Tuesday 9 February 2021

Adolf Hitler – speech for the 21-th anniversary of the N.S.D.A.P. in the Hofbrauhaus, Munich – 24.02.1941

 

Party comrades!

 

National Socialists!

 

For us, February 24th is always a day of moved memory. And rightly so! For on this day, the movement began from this hall the amazing triumphant march that led it to the top of the Reich and hence made it the shaper of German fate.

 

For me as well, this day means very much. It is, I believe, very rare that a politician, 21 years after his first big public appearance, can step before the same following in order to repeat the same program as on the first day, that a man may preach the same thing for 21 years and also achieve it, without even just once having to distance himself from his earlier program.

 

When we assembled in the year 1920 in this hall, the question arose among many: “Oh, already another new party again. Why? Don’t we have enough parties?” - If the new movement had really not wanted to be anything else than a continuation and multiplication of the old parties, then this objection would have been rightly raised, for there were more than enough parties back then, after all. But it was indeed something else than all party foundations back then. There arose a movement that for the first time declared from the start that it did not intend to represent the interests of specific individual folk strata. Not a representation of bourgeois or proletarian interests, not a representation of countryside or city, not a representative of Catholic, but also not of Protestant concerns, not a representation of individual provinces, rather a movement that, for the first time, put at the center point of all its thoughts the term “German folk”. It was also not a class party insofar as it supported neither the right nor the left side, into which one tried to divide the nation back then, rather the start had an eye on only one goal: the German folk in its totality.

 

Thus began a heroic struggle, which from the start had to bring almost everything else against the movement and also did bring it against it. But in this goal laid the decisive thing, and that I can stand before you again today after 21 years, is owed only to this goal.

 

To this clear, distinct goal, which made the movement not the servant of individual, clearly delineated interests, rather elevated it beyond that to a single task, to serve the German folk as a whole and to protect its interests over all momentary divisions.

 

We stood back then in the middle of a great collapse. Versailles burdened all of us, and it was obvious that everywhere people set out with a heavy heart to seek a path that could lead out of this nameless misfortune.

 

The causes for this collapse were viewed differently. Without a doubt, the gravest political mistakes had been made - not, say, only in the years of the war, rather already many years earlier. One saw the storm coming. One saw certain agitators in the world - and they are the same ones who today again take care of the business of mobilizing all of Europe against Germany. Although favorable opportunities had already offered themselves to confront these agitators, and indeed confront them in time, the Reich leaderships back then failed here politically. Since the beginning of the war a well, the political leadership, internally and externally, was as clumsy as imaginable, psychologically thoroughly deficient. Only in one area may one not reproach it: it did not want the war!

 

Quite the opposite - for if it had wanted a war, then it would have certainly prepared itself for it differently and chosen a more favorable point in time. No, its greatest crime, if one may designate a mistake so, was that it did not itself find the decisive hour and hence act at a more favorable time, even though it knew that the war was unavoidable.

 

Military mistakes were also made, many military mistakes, but nonetheless, the fact remains: For over four years, the German soldier as such defied the enemy undefeated! A heroic epic of unique nature played out in these four years.

 

Quite regardless how great our victories may be today and how great the victories will be in the future - the German folk will always look back with reverent emotion and deep feeling at this great time of the World War, when it, isolated and abandoned by the whole world, fought a heroic battle against a tremendously superior force in number, against a mighty superiority of material, and nonetheless held firm - until a collapse set in that was caused not by the front, rather came from the decay of the homeland.

 

We thereby come to the actual and most decisive reason, to the real cause of the collapse back then. The German folk lived for decades already in an inner decaying that was taking place. There were two worlds, into which the nation fell apart back then. We old National Socialists are only all too aware of them even today, for we struggled and fought with these worlds. We stood between them, and our movement gradually formed itself out of them.

 

You still remember, my old party comrades, the picture of political life back then, still remember all the posters of two great concepts that fought with each other: bourgeoisie on the one side, proletariat on the other, nationalism here, socialism there - between both a chasm, of which one claimed that it could never be bridged over. The bourgeois nationalist concept was simply just bourgeois, the socialist one was only Marxist. The bourgeois ideal was socially limited, the Marxist one internationally unlimited. Basically, however, both movements had already become sterile.

