My German folk comrades!
If I today speak to you again after long months, then it does not happen in order to, say, give an accounting to one of those statesmen who recently was surprised that I had remained silent for so long. Posterity will one day be able to weigh and determine what has more weight in these three and a half months: the speeches of Mr. Churchill or my actions. I have come here today in order to, as always, provide a short introduction to the Winter Aid Work. This time, coming was especially hard for me, because in these hours, when I can here, on our eastern front, a mighty event is again taking place in the execution of initiated operations. For 48 hours, an operation of gigantic magnitude has again been underway. It will help to crush the opponent of the east.
In now speak to you in the name of the millions who are fighting at this moment in order to appeal to you, German homeland, to take upon yourself, in addition to all the other sacrifices, in this year as well, the additional sacrifice of the Winter Aid Work.
Since June 22, a struggle now rages of truly world decisive significance. Only posterity will one day be able to clearly recognize the extent and depth of this event. It will one day in its determinations come to the conclusion that a new era thereby began.
This fight as well was not wanted by me. Since in January 1933 Providence entrusted to me the leadership and guiding of the Reich’s fate, I had one goal before my eyes, which was essentially sketched in the program of our National Socialist party. I have never become untrue to this goal and have never given up my program. I endeavored back then to bring about a folk’s reconstruction, which, after a war lost through its own fault, had behind it the deepest fall in its history. Alone already a huge task. In the process, I began this task at the moment when others had already either failed in it or no longer believed at all in the possibility of fulfillment of such a program. What we then accomplished in these years in peaceful construction, is unique. For me and my coworkers, it is often a downright insult to have to deal with those democrats zeros, who are not in the position at all to look back on one single truly great life achievement.
I and we all would not have needed this war in order to immortalize our names. The works of peace would have taken care of that, and indeed sufficiently. And, furthermore, we had not come to the end of our creations, rather we stood perhaps in many areas just at the beginning. We had succeeded in the inner restoration of our Reich under difficult circumstances. For still, in Germany, 140 people per square kilometer must be fed. The other world has it easier here. And, nonetheless, we solved our problems, and the other world, for the large part, has failed in these problems. There were the following principles:
First. The internal consolidation of the German nation.
Second. The achievement of equal rights externally and third. The unification of the German folk and hence the restoration of a nature-given condition, which through the centuries had been interrupted only artificially.
Therefore, my party comrades and my folk comrades, our external program was also set from the start, hence the external measures as well determined from the start. In no way does this mean that we ever strove for a war. But something was determined: we under no circumstances wanted to renounce the restoration of German freedom and hence one of the prerequisites for the German resurrection.
From this viewpoint, I presented very many proposals to the world. I do not need to repeat them here, the daily publicist activity of my coworkers takes care of that, how many peace offers I made to this world, disarmament proposals, proposals for the peaceful achievement of reasonable economic new orders. All that was rejected, and indeed, essentially rejected by those who obviously could not hope to fulfill their own tasks through peaceful work or, better, to be able to keep their own regime at the helm. Nonetheless, we gradually managed, in years of peaceful work, to carry out not only the internal great reform works, rather also to initiate the unification of the German nation, to create the Greater German Reich, to thereby again lead millions of German folk comrades back into their own homeland and to thereby again put the weight of their number at the disposal of the German folk as power-political weight. In this period, I managed to recruit a number of allies - at the top, Italy, with whose statesman a personal, close and intimate friendship ties me. Our relations become ever better with Japan as well. In Europe, we furthermore had a series of folks that faced us with an ever constant sympathy and friendship; above all here, Hungary, some Nordic states. Others were added to these folks, unfortunately, not the folk, which I have wooed the most in my life: the British one. Not that, say, the English folk in its entirety alone bears the responsibility for it, quite the opposite, there are a few people, who in their obstinate hatred, in their insanity, sabotaged such an attempt for agreement, supported by that international world enemy whom we all know: international Jewry. So it unfortunately did not succeed to bring Great Britain, above all, the English folk, into that tie with the German one for which I had always hoped.
