Sparta: The First National Socialist State

 Sparta: The First National Socialist State

Written by Reinhard N.

When one thinks of “National Socialism,” images of sunwheels, iron crosses, and “Deutschland über Alles” inevitably enter the mind. However, nearly three thousand years before the birth of the Third Reich, there existed a state which served as the prototype for 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 model for modern 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 and adjective used to describe a strict and almost ascetic lifestyle and for good reason: the Spartans themselves led very strict and definitely ascetic lives. Everyone has heard the tales of Spartan youths being whisked away from their mothers at the tender age of seven to enter into 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 on the Greek isle of Laconia. After centuries of agricultural peace, the most revered king of Sparta, Lykourgos, restructured Sparta’s way of life entirely during the middle of the eighth century BC. Spartans 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 waged war on their Laconian neighbors and soon conquered the Achaeans and the Ionians. 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 hekoioi. 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, or attend meetings of the assembly. Despite what many anti-Spartan critics would have a person think, hekoioi 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. In fact, Aristotle once claimed that hekoioi women owned as much as forty percent of all Spartan land.

The so-called “middle class” of Sparta were the perioikoi or the “neighbors.” As one might deduce from that translation, the perioikoi were in fact the conquered Achaean and Ionian neighbors of the ancient Spartans. They were not actually citizens of Sparta, but they enjoyed a great deal of liberty. Citizens could not participate in any business other than agriculture, so the perioikoi took over this role. They were the merchants of Sparta and many of them became wealthy off of foreign gold. Perioikoi men were occasionally drafted into the military but they saw far less combat than did the hekoioi.

At the bottom were the helots. The helots were essentially slaves to the hekoioi and outnumbered their masters more than fifteen-to-one. The life of the helot was short, thankless, and brutal. Once a year, the hekoioi formally declared war on their slaves to thin out their numbers and discourage rebellion without technically breaking the Spartan law against murder. The hekoioi allowed their slaves to keep enough of the agriculture they produced to feed their families, but of course took the rest and put it towards the betterment of the Spartan state.

At the age of seven, hekoioi boys were required to begin their 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 moved along the countryside, keeping helots in line and correcting any activities which seemed rebellious or anti-Spartan. At the age of 30, hekoioi men became full citizens and were granted all the formal rights of citizenship. Military careers ended at the age of 60 and any man who reached that age earned the respect of all those around him, and rightly so. Generally speaking, the military life of the hekoioi 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’s observe the most obvious difference: class. National Socialism is at its heart anti-class and seeks to have only one body: the state and the people of which it is composed. However, it is easy to see how the idea of classlessness is embodied by Sparta: the hekoioi are analogous to the Schutzstaffel Nordics, the perioikoi represent the rest of Germany, and the helots are the societal dregs and undesirables. Classism exists in every ideology despite the efforts of the ideologues to remove it; class is unavoidable. Even Germany and Italy had classes.

Most anti-Spartan critics say that Sparta suffered from the same flaw that all liberal/jewish philosophies suffer from: 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. Judaism, 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. On the contrary, the Spartans believed and National Socialists believe that great individuals make great groups because they are better. It is precisely for this reason that 300 hekoioi bodyguards of the Spartan king 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, it took the betrayal of Ephialtes (an hekoioi soldier whose name today is synonymous with “nightmare”) to bring the Persians victory. Similarly, this is why German officers and soldiers were able to overrun and defeat the numerically superior armies of the USSR and France. Individuality and the greatness associated with it are attained through distinction within the group, not through distinction from 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, however, than meets the eye. 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 (the 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 all of these cities to accept oligarchies as their governing vessels. Likewise, the Athenians compelled 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 war and empire, so the Spartans did all they could to contain its outbreak. This may seem rather contradictory to the nature of Sparta. 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 felt that the democratic tendencies of Athens and its client city-states eroded the nature of the Hellenic spirit. Although Sparta was in a positionto 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 took back 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 the Nordic Scandinavians as well as the Britons: although there are differences between them, the Germans, the Scandinavians, and the Britons are all Teutonic peoples. Hitler did not, however, impose National Socialism on the Scandinavians or the British. The Norwegian leader Vidkun Quisling had come to accept National Socialism years earlier and with the support of the German military overthrew the social democrats of his nations. Likewise, the Swedes were left to their own devices. The Danes were the only conquered Scandinavians, and that stemmed more from political resentment than from ethnic animosity. We all know what happened with the British.

The link between National Socialism and religion is an important one. The Spartans were the most devoutly religious people of the Greek isles. 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 himself was an atheist for the most of his life, but he 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 strike a raw nerve. 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 power vacuum that would be created by the loss of Athens. This was the costliest decision the oligarchy of Sparta ever made. The hekoioi leaders of post-war Athens (known as the 30 Tyrants) were so cruel to their subjects that even the King of Sparta supported the rebellion against them. Eventually Athenian democrats regained control of the city, conspired with Thebes against Sparta, 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 great monuments, no huge architectural achievements, no standing temples, and very little art. The Spartan landscape today is in a state of perdition. 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.