Note on the Murphy Translation of MEIN KAMPF

There is an ongoing debate among National-Socialists and White Nationalists over which English language translation of Mein Kampf is the best.

NS Bibliophile believes that the Ralph Manheim translation published by Houghton Mifflin, while not perfect, is superior to all others. Despite his undisguised hostility to Adolf Hitler and the NS worldview, Manheim's translation is the most accurate and best captures the spirit of Hitler's message.

However, there are some people who prefer the James Murphy translation, first published by the British publishing house of Hurst and Blackett in 1939. Sadly, this preference is not based on the quality of the translation, but rather on the dishonest claim made by the publisher that the Murphy translation is the "official version" and "authorized" by Hitler himself. But that is not true.

Here is a short version of the true story: In 1936, the German government contracted with Murphey to do a translation of Mein Kampf, and Murphy made an initial rough draft. It contains numerous errors, and the prose is stilted and awkward. However, Murphy was ill and did not have the energy to complete the project. His rough draft was obtained by Hurst and Blackett, which they published, without corrections or modification, in 1939 as the "authorized" English edition. But neither the German government nor Hitler himself ever approved Murphey's initial draft.

But it gets worse: because he was ill, Murphy hired one Greta Lorke an assistant translator to help him out. Unbeknownst to him, Lorke was an operative of the "Red Orchestra" (Rote Kapelle, auf deutsch), the notorious Communist espionage and sabotage ring run by the Soviet Union. She saw working on the Mein Kampf translation as a perfect cover identity that allowed her to participate in Red Orchestra activities without drawing suspicion to herself. Additionally, she saw the assignment as an opportunity to discredit Hitlerism by fiddling with the passages that she translated.

An account (sympathetic, of course!) of Lorke's involvement in the Murphy translation may be found on pages 110 - 111 of the book Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler by Anne Nelson, Random House, NY, 2009.

A fuller examinaton into Lorke's role (including the insertion of deliberately erroneous material) appears in a harder-to-find earlier volume, Hitler's Mein Kampf in Britain and America by James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes, Cambridge University Press, NY, 1980.

To summarize: (1) the James Murphy translation of Mein Kampf published by Hurst and Blackett was an uncorrected rough draft made by a sick man; (2) it was NOT authorized or approved by either Hitler or the German government; and (3) parts of the translation were done by the Soviet spy and saboteur Greta Lorke, who was pursuing her own anti-NS ideological agenda.

Once again, NS Bibliophile recommends the Manheim translation -- or better yet, the German original!

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National-Socialism and the Natural Order: A Select Reading List

Basic NS Texts

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. Verlag Franz Eher Nachfolger, GmbH, Muenchen. Band I 1925, Band II 1927, 781 pp.

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. Trans. Ralph Manheim, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943. Index, 694 pp., ISBN-13: 978-0395925034. Reading it in the original is always the preferred option, but if you are limited to an English translation, this one is the best.

White Power by George Lincoln Rockwell. Ragnarok Press, Dallas, Texas, 1967 [1968], 482 pp., illustrated. See especially Chapter 15, "National Socialism," for Rockwell's discussion of the Natural Order and National-Socialism.

National Socialism: The Biological Worldview by Povl H. Riis-Knudsen. Nordland Forlag, Aalborg, 1987. Frontispiece, 30 pp. Essential!

Books Hostile to National-Socialism but Still Containing Valuable Information

Blood and Soil: Walther Darre and Hitler's Green Party by Anna Bramwell. Kensal Press, 1985, 224 pp., ISBN-13: 978-0946041336. Not NS - but not as hostile as most mainstream books on Hitler and the Hitler era!

Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis by Robert N. Proctor. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 1988. Notes, index, bibliography, 43 figures, 414 + vii pp., ISBN 0-674-74580-9. See especially Chapter 1, "The Origins of Racial Hygiene," and Chapter 3, "Political Biology: Doctors in the Nazi Cause." One gets the feeling that Proctor feels it necesary to go out of his way to show his anti-NS sentiments because the topic lends itself to a favorable portrayall of National-Socialism.

The Nazi War on Cancer by Robert N. Proctor. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 1999. Notes, index, bibliography, figures, 380 + x pp., ISBN 0-691-00196-0. See especially Chapter 3, "Genetic and Racial Theories," Chapter 5, "The Nazi Diet," and Chapter 6, "The Campaign against Tobacco." Even more rabidly anti-NS than Racial Hygiene -- but also containing even more good information.

Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience by Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier. AK Press, San Francisco and Edinburgh, 1995. Footnotes, 73 pp., ISBN 1-873176-73-2. Contains two essays: "Fascist Ideology: The 'Green Wing' of the Nazi Party and Its Historical Antecedents" by Staudenmaier; and "'Ecology' and the Modernization of Fascism in the German Ultra-Right" by Biehl. The quotes they cite from NS sources alone make this worth reading!

