entirely different from that which Hitler had in mind.
To begin with, the swastika was also found in semitic peoples, for example, in the Alhambra in Granada. Herta Heinrich 2 found it at the ruins of the synagogue of Edd-Dikke on the lake of Genezareth.
Here it had the following shape:
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2 Herta Heinrich: „Hakenkreuz, Vierklee und Granatapfel“. Ztschr. f. Sexualwissenschaft, 1930.
The swastika is often found together with a diamond figure, the former representing a symbol of the male principle, the latter of the female. Percy Gardner found it with the Greeks as a symbol of the sun under the name of Hemera, that is, again as a male symbol.
Löwenthal 3 describes a swastika from the altarcloth of Maria zur Wiese in Soest with vulva and double cross.
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3 John Löwenthal: „Zur Hakenkreuzsymbolik“. Ztschr. f. Sexualwissenschaft, 1930.
In this, the swastika appears as a symbol of the stormy sky, the diamond as symbol of the fertile soil. Smigorski found the swastika in the form of the East Indian swastika cross as a four-pronged lightning bolt with three points at each prong, as follows: Lichtenberg found swastikas with a head in place of the three points.
The swastika, then, was originally a sexual symbol. In the course of time, it took on diverse meanings, among others that of a [87] mill-wheel, that is, of work. The original emotional identity of work and sexuality explains a finding of Bilmans and Pengerots on the mitre of Saint Thomas à Becket. It is a swastika with the following inscription: „Hail, Earth, mother of man. Grow great in the embrace of God, fruitful to nourish mankind“. Here, fertility is represented sexually as sexual intercourse between Mother Earth and God-Father. According to Zelenin, swastikas, in old Indian language, means cock as well as voluptuary; again an unequivocally sexual meaning of swastika.
A look at the swastikas on page 86 will show them to be a schematic but unmistakable presentation of two intertwined human bodies. The swastika at left represents a sexual act in recumbent position, the one at the right in the standing position. That is, the swastika represents a basic living function.
This effect of the swastika on unconscious emotional life is, of course, not the reason for the success of fascist mass propaganda; but it is a potent stimulant. Random tests with people of either sex and of various ages and social position showed that only very few people failed to recognize the meaning of the swastika; most people recognized it sooner or later. It can be safely assumed that this symbol which represents two intertwined bodies is a powerful stimulus to deep-seated emotional strivings; the more powerful the more unsatisfied and sexually longing the individual is. If the symbol, in addition, is presented as the symbol of honor and faithfulness, it is all the more easily accepted because then it also draws in the sex-defensive moralistic tendencies. It would be entirely erroneous to conclude from these findings that one should try to diminish the effectiveness of the symbol by disclosing its sexual meaning. First, we do not want to depreciate the sexual act. Second, the reaction to such an attempt would be mostly negative since the moral disguise would act as a defense against our attempt. The way of sex-economic mental hygiene is different.
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