Munich,
February 24, 1940
My German folk comrades!
20 years ago, I spoke for the first time in this hall
before the broadest public. What led me here, was the hardest and most
fanatical decision of my life.
If
today, after 20 years, I now see many of my oldest co-fighters of back then
around me, if I now again stand in their circle, then this alone is already
something amazing. I namely do not know how many politicians there are in the
democratic lands, who after 20 years - as I see - could again step before their
first followers. And when I entered this hall back then, I did not come, as is
known to you, after all, from whatever pacifist club. I was still a soldier
back then, hence still belonged to the German armed forces, and was a soldier
body and soul. What had led me here was the protest of my soldierly feeling in
a time that one can probably designate as the time of the deepest degradation
of our German folk.
A
collapse had come upon our folk back then, which was without example in history
already because the so-called vanquished did not have a victor at all, after
all. We had become the victims of a tremendous world swindle. But we were not
totally alone in that, for the others, after all, were also swindled. One
swindled the Italians back then, one swindled the Indians; one had promised
them that, if they wanted to stand up for England, then they would get freedom
afterward. One swindled the Arabs back then; one had assured them that they
would then get a large Arab empire. But one also swindled the Jews back then,
by the way, whom one right off promised the same region that one already
promised to the Arabs. But one also swindled one’s own folks. In all these
so-called victor states, their own folks did not get what they expected back
then. For now, after all, an age of justice was supposed to come. Just that
within these nations as well, justice, social justice as well, has remained
absent.
But
one swindled our German folk the most, ft was an idiotic trust that our German
folk put in the promises of these opponents, in the promises that even today
ring so in all our ears, all the more so, after all, as we today now again hear
them in part. A new world is supposed to be established, a world of equal
rights, a world in which there should be only more justice as the sole
life-determining power or force, a world in which one would hence no longer
require any weapons, a world in which eternal peace would hence reign, in which
a League of Nations was supposed to make people happy etc. etc...
The
German folk put down its arms on the basis of these promises, which were
summarized in 14 points. If one later said: Yes, you would not have needed to
do that, after all, you had been defeated, after all - why did one promise us
the 14 points back then and then solemnly further declare that one would also
uphold them? One simply did not defeat us. The German folk was swindled back
then in its faith in the possibility of a new order in the world. The result of
this swindle was then later Spa, and finally the result was Versailles. And
then a new world order did emerge, namely the world order of the so- called
victors and the world order of the vanquished, whereby the victors possessed
all rights and the vanquished had no rights at all. Germany itself was
defeated, hence without rights. It was without rights, however, because it was
also without weapons, after all. And everything that came later was based on
this defenselessness. We had no strong Reich power. It was replaced by a
parliamentarian democracy. This parliamentarian-democratic Germany of back then
was a paradise, that must be admitted - just not for the German folk. It was
paradise for the Jews, for all crooks, for all speculators, for all swindlers,
for all interest group representatives. Fine and well, for all conceivable
elements in our folk, just not paradise for the German folk itself.
The
other world, which had shaped this democracy, itself in no way also granted
this democracy equal rights, rather, quite the opposite, this democracy was
treated like it also deserved in the end, after all. A hell for decent people,
for all decent, productive people and, above all, for all honest and upright
people.
And
the master of this state, back then it was that international finance clique,
finance plutocracy, which today as well still governs in most folks and which, after
all, today as well fights again in order to continue to preserve its regime.
The
German national economy could only decay under such conditions. You still
remember this time of creeping inflation, which gradually got worse and worse.
One crisis led to the next back then. Each crisis was again the beginning of
another one. One collapse caused additional collapses. So did that time begin,
in which actually in our German land everybody fought against each other, all
were in conflict against all, the time in which any authority had decayed, in
which the folk as well, however, had for its part naturally lost trust in any
authority, the time of the Weimar state of parties. 46 parties and groups
fought for the representation of the interests of the German folk.
