Munich, November 8, 1942
My German Volksgenossen! Party Comrades!
I believe that it is very rare when a man can step before his old followers after twenty years and that, in these twenty years, he has not had to make any changes in his program. The reason why we are fighting at such a great distance to protect our homeland is that we wish to keep the war as far away as possible from us. We wish to spare the homeland what otherwise would be its fate, and what now only a few German cities are experiencing and must experience. Therefore, it is better to hold a front at a distance of one thousand or, if necessary, two thousand kilometers from the homeland than to have a front at the Reich’s border and to be obliged to hold it.
The enemies are the same as before; the same enemies as in the past. It is no coincidence that the same state that sent one man to the fore in order to bring about Germany’s collapse through a wave of untruthful propaganda in the World War is today again trying to do it the same way. Back then, his name was Wilson; today, it is Roosevelt. The Germany of the time, without any type of education in government and national policy, without unity, without enlightenment about the Jewish question and its consequences, became the victim of this power. It is a great mistake for our enemies now to imagine that they can repeat this a second time. For at the time, we were the most miserable Volk in the world; today, we are undoubtedly the most disciplined Volk in the world. If anyone in the outside world today still imagines that he can shake up this Volk, then he does not know the present core of this Volk, the supporting force that today leads this Volk politically; he does not know the National Socialist Party and its mighty organization! He also has no idea of what this movement has since accomplished; how it has taken hold of this Volk through its accomplishments, and how it has realized the socialist idea as no other state, freed of all international swindle and untruthful tirades.
I can direct the following question to any German fighting today in the east: look at our institutions, compare our homes, the settlements we are building, compare our National Socialist institutions with what you have seen over there; compare the fate of the German peasant with the fate of the Russian peasant, compare all this with one another, and then tell me what you think: who did it better and who meant it more honestly? Surely, nobody has yet returned who would have expressed an opinion different from the following: if ever there was a socialist state anywhere that was in the process of being realized, then this is Germany alone.
However, that is the very reason why this outside world, insofar as it represents capitalist interests, is going against us. It is a collective that even today presumes to govern the world in accordance with its private, capitalist interests and, if necessary, to mistreat it.
When a few days ago, for example, a real snobbish, perfumed rascal like this Mr. Eden declared: “We English have experience in government,” then you could only say: in government?-in exploitation, in pillage! What does “experience in government” mean when, in peacetime, there are two-and-a-half million unemployed in a country with forty-six million people ruling over forty million square kilometers of the earth? Is this the art of government, the art of leadership? This is only the unscrupulousness of exploitation.
And when the same man then says: “We have a fine instinct for idealistic and material values”-yes, that is true! They have destroyed idealistic values everywhere, and stolen the material values.
And they have always stolen them and converted them to their own use by brute force. During the last three hundred years, this Volk over there has subjugated and subjected state after state, people after people, tribe after tribe.
If they are truly excellent rulers, then they could leave, now that the people of India have voiced their express wish that they leave, and then they could wait to see whether the Indians call them back. Strangely enough, they have not left, although they know how to govern so wonderfully well.
And they are all very much in agreement on this, these exploiters, whether they run around wearing Marxist caps or private, capitalist masks.
No, my friends, they do not know how to govern! They only know how to subjugate other people and to let them then become impoverished.
And when this first-rate bum (Oberstrolch)-I cannot call him anything else-Roosevelt comes and declares that he has to save Europe by American methods, then I can only say: the gentleman should have kindly saved his own country. Then there would have been no reason for him to start this war! It would have been more useful to eliminate his thirteen million unemployed. But he did not do this, since he was incapable of coping with his domestic problems and, just like his British ally, he was always on the prowl: not for idealistic values, but for material values; after all, he appreciates idealistic values even less than an Englishman.
Out of the art of government of our enemies and its ghastly consequences, the National Socialist movement was born in our democratic Germany. Had they made Germany truly happy at the time, then we would have had no occasion, and I would have had no reason, for dedicating ourselves to this work day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. After all, as all my old comrades in arms know: I did not take it easy back then, I did not appear here and there at some refined club to speak, I did not sit by the fireside to chat here and there. I started on a pilgrimage through the German lands, from top to bottom, from east to west. I toiled to release my Volk from the misery into which these rulers of international capitalism had plunged it.