 

At the time when I appeared here for the first time, no reasonable person at all could reckon that a clear victory would come here. And that, after all, was the decisive thing. If the nation was not supposed to definitively collapse, then one side had to emerge as 100% victor from this struggle, if it was indeed unavoidable. But that was impossible already back then, for the movements themselves already began to dissolve and splinter. Their elan had long since been lost. The bourgeois splint into countless parties, clubs, small groups, small associations, behind them the representations of city and countryside, of homeowners and property etc. - and on the other side, the Marxist orientations likewise splintering ever more, majority socialists, independent socialists, communists, radical communists, communist workers party, trade-union movement etc.. Who still remembers all these groups, which back then fought with each other? Every poster was a declaration of war, not only against the opposing world, rather often also against the own.

 

Both these camps, which confronted each other back then, in the long-run had to lead to the total dissolution of our folk body in the interior and thereby naturally to the consumption of all German folk energy.

 

Quite regardless whether domestic policy or foreign policy, whether economic or power political questions were to be decided: None of the great tasks of the time could be solved without the whole and concentrated employment of the nation’s energy.

 

Before our eyes stood Versailles back then. When I appeared here in this hall for the first time, my whole political thinking was filled with the obligation to protest against this most shameful subjugation of all times and to summon the nation for the fight against it. In terms of foreign policy, this dictate meant the total defenseless and disenfranchisement of the German nation.

 

Precisely this foreign policy situation compelled a clear decision. The shame dictate was intended to enslave the German nation for time eternal. One had set no time limit to this slave work, rather one said from the start: “We do not want to fix what you must pay, because we ourselves do not yet know at all what you can pay. We hence want to set that anew from time to time again and again; you just obligate yourselves from the start that you will pay everything that we demand.” - The German governments back then also did that, too! The fulfillment of this obligation had to make Germany perish for time eternal. And when a Frenchman states that this actually had to be the goal, to eliminate 20 million Germans - then that was in no way fantasy! The time was actually calculated at which the German nation would number twenty or thirty million fewer.

 

This disastrous enslavement, even seen purely economically, confronted the German nation, now divided into two great army camps. Both had totally different views, but both hoped in internationalism. Some more of intellectual manner, as it corresponded to them, they said: “We believe in the world conscience, in world justice: we believe in the League of Nations in Geneva.” The others were somewhat more proletarian and said: “We believe in international solidarity:” - and similar such things. But all believed in something that laid outside the own folk. A very comfortable method to save oneself, in that one hopes that others come in order to help one!

 

Conversely, the movement represented the realization that, basically, can be summarized in one single sentence: “God helps those who help themselves!” That is not only a very pious, rather also a very just statement, because, after all, one cannot presume that the dear Lord exists to help human beings who are too cowardly or too lazy to help themselves, that hence the dear Lord is a kind of weakness substitute for mankind. He does not exist for that. He has in all ages only blessed the one who was ready to defend himself.

 

But what is to be expected from the others, we have experienced that, after all. An American president stands up and gives us a solemn oath that we should get this and this and this, if we would lay down our arms. The weapons were laid down and the oath was broken and forgotten. The gentlemen became very surly, if one reminded them of it. And as often as democratic Germany back then asked and whined - it did not get its relief - no talk at all of equal rights!

 

I began my fight with the political fight against Versailles precisely in this city. You all know, my party comrades, how often I spoke against this treaty. I studied this treaty like hardly a second person. I also did not forget this treaty, have not forgotten it to this day! The treaty could not be eliminated through an act of humility or subjugation, rather through self-reflection, through the strength of the German nation.

 

The period of the difficult fighting back then invariably brought along with it a selection of the leadership. If I today step before the nation and see the guard of those men who stand around me, then this is indeed a collection of real men - in Bavaria, one would say, manly images -, who represent something. If, on the other hand, I look at the cabinets of my opponents, then I can only say: not capable of properly leading a block with me.

 

This difficult time has created a selection of first-class men, with whom one naturally also often had one’s worries - that is quite clear. Men who are worth something are knotty and often also thorny, and in normal times, one must often take care that these thorns stand next to each other - and not against each other. But at the moment at which dangers come, this is a guard of determined human beings. This selection, which the war brings with it for the soldier, which lets the real leaders put in an appearance, only the struggle lets this selection emerge in political life as well. That was the result of this slow development, of this eternal struggle against obstacles, that we have gradually obtained a leadership with which one can today dare anything. If, conversely, I look at the other world, then I must say: it has simply slept through this miracle. Even today, it does not want to see it. They do not want to see what we are, and do not want to see what they have remained, they run around like many jurists with blindfolded eyes. They reject, above all, what they do not like.

