Article on theNazi goal to "paralyze" the Weimar system and achieve a revolution

"What Do We Want in the Reichstag?"
[War Wollen Wir im Reichstag?]
published on pages 71-73 of "Der Angriff—Aufsaetze aus der Kampfzeit", a
collection of newspaper articles by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, compiled from "Der Angriff" by Hans Schwarz van Berk, and published in book form by Central Publishing House of the NSDAP, Franz Eher Successor, Munich, in 1936.
After all, we are an anti-parliamentarian party, decline for good reasons the Weimar Constitution and the Republican institutions introduced by it, and are opponents of a counterfeit democracy, which treats intelligent and stupid, diligent and lazy people alike. We see in today's system of majority vote and organized irresponsibility the main cause for our steadily increasing decline. Now, what do we want in the Reichstag?
We go into the Reichstag to supply ourselves at the arsenal of arms of Democracy with its own weapons. We become Deputies of the Reichstag to paralyze the Weimar way of thinking with its own support. If the Democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and Deputies' pay for this sham "service," that is its own affair. We will not worry about it. Any lawful means will do if it serves to revolutionize today's conditions.
If we succeed in putting into the different parliaments from sixty to seventy agitators and organizers of our own party, then the State itself will fit out and pay our fighting machine in future. It is an attractive and tantalizing matter, worth while to be tested. '
We will also become Parliamentarians once we are in the Parliaments? Is that what we look like? Does any one of you believe that we are going to hobnob right away with Philipp Scheidemann once we march into the plenary meeting of that Illustrious House? Do you consider us such poor revolutionaries that you fear that we would forget our historic mission when faced with a thick red carpet and an air-conditioned dormitory?
Whoever goes into Parliament, perishes in it! Yes, if he goes into Parliament in order to become a Parliamentarian. But if he steps into it with the tenacious and dogged intention to continue, with his inborn recklessness, in this place also his unconditional fight against the increasing scoundrelization of our public life, then he will not become a Parliamentarian, but he will remain that what he is: a revolutionary.
Mussolini also went into Parliament. In spite of it, he marched into Rome with his Blackshirts not long' afterwards. The Communists also are sitting in the Reichstag. Nobody will be so naive as to believe that they intend to collaborate objectively
SS32SS—49—10 '
23?
2500-PS
and positively. And moreover, if we do not succeed this time to gain Parliamentary immunity for our most dangerous men, then they will all sit behind iron bars sooner or later.
They will also sit behind iron bars if they are in possession of Parliamentary immunity? Certainly, namely at that instant in which democracy deems it necessary to get rid of Parliamentary immunity as an act of last desperate self-defense. Then, when Democracy is going to slap her own face, and openly sets up the terror of Capitalistic dictatorship, which she exercises normally only clandestinely. But until then much water will flow under the bridge, and in the meantime the champions of our belief, clothed in Parliamentary immunity, will have time and opportunity enough to so enlarge our battlefront that it will not be possible to silence us, and to throttle our public preaching without any noise, as Democracy presumably would like to see it.
Something else:
The agitators of our party are spending carfare of 600-8(30 marks monthly—in order to strengthen the Republic. Is it then not just and fair that the Republic should reimburse those traveling expenses through a free railroad pass? .
Who of you votes, for it that we further throw away our own money into the maw of the Jewish Dawes railroad, while the Republic really yearns to help us?
That is the start of a compromise? Do you believe that we would lay down our arms on account of a free railroad pass, we who stood in front of you a hundred and a thousand times in order to preach to you the belief in a new Germany, we who joyously threw our lives into the teeth of the Red mob dozens of times, we who fought through with you against all obstacles of official and unofficial character—do you believe that of us, who did not capitulate to any edict or any terror?
If we only wanted to become Deputies in Parliament, then we would not be National Socialists but presumably German Nationalists [Deutsch Nationale] or Social Democrats. They have to bestow the most seats in Parliament. One does not have to risk one's life for it, and even our brains still suffice for competition with the intellectual luminaries of that party.
We do not beg for votes. We demand conviction, devotion, passion. The vote is only an expedient for us as well as for you. We shall set foot on the marble floor of the Parliament with
238
250&-PS
resounding steps, we shall carry in with us the revolutionary will of the broad masses of the people, out of which we grew, molded by fate and molding fate. We do not give a damn about cooperation in building a stinking dung heap! We come to clean out the dung.
One should not think that Parliamentarism will be our Damascus. We have shown our teeth to our enemies from the plat- forms of mass meetings and by the giant demonstrations of our own brown guard. We shall show our teeth to them also in the leaden satiety of a Parliamentary plenary meeting.
We do not come either as friends or as neutrals. We come as enemies. Just like the wolf ravages a flock of sheep—thus do we come. Now you are no longer among yourselves. And thus we will not bring you unadulterated joy.
April 30, 1928.