Munich, November 8, 1939
Party
comrades!
My German folk
comrades!
I have come to
you for a few hours in order, in your midst, to again experience the memory of
a day which for us, for the movement and this for the whole German folk, was of
great importance.
It
was a difficult decision, which I made back then and with a group of comrades
also put into execution, a difficult decision, however, which had to be dared.
The apparent failure has nonetheless become the birth of the great National
Socialist liberation movement, for following this failure came, after all, that
famous trial, which enabled us to stand up for the first time before the whole
public for our view, for our goals and for our decision, to assume
responsibility and hence to make the great masses of our folk familiar with our
ideas.
If,
in the four years from the year 1919 to 1923, the National Socialist movement
could grow so much that it managed to still mobilize the whole nation in a
shaking up event, then this was to be ascribed to the general situation in
which Germany found itself. A terrible catastrophe had befallen our folk and
our land. After an almost 45 year long peace, one had driven Germany into war back
then. Much was said about war guilt. Today we know quite precisely - and
already knew it back then - that actually only one blame could be assigned to
the Reich governments before 1914 and up until then, namely the blame, first,
not to have done enough of what had to be done and could have been done in the
service of national strengthening, and second, that it allowed numerous
favorable moments to pass, but then, at the most unfavorable one, it had to let
itself be drawn into war. And there was no doubt that years earlier, if it had
really wanted war, that years earlier there would have been better
opportunities. The same forces which are today our opponents already back then
incited war against the old Germany – and with the same slogans and the same lies.
We all - insofar as we were combatants back then - know that the English and
French did not defeat us on the field. It required a great lie in order to
steal the weapons from our folk. Today there is one or the other, who perhaps
in a foreign country is amazed at my great self-confidence. I can only give as
reply that I have won this self-confidence myself in the field. In the four
years, I never had for even just a moment the conviction or even the crushing
awareness that any opponent could be superior to us. Neither Frenchmen nor
Englishmen had summoned up more courage, more strength in the face of death,
than the German soldier!
What
brought Germany down back then, were the lies of our opponents. They were the
lies of the same men who also lie again today, because, after all, they are the
same war mongers, for Mr. Churchill and comrades, after all, already back then
participated in the war. That far, things have remained the same, after all.
Only something has changed: Back then, Mr. Churchill agitated for war, and
there was a weak government in Germany. Today, Mr. Churchill again agitates for
war, but there is now a different government in Germany! For the government of
today, after all, faced the English back then. And it hence does not have more respect
than one needs to have for any other soldier, but also not the slightest
feeling of inferiority, rather, quite the opposite, the feeling of superiority.
The
lies were the same as today. - With what did England go to war back then? One
said back then: First, Great Britain fights for the freedom of the little
nations. We then later saw how England treated the freedom of these little
nations, how little, above all, these so-called statesmen concerned them-selves
with the freedom of these little nations, how they sup-pressed minorities,
mistreated folks and they also do this today, after all, insofar as it
corresponds to their goals and fits their program. Then one said: England
fights for justice! England, however, had for 300 years already fought for justice
and received as reward for it from the dear Lord roughly 40 million square
kilometers on earth and, furthermore, 480 million people to rule over. So does
God reward the folks who fight “only for justice”! Especially the folks, who
fight for the “self- determination of the others”; for England, after all, back
then also fought for the right of self-determination. One declared: The British
soldier does not go to the field for any selfish interests at all. He fights
for the right of self-determination of the folks. - One could have then
expected that immediately after the war England, leastwise in its own world
empire, England would proclaim self-determination. But one spared oneself that
or one saved oneself for the next war!
And
then England fought back then for “civilization”, but that exists only in
England. Only in the English mining regions does civilization exist, only in
the English slums does civilization exist, in Whitechapel and in the other
quarters of mass misery and of decay!
And
furthermore, back then - and also since then - England goes to the field for
“humanity”. But one first loaded humanity into shells as gunpowder. But one may
also fight with poor weapons, after all, if one just fights for a noble, lofty
goal. And England has always done that!
