Speech to Officers of the National Political Course of the Armed Forces
delivered on January 16, 1937 in Berlin
Officers of the German Armed Forces!
When
earlier a politician spoke to soldiers or the other way around a soldier to
politicians, then the speaker could generally figure in advance that the
audience would be somewhat reversed, if not downright distrustful.
This
was especially so in the period of the in-between-Reich, of that most
unsoldierly time in German history. For the politician in general everything
that even smelled of soldierly views, disciple, obedience, responsible, in short
everything soldierly, was as painful and repulsive as holy water to the devil.
On the other side, for the opposite reasons, for the healthy soldier the
politician - because the politician back then in his whole thinking and action
revered what the soldier despised - was a highly unpleasant manifestation, if
not a torment. It must have often seemed a provocation, if soldiers spoke before
politicians or politicians before soldiers, and I am imagine that it often took
a lot of courage - or audacity as well!
My
officers! I stand before you, however, without having the feeling of the one or
the other. However, I also have the conviction of being no politician of the
kind before 1933. Therefore, I speak before you, too, with real joy, as I also
know, that it also, for example, brings joy to the General Field Marshal of the
Armed Forces, to speak before an auditorium of so-called politicians and
political leaders. Certainly, these politicians and political leaders of today
are in the majority soldierly people, men with soldierly thinking, feeling and
action. Just as I myself am again and again proud to be able to say that I was a
soldier throughout the whole time of the Great War, that I experienced the most
concentrated soldierdom as a front-fighter in the most fierce battles of the
west and absorbed it into me.
The
purpose of my speech before you is to deepen the understanding for the great
organization through which the political desire in the new Reich is conveyed to
the folk - to deepen the understanding for the NSDAP, which has become the
bearer of the political strength of the masses, just like the armed forces are
the bearer of the military might of these masses. Both prevent chaos in their
area, both manifest themselves creating order, giving direction and making
conform. This understanding of the political organization, this knowledge of its
working, its structure, the integration of its branches, is all the more
important for the soldier - but also for anybody who otherwise leads in an area
- since this organization indeed bears the name party, but is so infinitely more
than a party of once, because it manifests itself in and encompasses all
conceivable areas and touches the bearers of the rest of the nation’s life.
I
have hence selected the title: “Essence and Working of the NSDAP”.
Task of all political action is the preservation and strengthening of the
nation.
Precisely also the strengthening, since - as everywhere, here especially -
standing still means decline; above all, the more so as the neighbouring nations
for their part increase in strength.
The most essential means for the preservation and strengthening of the nation is
power.
Strengthening of power is accordingly strengthening of the nation. Conversely,
however, strengthening of the nation is also strengthening of power; for power
is rooted in the nation.
The foundations of power are:
First, the size of the space,
which a state calls its own - its soil together with what it contains and want
is able to thrive on it.
Second, the geographical location
of the space: Power and importance of the surrounding nations, strength or
weakness of the natural borders. The climatic conditions are also decisive for
advantages and disadvantages of the location, especially in economic regard.
Third, the folk in its total worth,
which is determined by the number and the quality in average, supplemented by
the value of the single personalities who rise above the norm of the average.
The
foundations of power are furthermore:
Fourth, the weapons,
which a nation acquires for itself, according to the quantity as well as the
quality. Among weapons I also include the spiritual weapons.
Fifth, imponderables,
such as the respect which a nation has acquired in the world through its overall
bearing, the bearing of its leaders, of its soldiers, of its children in foreign
lands; the manner of preserving the reputation of the nation - of a reputation
that, for example, its even ever so lonely flying flag enjoys, because one knows
that in an emergency the whole strength of the nation protects it and stands
behind it. There is a poem by Freiligath: “Fire, but don’t hurt the flag”, in
which an English consul on a distant island protects an English sailor against
foreign pursuers simply by wrapping a Union Jack around him and laconically
shouting to the others: “Fire, but don’t hurt the flag!” Nobody dares it, and
Freiligath concludes: “When does the great day come for us, too?!” I believe,
the day is no longer far off.
Allow
me to refer to another example of imponderable power foundations.
A
high-ranking foreign officer once told me that according to his observation the
worst after-effect of the Marne Battle of 1914 was the sudden disappearance of
the previously firmly entrenched conviction among the opponents - especially
among the French: German assault is unstoppable - German armies with the will to
triumph cannot be stopped. The “Furor teutonicus” swept over France in
1870/1871; it also swept over France in 1914: give up all hope! The fact,
however, that the German armies suddenly halted, meant the collapse of the myth
that nothing is equal to German strength - meant a loss of prestige which could
not be fully regained by anything.
Individually, the myth continued to exist: most of you will know from your own
experience that, especially in eastern theatres, the unexpected arrival of
German formations instead of others which had previously been there had a
paralysing effect and often produced the feeling of being lost, even if the
actual strength comparisons did not even remotely justify this. The German
soldier has rescued part of this mythical effect past the collapse - because
even the period of shame was not able to erase the memory in the world of the
heroism of the field-grey German.
I
have listed for you the foundations of power.
Space we do not want to increase - at any rate, not with force. We also cannot
change the geographical location.
