Neues Europa

Speech of October 11, 1936 at the consecration of the Adolf Hitler Hall in Hof

My German folk comrades!

When your county leader and your senior mayor met with me during my vacation in Fichtelgebirge in order to explain to me that it was absolutely necessary to come to the consecration of the Adolf Hitler Hall in Hof and deliver an address, I at first looked for an answer. But when both were gone, I cursed in a very non-ministerial manner! Namely, I wanted to have peace and quiet during my vacation and not see any mass assembly - let alone speech in a mass assembly!

But when the first anger had dissipated, I reflected about what it really means that such a huge hall has emerged in not that big Hof.

It is certain at any rate that a number of cities, in which such halls were very recently built, could have previously never reckoned with being able to fill such halls, hence the construction would have been far from worthwhile. The small halls were fully adequate for the meetings of whatever tradesmen conference or for the “big rallies” of one of the thirty existing political parties.

Even those who massed the largest crowds, the so-called “representations” of the workers, were divided among many parties and trade unions.

When one called, the others surely stayed away.

Usually, one was even happy, if no really big hall existed, in which one would have to put his assembly for the sake of appearance. Then the fiasco was not quite so obvious, for example after the call of, say, the “German Folk Party”, and one did not have to lie so overtly in the newspaper, when reporting of an “overfilled mass assembly”.

And now huge assembly halls have sprung up everywhere in Germany, which offer space for thousands and thousands! And when the call goes out today, even these halls are everywhere still too small!

In present day Germany it is not just tailor federations, red, yellow and other trade unions, rightist or leftist or centrist parties, which are called, rather called - and it comes - is: the German folk!

Because the consecration of such another new hall is downright symbolic for our new Germany, that is why I have come here today.

I am especially glad to come to Hof, because I know that Hof has always been far advanced in the development toward National Socialism - and indeed in the most difficulty times of the struggle as well!

I remember how the Führer and all of us in his entourage so often awaited the election results from Hof with special anticipation and each time were not disappointed. We could again and again proudly present to the rest of the world this previously red designated Hof as a National Socialist stronghold.

I know that today as well Hof does honour to its old National Socialist tradition at every opportunity.

I myself am conscious that this whole region here economically still stands behind many other regions in Germany. It is not particularly blessed with natural resources. A large part of the industry here are export industries. Above all, however, it is a border territory, into which many businesses, which emerged elsewhere, cannot be located.

I know that accordingly the wage and income conditions here are often to a large degree still behind those in the rest of the Reich.

I also know, however, that precisely those folk comrades whose life is difficult belong to the best and most loyal of the Führer.

They stood with him in the certainty that he also does for them whatever a person can do. They know that, from early until late, he thinks and works for everybody who somehow works himself in Germany. They know that miracles have already been achieved in all areas, which nobody would have thought possible three years ago.

And they have the conviction, which is the conviction of all of us, that things must get better and they will get better!

They will not be disappointed in this conviction!

How tremendous are the achievements of the new Reich in the economic area!

What does it mean in January 1933 to take over a state, which stood before collapse, which should have actually long since had to declare bankruptcy, and then within the shortest period by means of this state, by means of this economy to achieve a recovery, to again give millions employment, to build modern armed forces and at the same time as these mighty exertions to secure bread for our folk!

This securing of the nourishment for the German folk had to happen through the increase of our own production of foodstuffs.

What nonetheless is lacking, must be imported.

Imported must be, however, not only foodstuffs, rather also, as you know, a large number of raw materials, which are necessary to keep our industry working, to secure the work of millions, to complete armament.

We can only import products in trade for products, which we ourselves produce. Prerequisite for this exchange of products is again that foreign countries are also willing to accept these products from us.

Here is where the greatest difficult has resulted in the last years: Our export opportunities to the rest of the whole world have declined more and more; partly because countries, which previously purchased products, produce them themselves, partly because the world economy has become so mixed up, production and prices are in part based on such divergent foundations and such high tariff barriers have been erected, so that the exchange of products falters.

Certainly we could export many more products than at the moment! For it would be easy to hurl them out with the help of currency experiments - and thus simultaneously hurl out our folk fortune. We only have to reduce the value of our mark to the point where foreign mark holders could again utilize them to buy up Germany. That would be a pretty export! It would be equivalent to an unscrupulous giving away of our national capital, with new impoverishment of our folk by means of inflation. But does anybody perhaps believe that we cannot afford such experiments in a power-political sense? We could export products at such a price. But we want to neither swindle our savers nor fleece our next generation, in that we frivolously squander the national fortune, which we must administer.