The
result of this division in the interior was an increasing impotence toward the
outside; the result of that again Germany’s increasing disenfranchisement, and
the result of that finally the increasing looting of our folk. What we had to
pay in these years in so-called reparations went far beyond anything previously
seen as possible at all. The era of a downright crazy capitalist insanity came.
A nation is burdened with political debts that cannot be paid off. One finally
still issues economic credits in order to be able to pay of the political
debts, and along this path gradually transforms the political debt into an
economic debt, of which one presumably presumed, that - this corresponds to the
whole thinking of these forces back then - they would be viewed as more sacred
than just political debt. The result of this again was the destruction of our
financial foundations, the devaluation of our money and thus a new injury to
the whole of German economic life. Finally, nothing else was left than a slave
folk, a slave folk in the service of international exploiters, who in part sat
in Germany itself, for the large part had their offices outside of Germany.
Back
then, there were very many who, in view of this total decay in all areas of the
collapse, of all of faith and of trust etc., now thought the end had now come
for the German nation. I was of a different view back then. What seemed to many
the end, was in my eyes actually just the beginning. For what was broken in
reality back then? Broken were untenable forms, forms, which, in the long run,
would have no longer been able to survive. The bourgeois-capitalist world had
collapsed. Its era had simply outlived itself. In some form, this collapse must
come everywhere, and it will remain absent nowhere. But this collapse struck us
back then during a foreign affairs horrible crisis and with just as terrible
consequences. Only there is no doubt that this time back then, this era would
not have been able to survive in the long run even so. But we apparently had a
Reich. But this Reich was no longer the house for a folk, rather it was the
playground for quarreling interest groups. Proletariat and bourgeoisie, class
consciousness on the one side, class pride on the other side. In addition, a
purely formal federal constitution, a changeling between monarchy and
parliamentarian constitution, not capable of life. The Reich, furthermore,
dissolved into federal states, of which each individual one had the possibility
at any opportunity, through its vote or through its veto, to immediately again
hamper the most necessary decisions. And, in the long run, a totally untenable
state construction. It was self-evident that precisely our folk, with its dense
settlement in Central Europe, was presented with very great tasks. The solution
of these tasks demanded a regime’s authority. It required a united public
opinion. Only then did it become possible to solve these problems, if behind
the decisions of the regime, of the government, stood the united will of the
folk. That was no longer conceivable at all back then. Sooner or later, this
condition had to break and make way for another one.
The
bourgeois class state was present back then. Its antipode, the proletarian
class state, announced itself. On the one side stood a bourgeois thought
patriotic nationalism, on the other an international thought Marxist socialism.
In the long run, both these worlds could not exist next to each other at all,
after all. Either one of both had to triumph or both had to perish. For it was
quite clear, after all, that both these worlds claimed the nation for itself
and that they themselves no longer had any intention at all to make concessions
for reconciliation to the other side. But it was furthermore clear that, over
the course of decades, both worlds had already become old and internally
fragile. One could no longer hope that the bourgeois world of back then would
still be able to summon up the strength, say, to absorb the socialist masses
and thereby reconstruct in the interior. But just as little could one still
expect that the likewise already aged Marxist parties in Germany now would be
able to summon up the strength, say, to win the bourgeoisie. And that was
natural, after all, that, in our densely settled region, a revolution could not
end with the annihilation of the other part, rather only with the winning of
the other part. That was already impossible for both groups back then. A change
of this condition was unavoidable.
Hence
if one pondered things back then, then one could only come to the realization
that much was broken. Only they were more external formal things that broke.
