ENTRY INTO
WRITING CONTEST FOR NSDAP PARTY MEMBERS
August 12, 1934
Hermeskeil,
Trier
by Ms. R
Eiden
I
heard the name
Hitler for the first time shortly after Christmas 1923 at a Zentrumspartei
training meeting to which the non-voting members of the Catholic associations
were also invited. A party secretary grumbled terribly about the putsch guy in
Munich, whose coup d’état would have brought our folk back into disrepute. I
talked about it with my brother, who was eighteen at the time, and was amazed
and indignant that he firmly believed that Hitler was the man whose idea
alone could save our folk and fatherland. Growing up in a Catholic area,
raised strictly Catholic by my parents, it was a matter of course for me to
swear by the Zentrumspartei politically.
During the many
elections in the post-war years, the thinking of the youth was drawn to party
squabbles, and without thinking too deeply, I declared my support for the party
my parents voted for. At that time I was not yet eligible to vote, but I
attended every Zentrumspartei meeting. Thanks to its spiritual leadership, it
alone claimed to represent Christian principles, to ensure human and economic
wellbeing, and to represent the only viable path of fulfilment in foreign
policy, so that the slow but certain recovery of the folk in all situations was
entirely due to its account. Now my brother suddenly moved away from the old
course, which was a tradition in the family. When he brought me the newspaper
with the court hearing that sentenced Hitler to years in prison, I said that’s
wrong, they should have put him against the wall.
I laughed at the
fact that this time would also pass and Hitler would begin his work anew.
Hitler’s defence speech shook me. I had the impression that a man was speaking
who was ready to give his all for a stricken folk, a man who embodied a
tremendous longing for liberation and expressed his urge through action. In
those days I often read newspapers that claimed that Hitler’s mission was not
over, it was just beginning. If the German spirit was still slumbering in the
German folk, then this Führer would hear and acknowledge it. For the next two
years, distracted by life in the city, I didn’t care about politics. While I was
in Saarbrücken, the Saar region celebrated the millennium of Saarland’s
affiliation with Germany, which I will never forget as a fanatical declaration
of loyalty to Germany. In November 1926, my brother wore a swastika pin and,
when questioned, explained that it was the sign of the struggle for the victory
of the Hitler movement, to which he was committed. The swastika is the old
Germanic symbol of the victory of good over evil; the red colour symbolized the
commitment to socialism, and the white honour and purity of intention.
I saw the eternal
race sign and the heroic German honour colours in a new and yet ancient form.
From then on I couldn’t get rid of the idea of movement even if I wanted to. My
brother’s circle of friends, who were very much involved in the movement, often
met for discussions at my parents’ house. I believed, stimulated by the hustle
and bustle about the Zentrumspartei that sometimes happened during the first
National Assembly, in our place to fulfill a sacred duty, even if I also braced
myself against the teaching of National Socialism with all my might. The racial
question, and above all the Jewish question, struck me as unchristian and
unjust. I only saw Judaism as a form of religion. In arguments that were often
endless, I recognized that one of the greatest historical errors is the
confusion between religion and race. I understood point 4) of the program: „You
can only be a German national comrade if you have German blood.“ This knowledge
gave us the belief that no Volk will perish if they recognize the task given
them by the Creator to keep themselves racially pure and thereby reach the
height of their culture. I learned to negate the sentence: „Everything is
the same that has a human face.“ If I believe in a meaningful order of all
created things, then it follows that there is an unconditional distinction of
the races.
In the small but
close-knit community of members of the local movement, I got to know the program
of the movement, which impressed me, and I attended a meeting for the first
time. Today’s leader of the German labour front, Ley, spoke about the aim and
will of the movement. There was something irresistibly revolutionary about what
he said and I knew when I went home that I would publicly declare my allegiance
to the movement.
I should have the
opportunity to do that soon. The followers, as we were now recognized, were
attacked from all sides. Mocked and laughed at by some, despised by others,
called pagans and antichrists by certain quarters, challenged on the open
street. In order to be able to defend myself, I took a closer look at the
attitude of the parties and those in power. While Marxism preached the socialist
idea of equality between nations, it demanded a battle to the knife between
layers of the same folk. The Marxists pretended to fight capital, and yet worked
hand in hand with big banks and stock exchanges, who knew how to dazzle the
masses with slogans. They founded trade union and workers’ newspapers, incited
the workers against the employers, the citizens against the peasants,
denomination after denomination, in order to rule through fragmentation.