It is due to the too narrow space and the unfavourable geographical location,
that we are unable to produce in our own territory all the raw materials and
foodstuffs needed to satisfy our own requirements. This does not only mean an
economic-political weakness, rather dependency on the surrounding world. So we
must suffer from a world economic crisis, which arose without our fault. The
dependency on the surrounding world means in any case a restriction of our
self-determination. Hence self-determination - real freedom - is only possible
hand in hand with self- sufficiency. Self-sufficiency can be ensured through a
colonial territory, which encompasses everything conceivably necessary.
Certainly, the prerequisite is that the means of power are of the kind that they
suffice to protect the transport routes of the colonies against every
conceivable, strong coalition of opponents in an emergency. Herein lies deeply
rooted the significance of English sea power. The global English empire, in its
entirety, is autarkic and the freedom of the English folk is secured as long as
England rules the connection between the motherland and its colonies.
As
long as Germany for its part does not possess an autarkic economic territory,
its freedom is not unconditionally secured; it is not unconditionally secured as
long as its economy can only be kept working through the importation of
indispensable raw materials along routes which hostilely inclined forces can
block at any time. The economic four-year plan will bring Germany closer to
self-sufficiency. The effect of this new plan is synonymous with the expansion
of its space and an improvement of its geographic location. The world should
affirm that we do not secure life and freedom with force, rather through the use
of our intellect and our organizational strength. If a few eternal pessimists do
not believe it is possible to modify the economy of our folk to the extent the
four-year plan does, if they doubt that the capital can be raised which must be
invested in the tremendous new factories and machine plants, I can only reply to
them: More difficult than again giving work and bread to six million people in a
state facing economic ruin, it is not, to give these already employed people
different work directions! More difficult than equipping an army of millions
with the most modem weapons, it is not, to produce new factories and new
machines for productive purposes. Germany will secure its freedom
economically-politically just like it has secured its freedom militarily.
Prewar Germany nurtured and strengthened in old tradition the real foundations
of power, above all, military power - insofar as it was not hindered in that by
the parliament. For if the weapons in 1914 were not present in the number and
not completely in the quality as perhaps possible - if at the decisive moment on
the Marne the three Army corps - which the Great General Staff had demanded and
which could have brought the decision - were missing, then the Reichstag was at
fault.
You know: National Socialism has made sure that the nation ’s life necessities
are not talked to death by a Reichstag and cannot be made a bartering chip of
the political parties.
You have seen that in the new Germany decisions of historical scope are made
within hours by the Führer and his cabinet - decisions which in other lands must
be proceeded by days and weeks of debates in parliament.
What
the new Reich has done in regard to the nation’s military fitness and the arming
of the soldiers, I do not need to portray to you - the officers of our armed
forces. The
Führer has taken it upon himself to ensure that, if somebody really attacks,
precious blood must not be sacrificed, because money had been spared earlier.
Sparing in weaponry is sparing in the wrong place. This thrift can even mean the
highest extravagance.
The sparing of a few hundred million marks here can mean the waste of billions
of material assets through loss of a war - totally aside from the loss of much
more precious assets, namely of millions of the best of our folk. If Germany had
at the start of the war in 1914, through expenditure of perhaps a billion,
possessed the mentioned three army corps and a much better supply of machineguns
and heavy artillery, the war would have been decided in 1914 in Germany’s
favour: the German folk and not least of all its economy would have saved over
100 billion, which in the course of the war were expended and after the loss of
the war had to be turned over to the enemy - to say nothing of our dead!
A
very high degree of armament, however, can mean such a high risk for an attacker
that a war with its huge loss of the blood and property of a nation is avoided
from the start. Conversely, a weak armament downright provokes an attack.
Especially then it can provoke a foreign attack, if a foreign state has domestic
problems, does not master unemployment, the folk is more and more divided
politically, and it succumbs to the temptation to distract from the inner
difficulties through too easily won military successes.
As
essential as weapons are - more essential are the people who use them, according
to their number, their physical and, above all, their psychological condition -
more essential are the people who as a folk stand behind the armed power.
Prewar Germany had perhaps tried to effect an increase of population; it
neglected to preserve or even improve the quality of the folk. The
in-between-Reich partially worked to make the population to decrease more and
more and to worsen the racial composition. Press, film, theatre were used -
often in a barely noticeable way, but in the long-run all the more effectively -
to overcome the natural racial instinct of the folk, its aversion against Jews
and Jewish nature, its aversion against Negroes etc…
How
decisively the New Reich has employed the countermeasures, how strongly it does
everything to again increase the birth surplus, how it again raises the racial
quality through law and education, I again do not need to present to you in
detail.
Totally lacking in the old Reich was a real, deep-going, psychological
influencing of the folk with the goal to shape it inwardly into the supporting
factor of the state, to make it hard for difficult tests which fate puts it to.
The tendency of the in-between-Reich leaned naturally in the opposite direction.
Only the National Socialist Germany has employed the whole influence which it
has achieved over the folk to make it psychologically strong, to educate it to
be a state folk, to orient its thought and action toward the great demands of
the nation.
This
education of the folk, its spiritual leadership, is the task of the NSDAP.
