April 26, 1942
Deputies! Men of the
German Reichstag!
On
December 11, 1941, when I was last able to speak to you, I had the privilege of
accounting for the course of events during the past year. The full extent of
their historic greatness and continued political significance will perhaps not
be appreciated until centuries have passed. Only a few weeks after the
suppression of the revolt in Belgrade, which was instigated jointly by England
and Moscow, Europe realized, perhaps for the first time in centuries, the common
threat from the east. The existence or nonexistence of our continent has often
depended on the successful defense against it. For many men, the causes of the
bloody war, which has been forced on us following September 1939, have now
become clearer.
For this war does not
share any longer the characteristics of the inner- European confrontations that
we have previously grown accustomed to.
Increasingly, the deep
impression has taken hold that the usual or reasonable interests of individual
countries do not suffice to explain the reasons for this historic struggle.
Instead, it seems to be one of those elemental confrontations which, by shaking
up the world once every few millennia, herald the millennium of a new era.
Many of the historical
figures who appear in its course are no more aware of the profound meaning of
their mission and actions than the simple soldier is in the context of a larger
military operation. Such eruptive epochs are so long that the individual human
being finds it difficult to see the context and even the significance of his
life in relation to the overall course of the events. In spite of this, even
where there appears to be no sense to or benefit of such a process, which shakes
up people and even continents, there are beneficiaries. Many believe they have
to drive, but they are only the driven. Others want to strike and, in the end,
they are the ones who are stricken.
When, on September 3,
1939, after endless German endeavors for peace, the new Reich was presented with
the declaration of war by France and England, after these states pushed Poland
to the front as the chosen force, issuing it a carte blanche, one had to despair
of the reason of a world which, apparently without reason, virtually forced the
catastrophe, instead of attempting to prevent the misfortune of an insane war.
No matter with what great
hypocritical friendship its archcapitalists welcome the Bolshevik statesmen, no
matter how tenderly its archbishops embrace the bloody beasts of Bolshevik
atheism, the more they resort to lies, hypocrisy, and fraud in order to cover
morally for the unnatural coalition with this empire before their own people and
the rest of mankind, the less they will be in a position actually to deceive the
perceptive people, in order to prevent the natural evolution of an inevitable
historical development. There is a wise saying dating from antiquity, namely
that the gods first blind those whom they have destined to damnation [actually:
“the gods first drive insane those whom they wish to destroy”].
I do not know whether all
Englishmen today still consider it a wise and enlightened act to have dismissed
the numerous opportunities for an understanding, which I had proposed ever since
the year 1935. Or whether today they are still as convinced that it was very
clever to have turned down my offers for an alliance, which I had renewed even
on September 1, 1939, and to have rejected my peace proposals after the Polish
and French campaigns.
I also know another
commandment. It says that man must give an added push to what the gods have
destined to fall.
So now what has
to happen will happen.
When understanding and
reason have apparently been silenced in international life, then this does not
necessarily mean that there is not a rational will somewhere, even if from the
outside only stupidity and stubbornness can be discerned as causes.
The British Jew, Lord
Disraeli,
once said that
the racial question is the key to world history. We National Socialists have
been raised in this belief. By devoting ourselves to the essence of the racial
question, we have obtained clarification of many events that would otherwise
appear to defy understanding.
The hidden powers that
drove England into the first World War in the year 1914 were Jews. The power
that paralyzed us at that time and finally forced us to surrender under the
slogan that Germany should not be allowed to carry its flag home victorious was
a Jewish one. Jews engineered the revolution by our Volk and thereby robbed us
of our powers of further resistance.
After 1939,
Jews maneuvered the British empire into a dangerous crisis. Jews were the
carriers of the Bolshevik infection which once threatened to destroy Europe. At
the same time, they were the warmongers in the ranks of the plutocracies. A
circle of Jews in America once drove this country into the war against all
national interest, simply and solely because of Jewish-capitalist motives. And
President Roosevelt, lacking capabilities of his own, has the support of said
brain trust, whose leading men I need not mention by name: they are only Jews.
