Sparta: The First National Socialist State

Sparta: The First National Socialist State

written by anonymous


When one envisages “National Socialism,” sunwheels, iron crosses, and “Deutschland über Alles” inevitably enter the mind. However, nearly three thousand years before the forging of the Third Reich, there existed a state which served as the prototype for what was to come in the first half of the twentieth century. From the hallowed battlefields of Hellas I introduce to you the Laconian nation-state of Sparta, the exemplar of National Socialism.

Sparta was, of course, the home of the Spartans, one of the most revered peoples in the history of the world. Today “Spartan” is an adjective used to describe a strict and almost ascetic lifestyle - for good reason: the Spartans themselves led very austere and definitely rigorous lives. Most of us have heard the tales of Spartan youths, whisked away from their mothers at the callow age of seven in order to begin a life of servitude to the state. More savvy readers will know of the training undergone by these children and will gladly tell you about the whippings, the beatings, and the seemingly absurd physical/psychological conditioning imposed upon these innocents. At this point, an inexperienced reader would be forced to ask, “What’s so glorious about all of this?” Allow me to answer.

First, we must begin with a more in-depth description of Spartan culture. Sparta began as a small city-state in Laconia, located on the Peloponnesus of southern Greece. After centuries of agricultural peace and stagnation, a lawgiver named, Lycurgus restructured Sparta’s way of life entirely during the middle of the eighth century BC. Spartans now existed for Sparta. Currency was abolished. Anything that was seen as over-indulgent or unnecessary to the survival of the Spartan nation was eradicated (except in some rare cases of art). They began to dominate the region and expand; it is at this point (around 690 BC) that the class system of Sparta developed.

All Spartans, including their conquered subjects, were divided into three groups. At the top were the homoioi or "peers". These men and women made up the aristocratic class of Sparta and were the only true “citizens.” Only these men could serve in the military, attain political office, and attend meetings of the assembly. Despite what many anti-Spartan critics would have a person think, homoioi women were among the freest women of the ancient world. While their male counterparts declared and fought wars, they engaged in athletic activities, ran their households, and even owned their own businesses. Aristotle once claimed that homoioi women owned as much as forty percent of all Spartan land.

The so-called "middle class" of Sparta were the perioikoi or “neighbors.” As one might deduce from that translation, the perioikoi were in fact the conquered neighbors of the ancient Spartans. While not citizens of Sparta, they enjoyed a great deal of liberty. Perioikoi were restricted in their professions and came to concentrate in the agricultural and mercantile industries, many became wealthy from foreign trade. Perioikoi men were occasionally drafted into the military but they saw far less combat than did the homoioi.

At the bottom were the helots. The helots were essentially slave-workers to the homoioi and outnumbered their masters more than fifteen-to-one. The life of a helot was short, thankless, and brutal. Once a year, the homoioi formally declared war on their slaves to thin out their numbers and discourage rebellion without technically breaking the Spartan law against murder. The homoioi allowed their slaves to keep enough of their produce to feed their families, and applied the rest towards the betterment of the Spartan state.

At the age of seven, homoioi boys began their compulsory military training. They were taught discipline, honour, and courage. Their official training ended at the age of 20, at which point they became the police of the nation. They toured the countryside, keeping helots in line and correcting any activities which seemed rebellious or anti-Spartan in nature. At the age of 30, homoioi men became full citizens and were granted all formal rights of citizenship. Military careers came to an end at age 60 and any man who reached that point had earned the loyalty and respect of all those around him, and rightly so. Generally speaking, the military life of the homoioi was short. The Spartans were among the fiercest and most selfless warriors that ever lived and any man that survived his full tour of duty in the Spartan military was strong, intelligent, patriotic, and more than worthy of praise and adoration.

