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Munich, Gathering of the SA — Speech of November 9, 1921 

On November 9, 1921— just five days after the Battle of the Hall (Saalschlacht) where fewer than fifty SA 
Men had beaten back more than 400 communists and Jews who had tried to disrupt Hitler's speech in 
the Festival Hall of the Hofbrauhaus— Adolf Hitler addressed a gathering ofSA Men. The following is 
what he told them: 

For us there are only two possibilities: either we remain German or we come under the thumb of the 
Jews. This latter must not occur; even if we are small, we are a force. A well-organized group can 
conquer a strong enemy. If you stick close together and keep bringing in new people, we will be 
victorious over the Jews. 



Munich - Speech of April 12, 1922 

AFTER the War production had begun again and it was thought that better times were coming, 
Frederick the Great after the Seven Years War had, as the result of superhuman efforts, left Prussia 
without a penny of debt: at the end of the World War Germany was burdened with her own debt of some 
7 or 8 milliards of marks and beyond that was faced with the debts of 'the rest of the world' - the so- 
called 'reparations.' The product of Germany's work thus belonged not to the nation, but to her foreign 
creditors: 'it was carried endlessly in trains for territorities beyond our frontiers.' Every worker had to 
support another worker, the product of whose labor was commandeered by the foreigner. 'The German 
people after twenty- five or thirty years, in consequence of the fact that it will never be able to pay all 
that is demanded of it, will have so gigantic a sum still owing that practically it will be forced to produce 
more than it does today.' What will the end be? and the answer to that question is 'Pledging of our land, 
enslavement of our labor-strength. Therefore, in the economic sphere, November 1918 was in truth no 
achievement, but it was the beginning of our collapse.' And in the political sphere we lost first our 
military prerogatives, and with that loss went the real sovereignty of our State, and then our financial 
independence, for there remained always the Reparations Commission so that 'practically we have no 
longer a politically independent German Reich, we are already a colony of the outside world. We have 
contributed to this because so far as possible we humiliated ourselves morally, we positively destroyed 
our own honor and helped to befoul, to besmirch, and to deny everything which we previously held as 
sacred.' If it be objected that the Revolution has won for us gains in social life: they must be 
extraordinarily secret, these social gains - so secret that one never sees them in practical life - they must 
just run like a fluid through our German atmosphere. Some one may say Well, there is the eight-hour 
day!' And was a collapse necessary to gain that? And will the eight-hour day be rendered any more 
secure through our becoming practically the bailiff and the drudge of the other peoples? One of these 
days France will say: You cannot meet your obligations, you must work more. So this achievement of 
the Revolution is put in question first of all by the Revolution. 

Then some one has said: 'Since the Revolution the people has gained Rights. The people governs!' 
Strange! The people has now been ruling three years and no one has in practice once asked its opinion. 
Treaties were signed which will hold us down for centuries: and who has signed the treaties? The 
people? No! Governments which one fine day presented themselves as Governments. And at their 
election the people had nothing to do save to consider the question: there they are already, whether I 
elect them or not. If we elect them, then they are there through our election. But since we are a self- 
governing people, we must elect the folk in order that they may be elected to govern us. 



Then it was said, 'Freedom has come to us through the Revolution.' Another of those things that one 
cannot see very easily! It is of course true that one can walk down the street, the individual can go into 
his workshop and he can go out again: here and there he can go to a meeting. In a word, the individual 
has liberties. But in general, if he is wise, he will keep his mouth shut. For if in former times 
extraordinary care was taken that no one should let slip anything which could be treated as lese-majeste, 
now a man must take much greater care that he doesn't say anything which might represent an insult to 
the majesty of a member of Parliament. 

And if we ask who was responsible for our misfortune, then we must inquire who profited by our 
collapse. And the answer to that question is that 'Banks and Stock Exchanges are more flourishing than 
ever before.' We were told that capitalism would be destroyed, and when we ventured to remind one or 
other of these famous statesmen and said 'Don't forget hat Jews too have capital,' then the answer was: 
'What are you worrying about? Capitalism as a whole will now be destroyed, the whole people will now 
be free. We are not fighting Jewish or Christian capitalism, we are fighting very capitalism: we are 
making the people completely free.' 