Through them, as in the
year 1917, the United States of America was driven step by step into a war
without reason and sense, by a Jewish-infected president and his completely
Jewish cohorts, against nations which have never harmed America, and against
people from whom America can never profit.
What sense does a war make
that is waged by a state representing a space without a people, against people
without space? In this war, politically speaking, it is not a question of the
interests of individual people, but a question of the confrontation between
nations that seek to secure life on this earth for their members and people, and
nations who have become the instrument of an international world parasite.
German and allied soldiers have become wellacquainted with the actual activities
of this Jewish-international warmongering in a country where Jewry has set up an
exclusive dictatorship, preached it as the idol of a future human race to which,
as once here with us, other people’s inferior subjects have incomprehensibly
become enslaved. At this moment, as always in its history, the seemingly aging
Europe again raises high the torch of a realization, and its men march today as
the representatives of a new and better order, as the true youth of the social
and national freedom of the world.
If I speak to you today in
the name of this true youth of Europe and therefore of a younger world, then I
do this with the sentiment of a man who, for a sacred mission, has left behind
him the most difficult struggle of his life.
Further, I speak to you as
the commander of armies. They are mastering a fate that is the most difficult
trial, the kind which Providence only imposes on those who are destined for the
greatest things.
If the gods love only
those who demand the impossible of them, then the Lord will correspondingly give
His blessing only to him who remains steadfast in face of the impossible.
My Deputies! During this
winter, a battle of the world (Weltkampf) was decided, a battle the
problems of which far surpassed the tasks that should and can be resolved in a
normal war.
When, in November 1918,
the undefeated German Volk, befuddled by the phraseology of the then American
president Wilson, laid down its arms and left the battlefield, it did so under
the influence of that Jewish race that now hoped to construct a secure bastion
for Bolshevism in the heart of Europe. We know the theoretical principles and
the cruel reality of this international plague. It is called the reign of the
proletariat but it is the dictatorship of Jewry! It is the extermination of the
national establishment and intelligentsia of nations, the domination of the
proletariat-by that time leaderless and therefore rendered defenseless due to
its own fault-by the solely Jewish international criminals.
What happened to such a
cruel extent in Russia-the extermination of countless millions of leading
persons-was to be continued in Germany. If this intention failed, then it was
because our Volk still had too many healthy powers of resistance, but insofar as
the establishment on the Bolshevik side is concerned, which consisted only of
Jews, it was due above all to the lack of courage and to the unanimous approval
by the proletariat for the execution in Germany of what had succeeded in Russia.
In individual parts of the Reich at least, we witnessed the beginnings of this
development and we eliminated it at the risk of numerous idealists’ lives.
On Hungary, the curse of
this satanic work weighed more heavily. There, too, it was only possible to
break the power of Jewish might by the use of national force. The name of the
man who, as the leader in the struggle against this crime, became the savior of
Hungary lives on today among us as that of one of the first representatives of
the incipient European uprising.
The most difficult
confrontation with this threatening destruction of people and state took place
in Italy. In a heroic rebellion, Italian war veterans and Italian youths, led by
a uniquely blessed man, defeated the compromise between democratic cowardice and
Bolshevik force in a bloody struggle. They have put in its place a new positive
idea of people and state.
I recommend every German
to study the history of the Fascist revolution.
Not without being deeply
moved, he will follow this man’s path. His movement has so much in common with
ours that we feel its struggle to be part of our own fate. Only with the victory
of Fascism could one speak of the incipient salvation of Europe.
Only then, the
conglomerate of ideas of a destructive and disintegrating nature was replaced
not by the force of the bayonet but by a truly constructive new idea. For the
first time, not only were Bolsheviks defeated in a state but also and above all
Marxists were won over. Won over not only for the reshaping of a better and
healthier social order, which regards the state not as the protector of a
certain social class but as the guarantor of the standard of living of all.