How
much the new Reich is concerned with strengthening the imponderable foundations
of power, you have been able to follow during Hitler’s government. The
Führer watches over nothing as jealously as the honour of the nation.
Already in the time during the rise to power, National Socialism had spread the
imponderabilities of power - pride and spirit of resistance - within the folk in
such a manner that the rulers of the republic of 1918 fell because of it,
because they themselves embodied the opposite of these virtues. Among them it
was pure survival instinct, when they did everything, consciously did
everything, in order to suppress pride and spirit of resistance in the folk.
They had to fail, because our folk was more attracted to the spirit of honour
than to the spirit of dishonour.
More
essential than still in peace is the psychological influencing of the totality
of the folk and especially of the soldiers - beyond the purely military virtues
- during war. And here the governments of 1914 to 1918 totally failed.
Our
weapons were not decisively weaker than those of the enemy in 1918. Certainly
there were many sectors in the course of the war when they were much weaker than
in 1918, periods in which, for example, our ammunition had to be so spared that
the heaviest bombardments could hardly be answered with a few shells. And
nonetheless, our troops held firm then.
The
spirit of the people enabled resistance even with a ridiculous numerical
relationship and lack of weapons. Determined nests of resistance often stopped
entire divisions. Substantially inferior forces won victories, which are
recorded in world history for all time. Only when the people changed, did the
combat results change. In 1918 we had a surplus of ammunition, and indeed so
much so that production had to be reduced: but the fronts collapsed, because the
people became tired. The people had changed - above all, changed
psychologically.
The
failure of the people toward the end of the war was partly the result of
numerical inferiority, which required an exertion of the individual which
corresponded to several times the exertion of the enemy. The enemy relieved his
troops for a real rest. He had the trench work done by work troops specially
organized for this task, which often consisted of foreign ethnic groups. We, on
the other hand, were almost continually in filth and mud, we had to be lead into
fire again and again, in the so-called rest periods we dug and dragged material,
we were often forced to do without even the most necessary sleep. Malnutrition
did its part - not least of all in the homeland, whose mood was transmitted back
to the front.
The
essential thing, however, was that any counterweight lacked: a corresponding
influence over the psychological condition of front and homeland. Yes, one even
surrendered the folk to the propaganda work of the opposing side - to the
working of the Allied powers and the Marxists. A government, to which the psyche
of the folk was alien, showed itself to be totally helpless. It made itself
fatefully noticeable that prewar Germany had not understood at the right time to
put the right men in the right positions. In the decisive positions of the state
stood leaders - insofar as one can here speak of leaders - who lacked the
slightest connection to the folk, who did not know its feeling, did not
understand its language, let alone who would have been able to speak to this
folk in the language of the folk. Across from the folk man Lloyd George with his
for the folk convincing and inspirational speeches, across from the unbounded
hot-head Clemenceau who came from the folk, stood on the German side a bloodless
philosopher: Bethmann Hollweg.
In
Germany, the capable, close-to-the-folk, real leader could not reach the
decisive post. What would it have meant back then, if an Adolf Hitler - instead
of performing a service which at least hundreds of thousands of others could
have also done - had been charged with the psychological influencing of the folk
on the basis of the knowledge of the psyche of this folk! Perhaps the slackening
of the people in Germany would not have come “five minutes too early“, perhaps
the war would have still been won. Lloyd George said he thought with horror what
could have happened, if the Germans had held out until the next spring. And I
think of the evaluation of an American admiral who heard England’s desperate
cries for help, because the U-boat was infinitely more successful than admitted,
and threatened England’s life nerve. Furthermore, in the conduct of the U-boat
war as well, the unfortunate fact the right men did not stand at the right
posts, was also at work: how great could the success of the U-boat war have
been, and indeed already at an earlier point in time, if it had not been - at
the urging of the political leadership - practically broken off and only resumed
when England had organized an effective defence based on earlier experience.
I
summarize: Next to the failure of the parliament, which bears the blame for
insufficient weaponry and insufficient assembly of formations - and the people
would have been available -, next to the failure of diplomacy, which allowed us
to enter into the World War under the most unfavourable power relationships and
enabled the hunger blockade, next to the over-exertion as a result of the
numerical inferiority and malnutrition, the lacking psychological influencing of
the front and of the homeland was to blame that the Germans broke off the end
struggle, perhaps shortly before the opponent’s collapse - but at least shortly
before he was so tired as to become ready for peace under bearable terms.
The lacking or practically non-existent psychological influencing is explained
by the lack of a real connection between the folk and the state leadership -
it is explained by the lack of leaders close to the folk in decisive posts and
the lack of an organizational bridge between folk and leaders, of an apparatus
such as stands at the disposal of a great party. The parties with corresponding
apparatus did indeed exist, but the parties of back then were primarily parties
of social strata and classes. The one had no touch with the broad mass of the
folk while the others were indeed rooted in the mass, but their leadership had
no interest in establishing a connection between folk and state leadership and
influencing the masses for the purpose of the nation. They used the masses in
order to, with their help, pave their way to power, consciously ignoring the
life interests of the nation. The parties could have been, in accordance with
their original character, the interrelation between state leader and folk - but
they were not at all!
