My German folk comrades!
My German workers!
I speak only very rarely now: first, because I have little time to talk, and second, because I also believe at the moment that it is more correct to act than to speak.
We find ourselves in the middle of a conflict, where it revolves around more than about the victory of one or the other land. I want to try, quite briefly, insofar as time allows, to give you an insight into the deeper reasons for this conflict:
In the process, I want to draw only western Europe into the circle of observation. The folks that are, above all, involved here: Germans 85 million, English 46 million, Italians 45 mil-lion and French about 37 million. Those are the cores of the states that stand against each other in war.
If I now draw the life foundations of these folks for comparison, then the following fact results:
46 million English rule and govern an overall complex of around 40 million square kilometers of this world. 37 million Frenchmen rule and govern a complex of around 10 million square kilometers.
45 million Italians have, if it is about somehow useful regions, a surface area of hardly '/i million square kilometers.
85 million Germans have as life foundation hardly 600,000 square kilometers, and this only through our intervention. This means, 85 million Germans have at their disposal 600,000 square kilometers, from which they must shape their life, and 46 million Englishmen 40 million square kilometers.
Well, my folk comrades, this earth has not been divided up so by, say, Providence or the dear Lord. People have taken care of the distribution themselves. And this acquisition took place mostly in the last 300 years, hence in a period, in which, unfortunately, our German folk was internally impotent and fragmented. After the end of the Thirty Years War, definitively divided up by the Treaty of Münster into hundreds of small states, our folk consumed all its energy in the fight against each other. Rulers and petty rulers, kings and clerical dignitaries, they kept our folk in its fragmentation. And when it then finally seemed as if this purely dynastic decomposition of our folk body could find its end, then the parties came, then the worldviews came and for their part continued what had just begun.
And in this period, Western Europe’s most capable folk expended its energy exclusively in the interior. And in this period, the rest of the world was divided up; not, say, through treaties or through amicable agreements, rather exclusively through violence did England put together for itself this huge empire.
The second folk that came short in this world division, the Italian, experienced and endured the same fate as we. Internally torn and dissolved, split up into countless little states, its whole energy also consumed in the struggle against each other, the Italian folk likewise not only did not receive its natural position in the Mediterranean, rather it was not even able to maintain it.
So both these strong lands landed up out of any proportion. One could object: Is that decisive at all? - My folk comrades, man does not live from theories and not from slogans, not from declarations, also not even from worldviews. He lives from the food and also the raw materials that he can win from his earth through his work. He can process that, he can eat that. If his own living foundation offers him too little, then his life will be a wretched one. We see that within the folks as well: rich areas, this means, fertile regions, provide greater life foundations than poor areas, infertile landscapes. In one case, there are blossoming villages, in the other case, there are impoverished steppes. Whether one lives on stony desert or in fertile cropland, that cannot be balanced out through theories, also not through the will to work.
So we see that the first prerequisite for the given tensions lies in that the world is unjustly divided. And it is then natural that things develop exactly the same way in the greater life of folks as within the folks. Just as, within the folks, the all too great tensions between rich and poor must be balanced out either through reason or, if reason fails, then also often by force, so in the life of folks as well, one cannot claim everything and leave nothing for the others. Providence did not put people on the earth so that the one claims forty times or even eighty times as much as the other is allotted. Either he has reason and agrees to a regulation that is negotiated according to fair principles, or the suppressed party and the party kicked by good fortune and persecuted by misfortune, he will one day simply take what is owed him. This is so inside the interior of folks and it is also so outside.
And in the interior, it was the great task that I put to myself to solve this problem through an appeal to reason, the appeal to the insight of all to bridge over the chasm between too great wealth, on the one side, and too great poverty, on the other, in the realization, however, that such processes cannot be carried out overnight, but that it is always better through reason to gradually bring the classes excessively separated from the each other closer together than to bring about such a necessary solution through force.
The right for life is a universal and uniform one. It also cannot be so presented that one folk now says: “We very gladly want to let you live so as well, after all.” You know, my folk comrades, that it is the nature of any really socialist work to take care that alms are not given, rather that rights are established. Hence it is also not about the folks that were shorted in this world division receiving alms along the path of charity, rather it is about, just like in normal social life, people receiving their rights. The right for life is not a wish for alms, rather it is a claim of right that is basic nature.
The right of life is hence simultaneously a claim of right to the soil that alone gives life. And this claim of right has been the oldest and holiest in all ages. For this claim of right, folks have, if irrationality threatened to paralyze their relations, then simply fought. There was nothing else left for them, in the realization that even the bloodiest sacrifices are then better than a gradually dying out of a folk.
So we made two demands at the beginning of our National Socialist revolution in the year 1933: The first demand, it was the demand for the national unification of our folk, and indeed in the realization that, without this comprehensive decision, the energy would not be able to be mobilized for the making, and especially the achievement, of the necessary German life claims. For you know, after all, the situations that existed eight years ago: Our folk stood before the collapse, 7 million unemployed, and 6 ½ short-term laborers, our economy faced total dissolution, agriculture facing ruin, trade and commerce ruined, our shipping stood still. One could calculate when the 7 million unemployed would have to become 8 and 9 and 10 million.
And then the condition set in, in which the number of productive people became ever smaller, but, conversely, the number of non-productive people had to be supported, after all. This hence means, for the productive people as well, the result of the fruits of their labor became ever smaller, for, after all, gradually a productive person had to help feed and support a non-productive person, for he had to live, too. And whether I distribute through social legislation or along the path of alms, is all the same. One works and simply must support and feed one who does not work. And then, in the end, it then naturally suffices for nobody. It is too little to live and perhaps for a certain period still too much to die.