At the same time when
these history-making events were taking place, the National Socialist movement
undertook the fulfillment of its mission in our own Volk. Here, too, the hour
came when-in the confrontation between Jewish internationalism and the National
Socialist idea of people and state- healthy nature prevailed.
Also in most other
European countries, this conflict occurred. However, there was a difference in
that it was at first overshadowed by compromise in some countries; in others, it
was temporarily eliminated by public funds. We all remember the next great and
decisive confrontation in Spain, where the leadership of a single man forced a
clear and final decision. Following a bloody civil war, the national revolution
there likewise defeated the Bolshevik archenemy.
With the increasing
recognition of Jews as the parasitic germs of these diseases, state after state
was forced in the last years to take a position on this fateful question for
nations. Imbued with the instinct of self-preservation, they had to take those
measures which were suited to protect for good their own people against this
international poison.
Even if Bolshevik Russia
is the concrete product of this Jewish infection, one should not forget that
democratic capitalism creates the conditions for it.
In this way, the Jews
prepare what the same Jews execute in the second stage of this process. In the
first stage, they deprive the majority of men of their rights and reduce them to
helpless slaves. Or, as they themselves put it, they make them expropriated
proletarians in order to spur them on, as a fanaticized mob, to destroy the
foundations of their state. Later, this is followed by the extermination of
their own national intelligentsia, and finally by the elimination of all
cultural foundations that, as a thousand-year-old heritage, could provide these
people with their inner worth or serve as a warning to the future. What remains
after that is the beast in man and a Jewish class that, as parasites in
leadership positions, will in the end destroy the fertile soil on which it
thrives.
On this process-which
according to Mommsen results in the Jewishengineered decomposition of people and
states-the young, awakening Europe has now declared war. Proud and honorable
people in other parts of the world have allied themselves to it. They will be
joined by hundreds of millions of oppressed men who, irrespective of how their
present leaders may view this, will one day break their chains. The end of these
liars will come, liars who claim to protect the world against a threatening
domination but who actually only seek to save their own world-rule.
We are now in the midst of
this mighty, truly historic awakening of the people, partly as leading, acting,
or performing men. On the one side stand the men of the democracies that form
the heart of Jewish capitalism, with their whole dead weight of dusty theories
of state, their parliamentary corruption, their outdated social order, their
Jewish brain trusts, their Jewish newspapers, stock exchanges, and banks-a
combination, a mix of political and economic racketeers of the worst sort; on
their side, there is the Bolshevik state, that is, that number of brutish men
over whom the Jew, as in the Soviet Union, wields his bloody whip. And on the
other side stand those nations who fight for their freedom and independence, for
the securing of their people’s daily bread.
So it is the so-called
“haves” from the cellars of the Kremlin to the vaults of New York’s banking
houses against the “have-nots,” that is, those nations for which a single bad
harvest means misery and hunger. In spite of all the diligence of their
inhabitants, they are unable to obtain their daily bread at a time when, in the
states and countries of the “haves,” wheat, corn, coffee, and so on, are thrown
into the fire in order to achieve somewhat higher prices. However, the
battleground where the decision will fall is situated in the east of Europe.
I spoke to you about the
successes of the years of fighting lying behind us, my Deputies, whenever time
and circumstances commanded and made it possible. The last time I spoke about
the fight in the past year was on December 11, 1941.
I would like to stress
here that my speeches are primarily addressed to the German Volk and to its
friends. I do not speak in order to convince people who, because of stupidity or
ill intentions, fail deliberately to see the truth and do not wish to hear about
it. Because if I compare the true course of events with the conclusions drawn
from them by Mr. Churchill-to cite one example-then there appears so wide a
discrepancy between the events and their interpretation that every attempt at
reconciling these contradictory views must be futile. Since September 1939,
indeed ever since the beginning of the seizure of power by National Socialism, I
have made mistake after mistake and faux pas after faux pas.
By contrast, there was not
a single phase that Mr. Churchill does not claim to represent an “encouragement”
for his cause. He will probably claim this to the end.
That England declared war
on us was an encouraging sign of its strength.