Anthropology and Sociobiology

None of the books listed here is written by a National-Socialist or with an NS audience in mind, but they all show the biological underpinning of the National-Socialist worldview and NS policy.

Introduction to Anthropology by Dr. Roger Pearson. Harcourt College Publishers, 1974. Approx. 500 photographs, charts and maps; glossary; table of languages, index, 616. pp., ISBN-13: 978-0030915-17-8.

Sociobiology: The Abridged Edition by Edmund O. Wilson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 1980. Glossary, bibliography, index, 366 + ix pp., ISBN 0-674-81623-4. There is a longer version, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, written for scholars, but NS Bibliophile recommends the abridged version for non-specialist reader.

Promethean Fire: Reflexions on the Origin of the Mind by Charles J. Lumsden & Edmund O. Wilson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England. Endotes, index, 216 pp., ISBN 0-674-71445-8.

African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man by Robert Ardrey. Atheneum Publishers, NY, 1961. Paperback edition, 384 pp., index, ISBN 0-553-10215-X.

The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origin of Property and Nations by Robert Ardrey. Atheneum Publishers, NY, 1966. Bibliography, bibliographical key, 355 pp.

The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal by Desmond Morris. ISBN 0-070431-74-4, 1967. Says Wikipedia: "[Z]oologist and anthropoligist Desmond Morris...looks at humans as a species and compares them to other animals. The Human Zoo, a followup book by Desmond Morris, which examined the behavior of people in cities, was published in 1969."

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Britons in the Waffen-SS

Britisches Freikorps: British Volunteers of the Waffen-SS, 1943-1945 by Richard Landwehr. Siegrunen Publications, Brookings,Oregon, and Merriam Press, Bennington, Vermont, Second (Revised) Edition, 2008. Trade paperback, 132 pp. photographs, bibliography, ISBN 978-0-03362-1. Available from the publisher http://www.merriam-press.com/.

The British Free Corps by Robert Best. Booklet format, 20 pp. Available from http://www.stevenbooks.co.uk/.

"This conflict between England and Germany is
racial SUICIDE."
-- British Free Corps recruiting leaflet, 1944

In the beginning was the word: on November 29, 1942, Adolf Hitler's personal aide, Walter Hewel, wrote in his diary:

[Hitler] believes that countless patriotic Englishmen must be suffering under the present regime, as they see the future danger of the Jews, and particularly, of the Bolsheviks taking over the Empire. He considers it quite possible that given suitable treatment a British legion could be raised to fight in British uniforms against bolshevism. Such a legion would be more welcome to him than one of any other nationality.

Three months later, the pro-German British political dissident John Amery had formed the Legion of St. George, which a year after that became the "British Free Corp (SS)." The Britisches Freikorps (as it was known in German) was one of a number of formations made up of non-Germans which fought on the side of the Axis during the Second World War under the overall command of Heinrich Himmler's Waffen-SS.

The Waffen-SS was the military wing of the SS, which itself was a subordinate formation of the National-Socialist German Worker's Party. The name Waffen-SS may be translated as "Armed SS" or "Combat SS." Himmler had always conceived of it as a pan-Aryan (or at least pan-Germanic) formation. This is in keeping with National-Socialist racial theory, which is racially nationalist rather than state nationalist. From very early on, racially acceptable non-Germans were allowed to serve in the Waffen-SS. Historian George H. Stein notes:

As early as 1938, Himmler had authorized the acceptance of qualified Germanics (Germanen) in the [Waffen-SS]. He was not referring to ethnic Germans who had long been accepted into the armed SS. When Himmler spoke of Germanen he meant non-Germans of "Nordic blood." Towards the end of 1938, there were only twenty such volunteers in the armed SS. By May 1940, there were 100, including five from the United states, three from Sweden, and 44 from Switzerland. . . The German conquest of Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands, however, opened up an entirely new dimension in SS recruitment.

Rather than integrate foreigners into the German SS, non-Germans were recruited into separate military formations, such as the Danish Legion and the Norwegian Legion. Initially these legions were under the command of the German Army. Soon, however, they were transferred to the SS, and were reorganized a normally structured military units, such as regiments and battalion, rather than as "legions." The British Free Corps was one such formation. It has long been the subject of rumor and speculation, and there has been little reliable information available concerning it. However, in recent years new research has brought to light more data concerning the BFC, so that now its story may be told in full for the first time. A good brief introduction to the BFC is provided by The British Free Corps, Robert Best's short but fact-filled mongraph on the topic. A more in-depth look may be found in Richard Landwehr's book, which contains not just an overview of the subject, but which also focuses in detail on the stories of many of the individual men who fought in its ranks.