Christian capitalism' is already as good as destroyed, the international Jewish Stock Exchange capital 
gains in proportion as the other loses ground. It is only the international Stock Exchange and loan- 
capital, the so-called 'supra-state capital,' which has profited from the collapse of our economic life, the 
capital which receives its character from the single supra-state nation which is itself national to the core, 
which fancies itself to be above all other nations, which places itself above other nations and which 
already rules over them. 

The international Stock Exchange capital would be unthinkable, it would never have come, without its 
founders the supra-national, because intensely national, Jews.... 

The Jew has not grown poorer: he gradually gets bloated, and, if you don't believe me, I would ask you 
to go to one of our health-resorts; there you will find two sorts of visitors: the German who goes there, 
perhaps for the first time for a long while, to breathe a little fresh air and to recover his health, and the 
Jew who goes there to lose his fat. And if you go out to our mountains, whom do you find there in fine 
brand-new yellow boots with splendid rucksacks in which there is generally nothing that would really be 
of any use? And why are they there? They go up to the hotel, usually no further than the train can take 
them: where the train stops, they stop too. And then they sit about somewhere within a mile from the 
hotel, like blow-flies round a corpse. 

These are not, you may be sure, our working classes: neither those working with the mind, nor with the 
body. With their worn clothes they leave the hotel on one side and go on climbing: they would not feel 
comfortable coming into this perfumed atmosphere in suits which date from 1913 or 1914. No, 
assuredly the Jew has suffered no privations! . . . 

While now in Soviet Russia the millions are ruined and are dying, Chicherin - and with him a staff of 
over 200 Soviet Jews - travels by express train through Europe, visits the cabarets, watches naked 
dancers perform for his pleasure, lives in the finest hotels, and does himself better than the millions 
whom once you thought you must fight as 'bourgeois.' The 400 Soviet Commissars of Jewish nationality 
- they do not suffer; the thousands upon thousands of sub-Commissars -they do not suffer. No! all the 
treasures which the 'proletarian' in his madness took from the 'bourgeoise' in order to fight so-called 
capitalism - they have all gone into their hands. Once the worker appropriated the purse of the landed 
proprietor who gave him work, he took the rings, the diamonds and rejoiced that he had now got the 
treasures which before only the 'bourgeoisie' possessed. But in his hands they are dead things - they are 
veritable death-gold. They are no profit to him. He is banished into his wilderness and one cannot feed 
oneself on diamonds. For a morsel of bread he gives millions in objects of value. But the bread is in the 
hands of the State Central Organization and this is in the hands of the Jews: so everything, everything 



that the common man thought that he was winning for himself, flows back again to his seducers. 

And now, my dear fellow-countrymen, do you believe that these men, who with us are going the same 
way, will end the Revolution? They do not wish the end of the Revolution, for they do not need it. For 
them the Revolution is milk and honey. 

And further they cannot end the Revolution. For if one or another amongst the leaders were really not 
seducer but seduced, and today, driven by the inner voice of horror at his crime, were to step before the 
masses and make his declaration: 'We have all deceived ourselves: we believed that we could lead you 
out of misery, but we have in fact led you into a misery which your children and your children's children 
must still bear' - he cannot say that, he dare not say that, he would on the public square or in the public 
meeting be torn in pieces. 

But amongst the masses there begins to flow a new stream - a stream of opposition. It is the recognition 
of the facts which is already in pursuit of this system, it already is hunting the system down; it will one 
day scourge the masses into action and carry the masses along with it. And these leaders, they see that 
behind them the anti-Semitic wave grows and grows; and when the masses once recognize the facts, that 
is the end of these leaders. 

And thus the Left is forced more and more to turn to Bolshevism. In Bolshevism they see today the sole, 
the last possibility of preserving the present state of affairs. They realize quite accurately that the people 
is beaten so long as Brain and Hand can be kept apart. For alone neither Brain nor Hand can really 
oppose them. So long therefore as the Socialist idea is coined only by men who see in it a means for 
disintegrating a nation, so long can they rest in peace. 