 

They do not comprehend that in Europe two revolutions have created something mighty and new. For we know that, parallel to our revolution, still a second one had passed, in which the assumption of power came much sooner that among us, the Fascist one, that this revolution as well led to the same results, and that there exists between both our revolutions an absolute identity not only in goal, rather also in path and, beyond that, a friendship that is more than a merely practical alliance. This, too, our opponents still do not grasp, that if I once view a man as my friend, I then stand by this man and do not conduct business with this stance.

 

For I am not a democrat, and I am hence also not a swindler. I am also not a war profiteer, rather I a man who wishes that, after my death, one will at least do me the justice that my whole life struggle served only one single great ideal. I hence wish to show no weakness in this area as well. Hence there is no doubt at all that the bound that ties together bother revolutions, and especially the bond, which ties both men, is an indissoluble one, and that, if things go better for the one and worse for the other or conversely, then the other will always stand by him. Furthermore, however, it is the common enemy, whom we will beat!

 

There was a time, when this Fascist Italy, which wages the same struggle as we, which was jailed just like us and which lives in the same overcrowding as we and was previously al-lowed life claim just as little as we, when this Fascist Italy tied up for us strong enemy forces. Numerous British ships are in the Mediterranean, numerous British planes have been held down in the African colonies, and numerous ground forces are tied up there. This was very good for us. For I have already recently said: our tight at sea can begin only now, after all. The reason lies therein that we initially wanted to school new crews with our U-boats, which are now coming. That they now start to come, one should not doubt that. I received just two hours ago the news from the Supreme Commander of the Navy that the reports have just come in from the naval forces and U-boats, that they have again sank 215,000 tons. Of this, the U-boats alone 190,000, and among that a single convoy, which was destroyed yesterday, with 125,000 tons. But from March and April onward, the gentlemen will have to get ready for totally different things. And then they will see already whether we have slept through the winter again or have made use of the time. In these long months previously, where we had to fight with so few boats, Italy tied up large enemy forces. Now it can all be the same to us, whether our Stukas get hold of English ships in the North Sea or in the Mediterranean. In each case, it is the same thing. The one thing is certain: Wherever Britain touches the continent, we will immediately confront it, and wherever British ships cruise, our U-boats and airplanes will be employed against them until the hour of decision comes.

 

So a revolution similar as in Germany has taken place only in Italy, which, in the final analysis, leads, must lead and has led, to the new construction of a folk community. Even back then, we had to be patience for long years, and if my opponents now believe they can frighten me with time, then I can only say: I have learned to wait, but during the time of waiting I have never been lazy. We had to wait from 1923 for ten years, after all, until we finally came to power. But in these ten years - you know this, my party comrades - we did a lot of work. What did we create, what did we set up! The movement that assembled in the year 1933 was a different one than that of the year 1923. We used the time. Hence I am not frightened by such threats. Before us never stood, say, before the goal: “By March Ist or June 15th or September 7th, this and that must be done.” Only the journalists of our opponents know that. They previously already knew this as well.

 

They said: “If the National Socialists do not come to power by October 1929, they are lost.” We were not lost! - They said: “If the National Socialists do not come to power now after the September 1930 election, National Socialism is finished.” It was not finished, even though we had not come to power! - And they said then in 1932: “Now National Socialism is dead. The Führer has rejected joining the government. He does not want responsibility. He is too cowardly for it. We have always that it, we knew it, the man shirks responsibility.” This then is what these clever geniuses, who now sit in England - they are no longer among us, after all - knew quite well back then. - Then they said: “August 13th is the turning point. National Socialism is finished.” August 14th came, and National Socialism was not finished. - A few months later they had to set a new date. And then January 30, 1933 finally came. And then they immediately said: “Now they have made a mistake. Now they have taken power. In six weeks, now they are finished, three months, at most three months. Then they are finished.” The six weeks and the three months have passed, and we were not finished!

 

And so they have set ever new dates, and in the war they now do the exact same thing! And why not? They are the same people, after all. They are the same prophets, the same political diving-rod carriers, who already among us predicted the future so wonderfully and who are now as auxiliary forces employed in the English propaganda ministry and in the English Foreign Office. They always know quite precisely on what date the Germans are finished!