The BFC consisted largely of British prisoners captured by the Germans in the early years of the war. These soldiers were given the option of sitting out the rest of the war in the relative safety of a POW camp, or in joining the BFC and risking life and limb to fight "Jewish Bolshevism." Remarkably -- or maybe not remarkably at all -- nearly two-hundred Brits opted to join the struggle against Marxism. Very importantly, as Best points out, they enlisted with the clear understanding that they would never be used in combat against their fellow countrymen, but only against the Soviets.

Best lists the names of 165 BFC members, with their fates (where known). He also quotes a source which indicates that by January 1945, some 1,100 Britons had applied to join the formation. Additionally, there was also an SS Irish Brigade, which was about 400 men strong.

Best reveals that although the BFC marched as a unit in a number of military parades, it was apparently committed to combat in a piecemeal fashion. The author recounts that a number of BFC members acquitted themselves with courage and tenacity during the final battle for Berlin. Some paid with their lives, while others survived -- only to be imprisoned in Soviet slave labor camps or tried as traitors by the British government.

It is the personal stories of the men of the BFC that is the strongest element of Landwehr's book, Britisches Freikorps. This is an upgraded version of the first edition of the book published in 1992. It is expanded in that it contains over twice the number of pages as well as many new photographs. It is visually improved in that it the layout and design are more professional and attractive. Additionally, it is now perfect-bound rather than stapled, and it now boasts an attractive three-color cover. More importantly, the content has been updated to include the results of the most recent research.

Landwehr is an internationally recognized expert on the Waffen-SS, and he is the author of numerous books on the subject. Whatever aspect of the Waffen-SS which he examines, he brings an encyclopedic knowledge to bear. Because he views his subjects with a sympathetic eye, he avoids the common failing of mainstream historians who more often than not demonize the SS at every turn. At the same time, however, Landwehr maintains enough scholarly detachment to treat his subjects honestly and fairly, and he does not shrink from showing their warts and pointing out their shortcomings when these are a genuine part of the historical record.

He begins with the requisite sections on the origins of the BFC, of its recruiting efforts, of its training and of the details of its uniform. The most fascinanting chapters, however, chronicle the BFC in action, and which tell the stories of many of the individual Corpsmen.

In addition to recruits from England, Scotland, Wales, Ulster and Cornwall, there were also Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans, men from the Republic of Ireland -- and at least three Americans. One of the Yanks was a US Air Force officer known, ironically, by the name of "Lt. Tyndall;" it was said that he was born in Texas to an English father and a German mother. But "Tyndall" was almost certainly not his real identity: it was common for BFC members to be carried on the Corps' roster under an assumed name. It was a sensible precaution, intended to provide a layer of protection from persecution in the event that Germany lost the War. Consequently, the real identities of many of the Corpsmen remain a mystery.

The Corps was formed in early 1943 under the name of the "Legion of St. George." On January 1, 1944, the Legion was renamed the "British Free Corps," and recruitment and training began in earnest. Individual Corpsmen were posted to various Waffen-SS units as their training was completed. Apparently it was decided not to commit the entire BFC to battle as a single unit: although its value as a propaganda weapon was considerable, its military worth as an actual fighting formation was slight because of its small size. Had the whole BFC been sent into battle against the Soviets in the vast battles of annihilation that characterized the Eastern Front, it could have easily been wiped out down to the last man. This would have been a painful blow to Axis morale. By dispersing the troopers among different units, they could still serve as combat infantrymen, but the danger of them all being killed at once was removed.

However, on at least one occasion a small unit comprised entirely of BFC members did see combat. In March of 1945, a BFC detachment was deployed with with the 11th Waffen-SS division "Nordland," which was composed largely of Scandinavian volunteers. Although most of the Corpsmen were dispersed throughout the division, a squad-sized unit was assigned to the 3rd company of the reconaissance battalion, which consisted primarily of Swedish SS men. The BFC contingent was commanded by SS-Scharfuehrer "Hodge." ("Scharfuehrer" is sergeant; "Hodge" is mostly likely a nom de guerre and not his real name.) Landwehr reports, "The Britons were sent to a company in the detachment that was situated in the small village of Schoenburg near the west bank of the Oder River (p. 83)." On March 22, as the company was entrenching, it was partially overrun by an advance element of the Red Army which had blundered into its position by accident. Although taken by surprise, the SS troopers, including the BFC volunteers, quickly regained their wits and launched a vigorous counterattack, driving off the Soviets. One BFC fighter, a Cornishman named Kenneth Edward Berry, was captured during the brief but fierce battle, and was subsequently interned.

In the spring of 1945 the BFC headquarters unit was in Berlin. It was reduced to skeleton strength as the last Corpsmen were dispatched to the front for the final battle. One of the last BFC fighters still left in Berlin was Reginald Leslie Cornford. On April 27, he single-handedly destoyed a Soviet T-34 tank, by firing a one-shot handheld antitank missle at it from point-blank range. The crew of the tank bailed out of the burning vehicle, taking their personal weapons with them. In the ensuing firefight, Cornford was shot dead.

