(With abridgements)
Berlin, May 1,
1937
The problems of our life are worse than those of other
peoples. Perhaps there are peoples who can afford the luxury of waging war at
home, of wrangling and bashing each other’s heads in. Where Nature has given
human beings everything in abundance, they will perhaps accord less importance
to the necessity of uniform action and thus of a uniform will. Yet Nature has
not been very kind to us Germans here on earth. A great Volk, an infinitely competent
Volk, an industrious Volk, a Volk who has a will to live and a right to make
demands on life, is living in a space much too tight and too confined to
possibly provide to it everything it needs, even given the greatest diligence.
When we sometimes hear foreign politicians say, “Why do you need a further,
broader scope for life?” we might respond by asking them in turn, “Then why do
you place such great emphasis on it?” It is for the very reason that our
life-struggle is so much more difficult than elsewhere that we must draw
specific conclusions from this fact which constitutes our fate. We cannot exist
on phrases, cliches and theories, but only on the fruits of our labour, our
ability and our intelligence.
[…]
For
at the fore of our National Socialist economic leadership stands not the word
“theory,” nor the word “money,” nor “capital,” but the word “production.”
Believe me, my Volksgenossen: it requires more brain-work, more effort and more
concentration to draw up and implement a Four-Year Plan to secure for our Volk
the requisite vital goods for the future than to start up the rotary press to
print more paper money.
It
is very easy to stride before the public and say, “We’re raising salaries,
earnings and wages”-and then tomorrow we shall raise prices. And it is very
easy to say, “We’ll shorten working hours-that means output-and raise wages
instead.” That may be popular at the moment. But the collapse is inevitable,
for the individual does not live on a paper wage but on the total sum of the
production of his Volksgenossen. That is the foremost precept of National
Socialist economic policy.
[…]
Life
itself puts every generation under an obligation to wage its own battle for
that life. Yet what centuries of prejudice and irrationality have built up cannot
be completely eliminated within four years’ time. Everything cannot be
accomplished at once! But we have the will to master this problem and, armed
with this will, we shall never capitulate! And we are applying ourselves
thoroughly to our task; you will have to admit that. In these four years, we
have established order; we have ensured that it is not the undeserving who walk
off with the wages in the end, but the millions comprising the upright working
masses in the cities and the countryside who are able to gain their just
reward! In Germany we have truly broken with the world of prejudices. I may
regard myself as an exception. I, too, am a child of this Volk, and did not
issue from some palace; I come from the work site. Neither was I a general; I
was a soldier like millions of others. It is a miraculous thing that, here in
our country, an unknown man was able to step forth from the army of millions of
German people, German workers and soldiers, to stand at the fore of the Reich
and the nation! Next to me stand German people from every class of life who
today are part of the nation’s leadership: former agricultural workers who are
now Reichsstatthalters; former metalworkers who are today Gauleiters, etc.
Though, mind you, former members of the bourgeoisie and former aristocrats also
have their place in this Movement. To us it makes no difference where they come
from; what counts is that they are able to work for the benefit of our Volk.
That is what matters.
[…]
For
subordinating oneself is something every person must do. We, too, subordinated
ourselves. For nearly six years I was a soldier and never voiced a
contradiction, but instead simply obeyed orders at all times. Today Fate has
made me the one who gives orders.
And
this I must demand of every German: you, too, must be able to obey; otherwise
you will never be deserving or worthy of giving orders yourself! That is the
prerequisite! It is thus we shall train our Volk and pass over the stubbornness
or stupidity of the individual: bend or break-one or the other! We cannot
tolerate that this authority, which is the authority of the German Volk, be
attacked from any other quarter.
This
also applies to all the Churches. As long as they concern themselves with their
religious problems, the State will not concern itself with them. If they
attempt, however, to presume by virtue of any actions, letters, encyclicals,
etc. to claim rights which accrue solely to the State, we will force them back
into their right and proper spiritual-pastoral activities. Nor is it acceptable
to criticize the morality of a state from that quarter when they have more than
enough reason to call their own morality into question?108
The German leadership of state will take care of the morality of the
German State and Volk - of that we can assure all those concerned both within and
without Germany.
[…]
Hence
this May Day is the illustrious holiday of the resurrection109 of the German Volk from its disunity and its
fragmentation. It is the illustrious day of the erection of a new and great
Volksgemeinschaft that unites city and country, workers, peasants and
intellectuals above and beyond any divisions, allowing the Reich to stand as
sole presider over all in full panoply.
What
is, therefore, more logical than for us to again wholeheartedly pledge
ourselves to our Volk on this day of all days? We cannot renew this pledge
often enough: that we wish to belong to this Volk, that we wish to serve it and
will endeavour to understand one another; that we wish to overcome all that
divides us and thus defeat the stupid doubters, the mockers and the incessant
little cavillers; that today above all we wish to renew our faith in our Volk,
our confidence that it is a marvellous, competent, industrious, and decent Volk,
and that this Volk shall have its future because we are the ones responsible
for that future!
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