We wanted to eliminate this conspiracy of Jews, capitalists, and Bolsheviks, and we did eliminate it in the end. But barely had we toppled them in Germany that the other world immediately began to encircle us as in 1914. At the time, it was Imperial Germany; now it is the National Socialist Germany. At the time, it was the Kaiser; now it is me.
However, there is one difference: the Germany at the time was imperial in theory, while it was completely broken up in practice. The Kaiser at the time was a man who lacked the strength to resist the enemy; in me, they face an opponent who does not even think of the word capitulation! When I was a boy, I already had the habit-perhaps a bad habit at the time, but all in all still perhaps a virtue-of having the final say. And all our enemies may rest assured: Germany back then laid down its arms at a quarter to twelve-as a matter of principle, I never quit until five minutes after twelve! My opponents at home experienced this ten years ago. Power was on their side, and I was only a single man with a small group of followers! Today, I must say that the belief of our enemies abroad that they can crush us with their power is almost ridiculous, because today we really are the stronger ones. When I add together all the human beings who work and fight for our side today, then this surpasses the number of those who have taken up position against us. You cannot compare this with the situation back then.
And there is something else yet. Today, this battle is being fought militarily. My party comrades, we are backed here by a mighty German history. The English say that they have never lost a war. They have lost many wars. They fought every war down to their last ally. That is correct, and in this the English manner of warfare differs from ours.
I need to take only one of the heroes of our past and compare his fate with ours. In his worst moments, Frederick the Great was indeed faced by a coalition of fifty-four million against his three point nine million. If I compare our position today with his and see the bastions of our troops far beyond of our borders, then I must say: they are truly quite stupid if they think that they can ever shatter Germany and, above all, that they could perhaps somehow impress me! I know well that this struggle is very difficult. Perhaps that is the difference between me and, let us say, a man like Churchill. Churchill says that we, the Reichsmarschall and I, have lately been giving speeches on the verge of tears. I do not know-if I hit somebody right and left, and he then tells me, “You are an absolute defeatist”-then you simply cannot talk with him.
Since 1939, I have never been on the verge of tears. Before that, however, I had been very sad since I had done everything to avoid war. Sven Hedin has recently published a book in which he quotes verbatim my offer to the Poles, which was transmitted to the English at the time. I am grateful to him for this.
I felt a chill reading this offer again. I can only thank Providence that it caused everything to come out differently. I am grateful especially because of what I have learned since. Because had this offer been accepted at the time, then, although Danzig would still be German, everything else would have stayed the way it was. We would then have dedicated ourselves to our social works; we would have worked, beautified our cities, built apartments and streets, set up schools. We would have built a true National Socialist state and we would naturally have spent far less on the Wehrmacht.
And then one day, a storm would have broken in the east. It would have swept across Poland, and before we knew it, it would have been less than a hundred or fifty kilometers east of Berlin.
That this did not happen I owe to the gentlemen who refused my offer at the time. However, three years ago, I could not possibly have known this.
Three years ago, as the Polish campaign ended, again I wanted to offer my hand for peace, which would not have cost these opponents anything. As you know, I was refused. I was forced to lead another and yet another campaign. In the year 1940, again I attempted to offer my hand for peace. Again, I was refused.
That closed the matter for me! Every peace offer was interpreted as weakness by our opponents and, therefore, exploited to the detriment of the German Reich. Thus, to attempt something similar would have meant to forget one’s duty again. It was clear to me that there was only one thing left: somebody had to fall, either we or they! We will not fall-therefore, the others will fall! You will remember, my old comrades in arms, how often in the same way I offered my hand to our opponents at home, how long I courted them, how I tried to win them over. The things I did in order to bring about a reasonable understanding! Only after this had failed, did I decide to use resources that alone are capable of pushing something through in this world once reason has been silenced. These were the SA and the SS. And finally, the hour came when we dealt with these opponents, and how we did it! This fight at home perhaps only appears to have been easier than the fight abroad.
In truth, the men who once led the fight at home were also those who were the fighters abroad and who today again are the fighters at home and abroad.
My party comrades, this is a reason for us to be proud: as the bourgeois Germany made up of Marxists, bourgeois, men of the Center Party, and so on fought, only two Reichstag deputies fell in the course of the war compared to over two million dead, to cite only one example. Up to now, however, the National Socialist Reichstag has already left thirty-nine of its members on the field, I believe, compared to a total of three hundred fifty thousand dead. That is a very different ratio! And, if I consider the ratio of the party comrades, then I must say: wherever my SA men, wherever the party comrades, or wherever the SS men stand at the front, they fulfill their duty in an exemplary fashion.