After
the revolt of 1918 - in the in-between-Reich - some parties, that means the
parties rooted in the folk, did indeed represent a connection between folk and
government, but these parties as well as the government were anti-national. They
misused this connection more than ever in the sense of international, pacifist
ideologies. By means of the propaganda organizations of the parties, by means of
folk assemblies, by means of press they worked more and more against Germany’s
real interests. The nationalist-oriented parties were powerless against this,
because they lacked the technical means of propaganda as well as knowledge of
the psyche of the folk as the prerequisite for this propaganda.
This is where the National Socialist German Workers’ Party jumped in.
Adolf Hitler, after the return from the field, clearly recognized the situation.
Just as clearly, he drew the conclusions and used his own characteristic energy
to build up a new party which was supposed to work in the masses and with the
means which would be successive in the folk - a party which, however, according
to its ideas stood in sharp contrast to the other parties of the masses and
which put the nation’s interest first. As a man who came from the folk, who had
lived among workers and soldiers, he knew how to approach the masses. But he
also knew what prevented these mases, whose healthy core he recognized, from
going to the nationalist parties: aside from the distance to the folk, the
lacking social understanding - the spirit of social strata, which in its
arrogance repelled no less than “class consciousness”. As a front-fighter he
knew that mutual trust between members of the individual strata, yes, a standing
together, was possible, if they were simply brought together and externalities
cast off. He knew how deeply they could get the feeling of being dependent on
each other and of having very great, mutual interests, in comparison to which
personal interests receded.
Adolf Hitler hence appealed to genuine socialism, which demands common good
before individual good, which puts the common, great interests higher than
individual interests, which sees in the folk comrade, insofar as he performs any
somehow useful work, a respectable member of his folk.
Even more so respectable, as the experience of the World War showed that even
the folk comrade who called hardly anything his own which was worth defending,
stood by his folk with the same devoted readiness to sacrifice in the critical
hour.
Adolf Hitler appealed at the same time, however, to genuine nationalism, which
puts its folk and its nation above all else, which knows that only action to the
last for this nation in the long-run enables its preservation and hence the
preservation of the individual.
It knows that the genuine nationalist must therefore simultaneously be a
socialist, because it can only expect this success, if each individual of its
folk has it as good as is possible under the existing circumstances, and it
knows that this effort only has prospects of success, if the individual fighter
is healthy in body and soul and remains healthy.
Every
front-fighter had unconsciously become a National Socialist. How strong the
front spirit was related to what we now understand under National Socialism in
the best sense, those among you know, who were yourselves at the front. The
inter-dependency in danger welds leader and enlisted man together, the living
together in small space gives mutual understanding, yes, creates comradeship
outside service, without discipline in service suffering in the least by this.
Even a higher kind of discipline emerged, a discipline out of loyalty of
following and out of the conviction of necessity.
All
of this is - carried over to the whole folk community - an essential part of
National Socialism. In that Adolf Hitler preached National Socialism, he
simply expressed and spread through his teachings what the front-fighter
had long felt and according to which had long lived.
It was thus no coincidence that the struggle for the new idea began with the
help of other front-fighters.
He
intentionally made extensive use of the means of the opponents: red posters,
armbands and flags, in which the red dominated, and with the strengthening of
the movement, marches and mass meetings after mass meetings.
Infinitely many on the nationalist side, on the bourgeois side, did not
understand this and accused him of “nationalist-embellished Marxism” or
“National- Bolshevism”. The left side designated him a “socialist-embellished
nationalist” or “reactionary”. He did not worry about either - but stubbornly
followed his path.
It
was a difficult path! Without name, without money, without newspaper against the
power of capital, against the power of the press, against the power of the
state. The difficulties were endless. Every new resistance arose. Ever again new
paths had to be found, if the ones taken before were no longer passable. The
opponents fought, first through silent treatment, then with defamation and lies,
with terror and murder; fines and prison sentences alternated with bans. Only
tenacity and faith enabled holding out.
I do
not have to tell you how the movement nonetheless slowly, slowly expanded, how
it seemed finally finished on November 9, 1923, but nonetheless still triumphed
- triumphed thanks to the boundless energy and at the same time to the vision of
the leader at its head.
The
rebuilding in 1925 was no less difficult, but: the few men of the beginning had
become thousands. The thousands became tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands,
millions.
The spirit triumphed. The ideas have triumphed!
That
the proclamation of the ideas could not be prevented in the long-run, that the
proclaimers could not be constantly shouted down and beaten down, is thanks to
the S.A. and the S.S. The Führer created them from the realization that it is
not enough to fight ideas with ideas, rather that, if the opponent used naked
violence against ideas, naked violence had to be the response. The best skull
with the best ideas is useless, if a brutal fist crushes into the skull.
Equally standing in the fight with S.A. and S.S., exposed to danger and
self-sacrificing, were the speakers and the political leaders. Out of
nothing they built up the political organization, often sacrificing their last
pennies. The gradual growth of a gigantic organization - which was organized
down into the last villages and came together at the head in the Führer - was
just as essential for the final success as the real power of the S.A. and S.S.