We want no experiments, no swindle, rather we want a trade of wares carried out in honest work, on a solid basis and in accordance to good business practices.

For that we naturally also need export markets, of course. But export markets, which we lost in the war, can no longer be re-conquered, because other states now possess them and will no longer give them up. Hence our exports at this time do not suffice in order to import everything we need.

We know that, in addition, in the past years the Jews in the whole world were at work, through boycott and such, to further strangle our exports. For a while they had partial successes with the help of their racial comrades in the trade centres of the liberal lands. Already today, their effort is in vain; the attempt to force a great, industrious folk to capitulate due to starvation has failed! And the gentlemen out there should be told: all further attempts will also fail! You will not beat us down! Adolf Hitler’s folk knows what is it about! It takes it upon itself if necessary, to meanwhile limit itself somewhat - it will not capitulate!

And nobody should believe that, if the economic struggle against our folk fails, Germany could perhaps be overwhelmed through armed force, perhaps by putting Soviet- Russian militarism on the march. We have taken precautions!

And we are ready, in the future as well, if necessary, to consume somewhat less fat, somewhat less pork, a few eggs less, because we know that this small sacrifice means a sacrifice on the altar of our folk’s freedom. We know that the currency, which we thereby save, helps the armament. Today as well the motto is still valid: “Canons instead of butter!”, that means instead of more butter, first more canons, because otherwise one day the last of our butter will be taken from us.

The Führer does not belong to those who do a thing half way. Since a world in weapons has forced us to arm, we arm fully! Every additional gun, every additional tank, every additional plane is an increase of the security for German mothers, so that their children are not murdered in a wretched war - are not tortured by Bolshevik bandits.

We are making sure that the desire to attack us disappears forever!

We also know this: Over the course of the Führer’s government, the consumption of foodstuffs has not become less, rather substantially greater. And we must be proud that this consumption became greater, that the demand of the German folk for foodstuffs has risen. For this means that the German folk, and especially the German workers as a whole, can again purchase more, in part better foodstuffs previously done without, than in the past. Millions and millions more are again in the position to acquire more foodstuffs for themselves and their families than previously, and they are even in the position to purchase the kind of foods, which they previously could not afford. There are altogether roughly six and a half million people who can today say that under Adolf Hitler they have not only found jobs, rather that they can on an average expend about 85 marks more each month than before the rise to power, that means when they were unemployed and on relief.

If each month six and a half million people expend 85 marks more, then the demand on the agricultural market is thereby increased by more than 550 million marks per month or over 6.5 billion marks per year!

One can presume on the basis of experience that of this again over three billion marks is used for the purchase of foodstuffs. For the undernourished workless of once and their families require somewhat more meat, more fat etc., a need, which they can satisfy after years of famishing. Image what it means, if for the incredible sum of three billion, that means 30,000 million marks more of foodstuffs are demanded during a year than previously! Is anybody surprised, if there are occasionally minor difficulties in the food market?! I know that our folk gladly accepts it, to from time to time consume a little less fat, meat or the like, in the knowledge that thereby millions of folk comrades can continuously be better fed than previously, when they were unemployed. We can state with pride: a bit too little butter for the individual is the proof for the success of the work battle for the entirety.

The renunciation by the individual means gain for millions!

There would be a very simple and effective means to overcome the occasional shortage of meat, eggs, butter etc: we would just have to let unemployment rise again to seven million. You can be certain: then on no day of the year would there be lines of even a few people anywhere - other than the unemployment office. But not because there would be more wares on the market, would this occur, rather because these seven million would again have no money to buy butter, eggs, meat or milk. Who would seriously want that? Does anybody want to live better at the cost of the impoverishment of others? Quite the opposite, I know that each of us is proud, through sacrifice for Germany, to stand up for his folk comrades and nation.

It is an old economic experience that, if there is less of a product than needed, people are willing to pay more in order to obtain the product in the desired quantity. It is natural that the price for these products then increases.

Thanks to the organization of the Reich Nourishment Council - created by National Socialism - it has been possible to nonetheless prevent the rise of the prices of a large number of foodstuffs, which represent the nourishment of the mass of our folk, even in time periods in which they are in especially short supply. If the prices had been given free reign, then the price of butter, for example, during periods of shortage would rise so much that only the well-heeled folk comrades could buy butter, and indeed in any desired quantity, while the other folk comrades would go empty-handed, because they simply would not be in a position to afford butter at such prices. The Reich Nourishment Council keeps the majority of food prices within firm boundaries and makes sure that, even during a temporary shortage, a just distribution is possible, or if elsewhere a too great shortage arises, a compensation is undertaken.