In this respect, too, the Reich has changed. But we also fight inspired by a different realization. We know what type of fate we would have to expect if the outside world should be victorious. Because we know this fate very well, there is no thought of compromise here. If the gentlemen say from time to time that there is another peace offer from us on the way-then they are inventing this only to give a little courage to their own people.
There will be no more peace offers from us.
The last was made in the year 1940. Only one thing remains and that is to fight! Just as, from a certain point on, I told my enemies at home: it is not possible to negotiate with you peacefully; you want to use force-therefore, you will get it now. And these enemies at home, they were eliminated! Yet another power which once made its presence felt in Germany has in the meantime noticed that National Socialist prophecies are not empty phrases.
It was the main power to which we owe all our misfortunes: international Jewry. You will remember the Reichstag session in which I declared: should Jewry imagine itself to be able to bring about an international world war for the extermination of the European races, then the result will not be the extermination of the European races, but instead the extermination of Jewry in Europe. They laughed about me as a prophet. Countless numbers of those who laughed at the time no longer laugh today. Those who still laugh now will perhaps no longer be doing so in time. This realization has spread beyond Europe all over the world. International Jewry will be recognized as a demonic danger; we National Socialists will take care of this. This danger has been recognized in Europe, and state after state is adopting our laws.
Thus, there is only one possibility in this mighty struggle: that of complete success. There remains only the question of whether or not there are any reasons to doubt this success. If you look at the propaganda of our enemies, you can only describe it as “up one minute and down the next.” The smallest success anywhere-and they are virtually turning head over heels. They have already destroyed us. Then the tide turns, and they are again very distressed and downcast.
I may cite one example here: If you study the Soviet daily war bulletins following June 22, 1941, then you will read every day: “fights of insignificant character” or “of significant character.” They have always downed three times the number of German planes. The tonnage supposedly sunk by them in the Baltic Sea already exceeds the total tonnage that Germany possessed before the war. They have destroyed more of our divisions than we can activate. Above all, they are always fighting in the same location. After fourteen days, they will modestly say: “We have evacuated a city.” But, in general, they have been successfully fighting since June 22 in the same location. We are always forced to retreat-and this continuous retreat has now slowly got us to the Caucasus.
When I say “slowly,” I would like to say this for my opponents, not for our soldiers. Because the speed at which our soldiers cover the terrain is tremendous. And what was again covered this year was tremendous and unique in history.
I do not always do things as others would like me to-yes, I try to find out what the others probably think and, then, I do the opposite. As Mr. Stalin expected us to attack in the center-I did not want to attack in the center.
Not only because Mr. Stalin perhaps believed this, but also because I did not really care. I wanted to reach the Volga, and reach it at a certain location, in a certain city. By coincidence, the city bore Stalin’s name. But you should not think that I marched there for this reason-it could have had any other name-I did it because it is an important place.
You can cut off traffic amounting to thirty millions tons there, nearly nine million tons of which are oil. All the wheat from the huge areas in the Ukraine and the Kuban region flows together there, so that it can be transported north.
Manganese ore is brought there; it is a gigantic trade center. That center I wanted to take and, as you know, we are modest-we have it! There are only a few small pockets left. Now the others say: “Then, why do they not fight more quickly?”-Because I do not want a second Verdun. I prefer to do it with very small assault parties. Time makes no difference here.
No ship comes up the Volga anymore. That is what is decisive! They reproached us for waiting so long at Sevastopol. Well, it was because I did not want to start a gigantic wholesale murder there. But Sevastopol fell into our hands, and the Crimea fell into our hands, and we have reached goal after goal through tenacity and obstinacy. And if the enemy now prepares to attack--you should not think that I wish to outdo him. We will let him attack if he wants to, since the defense is always cheaper. Let him attack, he will bleed himself to death. We have always made up for these breakthroughs. In any event, the Russians are not in the Pyrenees or in Seville-that is, after all, the same distance as for us today to Stalingrad or, let us say, to Terek. But we are nonetheless there. This cannot be denied, after all, since it is a fact.