 

We have already experienced this a couple times. You all remember, what one said. I only have to refer to the famous statement of a great British statesman, whom you have seen face to face in Munich, Mr. Chamberlain, who a few days before April 9th of the previous year still declared: “Thank God, he has missed the bus.” And I remind you of another man - it was the English Supreme Commander-, who said: “Yes, a few months ago, I was afraid, now I am no longer afraid. They have missed the time, and furthermore: they have nothing but young generals. That is their mistake and that is their misfortune. Indeed, their whole leadership...But, above all, they have missed the time, now it is past.” A few weeks later, this general took his leave. Probably he himself was also still too young.

 

And today they do the exact same thing. They always set dates. In autumn, they declared: “If no landing comes now, then everything is in order. In spring 1941, England will carry the offensive to the continent. I continually wait for the British offensive. They have moved their offensive elsewhere, and we must now, unfortunately, chase after them to where we find them. But we will find them, wherever they may go. But we will also strike them where the blow will be the most devastating for them!

 

21 years of the movement’s constant struggle have now passed. After 13 long years, we came to power. Since then, we experience these years of preparation toward the outside and a huge work in the interior. You know, in the process, it is exactly the same as it was with the party. We demanded nothing from the world other than it give us the same rights, just like we demanded the same rights in the interior. We once demanded free right of assembly, such as the others also possessed, we demanded freedom of speech, we demanded the same rights as parliamentarian party as the others as well. One denied it to us, one persecuted us with terror. Nonetheless, we built up our organization and we finally succeeded!

 

I stepped before the world exactly so. I said: I want nothing than what the others also have. I am ready to disarm to the last. I made ever new proposals, one ridiculed and rejected us, just like in the interior! I wanted to achieve everything along the path of negotiation, for there can be nothing better, after all, then to achieve along the path of negotiation the goals for a folk; for it costs less and spares, above all, blood. Who will be so insane to want to take by force something that he gets with reason? But there are things that must remain for Germany, because we want to live and because the others do not possess the right to curtail this life, because it is impossible that a nation, which in itself already possesses 38 million square kilometers, takes away from another 2 ½ million square kilometers more, and because it is also unbearable for us to be constantly domineered over by these folks and, for example, let ourselves be told what economic policy we should practice.

 

We practice an economic policy that benefits the German folk. I also do not tell the others what to do. If others want to sit on sacks of gold, they should do it. But if one says: “You do it, too” - I take care not to sell German work energy for dead gold. I buy products of life for German work energy. And the result of our economics policy speaks for us and not for the gold standard people! For we, the poor, have gotten rid of the unemployed, because we no longer pay homage to this insanity, because we view our whole economic life only as a production problem and no longer as a capitalist one. However, we have also put the nation’s organized strength behind our economy, the discipline of the whole folk. We have made it clear to the nation that it is an insanity to fight economic wars between individual strata in the interior and in the process to perish together. Certainly, a common social basic orientation was again necessary for it. Today, one can no longer build states on a capitalist foundation. In the long run, the folks become alive, and if people believe that they can prevent the awakening of the folks through wars - quite the opposite -, they will hasten it! These states will sink into economic catastrophes, which will destroy the foundations of their own former finance policy. From this war, not the gold standard will emerge as victor, rather the national economies will triumph! These national economics will among themselves engage in the trade necessary for them. Whether that suits a few gold standard bankers in the world or not, is all the same.

 

And if a few of these gold standard bankers now declare: “We will not tolerate it that you engage in trade with this or that land”, that is none of their business, and the folks will in the future as well not permit themselves to accept from a few bankers the rules for their trade policy! They will engage in the trade policy that is right for them.

 

We can look into the future with confidence in this area. Germany is a tremendous economic factor, not only as manufacturer, rather also as consumer. We have a large market; but we do not only seek markets, rather we are also the biggest buyer there, while the western world, on the hand, wants to live from its empires and, on the other hand, still wants to export from its empires. But that is impossible, for the folks cannot engage in one-sided businesses in the long-run.

 

They want to not only buy, rather they must also sell. But they cannot do that to the empires. The folks will hence trade with us, regardless whether or not some bankers like that. We hence do not make our economic policies according to the views or wishes of the bankers in New York or London, rather Germany’s economic policy is made exclusively according to the interests of the German folk! I am a fanatical socialist here, who always sees only the overall interests of his folk before his eyes. I am not the servant of some international banking consortiums, I am not obligated to some capitalist group. I come from the German folk; my movement, our movement is a German folk movement, and we are hence obligated solely to this German folk. Only its interests are decisive for our economic policy! We will never deviate from that.