That others found
themselves willing to be led to the slaughter for British egotism was no less
encouraging. A mere meeting between Churchill and Daladier or Paul Reynaud
produced encouraging symptoms. Discussions between two or more Allied generals
are as encouraging evidence of the military progress of the democratic cause as
the fireside talks of the sick man in the White House are proof of the
intellectual progress. When Mr. Cripps flew to Moscow for the first time, this
was no less encouraging than his return flight from India. That General
MacArthur was able to flee the Philippines just in time was likewise an
encouraging factor. It is just as encouraging when twenty Englishmen with
blackened faces and rubber soles, aboard a British inflatable raft, succeed in
sneaking up to the coasts occupied by us and land, only to take off again at the
appearance of a German patrol.
If an emigre
government, that is, an assembly of zeroes, issues a declaration against
Germany, then this seems encouraging, just as when Mr. Churchill announces the
destruction of German U-boats, or speaks of a new invention, or a new offensive,
or a second front, and so on.
Nothing can be done about
this. Every people has its own type of encouragements. For example, I once
regarded it as encouraging that we succeeded within eighteen days in sweeping
away the Polish state with its thirty-three million men in a number of mighty
battles of annihilation (Vernichtungsschlachten). I further regarded it
as encouraging that, in this period, neither France nor England dared to feel
their way up to the West Wall. I believe that it was also encouraging that we
could land in Norway and that we did not do so at night with our faces blackened
and with rubber soles, but in broad daylight and in climbing boots with spikes,
and that we gained complete control of this Norway in barely six weeks. It was
likewise very encouraging for all of us to see how the British Expeditionary
Force was thrown out of Norway within a few weeks.
I likewise believe that we
have good reason to find encouraging that it was possible for us in barely six
weeks to beat the French-British armies to complete annihilation, to gain
control of Holland for good in not even one week and of Belgium in barely three
weeks, to defeat the British forces, to capture them, or to force them out to
sea at Dunkirk. I myself felt that it was particularly encouraging that,
together with Italy, we secured great successes not only in France but also in
North Africa.
It was likewise
encouraging in my eyes that, together with our allies, we were able within a few
weeks to smash the Serbian rebellion inspired by Washington and London and
engineered by Moscow. It was further encouraging for us to see that the British
Expeditionary Force quickly retreated first to the Peloponnesian peninsula and
then across the sea to Crete, to the extent that it was not destroyed or
captured by us.
It was no less encouraging
for the German Volk that, since June 22 of last year, we have been able,
together with our allies, to repel from our borders the Bolshevik danger and to
force it back over a thousand kilometers, and that, at the same time, our
U-boats and Luftwaffe, as well as our other naval forces, sank more than sixteen
million GRT [gross registered tons] of enemy merchant ships, continue to sink
them today, and will sink them in the future. I regard it as an encouragement
that we were able to adjust to our standard the gauges of the railroad system in
the expanses of the east and to operate this system, which at this time is
larger than that of the entire English motherland.
On the topic of the
Japanese deeds of heroism, that unique triumphant march, I can only say that, in
our eyes, they are likewise very encouraging. And in this manner, in response to
the encouraging elements of which Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt speak, I could
list countless deeds that represent an encouragement for us. As I see it, the
most encouraging thing for Germany and its allies is that Mr. Churchill and
Roosevelt work in London and Washington, and not in Berlin or Rome. The English
will not believe this, but that is the way it is!
My Deputies! Men of the
Reichstag! When I spoke to you the last time, a winter had set in in the east,
the like of which Europe had not seen for over a hundred forty years
even in this
area. In a few days, the thermometer dropped from around zero degrees to minus
forty-seven degrees and below. Probably nobody can appreciate what that means
unless he has experienced it himself. Four weeks earlier than anticipated, all
further operations came to a sudden end. The front, which was in the middle of a
forward movement, could not be allowed to be swept back, nor could it be left in
the positions taken up at that moment. Therefore, a withdrawal to a general line
stretching from Taganrog to Lake Ladoga was made. I can say today that, while
this process can be easily described here, it was infinitely difficult to carry
it out in reality. The lightning impact of such a cold wave, which even in these
areas occurs only once every hundred years, paralyzed not only the men but also
and above all the machinery. There were moments when both threatened to freeze.