But it will be a sorry day for them when this Socialist idea is grasped by a Movement which unites it 
with the highest Nationalist pride, with Nationalist defiance, and thus places the Nation's Brain, its 
intellectual workers, on this ground. Then this system will break up, and there would remain only one 
single means of salvation for its supporters: viz. to bring the catastrophe upon us before their own ruin, 
to destroy the Nation's Brain, to bring it to the scaffold - to introduce Bolshevism. 

So the Left neither can nor will help. On the contrary, their first lie compels them constantly to resort to 
new lies. There remains then the Right. And this party of the Right meant well, but it cannot do what it 
would because up to the present time it has failed to recognize a whole series of elementary principles. 

In the first place the Right still fails to recognize the danger. These gentlemen still persist in believing 
that it is a question of being elected to a Landtag or of posts as ministers or secretaries. They think that 
the decision of a people's destiny would mean at worst nothing more than some damage to their so- 
called bourgeois-economic existence. They have never grasped the fact that this decision threatens their 
heads. They have never yet understood that it is not necessary to be an enemy of the Jew for him to drag 
you one day, on the Russian model, to the scaffold. They do not see that it is quite enough to have a 
head on your shoulders and not to be a Jew: that will secure the scaffold for you. 

In consequence their whole action today is so petty, so limited, so hesitating and pusillanimous. They 
would like to - but they can never decide on any great deed, because they fail to realize the greatness of 
the whole period. 

And then there is another fundamental error: they have never got it clear in their own minds that there is 
a difference or how great a difference there is between the conception 'National' and the word 'dynastic' 
or 'monarchistic.' They do not understand that today it is more than ever necessary in our thoughts as 
Nationalists to avoid anything which might perhaps cause the individual to think that the National Idea 
was identical with petty everyday political views. They ought day by day to din into the ears of the 



masses: 'We want to bury all the petty differences and to bring out into the light the big things, the things 
we have in common which bind us to one another. That should weld and fuse together those who have 
still a German heart and a love for their people in the fight against the common hereditary foe of all 
Aryans. How afterward we divide up this State, friends - we have no wish to dispute over that! The form 
of a State results from the essential character of a people, results from necessities which are so 
elementary and powerful that in time every individual will realize them without any disputation when 
once all Germany is united and free.' 

And finally they all fail to understand that we must on principle free ourselves from any class 
standpoint. It is of course very easy to call out to those on the Left, 'You must not be proletarians, leave 
your class-madness,' while you yourselves continue to call yourself 'bourgeois.' They should learn that in 
a single State there is only one supreme citizen - right, one supreme citizen - honor, and that is the right 
and the honor of honest work. They should further learn that the social idea must be the essential 
foundation for any State, otherwise no State can permanently endure. 

Certainly a government needs power, it needs strength. It must, I might almost say, with brutal 
ruthlessness press through the ideas which it has recognized to be right, trusting to the actual authority of 
its strength in the State. But even with the most ruthless brutality it can ultimately prevail only if what it 
seeks to restore does truly correspond to the welfare of a whole people. 

That the so-called enlightened absolutism of a Frederick the Great was possible depended solely on the 
fact that, though this man could undoubtedly have decided 'arbitrarily' the destiny - for good or ill - of 
his so-called 'subjects,' he did not do so, but made his decisions influenced and supported by one thought 
alone, the welfare of his Prussian people. It was this fact only that led the people to tolerate willingly, 
nay joyfully, the dictatorship of the great king. 

AND THE RIGHT HAS FURTHER COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN THAT DEMOCRACY IS 
FUNDAMENTALLY NOT GERMAN: IT IS JEWISH. It has completely forgotten that this Jewish 
democracy with its majority decisions has always been without exception only a means towards the 
destruction of any existing Aryan leadership. The Right does not understand that directly every small 
question of profit or loss is regularly put before so-called 'public opinion,' he who knows how most 
skilfully to make this 'public opinion' serve his own interests becomes forthwith master in the State. And 
that can be achieved by the man who can lie most artfully, most infamously; and in the last resort he is 
not the German, he is, in Schopenhauer's words, 'the great master in the art of lying' - the Jew. 

And finally it has been forgotten that the condition which must precede every act is the will and the 
courage to speak the truth - and that we do not see today either in the Right or in the Left. 