National unification was hence for us one of the prerequisites in order to first organize the whole of German energy again, to show the German folk as well how great its strength is indeed, that it again becomes aware of its strength and that it is ready, from this strength, to first itself ponder its life claims, then to present them and then also to achieve them.
I believed I could bring about this national unification through an appeal to reason. I know it did not succeed everywhere. I was back then in a certain period bombarded for almost fifteen years from both sides. The one, it reproached me: You, you want to drag us, we who belong to the intelligentsia, who belong to the upper strata, down to the level of the others, that is impossible. We have education, we furthermore still have wealth, and we have culture. We cannot walk that path.” Many could not be converted, and even today, many people certainly walk around who cannot be converted. But overall, the number of those becomes ever greater who realized that, with this fragmentation of our folk body, one day all strata would have to perish, after all.
From the other side as well, I was naturally combated. One said to me: “We have our class consciousness, we do not go together with such people at all.” I just had to take the position that, in our land, we cannot use experiments. For it is naturally the easiest thing to simply summarily cut off the other’s head. This means: if I say, I behead the intelligentsia, then this is a process that can easily be carried out. Just that one then waits perhaps 100 years until it grows back again. And this period means the destruction of our folk body. For how should 140 people per square kilometer exist at all, if they do not employ the last energy of mind and also of hand in order to wrestle from their soil what they necessarily need to live? This distinguishes us from the others, after all. In other folks, in Canada: one person per square kilometer. In other lands, in part six, seven, eight, ten people. Yes, my folk comrades, one cannot administer so stupidly, if one cannot live in the process. But among us 140 people! The others, they do not manage their problems with ten people per square kilometer. But we, we must manage with 140 per square kilometer.
The tasks have been put to us, and in the year 1933, I took the standpoint: We must solve them, and hence we will solve them as well!
Naturally, it was not easy, and naturally everything cannot be fulfilled immediately. People, my folk comrades, are the product of their education. And that begins, unfortunately, already almost with birth. The little worm is in the one case already diapered differently than the little worm in the other case. And that continues so. And when the century happens, the one suddenly comes and says: I now want to unwrap you from your various coverings so that the core comes out again, for at the core, after you, you are one and the same, anyway. You have, after all, as something separating, only what you have built up around yourselves externally, inside, there you are all the same, after all.
That cannot be done so easily, for one resists being torn from one’s diapers. Each wants to remain in what he is. And this requires a long education. But I will come to this later. I have huge patience here. I know from the start: What was done in three or four centuries or five centuries, one cannot eliminate that in two, three, five years. The decisive thing, however, is that one takes the path to eliminate it.
At any rate, I recognized back then one thing as the decisive thing: We must produce this German folk community, if we still want to expect anything from our folk in the future. That it was correct, is proven in that all our enemies immediately resisted it. They fought against it, against the idea of building such a thing.
This national unification was the first demand. It has been achieved piece by piece, move by move. You know yourselves what all I have eliminated. It is very much, my dear folk comrades, in barely six or seven years. What did Germany look like back then! Totally divided and impotent, in parties and professions and in classes and in worldviews, and the denominations stirred etc.. And in addition to that came our dear friends, no, who actually do not come from here, rather immigrated from the orient. And finally, finally then the economic separations. And then our governmental legacies. Here Prussian and there Bavarian and there Württemberger, whom one first had to take his pennant from his hand and tell him: Put that away and now finally take a common flag into your hand. The others already long have it, already for 300 years. Only among us does one still run around with a special rosette in his button-hole and imagine that it contributes to the reinforcement of his ego, and totally forgets that his ego is only a part of a totality and that, if this totality dissolves and splinters, nothing else can come but collapse.
I have endeavored to achieve this national demand. And much has been achieved in so few years. We have, I can already say, swept Germany clean of all this old stuff.
And then, this crossed over to other areas, where we had to endeavor everywhere to break with old traditions, which are naturally dear to many people. I understand this, too. They clung to their old badges, to their old flags, to their old movements etc., to their old class prejudices, to their class consciousness, to their class arrogance etc., I understand this completely, but it had to be gradually eliminated, and it also will be eliminated. Until one put them all into one uniform, until one put this youth education in the same boat, those have been gigantic works.
But that is the first party program of the year 1933, the achievement of the goal, to produce a German community. And the second program point, it now goes: Elimination of foreign political oppressions, which found their expression in recent times in Versailles, but which also simultaneously prevent the national cohesion of our folk body, which forbid that large portions of our folk join together, and which have especially also taken from us our world property, our German colonies. That hence means, this second program point went: Fight against Versailles. Nobody can say that I first pronounce this today, rather, my folk comrades, when I stepped forward for the first time, back then myself still as soldier, after the great war, my first lecture was already a lecture against the collapse, then in 1919 against the Treaty of Versailles and for the resurrection of a strong German Reich. I started with that. What I have achieved since then is hence not a new goal, rather the oldest one that exists.
My folk comrades, therein lies then the first reason for this conflict, in which we live today. For the other world did not want our unification, because it knew that then the life claim of these folk masses would not only come, rather than it can also be achieved. And secondly: It wanted to maintain this law of Versailles, in which it envisioned a second Peace of Westphalia.
But there is still another reason. I have already said that the world is diversely divided. And American observers and Englishmen, they have also found a wonderful expression for it; they said: “There are two types of folks, namely haves and have-nots. We, we English, are the haves. We now have 40 million square kilometers. And we Americans are also haves, and we French are likewise haves - and they are simply the have-nots. Whoever has nothing, he also gets nothing, he should stay with what he does not have. And whoever has, he has and never surrenders any of it.”