Hitler denied the
value of personality and put the crowd in its place. He taught that genuine
socialism is based on the notion that the common good comes before
self-interest. But the community in which this principle takes place is the
nation embodied in the state. National Socialism is permeated by the spirit
of the national community. National Socialism is service to the folk, devotion
to the folk, struggle for the folk, and not for a class or an estate. I saw
at once the falsity of the Marxist doctrine. I also recognized the
contradictions in the Zentrumspartei. Their motto, which was repeatedly appealed
to, especially by the chancellors of the Catholic Church, was that social
democracy and the centre are opposed to each other like fire and water and after
every election, for better or for worse, the Church allied itself with this
party. The betrayal of Erzberger was the beginning of the terrible policy of
subjugation, which was The Church’s main policy and now, together with the party
on whose affiliation its clergymen applied the punishments of hell, it exerted
all its strength to suppress the German freedom movement.
I didn’t care about
the other party entities because they had no representatives in our area. As a
result, I attended all National Socialist meetings and saw that we were all to
blame for Germany’s misfortune, that one must feel that we must become a
united folk in order to free ourselves internally from everything foreign,
and externally from unjust gagging. Gradually, more and more awakening people
joined the German uprising for freedom. We felt like relatives among ourselves,
imbued with a faith, a sense of sacrifice, and an irrepressible will to fight
for a great idea. The campaign of slander of the opponents became more and
more determined. Some claimed we were worse than communists, others said
reactionary, monarchist, big capitalist – but Hitler went his way without regard
to right and left. We knew that we belonged to him. We didn’t know what the
future would bring for each individual. It was unclear to us what form our
longing would take. We found the struggle beautiful and life without it
worthless. The 1927 Party Congress was followed with great interest.
The party members
drove or went to the neighbouring towns two or three times a week to recruit new
community members for the idea. New local groups gradually formed, but adherents
everywhere remained small minorities. The call kept ringing out: „Great
Germany awakens.“ In June- July 1929 preparations for the Party Congress in
Nuremberg began. Every penny kept together to buy new uniforms, there was
endless drilling and training. How we women wish we were men back then, so that
we could ride along and see the Führer. With enthusiastic cries of salvation,
the participants at the Party Congress in our and neighbouring towns rolled off
in the truck, which took them to the nearest town, whence they took the train to
Nuremberg. We waited impatiently for the mail. On the second day, my brother
wrote „One lives in a new world, the whole town a brown army camp.“ The next
day: „Today, marching here, the coming Germany“ and then they all wrote,
„Now we will no longer give way, victory will be ours, there is no turning
back.”
Back then, the
brown columns marched past the Führer for hours, swearing loyalty and
allegiance. It was a confession of unprecedented urgency of the awakening
Germany’s desire for freedom. For the system parties, who believed they could
render the movement harmless through ridiculousness and slander, there was no
longer any evasion. They had to accept that the men who had placed Nuremberg
under the sign of the swastika for 3 days had dedicated their hearts and hands
to the movement. And those days were the sign for thousands to take the national
front and let it grow into the greatest popular uprising. At the beginning of
March 1930, the great hero of the movement, Horst Wessel, died as a result of a
communist attack. He gives us the immortal storm song of the movement: „Clear
the road for the brown battalions, clear the road for the stormtroopers.” With
blood and life, he sealed the brotherhood between student and worker. For us he
was not dead. His glowing will for the fatherland spread to us, his
comrades-in-arms and those who came.
Reichstag elections
in 1930. The movement fought with tremendous tenacity and effort, but with a
clear aim and as hard as steel. The SA saw it as a matter of course to stand
guard in meetings night after night, often at risk of life, since the minds,
especially of the Marxist opponents, were extremely agitated. They saw it as a
matter of course to make the most sensitive sacrifices in money, since the
election campaign was funded entirely by voluntary donations from members. The
agitation, especially from the Zentrum side, took on the cruellest forms. No lie
was too incredible to be used as a means to an end. But as we sat on the radio
that evening, we felt proud that no sacrifice was made in vain. From not quite
900,000 people in 1928, the number of confessors rose to 6 1/2 million on
September 14. The number of Reichstag representatives grew from 12 to 107. The
movement was given the right to say to the world: „We have the Germany of the
future. Make room, for we survived.”
For the heads of
the local groups, there was now a huge amount of work to expand
organizationally. We walked the street proudly and with our heads held high, and
I was delighted at the amazement and the anger of the opponents, who were almost
unbelievable. We had the feeling of a newly won community, the awareness of a
great mission in the service of the German folk.