Another Corspman who distinguished himself during the battle for Berlin was Eric Pleasants, of Norwich. Pleasants is easily the most colorful figure in a formation that was full of colorful figures. Before the War he had been a Blackshirt security officers in Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Unwilling to fight against Germany when war broke out, he aligned himself with the Peace Pledge Union, and was assigned agricultural work on the Channel Islands as an alternative to military service. Pleasants was interned with the other adult males when the Germans occupied the islands in 1940. He was an early volunteer in the BFC. Pleasants was naturally strong and athletic, and he had an iron constitution. He had experience in boxing, wrestling and the Oriental martial arts. Unsurprisingly, he became the physical instructor for the BFC. As part of his duties, he represented the BFC in exhibition boxing matches with the other Germanic SS units, and in time became the middleweight boxing champion of the SS.

During the climactic battle for Berlin, he managed to fight his way through the Soviet encirclement, killing two Communist soliders in hand-to-hand fighting in the process. He surrendered to the Americans, but after further adventures, he was interned by the Russians and spent seven years in a Siberian slave labor camp. Shortly before his death, he returned to England and died peacefully in Hethel, near his home town of Norwich, at age 87.

Of course, most of the stories of the BFC volunteers did not have such happy endings. Lance-Sergeant Harold Cole was imprisoned by the French after the War. In November of 1945, dressed as an American soldier, he escaped from the detention center in Paris where he was being held. He was killed shortly afterwards in a gun fight with the French police, who had tracked him down. Or consider the fate of Corpsmen Robert Heighes and William How, who perished during the Allied terror bombing of Dresden. And then there was Harry Batchelor, who was acquitted of all charges after suffering "improper interrogation and questioning" by the British authorities. Anyone familiar with the fiendish torture to which other SS men subjected after the War can imagine what these "improper" techniques were like!

Many other Corpsmen who survived the War were sentenced to prison terms by the British government for treason. Their sentences varied from a few months to many years. But as Landwehr notes:

While in prison the comradeship between the BFC members became much stronger than it had even in wartime; all were convinced that they had been treated unfairly and most were unrepentant. In fact, many of the known present-day survivors, estimated to number around a dozen by one source, remain National Socialists to this day. (pp.92-93)

Considering the gigantic scale of the Second World War and the huge number of men who fought in it, the saga of the British Free Corps can be seen as little more than a minor footnote. However, if the War had lasted longer, or if it had taken a difference course, it is easy to see how an expanded BFC could have played a more prominent role.

It is one thing to philosophize about pan-White racial solidarity in theory, while sitting at home or in a pub. It is altogether another thing to put it into practice in time of war, when one's life is on the line. The Waffen-SS provided a functioning framework for the practical application of pan-Aryan unity at a crucial moment in history. The fighting heroes of the British Free Corps rose to the occasion and provided an example for future generations to follow. All glory to them!

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The review posted here is a combined and lightly edited version of two reviews which first appeared in Heritage and Destiny, numbers 40 (April-June 2010) and 41 (July-September 2010). For subscription details another other information on Heritage and Destiny, see http://www.efp.org.uk/

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Addendum: the following letter to the editor appeared in Heritage and Destiny number 42 (October-December 2010).

Sir - I just had a chance to read Martin Kerr's review in the latest Heritage and Destiny of The British Free Corps by Robert Best. Excellent! I particularly liked the opening line ("In the beginning . . .") , as well as the concluding paragraph on pan-Aryanism in action. The review called to mind my April 1995 visit to Germany, where I took a group of pilgrims to Montbijou-Platz in central Berlin. Fifty years earlier, as Soviet tanks edged forward through the rubble-strewn streets of the city, a lone foreign volunteer stood in that very spot along a railway embankment, which formed one of the last lines of defense of the besieged city. As one of the tanks approached, he shouldered his Panzerfaust, took aim, and fired.

The ensuing explosion brought one of the advancing tanks to a halt. In subsequent return fire, the volunteer was mortally wounded. Upon recovering the dead body, there was found on the left sleeve of his field-gray uniform the Union Jack shield and a cuffband bearing the words: British Free Corps. Identification papers retrieved from the fallen SS man listed him simply as Reginald Leslie Cornford. In the maelstrom a little-known Briton had stood his ground and died -- a token of blood sacrifice in defense of a higher culture

With Berlin's reconstructed synagogue just down the street and present-day "Rosa Luxemburg" and "Karl Liebknecht" streets not far away, it is all rather emblematic of the real issues in a larger struggle. I look forward to the day when we can erect a fitting memorial at this site and the heoric contribution of this brave band of volunteers is recognized and more highly esteemed than that of the hundred of thousands of their countrymen, who were drafted to fight on the wrong side of the war under the aegis of international Zionism and its conjoined forces of finance Capitalism and Communism.