If there is no other way, then of course they regroup and say that it was a grave mistake for the Germans to go to Kirkenes, Narvik, or Stalingrad, as now for example. They ought to wait and see whether or not this was a strategic mistake. We already see many signs that tell us whether or not it was a mistake that we occupied the Ukraine, that we occupied the ore mines of Krivoy Rog, that we took control of the manganese ore. Was it truly such a great mistake that we occupied the Kuban region, which is perhaps the greatest breadbasket in the world? Was it also a mistake that we destroyed or captured about four fifths or five sixths of all refineries, that we took control of a production of nine to ten million tons of oil or brought it to a standstill, or that we prevented the further transport of perhaps seven, eight, or nine million tons up the Volga? I do not know whether or not all this was a mistake.
We are already noticing it. If the English had managed to take the Ruhr area from us, the Rhine, the Danube, the Elbe, and then Upper Silesia-this is about the same as the Donetsk area and the ore mines of Krivoy Rog-and if they had got hold of a part of our oil wells and the fertile plain of Magdeburg, would they also have said that it had been a great mistake to take all these things from the Germans? They might talk a few mentally retarded nations into believing this, nations which then either wish to believe part of this or not. They cannot talk us into believing it. And if they wish perhaps to talk me into believing this, then I can only say: I have never made my strategic plans in accordance with the prescriptions or views of others. It was surely also a mistake that I made the breakthrough in France and did not go around the top. But it was worth it. In any event, the English were kicked out of France. They had been so close to our border at the time. They had thirteen divisions, and, in addition, over a hundred thirty French divisions, about twenty-four Belgian divisions, and twenty Dutch divisions, close to our border at the Rhine, our Rhine. And where are they now? And when they say today that they are advancing somewhere in the desert-well, they have advanced and retreated a few times already-what is decisive in this war is who lands the final blow. And you can be assured that it will be us! It is the same with their production. They produce everything and, naturally, they do this much better than we do. A few days ago, I read that the Americans are constructing a new U-boat. As I read this, I immediately thought: Surely this will be the best one again!-and right underneath, it said, “The best U-boat in the world;” it is the fastest and, in all other respects, it is the best. By comparison, we are complete bunglers with our U-boats! My German Volksgenossen, we are not sleeping, and neither are our designing engineers! In the winter of 1939–1940, a certain Mr. Churchill declared that the U-boat danger had been eliminated, simply eliminated. Every day, he destroyed two, three, five U-boats. He destroyed more than we possessed at the time. He did not destroy anything. Instead, I again made “a very great mistake” at the time. That mistake was that I allowed only a very few of our U-boats to fight and held back a large part for the training of the crews of newly launched U-boats.
At the time, such a small number of U-boats confronted the enemy that today I am still embarrassed to admit it. The majority, however, about ten times as many, remained in the homeland and continued training new crews.
Then, from a certain point on, mass production began here, too.
Not only the Americans are able to mass-produce, even though they pretend that only they are capable of this. If they say, “We are building such and such a number of warships,”-well, if they count their corvettes, their herring boats, and what have you, and put a cannon on top, then this might truly be the case. If we also count all this, then I can guarantee that we are not building any less and, moreover, I believe that we are building more functional ships than they are. This has again proved to be the case.
We have now sunk over twenty-four million tons which means twelve million tons more than the total of the World War. The number of U-boats today has significantly surpassed the number of U-boats in the World War. And we continue to build and construct, and this for all types of weapons.
And if the gentlemen over there say that they have a wonderful new weapon-well, they do not even know whether we have not already had a better one for ages. I usually issue a new weapon only when the old one is really no good anymore. Why expose new weapons ahead of time? This tactic has proved its worth again and again. Of course, our weapons were always worse.
Our soldiers were always worse, clearly. Further, our organization was worse.
That is no surprise! If you compare these organizing geniuses Churchill, Duff Cooper, Chamberlain, and all these people, or Roosevelt, this organizer par excellence-if you compare these folk with us, then we are simply bunglers in organization.
However, we have scored one success after another, and that is what matters. It was the same at home. We were always the worst at home, too. We did not know how to do anything right, we had no abilities-but, one day, we had power, and that was decisive.
It is understandable that in such a worldwide struggle as the present one you cannot expect to score a new success every week. That is impossible. After all, that is not decisive.
What is decisive is that you slowly take up positions that must destroy the enemy, and that you hold them, that you fortify them so that they cannot be taken from you. And you can certainly believe me: what we possess, we will hold so firmly that, wherever we happen to stand in this war, nobody else will ever stand.
Besides, this war has enormously expanded since then. In addition to our allies Italy, Romania, Hungary, Finland, and all the other European people, Slovaks, Croatians, Spaniards, and so on, who for their share sent volunteers, like the Nordic volunteers, yet another world power has joined us; a world power that is also constantly suffering defeats.