Broken, for example, is the monarchist state form. The German folk can live
without it, it will live better without it. It was broken, the shredded state
of back then. The German folk will live better without this division, which one
classified in part as federalism and in part differently. It was broken back
then, our bourgeois social order. The German folk could not live with it in the
long run at all. But it was broken economically as well, a world of concepts,
even if initially nothing yet took its place, rather only chaos. Only these
concepts in themselves were not set for eternity. The decisive thing was one
thing: In this time, when so many external formal institutions were broken, the
German human being in himself was not broken, for he had just previously
performed - I must already say it - his masterpiece in world history. A
performance that no folk on earth had previously managed. In a four-year fight,
this folk had withstood 26 states, and it was then defeated only through lie
and deceit. If back then there had not been Germans in the interior who,
trusting in foreign countries, had turned against their own regime, then even
back then England and France - they would not have triumphed. Imagine if back
then a certain Adolf Hitler instead of German musketeer had been German Reich
Chancellor, do you imagine that these idols of the international democracies
would have triumphed? They had it easy. They were opposed by only really quite
inferior manifestations in Germany. These manifestations failed. They were
overthrown. The German folk had nothing at all to do with that inwardly. In
four years World War, the German folk proved its highest verification, produced
the evidence of unprecedented strength.
And
if back then I appeared as bearer of a new political idea in this state, then I
appeared as the representative of this German folk living on unknown in
millions of individual beings. And one thing was quite clear to me back then:
If the old Reich was broken, if the old parties were broken, if the old social
strata had found their end, then a new world simply had to replace them. And
this new world could in Germany only be the world of the German folk itself. In
place of the old class state had to come the German folk Reich, the German folk
state. The Reich idea had to be taken from the hands of the previous
representatives, and it had to be given into the loyal hands of the German
folk. The folk itself had to be elevated to the guardian of the German Reich
idea. Once the Reich was formed, expressly characterized in the proclamation
according to the will of the princes. And now this new Reich had to emerge
according to the will of the folk. If one appealed to this folk, then it had to
become possible to mobilize immeasurable energies. For that the folk possessed
the strength, the great war had proven that, after all. Hence a folk state had
to come.
And
it was proclaimed 20 years ago in the evening back then in this hall here. The
program was nothing else than the program of the construction of the new German
folk Reich. It was the theses of the national uprising. And the bearing thing,
the bearing realization that laid in these theses, was the following: that both
most elemental forces of the time: nationalism and socialism, had to be
subjected to a new definition and that from this definition both theses had to
be purged into a single one.
Both
ideas had to be reshaped into a single idea and could then be the bearer of a
new force, a force that could one day make the Reich great, free and powerful
again. The folk now had to be and determine meaning and content of this new
struggle. Not only the political struggle had to be waged for the folk, rather
also economic work performed. All cultural political activity had to contribute
to its preservation. Those are only a very few principles, which nonetheless in
themselves become a tremendous revolution, a revolution of mighty ideas, mighty
renewals, severest interventions, tremendous upheavals, but also, as I was
convinced back then, gigantic successes.
Back
then, the struggle against the internal enemies began. And you, my fellow
fighters, you know I did not enter this struggle as a pacifist. I certainly did
not want to wage a fight in the interior, if it was not necessary. But I have
also trained you all, if necessary, to look every fight in the eye and to take
it upon yourself without further ado.
I
also took the view back then: It is best, if I regulate the necessities of life
in our folk on the basis of agreements, on the basis of insight, this means,
along the path of peaceful agreements. But if somebody now tries to hamper or
hinder this peaceful development with force, then I will meet him with force.
Those were the principles that dominated back then in our struggle and that did
not leave us for 13 years; similar as in another land, in Italy, where, after
all, the same world of ideas came to triumphant breakthrough with the same
means.
This
struggle lasted 13 years back then. The work that was done in these 13 years,
what these years held in cares, efforts, in progress in detail and also in
setbacks, you know that, my old party comrades, best of all, after all. You
experienced that, after all, in these long years of struggle from the very
small group, since we started with so very few people, after all, how difficult
that was, how one slowly had to go ever farther, from one rally to the next,
from the city to the countryside and from the province, from the village, again
to the market spots and then again into the smaller cities, how we slowly
expanded beyond our Bavaria and gradually began to fertilize the rest of the
Reich,
and so how the movement gradually began to spread across all of Germany. A huge
struggle for power; initially the struggle with the means that back then alone
promised to lead to victory. Struggle for power in the state in itself. It was
the revolutionary era of our movement. In the year 1923, a terrible setback.