So it just came, exactly like in 1914, the moment when the hard decision had to be made. But I also did not shrink back from it. For one thing was clear to me: If it simply could not succeed to get English friendship, then it was better that the hostility struck Germany at the moment, when I myself still stood at the Reich’s leadership. For if this English friendship was not to be won through my measures and through my willingness to oblige, then it was not to be gotten for all future, then there as nothing else left but struggle. But then I am only thankful to fate, if this struggle can be waged by me. I am hence also of the conviction that, with all these men, there is really no agreement at all. They are lunatics, fools, people who for ten years knew no other words than just these: We want a war with Germany again! - In months in which I endeavored to bring about an agreement, this Mr. Churchill always had only one cry: “I want to have a war!” - Now he has it! And all his co-agitators, who did not know how to say anything else than that it will be a charming war, who back then on September 1, 1939 reciprocally congratulated each other on this coming charming war, they will perhaps now meanwhile already think differently about this charming war. And if they should not yet know it, that this war will not be a charming affair for England, then they will in time still notice it, as surely as I stand here! These agitators managed back then to push Poland forward; but not only the agitators here in the old, rather also the agitators in the new world. They cunningly told Poland that, first, Germany was not what it pretended to be anyway and, second, that, after all, one possessed the guarantee under all circumstances to receive the necessary help. That was the time at which England had not yet begged around in the world for help for itself, rather still generously offered its help to anybody. Since then, this has already fundamentally changed, after all. Now we no longer hear, after all, that England leads a state into the war with the promise to help it, rather we now only still hear that England begs around in the world that it wants to be helped.
I made proposals back then precisely to Poland, of which I today, after events took a different course against our will, must downright say: It was Providence, almighty Providence, which prevented back then that this my offer was accepted. It probably knew why that must not be so. And today, I also know it, and we all know it: The conspiracy of democrats, Jews and Freemasons managed back then, two years ago, to plunge initially Europe into the war. Hence arms had to decide.
Since then, a struggle is taking place between truth and lie. And as always, this struggle will end victoriously for truth in the end. This means, in other words: Whatever British propaganda, whatever international Jewry as well and its democratic accomplices can put together in lies, they will change nothing in the historical facts. And the historical fact is that Englishmen do not stand in Germany, that the other states have not, say, conquered Berlin, that they have not, say, advanced toward the west or toward the east, rather the historical fact is that, for two years now, Germany has beaten one opponent after the other. I did not want that at all. Immediately after the first conflict, I extended my hand to them again. I have been a soldier myself and know how difficult it is to win victories, how much blood and misery, lamentation, deprivation and sacrifices are connected with it. I was immediately pushed back. And since, we have experienced, after all, that every peace offer from me is immediately exploited by this war agitator Churchill and his entourage in order to declare that this is the proof of our weakness, that this is the proof that we can no longer go on. I have hence given up trying this path once more. I have wrestled my way to the conviction that here only be a very clear decision, and indeed a world historical decision for the next hundred years, can be won.
Always in the endeavor to limit the extent of the war, I decided something in the year 1939 that you, my old party comrades, above all, grasp as the most difficult thing that I, I almost want to say, in human humiliation, had to undertake. Back then, I sent my minister to Moscow. It was bitterest overcoming of my emotions. But at such a moment, the feelings of a person must not decide, after all, when it is about the wellbeing of millions of others. I tried to come to an agreement here You yourselves know the best inside, how honest and sincere I then kept these obligations. Neither in our press nor in our assemblies was even just one word still written about Russia, no words about Bolshevism. Unfortunately, the other side did not uphold it from the start. The results of this agreement were a betrayal, which at first liquidated all of Europe's northeast. What it meant for us back then to have to look on silently as the small Finnish folk was strangled, you all know yourselves, after all. And what it meant for me as soldier to have to look on here, you know that as well. But I kept silent. What it meant, when finally the Baltic states were likewise overpowered, only that person can measure, who knows German history and knows that there is not a square kilometer of soil there, after all, that was not once opened up at all through German pioneer work for human culture and civilization.