Racial regards,

Matt Koehl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

NS Bibliophile notes that Mr. Koehl is the Commander of the NEW ORDER. See: http://www.theneworder.org/.

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Book News (5-10-11)

NEW BOOK:

White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century by Jared Taylor. New Century Books [Oakton, Va.], 2011. Trade paperback, 340 + xvii pp., endnotes (including bibliographical references), ISBN 978-0-9656383-9-5. Available from http://www.amren.com/.

Prominent White Nationalist author, publisher and publicist Jared Taylor patiently explains the obvious realities of racial identity in the 21st century to oblivious White people. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see!

Chapters:
The Failure of Integration
The Myth of Diversity - Institutions
The Myth of Diversity - Daily Life
The Science of Human Nature
Black Racial Consciousness
Hispanic Racial Consciousness
Asian Racial Consciousness
White Racial Consciousness
The Crisis We Face

Curiously, the author does NOT include a discussion of Jewish consciousness. Perhaps this is just an oversight on his part, or perhaps he feels that Jews do not have a strong sense of ethnic/racial identity.

This volume bears a striking full-color cover illustration of the painting Wanderer above a Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich (1818). There maybe some people in the world who feel that this work of art is not a presentitment of Nietzsche -- but I am not one of them!

SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE:

Hold Back this Day by Ward Kendall. Second edition, Counter-Currents, San Francisco, 2011. Hardback, 212 pp., full-color cover. Scheduled for release May 20, 2011. Available from http://www.counter-currents.com/.

This is a new printing of the distopian White Nationalist sci-fi novel which first appeared in 2001.

Question: why are there not more entries in the genre of racialist science fiction?

BOOK LIST:

The Truth at Last Books have issued their summer, 2011, book list. This year's list includes 56 books, six DVDs, and eight mass-distribution tracts. A free newsletter accompanies each list.

Truth at Last Books is strictly old-school, which means that they have no online presence and that you will have to write them by postal mail.

Truth at Last Books
PO Box 1211
Marietta, Ga. 30061-1211

Although the list and newsletter are technically free of charge, NS Bibliophile STRONGLY encourages enclosing a couple of dollars when requesting same. In the end, nothing is really "free!"

Book News (4-20-11)

RECENT BOOKS:

Frontkampfer: The Life of Et Wolsink: A History by S.L.F. A Sunwheel Publication, NS Press UK, 2010. Trade paperback, 156 pp., frontispiece and seven photographs on the cover. Aviailable for 12 Pounds (UK) from: NS Press, PO Box 6, Heckmondwike, Yorkshire, WF14 0XF, United Kingdom.

This is a sympathetic "as told to" biography of Gerrit "Et" Wolsink, a Dutch National-Socialist and member of the Waffen-SS. Produced by the British Movement.

The Great Economic Debacle -- and Beyond: Reviews and Commentary by Dwight D. Murphey. Council for Social and Economic Studies, Washington, DC, 2011. Trade paperback, 168 pp., index. See: http://www.jspes.org/

A nationalist economist analyses the globalist mishandling on the world economy.

Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment and the First World War by Thomas Weber. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010. Index, 450 pp., 28 photographs ISBN 978-019-233-205.

Thomas Weber is a mainstream historian and academician, who is probably Jewish. This is a detailed and fascinating, but completely hostile, account of Hitler's participation in World War One and his life immediately afterwards. A complete NS review of this book by Martin Kerr appears in the current issue of the British publication Heritage & Destiny. See http://www.efp.org.uk/ for ordering information about H&D.

SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE:

Now and Forever: Devotional Poems by Savitri Devi, edited by R.G. Fowler. Hardback, illustrated, 128 pp. Further information: http://savitridevi.org/

This previously unpublished book by Savitri Devi was originally scheduled for release on January 1, 2011, but the publication date as then pushed back to April 1, 2011. To our knowledge, it still has not appeared. We hope that whatever problems there are be resolved soon, as we await this volume with eager anticipation!

NEW BOOKLIST:

An updated booklist by NS Publications is now available. NS Publications is the oldest (since 1968) and one of the most reliable suppliers of National-Socialist materials in the English-speaking world. The list is 15 pages long, and contains over 200 books and other items. It is available for a nominal cost of $3. For a copy of the new printed list (which we believe is more current than even their online list), contact http://nspublications.com/.