Since the beginning of their entry, the Japanese have had only failures.
Everything the Japanese did was a mistake. If you add up all these mistakes, what you get is something decisive: they have got hold of about ninety-eight percent of the American rubber production; they have acquired the greatest tin production in the world, they have got huge oil wells, and so on. If you keep making such mistakes, then you can be content with this. And vice versa: the others have gained only victories, ingenious, valiant, heroic, well thought-out victories-with their great commanders, like MacArthur and Wavell, or some other one of these greats, the like of which the world has never seen before.
These gangsters are already writing fat books about warlords of the past and, in spite of everything, the people who had no warlords have got further in this war than those so richly blessed with commanders.
Especially today, on this day of remembering the great collapse of our movement-a collapse that to many at the time seemed to mean the end of the party-I can only say: For us National Socialists, this memory must mean a tremendous strengthening. It gives us the strength to brave all dangers, never to waver, never to yield, to face need with courage, and to hold fast, no matter how much the enemy presses on. Then you have to place faith in Luther’s word: “And if there were only devils in this world, we would still succeed!” Today more than ever, I look to the future with great confidence. After all, we survived the last winter, a winter which, at the time when I spoke to you here last year, had not yet revealed itself in all its terrible danger. At the time, many people were weighed down by the memory of Napoleon’s fate in 1812. And now the winter of 1812 was only fifty percent as cold as the winter that we left behind us in the past year. We are prepared in a different manner this year. Perhaps, one soldier or another might lack something this winter. But, all in all, we are armed for this winter in a different manner. That I can say, even should it turn out to be as harsh as the last.
Not everything that happened to us last winter will happen to us this time.
I said once before that a great philosopher once said that a man who is not knocked down by a blow is made stronger by the blow. The storm, which failed to knock us down last winter, has only made us stronger.
No matter where the fronts are, Germany will always parry and attack, and I do not doubt for a minute that our flags will in the end succeed.
If Roosevelt today is attacking North Africa, saying that he must protect it from Germany and Italy, then there is no need to comment on this untruthful claim by this old gangster. Undoubtedly, he is the most hypocritical one in this whole club that confronts us. But the decisive and final word will not be spoken by Mr. Roosevelt, he can rest assured of that.
We will prepare all our blows-as thoroughly as always-and they will come at the right time. None of the others’ blows against us has yet led to success. At one time, there were cheers of triumph, as the first English landed at Boulogne and then advanced. Six months later, there were no more cheers of triumph. Things turned out differently and things will turn out differently here, too. You can be completely confident that the leaders and the Wehrmacht will do everything that must and can be done.
I am firmly convinced that the German homeland above all stands behind the leaders and the Wehrmacht and that, behind me, there is the entire National Socialist Party as a sworn community.
What distinguishes the present time from the past is that, at the time, there was no Volk behind the Kaiser, but that one of the greatest organizations which was ever built up on this earth stands behind me. It represents the German Volk. And what furthermore distinguishes the present time from the past is that there is nobody at the head of the Volk who would leave the country in the critical hour, but instead there is a man at the top who has only known struggle and the one principle: strike, strike, and strike again! And there is yet something else that distinguishes today’s Germany from that in the past: at the time, it had leaders who did not have their roots in the Volk, since it was ultimately a class state. Today, we are in the midst of completing what grew out of the old war. As I returned from the war, I brought the experiences at the front to the homeland. Out of this experience at the front, I built up my National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft. Today, this National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft steps up to the front. You will have noticed from all this how the Wehrmacht is becoming more National Socialist every month, how it increasingly takes on the characteristic features of the new Germany, how all privileges, class prejudices, and so on are increasingly being eliminated, how the German Volksgemeinschaft is more successful here every month, and how, at the end of this war, the German Volksgemeinschaft will perhaps have experienced its greatest trial-this distinguishes today’s Germany from that in the past. We owe to this spirit the immeasurable heroism at the front, a heroism of millions of individual soldiers, known and unknown, a heroism of tens of thousands of brave officers, who today increasingly feel themselves to be part of one community with their men. In part, they come from this community.
We have removed all obstacles. Just as anyone can reach any position in the party, insofar as he has the capabilities, just as any post in government, even the highest, is open to anyone, even the poorest of our Volk, since our party has taken the lead, so it is in the Wehrmacht. It is like this not only in theory, in a few exceptional cases here and there, but it is like this today in practice. Today, noncommissioned officers have Knight’s Crosses and Oak Leaf awards.