And
one went a step farther. One declared back then: We English do not fight
against the German folk at all, quite the opposite, the German folk, we English
love it; we, the Chur-chills, the Chamberlains etc., we do not fight against
the Ger-man folk. We all only fight against the regime suppressing the German
folk. For we English have only one task: to free Germany from its regime in
order to make the German folk happy. And for this purpose, we English fight
above all for it that the German folk is relieved of the burdens of its
militarism. It should become free, it could go so far that it no longer needs
to bear any weapons. And if it should ever itself have a wish, then we want to
go a step farther. We want to prevent it from ever again being able to bear
weapons, in order to make it completely free, the German folk. And one declared
it is furthermore a mean trick, if one claims of us English that we had, say,
anything against German commerce in the whole world. Quite the opposite, we
want to secure freedom of trade in the whole world. We hence also have nothing
against the German merchant marine. That is also a lie - declared Mr. Churchill
back then. And one further declared that it is an even more infamous
defamation, if, say, one wants to ascribe to the English as war goal that they
had designs on the German colonies, a mean trick to even just think such a
thing. So did one declare 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917 and even still in 1918.
One
went a step farther. One did not fight for victory at all, one fought for a
peace of agreement, a peace of reconciliation, above all, for a peace of
equality of rights. And this peace, it should then enable it that in the future
one would be able to renounce armaments at all. For one also fought against
war, after all. England waged war - so did one say - in order to finally
eradicate war. England has always only waged war, after all, in order to
eradicate war, namely the war of those upon whom war is waged, the resistance
of those attacked. One hence declared there could be no talk that, say, it was
the goal of British war policy to fetch war reparations from the German folk,
rather, quite the opposite, one strove for a peace without reparations, and as
crowning of this peace then, after a general disarmament, an eternal league of
nations.
And
then the great second Woodrow Wilson summed all that up in 14 points and then
later supplemented it with another three points, those famous points, in which
we were assured we first did not have to fear being treated, say, unfairly,
that we had to lay down our arms only in trust in the word of England and of
the other allies, in order to then be accepted into a genuine community of
folks, in which there would no longer be victors and vanquished, in which only
right should rule. One promised us that only then would the colonies be fairly
distributed, that all legal claims and justified claims to colonies would find
their consideration etc... And all that was then supposed to find its final
crowning in the League of Nations, the final consecration, the league of all
nations. And war was thereby then supposed to be definitively eliminated from
this world, and now an eternal peace should come.
And
that was all understood, after all, from the English standpoint. If somebody
has conquered 40 million square kilometers with approximately 46 million
people, if, with these 46 million people, one has subjugated 480 million
others, then it is understandable, after all, if the person affected now has
the wish that now peace should finally prevail. For 300 years, we have waged
war against the war. For 300 years, we have enriched ourselves. For 300 years,
we have subjugated land after land, knocked down folk after folk. But now we
have the world, and now there should be peace.! - That is understandable. It
was hence also understandable that one now really wanted to carry out in the
League of Nations a kind of sterilization of the now set in condition.
But,
after all, everything then turned out differently. Today an English minister
stands up and says with tears in his eyes: Oh, how gladly would we have
nonetheless come to an agreement with Germany, if only we could have trust in
the word of German governments.
Exactly
the same thing lies on my tongue! Oh, how gladly would we have nonetheless come
to an agreement with an Englishman, if only we could have trust in the word of
his leadership! For when has a folk ever more been vilely lied to and swindled
and deceived than in the last two decades the German folk by English statesmen!
Where
was the promised freedom of folks?
Where
was justice back then?
Where
was the self-determination of folks?
Where
was the renunciation of contributions and war reparations etc.?
Where
was the promised regulation of the colonial problem?
Where
was the solemn declaration that one did not want to take away from Germany its
colonies?
Where
was the sacred assurance than one did not have the intention of burdening us
with unbearable burdens? Where, finally, were the assurances that we would be
accepted as nation with equal rights into the lap of this so-called League of
Nations?
Where
was the assurance that a general disarmament would take place?
