“Welthauptstadt Germania” – The Volkshalle

A model of the Führer’s plan for Berlin formulated under the direction of Albert Speer, looking north toward the Volkshalle at the top of the frame.

 

„Volkshalle” („People’s Hall“), also called Große Halle („Great Hall“) – one of the glorious architectural projects of the Führer. A monumental domed building - its dimensions were so large that it would have dwarfed every other structure in Berlin, including those on the north-south axis itself. The oculus of the building’s dome, 46 meters (151 ft) in diameter, would have accommodated the entire rotunda of Hadrian’s Pantheon and the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The dome of the Volkshalle was to rise from a massive granite podium 315 by 315 meters (1,033 ft × 1,033 ft) and 74 meters (243 ft) high, to a total inclusive height of 290 meters (950 ft).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Model of the „Volkshalle” in Berlin

„Frauen schaffen für euch“ Postcards (Women working for you) – Part I

№ 653

Title: „Die Zugschaffnerin“

(The Train-conductress)

Artist: Becker

№ 654

Title: „Die Postbotin“

(The postwoman)

Artist: Becker

№ 655

Title: „NSV-Kindergärtnerin“

(NSV Kindergarten Teacher)

Artist: Eva Hahmeyer

№ 656

Title: „NSV-Helferin im Bahnhofsdienst“

(NSV Helper in the Train Station Service)

Artist: Eva Hahmeyer

№ 663

Title: „Die Postbeamtin“

(The Post Office Worker)

Artist: Becker

№ 664

Title: „Die Laborantin“

(The Laboratory Assistant)

Artist: Becker

№ 665

Title: „Bei der Ernte“

(During the Harvest)

Artist: Becker

№ 667

Title: „Die DRK-Schwester“

(The German Red Cross Sister)

Artist: Becker

№ 668

Title: „Kraftwagenführerin“

(Car Driver)

Artist: Becker

№ 666

Title: „In der Maschinenfabrik“

(In the Machine Factory)

Artist: Becker

The Reich in Photos – Delegates from Outstanding National-Socialist Factories

 

 

 

 

 

Die Deutsche Wochenschau – Newsreel No. 614, 11 June 1942

1. Holland.

 

Arrival of Reichsführer SS and Police Heinrich Himmler in The Hague.

 

– Bypassing the guard of honour.

 

– Himmler’s meeting with the leader of the Dutch fascists Mussert.

 

– The ceremony of swearing an oath to the Führer Dutch SS volunteers. Himmler’s speech.

 

– Parade of SS troops in The Hague, Himmler on the podium.

 

2. Latvia.

 

Visit Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg in Riga.

 

– Meeting at the railway station.

 

– Gauleiter Lohse welcomes Reichsleiter Rosenberg.

 

– Latvian girls and children give Rosenberg flowers.

 

– Laying wreaths at the graves of dead German soldiers.

 

– Meeting of Alfred Rosenberg with the population at the ruins of medieval German knight’s castle.

 

– Participants of the ceremony.

 

– Offering Rosenberg gifts.

 

– Rosenberg and a girl.

 

– Rosenberg drives a car past welcoming him Latvians.

 

3. Eastern Front.

 

Central section.

 

– Adolf Hitler’s visit to the headquarters of Field Marshal General von Bock.

 

– Adolf Hitler leaves the building.

 

– Jubilant crowds.

 

– The Führer gets into the car.

 

– Soldiers greet the Führer.

 

– The car goes down the street to the airfield.

 

– Adolf Hitler says goodbye to Bock and other generals and gets on the plane.

 

The Führer in the cabin of the plane, he is going to Finland at the invitation of Marshal Mannerheim.

 

– Pilot Captain Bauer.

 

– View of Finland from the aircraft.

 

– Adolf Hitler, Keitel, Sepp Dietrich in the cabin of the aircraft.

 

– Head of the press service of the Führer.

 

– Landing in the area of the Finnish front.

 

– Finnish President Risto Ryuti meets Hitler.

 

– Hitler bypasses the formation of German generals, a guard of honour.

 

– The Führer welcomes General Dietl and informs him of his promotion to the rank of Colonel-General.

 

– Meeting Hitler and Mannerheim, the exchange of handshakes.

