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East. The ultimate goal was absolute domination of the entire
world. But the immediate aim was to subjugate the European
Continent.
"The right way [for German foreign policy is] ... a strength·
ening of the power on the Continent by winning new territory in
Europe, thus making a later solution of the colonial question more
likely and feasible."*
The Versailles Treaty compelled German imperialism to
retire temporarily from other Continents. It tried, however, to gain
new strength by forming a colonial Empire within Europe itself.
In principle this corresponded to certain trends in the policy of the
Entente Powers which made the Versailles Treaty in 1919. Hitler
fully exploited this aspect of the Versailles Treaty in order to
arouse a nationalist spirit which could be used for the next goal:
conquest of the European Continent. But such an achievement can
only reproduce the conflicts and antagonisms of the old imperialist
system on a wider scale, as the final stage of a gigantic struggle to
form a state capitalist world trust. Direct rule over the entire
world, elimination of any competition is the way a national monop·
oly or a state capitalist trust must try to solidify its position and to
increase its power.
The R.ise of rrconservative Man"
Let there be no misunderstanding about the Conservative Man
we are discussing here. He is-or used to be-a symbol of bour–
geois solidity, a conservative who defended that liberal bourgeois
order which had made him the "salt of the earth." He has nothing
to do with the reactionary who wants to turn the wheel of history
back to the Middle Ages and re-establish an order long dead. Nor
is he to be identified with the independent peasant land-owner who
ploughs his soil as his ancestors did and who lives on what he pro·
duces without close contacts with modern social life. We are speak–
ing of another type of Conservative Man. He may be a state official,
a bureaucrat with pension rights, a small or big capitalist, a retired
business man, or an "administrator" with a comfortable and secure
income; or he may be a shopkeeper with a big clientele and no
competition to ruin him, or even a worker owning his own home,
earning a wage sufficient to raise a family, with leisure and oppor-
*Adolf Hitler,
Mein Kampf,
New York, 1939 (Stackpole edition), p. 593.
