February 12,
1936
My German Volksgenossen!
National Socialists!
My dear deceased Party
Comrade!
It is a painful path the peoples must take to
find their fortunes. The milestones along the way have always been graves,
graves in which their best men lie buried. Movements, too, can reach the goal
of their desires-if truly worth striving for-only by way of this same painful
path. Happiness cannot be had for nothing in this world. Everything must be
hard-won and bitterly earned, and every fight will require sacrifices and
result in victims. The fact that these victims are witnesses of the holy
conviction upon which such a fight is based makes them guarantors of victory,
success and fulfillment! Our own National Socialist Movement did not begin by
demanding sacrifices from others. Back then we stood in the front lines of the
World War as soldiers, and there did our duty for Germany. And when this
Germany was delivered a lethal stab at home in those November days of 1918, we
attempted to convert those who, at that time, were the tools of a terrible
supranational power. We were not the ones who victimized our Volksgenossen who
rose up against Germany. During those November days the bloody red terror began
to rage openly in Germany for the first time. In Berlin and many other places,
German men were murdered: not because they had done anything wrong - no, only
because they were devoted to Germany and wanted to remain devoted to it. In the
heavy fighting of the first quarter of 1919, German men everywhere sank to the
ground, struck by the bullets of their own Volksgenossen.
They did not die because they harbored any hatred for these Volksgenossen,
but merely because of their love for Germany. Because they refused to believe
that a free and honorable Germany had come to an end, because they wanted to
devote themselves to the future of this German Volk; that is why they were
shot, stabbed, murdered by mad, blind people! Yet behind this mad blindness we
see at every turn the same power, at every turn the same phenomenon which led
these people on and stirred them up and finally equipped them with rifles,
pistols, or daggers! The victims multiplied. The soviet republic broke out in
the south of the Reich, and for the first time now we are seeing victims who
had already made an inner, albeit unconscious, choice to take the path leading
to National Socialism. These hundreds who were murdered back then in their
drive to help Germany and to save Germany have now been joined by eleven
Volksgenossen, ten men and one woman, who consciously supported a new idea, who
had never harmed a single opponent, who knew but one ideal, the ideal of a new
and purified, better Volksgemeinschaft: the members of the Thule Society. They were savagely slaughtered in Munich as hostages. We know who the
principals are. They too were members of this disastrous power which was and
continues to be responsible for the fratricide in our Volk.
Then the National Socialist Movement set out on its path, and I must put
one thing straight here: on this, the path of our Movement, lies not a single
opponent murdered by us, not a single assassination. We rejected that from the
very first day onwards. We have never fought with these weapons. However, we
were just as determined not to spare our own lives, but to defend the life of
the German Volk and the German Reich, and to protect it from those who would
not shrink from the most treacherous murder, as history has so often taught us.
Then comes an infinitely long list of murdered National Socialists,
murdered by cowards, nearly always ambushed and beaten to death, stabbed or
shot. But behind every murder stood the same power which is responsible for
this murder: behind the harmless, insignificant, indoctrinated Volksgenossen
who were driven to sedition stands the hate-filled power of our Jewish foe, a
foe to whom we had done no harm but who attempted to subjugate and make of our
German Volk its slave, who is responsible for all the misfortune which came
upon us in November 1918 and responsible for the misfortune which plagued
Germany in the years thereafter! They all died, these party comrades and good
comrades, and so were others, too, to die; many hundreds have survived as
cripples or badly wounded; many have lost their power of sight, are paralyzed;
more than 40,000 others were injured. Among them were so many loyal men whom we
all knew who were dear and close to us, of whom we knew they were incapable of
doing harm to anyone and who never had done harm to anyone but been guilty of a
single crime, namely, of having devoted themselves to Germany. One who stood in
the ranks of these victims was Horst Wessel, the singer who gave the Movement
its song, never suspecting that he too would join the spirits who march with us
now and have marched with us in the past.
Thus National Socialism has now registered its first conscious martyr (Blutzeuge)
abroad. A man who did nothing but stand up for Germany-which is not only
his sacred right, but also his duty in this world; who did nothing but be
mindful of his homeland and loyally pledge himself to it. He too was murdered
exactly as were so many others. We know this method. Even as we took power
three years ago on January 30, exactly the same incidents were taking place in
Germany: in Frankfurt an der Oder, then again in Kopenick, and again in
Brunswick. The same procedure was used each tune: a few men appear, call the
man to come out of his house, and then stab him to death or shoot him down.
That is no coincidence; a guiding hand organized these crimes and will
continue to do so. Now, for the first time, the party responsible for these
deeds has become visible. For the first time this party has not employed a
harmless German Volksgenosse. It is a glorious chapter for Switzerland and for
our own Germans in Switzerland that no one let himself be hired to do this
deed, thereby forcing the spiritual author to himself become the perpetrator.
Thus our Party Comrade was struck down by the power which is waging a fanatical
battle not only against our German Volk, but against every free, autonomous,
and independent people. We understand the declaration of war, and we will
respond! My dear Party Comrade, your death is not in vain! Our dead have all
come back to life. They are marching with us not only in spirit; they are
alive, too. And one of those who will accompany us into the most distant future
will be this dead man. May that be our sacred vow in this hour, that we wish to
ensure that this dead man take his place in the ranks of our Volk’s immortal
martyrs. From his death shall hence come forth life a millionfold for our Volk.
That Jewish murderer did not suspect or foresee that, by killing one, he would
awaken millions upon millions of comrades to a truly German lifelong into the
most distant future. Just as it was formerly impossible to hinder the
triumphant march of our Movement by means of such deeds, for the opposite was
the case-these dead became the banner bearers of our idea- so shall this deed
too in no way hinder Germans abroad from belonging to our Movement and to the
German Fatherland. Quite the contrary, now every Ortsgruppe abroad has a
National Socialist patron, a sacred martyr for the Movement and for our idea.
From now on his picture will hang in every headquarters. His name will be
engraved upon every heart, and he will nevermore be forgotten for all time to
come.
That is our pledge. This deed will fall back upon its doer. It is not
Germany that will be weakened by it, but the power which committed this crime.
The
German Volk has lost one of its living in the year 1936, but has gained an
immortal for the future!
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