 

If now the other world says: “Hence war then!” - then I can only say: “Fine! I do not want it, but even the most pious man cannot live in peace, if the evil neighbor does not like it.” But I also do not belong to those who then see such a war coming and then begin to whine. I have said and done what I could, made proposals and ever new proposals; to England as well as to France. One always just rejected them with mockery and scorn and laughed at them. But when I saw that the other side wants the conflict, I did what I as National Socialist and old fighter did earlier in the party as well: I immediately built myself a defense instrument. As just as I earlier represented the view in the party: it is not about us always being just strong enough in order to withstand the blows of the other, rather it is necessary that we are strong enough to immediately retaliate the blows. So I likewise so built up the military instrument of state policy, the German Wehrmacht, that, if it is not otherwise possible, it is able to strike blows!

 

An American general stated a few days ago before the investigation committee of the American House of Representatives that Churchill had already in 1936 assured him: “Germany is getting too strong for us, it must be destroyed, and I will do everything in order to bring about this annihilation.”

 

A little later, I warned publicly for the first time against this man and his activity. I did not want to prematurely upset the nation and bury a perhaps still possible agreement. But then, at the same moment at which I noticed that in England a certain clique - further incited by Jewry, which naturally stands behind it everywhere as a pair of bellows - agitated and drove for war firmly determined, I made all the preparations in order to arm the nation. And you, my old party comrades, also know that is not just talk, if I once say such a thing, rather that I also act accordingly. We have worked gigantically! The armament that has been created among us in these years, is really the proudest thing that the world has ever seen!

 

If now another world says: “We are doing that now as well!”, then I can only say: “Do it, I have already done it!” Above all, however: “Don’t tell my any fairy-tales. I am an expert, specialist in armament matters.” I know quite well what one can make out of steel and what out of aluminum. I know what performance one can extract from a man and what not. Your fairytales do not impress me at all! I have employed the energy of the German nation for our armament in time, and I am determined, if necessary, to still employ half of Europe for it, and I also do this. I am prepared for any coming conflict and I hence look forward to it with calm. May the others hence look forward to it with the same calm. In the process, I build upon the best Wehrmacht in the world, upon the best Wehrmacht, above all, which the German nation has also ever possessed. It is numerically strong, in terms of weapons armed to the maximum, in terms of leadership in a better condition than ever before. We have a young officer corps, which for the greatest part is not only war-tested, rather, I may probably say, covered in glory. Wherever we look, we see today a guard of select men into whose hands German soldiers are given. And these men again lead soldiers who are the best trained in the world, with the best weapons that exist on earth at this time. And behind these soldiers and their leadership stands the German nation, the whole German folk. And in the middle of this folk and as its core this National Socialist movement, which 21 years ago took its start from this hall here, this movement, which is itself again one of the best organizations, such as the other democratic lands do not possess, and which finds its counterpart only in Fascism.

 

Folk and Wehrmacht, party and state - they are today an indissoluble union. No power in the world can still loosen this structure. And only fools can imagine that, say, the year 1918 could repeat itself. We once became acquainted with that among our democrats in the interior. They, too, always had their hopes, hopes in inner fracture, dissolution and civil war. Today it is again exactly the same. They say: “In six weeks, there will be revolution in Germany!” They do not know who actually wants to make the revolution. The revolutionaries, namely, are not among us, the “revolutionaries” - Thomas Mann and similar such people - are in England. Many have already again departed England for America, for England as well is for them too close to the coming operation area of their “revolution”. So they move their headquarters far away from their future battlefield. But they still claim that the revolution will come. Whoever makes it - I do not know how it is made - I also do not know; I know only one thing: that in Germany there can be at most a few fools who think about revolution, but they all sit behind lock and key.

 

Then they say: “Winter, ‘General Winter’ comes and will beat down Germany!” Oh, the German folk is pretty secure for the winter. We have withstood in German history, I do not know how many thousands, tens of thousands, of winters. We will withstand this winter as well! Then they declare: “Hunger will come.” We have prepared there. We know the humanitarian inventions of our American opponents. We have prepared ourselves. I believe that hunger will arrive there sooner than to us. Then they say again: “Time it itself is in effect.” But time only helps the one who works. And nobody works more diligently than we, I can assure these people of this.

 

All these vague hopes, which they build up for themselves, are ridiculous and downright childish. Basically, I want to say one more thing to it: The German folk has a development of many thousands of years behind it. We know our history through two thousand years. A German Reich existed for a thousand years, and indeed a Reich that really encompassed only Germans. In these periods, our folk has withstood the most unprecedented blows of fate. It will also withstand everything that the present or the future brings it. Yes, even much better, because, namely, I think that a German folk has probably always existed and for over a thousand years a German Reich, but German unity never existed, that the thing never existed that we possess today, a closed organization of our folk, and that the leadership also did not always exist that the German folk possesses today.