What does this have to do with National Socialism? First, let us observe the most obvious factor: class. National Socialism is at its heart opposed to artificial economic distinctions manifested in society. National Socialism seeks to have only one organism: the state and the race of which it is composed. It is easy to see how the idea of economic classlessness is embodied by Sparta: Sparta abolished currency and the National Socialists of Germany abolished the gold standard. Both incarnations of the Aryan spirit were opposed to liberal capitalism and democracy. While economic class is a false construct, classism does exist in every ideology despite the efforts of the ideologues to remove it; class is unavoidable. National Socialism chooses a race based class. The homoioi are analogous to the Schutzstaffel Nordics, the perioikoi represent the rest of Germany, and the helots are the societal dregs and undesirable elements, embodied in Germany as Jews, Gypsies, other non-Whites, homosexuals, and assorted criminal "untermenschen".

Strangely, most anti-Spartan critics claim that Sparta suffered from the same flaw that all liberal/jewish philosophies are afflicted with: the exultation of quantity over quality. They point to the idea that the survival Sparta (i.e. the group) was more important than the survival of Spartans (i.e. the individual). This is an absurd notion. Judaic societies, negative Christianity, Islam, democracy, and all forms of Marxism exalt quantity over quality. They believe that hordes of worthless individuals make great groups simply because there are many of them, most of these cultists even preach, "diversity is strength". On the contrary, the Spartans believed and National Socialists today believe that great genetics make great individuals and great individuals make great groups. It is precisely for this reason that 300 homoioi bodyguards of the Spartan leader, Leonidas were able to hold off 200,000 Persians at Thermopylae for nearly a week. The Spartans were more tactically skilled than the Persians. They were not mere conscripts: they were the best of the best of the best. Not even the most elite Persian fighting force, the Immortals, could break their line. In fact, the fall of Thermopylae stems not from the Persian force but rather a non-Spartan goat herder known as Ephialtes (now synonymous with “nightmare”) who provided intelligence to the Persians for gold (much like the Jews sabotaged Germany during the First World War for Palestine). Similarly, this is why German officers and soldiers were able to overrun and defeat the numerically superior armies of the USSR and France. In National Socialism Individuality and the greatness associated with it are attained through distinction within the group, not through distinction from the group or opposition to the group. Whether we as Aryans, as National Socialists, or merely as human beings like it or not, we are always part of a greater group. We can and will always be categorized in some manner. Receiving recognition and greatness from one’s own group only works if we lend our greatness to that group.

Some will be quick to say that National Socialism and the Spartans are interconnected inasmuch as they liked to wage war on their neighbors. There is more to this, let us look at the history of Spartan warfare following the war with Persia. In the years leading up to the Peloponnesian Wars, a type of cold war developed between Sparta and Athens. Realistically it could be compared to the cold war of the twentieth century in many aspects. After the Spartans (pre PC United States of America) and the Athenians (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) defeated the Persians (the Axis powers), both groups began to build up blocs. First, the Spartans had the Peloponnesian League (NATO) which consisted of it and its neighboring allies, including Corinth, Thebes, Arcadia, Messenia, and others. They compelled these cities to accept influence of the Spartan aristocracy as their governing vessels. Likewise, the Athenians adjured their neighbors to enter into the Delian League (the Warsaw Pact) [which is sometimes referred to as the Athenian Empire (the Soviet Empire)] and made them accept democracy. Sparta did not like democracy as they felt it naturally lent itself to honorless war and empire, so the Spartans did all they could to contain its outbreak. Most people have been indoctrinated to believe that all the Spartans cared about was waging war. This is wrong. The Spartans were some of the most race-conscious people who ever lived. They did not merely look after themselves, they looked after all Greeks. As Persia threatened to overwhelm their Hellenic brothers in Athens and elsewhere, Sparta came to their aid and destroyed the land forces of the eastern invaders. The Spartans considered themselves the champions of the Greek people and understood that the democratic tendencies of Athens and its client city-states eroded the nature of the Hellenic spirit. Although Sparta was in a position to rule all of Greece following the war with Persia, it chose not to. Instead, it returned to its Peloponnesian League and governed its affairs at home.