Nonetheless, I kept silent on all of that. Only when, week after week, I felt more that Russia now saw the hour as come to proceed against us, when, at a moment, when we possessed barely three divisions in East Prussia, twenty-two Russian ones assembled there, when I gradually received the document that airport after airport emerged on our border, how one division after the other from the whole huge world empire was drawn up here, then I was obligated, after all, to be concerned for my part as well. For there is in history no excuse for an oversight, an excuse that, say, consists of one saying afterward: I did not notice that, or I did not believe it. - As long as I am at the top of the German Reich, I feel myself responsible for the German folk’s existence, for its present, and, as far as a human being can survey it, also for its future. I was hence compelled to slowly, for my part as well, initiate defensive measures. They were of purely defensive nature. But still, already in August and September of last year, a realization resulted: A conflict in the west with England, which, above all, would have tied up the German Luftwaffe, was no longer possible, for at my back stood a state, which already prepared to proceed against us at such a moment. But how far these preparations had been made, however, only now have we became acquainted with that in its full scope.
I wanted to clarify this whole problem once more and hence had Molotov invited to Berlin back then. He put to me the known four conditions:
First. Germany would finally have to agree that, since Russia felt itself threatened anew by Finland, Russia cold move for the liquidation of Finland.
It was the first question that was difficult for me to answer, but I could do nothing else than to refuse this consent.
The second question regarded Romania: the question whether the German guarantee would protect Romania against Russia as well. Here, too, I had to stand by my once given word. I do not regret that I did it, for I have found in Romania as well a man of honor, in General Antonescu, who, for his part as well, has blindly stood by his word.
The third question back then regarded Bulgaria. Molotov demanded that Russia receive the right to move garrisons to Bulgaria and thereby exercise a Russian guarantee over Bulgaria. What this means, we meanwhile knew sufficiently, after all, from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Here I can refer to it that such a guarantee, after all, is conditioned by the wish of the one to be guaranteed, that nothing was known to be about it, and that I would hence have to first inquire here and discuss it with my allies.
And the fourth question regarded the Dardanelles. Russia demanded strong points on the Dardanelles. If Mr. Molotov now tries to deny this, then this is not surprising. If tomorrow or the day after tomorrow he is no longer in Moscow, he will also deny that he is no longer in Moscow. He put this demand, and I rejected it. I had to reject it.
And hence it was clear to me, since the further discussion also went without result, after all, that now the greatest caution was actually in order. And I now observed Russia most carefully. Each division that we could ascertain was conscientiously entered by and dutifully responded to. Already in May, the situation had developed so far that there could no longer be any doubt that Russia had the intention at attack us at the first opportunity. And around the end of May, these instances increased so that one could no longer dismiss the idea of a fight to the death.
I still had to remain silent back then. And that became twice as hard for me. Not so hard, perhaps, toward the homeland. For, in the final analysis, it must understand that there are moments, when one cannot speak, if one does not want to put the entire nation in danger. The silence toward my soldiers became much harder for me, who now, division after division stood at the Reich’s eastern border and yet did not know was what actually going on, had no idea of what had, in reality, meanwhile changed and which nonetheless would perhaps one day have to assemble for the most difficult armed conflict of all times. And precisely for their sake, I could not speak, for if I had uttered even just one word, then this would not have changed Mr. Stalin in his decision in the slightest, but the element of surprise, which remained to me as last weapon, it would have then fallen away. And any such advance announcement, yes, any hint would have cost hundreds of thousands of our comrades their lives. I hence remained silent even at the moment, when I finally decided to now take the first step myself. For if I already once see that an opponent gradually shoulders his rifle, then I will not wait until he finally fires, rather then I am determined to instead pull the rigger myself.
It was, I may say this here today, the hardest decision of my whole previous life. For any such step opens a door behind which only secrets hide. Only posterity will know quite precisely how it went and what happened. So one can only come to terms with one’s inner conscience and then strengthen the confidence in his folk, in the self-forged weapons, and then, as I often said earlier, ask the Lord not that he helps one through the support of inactivity, rather that he gives blessing to the one who is himself ready and willing to fight, sacred and full of sacrifice, for his existence.