There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that the people will forever go with the 
middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently 
foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the 
Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction - to Bolshevism, or else it is a 
party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and 
has no longer any faith in anything, is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power - that 
is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago. Here, too, there can be no 
compromise - there are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan, or annihilation of the Aryan 
and the victory of the Jew. 

It is from the recognition of this fact, from recognizing it, I would say, in utter, dead earnestness, that 
there resulted the formation of our Movement. There are two principles which, when we founded the 
Movement, we engraved upon our hearts: first, to base it on the most sober recognition of the facts, and 
second, to proclaim these facts with the most ruthless sincerity. 



And this recognition of the facts discloses at once a whole series of the most important fundamental 
principles which must guide this young Movement which, we hope, is destined one day for greatness: 

1. 'NATIONAL' AND 'SOCIAL' ARE TWO IDENTICAL CONCEPTIONS. It was only the Jew who 
succeeded, through falsifying the social idea and turning it into Marxism, not only in divorcing the 
social idea from the national, but in actually representing them as utterly contradictory. That aim he has 
in fact achieved. At the founding of this Movement we formed the decision that we would give 
expression to this idea of ours of the identity of the two conceptions: despite all warnings, on the basis of 
what we had come to believe, on the basis of the sincerity of our will, we christened it "National 
Socialist.' We said to ourselves that to be 'national' means above everything to act with a boundless and 
all-embracing love for the people and, if necessary, even to die for it. And similarly to be 'social' means 
so to build up the state and the community of the people that every individual acts in the interest of the 
community of the people and must be to such an extent convinced of the goodness, of the honorable 
straightforwardness of this community of the people as to be ready to die for it. 

2. And then we said to ourselves: THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS CLASSES: THEY CANNOT 
BE. Class means caste and caste means race. If there are castes in India, well and good; there it is 
possible, for there there were formerly Aryans and dark aborigines. So it was in Egypt and in Rome. But 
with us in Germany where everyone who is a German at all has the same blood, has the same eyes, and 
speaks the same language, here there can be no class, here there can be only a single people and beyond 
that nothing else. Certainly we recognize, just as anyone must recognize, that there are different 
'occupations' and 'professions' [Stande] -there is the Stand of the watchmakers, the Stand of the common 
laborers, the Stand of the painters or technicians, the Stand of the engineers, officials, etc. Stande there 
can be. But in the struggles which these Stande have amongst themselves for the equalization of their 
economic conditions, the conflict and the division must never be so great as to sunder the ties of race. 

And if you say 'But there must after all be a difference between the honest creators and those who do 
nothing at all' - certainly there must! That is the difference which lies in the performance of the 
conscientious work of the individual. Work must be the great connecting link, but at the same time the 
great factor which separates one man from another. The drone is the foe of us all. But the creators - it 
matters not whether they are brain workers or workers with the hand - they are the nobility of our State, 
they are the German people! 

We understand under the term 'work exclusively that activity which not only profits the individual but 
in no way harms the community, nay rather which contributes to form the community. 

3. And in the third place IT WAS CLEAR TO US THAT THIS PARTICULAR VIEW IS BASED ON 
AN IMPULSE WHICH SPRINGS FROM OUR RACE AND FROM OUR BLOOD. We said to 
ourselves that race differs from race and, further, that each race in accordance with its fundamental 
demands shows externally certain specific tendencies, and these tendencies can perhaps be most clearly 
traced in their relation to the conception of work. The Aryan regards work as the foundation for the 
maintenance of the community of people amongst it members. The Jew regards work as the means to the 
exploitation of other peoples. The Jew never works as a productive creator without the great aim of 
becoming the master. He works unproductively using and enjoying other people's work. And thus we 
understand the iron sentence which Mommsen once uttered: 'The Jew is the ferment of decomposition in 
peoples,' that means that the Jew destroys and must destroy because he completely lacks the conception 
of an activity which builds up the life of the community. And therefore it is beside the point whether the 
individual Jew is 'decent' or not. In himself he carries those characteristics which Nature has given him, 
and he cannot ever rid himself of those characteristics. And to us he is harmful. Whether he harms us 
consciously or unconsciously, that is not our affair. We have consciously to concern ourselves for the 
welfare of our own people. 