And then came the legal period. There was fighting again with legal means,
until finally, after 13 years, victory came. After 13 years, our internal
opponents were lying on the ground. Everything that opposed us back then, our
Jewry, our plutocrats, our cowardly opportunists who are everywhere a thing
gradually shapes up well, our political and economic interest group
representatives, all our parties, our classes, our professions, our provincial
parliaments etc., the unions and the entrepreneur associations etc., all that
was gradually forced to the ground. And when we came to power, we actually only
needed to carry out the verdict already become historical.
The
German folk has been gradually educated in the party, in the movement. In 1933,
the time now began in which we now had to achieve everything that we had
proclaimed, preached or promised in countless rallies. And if someone is fair
here, then he cannot dispute here as well that since this time a miracle has
taken place in Germany. What has been performed in these few years in reform work
in all areas! What have we achieved in economic reconstruction activity! How
have our cities begun to blossom! How has German cultural life ascended! This
city here, after all, is proof, living proof for the new blossoming of German
art. What a huge work have we performed in the field of the organizational
structuring of our folk! What has happened since then in the purging of the
individual professions, of the individual classes! What have we done in the
education of our offspring, in the training of our youth! What have we done in
the escalation of our folk’s performance capacity! The millions of unemployed
have disappeared. If some democratic idiot says we, we simply should not have
rearmed, rather instead of rearming - we should have simply worked! We can only
say to this idiot: We have done that! For before we came, there was no
rearming, but Germany had seven million unemployed, and these unemployed had
nothing to eat. And we then integrated these unemployed into the economic
progress. And we did not want to rearm at all, but when we saw that these old
war agitators, the old envious people of once again made preparations to attack
us, then I rearmed Germany, and indeed armed like never before in its history.
A
construction of gigantic proportions has been accomplished. If I imagine all
these so-called international statesmen of the democracies, who today make
fancy speeches in Europe, if I imagine these people and view their life work,
then I can really say: I have always just had the misfortune to have had to
fight against nothing but zeroes - inside and outside. The people dominate the
largest portion of the whole earth and are not even in the position to
eliminate unemployment in their own lands. And these old, totally calcified
zeroes talk of the necessary new construction of Europe. Yes, that, my folk
comrades, reminds me of the manner of speech of our own democrats, these old,
toothless gentlemen who walked around among us and also preached of the
necessary new construction of Germany. The new construction has set in - but
without them! And the new construction of the world will also set in, and also
without them!
In
these seven years I have naturally had to wage a struggle for the freedom of my
folk and hence against Versailles. For that is self-evident, after all, that,
in the slave chains of Versailles, also any economic resurrection of the German
folk would have been impossible.
But
it is not so much about the struggle against the paragraph work of Versailles,
rather, beyond that, it is about the struggle against a principle, against a
mental state, which had found its documented expression in the Versailles
dictate. This principle and this mental state that roots in the idea that two
or three folks are chosen by the dear Lord to rule the whole world and that, if
a folk does not submit to this rule, that one then has the right to say: this
folk wants to rule the world. That means, this good Mr. Chamberlain stands up
at the moment at which all of India protests against him, at the moment at which
the Arabs protest, then he stands up and declares England fights against the
attempt of German world rule by force. -
Perhaps
one could impress the German before the year 1918 with these slogans - National
Socialist Germany no longer! Quite the opposite, our struggle was directed from
the first moment on against this principle. The principle that the world
possesses two sorts of people, namely folks which one counts among the
propertied, and folks which one counts among the have-nots..., this capitalist-plutocratic
view, it will perish. Providence, the Lord, did not make the world for the
English alone. The Lord has not decreed that a few small folks rule and
subjugate three quarters of the whole earth and in the process are not even
able to supply their own folk with the bare essentials, and other folks are
destined to suffer starvation.
That
has been possible solely as a result of the weakness of some folks. But this
weakness, it is now being overcome and has been overcome. And these folks now
likewise raise their claim. And I have raised this claim really modesty. The
goal that I pursued was really a modest one:
First.