On the morning of June 22nd, this greatest struggle in world history set in. Since then, somewhat more than three and a half months have passed, and I may initially made a statement here: Everything has since then gone as planned. Whatever the soldier or a troop could perhaps experience in terms of surprises - the law of action has not slipped from the hands of the leadership in this whole period for one second. Quite the opposite, down to the present day, every action has gone exactly as planned just like once in Poland, then against Norway, and finally against the west and finally in the Balkans. I must state just one thing here: We have not erred in the correctness of the plans. We have also not erred in the ability, in the unique historical courage of the German soldier. We also did not err in or about the quality of our weapons. We did not err in the smooth functioning of our whole organization of the front, of its gigantic rear areas. And we also have not erred about the German homeland. We have, however, erred about one thing: We had no idea how gigantic this opponent’s preparations against Germany and Europe were and how hugely great the danger was, how razor close we this time missed the destruction of not only Germany, rather of Europe; I can pronounce this today. I pronounce this only today, because I may pronounce today that this opponent is already broken and will never again get up! A power concentrated itself here against Europe, of which, unfortunately, most had no idea and many even today possess no idea. This would have become a second Mongol storm, a new Genghis Khan. That this threat was averted, this we owe initially to the courage, the endurance, the readiness for sacrifice of our German soldiers, and then to the sacrifices of all those who have marched with us. For, for the first time, this time, something like a European awakening passed through this continent. In the north, Finland fights; a truly heroic folk! For in its broad expanses, it often stands totally alone, relying on its own strength, on its courage, on its valor and its tenacity. In the south, Romania fights. It has recovered with amazing speed from one of the most difficult state crises that can happen to a folk and a land, under the leadership of equally brave as decisive man. And we thereby also already encompass the whole breadth of this war theater, from the Arctic Sea to the Black Sea. In this framework, our German soldiers now fight and in their ranks together with them the Fins, the Italians, the Hungarians, the Romanians, Slovaks, Croats are on the march, Spaniards now move to the front, Belgians, Dutch, Danes, Norwegians, yes, even Frenchmen have entered into this great front.
The course of this unique event, insofar as it lies behind, is already now known to you overall, after all: Three German army groups. One, the task, to break open the center and to initially pave the way on the right and left. Both flank groups, the task, the one to push forward toward Leningrad and the other to occupy the Ukraine. Essentially, these first tasks have been solved.
If the opponents, in this period of mighty, world historical, unique fighting, often said: “Why is nothing happening now?” - Something always did happen. But precisely because something happened, we could not speak. If I today had to be an English Minister-President, perhaps I would also constantly talk under these circumstances, because nothing happens there. But that is the difference. Often there could be no talk simply for the reason, my folk comrades, I must say this today here before the whole German folk, not because we did not sufficiently appreciate the ongoing performance of our soldiers, rather because we could not give the opponent any knowledge, prematurely, of situations, which, given his miserable intelligence service, he often became aware of only days, yes, many times weeks, later. For I have recently already had this put into the Wehrmacht report, the German Wehrmacht is a report of the truth. If some stupid British newspaper lout now declares, this must first be confirmed, - the German Wehrmacht has previously already been thoroughly confirmed! For there is probably no doubt that we triumphed in Poland, even though the British press claimed differently. And there is also no doubt that we sit in Norway, and not the English. There is also no doubt that we have been successful in Belgium and Holland, and not the English. And there is also no doubt that Germany defeated France and not the reverse. There is also no doubt that we are finally in Greece and again not the English or New Zealanders. And they are not on Crete, rather we are there. Therefore, the German Wehrmacht report has told the truth and not the others.
And it is no different in the east. According to the English version, we have gotten one defeat after the other for three months now. But we stand a thousand kilometers beyond our border. We stand east of Smolensk, we stand before Leningard, and we stand on the Black Sea, we stand before the Crimea and the Russians do not, say, stand at the Rhine. Hence if Russia has previously continuously triumphed, then they have not, at any rate, exploited their victories, rather, after each victory, they immediately marched back a hundred or two hundred kilometers, probably in other to lure us into the depth of this space!