 

And there, I can say with all modesty one more thing: I have already engaged many democratic opponents. Previously, I have always emerged from this struggle as victor. I believe that this struggle as well does not take place under different conditions, this means, the relationship - the order of magnitude is the same as before. At any rate, I am grateful to Providence that, since this struggle was unavoidable, it had it break out still in my lifetime and at a time at which I am still fresh and feel robust. And precisely now, I feel so fresh again! Spring comes, the spring that we all welcome. The time comes again in which one can measure the forces; and I know that, despite all insight into the terrible severity of the struggle, at this moment, millions of German soldiers think exactly the same.

 

We now have a year of inconceivable successes behind us, also great sacrifices, even if not when seen overall, but nonetheless individually. But we know that these successes have not been given to us as a gift, rather that countless German men first risked their lives at the front in highest valor and now as well constantly risk them. What so many men in our regiments perform, in our panzers, in our airplanes, on our U-boats, on our ships and everywhere else in our formations, is something unique. Never before did better and never before did braver soldiers exist! We National Socialists are especially proud of them, for we ourselves, after all, are nothing else than former old front party, the front party of the World War. From there, we once returned home, wrath in heart, filled with rage and at the same time burdened with sorrow, feeling the shame that one had inflicted upon our brave folk back then. We who had participated in this whole struggle of the World War, after all, know best what our soldiers perform today; I can say to all of you from this place only the one thing: Our hearts, the hearts of all old National Socialists are with you; they are the hearts of nothing but fighters. How many are there among us who themselves returned shot up from the great war. How many who were wounded, how many who otherwise participated in it. They have all pursued with burning heart the stages that our armies went through in this year. Every single town - it said so much to them. It was for them a tremendous satisfaction to now see realized that for which they back then, at terrible disadvantage, sacrificed blood and more blood, and which they unfortunately could not achieve. They are so proud of their sons today, of the young soldiers of the Third Reich. Nobody can tell them this better than the party of these old fighters, who themselves once returned home from the great war, did not want to endure the shame of the homeland and immediately began a new war in the interior - the war against the destroyers of our fatherland and of our homeland.

 

So we National Socialists now stand before a new year of struggle. We all know that it will bring great decisions. We look into the future with unshakeable confidence. We have gone through the hardest school that human beings can be allotted. We know that this immense sacrifice cannot have been in vain, for we believe here, too, in justice. What all we have done in this year, we have endeavored, we have wracked ourselves, always only one goal in sight: our folk!

 

How have the millions given themselves for it. How have the hundreds and the thousands fallen for it. Providence did not have us walk this wonderful path in vain. On the day of the founding of this movement, I pronounced a realization: Our folk once won tremendous victories, and it then became unthankful and disunited, it sinned against itself, and the punishment of Providence struck it for it. We were rightly struck. If a folk forgets itself so much as the German one did back then, if it suddenly believes itself rid of all honor and all loyalty, then Providence can inflict nothing else on it than such a hard, bitter lesson.

 

But back then as well, we were already convinced that our folk, if it found its way back to itself, will again become industrious and honorable, if the individual German again stands up, above all, for his folk and not for himself, puts common interests above his personal interests, if this whole folk again strives for a great ideal and is ready to employ itself for it, then the hour will one day come, when the Lord declares this test over.

 

If then fate once again summons us to the battlefield, then its blessing will only be with those who have earned the blessing in decades of hard work. And I can say this: If I view myself and my opponents before history, then I am not fearful of the weighing of our orientations. Who are they then, these egoists! Each of them stands up only for the interests of his stratum, behind them all stands either the Jew or his own moneybag. They are nothing but profiteers, they live from the profit of this war. There can be no blessing there! I confront these people as nothing else than as a simple fighter for my German folk.

 

I am of the conviction that just as this struggle has previously been blessed by Providence, it will be blessed in the future as well. For when I entered this hall 21 years ago for the first time, I was a nameless and unknown person. I had nothing behind me other than my own faith. In these 21 years, a new world has been created! The path from now into the future will be easier than the path from February 24, 1920 to today here to this place has been. I now look into this future with fanatical confidence. The whole nation has now assembled. And I know: At the moment when the command resounds: “Keep step!”, Germany will march!

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