 

– Adolf Hitler and Mannerheim with Rüti and Keitel go up to the Marshal’s carriage.

 

– Mannerheim is awarded the Order of the German Eagle in gold.

 

– View of the decree signed on 4 June 1942 on the 75th anniversary of the award.

 

– Meeting of the German and Finnish generals.

 

– Seeing off the Führer.

 

– Adolf Hitler says goodbye to Mannerheim.

 

– Departure.

 

4. The battle of Kharkov.

 

Announcer about the beginning of the Soviet offensive.

 

– Scheme of the Soviet offensive on the map.

 

– View of the terrain.

 

– The advancing Soviet infantry.

 

–German guns shooting.

 

– German observer.

 

– The appearance of Soviet tanks.

 

– Shoot German guns.

 

– Fragments of the battle.

 

– Destroyed village.

 

– Destroyed Soviet equipment.

 

– Scheme of the battle.

 

– Announcer about the disruption of the Soviet offensive.

 

– Train with weapons is sent to the front.

 

– Italian regiment disembarking from the carriages, are Italian soldiers.

 

– German infantrymen in the trenches.

 

– German aircraft drops bombs on Soviet positions, explosions.

 

– 17 May - the beginning of the German counter-offensive.

 

– Scheme of the encirclement of Soviet troops to 22 May 1942 German tanks moving forward.

 

– Motorcyclists, tanks, infantry on vehicles on the move.

 

– The Germans on the streets of the village.

 

– Hungarian and Romanian infantry, riding horse-drawn wagons.

 

– The ring around the three Soviet divisions closed.

 

– The first prisoners.

 

– Destroyed Soviet equipment, guns, burning Soviet tanks.

 

– Explosions (shooting from the ground at close range).

 

– Planes in the air.

 

– The consequences of the German bombing.

 

– Destroyed Soviet equipment, railway trains.

 

– Scheme of the further course of the battle.

 

– German artillery shelling Soviet tanks.

 

– German tanks in the attack.

 

– Fragments of tank battle.

 

– Soviet soldiers surrendering as prisoners.

 

– Motorised units on the offensive.

 

– Destroyed Soviet tanks.

 

– Croatian soldiers.

 

– Destroyed Soviet equipment.

 

– Burning huts.

 

– The Germans are moving forward through the fire.

 

– Scheme of destruction of the Soviet grouping near Kharkov.

 

– Military operations in the area of the Donets River.

 

– German and Hungarian artillery in action.

 

– Bombardment of Soviet troops from the air, explosions.

 

– German aircraft in the air.

 

– Burning building.

 

– 30 June 1942. The end of the battle of Kharkov.

 

– Destroyed equipment.

 

– A huge number of hit tanks, cars.

 

– View of defeated Soviet positions from the air.

 

– Announcer about the battle of Kharkov as one of the crushing defeats of the Soviet army.

 

– Panorama from above destroyed Soviet equipment.

 

– Huge columns of Soviet prisoners.

 

– Colossal assembly point.

 

– They are prisoners.

European Front

Source: SS Leitheft, February 1944

The harder this war affects the European folks, the greater the energies which it awakens in these folks and sets into motion. Outmoded government ideas disappear under the impact of this war as if they never existed. The artificial assortment of states of the Versailles Treaty is crushed, and under suffering and tears a new era is born. We ourselves are only a wave in the flood which is setting the folks of Europe in motion. The ideas of race and socialism are shaking the folks of Europe and pushing them to new forms of state life. Under the impact of the Bolshevik drive of expansion and the meanness of the enemy's bombing attacks the folks of Europe are being irresistibly drawn closer together, and a feeling of community is emerging which never existed before in the past times of the only apparent prosperity in Europe. It would be wrong to compare the condition of Europe with the one it found itself in when the French Revolution and Napoleon shook the states and folks. Back then the waves of a revolutionary flood struck an outdated Europe lacking an idea under the leadership of the reactionary Chancellor Metternich and destroyed the untenable and hollow system of a European state jumble under Austrian leadership. Today’s Europe does not find itself in a condition of the mere preservation and defence of the past. In that it has become conscious of its Germanic tradition, it breaks outmoded state borders and brings folks together. The old world is represented by the enemy in the west and in the east. Capitalism and Marxism are only the sick tips of the outmoded conception of the purpose of life and of the value of man. The New Europe is carried by the energy of the revolutionary idea of socialism and race. It thus finds itself simultaneously in a condition of defence and attack: attack, because it opposes a sick and outdated world with a better one. The socialism is not only a domestic program of the Reich, which strives for a human order on the basis of accomplishment, but also contains - viewed beyond the state - the program of a New Order of the European folks on the basis of the free development of their folkish values and on the basis of their historical accomplishment.