We know that the prices of a few other foodstuffs have actually risen somewhat as a result of their shortage. If the prices had been rigidly held at the old level, the danger would have existed that they would appear in the market even less than previously, because the people who produce them and distribute them are also just people and would no longer handle them at the moment when outlay in effort and costs was greater than the price, which they received for them. If one wanted to force peasants, dealers, butchers etc. - despite continually unfavourable price terms - to produce and distribute a product, then one would have to adopt a compulsory system according to the Soviet pattern. The terrible shipwreck this system has suffered in Soviet-Russia, however, has not remained hidden from the world.

We also do not want to forget: if a few products were not better paid, our agriculture would have collapsed. For the prices, which we found for some agricultural products, were prices, which Marxism had created for the annihilation of the peasantry, for its proletarianization and Bolshevization.

We would be poor socialists, if we had betrayed the peasant for the sake of our popularity with the worker. For we would have thereby, after all, harmed the entirety and thus the worker himself, yes, surrendered him to annihilation.

It is naturally necessary that the prices of foodstuffs, which were previously stable, also remain stable in the future. National Socialism will use draconic measures, if necessary, against any price increase, which represents an exploitation of a temporary emergency. National Socialism will make sure that the constant average requirement can also be covered at a constant average price. And National Socialism will further make sure that the prices of the foodstuffs, which over the course of time have increased somewhat, do not rise continue to rise.

Whoever believes he can practice usury with the vital necessities of life at the cost of the whole, will become acquainted with National Socialism!

But all measures can change as little as market systems, price increases or wage increases that we today still do not have some foodstuffs in the quantity in which we need them.

How happy we would be, if the problem could be solved through wage increases, if the life condition of the broad mass of our folk could be improved! The path of wage increases would be simple for the National Socialist government as well as unscrupulous. It would not be able to improve the individual’s situation in the long-run. For all wage increases cannot change that we possess too little of the daily need in many things or can produce too little.

One cannot eat the wage itself, rather one can only eat that, which one is able to purchase with this wage. One cannot purchase, however, what does not exist. That high and highest wages without corresponding increase of production, without increase of that, which could be purchased with this wage, does not mean any increase of the real work wage, that means the real wage, has once already been made all too clear to us.

There was a time when every German worker earned hundreds of thousands of marks per hour, when he became a multi-millionaire each time wages were paid, yes, eventually a billionaire. But nobody can claim that he could buy more with his millions and billions back then than in the past when he only took a few marks home each week. Quite the opposite, he gradually got less, because as a result of the ruined currency, as a result of the impossibility to establish a production price in advance, one business after the other limited itself or closed altogether, so that production and thus that, which could be offered for sale, shrank more and more.

The path of wage increase would be unscrupulous, however, because a hope would be dangled before the wage recipients, of which we know that it cannot be fulfilled. It would also be unscrupulous, because beyond that the result would mean a severe damaging of the entirety, yes, a crime against the entirety. For a rise of wages without corresponding rise of production would sooner or later have to lead to a new inflation.

According to the already mentioned law of supply and demand, the prices of products rise, if altogether more wages and salaries seek to purchase while the products have not become more or have even become fewer. Corresponding to the increased prices, the wage and salary recipients would again demand an increase of their income, and an unstoppable game would emerge of alternating and mutual driving upward of incomes and prices, which we know all too well from earlier.

A totally purposeless and senseless game, because one, as said, cannot purchase more than exists, regardless whether one eventually pays fifty pfennig, a thousand marks or a million marks for the egg! I believe nobody in Germany has the desire to check the experiences of inflation with a second inflation.

We can see the race between wages and price at the moment in France. There, too, all forced wage increases bring no improvement, because production does not just stay the same, rather as a result of ongoing strikes, factory occupations etc. even declines. The final result will only be a harming of the entirety and of each individual. And all currency experiments as well - any ever so drastic devaluation - will change nothing; quite the opposite: a devaluation without increase of production can already mean the numerically expressed start of inflation.

It is amazing how little individual folks seem inclined to learn from the bitter experiences, which other folks have had. We, however, have at any rate learned from the experiences of our own folk:

Our folk will not take the path of suffering of inflation again!

The Führer has pointed out the paths, which must be taken, the occasional difficulties to be overcome:

First: The world gives us the possibility to gain the raw materials, which we previously had to purchase, in our own regions, that means puts at our disposal raw material colonies. This allotment of colonies lies in its own interest, because we could otherwise be forced to export at any price and thus damage the other export lands.