Well, for my whole life I have always been the representative of the have-nots. At home, I was the representative of the have-nots. I have fought for them, for the broad mass of my folk. I come from it, and I also count myself among it. I have stood up for them, and again stand up before the world as the representative of the have-nots; and stand up as that.
And I can never acknowledge a claim of right from the others to what they have robbed through force. In no case, however, can I acknowledge this claim of right to what belonged to us anyway, which one has taken away from us.
But now it is interesting to observe the life of these rich. In the English-French world, there exists a so-called democracy. You know, after all, this democracy distinguishes by the fol-lowing: It means that it is supposedly the rule of the folk. Well, the folk, after all, must possess some kind of possibility to give expression to its thoughts or its wishes. If one looks at this problem more closely, then one can ascertain that the folk in itself primarily has no conviction at all there, rather naturally has the conviction presented to it, like everywhere, by the way. And the decision is now: Who determines this conviction of a folk? Who enlightens a folk? Who forms a folk? In these lands, capital actually rules, this means, it is a band of a few hundred people, in the final analysis, who are in possession of vast fortunes and as a result of the unique construction of state life there are more or less totally independent and free. For it is said, “we have freedom here”, and they mean by that, above all, “free economy”. And by free economy, they again mean the freedom to not just acquire capital, to be free in the acquisition of capital from any governmental, this means folkish, supervision, but also to be free in the use of capital from any governmental or folkish supervision. That is, in reality, the concept of their freedom.
And this capital then, it initially creates for itself a press. They talk about the freedom of the press. In reality, each of these newspapers has a master. And this master is in each case the money-giver, thus the owner. And this master now directs the inner picture of this newspaper, not the editor. If he wants today to write something different than fits the master, then he is kicked out the next day. This press then, which is the absolutely servile, unscrupulous lackey of its owner, this press then models public opinion. And the public opinion mobilized by the press is again divided into parties. These parties differentiate themselves from each other as they previously differentiated themselves from each other among us. You know them, after all, the old parties. It was always one and the same thing. Usually, even in these lands, it is so that the families are divided up; one is conservative, the other is liberal, and a third, in England, he is with the Labor Party. In reality, all three family members get together annually and direct very precisely their further bearing, set it down. Additionally, the chosen folk, after all, is a community everywhere and now actually moves and directs all these organizations. Hence nothing comes out of it, even given an opposition. The opposition is actually always the same, and in all basic things, where an opposition would have to make itself noticeable, they are always one and the same, there they have a conviction. These parties with this press, they form public opinion.
Now one would have to think that, above all, in these lands of freedom and wealth, an unprecedented prosperity for the folk would have to exist. But it is the opposite. In these lands, the distress of the broad masses is greater than anywhere else. There is this wealthy England, 40 million square kilometers are controlled by it, hundreds of millions of colonial workers with a pitiful living standard, in India, for example, must be active for it. One would have to think then, in this England itself, there actually everyone would have to be a shareholder in this wealth. Quite the opposite, in these lands, the class difference is the greatest that one can imagine. Poverty, inconceivable poverty, on the one hand, and, on the other, just as inconceivable wealth. They have not solved one problem. These are lands that possess the treasures of the earth, and their workers, they house in pitiful holes; lands that possess the natural resources of the world, and the mass broad is miserably clothed; lands that could have more than enough bread and all other fruits, and millions in their lower strata do not have enough to fill their stomachs, run around starved. People who, on the one hand, could manage to provide with world with work must experience that they cannot eliminate unemployment even in their own land. This rich England has for decades now had 2 ½ million unemployed. This rich America 10 to 13 million year after year. This France 6, 7, 800,000. Yes, my folk comrades, what then do we first want to say about ourselves? But it is also understandable. In these lands of so-called democracy, the folk is not put at the center point of observation at all. What is decisive, is exclusively the existence of these few makers of democracy, this hence means the existence of these few hundred gigantic capitalists, who are in possession of their assets, all their stocks, and who, in the final analysis, exclusively direct these folks. The broad mass does not interest them in the least. It interests them, just like previously our bourgeois parties, only at election time, then they need its votes. Otherwise they are totally indifferent to the life of the broad mass.
Additionally, there is the difference of education. Is it not downright funny, if we now hear that an English Labor Party, which, furthermore, as opposition, is officially paid by he government, if an English Labor Party man says: “When the war comes to an end, then we also want to do a few things in social regard. Above all, then the English worker as well should be able to travel.” - This is splendid, that they now come up with the idea that travelling should exist not only for millionaires, rather also for the folk.
But we already solved that among us some time ago, these problems.
No, you believe it, in these states, this is shown by their whole economic structure, in the final analysis, the egoism of a relatively very small stratum rules there under the clock of democracy. And this stratum is corrected and controlled by nobody. And it is understandable, if an Englishman hence says: “We do not want our world to somehow perish.” They are right. They know quite well: Their empire is not threatened by us at all. But they rightly say: “If these ideas, which are becoming popular in Germany, are not eliminated and exterminated, then they will also come over our folk. And that is the dangerous thing, we do not wish that.” It would harm them, if it were to come. But they are so narrow-minded, just like so many were also narrow-minded among us. They simply live in the area of their conservative former practice. They do not want to distance themselves from it. They do not hide it. They say: “All these methods do not suit us.”
And what kind of methods are they then? Yes, you know, my comrades, I have smashed nothing in Germany, after all. I have always proceeded very carefully, because, as said, I believe that we cannot allow ourselves at all to lay something in ruins. It was my pride that the revolution of 1933 went off without a broken windowpane. But, nonetheless, we have brought about huge changes.
