It Cannot be Stormed
Translated from the German by M. S. Stephens
First English edition published 1935 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
Second English Edition published in 2011 by Arktos Media Ltd.
© 2011 Arktos Media Ltd.
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means (whether electronic or mechanical), including photocopying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Printed in the United Kingdom
isbn 978-1-907166-12-9
BIC classification: Historical fiction (FV),
Classic fiction (FC) & Germany (1DFG)
Editor: Martin Häggkvist
Cover Design: Andreas Nilsson
Layout: Daniel Friberg
Proofreader: Michael J. Brooks
Back cover photos: left and centre, scenes of street-fighting in Weimar-era Germany; on the right, Ernst von Salomon.
ARKTOS MEDIA LTD.
www.arktos.com
It Cannot
be Stormed
by
Ernst von Salomon
ARKTOS
Editor’s Foreword
Ernst von Salomon (1902-1972) was one of the most enigmatic individuals who have come to be classified as a part of the Conservative Revolution, a school of thought which flourished in the days of the German Weimar Republic up until the National Socialist Party (N.S.D.A.P.) came to power in 1933. He is today often, when at all, remembered for his 1951 book Der Fragebogen. This lengthy, sarcastic treatise based on the Allied denazification questionnaire prompted Time Magazine to condemn the author’s ‘moral colour blindness’ and ‘self-pity mixed with arrogant self-righteousness’ as expressions of the prime motors behind Nazism.[1] There are, however, many other (and less puerile) things to say about von Salomon, his life and his work.
After training as a military cadet from the age of eleven, while inadvertently avoiding serving in the First World War on account of his youth, von Salomon joined the Freikorps in 1919 to fight Bolshevism in the Baltics, later combating Polish insurgents in Upper Silesia. His involvement in the paramilitary group grew, until he was arrested in 1922 for providing the car used in the assassination of the German Foreign Minister, Walther Rathenau. Later, during the Second World War, this would work to his advantage, as he was excused from military service; upon being asked by the examining officer whether he was a Jew, von Salomon replied ‘No, but a murderer.’[2]
From his release in 1927 onwards von Salomon developed his skills as a writer. In Die Geächteten (1930, translated into English as The Outlaws) he drew on his earlier experiences to create a fictionalised account of the Freikorps, and in the following years he published a number of works, including the present one (published as Die Stadt [The City] in 1932). When Hitler came to power, a prospect towards which von Salomon had been ambivalent for years, he turned to writing movie scripts, while living a relatively apolitical life with his Jewish wife until the end of the war. With the fall of the Third Reich he and his wife were imprisoned due to the U.S. policy of automatic arrest of anyone associated with the former regime, and allegedly abused by Allied forces, but they were released after being classed as ‘erroneous arrestees.’[3]
For the remainder of his life von Salomon wrote a number of other books, as well as numerous screenplays (including a series of semi-exploitation films centred upon the character of Liane, a blonde, partially nude woman ruling a primitive African tribe).
The present book is a peculiar one. Written in the early 1930s, It Cannot Be Stormed has few equals when it comes to transmitting the ambiance and sentiments of the Weimar Republic era: the frustration with the draconian reparations, the incompetence of public officials, and the seething popular dissatisfaction with the general state of affairs. The book’s protagonist makes his way through a bleak, volatile city landscape and tries to form alliances in order to further the cause of a national farmers’ movement. He interacts with all sorts of political and cultural radicals, and is sometimes disappointed, sometimes hopeful, while he almost always maintains a detached, sceptical attitude that keeps him at a certain distance from the centre of events.
It is highly likely that parts of It Cannot Be Stormed drew inspiration from the actions of von Salomon’s brother Bruno, who abandoned the N.S.D.A.P. for the section of the German Communist Party directed at the German peasantry.[4] However, it also seems to be deeply coloured by the author’s own sentiments and orientations, as is suggested by the distanced tone — it is truly the work of an activist turned observer (the latter being a term used on numerous occasions by von Salomon to define himself). In the book’s many long discourses on politics, revolution and the German condition, one clearly sees both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Conservative Revolutionary position. Intellectual flexibility, spiritual depth and a vision both realistic and romantic — all these positive traits are partly undone by inconsistency and an unwillingness (or inability) to take a concrete position in a real, political context. This is probably the key to understanding why the Conservative Revolution not only dissipated during the Third Reich, with the efforts of certain of its representatives to ‘work from within the system’ more or less wasted, but also why it was later condemned by the victorious Allies as proto-Nazi. The effort to remain spiritually and intellectually precise, nuanced and honest made the path of many of the Conservative Revolutionaries, Ernst von Salomon included, a harsh and unrewarding one.
Upon editing this book I have altered little of M. S. Steven’s 1935 translation. Certain words have been modernised, a few blatant errors in translation corrected and the often cumbersome dialogue structure reorganised. It is my belief that the book will be of great value to the reader — whether he wishes to understand the circumstances of interwar Germany or reflect upon some of the more difficult issues facing man as a social and political being.