The security of our own living space. And by living space, I understand
everything in the world that was not cultivated, civilized and then also
economically developed by the English, rather by us Germans. There are namely
still some such regions! Leastwise in Central Europe, the fertilizing British
influence has not yet been noticeable from the past to the present. This
Central Europe has been built up by Germany. And in this German living space,
this is where we now want to live. And here I do not and here we do not let our
life be curtailed. And in this living space, we also do not let ourselves be
threatened. And here we also do not let any political combinations be built up
which are supposed to be directed against us. And
Second,
we demanded and I demand the return of the German colonies, our German
property, which these world plutocrats once robbed from us without any benefit
for their own folks.
Those
were very limited goals. I have done everything here in the process to
undertake from the start a clear limitation of our claims against England and
France, since these folks could not be affected at all. Nonetheless, our
acquaintances from the World War increasingly put in an appearance. There came
Mr. Churchill, Mr. Duff Cooper, Mister Eden, Mr. Chamberlain himself and
finally, hovering above everything, the eternal spirit of the Jew Hore Belisha.
Now
I am very different from these people. Mr. Churchill, after all, was already in
the great war the known tax collector. He was back then one of the biggest war
agitators. He belonged to those people - they never made any bones about it,
after all - who already back had plunged the world into a war. And back then, I
was a very little unknown soldier without any political influence. I only did
my little duty, just like every other German also did that. We hence come from
two very different worlds. There: the capitalist war agitators already before
the war and here: the little German soldier who simply fulfilled his duty.
After the war, these people pursued their businesses, and indeed armament
businesses of the largest kind, and pocketed war profits. And I fought back
then for my German folk. How I fought, you know that yourselves, my dear
witnesses, best.
Now
these people have already begun their war agitation again for some years. And
they also make no bones about it, that is simply their goal again to wage a big
war. They have the hope in the process that they will again find other folks
who stand up for them, and the hope is in part also founded, because they have
their Jewish allies everywhere. But in part, this hope has already fallen
through. So they have again prepared this war in their manner. But now this
time they are opposed by a German, a German front soldier, who for his part has
likewise made preparations, and indeed thoroughly, such as only somebody can
make who is filled with the consciousness of his duty toward his folk.
I
have warned against these people, when it became necessary. But I have never
left any doubt about one thing: that I was my unshakeable will and decision to
make Germany free again. That they now hate me for it, that is my greatest
pride. You know it, how often I have said that to you here, my old party
comrades. If all the democracies in Germany, if all the Jews, if this whole
pack that runs around there, if this rabble cursed me back then, how often have
I then told you: that is my greatest honor. If they would praised me, then I
would be the biggest scoundrel that exists at all.
And
so it is today as well. If Mr. Churchill says that he hates me - I thank you,
Mr. Churchill, for this compliment. If Mr. Chamberlain declares that he does
not trust me - 1 thank you, that you believe that you do not believe that I
could ever be a traitor, Mr. Chamberlain.
If
Mr. Duff Cooper or Mister Eden declare that, in their eyes, I am a horrible
monster, 1 am happy that they do not declare me among their friends. Indeed, I
have just one single ambition, namely: to win and to keep the love and
affection of my own folk comrades. The hatred of my enemies does not move me at
all. It did not move me in the 13 years when I struggled for power in Germany,
and it certainly does not move me now. And just as, back then, I fought in the
interior 13 years for my folk’s freedom against the internal oppressors,
exploiters etc., so do I also fight today, if it is necessary, toward the
exterior.
They
do not know us! The best proof how little they know us, I believe, is to be
seen in the British hope to perhaps nonetheless achieve a new year 1918. The
idiotic leaflets also correspond to this, after all, which one initially
dropped on Germany for lack of other munitions. One probably believed that one
would be able to repeat today the theater or the maneuver of 1917 or 1918 in
the Germany of back then. The gentlemen have no idea of present-day Germany!