I want to state just a few basic views: Initially, there is the first view: In this world of capitalist democracies, the most important economic principle goes: The folk exists for the economy, and the economy exists for capital. - And we have reserved this principle, namely: Capital exists for the economy, and the economy exists for the folk. This means in other words: The primary thing is the folk, everything else is only means to an end. That is the purpose. If an economy does not manage to nourish a folk, to clothe it etc., then it is bad, quite regardless of whether a few hundred people say: “but for me, it is good, splendid, my dividends are great.” I admit that. Dividends do not interest me in the least. I do not doubt that this is impossible in our state. Yes, it must not be. We have drawn boundaries here. One says immediately: “Yes, you see, that is simply it.
You terrorize freedom.” Yes, we terrorize it, if freedom comes at the expense of the community. Then we eliminate it.
These people have the possibility - I wish to give you just one example - to draw from their armaments industry 76%, 80%, 95%, 140%, 160% dividends. Yes, naturally, they say, if these methods spread, this will cease. They are completely right there, I will not tolerate that. I believe that 6% are sufficient. And of this 6%, we again take away half. And of the rest, we must know the proof that it is again invested in the interest of the folk community. This hence means that the individual does not have the right to administer totally free what must be invested in the interest of the folk community. If he personally controls it reasonably, it is fine. If he does not administer it reasonably, then the National Socialist state intervenes.
Or another example: Aside from these dividends, there are then the so-called board of director fees. Perhaps you do not know at all how fertile the activity of a board of directors is. One must take a trip once a year and go to the train station. One must sit in the first-class section and travel to somewhere. And then one must go into a restaurant, around 10:00 or 11:00, accordingly, and then a report is read aloud there. And one must then listen. And when the report has been read aloud, then one must listen, while a few people say something about it, and this can naturally even last over the mealtime, it can become 1:00 or 2:00, and after 2:00, one must stand up again, and one must then make one’s return trip again. One must travel back, travel back first class! And probably everybody has the right to demand as compensation each year so 60,000 or 80,000 or 100,000 Marks - that is also how it was among us previously. For he apparently misses a lot, after all, and besides, the effort must also be paid for.
This nonsense, we have simply eliminated among us, however. And it had only been a concealment of profits, nothing more at all. And, above all, it was a means of bribery. For the delegates are board of directors’ members.
That also existed among us. We have eliminated that. No delegate may be a board of directors’ member, unless totally uncompensated. Any kind of payment is excluded, excluded in any form. In these lands, it simply is not. They now say: “yes, for us, that is a sacred state.” I admit it, it also gets itself paid for it. But whether this state is also sacred for the folks, that is something else. I believe, it is harmful to the folks. I believe one cannot maintain that, that a person toils and works for a whole year and then receives a downright ridiculous wage in comparison, and another person, he sits himself down in a meeting and cashes in a huge salary for it. Those are impossible conditions.
We National Socialists also oppose any leveling on the other hand. If today somebody through his genius invents something momentous, produces through his mental work a huge benefit, then we are generous. That is work then. The man then benefits our folk community. But to live as drone in this folk community, we must gradually make that impossible.
And see, I can expand this to infinity. But those are two worlds, which confront each other, and they are completely right in England, if they say: “we can never reconcile with the world”. How can such a capitalist reconcile himself with my principles! Sooner can the devil enter the church and receive consecrated water, than they can deal with ideas that are self- evident for us today.
But in exchange, we have also solved our problems, after all. My folk comrades, one will also, for example, reproach us. One says: “We fight for the preservation of the gold standard of currency.” I understand that. They have the gold. We also had gold once. Once then stole it from us and extorted it from us. When I came to power, I had no maliciousness, when I abolished the gold standard. There was namely no gold there. It was also not difficult for me to carry out this abolition. If one has nothing, then one can easily part from what one does not have. We had no gold. We had no money. One had extorted everything from us over the course of fifteen years.
But now, my folk comrades, I was also not unhappy about it. We have a totally different economic view. According to our view, gold is no asset at all, rather only a factor for suppression, this means, more accurately, for the domination of the folks. When I came to power, I possessed only one hope upon which I built, that was the proficiency, the ability of the German folk, of the German worker and the intelligence of our inventors, of our engineers, of our technicians, of our chemists etc., also the skill of countless organizers of our economy. I counted on that. I stood before a simple problem: Should we collapse then, perish, because we have no gold? Should I cling to an insanity that destroys us?
I represented the other view: If we have no gold, then we have a work force. And the German work force, that is our gold, and that is our capital. And with that gold, I defeat any other power in the world. For what do people live from then? Do they live, say, from ducats, which one gives them? They love from foodstuffs, which the peasant must create. Hence work must create that. They clothe themselves in fabrics, which must be fabricated. Hence the worker must fabricate them. They want to live in residences, which must be built. Hence the worker must build them. And the material for that and the raw materials must be created through work. I have built my whole economy only on the concept of work. And we have solved our problems. And the miraculous thing, my folk comrades, is that the capitalist lands have been wrecked in their currencies. One cannot sell the pound in the world today. If one throws it at somebody, then he steps aside so that he is not hit by it. And our mark, behind which no gold stands, it has remained stabile. You helped me to keep the mark stabile. The currency without gold is today more valuable than gold, for it is fluid production. This is owed to the German peasant, who has worked from early to late. And this is to be ascribed to the German worker, who put his whole energy into it.
And now the whole problem has been solves as if by magic.
If, my dear friends, I had publicly declared eight or nine years ago: In six, seven years the problem will no longer be: how do we reduce unemployment, rather the problem will then be: where do we get the work force?, if I had said that, it would have hurt me very much back then. For one would have declared: “He is crazy, one cannot go along with him at all, one cannot vote for him, he is a dreamer.” But this has today become reality. Today there is only one question among us: Where is the work force?