The apparatus of this organization enabled the Führer to take his ideas again
and again with the greatest possible unity to the folk, down to the last street
cell. From there, conversely, from the tiniest branches, which were finally
distributed by the hundreds of thousands throughout the Reich, came to the
Führer the reports about the mood in the folk, about the effect of his actions,
of his speeches, of his leaflets, of his posters and press releases. Through
this apparatus passed a continuous pulse between leadership and followers.
Finally, the entire folk was somehow influenced - some more, some less - by the
ideas of National Socialism. The more the rise to power was delayed, the more
did the government have to fall to Adolf Hitler like a ripe fruit. The folk,
permeated with National Socialism, finally found its fulfilment in the National
Socialist state; it felt Hitler’s entry into the government to be self-evident.
The Führer, however, simply had to legalize the already long practically active
leadership of the folk. The folk leadership was supplemented with the leadership
of the state and its means of power. His apparatus for the maintenance of the
bond between himself and the folk, the party, was, however, more important than
ever and hence further expanded. More than before, the Führer needs the
organization which enables him to check the effect of his measures in the folk,
in that it relates to him the resonance. But he also needs it to work on the
folk as before, to prepare measures and make them understandable.
Many
times it does not even require his direct working, since most of his co-workers
are synchronized, familiar with his ideas, have such a fine feel for the
background reasons for his actions, that his party reacts correctly in
accordance to the great line. Simply a check by the next higher leaders is
required, whether everything happens in Adolf Hitler’s sense; where necessary,
corrections are made. The action of the Führer is so uniform in the line of what
he prepared in the long years before the rise to power, everything is so much of
the spirit of National Socialism, that in general no more justification would be
necessary. The main work was already done in the time before the rise to power.
Without transformation of the whole thinking of the folk in the years of working
of the National Socialist movement, all of the actions of the National Socialist
government reaching so deeply into the life of the folk, which were necessary
for the recovery, would not have been possible - the result of the first
plebiscites would have been a disaster. What government of a democratic land
enjoys such an uniform agreement of the folk with its deeds?
The somewhat technical path of mutual fertilization of government and folk today
passes through the local group leader conventions, county leader conventions,
province leader conventions and cabinet meetings.
In the province leader conventions the results of the conventions of the lower
branches of the individual provinces are presented in summarized form and
processed in mutual exchange of opinions. The Party Minister in then able, on
the basis of what is conveyed to him about the situation, to make the reports
from the “front” fertile with the Führer and in the cabinet meetings.
Conversely, what the Führer wants conveyed to the folk, what is supposed to pass
from the cabinet meetings - that means from the work of the government - to the
folk, follows the reverse path, the path through the province leader
conventions, the county leader conventions and the local group leader
conventions.
In
place of the multitude of parties with opposing interests and basic ideas, of
parties that were supposed to serve the folk, a single, uniform, internally
unified, real folk representative infused with one spirit and one idea - in the
form of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. One party, led by one
leader, who is at the same time the leader of the nation. A party in which all
the smaller interests coming together within it are subordinated to the great
interest, Germany’s interest.
The
party has accomplished what seemed impossible. The international-oriented
worker of once has become the German worker of today.
Whoever remembers just the constant wage disputes in the past years before the
rise to power, can measure, what it alone means to have brought the worker to
the point where he is content with wages which that are certainly not too high.
The workers practice renunciation, because they are convinced of the necessity
of making a sacrifice for the whole, because they obtained the feeling that
everybody is made to renounce, that the employer as well must be content with
smaller profits, since the greater portion of them is taxed away and used to
create more jobs. The workers obtained the feeling of bond in the common work.
They saw their accomplishment honoured on the Day of National Work, on May 1,
which national German twisted from the hand of the international. They saw how,
in the formations of the National Socialist movement, all class differences and
any class arrogance had disappeared, how the folk community became a reality.
Just as in the S.A. and S.S. nobody is asked: Where do you come from, what does
your father do, what kind of clothing do you wear, what school did you go to”,
rather how only one question is asked: “Do you want to fight for Hitler and for
Germany?” The workers saw how here only one thing mattered: the man, the
character, the leaning. They saw how the same spirit prevailed in the Hitler
Youth, how the youth of the folk is already educated in this spirit and how
here, too, the child of the worker marches next to the child of the officer in
the shared faith in Germany and its greatness. They saw how everybody
voluntarily subordinates himself, when one was designated the leader.
I ask
you to remember the days of the collapse of 1918, the mutinies in their whole
terribleness, the behaviour of the workers back then and in the following time,
the “worker councils” and the “soldier councils”. The idea of discipline or even
subordination, the concept of soldierdom, officer, superior, had the effect of a
red cloth. A call to assemble, to march, meant “provocation of the proletariat”.
Whoever spoke a word in favour of the army, was given the title “militaristic
blood hound” and other such niceties. And today many, many of these same workers
of once march voluntarily in the new armed forces - march voluntarily in the
eight week courses!