Similarly, Adolf Hitler saw himself as the liberator of all Teutonic peoples. He freed the Sudetendeutsche from Czechoslovakian control, admitted Austria (his home country) into the Third Reich, and reclaimed the largely Germanic population of Western Poland. A National Socialist state functions to serve the needs of its race. It is for this reason that multiethnic states cannot be National Socialist states. The United States could never be a National Socialist state because of the different races inside its borders. The Spartan state existed to serve the Spartan people. The Spartans understood that they were of course part of a greater ethnic group (that is, they were Greeks just like the Delians, the Athenians, etc.) but they looked after themselves first. This is why Hitler respected other Aryan peoples and while there was intra-Aryan conflict under Hitler's rule this was due to the gerrymandering of Versailles. Would Hitler have had issue with ethnically Slavic Aryans if they were not both in Teutonic lands and/or under the influence of Jewish bolshevism? The answer is of course, no.

The link between National Socialism and religion is an important one. The Spartans were the most devoutly religious people of ancient Greece. They would refuse to fight in order to observe religious festivals. They worshipped the same gods as the rest of the Greeks. Likewise, religion was an essential part of the Third Reich. Hitler understood the Wotanic spirit that lay dormant in all Aryans; he knew that by bringing back the old heathen gods of all Teutonic peoples he would nourish the soul of his people. He was influenced in this by the operas of Richard Wagner and the writings of the Saxon philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, the Italian pseudo-dadaist Baron Julius Evola, and the Austrian mystic Guido von List. All of these men realized the power of the Wotanic faith. Wagner realized it aesthetically, Nietzsche morally, Jung subconsciously, Evola metaphysically, and von List symbolically. National Socialism is inherently religious as it must serve the folkish instincts of the people from which all Aryan religions descend.

The importance of military life in National Socialism and Spartan culture cannot be stressed enough. At a young age, German youths entered the HJ; at the age of seven, Spartan youths began their military training. To die in battle was glorious for both camps. Aryan virtues of honour, strength, tactical thought, and skill were taught on the wind-swept plains of Laconia just as they were taught on the grassy plains of Germania.

So what eventually happened to Sparta? Immediately following the Persian War, there was no fighting between the major Greek city-states. However, political intrigue and the proxy war between the Sparta-backed Sicilians and the Athenians eventually led to the beginning of the all-encompassing Peloponnesian Wars. In 404 BC, Sparta finally subjugated the Athenians. Their Theban and Corinthian allies demanded that Sparta burn Athens to the ground, but the Spartans refused: they feared the naval power vacuum that would be created by the loss of Athens. This was the costliest decision the Spartans ever made. While the Athenian population was initially very receptive to Spartan order, discontent was sown by elite and corrupted democrats that were in prison for their crimes of aggression against Sparta and exploitation of Athens. The Spartan ruling body of Athens, the thirty tyrants (hoi triakonta) were caught between compassion for their fellow Greeks and an easily misled degenerate population badly in need of order and discipline. The Spartan failure to execute the former demagogues of Athens forced them to battle the people instead of ceasing the cause of this unrest. This most unfortunate situation was compounded by infighting within the overextended Spartan nation: resulting in a refusal to sustain Athens as a satellite and leaving the Spartan occupiers to their own devices. Carelessly wasted was an opportunity to totally eradicate democracy; due to this folly the degenerate concept of "equality" has plagued our people and ultimately mutated into its current form which can be observed in its essence in all major cities of the west.

Eventually Athenian democrats regained control of the city, conspired with the former ally of Sparta, Thebes and in 371 BC finally defeated their rivals at Leuctra. Two centuries later, Latin-speaking conquerors from Italy made Sparta one of their provinces.

Today, there is very little left of Sparta. They left us no grandiose monuments, no huge architectural achievements, no standing temples, and very little art. The Spartan landscape today is in a state of perdition. The Athenian historian, Thucydides wrote that if Sparta and Athens were to become desolate, Sparta's power would be inconceivable by visitors while Athens would be idealistically envisioned as much more dynamic than it ever was. One can still make out the foundations left by some of the buildings there, but a more important foundation is as visible today as it was nearly eighty years ago: the foundation of National Socialism.