That, my folk comrades, is the blessing of work. Only work creates new work. Money does not create work, only work creates new work. Work creates assets, which reward people, who themselves want to work again. What the one creates, gives the other the prerequisite for his life and thus to his productivity. And if we organize our folk’s work force to the maximum, then more and more life goods will come to the individual. For the fact is that we integrated these seven millions unemployed into the economic process, that we turned another six million from part-time to full-time workers, and we have even come to overtime and that all that is paid with a Reichsmark, which, as long as peace lasted, retained its value and which we only now in war ration, not because it loses value, rather because we now had to convert a portion of production to war production, in order to thereby be able to successfully survive the struggle for the German future.
That, my folk comrades, is also a world, which we have built here; a world of shared work, a work of shared exertions, but also a world of shared cares, shared duties.
I was not surprised that, in these other lands, one began with rationing only after two, after three, after five, after seven months, in part, after a year. Believe it, that is no coincidence. In all these lands, that is calculation. Perhaps many a German wondered that the ration stamps came already on the first day of the struggle in the morning. Yes, my folk comrades, this whole ration stamp system naturally has two sides. One will say: “Would it not be smarter, one would do without it in one or the other area? My God, you allot - what does this mean anyway - you allot only so many grams coffee. Nobody gets much. Otherwise at least some would get something.” - I admit that. That is precisely what we want to avoid. We simply want to avoid that, in the most important thing that belongs to life, the one has more than the other. There are other things: A valuable painting. Not everybody can buy himself a Tizian, even if he had the money, because Tizian did not paint so many paintings. Hence one can give that to one or the other, he should pay for it. He then gives out his money again in this manner and it then circulates again in a short time among mankind. But what is necessary to eat, there each has the same life claim. In the other states, one waited there. One first wrote: “Should meat be rationed?” That is the first warning shot. This hence means, if you have capital, stock up, buy yourself a refrigerator and store up some cracklings of ham. “Or should one ration coffee?” Two different views exist here, whether or not one should ration. But it would not be precluded that, in the end, the view triumphs that one should also ration coffee. This is written so for four weeks. Anybody who has some brains in his head - and this is naturally the case among the democrats - he says: “Hello, what, so coffee will soon be affected; hence buy coffee.” And then one rations. That means, when there is no longer anything there.
We want to avoid that. Hence we have now in this war right from the start undertaken these restrictions uniformly for all. And we do not take it lightly, if somebody transgresses against it.
But the one thing is sure, my folk comrades: If we take everything together, then we have here today a state that, economically and politically, is oriented differently than the western democracies. In this state, the folk determines existence without doubt. The folk determines in this state the guidelines of its leadership. For it has actually become possible in this state to first integrate the broad mass to the broadest extent into the party, this gigantic organization, which begins from below and encompasses millions of people, which has millions of functionaries. Those are all people from the folk. And it builds upward. There exists for the first time in our own German history a state, which has basically eliminated all social prejudices in filling positions. Not, say, now in civil life. I am myself, after all, the final document of this. I am not even a jurist - think what this means! -, nonetheless, I am your leader. Not only in life in general have we managed this, that people now come into all positions who come from the folk - Reich Regents, who were previously agricultural workers, who were who previously machinists - no, we have even made this breakthrough in the state, where the breakthrough seemed the most difficult, in the Wehrmacht as well. Thousands of officers are being promoted and have emerged from the enlisted ranks. Here, too, we have eliminated all inhibitions. Today we have generals who, 22, 23 years ago, were common solders, non-commissioned officers. We have overcome all inhibitions of social nature here.
And we build now, after all, above all, for the future. For you know, we have countless schools, National Political Education Institutes and Adolf Hitler Schools. To these schools, we bring the talented children, the children of our broad mass, worker sons, peasant sons, where the parents could never pay for their children participating in higher study, they gradually enter here and are further educated here, and they will later be led into the state, they later enter the party, they enter the Ordensburgen, they will one day hold the highest posts.
We have created great possibilities here to so totally build up this state from the bottom. This is simply our goal, and this is also - I can tell you, my folk comrades - our whole life joy. It is something so glorious to be able to fight for an idea. It is so wonderful that we may tell ourselves: we have a seemingly almost impossible goal. We envision a state in the future in which every post should be held by our folk’s most capable son, quite regardless, where he comes from. A state in which birth is nothing and performance and ability everything. This is our ideal, for which we now work and for which we work with full fanaticism and for which we work - I may say - with our bliss - our greatest joy on this earth, which could be given us.
And this is now confronted by another structure, another world. And there, the ultimate ideal is again and again the struggle for wealth, for capital, the struggle for the family, the struggle for the egoism of the individual. And everything else is only means to an end there.
Those are both the worlds, and they stand today in combat with each other. And we know quite precisely, if we fail in this struggle, then that is the end, not, say, of our social construction work, rather it is the end of the German folk. For without the concentration of this energy, these people simply cannot be nourished at all. This is a mass of today far more than 120, 130 million, which is dependent upon it, among them just 85 million of our own folk. We know that.
And the other world says: “If we lose, then our world capitalist building collapses, then...we have hoarded gold, it now lies in our cellars. That suddenly has no value, if the idea spreads among the folks that work is the decisive thing. What then? Then we have bought gold in vain. Our whole world domination claim can no longer be maintained. The folks will eliminate these few family dynasties, they will then come with social demands. A collapse will result.” And I hence understand, if they declare: “We want to prevent that under all circumstances, we want to avoid that.” They see quite precisely how the construction of our folk takes place. It is very clear to them. Only one example: There a state that is governed by a very thin upper stratum. This upper stratum again and again sends its sons to their own educational institutions. There Eton College and on our side the Adolf-Hitler school or the National Socialist Educational Institute, the national political school. Two worlds: In one case, the children of the folk, in the other case, only the sons of this money aristocracy, of these finance magnets. There only people who play a role in the state from this school, and here people who play a role in the state from the folk. Those are two worlds.