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Karma Yoga in Kali Yuga

Selfless Action by Matt Koehl. New Order, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2006. Softcover, 16 pp., ISBN 0-9648533-3-7. Available from http://www.nspublications.com/

"Vanity is a mortgage that must be deducted from the value of a man." -- Bismarck

We live in an age of racial decline, spiritual sickness, and moral decomposition. The ancient Aryans of India called this Dark Age Kali Yuga. National-Socialists -- and indeed, all upright Aryans -- are commanded to live lives of honor and righteousness. How are we to do this? How are we to live meaningful lives in keeping with the highest commands of our inner voice, while trapped in what Lincoln Rockwell delicately called "a raging torrent of excrement?" Is it even possible for us to live lives of purity and honor in today's society? Matt Koehl says that the answer to these questions is "Yes," and that the solution to our dilemma is to be found in another phrase from the ancients Aryans of India: Karma Yoga.

We imagine that most of those reading this review will know who Matt Koehl is, and likewise they will know his history. But for those who are not familiar with him, an introduction is in order.

Matt Koehl (born Milwaukee, Wisconsin, January 22, 1935) is the Commander of the New Order, which is the North American affiliate of the World Union of National Socialists, which he also heads. He traces his involvement in the racial cause back to his teenage years in the late 1940s. During the 1950s, except for a hitch in U.S. Marine Corps, he was active in various quasi-NS organizations, including James Madole's National Renaissance Party, the National States Rights Party, and the Free Ezra Pound Committee. In 1959 George Lincoln Rockwell formed the American Nazi Party, and Koehl was an early recruit, organizing for the ANP in Chicago. He started out as an ordinary Party member, but by dint of hard work and intelligence, and by consistently displaying loyalty, reliability and courage, he eventually became Rockwell's number-two man.

When Rockwell was assassinated in August, 1967, Koehl stepped forward to lead the organization, which by then had been renamed the National Socialist White People's Party. Initially, Koehl adopted not just Rockwell's political strategy, but even his public persona, to the degree that he could. But the two men had different personalities, and quickly the confrontational, in-your-face street theater perfected by Rockwell gave way to a more serious, dignified leadership style that better suited Koehl's more reserved personality. Nevertheless, he still adhered to Rockwell's political approach for building the Movement. Under Koehl's leadership, the NSWPP became the largest and most successful NS political party in American history, before or since.

By the beginning of the 1980s, however, Koehl began to realize that Rockwell's plans for a quick political victory for National-Socialism were unrealistic. Rockwell had hoped that American National-Socialism would be able to gain national power within a matter of years, or maybe a couple of decades at the most. Koehl came to the conclusion that that was not going to happen -- that hopes for an early political triumph for the postwar movement were nothing but a fantasy. Instead, he believed that the Movement needed to prepare itself for long, protracted struggle, one that might take generations or centuries, not just years. Consequently, he abandoned the political approach devised by Rockwell and at which he himself had been relatively successful. In 1984 he reorganized the NSWPP as the the New Order, a formation which would have a religious or spiritual focus, as opposed to a political one. (See: http://theneworder.org/.)

The reorientation of the Movement from a political to a religious approach was controversial in 1984, and in some NS circles it remains so today. Psychologically, however, the move was easy for Koehl, for his appreciation of National-Socialism had always been fundamentally a religious one, anyway. In this Koehl was in full agreement with Rockwell, who had stated repeatedly that he considered National-Socialism to be a new Aryan religion, and not only a political doctrine.

Koehl's conception of a new Hitlerian religion was outlined in his 1982 essay, "Hitlerism: Faith of the Future," which was published in the World Union ideological journal The National Socialist. It subsequently appeared as a New Order booklet entitled simply Faith of the Future in 1986. In 1995 an expanded second edition was issued. However, since this seminal essay, Koehl's output of overtly spiritual or religious writing has been very slim. Much or all of what he has written along these lines has been merely an elaboration or elucidation of the central theme of Faith of the Future, which is that Adolf Hitler is a divinely mandated racial savior for the Aryan peoples.

In 2006, however, he released a new essay, entitled Selfless Action, in booklet form, in which he added a new and intriguing dimension to his exposition of the Hitlerian faith. Outside of a small readership in the New Order itself, this booklet has attracted little attention and it is virtually unknown in the broader White Nationalist movement.

The theme of Koehl's exposition is nishkama karma, which he defines as "the performance of one's duty without the desire for the fruits of one's actions." It is a term from the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad-Gita, which he cites frequently throughout. He also uses the term karma yoga, which is favored by Savitri Devi, and which is apparently synonymous with nishkama karma. He breaks down the concept of selfless action into its two components, selflessness and action, and discusses each.

Essentially, Koehl says that the correct motivation for action should simply be to do what is right. In the performance of right action, one should not be turned aside by fear of consequences, be it punishment or even death. Likewise, one should not be lured astray by the temptations offered by fame or wealth, nor should one allow the praise of one's followers to distract from the fulfillment of duty, which is the definition of right action. Koehl is quick to point out an insidious pitfall into which many Movement activists fall: the psychological rewards which come from successful action have a flip side, which is the crushing depression that can be caused by a lack of success. When success is slow in coming, or when defeat is encountered, some activists are turned aside from the performance of their duty.