The Power of the Reich Idea

In the ranks of the Waffen-SS today fight Dutchmen, Flemings, Walloons, Scandinavians, Estonians and Latvians, and soon other folks will dress their awakened youth in the same uniform and thus form the European Front under the SS symbol, which has been born from the need of this hour and forms the foundation of a coming order in Europe. Whoever may have had doubts about the strength of the idea is corrected when he today meets Dutchmen or Estonians in the Waffen-SS, who are more fanatical and determined champions of the Reich idea than many Germans inside the Reich. Thereby we meet the recognition that the service of these men in the east is the steel bath of the Reich idea. The men who have fought over there with the Reich German SS against the Bolsheviks have cast everything behind, all the prejudices that still hamper their contemporaries who have not shared the unique, difficult front experience. In the struggle against our most difficult opponent, the Reich idea in all its radiant beauty is reborn. A European feeling of community is emerging which no longer knows the hesitations of the politicians stuck in the old state theories. These European volunteer SS leaders and SS men are the vanguard of the European front. They love their homeland, and because they love this homeland and are loyal to it deep down, they want as a prize of war a new world, organized by a strong Reich which alone is able to save their homeland and protect the living body of their folk. Certainly, these men are minorities in their folks. World history, however, is always made by the few men who have the courage to dare the new. The hesitations follow only later. One must page through the family history of one such volunteer in order to feel how powerful the idea of the Reich affects this youth. There is, for example, a Fleming. He fights in the ranks of the Waffen-SS. His father is a high-ranking Belgian colonial administrator and now stands in English service; his grandfather was a member of the Belgian parliament, a fanatical representative of French culture against the Flemish opposition of his own homeland. The grandson embraces the Reich and Adolf Hitler. What a break in eras declares itself! What a strong attraction is possessed by the personality of the Führer! How powerful do the blood and the Reich idea speak, that the young men of these folks declare themselves ready to die for this Reich, from which their ancestors have lived apart for decades, yes for centuries!

The European Task of the SS

The SS is hence growing more and more into its European task: It gathers the awakened European youth in the struggle against Bolshevism and the Jewish plutocracies. Whoever may think that the SS hence forfeits its original character or deviates from the strict principles of the Reich has no understanding of the revolutionary idea of National Socialism, which sweeps across the borders of nation states. No one in Europe today believes, regardless of how the war may end, in the return of the artificial state system of Versailles, which owes its existence solely to the English interference in European affairs. It is understandable that through the impact of this war the veneer of a historical development, which often has only lasted a few decades, is wiped away and now the common roots of the European family of folks again comes to light. The fact of the Germanic wandering and the former Germanic settlement between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea to the Atlantic Ocean and North Africa has formed the blood unity of Europe and created that which we call European culture. The New Order of these folks arises on this same foundation. America and England have no genuine program for a political New Order of the European continent. They view Europe already today only as a colony, which they intend to economically exploit. Bolshevism has just as little to offer Europe in ideas. Marxism recognizes no real folk, just as little as it can accept the concept of blood into its dictionary. National Socialism alone affirms the roots of each genuine folk. It knows that only he who is loyal to his homeland can be loyal to the Reich. The revolutionary socialism of Adolf Hitler means for Europe not only a regulation of the relations of the European folk to each other on the basis of their historical accomplishment and their participation in the present struggle. From the world view of this movement alone emerges the creative strength and the rich fullness of possible bonds of the folks and nations of Europe to the leadership of a strong Reich. One must clearly see that an inner and outer order of Europe can only stem from the depth of the National Socialist view of history. The SS already today forms the iron ring of those men who yearn with passionate hearts for the New Order of Europe under the leadership of a strong Germanic middle. Without the participation of these men the new cannot emerge. It is as if our continent is shaken by a high fever; it is the birth pain of a new era, which wants to arise from the foundation of the blood community of the European family of folks and of a socialist order of their life together.