When
I after March 16, 1935 spoke about military service in Munich’s previously most
red factory, in the Neufreimanner rail works, to thousands upon thousands of the
same workers who just a few years ago still sang the Marseillaise, I was again
and again interrupted by a storm of applause and jubilation such as I would have
never before thought possible. It was the most beautiful and at the same time
moving rally of my life. But be aware: this radical change in Germany’s work
force, this transformation of their thinking, would have never occurred without
the working of the NSDAP and its leaders down to the smallest cell leaders. Had
they not worked - with the sacrifice and devotion of which only the German is
capable - in the masses, again and again and again, although they were all too
often struck back with scorn and brutal fist, if they had not been able to
finally still convey the faith in the purity of Adolf Hitler’s intention, we
would have had to try to build up the new Reich against the mass of
millions of German workers! Do you believe that your guns, your planes, your
tanks would exist today in such number and quality, if the worker had practiced
silent sabotage? Do you believe that you, my officers, would have troops under
you on which you could count in an emergency, if the great number of workers
only serviced under compulsion? Do you believe that Adolf Hitler could have even
thought about introducing compulsory military service or occupying the left
Rhine shore? No! Germany today is only so great and strong, because its
poorest sons belong to its most loyal!
In
many basic ways, the German army was in the old Reich already socialistic in the
best sense, it was National Socialist without knowing it. For what else was it,
if, for example, a recruit from even the highest noble family had to subordinate
himself and stand at attention before a superior, who might have come from a
small craftsman family? In this institution did not ability mean more and not
background? Among the incredible demands which were placed during the training
of a young general staff officer, was not solely decisive, how he met them?
Could not Mackensen, who came from a small peasant family, become a General
Field Marshal, Tirpitz, the son of a paymaster, Grand Admiral; could not Hipper,
whose family owned a small iron trade, not command battle cruisers?
National Socialism has elevated the “marshal ’s baton in the backpack” to a
principle.
For in the old army, a certain barrier still existed, which could only be
overcome in very rare exceptional cases: a barrier of school knowledge. It has
also set this one aside - in the correct realization that it is not decisive for
the suitability of the socialist leader, if one can solve the Pythagoras or
conjugate foreign verbs. The abilities of the born leader are found in all
strata and educational levels of our folk. A leader nature can always later
learn a certain ABC from the child’s classroom as condition for the officer.
What cannot be learned, however, are the prerequisites for the real leader -
regardless how well raised or how great the school knowledge!
To
the great socialist features of the armed forces, National Socialism as added
more - primarily those which manifest themselves in small and smallest things:
of what psychological effect is alone the way a superior returns a salute! They
are details which do not harm discipline or diminish the distance between
officer and enlisted man, as is necessary in the service - and they are
nonetheless so essential!
Not
least of all, the German worker comes to the armed forces with the conviction
that these new armed forces are also filled with the spirit of the new Reich. He
comes from the folk community into the armed forces, which are for him the
product of this folk community. More than among others, the National Socialist
folk community is today at the centre of his thinking, and it is a great joy for
me to again and again be able to ascertain how very much this fact is given its
due in the armed forces from top to bottom: our General Field Marshal feels and
acts as a National Socialist through and through.
As
the party has achieved the folk community, it now fulfils its tasks for this
folk community:
The organizations of the NSDAP are utilized for the enlightenment of the folk
about race and health issues with the goal of the improvement of folk health
and race and the increase of the population. Previously unthinkable measures
like sterilization for the prevention of genetically ill offspring are, thanks
to the work of the movement, felt to be self-evident.
In
the context of the S.A. and S.S., the Hitler Youth and Federation of German
Girls, voluntarily integrated people receive physical education and
spiritual education in the National Socialist sense. Old and young, who
previously wasted most of their time on the streets or in taverns, are led out
for group exercises and hikes; fresh air, contact with nature, body movement,
the effect of the National Socialist community are here more important than the
exercising and shooting.
Through a large number of special organizations the new spirit is brought into
all the individual manifestations of the life of the nation. I name:
Physicians Federations, Teachers Federation, Jurists Federation, National
Socialist Federation of Technology, NS-Culture
Community, NS-Women’s Organization
and, above all, as an affiliated association, the mighty organization of the
German Work Front.
Leaders of a special organization - who are knowledgeable of a certain material
- are collected through me and utilized to help with the laws of the new state,
which touch their area, whereby they must, above all, take care that the
technical aspects are harmonized with National Socialist principles.
In
the branches of the movement as in the special organizations, the possibility
exists to further educate the gifted in the practical work of those special
areas, to train young people to be leaders. Here the capable people have the
chance to prove themselves; from here, their path toward further advance can be
opened.
This
is especially true as well for the members of the foreign organization. In the
central in Berlin as well as in the units in foreign countries, leaders are made
familiar with the foreign work in practical service. A number of gifted people,
who in the previous years were for a large part taken into the work of our
official foreign delegations and hence familiarized with official procedure,
would already today be in the position to work in the foreign service. As in the
homeland, in foreign countries as well, the Germans are influenced in the
National Socialist sense by the National Socialist provincial units and local
units. They are again educated for proud consciousness of their Germandom, to
unity among themselves, to respect for each other - are educated to always put
Germans over members of a foreign nation, without consideration of social strata
or background. On this basis, it has succeeded in encompassing the much
splintered foreign Germans. The NS chapters out there as well represent the
living bond between the German colonies and official Germany. This fact found
its expression in the naming of the provincial head of the foreign organization
to Chief of the Foreign Organization in the Foreign Office. The personnel union
secures here, too, the agreement between the working of the state and of the
party.
