OCR
to strengthen, or else they simply want the other to submit. A classic example is the strengthening of the German identity in the crumbling Weimar Republic on the one hand, and the eradication (of Jews) or subjugation (of lower peoples, e.g., Hungarians) on the other (see Mein Kampf). This is the point from which National Socialism was a political religion of redemption, according to, H.A. Winckler. (Winkler 2002. p.g.) The eternal Orwellian pattern is tempting. Jews are an acceptable enemy because they have different culture, religion, and also appearance. And if they do not actually look different, because they look exactly like the same, then they will be given a marker of their enemy status, the sign. It is exactly here that there emerges the opportunity for the goal to be a tool, more precisely for exclusion to become a community goal. I do not know if anyone has studied the signatures on Hitler’s letters, because they reveal a great deal, even more than the content of the letters: “mit treudeutschen Gruss”, “mit deutschem Heilgruss”, or “Heil dem kommenden nationalsozialistischen Gross-Deutschland”. (Maser 2002.p.,121,127.) Each of these “signatures” contains an apocalyptic vision of the world to come. The vision of a madman. The essence of his personality is the reinforcement of identity through the exclusion of the other, because this identity is still weak. His first step is to name the same, to emphasize exclusivity, paralleled by the simultaneous naming and contempt for the other. There can be no doubt when one reads in Mein Kampf that ,,this conglomerate spectacle of heterogeneous races which the capital of the Dual Monarchy presented, this motley of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Serbs and Croats, etc., and always that bacillus which is the solvent of human society, the Jew, here and there and everywhere--the whole spectacle was repugnant to me. The gigantic city seemed to be the incarnation of mongrel depravity.” Of course, by then he had the future fates of these “mixed” races precisely in mind. (Hitler 1939.p.109) "" The image of the enemy is 50 „Widerwärtig war mir das Rassenkonglomerat, das die Reichshauptstadt zeigte, widerwartig dieses ganze Vélkergemisch von Tschechen, Polen, Un