Whatever path fate may lead us down toward this goal and whatever setbacks may still be in store for us, the goal itself remains fixed. It is the only goal for which it is at all worth living and fighting for. The SS knows that everything must be employed so that the comrades from the European East grow together with it into a community of struggle just like those from the west. Intelligent treatment, a great measure of ability must be used to achieve this goal. The SS remains uncompromising in its principles, in the accomplishment of its practical tasks creative and generous. It must be flexible enough to treat each folk according to its nature and history. It must be our task to form the European youth together into a hard and determined front. The western enemy is not ready to die for a higher world, because he does not recognize it. The enemy in the east has only brought the folks suppression and degradation. If there are inalienable human values, then they are defended by the front of the German army. On our side stands a new idea. To our side must eventually tip the scale of fate, if we remain hard and conscious of the entire historical responsibility of this struggle.

Fighting the Enemies of the State

 

by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich

 

When, in spite of the excellent election results and the German people's vote of confidence in the Fuhrer, there is talk here about the reason why it is spoken of as enemies of the state is that experience teaches us that the old great opponents, who, as is well known, are or were not only in the German people, will now redouble and triple their efforts in order to destroy or at least hinder the work of the Fuehrer as far as possible. For it is precisely the election result that has shown them that their previous work among the people has not had the success they had hoped for. National Socialism, seen in historical time, can only assert itself completely and secure and maintain the National Socialist idea among the entire people if the fight against the enemies of the state is successful. A battle is successful only if the enemy becomes and remains permanently incapable of fighting. In war it is not the number of battles won that is decisive, but the outcome of the war. Whether the battle or the war ends successfully, however, depends on whether the enemy is correctly recognised in his methods, his means, his mental and physical condition, and whether he is correctly fought accordingly

 

Therefore, if we are to speak intelligibly about the struggle against enemies of the state, we must consider the means and methods of the enemy and our own resistance.

 

1. The Public Enemy

 

The liberalist past started from the state and not from the people. It thought of the state as a separate entity, detached from the people. If it then wanted to determine the enemy of the state in concrete terms, it appeared as the enemy of those who controlled the state apparatus at any given time. The enemy of the state changed, depending on whether the government was German nationalist, centrist or Marxist.

 

National Socialism no longer emanates from the state, but from the people. The Fuehrer has already said this in “Mein Kampf“ in a guiding way. He calls the state “means to an end“, as“ an institution for the particular people in question“ for the preservation and promotion of a“ community of physically and mentally similar living beings“ .

 

Accordingly, we National Socialists know only the enemy of the people. He is always the same, he remains eternally the same. It is the enemy of the racial, popular and spiritual substance of our people. Enemies of the people were those forces which in the past led the State and fought us National Socialists as enemies of the State. Thus, we experienced the curiosity that we were branded enemies of the state while the enemies of the people sat in government. The then owners of the state power apparatus, enemies of the people in the truest sense of the word, were able to deprive the German people of its folkish power in all spheres of life, and in the process fight us National Socialists, who fought for the preservation of our people and made the greatest sacrifices, apparently formally in the right, as enemies of the state. We, however, finished off this system by its own means. We adjusted ourselves to its rules of the game, we were “legal“ as the Constitution wanted us to be, and with the constitutional means we legally destroyed a system that, without inner substance, was ready to give itself up at any time, if only it was done legally.

 

Because of our world view, it is clear to us, and we have learned from our struggles for power, that only the leadership of a state is right for which enemies of the state and enemies of the people are the same. This is the case today. Thus, we understand by the enemies of the State in the National Socialist State the enemies of the people. That the enemies of the people are at the same time the fiercest opponents of the state apparatus occupied by National Socialism, that both, enemy of the state and enemy of the people, can no longer fall apart, results from the fact that the state is indeed the instrument of the people under its noblest representation, the movement, is that, according to the words of the leader, it is not the State that commands us, but we the State.