Nothing
but lies!
One
has taken our colonies away from us, one has destroyed our trade, one has
stolen our military fleet, one has torn away from us millions of Germans, one
allowed them to be mistreated, one has plundered our folk, one has burdened us
with contributions and burdens that we would not have been able to pay off in a
hundred years. One has plunged us into deepest misery. And from this misery has
come the National Socialist movement.
One
should not act today as if one wanted to open, say, for a Germany that was not
National Socialist, as if one wanted to open for it, say, the golden British
heart. The Germany that we once knew was, God knows, anything else but National
Socialist; it was democratic, it was cosmopolitan, it believed blindly in the
assurances of British statesmen. This Germany had trust back then, it disarmed
itself, it dishonored itself. And it was only deceived! And from the distress
that came from it, our movement has come! And from the greatest breach of word
of all times, a Spa came and later a Versailles, that treaty of shame; for you
know it, my old comrades, how precisely from this spot I portrayed to you
hundreds and hundreds of times, point by point. Over 400 articles, in each of
these articles is and was partially an insult, partially a rape of a great
nation. The result of it was then this time of misery and of desperation, in it
as well the time of inflation, of the theft of all savings, of the theft of all
life possibilities, the time of great unemployment, of the slow starvation of
our folk, the time of tremendous suicides in Germany. For back then, this
Germany had more suicides in two years than Americans who fell over the course
of the war in the west.
From
this great distress has arisen our movement, and it has hence had to make
difficult decisions from the first day on.
And
one of these decisions was the revolt of November 8/9, 1923. This decision
seemingly failed back then, only, Germany’s rescue has first really come from
these sacrifices. 16 dead! Just that millions have been pulled up by them. The
National Socialist movement began its triumphant march through Germany back then.
And
since then, Germany has become a world power - through our movement! Certainly,
it was understandable that the old enemy would stir again at the moment, when
we should have overcome the consequences of the defeats.
There
are without a doubt two kinds of England. We not want to be unfair here. In
England as well, there are numerous people for whom this whole hypocritical
bearing is inwardly hated, who have nothing to do with it. Only they are either
silenced there or they are speechless. Decisive for us is that we have never
found these Englishmen, for whom we ourselves have searched for years. You know
how I have endeavored for almost two years to struggle for agreement and for
agreement with England. Our whole goal setting was a single limitation of
German policy in the sense of the enabling of the achievement of an agreement
with England; likewise an agreement with France. What all did we not write off
here, what did we not renounce! One thing, however, was self-evident: A German
government cannot pronounce a renunciation of life! And the National Socialist
government does not think at all about pronouncing a renunciation of life!
Quite the opposite, we have come, after all, out of protest against the
previous renunciation of life by our democratic world. I do not think at all
about pronouncing a renunciation of life, rather, quite the opposite, I will
succeed with the life and the security of the German folk and Reich!
I
have never presumed to butt into, say, British or French interests. If an Englishman
exists today who now stands up and says: We are responsible for the fate of the
folks of Central Europe, we are responsible for the fate of the folks of
Eastern Europe, then I can only say to this gentleman: Precisely so could we
declare, we are responsible for the folks in Palestine, for the fate of the
folks in Egypt, for the fate of the folks, for all I care, in India.
If
an Englishman says: Our border lies on the Rhine, and the next comes and says:
Our border lies on the Vistula, then I can only say to him: See to it, sir,
that you get back to the River Thames, otherwise we will help you to find your
real borders!
Present
day Germany, at any rate, is willing and determined to secure its borders and
to protect its living space. It is the space that the English have not
cultivated, rather we! We have gone nowhere the English had already brought
culture.
If
Lord Halifax now declares in his speech of yesterday that he stands up for the
arts and culture, and for that purpose Germany must be destroyed, then we can
only say: Sir, we already had culture when you still had no idea of culture.
And in the last six years, more has been accomplished in Germany than in the
last 100 years in England! And whither we have previously gone, we did not find
there cultural monuments of British culture apostles, rather the cultural
monuments of Germans. I have sought in vain in Prague, or Poland, or Graudenz,
or in Thorn, or in Danzig, or in Vienna, to find British cultural monuments.