Much
of what became new has already taken new tracks, much has taken a more
contemporary form.
With
the psychological transformation which the folk has experienced, with the
changed perspectives from which everything is viewed which has any relationship
to it and to its state, it was unavoidable that also the external forms in which
church life occurs were critically observed and friction arose between the
bearers of these forms and living faith of the folk. The faith of the folk
remained untouched by such conflicts. Nobody in the leadership of the Reich or
the leadership of the party thinks about taking their faith from the Germans. No
one other than the old front-fighter of the NSDAP knows better what strength
faith in a God can bestow on a person in the most difficult hour. No one among
the top leaders of the NSDAP thinks about robbing the folk of soldiers of this
faith, no one is at all so stupid to deny the All-Powerful. And precisely for
this reason, we do not want the faith in the higher to be chained to forms which
mean nothing to most of us, to statements which are no longer compatible with
advanced knowledge. For the sake of the preservation of the deep, inner faith
in God, we do not want this to be equated to the bearers of external cult.
We do not want the faith in God to waver, when in the rest of the world priests
are murdered, altars desecrated, churches burned down, without God appearing as
avenger. We have the conviction that our belief in God and our Christianity
better defies difficult hours than the belief in God and the Christianity of
those who all too often cling to the external.
We
National Socialists of charity, of the NSV, of the Winter Aid Work, of the
Christmas gifts for the millions of poor, of the great, all-bridging folk
community, we consider ourselves better Christians than those who all too often
speak the word Christ. And we do not think of founding new - say National
Socialist - churches. We give to the churches what belongs to the church, but we
demand for our state what belongs to our state.
A
new, previously unknown leader corps is in the process of development and inner
consolidation.
The larger portion of its members developed itself during the period of
struggle. Decisive for the selection and utilization can only be: in how far is
the leader - who often comes to the fighting troop in a critical situation or
who takes leadership during the battle - the really suited man for the struggle
which is being waged. The leaders are taken who best know how to fight against
the opponent who must be faced.
And
they have almost without example proven themselves a hundredfold. They have
stood their ground in the long and difficult years of struggle for the folk,
without gaining a personal advantage; on the contrary: what these fighters for a
different Germany have suffered - mentally, psychologically and materially - has
hardly become known to the public. What did it mean, for example, in Neukölln
for the individual - and until the rise to power there were just individuals in
these areas - to affirm the “Nazis” in front of the [red] “comrades”, to put on
the brown shirt and to thereby provoke, as the opponents called it! The nightly
path home from an assembly or march was often a race against death - and all too
many lost that race. At dark comers, in dark alleys which had to be passed,
lurked assassination, or the troops of the red front quite openly attacked the
lone and defenceless man. In any case, at the very least everything was done to
ruin him materially; be it through a boycott of his small business, be it
through his colleagues in the factory forcing his loss of employment.
One
must have seen the hungry misery of such men, one must have experienced the
desperation of wives and mothers at the grave of murdered fighters, in order to
be able to fully measure what it meant to be a National Socialist in the years
of struggle for power and to remain a National Socialist despite everything!
And
today as well, in their overwhelming majority, they perform their not always
easy work in a flawless manner, perhaps they perform something extraordinary,
even if one or the other has still not understood how to reorient himself for
“peace time” and his speech is still often warlike rough and often undiplomatic.
97% of these leaders - I wish to stress this - perform unpaid service. They are
today still servants for the sake of service to the cause and to the idea for
which they once assembled.
The
NSDAP, in which so many old soldiers are active in leadership positions, has the
highest respect for the armed forces; the more so as they know what an
incredible accomplishment these armed forces, the greatest portion of their
officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted men, have achieved through
armament in such a short time. I know that the armed forces in their entirety
have the same respect for the accomplishment of the NSDAP. Therefore, the
relationship between both institutions, to my joy, has also become a good one
everywhere, insofar as the relationship was not from the start a good one.
What
else would be thinkable? After all, the armed forces as the organization of
soldierly might are dependent on the party as the organization of the political
might and visa versa. The party turns over to the armed forces people
physically and spiritually educated for valour; the armed forces again return
disciplined, soldierly thinking people to the care of the party. The
historically unique accomplishment which the Führer achieved in Germany’s
release from the Treaty of Versailles - without it coming to an armed conflict -
would not have been possible, if he had not been able to support himself on the
one side by the folk spiritually educated by the party and on the other side by
the armed forces which he had already developed into such an instrument of
power. Germany, the land where ideas have always caused the deepest conflicts -
in a time which drifted ever more toward conflicts between worldviews - would
not have been able to survive, if the party had not guaranteed internal unity.
It guaranteed the unity in that it directed everything according to one idea and
through this idea mobilized the folk energy as the executive organ of this idea.
I
have attempted to give you in broad lines a picture of the working, of the
essence and of the tasks of the NSDAP.