 

National Socialism, which as the spirit of the movement waged the struggle for power from the ground of world outlook, also breaks with the liberalist fight against the enemy of the state. According to liberalist thinking, only the act hostile to the state and the organisation of the enemy of the state as the bearer of this act were fought. National Socialism is concerned with the spiritual forces of these opponents. It wants to recognise and hit them. We know today, they are the eternal same: The Jew, the Freemason and the political clergyman. Their aims are the same, their forms of organisation adapt themselves to the respective legal possibility. Their struggle is directed against our state form and party form and against the spiritual foundations of the idea. The details of the tactics of the enemy have been discussed at length elsewhere. The effective fight against the enemy must be based on the realisation that all visibly appearing opponents are only the outer feelers of the eternally same, dangerous spiritual forces. They are sent forward to probe the terrain, they are guided according to uniform points of view. From the experience that the adversary always proceeds very cleverly, it can be assumed that he will try by all means to penetrate into the key position of the state apparatus. From here he can better pursue his aims; he then knows the strength and the weak points of the apparatus fighting him and is above all in a position to bend measures against himself.

 

2. The bearers of the fight against the enemy of the state

 

Knowledge of the enemy leads to very definite conclusions as to the organisation, methods and choice of men of the institution which must undertake the fight against the enemies of the state.

 

- The structure of the State Police must be such that, on the one hand, it does not break up the large administration that sustains the State. This implies a certain connection of the State Police with the general administration. On the other hand, it must be a self-contained organization which contains within itself the possibility of a direct line of command and reporting. This is necessary in the event that the enemy should succeed in penetrating the administrative apparatus in a skilful manner. In addition, it is necessary that for special tasks (e.g. defence) the working group be kept as small as possible, in order to prevent that the forces which are to be secrets which must be preserved become known. These necessities are currently fulfilled for Prussia by the law of 10 February 1936.

 

- The human material for this fighting state police must be of a special kind. The very necessary administrative and criminalistic training in itself is not enough. The best specialist in burglary, with years of practice, need never become a suitable fighter against Communism. Purely technical ability may suffice to apprehend an illegal functionary of the KPD, to establish the objective facts of the case. To fight the enemies of the state, moreover, belongs the unconditional grasp of the National Socialist idea and the comprehensive knowledge of the enemy in his foundations. The men of the State Police must therefore be absolutely like- minded in their mental attitude. They must feel themselves to be a fighting corps. This is doubly necessary, for experience teaches that the individual man is no match for this great, uniformly led adversary, and the constant preoccupation with only negative things can be sustained in the long run only if the positive counter-values bring a balance through a corpslike community. This is also the reason why very many officers of the State Police are at the same time SS-leaders or SS-men.

- The following results for the way of fighting the opponent:

a) The ideological struggle against the foundations of the enemy can only be waged by the National Socialist idea and thus by the National Socialist movement

 

b) The state police must recognise the organisational forms and the strategic and tactical intentions of the overall enemy on the basis of ideological knowledge: 

- to teach the bearers of the war of ideas,

- in order to create the tactical basis for the tactical and criminalistic apprehension and combating of the individual enemy of the state and the individual anti-state organisations.

3. The Security Service

 

The State Police is assisted in its duties by the Party intelligence organisation, the Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS, which is not vested with executive authority. This Sicherheitsdienst is a branch of the Gesamt-SS, to which the Reich leadership of the NSDAP assigns intelligence research and surveillance of the ideological opponents of National Socialism. Naturally, the structure of the Security Service corresponds geographically to the structure of the general SS. The men of this Security Service are SS-leaders and SS-men of the total-SS who alternately have their commands with the Security Service and in the general SS. While on the one hand the State Police tasks are of a tactical and executive nature, on the other hand the Security Service has the intelligence and research task of providing strategic bases for the leadership of the movement and thus of the State. The necessary close cooperation between the Security Service of the Movement and the State Police of the State is ensured by the fact that the Reichsführer-SS as such is the supreme chief of the Security Service and at the same time the deputy chief of the Secret State Police, and that the head of the Secret State Police Office under him is at the same time the chief of the Main Security Office.

 

In summary, the following can be said: National Socialism sees the enemy of the people in the enemy of the state. All expressions of anti-state forces lead back again and again to the enemy of the people, are supported, directed and determined in their actions from here. The enemy of the people can be fought properly only when he is recognised spiritually in his methods and means. This task is fulfilled by the Secret State Police and the Security Service of the SS, which thus set an example of unity between party and state in exemplary cooperation.