Second: Production of the necessary raw materials in our own land, insofar as this is somehow possible. They know that if German chemists and German technicians start something, the result is not bad! So are factories under construction, which in a short time will make it more independent on fuel import from foreign countries. So are factories under construction, which will produce synthetic rubber of at least equal quality as natural rubber. Other factories are emerging or are being converted.

Millions in currency, which we previously had to utilize for the acquisition of raw materials, will in the course of the fulfilment of the four-year plan be saved and used for the acquisition of larger quantities of raw materials, which we cannot produce ourselves, and used for the purchase of foodstuffs, which we lack at home.

Concentration of more raw materials for the possibility of increased production, that is the motto!

Foreign countries can rest assured of one thing: by means of the raw materials from our own regions and by means of self-produced raw materials, we will not resort to again increasing exports and thereby really entering competition against the other export states. If we do not have to, we utilize our national work force as little as possible to supply whatever savages with all imaginable things, which they previously did not know and did not need. Naturally, we will also trade products with other lands in the future. But if we possess enough raw materials without increase of the previous exports, we will primarily utilize these to produce products not for export, rather for ourselves.

As we have stated that shortage drives up prices, surplus production in the long-run has the opposite result: the buyer gets more for his money.

And I repeat here, too, what I already said: It does not come down to how many marks somebody receives, rather how much he can purchase for these marks - for his wages. And it is our goal to achieve that the German worker will one day be the best paid worker in the world, according to his performance - for the German worker is also the best worker in the world.

That the increase of production through increase of the creation of our own raw materials will be achieved, we know with certainly since the proclamation of the new four-year plan by the Führer in Nuremberg. We know that this four-year plan will just as surely find its fulfilment as the first four year plan found its fulfilment.

The economists do not have to worry how all the new machines could be paid for. We have the work forces, and we have the necessary raw materials for the most part in the land: it is certainly not more difficult than producing a large number of weapons of war for the defence against whatever attacker, to produce the weapons of peace for the defence against our folk’s hunger.

The conversion of our national work to the self-production of raw materials to the greatest extent and to the utilization of the thus manufactured products in our own land, is certainly no more difficult then the creation of employment at all for millions and millions more during the first four-year plan;

is not more difficult than the rescue of our peasantry from annihilation;

is not more difficult than the re-introduction of the once forbidden universal compulsory military service carried out by us.

This conversion of our production is not more difficult than the military occupation of our territories on the Rhine, than the restoration of our honour before the world!

How small is the risk of the gradual and systematic conversion of our economy compared to the risks, which the Führer took in the previous four years!

Through his determined foreign policy action, the Führer of the nation won political freedom. Through his determined economic policy action the Führer of the nation will win economic freedom.

My folk comrades!

I know what I told you there were in part sober truths. But they are truths, which determine the life of our folk and of each individual of our folk. They are truths, which must be spoken, precisely in a region like this one, so that the folk comrades whose life is still poor, whose often so difficult work is still not yet rewarded with the earnings, which correspond to this work - so that these folk comrades may recognize what relationships determine fate, and how difficult it is, even with such good will, to change this fate. They should, however, also know that those who lead recognize these relationships and do everything in their power in order to gradually win ever better living conditions. And that should be your comfort in your often still so difficult existence, that your fate is not inalterable, rather that the Führer works on the prerequisites to over time improve your very own situation and to have you participate more and more materially as well in the great upsurge, which our folk as a whole experiences.

The upsurge is so great, and the rescue took place in such a short time, as nobody would have considered possible. And nobody would have believed that during the recovery of the totally ruined economy the difficulties would be mastered so splendidly.

Many were of the firm conviction, before the recovery, that our folk could not be spared starvation death for hundreds of thousands, yes, perhaps millions. What does it mean in comparison to the terrible fate, which still threatened us up to a few years ago, if today occasionally somewhat too little fat, somewhat too little meat or the like is available! What does it mean if we know in addition: This shortage is a manifestation of recovery crisis - if we know that an occasional shortage is the sign that millions got work and bread and can hence purchase more such foodstuffs.

Let us be happy about these signs of success. And let us take pride in, if necessary, making due with other foodstuffs. Let us take pride in precisely following the instructions of the Reich Nourishment Council for the conservation of foodstuffs, for the fight against spoilage.

Quite especially, I wish to appeal to you German housewives. You do not only influence - we do not want to pretend anything here - the moods of your own husband! The morale of the German folk is largely dependent on you and the morale you project!