Looking at the vastness of this east, you also have to consider the
psychological strain which destroyed the French army in 1812, and whose memory
is still capable of paralyzing the vigor of weak natures.
The main burden
of the battle lay with the army and the allied foreign units. Therefore, I felt
it was an obligation of honor for me to tie my name at this moment to the fate
of the army.
As a soldier, I felt so
very responsible for the conduct of this battle that I would have regarded it as
unbearable in this most difficult hour not to confront personally whatever
Providence appeared to have in store for us. That we succeeded in completely
mastering the threatening catastrophe, I owe primarily and exclusively to the
bravery, the loyalty, and the superhuman capacity for suffering of our brave
soldiers. They alone have made it possible for me to hold a front against which
the enemy began to throw hecatombs of men.
For months on end, ever
new, barely trained masses from the expanses of central Asia or the Caucasus
assaulted our lines, which, especially at night, could be held only in the form
of strongpoints. It is impossible to lie in an open field without cover at minus
thirty, forty degrees or lower. If, in spite of this, the Russians succeeded in
pushing or seeping through these barely fortified positions with ever new waves
of attack, then this was possible only by sacrificing hundreds of thousands of
men.
But the problem that
weighed on us most heavily at this time was the question of supplies. Neither
the German men nor the German panzers, nor regrettably our German locomotives
were prepared for the onslaught of the cold. And, still, the existence or
nonexistence of our armies depended on the maintenance of our supply lines. You
will therefore understand and surely approve that, in one case or another, I
acted ruthlessly and harshly in order to overcome a destiny to which we might
otherwise have succumbed, by fighting with the fiercest determination.
Because, my Deputies, when
in the year 1812, the Napoleonic armies were swept back from Moscow and were
finally wiped out, minus twenty-five was the lowest temperature. This year,
however, the lowest temperature we measured at one location along the eastern
front was precisely fifty-two degrees below zero.
In summing up,
if I give my view on the accomplishments of the troops themselves, I can only
say that they all have fulfilled their duty to the utmost.
But surely the German
infantry once again ranks at the top. On the march for thousands of kilometers,
forever on the attack, it plunged into a winter practically overnight. It had
neither anticipated it in this form, nor had it ever before witnessed it. We all
know the paralyzing influence of the cold. It puts man to sleep and kills him
painlessly. That we were spared this fate in these critical weeks, we owe to the
superhuman fitness and strength of will not only of the soldiers, but also and
above all of the noncommissioned officers, and officers up to those generals
who, in realizing the approaching danger and at great risk to their own lives,
spurred on the men time and again and formed them into that sworn community that
today is probably the best the German Volk has ever called its own. In speaking
of this infantry, I would today like to underline for the first time the
constant and exemplary bravery and toughness of my SS divisions and SS police
units. From the start, I regarded them as an unshakable unit, just as obedient,
loyal, and brave in wartime as in peacetime.
However, in the ranks of
this infantry also fought the panzer grenadiers and panzer destroyers,
engineers, gunners, signalers, and, last but not least, the drivers of our
columns. They all deserve the homeland’s gratitude. Through its heroic sorties,
the Luftwaffe has helped these brave soldiers time and again, and not only
through its valiant pilots of fighters, bombers, spotting and transport planes,
but also, wherever necessary, through its flak and Luftwaffe battalions which on
the ground unshakably defended their airfields and finally also defended the
especially threatened sections of the front.
In the fierce cold,
construction teams of the Todt organization and the Standarte Speer
helped time and again to free arterial roads from interference and to defend the
traffic routes-if necessary with their own blood-against the partisans. Men of
the Labor Service fought with the spade and the rifle.
Superhuman efforts were
demanded of the medical officers and medical noncommissioned officers, the
stretcher-bearers, the male nurses, and, above all, the female nurses of the
German Red Cross and the NSV.