The
situation here has changed substantially in many areas. Initially already in
terms of foreign affairs, it has changed compared to the year 1914. Germany is
today a friend with Italy. It is not just the friendship of both regimes and, I
may probably also say, the friendship of both leading men, rather it is also
the realization that both lands in their future need each other and are
dependent upon each other. Only also toward Russia has the relationship
changed. The hope, just like in the year 1914, to again be able to produce a
war between Russia and Germany, between both folks, has failed miserably. I
understand that in London one is now outraged over this vileness, that I
suddenly thwarted precisely this chess move. I understand that. But I believe,
in this case, the Russian regime and the German regime have really only done
something very beneficial for both folks. For we are both really too good for
it that we merely let ourselves bleed to death so that the London stock
exchange and the whole of Jewry in London rub their hands.
A
mighty state has thereby been removed from the fight with Germany. And you
know, my party comrades, that I do not do things halfway. If I once take a
path, then I walk this path to the end. That hence means the hope that perhaps
tomorrow or the day after tomorrow things could perhaps nonetheless be
different, this hope is a futile one.
But
Japan as well, which in the year 1914 likewise opposed Germany, this time
stands not on the side of our opponents, rather is our close friend.
Those
are three mighty states, which back then were our enemies and today stand aside
as the best-meaning neutrals. Still, a very gigantic foreign political change
in the situation. Militarily as well, the situation has changed. I have carried
out an armament. And, like I do everything in my life, completely and not
halfway, so have I also done this arming completely. For years, I did not talk
about it, for reasons which you can understand. I did not want to unnecessarily
stir up the others, for I also wanted no conflict at all, after all. Once an
Englishman told me we should reciprocally inform each other about our budget,
the armaments outlays. I asked him why. Well, he said, so that the world would
be somewhat more calmed. I told him: No, it is better if we do not do that,
perhaps it would then really get unsettled. At any rate, for years I remained
silent. But you all know, after all, I have worked. We have built up for
ourselves a Wehrmacht that stands there differently than that of the year 1914.
Back then, poorly equipped, back then, in part downright miserable supplied,
this time we have spared no sacrifice in order to give our Wehrmacht the most
modern equipment in the world. That this is not a slogan, has initially been
proven by the campaign in Poland. I believe it went down somewhat faster than
the strategists in London and Paris expected it. And the future as well will
continue to confirm this.
But
what, beyond the material, concerns the spirit of this Wehrmacht, there as
well, one should not be concerned. The spirit of this Wehrmacht is as always
the spirit of the highest leadership. The soldiers always have the spirit that
the highest leaders possess and that the highest leader has. For the musketeer
down below is always valiant anyway. If the highest leadership is hence also
valiant, then the spirit below will already be in order. And that the highest
leadership today should not be confused with the leadership of the year 1914,
God governs that.
Only
also economically, we have prepared ourselves differently. For years, I have
had economically secured the foundations of our autarchy - much to the dismay
of our opponents. Actually, they should have had to be pleased, after all. They
should have had to tell themselves: Thank God, the Germans simply create their
life in their own life circle. - No, it dismayed them, for they knew quite well
that this autarchy takes from them the possibility to attack Germany at an
opportunity and then through blockade strangle it. However, this blockade is
rather full of holes anyway, noted on the side. But we have made ourselves
blockade proof, quite differently than in the year 1914. One thing
differentiates the situation of now from the situation of back then: Back then,
our defense against the blockade was the same as nil, our own preparation for
autarchy likewise nil. Today our defense against blockade is a totally
different one already from the first day on than back then, and the defense is
likewise organized on our side, this means, the autarchic foundation of our
economy is secured to the highest degree. One thing, we all know this: Neither militarily
nor economically can Germany be beaten down.
But
now comes the decisive thing, and that is the leadership. And if I speak here
of leadership, then I mean not just myself personally, rather I mean by
leadership everything that in the course of these 20 years, since back when I
was here and for the first time spoke before you, that has come to the
leadership. I have often told you: I am nothing else than a magnet that
continuously passes over the German nation and draws the steel out of this folk.