Countless officers come from among the men. In the midst of a war, we are building up an army, the like of which the world has never seen before.
And at home, the Volk is working. As I have already told the Reichstag, I must attest to the German homeland one thing: in the year 1917–1918, [there was a] strike in munitions factories-and today, [there is] overtime, hard work.
Today, the German worker at home knows that he is forging the weapons for his comrades out there. What is being done in the countryside and the city, what is done by the men and, above all, by the women, that is indeed tremendous.
In one respect, we cannot compete with our opponents: just as the party was once the poorest and won only because of the idealism of its followers, so, naturally, the German Volk is today perhaps the poorest of all people in the world in matters of gold. We have no gold. But what we have is living manpower.
What we have is a sacred diligence and a sacred will. In such a struggle of life and death, this is in the end a thousand times more decisive than gold. Of what use are their vaults of gold now to the Americans, other than that you can use them for making dentures. If they had ten synthetic-rubber factories, then that would be worth more than their entire stock of gold. I have had other things built. However, we did not bring any gold into this war, but rather the prerequisites for leading this fight. In any event, we Germans do not have a tank without rubber tires, but the English do today.
We will survive this war in terms of materiel, and now more so than ever! In our possession are the raw-material areas that are necessary to survive this war in any circumstance. And if somebody says, “Well, it is certainly hard to tell!”-But, no, it is very easy: do not think, my international critics, that, in the east, we stood with our hands in our pockets in front of destroyed railway bridges or tracks, destroyed hydroelectric power stations or ore mines, and just looked at them. No, we worked this year, and how! And this is beginning to pay off. And when the next year comes, then this work will bear fruit all the more.
I can say with pride that it was especially the party that proved its worth in this tremendously. Countless brave party comrades stand out there. As born National Socialist Kreisleiters or Ortsgruppenleiters, they organize huge areas, along with a handful of men. They open these areas up for our economy, for our war economy, for our feeding, and, in a broad sense, for the feeding and maintenance of Europe. After all, this is not a war that Germany is fighting for itself, it is instead a war that is being fought for Europe! And this is why, understandably, we have found so many friends from the north and from the south, who fight partly in our ranks and partly in the independent armies of our allies, which are integrated in this mightiest front in world history.
Therefore, it is our irrevocable decision that when peace comes, and it will come because it must come some day, then this will be a true peace for Europe, and without the tutelage of certain people with fine instincts for idealistic and material values.
For we do not know what type of instinct Mr. Eden has for idealistic values. He has never revealed this. The company he keeps does not speak for this. Above all, the civilization of his country is not of a nature that could perhaps impress us. I do not even wish to speak of the man across the ocean.
Their instinct for idealistic values is certainly less than ours. We have in all likelihood given the world more idealistic values than that society frequented by Mr. Eden. The same applies to the countries that have tied themselves to us.
In part, they look back onto civilizations in comparison with which the civilization of the Anglo-Saxon island-country is truly infinitely young, not to say infantile.
In regard to material values, I do believe that they indeed have a very fine instinct for this. But we also have it. There is, however, a difference: we will make sure, under all circumstances, that the material values of Europe will in the future benefit the European people instead of an extra-continental, small, international clique of financiers. That is our unshakable and merciless decision.
The people of Europe are not fighting so that, afterwards, a couple of folk can again come along with their “fine instincts,” pillage mankind, and leave behind millions of unemployed, only so that they can fill their safes.
We had a good reason why we distanced ourselves from the gold standard.
We wanted to eliminate one of the prerequisites for this type of economic outlook and enterprise. And this is certain: Europe will emerge from this war far more economically sound than before.
For a great part of the continent which has previously been organized against Europe will now be put into the service of the European nations.
If somebody now says, “So you want to transplant the Dutch”-I do not want to transplant anyone. However, I do believe that many people are happy when they have their own piece of soil that they can work, and when they do not have to labor and struggle so hard, as they have to right now because of the overpopulation of this continent. Above all, they will be happy when they and their people receive a salary for this labor, and it does not lie in some safe or, for all I care, in some bank in London or New York. I therefore believe that the end of this war will also bring about the end of this reign of gold and the end of the whole society that is to be blamed for this war.