Every good housewife knows how to keep her family in a good mood. And especially those who once - independent from the overall situation - have personally had to go through economically hard times, know how to, with simple means, through the art of the housewife - for that is also an art - even then prepare good food, when it again contains either no meat or no eggs or no butter. And the capable German housewives know what they have to do in order to work in the service of this great German family, this family of the German folk, if it must temporarily overcome minor emergencies. They simply purchase in the interest of this great German family! They do not unconditionally try to purchase precisely what is less plentiful, rather they purchase from the many things that are plentiful. No good housewife mourns the pound of pork, which she does not get for once.

Every good housewife is for her part a mother of the German folk. In many cases she has the same and higher duties to fulfil than the men of this folk, who respect and honour her bearing. German women, show what you can do!

My folk comrades! If Germany’s leadership and following discuss an occasional bad situation and become clear how it is best solved, then certain people in foreign countries like to conclude: “Thank God, the German economy starts to decline under the Hitlerian leadership and the Germans will soon start to starve!” They can rest assured out there: we do not do them the favour!

But: We Germans have nothing to hide from each other. It would be silly, if German leadership unloaded every care onto the German folk, it would be silly, not to tell the German folk the situation it is in, and what is to be done for the general benefit. We are an honourable community of fate: Those who lead and those who are led. And we will always, today and in all the future, regardless what the other outside believes or says, as leaders or as followers of this community fate, stand openly before each other. What is then, after all, the motive of those outside, who hope so much for hunger among us? It is just the last little straw they clutch in their yearning that finally in the great conflict: here Jewish Bolshevism, there German National Socialism, for once National Socialism will lose a position or a battle, so one can hope that Jews and Bolsheviks will finally become victorious in Germany! To these people out there we can say: you hope in vain!

We, however, want to be happy, if the worst thing happening to us is that a few days a year the butter for the bread is lacking and not the bread itself for months like in the praised land of the joy and the prosperity of the masses, in Soviet-Russia.

For it can no longer be kept secret from the world that during the so-called construction of the communist order millions actually starved and today again - eighteen years after the rise to power of communism in Russia - millions face death by starvation - face death by starvation in the middle of an agrarian land.

The world as well as each of us knows who has been able to cast a look into other lands, that the social conditions in Germany are the best, that Germany is the most social land on earth. And every “Strength through Joy” traveller - who has once seen the misery of unemployment in many states, where his ship landed, saw the huts in which these workers dwell - will agree with me when I say that he again stepped into the homeland with the feeling: “Thank God, I am again in Germany, in the Germany of genuine socialist spirit!”

Always, when we must practice a minor renunciation, we want to be thankful that we were saved from Soviet- Russia ’s fate - that we were saved from Spain ’s fate;

we want to be thankful, that by us a so-called proletariat does not stand opposed to a so-called bourgeoisie in bloody civil war;

that people do not butcher each other in nameless hatred;

we want to be thankful that Bolshevik commissars do not commit indescribable outrages in Germany, crucify German children, burn alive German people;

we want to be thankful that our cities and villages do not sink into ruins, our homes go up in flames with all our belongings;

that our workplaces are not destroyed, that we do not suffocate in need and misery.

Does one person want to stand up and reply: Yes, but today I got a quarter pound butter too little?

We all want to thank the Führer and want to thank the Higher One, who sent us the Führer. We want to say thanks that we have our daily bread; we want to say thanks that we have become a single folk, in which all stand together in every need and every danger: equally worthy comrades, who can work together in peace and tranquillity for themselves and their folk.

We also want to thank him for the creation of the great Winter Relief Work, the mightiest social relief work, which the world knows. In the sacrifice of the individual for this work lies a thanks to the Führer, and I know that the German folk will in this winter as well do its duty toward those who need its help.

The German folk will hereby thank the Führer that his works emerge through the work of our hands, which we can look at with pride, at which children and grandchildren will look with pride: the mighty Autobahns, roads and canals, glorious buildings of the community, soon also countless buildings, which provide the individual a better home, crop fields out of swamps, new crop fields along the coast.

We want to thank the Führer that he has had a new youth emerge, that he created a work service, a community of one spirit, so that one’s heart overflows.

We want to thank the Führer that he created a strong army - a mighty folk army, equipped with the best weapons, that plane squadrons protect us against attack from the sky, that combat-strong ships are able to take over the protection of our folk comrades in the world, that we are again safe against all those who wish to bring the terrors of war into the German land.

We want to thank the Führer that we again stand, equally worthy, among the other folks of the world, as a nation of honour.

United and solid, we want to continue to work together on German fate, under the Führer who rose from the ranks of the working people and who - on the strength of his ability and on the strength of his love for the German folk - became the Führer.

With him we fight - with him we march into the German future - then we can one day say:

We have lived for Germany!

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