’Germany
must live, even though we die.’ – Adolf Hitler
November
1923, saw the German revolt against a French initiative to seize control of
Bavaria and to force its secession from Germany proper. Hitler made the
decision to respond decisively.
“At that time our opponents intended to raise a revolution about the 12th
November, and a Bavarian revolution at that . . . As soon as I heard
this, I knew that the hour of Germany’s destiny was approaching. Then I
formed the resolution to strike four days before our opponents and so seize for
our side the initiative.” – Putsch Anniversary Speech, 1937
“The
danger was that others should act first: men were saying, ‘North Germany is
Bolshevist anyway: we must therefore separate from the North. We must
leave the North to burn itself out. Only after that can we join up with
the North again. They knew quite well how to cut themselves off from the
North, but they troubled themselves very little to consider how they should
come together again. And for that reason we were determined to act first.
We
did not want at the time a coup
d’etat; but on one point my mind was made up: if the other side
went so far that I knew that they would strike, then I would let fly four days
before. If anyone says to me, ‘Yes, but the consequences!’ then I answer,
‘The consequences could not be worse than they would have been if we had not
acted.’ – Putsch Anniversary Celebration, Munich, 1934
“Since
the Revolution of November 1918 had broken the laws which were formerly in
force, it could not be expected of us that we should regard the Revolution as a
legal constitution . . . So in November 1923 we marched, filled with the faith
that we should succeed in overthrowing those who were responsible for November,
1918, in annihilating the men who were responsible for the untold misfortune of
our people.” – Munich, 8th November 1935
“The
Government of that day had come to power through violence and it was through
violence that it had to be destroyed.”
– Volkischer Beobachter, 10th November 1936
“We
are met in a Celebration in memory of the day on which for the first time we
sought to change the face of Germany. The result of that attempt was
sixteen dead, more than a hundred severely or slightly wounded, and a further
result was the apparent annihilation of our Movement.
If
year by year we have celebrated this day – in the time of persecution not
always in the same form – if we are determined in the future and for all time
to make this a Holy Day for the German nation, that is not because on it
sixteen men died. Daily thousands die and wars destroy many more in an
hour. It is because these sixteen men with a true faith in their hearts
suffered a death which helped to raise up once more the German people.
These sixteen men even before that had stood their ground, they had been in the
Great War, many of them had been wounded once, several times. They had
already often looked death straight in the eyes. But in war it was
different! Then the whole German people in arms faced its foes, while on
the 9th November, 1923 only a small band arose against the annihilators of the
Fatherland and the destroyers of the nation, against those who had sold and
betrayed our people.
.
. . it was a bold decision just because it meant that with the means one had –
and they were small enough – one must have the courage to assume power.
Yet this decision was necessary: it could not be escaped. No other action
was possible. Someone in this hour
had to oppose treason, had
to set these traitors the national watchword. It mattered not in the last
resort who did it. We did it; I made the venture. – Munich, 8th November 1935.
Celebration of the 12th Anniversary of the November 1923 Putsch.
“Could
our dead of the 9th November rise again they would weep for joy that now the
German army and the awakened German people have found their way to unity . . .
because today we are binding into one the whole strength of the nation we can
now give to the dead their eternal rest.” – Munich, 8th November 1935.
Celebration of the 12th Anniversary of the November 1923 Putsch.
“It
was at this time that the Movement wrote upon its standards the words: ‘Germany
must live, even though we die.’ The motto of the others was the exact
opposite: ‘We shall live, even though Germany is destroyed.” – Munich, 8th
November 1935. Celebration of the 12th Anniversary of the November 1923 Putsch.
“That
the attempt failed was perhaps the greatest good fortune of my life and the
greatest good fortune for the German nation . . . the splitting up of Germany
was finally prevented, for in order to get rid of us the help of the North of
Germany was needed, and thus separation was stopped. And yet, we could
not be silenced: as though by an explosion our ideas were hurled over the whole
of Germany and thus my decision was justified.” – In the Putsch anniversary
speech of 1937.
Hitler’s
statement at the Putsch Trial ”The
(National Socialist) army which we have formed grows from day to day; from hour
to hour it grows more rapidly. Even now I have the proud hope that one
day the hour is coming when these untrained bands will become battalions, when
the battalions will become regiments and the regiments divisions, when the old
cockade will be raised from the mire, when the old banners will once again wave
before us: and then reconciliation will come in that eternal last Court of
Judgement – The Court of God – before which we are ready to take our
stand. Then from our bones, from our graves will sound the voice of that
tribunal which alone has the right to sit in judgement upon us.