Perhaps these British cultural monuments stand in Egypt or in India.
At
any rate, we have elevated the German nation again, and indeed from year to
year, beginning with the year 1933 through 1934, 1935 and 1936. We have put
behind us one step after the other and made Germany free, move by move, and at
the same time made it strong! And here, however, I also understand the concern
of these international warmongers. They have seen to their regret that the new
Germany nonetheless is no longer totally the old Germany.
I
have striven to develop not only the cultural side of our life, rather also the
power side, and indeed fundamentally!
We
have built up a Wehrmacht - I can safely say this today, after all - such as a
second does not exist in the world!
And
behind this Wehrmacht stands a folk in a unity such as was never previously the
case in German history! And over this Wehrmacht and over this folk stands today
a government with a fanatical strength of will, such as this as well was never
before the case in the past centuries in Germany!
This
new Germany, as you all know, possesses no war goal at all against England or
France. I took a stand on this in my last speech as well, when I offered my
hand to England and France for the last time. If one now nonetheless attacks
us, then that can have nothing to do with, say, the question of Austria or the
Czech land or Poland, for, after all, generally one immediately very quickly
forgot the questions according to need. And besides, the case of Poland, after
all, shows how little England in itself is interested in the existence of
states, for otherwise, after all, it would have had to declare war on Soviet
Russia as well, since Poland, after all, was roughly halved. But the English
say: No, that is no longer the decisive thing at all now, we now have another
war goal again. First, it was Poland’s freedom, then - then it was Nazism, then
it was again the guarantees for the future. Now it will be something else. They
will simply wage war, as long as, above all, they find somebody who is willing
to wage war with them, this means, who is willing to let himself as well be
sacrificed for them. The reasons are the old slogans. If one namely declares
that one now wants to stand up for freedom, for freedom overall and in
particular, then Great Britain, after all, could give the world a wonderful
example in that it finally bestows full freedom upon its own nationalities.
How
noble would this British crusade then immediately look, if it had been
introduced with the proclamation of freedom for the 350 million Indians or if
it had been introduced with the proclamation of independence, of free right of
plebiscite, for all other British colonies! How glorious would this British
crusade then look, and how gladly would we then bow before such an England!
Initially, however, we see how this England itself suppresses hundreds of
millions of people, how this same England has looked on as numerous millions of
Germans have been suppressed. It hence does not move us in the least, if today
a British minister exclaims with crying eyes that England has only idealistic
goals, no selfish ones at all. Britain has never yet had them. - I already said
that Britain has never yet fought for selfish goals, rather the dear Lord has
in the execution of the fighting only then bestowed upon England the regions
and the people as reward for fighting unselfishly. Hence if they now declare
again that they possess no selfish goals, then this is ridiculous. That does
not move us, and the German folk can really only be amazed that barely 20 years
after such a huge world swindle one can still serve up the same swindle.
Or,
if one says that one stands up for culture. England as culture creator is a
factor for itself. We have few traces of a real British cultural creative
activity in other lands. England’s cultural activity is limited almost
exclusively to the British motherland itself and to those regions that are
practically subjugated to this British motherland. Otherwise we can see nothing
of a cultural activity. We Germans do not need to let ourselves be taken in by
the English in the sphere of culture at all. Our music, our literature, our
architecture, our painting, our sculpture can absolutely compare itself with
the English and the English arts. Still, I believe one individual -well, let us
say: Beethoven - has musically accomplished more than all Englishmen of the
past and present together. And the nurturing of this culture, we also look
after that better than the English can at all.
If
they then further say that it is now time to finally put an end to the war -
they would not have needed to start it at all! For the war is only there,
because England wanted it!
If
they say today: Now there is war, we - the English - do not want that, we will
hence now wage war so that in the future there are no longer any wars, then one
can only say to them: They did not need to start the war at all, then there
would be no war at all!