Furthermore, a few numbers speak of the magnitude of this fight. There are many among you, who still participated in the World War and who know what it means to take prisoners and to conquer just a few hundred kilometers forward. The number of prisoners has now grown to around 2.5 million Russians. The number of captured or destroyed, but now with us, guns, is already around 22,000. The number of destroyed or captured, hence with us, tanks amounts, now already, to over 18,000. The number of destroyed or shot down airplanes more than 14 ½ thousand. And behind there is a space that is twice as large as the German Reich was, which I received for leadership in 1933, or four times as large as England. The beeline, however, which the German soldiers have covered, is today continuously over 800 to 1,000 kilometers. That is the bee-line! And those are march kilometers, which are mean one and a half or twice as much, along a front length that is gigantic, and against an opponent, who - this must be stated here - consists not of human beings, rather of animals, of beasts. What Bolshevism can turn human beings into, we have now seen that here. We may not bring to the homeland the pictures that stand at our disposal there. It is the most horrible thing that human brains can think up; an opponent, who simultaneously fights from animalistic blood lust, on the one hand, and out of cowardice and fear of his commissars, on the other; a land that our soldiers have now become acquainted with after almost twenty-five years of Bolshevist existence. And I know only one thing: Whoever was there and was perhaps still in some corner of his heart a communist, and was supposed to be only in the most idealistic sense, he returns cured of this view; you can be convinced of that. The paradise of workers and peasants, which I have always portrayed, five or six millions soldiers will confirm it after the conclusion of this campaign. They will be the soldiers, whom I can then call. They marched over the roads of this paradise. They cannot live in the miserable huts of this paradise, they do not even go in, if it is not absolutely necessary. They have seen the establishments of this paradise. It is one single weapons factory at the cost of the living standard of these people, a weapons factory against Europe.
And against this horrible, bestial, animalistic opponent, against this opponent with this mighty armament, our soldiers have won these victories. I know no praise that could do justice to them. What they continually accomplish here in courage and valor and in exertion, in immeasurable exertion, it is unimaginable. Whether it is about our panzer divisions or motorized divisions, whether it revolves around our artillery or military engineers, whether we take our fliers, our fighters, our Stukas, our battle planes, or whether we take our navy, and I conclude in here, like always, the crews of our U-boats, whether we finally take our mountain troops in the north, or whether we name the men of our Waffen-SS, they are all the same. Above all, however, and I want to especially emphasis this here, above all stands in his accomplishments the German infantryman, the German musketeer. For, my friends, we have divisions there, which since spring have marched two and a half to three thousand kilometers on foot, which have covered a thousand and a thousand and a half and two thousand kilometers. That is easy to say. I can say, if one talks of Blitzkrieg at all, then these soldiers deserve it that one characterized their accomplishments as lightning-like. In history, they have never yet been surpassed in marching forward, at most in the running away of a few English regiments. There are only a few historical lightning-like retreats, which have surpassed these actions in speed, however, here it was not about such great distances, because one from the start always kept somewhat closer to the coast. In the process, I do not want to, say, revile the opponent, 1 only want to do the justice to the German soldier that he deserves. He has performed the unsurpassable! And with him, also all the organizations, which are today part workers, but also part soldiers. For in this mighty space, almost everybody is a soldier there today. Every railroad man is a soldier there. Every workman is a soldier. In this huge region, everybody must constantly do duty with the weapon. And it is a huge region.
And what is performed behind this front, is just as mighty as the accomplishments of the front. Over twenty-five thousand kilometers of Russian rails are again in service. Over fifteen thousand kilometers of Russian rails have been converted to German track. And do you know what this means? This means that the biggest cross-section of the German Reich of once, roughly from Stettin to the Bavarian mountains, that hence such a line, which encompasses barely a thousand kilometers, one been laid fifteen times next to each other, today already in German track in the east. What that cost in sweat and exertion, even the homeland can perhaps not so rightly measure that.
And behind all that, there are the work battalions of the Work Service, of our organizations - above all, the Organization Todt - and the organizations of our Berliner Speer. And all that is in turn cared for by others. This whole gigantic front stands in the service of our Red Cross. Health officers and health personnel and Red Cross nurses, they all devote themselves. And behind this front, a new administration already builds itself up, which will make sure that all these huge regions, if this war lasts longer, will benefit the German homeland and that of our allies. And their benefit will be a huge one, and nobody should doubt that we know how to organize them!
But if I give now you so, in just a few sentences, a picture of the unprecedented accomplishments of our soldiers, then I also want to convey the gratitude of the front to the homeland, the gratitude of our soldiers for the weapons, which the homeland has supplied, for the excellent and first-class weapons, the gratitude for the munitions, which this time, in contrast to the World War, insofar as they can just be transported, stand at disposal. We have so prepared in advance that, in the middle of this gigantic war of material, I could now cease further production in broad areas, because I know that there is no longer any opponent, whom we would not vanquish with the existing munitions quantities.
And if you often read in the newspaper about the gigantic plans of other states, what all they plan and begin to do, and if you hear here of sums of billions, then, my folk comrades, remember what I now say:
First. We also put a whole continent in the service of this struggle.