And I have often declared that the time will come everything that exists in
Germany in men will stand in my camp. And what does not stand in my camp, is
then not worth anything anyway. I have characterized this as the process of the
formation of the historical minority. And it has come exactly so. Over the
course of 13 years, a sum of personal energies has come together in the
framework of the National Socialist party, beginning with the smallest block
and cell leader up to the town leader, to the county leader, to the provincial
leader, to the Reich regents, to the Reich leaders; in all areas, a huge
selection has taken place. Countless hundreds of thousands of energies have
been mobilized and stand today at the important posts. If perhaps you today no
longer grasp this so in detail, then I would only ask you for one thing: Look
at any national event, let us say from the year 1903, 1905, 1908 or 1910 or
1912, and look at a similar event today; let us say, back then, the unveiling
of a monument, a national monument to a national hero, let us say Bismarck or,
let us say, a ship launching. The first impression: A field of top-hats, only
top-hats, no folk at all, only top-hats. And today: only folk and no top-hats.
That is the difference!
If
I speak to you today, then, my dear old party comrades, you will say: Our old
revolutionary leader! - pardon me - your chief of state! And now do not forget
how different this would look, if the chief of state speaks. How they would of
looked, for all I care, 20 years ago or still 15 years ago. Look at the picture
today. Today we really have the German folk. And in its leadership and at its
top stand leaders everywhere from the German folk, without regard for their
origin. It is really a huge sum of manly energy and determination, which today
leads the German nation. That is worth something, if a nation is so thoroughly
organized that at every position somewhere one stands again who has grown from
the folk itself and hence must work at this post due to energy, not due to his
name or his birth.
And
now, however, comes the final thing: We also have a different folk. This folk
has now pulled itself up. It has found itself. It was regained its
self-confidence, and indeed to a degree like never before. I know very
precisely that nothing is impossible in this world. It knows its history. What
are all our decisions compared to the decisions of the great heroes of our
past! We know, however, that we are not weaker than they, rather, quite the
opposite, that we can measure ourselves against them with success. The German
folk has gone through a school such as perhaps, aside from Italy, no other folk
in Western Europe possesses, a school of political education, of enlightenment.
This folk is thoroughly organized. There exists today among these 23 million
employed nobody who is not somewhere in an organization, who is not somehow
included.
If
today such an English top-hot wearer comes here and wants to make propaganda -
propaganda in our folk? Totally different people have already tried that, and
they got nowhere at all against us. All these expressions, which Mr.
Chamberlain wastes, he can perhaps use for his own folk. Among us, it is
totally ineffective. We know the gentlemen. We know, above all, their advisors.
We know them very precisely, they were in part, after all, here among us eight
years ago. We hear that, we hear that from the dialect of their pronunciation.
They speak, namely, just as funny German as they speak funny English. We once
finished these people in our midst, when they had power in Germany. Today they
have no power here, other than just the power of their voice. And this voice,
it sounds very bad in Germany. The German folk has an aversion toward these
voices, toward the whole jargon. It does not want to hear these voices at all.
And if it first sees the bearers of these voices, then the German folk has
already had enough. What these people then say, is in itself totally
indifferent. No person in the folk German believes one word of it anymore.
Every German knows that they lie like they print and print like they lie.
No,
the German folk has totally changed today. There are no longer any Bethmann
Hollwegs in the leadership. But there are also no longer any Spartacus gangs in
the folk. Both have ceased. A new folk has come, and this folk will carry out
the fight that one has now forced upon it. And I am determined to carry out
this fight. There will perhaps be many a person who now says: If one still had
a few more years time. - That is it simply. It is better, if the fight is
nonetheless unavoidable, the gentlemen have finally now begun it. And
furthermore, in the long run, it is intolerable that a folk can go tell another
one, which is 80 million people strong: We do not want you to do this or that,
and we do not want... If we decide to, then we will stop your imports, then we
will made a blockade, and then you cannot get anything anymore, then you must
starve.
