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.The way was now clear for the further de-Germanization of the Austrian State.The national instinct of self-preservation made it impossible for me to welcome a representative system inwhich the German element was not really represented as such, but always betrayed by the Social-Democraticfraction.Yet all these, and many others, were defects which could not be attributed to the parliamentarysystem as such, but rather to the Austrian State in particular.I still believed that if the German majority couldbe restored in the representative body there would be no occasion to oppose such a system as long as the oldAustrian State continued to exist.Such was my general attitude at the time when I first entered those sacred and contentious halls.For me theywere sacred only because of the radiant beauty of that majestic edifice.A Greek wonder on German soil.But I soon became enraged by the hideous spectacle that met my eyes.Several hundred representatives werethere to discuss a problem of great economical importance and each representative had the right to have hissay.That experience of a day was enough to supply me with food for thought during several weeks afterwards.The intellectual level of the debate was quite low.Some times the debaters did not make themselvesintelligible at all.Several of those present did not speak German but only their Slav vernaculars or dialects.Thus I had the opportunity of hearing with my own ears what I had been hitherto acquainted with onlythrough reading the newspapers.A turbulent mass of people, all gesticulating and bawling against oneanother, with a pathetic old man shaking his bell and making frantic efforts to call the House to a sense of itsdignity by friendly appeals, exhortations, and grave warnings.I could not refrain from laughing.Several weeks later I paid a second visit.This time the House presented an entirely different picture, so muchso that one could hardly recognize it as the same place.The hall was practically empty.They were sleeping inthe other rooms below.Only a few deputies were in their places, yawning in each other s faces.One wasspeechifying.A deputy speaker was in the chair.When he looked round it was quite plain that he felt bored.Then I began to reflect seriously on the whole thing.I went to the Parliament whenever I had any time tospare and watched the spectacle silently but attentively.I listened to the debates, as far as they could beunderstood, and I studied the more or less intelligent features of those elect representatives of the variousnationalities which composed that motley State.Gradually I formed my own ideas about what I saw.A year of such quiet observation was sufficient to transform or completely destroy my former convictions asto the character of this parliamentary institution.I no longer opposed merely the perverted form which theprinciple of parliamentary representation had assumed in Austria.No.It had become impossible for me toaccept the system in itself.Up to that time I had believed that the disastrous deficiencies of the AustrianParliament were due to the lack of a German majority, but now I recognized that the institution itself waswrong in its very essence and form.A number of problems presented themselves before my mind.I studied more closely the democratic principleof decision by the majority vote , and I scrutinized no less carefully the intellectual and moral worth of thegentlemen who, as the chosen representatives of the nation, were entrusted with the task of making thisinstitution function.Thus it happened that at one and the same time I came to know the institution itself and those of whom it wascomposed.And it was thus that, within the course of a few years, I came to form a clear and vivid picture of46 Mein Kampfthe average type of that most lightly worshipped phenomenon of our time the parliamentary deputy.Thepicture of him which I then formed became deeply engraved on my mind and I have never altered it since, atleast as far as essentials go.Once again these object-lessons taken from real life saved me from getting firmly entangled by a theorywhich at first sight seems so alluring to many people, though that theory itself is a symptom of humandecadence.Democracy, as practised in Western Europe to-day, is the fore-runner of Marxism.In fact, the latter wouldnot be conceivable without the former.Democracy is the breeding-ground in which the bacilli of the Marxistworld pest can grow and spread.By the introduction of parliamentarianism, democracy produced an abortionof filth and fire 6), the creative fire of which, however, seems to have died out.I am more than grateful to Fate that this problem came to my notice when I was still in Vienna; for if I hadbeen in Germany at that time I might easily have found only a superficial solution.If I had been in Berlinwhen I first discovered what an illogical thing this institution is which we call Parliament, I might easily havegone to the other extreme and believed as many people believed, and apparently not without good reason that the salvation of the people and the Empire could be secured only by restrengthening the principle ofimperial authority.Those who had this belief did not discern the tendencies of their time and were blind tothe aspirations of the people.In Austria one could not be so easily misled.There it was impossible to fall from one error into another.If theParliament were worthless, the Habsburgs were worse; or at least not in the slightest degree better.Theproblem was not solved by rejecting the parliamentary system.Immediately the question arose: What then?To repudiate and abolish the Vienna Parliament would have resulted in leaving all power in the hands of theHabsburgs.For me, especially, that idea was impossible.Since this problem was specially difficult in regard to Austria, I was forced while still quite young to go intothe essentials of the whole question more thoroughly than I otherwise should have done.The aspect of the situation that first made the most striking impression on me and gave me grounds forserious reflection was the manifest lack of any individual responsibility in the representative body.The parliament passes some acts or decree which may have the most devastating consequences, yet nobodybears the responsibility for it.Nobody can be called to account.For surely one cannot say that a Cabinetdischarges its responsibility when it retires after having brought about a catastrophe
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