I admit, one of both worlds must collapse, either the one or the other. In the one case, if we collapse, the German folk would collapse with us. If the other world collapses, I am of the conviction, the folks will first become free at all. For our struggle is not aimed at all against the Englishman as man or against the Frenchman. We have nothing against them. For years, I have clearly laid out my foreign policy goal. I have not demanded too much from them, nothing at all! When they entered the war, they could not say: “We go to war, because the Germans have demanded this”, rather, quite the opposite, they said quite openly back then: “We go to war, because we do not like the German system, because we fear that this system could grip our folks as well.” That is why they wage this war. They want to thereby throw our folk back into the time of Versailles, into this whole nameless misfortune. And they deceive themselves in the process! If, in this war, the signals are already so set that here gold is against work, capital against the folks and reaction against mankind’s progress, then work and then the folks and then progress will triumph! And all the Jewish support will not help them at all in the process.
I have foreseen this, for years. For what have I demanded from the other world? Nothing at all than just the right for Germans to come together, and, second, that one gives back to them what one has taken from them, otherwise nothing at all. Something that has no value at all for the other folks. And how often have I extended my hand to them.
Right after the assumption of power. I said: I have no desire at all to arm, for what does arming mean? It devours so much of my work force. Precisely I, who view the work force as the decisive thing, I wanted to employ the German work force for my other plans, and this, my folk comrades, I believe, would have already gotten around, that I still possess rather significant plans, beautiful and great plans for my folk. I have the ambition, I say this, to make my German folk rich, the German land beautiful. I want the individual’s living standard to be elevated. I want to get the best and most beautiful culture. But I do not want that we, like in England, reserve the theater for only a few of the upper ten thousand. I want the whole folk to have a share in it. I want to see the broad mass so organized that the whole of glorious German culture benefits it. These are huge plans, which we possessed. And for that, I need the work force. Armament just takes my workers away from me. I made them proposals to limit armament, for all I care, to totally abolish it. One only ridiculed me, after all. I heard only no. I made proposals to limit specific armaments. One rejected that. I made proposals to then at least restrict combat. One rejected that. I made proposals to remove the airforce from war overall. One rejected that. I then made proposals that, leastwise with bombing, one... One also rejected that. One said: “Bombs, you would like that. We need them. We have them, you do not have them. That is exactly how, if necessary, we will force our regime on you, after all.”
Now I am a man who does not do things halfway. If it is necessary to defend oneself, then I defend myself with boundless fanaticism. When I saw that the mere German resurrection again immediately mobilized the same people in England who, already before the World War, agitated for war, then I became aware that this struggle will simply have to be carried out one day, that the other simply did not want peace. For it was quite clear, after all. What was I before the World War? An unknown, nameless person. What was I in the war? A very little, common soldier. I was not responsible for the World War. Who are the people who today lead in England? Those are the same people who, already before the World War, engaged in agitation. The same Mr. Churchill, who already in the World War was the vilest war agitator. That is the now deceased Mr. Chamberlain, who already back then agitated exactly the same, and the whole audience that goes with it, and naturally that folk, which always believes it can crush the folks with the trumpets of Jericho. They are the old spirits, who again became alive there.
And I have now armed the German folk against that, also out of conviction: I participated in the World War as soldier myself and have often experienced what it means to be fired upon by the other without being able to shoot back, what it means to possesses no ammunition or too little, always just being struck by the other. Back then, I gained my whole faith in the German folk and in the future of the German folk from my knowledge of the German soldier, of the little musketeer. In my eyes, he was the great hero. The other folk strata naturally did everything as well, certainly. But there was nonetheless a difference. The one, who at home lived with fortune and riches, for him, after all, Germany looked quite pretty back then, he could share in everything, in culture, in the beautiful life etc., he could enjoy German artists, German art, everything, he could travel through the German lands, could view German cities etc., everything was beautiful for him. That he then stood up for the Germany of back then, was self-evident. But, on the other hand, there was this quite little musketeer, this little proletarian, who previously often hardly had enough to eat, who always had to slave for his existence and who nonetheless fought out there for four years like a hero. I put my trust in him, and I took courage from him again. Hence when the others doubted in Germany, I again gained my faith in Germany at the sight of this man. I told myself, Germany will not perish at all, if it has such people. But I also experienced how these fighters were always at the disadvantage as soldiers, because the other side could finish them simply materially. Back then, I was perhaps not of the conviction that the Englishman was even once personally superior to us. Such a lunatic, who claims I had an inferiority complex toward the Englishman! I have never had a feeling of inferiority. The problem, a German against an Englishman, was never put to a discussion back then, after all. That was no problem at all. Back then, they already whined around the whole world so that they received support.
And I was determined this time, for my part, to prepare in the world, in order to broaden our position, and, second, to arm so in the interior that the German soldier would no longer have to stand alone, or, surrendered to a superior force, stand alone at the front.
And now the fight has come. Here, too, I have done everything that a human being could do at all, almost to self-degradation, in order to avoid it. I have made offer after offer to the English. I have spoken with the diplomats here and entreated them to accept reason. But there was nothing to want. They wanted war, and they also made no bones about it at all. For seven years, Mr. Churchill has been declaring: “I want war.” Now he has it! I have regretted this, that the folks must fight against each other, whom I so gladly wanted to lead together, who, in my eyes, with each other would have created only good. But if these gentlemen have the goal to eliminate the National Socialist state, to dissolve the German folk and again divide it into its components etc., as their war goals go, after all, and in the interior still go today, then they will experience a surprise this time. And I believe this surprise has already begun.
