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.But anotherreason lies in the cultural barrenness and superficiality of our modern cities.At the time of the German Warsof Liberation our German towns and cities were not only small in number but also very modest in size.Thefew that could really be called great cities were mostly the residential cities of princes; as such they hadalmost always a definite cultural value and also a definite cultural aspect.Those few towns which had morethan fifty thousand inhabitants were, in comparison with modern cities of the same size, rich in scientific andartistic treasures.At the time when Munich had not more than sixty thousand souls it was already well on theway to become one of the first German centres of art.Nowadays almost every industrial town has apopulation at least as large as that, without having anything of real value to call its own.They areagglomerations of tenement houses and congested dwelling barracks, and nothing else.It would be a miracleif anybody should grow sentimentally attached to such a meaningless place.Nobody can grow attached to aplace which offers only just as much or as little as any other place would offer, which has no character of itsown and where obviously pains have been taken to avoid everything that might have any resemblance to anartistic appearance.But this is not all.Even the great cities become more barren of real works of art the more they increase inpopulation.They assume more and more a neutral atmosphere and present the same aspect, though on alarger scale, as the wretched little factory towns.Everything that our modern age has contributed to thecivilization of our great cities is absolutely deficient.All our towns are living on the glory and the treasures of144Mein Kampfthe past.If we take away from the Munich of to-day everything that was created under Ludwig II we shouldbe horror-stricken to see how meagre has been the output of important artistic creations since that time.Onemight say much the same of Berlin and most of our other great towns.But the following is the essential thing to be noticed: Our great modern cities have no outstandingmonuments that dominate the general aspect of the city and could be pointed to as the symbols of a wholeepoch.Yet almost every ancient town had a monument erected to its glory.It was not in private dwellingsthat the characteristic art of ancient cities was displayed but in the public monuments, which were not meantto have a transitory interest but an enduring one.And this was because they did not represent the wealth ofsome individual citizen but the greatness and importance of the community.It was under this inspiration thatthose monuments arose which bound the individual inhabitants to their own town in a manner that is oftenalmost incomprehensible to us to-day.What struck the eye of the individual citizen was not a number ofmediocre private buildings, but imposing structures that belonged to the whole community.Incontradistinction to these, private dwellings were of only very secondary importance indeed.When we compare the size of those ancient public buildings with that of the private dwellings belonging tothe same epoch then we can understand the great importance which was given to the principle that thoseworks which reflected and affected the life of the community should take precedence of all others.Among the broken arches and vast spaces that are covered with ruins from the ancient world the colossalriches that still arouse our wonder have not been left to us from the commercial palaces of these days butfrom the temples of the Gods and the public edifices that belonged to the State.The community itself was theowner of those great edifices.Even in the pomp of Rome during the decadence it was not the villas andpalaces of some citizens that filled the most prominent place but rather the temples and the baths, the stadia,the circuses, the aqueducts, the basilicas, etc., which belonged to the State and therefore to the people as awhole.In medieval Germany also the same principle held sway, although the artistic outlook was quite different.Inancient times the theme that found its expression in the Acropolis or the Pantheon was now clothed in theforms of the Gothic Cathedral.In the medieval cities these monumental structures towered gigantically abovethe swarm of smaller buildings with their framework walls of wood and brick.And they remain the dominantfeature of these cities even to our own day, although they are becoming more and more obscured by theapartment barracks.They determine the character and appearance of the locality.Cathedrals, city-halls, cornexchanges, defence towers, are the outward expression of an idea which has its counterpart only in theancient world.The dimensions and quality of our public buildings to-day are in deplorable contrast to the edifices thatrepresent private interests.If a similar fate should befall Berlin as befell Rome future generations might gazeupon the ruins of some Jewish department stores or joint-stock hotels and think that these were thecharacteristic expressions of the culture of our time.In Berlin itself, compare the shameful disproportionbetween the buildings which belong to the Reich and those which have been erected for the accommodationof trade and finance.The credits that are voted for public buildings are in most cases inadequate and really ridiculous.They are notbuilt as structures that were meant to last but mostly for the purpose of answering the need of the moment.Nohigher idea influenced those who commissioned such buildings.At the time the Berlin Schloss was built ithad a quite different significance from what the new library has for our time, seeing that one battleship alonerepresents an expenditure of about sixty million marks, whereas less than half that sum was allotted for thebuilding of the Reichstag, which is the most imposing structure erected for the Reich and which should havebeen built to last for ages.Yet, in deciding the question of internal decoration, the Upper House voted againstthe use of stone and ordered that the walls should be covered with stucco.For once, however, theparliamentarians made an appropriate decision on that occasion; for plaster heads would be out of placebetween stone walls.145Mein KampfThe community as such is not the dominant characteristic of our contemporary cities, and therefore it is not tobe wondered at if the community does not find itself architecturally represented.Thus we must eventuallyarrive at a veritable civic desert which will at last be reflected in the total indifference of the individual citizentowards his own country.This is also a sign of our cultural decay and general break-up.Our era is entirely preoccupied with littlethings which are to no purpose, or rather it is entirely preoccupied in the service of money.Therefore it is notto be wondered at if, with the worship of such an idol, the sense of heroism should entirely disappear.But thepresent is only reaping what the past has 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