We
are convinced that, furthermore, there will be wars for as long as the goods of
the world are not fairly distributed, and as long as one does not, from one’s
own will and out of justice, undertake this distribution of goods.
And
one could do that, after all! If one says today: Yes, National Socialist
Germany, we cannot give it the colonies, even though they downright pain us ourselves,
for we English are distressed by the possession of these colonies, we would
gladly like to distribute the raw materials of the world, but we must give that
to somebody whom we trust! - Oh, other governments warn against us as well,
after all. Those were governments by England’s grace; they were, after all, in
part paid by England. One must have trust for that! Why did one not give them
the goods to which the German folk has claim? Here as well, one would not need
to distribute anything at all, one would just need to not first rob us of our
property!
We
as well are of the opinion that this war must come to an end, and that one
cannot and should not and may not come again every few years. And we hence
consider it necessary that, for this purpose, the nations limit themselves in
their spheres of influence, this means in other words, that the condition comes
to an end that a folk presumes to want to play world policeman and wants to
butt in everywhere. At least, insofar as it is about Germany, this time the
British government will still recognize that the attempt to undertake an
establishment of a police dictatorship must and will fail.
Neither
in the past nor in the present have we ever become acquainted with the British
statesmen as culture apostles - but we do not bear them at all as police
authority! Furthermore, they also know that all this are not the reasons.
The
reasons lie in another area. Basically, they hate social Germany! For what have
we ever done to them? Nothing at all! What have we taken from them? Nothing at
all! Have we threatened them? Not once! Were we not ready, say, to make
treaties with them? Yes! We also did that. Did we not obligate ourselves to
undertake limitations of our armaments? We have even proposed that. No, all of
that did not interest them.
What
they hate, that is Germany, which offers a “bad” example, it is, first of all,
social Germany, the Germany of our social work legislation, which they hated
already before the World War and that they hate today, too. The Germany of
welfare, that they hate, the Germany of social compensation, the Germany of the
elimination of class differences, that they hate. The Germany that, over of the
course of seven years, now strives to enable its folk comrades a decent life,
that they hate. The Germany that has eliminated unemployment, which they could
not eliminate with their wealth, that they hate! The Germany that on its ships
gives its workers, the seamen, decent quarters, that is what they hate, because
they have the feeling that their own folk could be “infected” by it! And they
hence also hate the Germany of social legislation, the Germany that celebrates
May 1st as the Day of National Work, that has taken up the struggle toward the
classes. This Germany, they hate it, in reality. They hence also primarily hate
the healthy Germany, the folk healthy Germany, the Germany that concerns itself
for its folk comrades, which washes the children, where the child does not run
away full of lice, that does not let conditions arise such as they now admit in
their own press. This Germany, they hate!
It
is their money magnets, their Jewish and non-Jewish international barons, bank
barons etc., those are the ones who hate us, because they see in this Germany a
bad example, which could perhaps incite others folks - their own. They hate the
Germany of our young, healthy, blossoming generation, the Germany of welfare
for this generation.
And
they hence naturally thereby also hate the strong Germany, the Germany that
marches, the Germany that voluntarily takes upon itself sacrifices.
How
they hate us, we have seen this, after all. We made a Four-Year Plan in order
to help ourselves. We have through this Four-Year Plan taken nothing from
anybody. For if we make gasoline or rubber out of our coal, or if we help
ourselves with other substitute materials, what do we thereby take away from
the others? Nothing, nothing at all! Quite the opposite, they should be happy,
they would have been able to say: Then you thereby unburden our markets, God be
praised and thank God, if they produce their own gasoline, then they do not
need to export so that they can import. - All the better for us, world gasoline
remains reserved for us. - No, they fought against the Four-Year Plan. They
said: The plan must go! - Why then? Because it makes Germany healthy! That is
the sole reason.
It
is the struggle against the free, against the independent, against the healthy,
against the life-capable Germany. That is now their struggle!
And
this is now confronted by our struggle. And this struggle is our eternal
National Socialist and constant one, the struggle for the establishment of a
healthy, strong folk community, for the overcoming and elimination of the
damages in this community and for the security of this community toward the other
world. This is the goal: We fight for our folk’s security, for our living
space, in which we do not let ourselves be bossed around by others!
