the great problem of those Germans who live outside the borders of the Reich: they do have a German homeland, but they do not belong to the state of the Germans, the Reich, so they are deprived of their authentic way of Being.— In summary, then, we can say that the space of a people, the soil of a people, reaches as far as members of this people have found a homeland and have become rooted in the soil; and that the space of the state, the territory, finds its borders by interacting, by working out into the wider expanse.
In this connection, at the end of our last session we still made a few brief
remarks on the significance of folklore for the life of a people. We heard
that people and space mutually belong to each other. From the specific
knowledge of a people about the nature of its space, we first experience
how nature is revealed in this people. For a Slavic people, the nature of
our German space would definitely be revealed differently from the way
it is revealed to us; to Semitic nomads, it will perhaps never be revealed
at all. This way of being embedded in a people, situated in a people, this
original participation in the knowledge of the people, cannot be taught;
at most, it can be awakened from its slumber. One poor means of doing
this is folklore. It is a peculiar mishmash of objects that have often been
taken from the customs of a particular people. But it often also investigates
customs, mores, or magic which no longer have anything to do with a
specific people in its historical Being. It investigates forces that are at work
everywhere among primitive and magical human beings. So folklore is
not suited to ask about what belongs specifically to a people; often it even
does the very opposite. This is why it is a misunderstanding and an error
to believe that one can awaken the consciousness of the Volk with the help
of folklore [Volkskunde]. We must above all guard ourselves against being
overly impressed by the word “folk.”
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56 NATURE, HISTORY, STATE