They cease their activism, cut back on their financial support of the Movement, and in some cases, they resign. Without the rewards that come from successful action, they no longer have the spiritual stamina to continue to perform their duty. Koehl feels that this attitude stems from a failure to perceive the true nature of duty itself: duty must be performed both in defeat as well as in victory, during periods of failure as well as during periods of success, "in good times and in bad, come what may" (to quote Rudolf Hess).

If today's National-Socialists allow themselves to base their commitment to the Movement on the values and attitudes of contemporary society, with its fixation on instant gratification and feel-good ego-centricism, then they will accomplish nothing. They will be turned aside and filled with despair at every setback or defeat that they encounter -- of which there will be many. If, on the other hand, they resolve to do their duty without regard to immediate victory or defeat, or without consideration of rewards or punishments, then they will be able to persevere against all odds. And even if a comrade falls in the struggle, he will not be defeated in any meaningful sense of the term, for his comrades will continue to fight on to the Endsieg, the ultimate victory.

Sections in Selfless Action include: Ancient Wisdom; Personal Detachment; Action as Duty; Pflichterfuellung and Heroism; Selfless Action versus Asceticism; Examples; and he concludes with a Summary.

The booklet itself is in a presentable but bare-bones format, with inexpensive offset printing, a card cover and staple binding. Ordering information is listed above. An electronic version is not currently available.

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The Indo-European Ancestor in Cult Ancient Greece and Rome

Family, Kin and City-State: the Racial Underpinning of Ancient Greece and Rome by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges and J.W. Jamieson. Scott-Townsend Publishers, Washington, D.C., 1999. 108 pp., index, softcover, ISBN 1-878465-34-1. Available from the publisher at http://scott-townsend.com/.

Generally, whenever consideration is given to the pre-Christian religious beliefs of the European peoples, it is invariably the public religions of the great creator and nature gods and goddesses that are referenced. This is true regardless of whether it is the humanized paganism of the Mediterranean or the more primordial/primeval heathenism of the Northlands that is under discussion: the mythologies of the Olympians and the Asgarders are depicted as the only forms of religious faith in ancient Europe. Yet, this is not the case, for the pre-Christian spiritual beliefs of our ancestors were more complex, layered and sophisticated than is commonly perceived.

In addition to the public worship of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother, of Zeus and Athena, of Jupiter and Mars, of Odin and Frey, all of the Indo-European peoples had a private, personal religious faith rooted in the veneration of ancestors and blood lineage. On the rare occasions in which it is mentioned, this private religion is normally referred to as the "ancestor cult" or (more accurately) the "cult of the ancestors." If the word "cult" is understood in a technical religious sense, there is no problem with this designation. However, in common usuage the word "cult" has accrued a pejorative meaning, which makes it problematical in this case. Nevertheless, as a matter of convenience, and since it is technically correct, it is the term we shall use here.

There are only a handful of works in English which discuss the ancient Indo-European ancestor cult, and for the most part they are obscure and difficult to obtain. The most comprehensive of these is The Aryan Household by William Edward Ahern (1893). The Aryan Race by Charles Morris (1892) also includes a chapter-length summary discussion of it. More recently, Brian Branston mentions it in passing in The Gods of the North (1955) but does not explore it further.

Fortunately, a good English-language introduction to the topic is available from Scott-Townsend publishers under the title Family, Kin and City-State: the Racial Underpinning of Ancient Greece and Rome. This is a book-length excerpt from a longer work by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1899), which was first published in French in 1864 as La Cite Antique. An English translation by Willard Small followed in 1873, as The Ancient City: A Study of the Religious Laws and Institutions of Greece and Rome. De Coulanges divides his study into five "books," the first two of which are "Ancient Beliefs" and "The Family."

Renowned scholar and Indo-Europeanist J.W. Jamieson has taken this basic text by Fustel de Coulangnes and developed it further. The point being made in The Anicent City was that it was this religious belief and its accompanying practice that held the societies of Classical antiquity together. Jamieson, in turn, shows how the whole religious structure was based on blood-lineage and heredity. Beginning with the family and extending to the clan, and thence to phratry and further the tribe, and further still until the whole of the Folk was encompassed, there was a self-reinforcing, self-perpetuating network of social, political and economic relationships based on blood-kinship, or as we would say today Race. Thus ancient Greece and Rome were at their inception racial societies, as were those of the Germans, the Celts and all the Indo-European (or Aryan) peoples. In each case, it was the family, based on the cult of the ancestors, which formed the fundamental building block of Indo-European society.