If
one now declares in England that this conflict, which has now broken out, this
is the Second Punic war, then it does not yet stand firm in history who in this
case is Rome and who is Carthage. In the first, at any rate, England was not
yet Rome, for in the Punic War, Rome really triumphed; in the First World War,
England did not triumph, rather others were the victors. And in the second -
this I can assure you - England will really not be the victor! This time,
another Germany confronts this England of the World War; they will probably
still be able to gauge this in the foreseeable future. A Germany that is filled
with an intractable will, and that reacts to the nonsense of British slogan men
only with laughter. If today an Englishman comes and says: We fight for the
world’s freedom, we fight for democracy, we fight for culture, we fight for
civilization, we fight for justice - then this only triggers resounding
laughter in Germany.
For
that, the generation still lives, after all, which has become personally
acquainted with the “honesty” of such British war goal presentations. And even
if we ourselves had not learned anything, then, in any case, we also would not
have not forgotten anything! But we have not only not forgotten anything,
rather we have learned!
Every
British balloon that drifts into our lines and brings down a few “inventive”
leaflets proves to us that, in this other world, everything has remained at a
standstill for 20 years. But every echo in Germany would have to prove to them
that here a movement took place, and indeed a movement of tremendous dynamic
magnitude and of a tremendous force and effectiveness.
England
does not want peace! We have heard that again yesterday. I declared already in
my Reichstag speech that I personally have nothing more to say about it. The
rest, we will say to the English in the language that they will probably already
understand!
We
are very sorry that France put itself in the service of this British war
agitation and that it couples its path with England’s path.
As
regards Germany, we have never been afraid of a front. We once successfully
defended two fronts. We now have only one front, and we will be successful on
this front, one can be convinced of that!
I
have viewed it not as a success of German politics, rather as a success of
reason, that we have managed to come to an agreement with Russia. Once both folks
fought each other to the point of bleeding to death. Neither of both folks had
a gain from it. We have agreed to no longer do the gentlemen in London and
Paris this favor a second time!
So
we now stand at a great historical turning point. From struggle, National
Socialism once arose. We were all soldiers back then. A large portion has today
again put on the gray uniform. But the others as well have remained soldiers.
Germany has thoroughly transformed itself. Just as Prussia, in the years 1813
and 1814, could no longer be compared to the Prussia of 1806, so can the
Germany of 1939, 1940, 1941 or 1942 no longer be compared to the Germany of
1914, 1915, 1916 or 1917 or 1918.
What
could exist back then, is impossible in the future. We will - and, above all,
the party guarantees this to me - make sure that the manifestations such as we
unfortunately had to experience in the World War, that such manifestations can
no longer surface in Germany. We, my National Socialist fighters, dealt with
these manifestations when we still fought as a ridiculous minority in Germany.
Back
then, we only had our faith. And we beat down these manifestations and
eliminated them. Today we also have power. And never again will such
manifestations come across Germany.
Our
will is exactly as unbending in the struggle toward the outside as it was once
unbending in the struggle for power in the interior. Just as I always told you
back then: everything is conceivable, just not one thing, that we capitulate,
so I can today as well only repeat to the world as National Socialist:
Everything is conceivable, never a capitulation! One should get that out of
one’s head, after all. If one then declares to me: then the war will last three
years -, how long it lasts, plays no role, Germany will never capitulate,
never, not now, and also not in three years.
One
tells me England has prepared itself for a three-year war. On the day of the
British war declaration, I gave Field Marshal Göring the order to immediately
make all preparations for a duration of initially five years, not because I
believe that this war lasts five years, but because even in five years we would
never capitulate, and indeed not for any price in the world.
But
we will now show these gentlemen, after all, what the strength of an 80 million
folk can do, under one leadership, with one will, united in one community. And
here, the party, in memory of the earlier dead, will have to really fulfill its
great mission. It becomes the bearer of this will, of the determination, of the
unity and hence of our German folk community. Whatever individual sacrifices
may yet be demanded from us, that will pass, it is unimportant. Decisive is and
remains only victory!