We
will not tolerate that, and this regime will now break! This organized terror
by a vile world plutocrat clique, we will eliminate it - one way or another! We
have routed these inter-national finance hyenas in Germany, we will not let the
law of life be dictated to us from the outside. The German folk has the same
right to life as any other folk. And we simply will not tolerate it that here a
few people can come and at every opportunity simply dictate to another folk the
measure of life. We are determined to therefore now wage this fight for so long
until this terror has been broken. And just as we have broken it internally, we
will also break it externally.
That
I have no respect for these people, this lies based on a few facts: First.
Insofar as they were previously among us, you will understand that I do not
need to have any respect at all for them. Why do I need to have respect for
people who previously had power in Germany, who opposed me as totally unknown,
nameless and powerless person, and who, after 13 years, had to clear the field
- why should I have respect for these people? And externally it is no different.
I myself faced the people as soldier for four years. You will not convince me
that they are better than we. Yes, back then they opposed us with a gigantic
superior force. Today they no longer have this superior force. In terms of
weapons as well, they no longer have this superiority. And that I have
furthermore now used the time, that, my old party comrades, you will readily
believe me. For however one may reproach me, one thing nobody can accuse me of:
that I have ever in my life been lazy or perhaps for half a year did nothing,
rather folded my hands on my lap. I have worked in the last five months as much
as a human being can work. And this was also relatively easy, for one merely
needs to let run what we had prepared to run, and that runs now! And indeed
thoroughly!
The
German folk stands today in a better condition militarily than it ever stood in
its history. Trust in the leadership, however, we can all possess that. The
military leadership as well stands at the height of the time and at the height
of the tasks. The others must first prove everything that we have already
proven.
Furthermore,
I now believe one thing: There is a Lord. The Lord creates the folks. He
fundamentally gives all folks the same right. We Germans acted very badly in
history 20, 22, 23 years ago. A revolution came, and we were then defeated. And
then began our folk’s resurrection in immense work. And in this whole time,
Providence has now again blessed our work. The braver we were, the more so did
the blessing of Providence come as well. And in the last six years as well,
Providence has always accompanied us. For believe me, one person calls it luck,
the other something else, but without this ultimate agreement, one cannot
perform great works, after all. And just a few months ago, after all, I again
personally as well felt in the deepest sense the governing of a Providence,
which accompanies people and puts tasks to them. We deserve these tasks. What
we want, is not the suppression of other folks. It is our freedom, our
security, the security of our living space, ft is the security of the life of
our folk itself. We fought for this. Providence has previously blessed this
struggle, blessed it a thousand-fold. Would it have done that, if it were its
intention to now suddenly let this struggle turn to our disfavor? I believe
here in a higher and in an eternal justice. It is imparted to whomever proves
himself worthy of this justice. That was my faith, with which I first appeared
here 20 years ago, back then a totally nameless person, as an unknown. I
believed then that it cannot be that my folk is destined to perish, that cannot
be. It will perish, if no men are found who save this folk. It must perish, if
there is nobody who has faith in this folk. Then it must perish. But if
somebody once affirms this folk with devout heart and works for it and risks
everything for this folk, then it cannot be that Providence lets this folk
perish.
That
is how I began this struggle back then as a totally un-known, little German
soldier, and at the end of this struggle then stood January 30,1933. The little
soldier became the first folk chancellor of the German Reich. And a year later,
then I became the leader of the whole nation.
And
now I have again struggled for seven years with the same faith: it cannot be
that my folk is destined to this fate, to be the slave to others, to be the
slave to these English or these French. It cannot be! And today as well I have
this faith, and with even more right than earlier, for more than the miraculous
has Providence done for us since then. And I can only ask you all: Accept this
faith very fully as old National Socialists. It cannot be different, we must
triumph and hence we also will triumph! And if the enemy around us threatens so
and pushes so, it is no worse than it once was. Our ancestors also had to
endure that so often. Then we must really wrestle our way to a great
affirmation of a mighty German: “And if the world were full of devils, we will
nonetheless succeed!”
No comments:
Post a Comment