Railroad engineers set up
ever new lines, bridges, and crossings at a time when the steel was so brittle
that tracks began to crack when used. In spite of great weariness, train crews
and switchmen tried to help their comrades at the front, because there were
times when everything depended on a few single railway sections and trains. That
all this was achieved, we owe to the deathdefying courage and fighting morale of
countless and nameless heroes who will live on through their unfading glorious
deeds in the history of our Volk.
It would therefore be a
great injustice if I failed on this day to commemorate those who have shared our
suffering. It is hardly necessary to speak about our Finnish comrades in arms.
They were so excellent and so experienced in this battle that they can only
serve as examples to us. In particular, they remained calm in the face of
Russian units breaking in or seeping through. By closing their front ranks, they
began with the annihilation of the Bolsheviks operating behind their backs. If I
start from the north, then I also have to mention the soldiers of one division
from the south of Europe who went through everything at Lake Ilmen that our own
men had to go through.
When the Spanish division
one day returns to its homeland, we cannot neglect appreciation of their loyalty
and bravery until death. All other units of our Hungarian, Slovak, and Croatian
allies deserve the same evaluation: they have fulfilled their mission with the
greatest bravery and reliability. The three Italian divisions remained in their
place all winter in spite of the cold, which was particularly painful for them.
Thanks to their bravery, every Russian breakthrough was doomed there as well.
The same applies to the brave soldiers of the allied Romanian army, under the
command of Marshal Antonescu.
There, as everywhere else
along the front, a gradual welding together of the various European nations in
the face of the common enemy was notable. This applied not only to the Germanic
volunteers with the SS units, but also to the Belgian and French participants in
this joint venture. But also Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians, and
Tartars took part in the fight against the Bolshevik enemy of the world. The air
forces of our allies, too, dealt the enemy heavy losses, starting with the
Finnish down to the Italian fighter pilots.
In the course of these
mighty, historic successes, it was necessary for me to intervene only in a few
cases. Only when nerves failed, obedience faltered, or a sense of duty was
lacking in performing tasks, did I make hard decisions. I did so empowered by
the sovereign right that I believe has been accorded to me by my German Volk.
For the homeland’s supporting me in this struggle, I wish to say thanks not only
in my own name but also and above all in the name of our soldiers.
It fills me with great
pride and profound satisfaction that the education of our Volk through National
Socialism is increasingly becoming apparent. While the party has by far the
greatest number not only of its members but also of its leaders at the
front-millions of men from the political organization, the SA, the National
Socialist Motorized Corps, and so on, do their duty as soldiers- their
leadership truly serves as an example. It helps not only the frequently pressed
homeland through its organization of the labor front and the National Socialist
People’s Welfare Organization, but also the soldiers in the field.
My appeal for a wool
collection has made it possible within the shortest time, together with many
organizational improvements, to give the troops warmer clothing than possible
before. Therefore, we may all feel proud-and I say so at this
moment-particularly of the soldiers in the front lines. We have overcome a fate
that brought another man
to his knees a
hundred thirty years ago. The trial that this winter represented for the front
and the homeland should serve as a lesson to all of us. From a purely
organizational point of view, I have made the necessary dispositions to prevent
a repetition of a similar state of emergency. No matter where the coming winter
finds us, the German Reichsbahn will do a better job than in the previous
winter. From locomotives to panzers, tractors, and trucks, the army in the east
will be better equipped.
For the individual man,
however, even in the event that a similar natural disaster repeats itself,
experience and
work will prevent the development of a situation similar to the one we have
witnessed. That I am determined to do everything in order to be able to fulfill
these tasks, you will not doubt, my old comrades in arms.
In order to do so, I
expect the following: That the nation accords me the right to intervene
immediately and act accordingly wherever there is no unconditional obedience and
action in the service of the greater mission, which is a question of “to be or
not to be.” Front, homeland, the transportation system, the administration, and
the judiciary must be subject to only one thought, namely, the struggle for
victory. Nobody can in this period insist on acquired rights; instead, he must
know that today there are only duties.