By "family," we do not mean the typical nuclear family of 21st century America, with a husband, a wife, two children and perhaps a dog or a cat as a pet. Rather, the Indo-European family was more along the lines of what we today call an "extended family," consisting at any moment of three or four generations of related people, numbering anywhere from a dozen or two to a hundred or more. Included were not just those related by blood or marriage, but also their servants, slaves, bondsmen, and retainers, as well free men who had voluntarily placed themselves in the service and protection of the family. The family had a hierarchical structure, at the head of which was the senior male, called in Latin the Paterfamilias. He exercised total personal, economic, political, and social control over the family. He was, in short, a dictator, albeit a just and benevolent one, we imagine, if the family was to hold together and flourish.

The Paterfamilias was also the head -- the high priest or "pope" -- of the family's own individual and unique religion: the cult of the ancestors. Each family had its own cult and accompanying religious rites, which were its alone, and which we kept secret and private from the outside world. The secret nature of each family's cult means that the complete details of any cult have not survived into the modern period. However, occasional references to ancestor worship are made in ancient sources, enough so that it is possible to piece together a general picture of what it was like (although the details would have varied from family to family).

The tradition was that each family could trace its ancestors back to a single "founder." The bones of the founder were said to be buried beneath the family hearth. This hearth, in turn, was the focal point for religious worship. A sacred fire burned on the hearth, the flame which was never allowed to be extinguished. This fire was the responsibility of the women of the family, most typically of the Materfamilias, who was the wife of the Paterfamilias, and who exercised corresponding authority. The central act of worship was a communal meal, attended by all family members and presided over by the Paterfamilias. The spirits of the ancestors were also said to attend these meals, during which offerings were made to the dead which were said to nourish them. In return, the spirits of the ancestors were said to bestow protection and blessings on the members of the family, although these did not extend far beyond the boundaries of the family's ancestral property.

The authors summarize:

The worship of the dead in no way resembled the Christian worship of saints. One of the first rules of the worship was that it could only be offered by each family only to those deceased persons who belonged to it by blood. The funeral obsequies could be religiously performed only by the nearest relative. As to the funeral meal, which was renewed at stated seasons, the family alone had a right to take part in it, and every alien was strictly excluded. They believed that the dead ancestor accepted no offering save from his own family; he desired no worship save from his own descendants. The presence of one who was not of the family disturbed the rest of the [ancestral spirits]. . . [T]he prayer and the offering were addressed by each man only to his own forebears. The worship of the dead was the worship of ancestors. Lucian, while ridiculing common beliefs, explains them clearly to us when he says the man who has died without leaving a son receives no offerings, and is exposed to peerpetual suffering. . . [T]hese rituals established a powerful bond between all the generations of a family, whch made it of a body forever inseparable. (pp. 19-20)

In Greece and Rome, at least, descent was reckoned only through the male bloodline. When a young woman married, she formally renounced her allegiance to the ancestor cult in which had been raised, and was initiated into the cult of her new husband. It was also necessary that the young woman was someone of whom the ancestors would approve, as her offspring would one day become worshippers offering sacrifices. Still later, they would become ancestors themselves. A woman of foreign or inferior stock was thought to pollute the bloodline, and would have been unacceptable to the ancestors. Thus we see that this was a religious practice that was based on heredity and blood, and that the continuity of the bloodline reinforced the performance of religious rites, which in turn reinformced the purity of the bloodline.

De Coulanges and Jamieson note that, "[T]he purpose of marriage was to permit the lineage to recreate itself -- to enable the life force to express itself in a new generation" (p. 28).

Although Family, Kin and City-State focuses on the ancestor cult in the Classical world, it was also practiced by the Germanic peoples. As in the South, the cult in the Northlands was stronger among the ordinary people than the worship of the great Sky and Nature Gods. In AD 1000, when Iceland formally converted to Christianity, public worship of the old Gods was banned, but private religious worship -- that is, the ancestor cult -- was still allowed.

A special note for National-Socialists: it is commonly maintained by mainstream historians that the NS movement in Germany was "neo-pagan." Yet one looks in vain for references in the NS period to the worship of Wotan and Donner. It is interest in the ancient Aryan ancestor cult that the neo-pagan -- or to be more precise, neo-heathen -- nature of National-Socialism expressed itself. Although Adolf Hitler himself seemed to be indifferent to the practice, it was strongly supported by Heinrich Himmler and the SS, by Walter Darre, and in the Hitler Youth. In connection with the SS, we take special note of the prose-poem The Voice of the Ancestors by Wulf Soerensen (Die Stimme der Ahnen: Eine Dichtung von Wulf Soerensen, Nordland-Verlag, Magdeburg, 1935).

Family, Kin and City-State is an inexpensively produced book, printed by docutext and perfectbound. Chapters include: A Religion of Heredity and the Family; The Importance of the Lineage; The Sacred Hearth Fire; Marriage and the Family; Kinship and Property; Moral Law; Gens, Phratry, Tribe and Nation-State; The Domestic Religion as the Moral Foundation of the Anceint City-State; and The Decline of the City-State. An electronic edition is not currently available.

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