4. And fourthly WE WERE FURTHER PERSUADED THAT ECONOMIC PROSPERITY IS 
INSEPARABLE FROM POLITICAL FREEDOM AND THAT THEREFORE THAT HOUSE OF 
LIES, 'INTERNATIONALISM,' MUST IMMEDIATELY COLLAPSE. We recognized that freedom 
can eternally be only a consequence of power and that the source of power is the will. Consequently the 
will to power must be strengthened in a people with passionate ardor. And thus we realized fifthly that 

5. WE AS NATIONAL SOCIALISTS and members of the German Workers party - a Party pledged to 
work - MUST BE ON PRINCIPLE THE MOST FANATICAL NATIONALISTS. We realized that the 
State can be for our people a paradise only if the people can hold sway therein freely as in a paradise: we 
realized that a slave state will never be a paradise, but only - always and for all time - a hell or a colony. 

6. And then sixthly we grasped the fact that POWER IN THE LAST RESORT IS POSSIBLE ONLY 
WHERE THERE IS STRENGTH, and that strength lies not in the dead weight of numbers but solely in 
energy. Even the smallest minority can achieve a mighty result if it is inspired by the most fiery, the 
most pas sionate will to act. World history has always been made by minorities. And lastly 

7. If one has realized a truth, that truth is valueless so long as there is lacking the indomitable will to turn 
this realization into action! 

These were the foundations of our Movement - the truths on which it was based and which demonstrated 
its necessity. 

For three years we have sought to realize these fundamental ideas. And of course a fight is and remains a 
fight. Stroking in very truth will not carry one far. Today the German people has been beaten by a quite 
other world, while in its domestic life it has lost all spirit; no longer has it any faith. But how will you 
give this people once more firm ground beneath its feet save by the passionate insistence on one definite, 
great, clear goal? 

Thus we were the first to declare that this peace treaty was a crime. Then folk abused us as 'agitators.' 
We were the first to protest against the failure to present this treaty to the people before it was signed. 
Again we were called 'agitators.' We were the first to summon men to resistance against being reduced 
to a continuing state of defenselessness. Once more we were 'agitators.' At that time we called on the 
masses of the people not to surrender their arms, for the surrender of one's arms would be nothing less 
than the beginning of enslavement. We were called, no, we were cried down as, 'agitators.' We were the 
first to say that this meant the loss of Upper Silesia. So it was, and still they called us 'agitators.' We 
declared at that time that compliance in the question of Upper Silesia MUST have as its consequence the 
awakening of a passionate greed which would demand the occupation of the Ruhr. We were cried down 
ceaselessly, again and again. And because we opposed the mad financial policy which today will lead to 
our collapse, what was it that we were called repeatedly once more? Agitators,' And today? 

And finally we were also the first to point the people on any large scale to a danger which insinuated 
itself into our midst - a danger which millions failed to realize and which will nonetheless lead us all 
into ruin - the Jewish danger. And today people are saying yet again that we were 'agitators.' I would like 
here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his 
feeling 'as a man and a Christian' prevented him from being an anti-Semite. I SAY: MY FEELING AS 
A CHRISTIAN POINTS ME TO MY LORD AND SAVIOUR AS A FIGHTER. IT POINTS ME TO 
THE MAN WHO ONCE IN LONELINESS, SURROUNDED ONLY BY A FEW FOLLOWERS, 
RECOGNIZED THESE JEWS FOR WHAT THEY WERE AND SUMMONED MEN TO THE FIGHT 
AGAINST THEM AND WHO, GOD'S TRUTH! WAS GREATEST NOT AS SUFFERER BUT AS 
FIGHTER. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how 
the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers 



and of adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two 
thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before - the fact that it was 
for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to 
be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to 
it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient 
world some two thousand years ago - a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same 
Jewish people. 

Then indeed when Rome collapsed there were endless streams of new German bands flowing into the 
Empire from the North; but, if Germany collapses today, who is there to come after us? German blood 
upon this earth is on the way to gradual exhaustion unless we pull ourselves together and make 
ourselves free! 

And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress which daily 
grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see it 
work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week it has only for its wage wretchedness and 
misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their 
pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did 
not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people is 
plundered and exploited. 