The entire opposing
press now indulged in the assertion that the party’s participation in the
government was neither desirable nor possible. The economic misery grew daily,
and the mood among the folk grew more bitter. Being an SA man meant being ready
at any hour to risk your life for the movement. The Red Murder kept claiming new
victims from the movement. Chancellor Brüning believed that drastic measures
could save the situation and imposed a uniform ban on all parties. But this
prohibition could not paralyze the aggressive rage of the communists. In a
period of a few weeks, the movement had to mourn 50 dead as victims of the red
terror.
Our SA wore white
shirts instead of brown, and a white carnation instead of the swastika. During
this time we also had a deployment in Hermeskeil. A Trier band also wore the
white shirt, while the other participants were not uniformly dressed. The white
shirts were regarded as dangerous to the state and our responsible local group
leader was sentenced to 3 months in prison in summary proceedings. None of
this could harm our holy conviction that one day, victory would be ours, the
Third Reich would become a reality. The brown uniforms were hidden in safe
places, because Brüning might one day have had the idea of destroying them root
and branch, in order to finally put an end to National Socialism. I still
remember all the glee from the little system followers, who took every
opportunity to tell us what we had now gambled away. These runts, who thought
they could strip hearts and minds by stripping us of uniforms, did not consider
that the continuation of system politics would have ended in Bolshevism and
brought chaos not only to Germany, but to the whole of Europe.
I myself was
depressed at this time and dejected, believing we had many, many years of
fighting ahead of us. In those days, SA squads ran bare-chested everywhere in
the cities because the police had stripped off their shirts, which were
dangerous to the state. From October 1931 to January 1932, the correspondence
between Brüning and Hitler was followed with interest in the press, i.e. Hitler
replied to Brüning on his speeches in the Reichstag and on the radio.
The explanations of
the leader were so clear, purposeful, and unequivocal that from then on I could
not understand why the bearers of reason and the ability to think consciously
refrained from his influence, while more and more simple people, with unchanging
loyalty, swore in love and reverence to that singular man, he who only knew one
thing – his German fatherland, his folk, and their freedom.
Then came the
mightiest election campaign that the party conducted for Hitler’s Reich
presidency. The guidelines were published uniformly for the whole empire. Our SA
was on the move day and night. Early in the morning we packed the banned
newspapers in backpacks, then the boys went from place to place, from door to
door, to do educational work. In the evening they were brought home by the
police, asked where they got the newspapers from, and the next day they were
taken from a safe hiding place and redistributed. Once the truck that brought
the new material stopped in the middle of town, in 3 minutes the supply was
distributed and stowed away and the police, despite countless house searches,
were unable to get hold of the posters and newspapers, which were then shoved
under each door again the next night, while an SA man kept the police officer
walking up and down the streets company, and balanced him in such a way that the
comrades could work the other streets during the time. A wave of gatherings
spilled over into the smallest town.
With all due
respect to the aged Field Marshal, we believed the moment was right to bring
Hitler to power through this election. I myself did not doubt for a moment that
he would win the election. To the innumerable questions that one asked the other
– „how do you think things will go?” – I had only one answer: I said with
unshakable conviction that Hitler would become President of the Reich. When I
went to visit a neighbouring town during these days, I kept writing in the snow
on the way: „Hitler becomes President of the Reich.“ The united systemlings
pandered for Hindenburg – Hindenburg whom they had scorned, slandered, trampled
on, called a murderer, war profiteer, and all sorts of things when he was the
first candidate for Reich President. They all had hated Hindenburg and really
showed their whole depravity. Just to keep Hitler from coming to power, they,
who had been quarrelling and fighting for 14 years, suddenly all agreed.
Our newspapers were
repeatedly banned, our nerves were on edge. The harassment and rushing became
unbearable. In anonymous letters, I too was implored, praying to God and all
saints, to vote for Hindenburg. Hitler was portrayed as a bloodthirsty murderer
who had a number of newborns killed in the Third Reich in order to accelerate
racial selection and had the old people and cripples put against the wall to
make room for the young and healthy. The result of the election was devastating
for me on the first evening. We had all believed too much in victory and did not
reckon with the fact that the blindness of the folk was so great that the
spirits could only separate slowly. I will never forget the morning of the next
day. Center supporters, social democrats, and communists stood at every corner,
discussing the tremendous victory with unanimous joy.
In those days,
it was felt, against all odds, that our faith, spirit of sacrifice and unity had
to triumph
over this smallness and wretchedness.