Thanks
to our preparations, we will wage this struggle under much easier conditions
than, say, in the year 1914. Back then, Germany blindly stumbled into this
struggle. We have equipped the nation for many years psychologically, but,
above all, also economically. Through our great planning, we have made sure
that the German pilot does not run out of gasoline. Through our planning, we
have made sure that in the first war year there is no wastage and valuable
goods are used up, rather that, on the day of the declaration of war,
immediately that rationing sets in, which offers the prerequisites for holding
out even for the longest time. But in all other areas as well, we have
developed our German possibilities to the most extreme, so that I can today
give you only the one assurance: Neither militarily nor economically will they
be able to beat us down to the slightest degree. Here only one can triumph, and
that is we!
That
Mr. Churchill does not believe this, I ascribe to his old age. Others as well
have not believed this. They were first taught by Mr. Churchill, Mr.
Chamberlain, Mr. Halifax etc., our Polish opponents. They would have never gone
to this war, if they had not been driven in by the British side. England
reinforced their back and whipped them up and agitated them. The course of the
war has shown, for perhaps the first time, what instrument the German Reich has
meanwhile forged for itself. It was not so, my folk comrades, that, say, the
Pole was cowardly, or that he only ran, that was not so! He fought very
valiantly at many spots. Nonetheless, a state with over 36 million people, with
around 50 divisions, a state that, at the time, had an average recruiting year
with almost 300,000 compared to 120,000 French recruits per year - nonetheless,
this state was, in just 10 days militarily beaten, in 18 days, annihilated and
in 30 days, forced to total capitulation!
In
the process, we are also aware how much Providence has helped us. In the
process, it made so much possible for us. It has allowed our plans to be
properly shaped, and it has visibly blessed the execution. Without it, this
work would have never been able to succeed, not in this period. We are hence
also of the belief that Providence wanted what happened! Just as I often
declared to you earlier that the defeat of 1918 was deserved, deserved by us,
because we had not been able to properly and worthily preserve the great
victories. In the future, one should no longer make this reproach to us.
In
this gratitude, we bow before all our heroes, before the brave soldiers, our
dead comrades and the many wounded. Through their sacrifice, they have helped
that the first enemy, who brought this war to ignition, was overcome in hardly
30 days. May every German be aware that the sacrifice of these men is exactly
as valuable as the sacrifice of every other in the future will be valuable,
that nobody has the right to deem his sacrifice in the future more valuable.
What we as National Socialists have brought along in the history of our
movement as realization and as oath of the martyrdom of November 9th, namely
that for which the first 16 fell, was valuable enough to bring many others, if
necessary, to die - this realization should never leave us in the future as
well.
For
our German folk, countless millions have fallen over the course of many
centuries, yes, millennia. Millions of others have given their blood for it,
none of us knows whether it does not strike him, too. Only each must know that
he does not thereby make more sacrifices than others before him have also made
and others after him will one day have to make. The sacrifices that the woman
takes upon herself in that she gives the nation the child, the man takes upon
himself in sacrifices in that he defends the nation.
We
National Socialists have always been fighters. And now is the great time in
which we want to prove ourselves as fighters.
We
thereby also best celebrate the anniversary of the memory of the first
sacrifice of our movement. I cannot close this evening without, as always,
thanking you for your devotion throughout all the long years, and without
promising you that, in the future as well, we want to hold high the old ideals,
that we want to stand up for them, and that we will not shun the risk, if
necessary, of our own life as well, in order to achieve the program of our
movement, the program that says nothing else than to secure our folk life and
existence in this world.
That
was the first introduction paragraph of our National Socialist affirmation of
faith, and that will be the last sentence that stands written over each
individual National Socialist, then, when at the end of his fulfillment of
duty, he parts from this world.
Party
comrades! Our National Socialist movement, our German folk and, above all, now
our victorious Wehrmacht
Sieg Heil!
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