Martin Häggkvist
Mumbai, India, February 2011
[1] ‘It just happened,’ in Time Magazine, www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,861117,00.html. Accessed February 2011.
[2]Ibid.
[3]Markus Josef Klein, Ernst von Salomon. Eine politische Biographie. Mit einer vollständigen Bibliographie (San Casiano: Limburg an der Lahn, 1994) p 260.
[4] Klemens Von Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatives: Its History and Dilemma in the Twentieth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1990), p 148, n 32.
‘The spiritual capital of a kingdom lies not behind fortresses and cannot be stormed.’
–novalis (friedrich freiherr von hardenberg)
TO
MARTHA DODD
I
Behind the sheltering dykes of the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein from Niebüll to Glückstadt stretches an expanse of pleasant green country. As far as the gentle range of the Geest there is hardly an undulation to break the wide curving line of the horizon. Narrow clinker-roads wind like reddish ribbons through the plain connecting the farmhouses which lie scattered over the countryside, each in its cluster of trees. Very rarely the farms are grouped to form an established settlement, and it is difficult for the eye to distinguish one community from another. These farms dominate the country, the clean little hamlets and market-towns appearing as hardly more than bright spots in the grey-green landscape. The low brick farmhouses with their heavy thatched roofs and small windows, the entrance doors spreading almost across the whole front, stand in the middle of the narrow rectangle of pasture-land cut off by the dykes of the marsh-land. The grass of the pasture grows luxuriantly, enriched by the black earth and close cropped by the grazing cattle. As a rule, cow-shed and dwel
ling-house are united under one gigantic roof, and the warm pungent smell of the tethered animals pervades the whole house. The cattle are the wealth of the country, and the farmers of the Geest say, probably with a touch of envy, that the only work the Marsh farmers need do is to pinch the tails of their oxen occasionally to see if they are fat enough. Actually there was always plenty to do on the farms, and if the Geest had to reap the ripe corn under a burning sun, the Marsh had to stand knee-deep in the thick oozing water of the dykes, perpetually clearing them out; if the Geest had to suffer loss from thunderstorms and hail, the Marsh had to pay its toll in epidemics and fevers. In the Geest, the owner of thirty acres of land and five head of cattle could not be considered a big farmer, whereas in the marsh-land the owner of ten acres could keep thirty head of cattle and yet not be considered a big farmer. But they were all independent, and St. Annen-Klosterfelde, the farm owned by Claus Heim, had been in his family for four centuries—a family of independent farmers, who could always claim equality with any nobleman. The oak trees, too, which surround the farm to this day, had stood there for four hundred years.
There were many such farmsteads and such families in the country. The eldest son inherited the farm, and the others went out as labourers, or, if opportunity offered, to sea, or to the town, or, if the farm were prosperous, they might study to be lawyers or parsons. For property regulated everything, and property was something more than money and stock; it was inheritance and race, family and tradition, and honour, past, present and future. If a man lost his farm, he lost more than a possession, and he lost it because he had been a bad manager. Bad management meant faulty thinking about the farm, and to lose the farm was more of a misdemeanour than a misfortune. Whatever the farm required had to be supplied, even if it meant breaking away from old traditional methods. Thus the farmer and cattle breeder had to turn dealer when the times demanded it, and, while the Geest had to watch the market prices and store or sell off its wheat accordingly, the Marsh had to be no less vigilant to choose the most favourable moment in autumn to drive the summer-fattened cattle to the sales. But the Marsh was the first to feel bad times, for the cattle had to be marketed at any price when they were ready for slaughtering.
Throughout the Great War things were kept going, for the old men and women could manage the farms at a pinch. The period of inflation, too, passed and even did the farmers a certain amount of good: old debts disappeared and new machines were introduced, and here and there a farmer managed to buy a motor car, which was useful for speeding up business. So later, when a large part of the burden of stabilisation fell on them, the farmers considered it only just. They were prepared to live and let live, and even if they kept a sharp hold on what was theirs, they did not hesitate to make sacrifices when necessary, and always paid their taxes punctually. But this question of taxes became more and more curious. All this business from the town was anything but pleasant; it meant endless reckoning and letter-writing, and an official letter always meant bother. But now there were more and more of these official documents, and the parish magistrate was kept busy giving advice and answering letters. When the young men from the farms were at home—many of them were in the town at agricultural schools and at the newfangled farmers’ colleges, where they learnt all sorts of things which could not be taught to them on the farms—they had lots to say about breed and the soil, and mythology and primitive forces, and the farmers listened and were delighted at the nice things said about them in the towns. But then maybe, when the wife was clearing away the supper things, the farmer at his fireside would ask:
‘What’s this about a landed property tax?’