I therefore ask the German
Reichstag for an explicit confirmation that I possess the legal right to order
everybody to fulfill his duties, or if the case dictates to sentence, to a
dishonorable dismissal whoever, in my view, fails conscientiously to fulfill his
duty, or to relieve him of duty and position, irrespective of his person and
acquired rights.
It is precisely because it
is a question of a few exceptions among millions of decent men that above all
the rights of these exceptions today there stands one common duty.
I am therefore not
interested in whether or not, in the present emergency situations, vacation can
be accorded to every official or every employee. And I also refuse to tolerate
that this vacation, which cannot be accorded, will be given credit for in later
years.
If anybody has the right
to request a leave of absence, then this would have to be first our frontline
soldiers, and second our workers for the front. And if, for months, I have not
been in a position to grant this leave of absence to the front in the east as a
whole, then nobody in the homeland should come to me insisting on his office’s
“acquired right” to leave. I myself have the right to refuse this, because-as
these persons may not be aware-I have not even taken three days of vacation for
myself since 1933.
I likewise
expect the German judiciary to understand that the nation does not exist for it,
but that it exists for the nation. This means that the world, which includes
Germany, should not perish so that a formal law can live, but that Germany
should live, no matter what the formal opinions of the judiciary may be. To
mention only one example, I fail to comprehend why a criminal, who marries in
the year 1937 and batters his wife until she finally becomes mentally ill and
dies as the result of the last battering, is sentenced to five years’
imprisonment
at a time when
tens of thousands of honorable German men must die in order to save their
homeland from destruction through Bolshevism, and, most importantly, to protect
their women and children. From now on, I will intervene in such cases and I will
dismiss from office those judges who obviously fail to recognize the dictates of
the moment.
The accomplishments of the
German soldier, the German worker, the farmer, our women in the cities and in
the country, millions of people of our middle classes, and their sacrifices for
the sake of victory demand a congenial altitude in those who have been appointed
by the Volk itself to guard its interests. At this time, there can be no
highhandedness and acquired rights.
Instead, we all are only
the obedient servants of our Volk’s interests.
My Deputies! Men of the
Reichstag! We have a mighty winter battle behind us. The hour will come when the
front loses its stiffness again. Then history will decide who won this winter:
the attacker, who idiotically sacrificed masses of his men, or the defender, who
simply held his positions. Week after week, I read about the mighty threats of
our enemies. You know that I regard my mission as far too sacred and serious
ever to allow me to be careless. What can be done by man to prevent danger, I
have done and will continue to do in the future. And to what extent our
preparations for the overcoming of this danger were sufficient will be shown by
the future. The great warlords of England and the United States of America do
not frighten and terrify me. In my eyes, generals like MacArthur do not possess
miraculous abilities, as the British press believes, but at best the ability for
running away. What I do admire is the modesty of my enemies in assessing the
greatness of their own successes or themselves. Should the idea of continuing
the aerial warfare with new means against the civilian population prevail in
England, then I would like to say the following to all the world: Mr. Churchill
began this war in May 1940. I warned and waited for four months. Then came a
time when I was forced to act. The man who is solely responsible for this type
of combat then began to bemoan it. Now, too, my waiting is not weakness. May
this man not again wail and whimper if I am now forced to give a response that
will bring much suffering to his own people.
From now on, I will
retaliate blow for blow
until this
criminal falls and his work dies.
