The Twenty-Five Points
Nazi Party
by Gottfried Feder
Dos Programm der NSDAPÂ (Munich, 1930).
The Program of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party
The National Socialist German Workers’ Party- registered as the “National Socialist German Workers’ Union”- at a great mass meeting on February 25, 1920, in the Hofbrauhaus-Festsaal in Munich, announced its program to the world.
In Section 2 of the Constitution of our Party, this program is declared to be unalterable.
It is as follows:
The program of the German Workers’ Party is limited as to period. The leaders have no intention, once the aims announced in it have been achieved, of setting up fresh ones in order to ensure the continued existence of the Party by the artificially inspired discontent of the masses.
1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.
2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.
4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.
5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.
6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We, therefore, demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen.
We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.
7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.
8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.
9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.
10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.
Therefore we demand:
11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.
17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.
19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.
20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.
21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.
22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national (folk) army.
23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press,
we demand:
(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.
(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language.
(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.
Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.
24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.
The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the principle:
COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD
25. In order to carry out this program,
we demand:
the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.
The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.
The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the foregoing points at all costs, if necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives.
The leaders of the Party swear to proceed regardless of consequences-if necessary at the sacrifice of their lives-toward the fulfilment of the foregoing Points.
Munich,
February 24, 1920.
After full discussion at the general meeting of members on May 22, 1920, it was resolved that “This program is unalterable.” This does not imply that every word must stand unchanged, nor that any efforts to extend or develop the program are to be prohibited, but it does imply that the principles and basic ideas contained in it are not to be tampered with.
There can be no twisting and turning for reasons of expediency, no secret meddling with the most important- and for the present order of politics, society, and economics, most unwelcome- points in the program; no deviation from its original sense.
Adolf Hitler has emphasized the two cornerstones of the program by printing them in heavy type:
- The Common Interest before Self-Interest- that is the Spirit of the Program.
- Breaking of the Thralldom of Interest- that is the Kernel of National Socialism.
1 W. L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York, 1960); Alan Bullock, Fiitler: A Study in
Tyranny (New York, 1953).
2 On April 13, 1928, Adolf Hitler made the following elucidation to the program:
“Because of the mendacious interpretations on the part of our opponents of Point 17 of the program of
the NSDAP, the following explanation is necessary.
Since the NSDAP is fundamentally based on the principle of private property, it is obvious that the expression “confiscation without compensation” refers merely to the creation of possible legal means of confiscating, when necessary, land illegally acquired, or not administered in accordance with the national welfare. It is therefore directed in the first instance against the Jewish companies which speculate in land.”
(Signed)
ADOLF HITLER
Munich, April 13. 1928.