There are among you many old World War soldiers, and they know quite well what space and time mean. Many of them were also in the east back then. And all the names that you could read in the year 1939 are very familiar to you. Perhaps many of you marched up back then in bad weather or under the burning sun. And there were endless paths. And how difficult was that won back then. What did it cost in blood back then, just to advance here kilometer by kilometer. And, my folk comrades, at what an assault pace did we this time, a year ago, put these distances behind us! Eighteen days, and the state, which wanted to chop us up before Berlin, was eliminated.
And then, then came the British attack plan against Norway. But I heard from those Englishmen who know everything that we had sleep through the winter. And a great statesman even assured me that I had missed the bus. But we still arrived at just the right time in order to get in before the English!
Indeed, I suddenly became awake again through this. And we then, in a few days, ensured this Norwegian position for ourselves up to Kirkenes. And I do not need to explain to you: Where the German soldier stands, no other enters!
And then they wanted to do it more cleverly and even faster in the west: Holland and Belgium. And that lead to the unleashing of that offensive, which many of precisely our older men again viewed with fearful concern. I know very well what many thought back then. They had experienced the World War. Back then, they all experienced the fighting for Flanders, the fighting for Artois, they experienced the fighting in Verdun. And they all lived under the image: Here is the Maginot Line; how should that be overcome, what will that cost, above all, in blood, what sacrifices will that cost, and how slowly will that perhaps go! And in six weeks, this campaign was likewise ended; Belgium, Holland and France knocked down and the channel coast occupied and our batteries then built there and our strongholds established. And here, too, I can say: No power in the world will be able to remove us from this region against our will.
And now, my party comrades, the sacrifices. They are very difficult for the individual. The wife, who has lost her husband, she has lost the highest thing that she possesses. And the child, who has lost its father, likewise, and the mother, who sacrificed her child, or also the bride or the loved one, who let her loved one depart and never again sees him; they have all made a great sacrifice. But if we add all that together, measured against the sacrifices of the World War, as difficult as it is for the individual, overall, they are incomparably small. Consider, we have had no way near as many dead as Germany, this means, essentially, after all, Prussia, had in the 1870/71 war against France. And the number of wounded is likewise a very modest one; only a fraction of what we ourselves had envisioned.
And now, my German armaments workers, we naturally owe this to our splendid Wehrmacht, which is filled with a new spirit, in which the spirit of our folk community is also included, which now knows why it actually fights. We owe this to our soldiers, who have accomplished the tremendous. But the German soldier also owes it to you armaments workers that you have given him the weapons. For this time, for the first time, he has assembled not, say, with a feeling of smaller number or of inferiority of the weapon, rather our weapon was the better one in every area. That is your credit, the result of your workmanship, your industriousness, your ability and your devotion! And if today millions of German families still possess their provider, will again have for the future, if countless families have their fathers, if countless mothers have their sons, then they owe this to you, my armaments workers. You have given them the weapons through which they could triumph, weapons that make them so confident today that each soldier knows: We are not only the best soldiers in the world, rather we also have the best weapons in the world, especially in the future.
That is the difference from the World war. But not only that, above all, as well, the German soldier has ammunition this time. I do not know, my folk comrades, if one may perhaps after this war calculate precisely, one will perhaps even say: “Sir” - they mean me - “You were wasteful. You had ammunition made that was not used at all, it all lies there, after all!” - Yes, my folk comrades, I had ammunition made, because I experienced the World War and because I wanted to avoid that, and because I told myself: Shells, I can replace, bombs, I can replace, not people! And so, in this war, the ammunition problem has not been a problem at all, only perhaps a supply problem. And when the war was at an end, we had consumed in all areas hardly one monthly rate of our production. We stand there armed for any event. England may do what it wants to do. It will receive harder blows with each weapon. And if it wants to establish a foothold somewhere on the continent again, then we will introduce ourselves again. And I hope for only one thing: We have forgotten nothing, hopefully, the English have forgotten nothing.
The war in the air, I did not want it. We take it up, we wage it to the end. I did not want it. I have always resisted it. In the whole Polish campaign, we did not wage this war. I had no night attacks made. One said: “Ha, because they cannot fly at night.” Yes, whether we can fly at night, they will have meanwhile now already noticed that. But one cannot aim so well at night. I wanted to attack only war important objects, wanted at attack only at the front, only against soldiers, not against women and against children. That is why we did not do it. We also did not do it in France. We flew no night attacks for the very same reason. When we made the attack against Paris, only a few armaments objects were picked out. Our pilots aimed wonderfully. Everybody who saw that could convince himself. Then it occurs to this great strategist Churchill to begin unrestricted air warfare at night. He started with Freiburg in Breisgau and has now continued it. Not a single armaments plant has been smashed. For according to English news, this here is still just a lunar landscape anyway. But they have not put a single armaments plant out of action. But they have hit many unfortunate families, women and children. A favorite target of theirs was always hospitals. Why? One cannot explain it. You know yourselves, in Berlin, how often they have bombed our hospitals here.