And through the distress there is no doubt that the people has been aroused. Externally perhaps 
apathetic, but within there is ferment. And many may say, 'It is an accursed crime to stir up passions in 
the people.' And then I say to myself: Passion is already stirred through the rising tide of distress, and 
one day this passion will break out in one way or another: AND NOW I WOULD ASK THOSE WHO 
TODAY CALL US AGITATORS': WHAT THEN HAVE YOU TO GIVE TO THE PEOPLE AS A 
FAITH TO WHICH IT MIGHT CLING?' 

Nothing at all, for you yourselves have no faith in your own prescriptions. 

That is the mightiest thing which our Movement must create: for these widespread, seeking and straying 
masses a new Faith which will not fail them in this hour of confusion, to which they can pledge 
themselves, on which they can build so that they may at least find once again a place which may bring 
calm to their hearts. 



Munich - Speech of July 28, 1922 

IT IS a battle which began nearly 120 years ago, at the moment when the Jew was granted citizen rights 
in the European States. The political emancipation of the Jews was the beginning of an attack of 
delirium. For thereby they were given full citizen rights and equality to a people which was much more 
clearly and definitely a race apart than all others, that has always formed and will form a State within the 
State. That did not happen perhaps at one blow, but it came about as things come about today and 
always do come about: first a little finger, then a second and a third, and so bit by bit until at last a 
people that in the eighteenth century still appeared completely alien had won equal citizen-rights with 
ourselves. 

And it was precisely the same in the economic sphere. The vast process of the industrialization of the 
peoples meant the confluence of great masses of workmen in the towns. Thus great hordes of people 
arose, and these, more's the pity, were not properly dealt with by those whose moral duty it was to 
concern themselves for their welfare. Parallel with this was a gradual 'moneyfication' of the whole of the 



nation's labor-strength. 'Share-capital' was in the ascendant, and thus bit by bit the Stock Exchange came 
to control the whole national economy. 

The directors of these institutions were, and are without exception, Jews. I say 'without exception,' for 
the few non-Jews who had a share in them are in the last resort nothing but screens, shop-window 
Christians, whom one needs in order, for the sake of the masses, to keep up the appearance that these 
institutions were after all founded as a natural outcome of the needs and the economic life of all peoples 
alike, and were not, as was the fact, institutions which correspond only with the essential characteristics 
of the Jewish people and are the outcome of those characteristics. 

Then Europe stood at the parting of the ways. Europe began to divide into two halves, into West Europe 
and Central and Eastern Europe. At first Western Europe took the lead in the process of 
industrialization. Especially in England crowds of farm laborers, sons of farmers, or even ruined farmers 
themselves, streamed into the towns and there formed a new fourth estate. 

But here one fact is of more importance than we are accustomed to admit: this England, like France, had 
relatively few Jews. And the consequence of that was that the great masses, concentrated in the towns, 
did not come into immediate contact with this alien nation, and thus feelings of aversion which must 
otherwise necessarily have arisen did not find sufficient nourishment for their development. In the end 
the fifty or sixty thousand Jews in England - there was hardly that number in England then - with 
supreme ease were able so to 'Europeanize' themselves that they remained hidden from the primitive eye 
of the ordinary member of the public and as 'Captains of Industry,' and especially as representatives of 
capital on a large scale, they could appear no longer as foreigners but themselves became Englishmen. 

This accounts for the fact that anti-Semitism in these States could never attain to any native vigor; for 
the same is true of France. And precisely for this reason in these countries it was possible to introduce 
the system which we have to represent to ourselves under the concept of 'Democracy.' There it was 
possible to create a State-form whose meaning could only be the mastery of the herd over the 
intelligentsia, the mastery over true energy through the dead weight of massed numbers. In other words: 
it must be supremely easy for the Jewish intelligentsia, small in numbers and therefore completely 
hidden in the body of the British people, so to work upon the masses that the latter, quite unconscious of 
whom they were obeying, in the end did but serve the purposes of this small stratum of society. 