For there was no end to these taxes, property tax, land tax, landed property tax, income tax, tax on profits—and, Lord help us! Weren’t they one and the same thing, land and property and income and profits! Wasn’t it all just the farm? And the farmer was expected to pay twice and three times over, and then on top of that the local taxes and the dyke duties and the civil dues, and they kept increasing, and before you could turn round the results of your work had been subtracted away to nothing on a little scrap of paper until you didn’t know where you were. And then again there was the bank interest and the roads and improvements dues, not to mention subscriptions to the various societies and the Land League and the other agricultural associations. But why not mention all these; for if one went to the officials, and in the end one had to go to them, then there would be regrets and head-shakings, and a mountain of promises and a dung-heap of advice, and finally a meeting to deal with the emergency and bring up special points, and a resolution would be passed unanimously; and there it ended.
So it meant a visit to the Treasury-office. And frequently the farmers set out on this mission, even though it meant the loss of a whole day, all for nothing. For the people at the Treasury-office were not the same as they used to be, when it was possible to exchange a few sensible words with one another, and the District Presidents, who used to rule like good kings, were no longer there. They had understood the farmers, and used to ask after their wives and their cattle. There were no more District Presidents to be seen going round in their green caps with their stout sticks and high boots. The men who sat behind the desks now were serious gentlemen with pince-nez and dispatch-cases. They were no longer men from the district; they came from the Rhineland or from the province of Saxony or some other Godforsaken hole.
‘Well, well,’ said the farmers, ‘work is work; I have my job and he has his, but we used to be able to work together, and we can’t any more. And we used not to have to ask for help, and now we have to. And we used to get things done when it was necessary, and now if we succeed in getting something done it is regarded as a favour. But we don’t want favours, we want our rights.’
So they went to the Board of Agriculture. And there it was yet another story. If it had been nothing but the taxes! But now there was something wrong with the cattle trade.
‘Rationalisation,’ said the gentlemen of the Board of Agriculture to the farmers’ deputations. ‘Rationalisation’ was the great cry. But, said the farmers, what was there to be rationalised when everything had been worked out to the minutest detail?
‘Conversion,’ said the gentlemen of the Board of Agriculture. ‘Conversion’ was the great cry. It was no use trading in oxen any more on account of the Commercial Treaty with Denmark. ‘Conversion.’ Krupp had converted his factories—from cannons to mattresses. You must convert your oxen into pigs. Many of the farmers did convert. But it was a slow process. Machines work quickly, but live-stock needs time to grow and fatten, and a farm is not a factory. And when the time came, and the farm had been converted, and, after much trouble and many failures, the pigs were ready for slaughter, then they had to be sold at a loss on account of the Commercial Treaty with Serbia. They had worked at a loss, but the conversion had been accomplished, and the tax-collectors wanted their money.
‘This won’t do,’ said the farmers, ‘we are paying out of capital.’
The tax-collectors did not care.
‘We will not pay out of capital,’ said the farmers, and put their solid heads together and the word capital became a word of great significance. Then the bailiffs came. And the farmers went to the Treasury-office.
At first it was only two or three who were always going to the Treasury-office.
‘You have managed badly,’ said the others.
At first it was only two or three who had to leave their farms.
‘You have managed badly,’ said the others. But then there were more. Then some who were known far and wide as good managers had to leave their farms, some who were known to be men who thoroughly understood their business. The passages of the Treasury office were crowded and the building had to be enlarged. And the bailiffs were kept busy. First oxen were seized. That had a bad effect on credit. Then still more oxen were seized. And credit was suspended altogether. Then the farm was put up for auction, and nobody said any longer ‘You have managed badly.’
&
nbsp; ‘What are we to do?’ said the farmers one to another. ‘What are we to do?’ they said in unison.
They went to Claus Heim, who had always taken the lead among his fellows.
Claus Heim said, ‘You must help yourselves.’
‘Help yourselves,’ said Hamkens too, and Heim and Hamkens had a meeting.
Claus Heim was a man of about fifty at the time. He was a tall fellow, as strong as one of his own oxen, with bristling fair hair going grey on his square red head. Anybody observing his hands would scarcely have dared to offer him much opposition. And it was known that he had travelled, and had knocked about with all sorts and conditions in many parts of the world. But Hamkens was short and inclined to be thin, a quiet man in his thirties, pale and unassuming. He had gone to the Great War as an officer’s orderly and returned home as adjutant, and, like Heim, he had passed the ten years since the war quietly on his farm without taking any particular interest in politics.
‘Help yourselves,’ they said, and that was the great cry.
‘We cannot help you,’ said the others, the gentlemen in the offices, the gentlemen at the green tables. ‘We should like to, but we cannot.’
‘Why not?’ asked the farmers, as they went from one to the other.
They went from one office to another, from one association to another, and from one party to another.
‘We have lost the war,’ they said in the offices and at the party headquarters.
‘Well?’ said the farmers.
‘We are paying reparations,’ they said.
That might be so—losers have to suffer the consequences.
‘How can we pay without collecting the money from the taxes? How can we rehabilitate ourselves unless sacrifices are made?’ asked the gentlemen, and the farmers said they didn’t know, and, of course, they were very glad to make sacrifices, as they had already proved time and again, but one thing they did know, that they had to pay their taxes out of capital—and who would be such a fool as to kill his best milk cow?
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