The mission of the National Socialist Party is clear to us all. I expect from every party comrade that, just as in the time of struggle, he will support with utmost zealousness the belief in victory and in success. This is perhaps easier today than it was in the past. I have to admire today every single one of my old party comrades, these many men who believed in the small, unknown soldier of the World War. Those men who followed me at the time put their lives on the line for me, gave their lives not only in the Old Reich, but also in the Ostmark, in the Sudetenland, and in other countries, too. I have to admire them.
Before us all stands today the shared mighty great Reich in its struggle of life and death for our entire Volk. Every National Socialist who believed in me in the past can today only be a zealot in the struggle abroad. He must force himself to the same zealous will that we already had at the time. With some enemies you cannot give any quarter. There is only one possibility: either we will fall or they will. We realize this and we are men enough to coolly face this realization.
And this is what distinguishes me from these gentlemen in London and America: if I ask much of the German soldier, so I ask no more of him than I was always willing to do myself. If I ask much of the German Volk, so I do not ask for more work than I myself am willing to do. If I ask for overtime- in my life, I do not even know what overtime is. For every individual is fortunate enough to be able to distance himself from his work for a certain time and then be free.
My work is the fate of the Reich. I cannot distance myself from it. It follows me day and night, ever since I stepped to the head of the nation, ever since the days of drab misery, despair, worries, and collapse. Ever since then, a vacation for me would have been ridiculous. What is a vacation to me? My work is Germany, my Volk, its future, and the future of its children. Therefore, I do not ask of anyone more than I am asking of myself and that I am myself willing to do.
I know that my old party comrades represent the core of this movement and that, in memory of the first blood sacrifice we made, they stride ahead of the nation to show the way in an exemplary fashion, and that they are joined by the hundreds of thousands and millions of National Socialist functionaries and members of the connected units, that all our men of the SA and SS march along, that the men of the Labor Front march along, that the men of the Reich Labor Service march along, and so on, in brief, the entire National Socialist German Volk.
That is what is wonderful today: no longer do we talk into the wind as happened to me back then, but instead every word we call out to the Volk today echoes back at us a thousand times. And if the enemy believes that he can wear us out by some means, then he is mistaken. He cannot make me abandon my goal. The hour will come when I will strike back and I will repay them with interest! You will remember the long period during which, as party comrades, we had to abide by the law. How often did party comrades approach me at the time and say: “Fuhrer”-at the time, they called me “Chief” or said “Adolf Hitler”-why are we not allowed to strike back, why must we put up with this? I had to force them for years to abide by the law. With an aching heart, I had to exclude party comrades from the movement because they believed that they could no longer follow this order. Year after year, until the hour came when I could call on them again.
It is the same today. Again, I have to watch something happen somewhere for months. You should not think that my heart is not also consumed by fury when I hear about these air raids. You know, I did not do anything for a long time. In Paris, for example, I did not have a single bomb dropped on the city.
Before we attacked Warsaw, I appealed five times to them to surrender. I asked them to evacuate the women and children. Not even a negotiator was received by them. Everything was refused, and only then did I decide to do what is permissible under the laws of war.
As England began to bomb our cities, I waited for three-and-a-half months.
There were many at the time who asked me: “Why do we not respond, why are we not allowed to strike back? We are strong enough to do it.” I waited in the conviction that reason would in the end return. It did not. Believe me, it is no different today. I see everything exactly as it is. Over there, they will see that the German spirit of invention has not been asleep and they will receive an answer that will take their breath away. I have said this many times before. If, on occasion, I did not speak for some time, then this did not mean that I had lost my voice, but instead that I did not think it useful to speak. And it is the same today. Why should I say a lot now? Today, in the end, the front has the say. I will speak only on rare instances.
For the front’s language is so forceful and unique that, at any rate, it commits every individual German. Whoever reads the daily reports of our Wehrmacht and does not zealously avow his faith in his Volk as he hears time and again of these countless heroic acts cannot be helped by speeches.
I do not speak for the benefit of the enemy abroad, anyway. If Mr. Roosevelt says that he is not listening to my speeches-I am not speaking for the benefit of Mr. Roosevelt. I speak to him through that instrument through which it is only possible to speak now. And this instrument speaks loudly and clearly enough. I speak only on rare instances either to the movement or to my own German Volk. There is only one thing I can express in such a speech: Without exception, man and woman, always remember that this war will decide life and death for our Volk. If you understand this, then every single one of your thoughts and acts will always be a prayer for our Germany!
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