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!