For,
gentlemen, it is not you who pronounce judgement upon us, it is the Eternal
Court of History which will make its pronouncement upon the charge which is
brought against us.
The
judgement that you will pass, that I know. But that Court will not ask of
us ‘Have you committed high treason or not/’ That Court will judge us . . . who
as Germans have wished the best for their people and their Fatherland, who
wished to fight and to die. You may declare us guilty a thousand timers,
but the Goddess who presides over the Eternal Court of History will with a
smile tear in pieces the charge of the Public Prosecutor and the judgement of
the court, for she declares us guiltless.’ — Reden (1933 ed. p.122.
Hitler’s Speeches, Baynes. Vol.1. The Institute of International Affairs. 1942
On
the Putsch trials: “I was myself in prison when these trials began to run
their course. And I had only one anxiety – that under the pressure of
arrest, questioning, and the whole method of conducting the trial one or the
other might perhaps give way, might seek to save himself, and might plead ‘I
have been guiltless: I have acted under compulsion. I could not help
myself.’
My
heart overflowed with joy when I saw the first reports of those trials, when I
read in the Munich Post, ‘The men of the Shock Troops are just as insolent and
shameless as was their lord and master.’ Then I knew that Germany was not
lost! That spirit would gnaw its way through anything. Such a
spirit they can no longer destroy. And out of these Shock-Troop men and
these SA. men were later formed the greatest organisations of the German
Movement – the SA. and the SS. And the spirit has remained: it has ever and
again proved itself ten thousand – a hundred thousand-fold.’
That
is what we owe to these men who died: the example which they gave in Germany in
the darkest hour.” – Munich, 8th November, 1935. Celebration of the 12th
Anniversary of the November 1923 Putsch.
The
failed November Putsch decided Hitler to use legal rather than illegal means of
coming to power. ” . . . If you will read again my final speech in the
great prosecution you will be in a position to say that as a prophet I
foreshadowed the only possible way for progress in the future, that I have
publicly declared what that way was and have resolutely followed it for nine
years. I could thus follow it only because this action happened first,
because previously men had died for this way. . . In very truth, the cerecloths
of these sixteen dead have celebrated a resurrection which is unique in the
history of the world. They have become the banners of their people’s
freedom. The miracle is that from their sacrifice arose this mighty unity
of Germany, this victory of a Movement, an idea, and to this the whole people
is pledged. And all that, the whole of our debt, is bound up with these
men. For all those who later sacrificed their blood were inspired by the
sacrifice of these men.” – Munich, 8th November 1935. Celebration
of the 12th Anniversary of the November 1923 Putsch.
ATROCITIES
“And
during these eight months the world has abused us: they complain of atrocities;
the greatest atrocities in Germany were wrought in the name of the Treaty of
Versailles: the Treaty was the cause of some 20,000 suicides annually, 20,000
decent men who had been robbed by the Treaty of their prospects, of their means
of livelihood. . . . When has there ever been a revolution so free of
atrocities as ours?” – Sportpalast, Berlin. 24th October 1933
”
. . . If these foreign countries and in particular certain democratic statesmen
champion with such energy the cause of individual German priests, that action
can have only a political ground, fort these same statesmen were completely silent
when in Russia hundreds of thousands of priests were massacred or burnt; they
are completely silent when in Spain tens of thousands of priests and nuns are
slaughtered in a bestial way or are even, while still living, thrown into the
flames. They could not – they cannot – deny these facts, but they are
silent; they say not a word . . . ” – Reichstag, 30th January 1939.
THE
SIXTEEN MARTYRS
They
now pass into the German immortality under God’s free heaven. For us they
are not dead: these temples are no crypts: they are the eternal guard
post. Here they stand for Germany and keep guard over our people.”
-
Adolf Hitler, 11th November 1935
When
the bodies of the sixteen martyrs of the November Putsch were removed to the
open-air Memorial in Munich, Hitler said that long ago he had determined that
if he ever came to power he would take these comrades from the cemeteries and
honour them: “That determination I have now fulfilled. They
now pass into the German immortality. In their own time they could not
yet see the Reich of today: they could only dimly envisage it. Fate has
forbidden to them to experience this Reich. But though they might neither
see nor experience this Reich, we will take care that the Reich will see
them. And therefore we have laid them in no crypt and beneath no
dome. No, just as they once marched, their breast open to the air, so now
shall they lie in wind and weather, in storm and snow, under God’s free heaven,
a perpetual reminder for the German nation. For us they are not dead:
these temples are no crypts: they are the eternal guard post. Here they
stand for Germany and keep guard over our people. Here they lie as true
witnesses to our Movement.” – Volkischer Beobachter, 11th November 1935
No comments:
Post a Comment