At a meeting a few
days after the election, the SA belted out their old battle songs with unbroken
courage. The preparations for the second ballot were made with the usual
tenacity and perseverance. Hindenburg got confirmation, but Hitler got 2 million
more votes. 14 million were now in the front. As a result, one election campaign
replaced the other. The red murder took such forms that every follower felt
threatened in his life. We greeted Brüning’s resignation with jubilation and we
understood the Führer completely, even if we perhaps did not see the right
context clearly when he turned down the Vice-Chancellor’s post under the
Chancellorship of Papen. The nervous incompetence of the government was becoming
more and more noticeable. In the elections, the number of votes for the movement
fell again somewhat. The business people fell away, the real ones stayed.
Fight became spasm.
The financial side was beginning to get extremely tight. The movement’s election
propaganda was only possible through the heaviest monetary sacrifices, which
were made to the point of selflessness. Now the last pennies of those who were
driven to guard the meeting were put together to pay for fuel for the truck.
Chancellor Schleicher, von Papen’s successor, lifted the uniform ban. The first
time there was a hint of this news in the papers, the uniforms were brought out,
washed and ironed. Not the hour the ban was lifted, the SA of our region stood
there in uniform, as if by order. That was a jubilation, a joy, and a
satisfaction. Our neighbouring country Oldenburg elected its state parliament at
this time, and was the first to receive a fully National Socialist government.
Other country elections also turned out well. A joyful confidence embraced us
all. When the movement propagated an enlightenment campaign after the Christmas
Peace in 1932, everyone got back into action with the old fanaticism and
enthusiasm. The mood was better than ever, and one felt the coming crowning of
the struggle.
From January 5th to
30th, the SA of our town stood guard in more than 20 meetings. On January 30,
Reich President von Hindenburg entrusted Adolf Hitler with the position of Reich
Chancellor. The long-awaited day was here. In the evening, hundreds of thousands
spontaneously cheered the Führer and the Reich President with tremendous love
and enthusiasm. It was an hour of the most sacred experience for us who sat on
the radio. We cried with happiness and joy and could hardly believe that the
beloved Führer was at the head of the Reich and that the Third Reich was a fact.
And on the evenings of the next few days, torchlight processions moved through
the entire German fatherland as a tribute to the Führer. It was a wedding of the
highest enthusiasm, which had gripped the whole folk. We were ready to forget
all the suffering of the years of struggle for the sake of final victory. There
was a magnetic force in everything, which also had to sweep away those who still
offered internal resistance. The result of the referendum of the Führer showed
that a new will to live will determine German fate and that resisting is
pointless.
It was an
unspeakably blissful feeling of exhilaration for us when our frowned upon and
reviled flag waved from all public buildings for the first time. Awakened German
workers publicly burned their red flags in the marketplaces on March 21. This
day was a day of honour and dedication that united the nation to the leader. At
the grave of the great Prussian king, the commitment to the eternity of the
German folk was made. On the afternoon of March 23rd, when the chancellor made
his government statement, the world had to recognize that the born leader was
speaking, who was unflinchingly determined to destroy what hindered him, but is
also prepared to reconcile what is of good will. Man no longer felt his
irrepressible will soften, but rather fulfilled his mission for the German folk.
The parties recognized their nullity and smallness and agreed to the Enabling
Act. With that, all resistance was broken, the external struggle of the movement
was over, and we are put into a new struggle - for the attainment of the German
folk, the awakening of character values and the restoration of the German era.
Above all, we want
to give the young folk the world view that is deeply rooted in the German
character. Teach these youth that all political power grows from knowing the
greatness of our folk. Understanding the past life of our folk
means feeling one’s
own life as an obligation to walk the path to the future with certainty,
reaching out to those who come after us so that they continue the struggle. And
so, from generation to generation, the National Socialist will is more perfectly
embodied in an eternal Germany, for the blessing of the world.
Heil Hitler!
Ms. R. Eiden
Biography
I
was born on
November 25, 1905 as the eldest of 4 children to the small farmer Johann Eiden
and his wife Katharina née Jakobs in Hermeskeil, district of Trier. From age 6
to 14 I attended the elementary school in my hometown. After being released from
the school, I worked at my parents’ doing housekeeping and farming. As the
financial circumstances of my parents’ house did not allow paid training in
housekeeping, I worked as a housemaid in Saarbrücken from October 1924 to July
1925, and worked from November 1925 to October 1926 in the same job in Cologne.
Then I was again needed in my parents’ house until today. From July to December
1932 I was an enlisted member of the N.S.D.A.P. Since we were struggling
economically due to a sudden transfer of my brother and another brother belonged
to the movement, I left the party and joined the NS Women’s Association. In May
1933 I became the leader of the newly founded local group of the B.D.M. and in
September of the same year the leader of the Ring Trier-Land-Ost, which today
has 34 local groups.