Second. We do not talk of capital, rather of work force. And then put this work force one hundred percent into this service. And third. If we do not talk about it, then this does not mean that we do nothing. I know quite precisely that the others do everything better than we. They build tanks that are invincible. They are faster than ours, they are more heavily armored than ours, they have better cannons than ours, and they need no gasoline at all. In combat, we have previously still shot them up everywhere. And that is the decisive thing. They build miracle airplanes. They are always miracle things, which they make, everything incomprehensible, also technologically incomprehensible. But they still have no machines, which surpass ours. And the machines, which among us today drive or shoot or fly, are not the machines with which we will next year drive or shoot or fly.
I believe, this will suffice for every German. Everything else, that will be taken care of by our inventors and by our German workers and also by the female German worker. For behind this front of sacrifice, of courage in the face of death and risk of life, stands, after all, also the front of the homeland, a front, which is formed by city and country. Millions of German peasants, for the large part often also replaced by oldsters or half-children or the wife, they fulfill their duty to the highest degree. Millions and millions of German workers, they produce incessantly. And it is admirable, what they perform. And above all, here, too, again the German woman, the German girl, who replace millions of men who today are at the front. We can really say, for the first time in history: a whole folk is now in the struggle, in part, at the front, in part, in the homeland.
But if I pronounce this, then there arises from this for me as old National Socialist a compelling realization. We have now become acquainted with two extremes. The one, those are the capitalist states, which with lies or with deceptions and swindles deny their folks the most natural life-rights, which keep their eye exclusively on their financial interests, which are ready to sacrifice millions of people for it. On the other side, we see the communist extreme: A state that has brought unspeakable misery upon millions and millions, and also sacrifices the happiness of others only for its doctrine.
From this, in my eyes, there can be only one obligation for all of us, namely: to strive more than ever for our national and socialist ideal. For we must be clear about one thing: When this war will one day be finished, then the German soldier will have won it, who comes from the farmsteads, from the factories etc., who in his mass really represents the mass of our folk. And the German homeland will have won it, with the millions of workers and peasants. The working people will have won it in the office, in the occupation, all these millions of people, who are active, they will have won it. And for these people, this state must then be established here, exclusively for these people. When this war will be at an end, then I will return from it as an even much more fanatical National Socialist than I was earlier. And it will be a joy for all those who are called for leadership. For in this state, after all, does not rule, like, say, in Soviet- Russia, the principle of so-called equality, rather only the principle of justice. Whoever is suited as leader, be it militarily, politically or be it economically, he is also equally valuable to us. But just as valuable must also be the one without whose cooperation any leadership would remain empty activity, only mental acrobatics. And that is the decisive thing. The German folk can today be proud. It has the best political leaders, it has the best field commanders, it has the best engineers, economic leaders, organizers, but it also has the best worker, the best peasant; it has the best folk.
And to now merge all these people into a community, was once the task that we National Socialists put to ourselves, the task, which is today even much more clear than before.
I will one day come back from this war again with my old party program, whose fulfillment is and seems to be even more important to me than perhaps on the first day.
And this realization has led me here briefly today as well in order to say this to the German folk. For it again has in the Winter Aid Work as well an opportunity to manifest the spirit of this community. What the front sacrifices, this cannot be repaid by anything at all. But still, what the homeland performs as well, must one day be able to stand before history. It must at least be so that the soldier who is at the front knows that, at home, the homeland concerns itself with any survivor and takes care of him according to the best possibility. He must know that. And this must be so, so that this homeland as well will day be named in honor next to the mighty accomplishments of the front.
I believe that it would hence not be appropriate at all to now direct another special appeal or demand to our folk comrades. Each knows what he must do in this time. Every woman and every man, they know what one rightly demands from them and what they are obligated to give. And if they cross the street just once and should be in doubt whether they should give once more or must go, then they should just cast a glance to the side, perhaps they will then encounter somebody who has sacrificed much more for Germany than they. And only then, when this whole German folk has become such a single community of sacrifice, then alone can we also expect, then we can hope, that Providence will, in the future as well, again stand by us. The Lord has never help helped a sloth. He also does not help a coward. He also helps no folk, which does not want to help itself. Here, the principle holds the most: Folk, help yourself, then the Lord will not deny you his help!
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