Fine, I have waited a month, in the view that, after the ending of the French campaign, the English would give up this kind of warfare. It was in vain. A second, a third month. Yes then, if then bombs will be dropped anyway, then I also cannot take responsibility before the German folk for letting my own folk comrades perish and to spare foreign ones, rather then this war as well must simply be waged. And it is now being waged! It is being waged with the determination, with the means and with the valor that stand at our disposal. And when the hour of the final conflict is at hand, then this conflict will come as well. But I want to say one thing to the gentlemen right off: The time for it, we decide that. And I am careful there. We could have perhaps been able to attack in the west already in the autumn of the previous year. But I wanted to wait for good weather. And I believe this also paid for itself. We are ourselves so convinced of the success of our weapons that we can allow ourselves this. The German folk will certainly endure the time. I believe, the German folk will be thankful to me, if I often prefer to wait with time and in the process spare it much sacrifice. This, too, belongs to the nature of the National Socialist folk state, that even in war, when it is not absolutely necessary, it spares human beings. They are always our folk comrades. So already in the Polish campaign, in many cases we refrained from attacks, from daring advance, because we were of the conviction that, eight or ten or fourteen days later, the problem would become ripe on its own. And we have won great successes here, often without then sacrificing even a single man. And this was so in the west as well, and should also remain so in the future. We want to gain no prestige successes, make no prestige attacks, rather we always want to let ourselves be guided exclusively by sober military viewpoints. What must happen, will happen.
Everything else, we want to avoid. And, furthermore, we all have just the hope that one day the hour will come in which reason triumphs again and peace arrives. But the world must take note of one thing: Germany’s defeat will exist neither militarily nor time-wise nor economically! I am not the man who, once he has taken up a fight, breaks it off to his own disadvantage. I have proven this in my whole previous life. I will prove, externally as well, to the gentlemen who became acquainted with my previous life, after all, only from their emigrant press, that I have remained exactly the same here.
At the time when I entered political life, I explained to my followers - back them, it was a very small band of soldiers and workers: In our dictionary and in mine, one word does not exist at all: the word “capitulation”, I did not wish for war. But if it is ever forced upon me, then I wage it for as long as just a single breath is alive in me. And I can wage it today, because I know that behind me stands the whole German folk. I am today the protector of its coming life, and I act accordingly. I could have shaped my own life more comfortably. I would have had the ability for that. I have taken all these infinite cares and all this never ending work upon myself in the awareness that this must be performed for our German folk. And even my life and my heath play no role at all in the process. I know that, in this spirit, there stands behind me today, above all, the German Wehrmacht, man for man, officer for officer. All these fools who imagine that a tear could ever exist here, they have totally forgotten that the Third Reich is no longer the Second. But just as united stands today the German folk. And here, I thank, above all, the German worker and the German peasant. The two have made it possible for me to prepare this war, to create in terms of armament the prerequisites for resistance, and the two also create for me the possibility to wage this war, quite regardless of how long it should last.
And in the process, I thank, however, especially the German woman, those countless women who now, in part, must perform the heavy work of men, and who have, with love and with fanaticism, become familiar with their new occupation, and who have in many positions as good as replaced the men. I thank you all, who make this sacrifice of personal kind, the many limitations that are necessary, I thank you in the name of all those who today represent the German folk and who will become the German folk in the future. For this struggle is not just a struggle for the present, rather it is, above all, a struggle for the future.
I stated on September 3, 1939 that neither will time defeat us nor will any economic difficulties ever pull us down nor, much less, will weapons be able to defeat us. This is possible and the achievement of this is guaranteed by the bearing of the German folk. For, my folk comrades - you must view me as your guarantor there -, once we have won this war, then not just a few industrialists or a few millionaires or a few capitalists or a few noblemen or, as far as I know, a few burghers or anybody else will have won it. You must see your guarantor in me there. I have come from you, for this broad German folk, I have fought my whole life, and when this most difficult struggle of my life will be over, then it can only find its conclusion for a new work for the German folk. We have all set great plans for ourselves, now already, great plans that all aim at one goal: to really build the German folk state and to shape it ever more, to lead the German folk ever more into the great history of our existence, but also to simultaneously open up for it everything that makes existence worth living, to eliminate inhibitions ever more. We have decided to tear down the barriers ever more that can be set to the individual against striving upward in his ability, from taking the place owed him. We are of the firm will that we build a social state that must and will be exemplary in all areas of life. We see only in this the final victory.
For we have seen it among the others, after all. They have apparently triumphed for 20 years, after all. What has become of their victory? Nothing at all has come of it. Misery and wretchedness, unemployment have come of it. They have fought their fight only for their accursed plutocracy, for these few dynasties, which administer their capital power, the few hundred who, in the final analysis, direct these folks.
This should be an instruction for all of us. When this war will have been concluded, then a great productivity should begin in Germany. Then a great “Wake up!” will resound through our German lands, then the German folk will cease the fabrication of cannons and will begin with the works of peace, our new construction work for the masses of millions. Then we will first show the world what the master is in reality and who the master is: capital or work. And then, from this work, that great German Reich will arise of which a great poet once dreamt. It will be the Gemny to which every son will cling with fanatical love, because it will the homeland even for the poorest. It will be active for him, too, and will open up life for him as well.
But if one tells me, this is a future fantasy, a hope - my folk comrades, when I started my path in the year 1919 as unknown, nameless soldier, I had to erect for myself the greatest future hope with the greatest imagination. It is achieved. What I today make my plan and set as goal, is nothing in comparison to the achievement and success that already lies behind us. It will be achieved sooner and more surely than what previously had to be achieved. For the path of the nameless, unknown to the leader of the German nation was more difficult than the path from leader of the German nation to shaper of peace. Once, I had to fight and wrestle for a decade and a half for your trust. Thanks to your trust, today I can fight and wrestle for Germany. And one day, the time will come again, in which we will again struggle, equally confident, for this great Reich of peace, of work, of prosperity, of culture, which we want to erect and which we will erect!
I thank you!
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