Many
of you may have been of the opinion that today, after the previous parties have
disappeared, the NSDAP no longer has a justification to exist. The NSDAP not
only has a justification to exist, it is a necessity, precisely also from the
standpoint of your area of interest. An even greater necessity, the more today
politics and the continuation of politics by other means: war - base themselves
upon the whole folk - the more the spirit of the folk is decisive for the
success of both. Just as the army organism is the technical means to organize
and lead the real strength of the folk, the material-military strength, so is
the party organism the technical means to organize and lead the
spiritual-political strength of the folk on the attack and in defence. Both
organisms hereby simultaneously and mutually supplement and influence each
other.
The NSDAP is a necessity precisely in authoritarian Germany.
The more authoritarian a state, the more a corrector in the form of a real folk
representation is needed. It must prevent that the government, with the
comfortable possibility to continuously act completely independent, gradually
distances itself from the folk and takes theoretical measures which are neither
influenced by healthy folk feeling nor checked for their effect in the folk, so
that the blessing of the authoritarian form of government becomes a curse and
the trust of the folk disappears.
You
know that the Führer does not only keep in constant touch with the top of his
“folk representative”, the party, rather in longer intervals turns directly to
the folk in plebiscites, in order to have it vote itself about very great
decisions in the life of the nation. He thus gains ever anew authorization of
his leadership. The plebiscite is the path of direct test, whether a
leadership has not lost the bond with the folk. At the same time, the folk is
given the feeling that it still possesses a connect with its leadership.
Many
may view it as a fortunate coincidence that Adolf Hitler was given to the German
folk at the right time. I am of the conviction that not coincidence, rather
fate produces for folks
-
which are close to death and are worthy not to perish - the man who saves them
from death and pulls them up to new greatness.
I do
not believe that it is a coincidence, if in a time when the possibility to lead
a folk is so greatly dependent on the position of the masses toward this
leadership, a man rises to the absolute top of the Reich, who himself belonged
to this mass and as a result from the start possesses more trust and more
effectiveness in this mass than one who comes from above. I do not believe that
it is a coincidence, if this same man nonetheless possesses such an
extraordinary capability and such a broad knowledge, that even the upper
leadership stratum of this folk also happily subordinates itself to his will. It
is perhaps also no coincidence that fate forced him to serve from the bottom up
in the political area, just as a clever institution of the armed forces demands
that even the later army commander starts standing in rank and column and
drilling in the field. That the Führer once personally distributed self-composed
fliers against the Treaty of Versailles in Munich or personally disrupted
theatre performances in which the front soldier was insulted, helps him today.
Although he once also sat in prison for disrupting a separatist assembly in
which Prussia was scolded, he also knows the “front” in the domestic area. And
his manner of crossing rhetorical swords before the world with his opponents in
the area of foreign affairs, is not uninfluenced by the school he went to in the
area of dialectics, when he once debated against communists and other
well-versed people in small meeting halls.
Perhaps it was also a historical necessity that the terrible material and
psychological collapse of 1918 came, that through it institutions were swept
away which could have otherwise stood in the way as a hindrance. For under those
the unification of the Reich beyond traditional borders, the elimination of
parliament and parties, would hardly have been possible, a young, ruthless folk
movement would not have been put in a position to purge the Jewish poison in all
areas. So even the revolt of 1918 was part of the force which wanted bad and
created good. It enabled the coming leader a new start from the bottom up.
I
also believe that much of which was placed on the new state in the past years as
difficulties and dangers in the final analysis proved a blessing to us. I
believe that the continuing hope for a coming collapse as a result of these
difficulties again and again caused foreign states to hesitate to attack us as
we gradually released ourselves from the Treaty of Versailles, until they missed
the point in time when they could have done so without a major risk of their
own.
The
final hope was probably that the new Reich would in the economic area - all the
sooner, perhaps, must fail as its armament proceeded at a pace and at a tempo as
never before an armament in history, and such as nobody had once considered
possible. So-called experts in foreign lands - who knew only numbers, only
quantities, only materials, only work forces - again failed to take into account
how great the elasticity of the German economy is, and even more so the
elasticity of German man. But they especially failed to take into account -
because it lies outside their concept of calculation - how great the
psychological energy of our folk is, how great its ability to limit itself, yes,
to make most difficult sacrifices, if it knows why it limits itself and for what
it makes these sacrifices. Above all, they failed to take into account what this
folk is able to accomplish, if it has a leadership it trusts.
Our folk has trust in its present leadership, because at the top of the
leadership stands a leader who, in countless cases, has proven that he really is
a leader.
A leader who again and again found the right path and the right solution. A
leader who uses his energy to solve the apparently impossible. A leader who -
out of a totally collapsed folk, in whose resurrection nobody in the world
seemed to believe, in whose resurrection this folk itself believed least of all,
a leader, who from this same folk of hopelessness, of self- mutilation, of
self-dishonour - made a folk which stands among the other folks stronger and
prouder than ever! Worthy of this rejuvenated folk stand the new armed forces -
worthy of this rejuvenated folk stands the party. Together they work on the most
beautiful and highest task which is placed on people, together they work for
their nation, they work for Germany and its future.