If I look at the world we
embody and at all the men whom I am fortunate to have as friends and allies,
when I further look at the group of my political leaders in the Reich, at my
Reichsleiters, Gauleiters, at my ministers, and so on, at my Reichsmarschall,
field marshals, admirals, colonel generals, and the numerous other leaders at
the fronts, then I look with the greatest confidence to a future where not
clowns but men will make history. The war in the east will be continued. The
Bolshevik colossus will be beaten by us until it is smashed. And against
England, the German U-boats will be increasingly brought to bear. In the autumn
of 1939, after he sank about ten U-boats nearly every day, Mr. Churchill assured
the English people that he would overcome the danger of the U-boats. Now, I wish
to assure him that this danger will more likely overcome him. At another point,
I have already stated that the freezing of the German U-boat deployment last
year was exclusively due to my efforts which were directed at avoiding every
conceivable occasion for a conflict with America. However, this could not
prevent the president of the American Union, driven by his Jewish patrons, from
attempting to restrict the German conduct of the war by ever new measures and to
make U-boat warfare impossible for us through declarations in violation of
international law.
Therefore, we were
gratified that the valiant Japanese people decided to respond to the impudent
provocations by this lunatic in the only way possible in the eyes of its own
people and world history. The German U-boats were finally released on the oceans
in the full sense of the word. And even if, nearly every week, the
British-American press twaddles about a new invention that will lead to the
irretrievable loss of the U-boats, this is no newer than the fact that our
German and allied U-boats and weapons improve from year to year in the same way.
What the German Navy has achieved in spite of its numerically small size far
surpasses what our far greater navy was capable of achieving in the World War.
What our U-boats are
capable of will be proved month after month.
Because, contrary to the
tipsy statements by Churchill in the autumn of 1939 on the end of the German
U-boats, I can assure him that their number will increase at a steady pace every
month and that today it has already far surpassed the maximum number of U-boats
in the World War.
If the Italian-German
cooperation in the Mediterranean has led to an ever closer comradeship and to
ever increasing successes, then Germany’s cooperation with Italy, Japan, and the
other allies will bring equally great results in other theaters of the war. That
provoking Japan to enter this war was perhaps the most disingenuous and stupid
act by our enemies has already been proved by the few months of heroic struggle
by this people. I do not know whether today all Englishmen still firmly believe
that the political methods of Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt were correct, and
that the deployment in this war was ever in keeping with a possible profit.
We Germans have everything
to win in this struggle of “to be or not to be,” because losing this war would
anyway be our end. Central Asian barbarism would sweep across Europe as at the
time of the invasions by Huns and Mongols. Nobody knows this better than the
German soldier and the nations allied to him, who are getting to know the
essence of the Bolshevik liberation of mankind at the front, who are seeing with
their own eyes what the paradise of the worker and peasant looks like in
reality, and who has described it correctly: National Socialism and Fascism, or
our enemies. England cannot win this war. It will lose. And then perhaps the
realization will finally go down in its history that one should not entrust the
fate of people and states to cynical drunkards or lunatics.
In this
struggle, truth will win in the end! And it is on our side! That Providence has
chosen me and allows me to lead the German Volk in such a great age is my great
pride. I will unconditionally tie my name and my life to its fate. I address no
other request to the Almighty than to bless us in the future as in the past and
to preserve my life for as long as it is necessary in His eyes for the fateful
struggle of the German Volk. For there is no greater glory than the honor to be
the Fuhrer of a Volk in difficult times and, therefore, the bearer of the
responsibility! And I know no greater happiness than the awareness that this
Volk is my German one.
Hermann
Göring – closing words for the Reichstag
session
There
can be no doubt that, in the present time of war in which the German Volk
struggle for “to be or not to be,” the Fuhrer must possess the right claimed by
him to do all that serves the struggle for victory or contributes to it.
Therefore-without being bound by existing regulations-in his capacity as the
Fuhrer of the nation, as supreme commander of the Wehrmacht, as head of
government, and supreme bearer of the executive power, as supreme Law Lord, and
as leader of the party, the Fuhrer must be able at all times to order every
German-whether he is a common soldier or officer, low or high-ranking
administrator, or judge, leading or lesser functionary in the party, worker or
employee-to fulfill his duties by all means that appear appropriate to him; and
if he neglects these duties, the Fuhrer must be able to assign him a suitable
punishment following a conscientious examination, irrespective of so-called
acquired rights, and, in particular, without initiating prescribed procedures,
to relieve him of his office, rank, or position.