Through the press propaganda, through the use of the organs of information, it was possible in England 
to found the great model parties. Already in those early days they saw to it shrewdly that here were 
always two or three groups apparently hostile to each other, but in fact all hanging on a gold thread, the 
whole designed to take account of a human characteristic - that the longer a man possesses an object, the 
more readily he grows tired of it. He craves something new: therefore one needs two parties. The one is 
in office, the other in opposition. When the one has played itself out, then the opposition party comes 
into power, and the party which has had its day is now in its turn the opposition. After twenty years the 
new party itself has once more played itself out and the game begins afresh. In truth this is a highly 
ingenious mill in which the interests of a nation are ground very small. As everyone knows, this system 
is given some such name as 'Self-Government of a People.' 

Besides this we always find two great catchwords, 'Freedom' and 'Democracy,' used, I might say, as 
signboards. 'Freedom': under that term is understood, at least amongst those in authority who in fact 
carry on the Government, the possibility of an unchecked plundering of the masses of the people to 
which no resistance can be offered. The masses themselves naturally believe that under the term 
'freedom' they possess the right to a quite peculiar freedom of motion - freedom to move the tongue and 
to say what they choose, freedom to move about the streets, etc. A bitter deception! 

And the same is true of democracy. In general even in the early days both England and France had 



already been bound with the fetters of slavery. With, I might say, a brazen security these States are 
fettered with Jewish chains.... 

In consequence of this widespread aversion it was more difficult for the Jew to spread infection in the 
political sphere, and especially so since traditionally loyalty was centered in a person: the form of the 
State was a monarchy, and power did not lie with an irresponsible majority. Thus the Jew saw that here 
it was possible for an enlightened despotism to arise based upon the army, the bureaucracy, and the 
masses of the people still unaffected by the Jewish poison. 

The intelligentsia at that time was almost exclusively German, big business and the new industries were 
in German hands, while the last reservoir of a people's strength, the peasantry, was throughout healthy. 
In such conditions if, as industry grew, a fourth estate was formed in the towns, there was the danger 
that this fourth estate might ally itself with the monarchy, and thus with its support there might arise a 
popular monarchy or a popular 'Kaisertum' which would be ready and willing to give a mortal blow to 
those powers of international supra-State finance which were at that time beginning to grow in 
influence. This was not impossible: in the history of Germany princes had from time to time found 
themselves forced, as in Brandenburg, to turn against the nobility and seek popular support. 

But this possibility constituted a grave danger for Jewry. If the great masses of the new industrialized 
workmen had come into Nationalist hands and like a true social leaven had penetrated the whole nation, 
if the liberation of the different estates had followed step by step in an organic development and the 
State had later looked to them for support, then there would have been created what many hoped for in 
November, 1918, viz., a national social State. For Socialism in itself is anything but an international 
creation. As a noble conception it has indeed grown up exclusively in Aryan hearts: it owes its 
intellectual glories only to Aryan brains. It is entirely alien to the Jew. 

The Jew will always be the born champion of private capital in its worst form, that of unchecked 
exploitation.... Voltaire, as well as Rousseau, together with our German Fichte and many another - they 
are all without exception united in their recognition that the Jew is not only a foreign element differing 
in his essential character, which is utterly harmful to the nature of the Aryan, but that the Jewish people 
in itself stands against us as our deadly foe and so will stand against us always and for all time. 

The master-stroke of the Jew was to claim the leadership of the fourth estate: he founded the Movement 
both of the Social Democrats and the Communists. His policy was twofold: he had his 'apostles' in both 
political camps. Amongst the parties of the Right he encouraged those features which were most 
repugnant to the people - the passion for money, unscrupulous methods in trade which were employed 
so ruthlessly as to give rise to the proverb 'Business, too, marches over corpses.' And the Jew attacked 
the parties of the Right. Jews wormed their way into the families of the upper classes: it was from the 
Jews that the latter took their wives. The result was that in a short time it was precisely the ruling class 
which became in its character completely estranged from its own people. 

And this fact gave the Jew his opportunity with the parties of the Left. Here he played the part of the 
common demagogue. Two means enabled him to drive away in disgust the whole intelligentsia of the 
nation from the leadership of the workers. First: his international attitude, for the native intelligence of 
the country is prepared to make sacrifices, it will do anything for the life of the people, but it cannot 
believe in the mad view that through the denial of that national life, through a refusal to defend the rights 
of one's own people, through the breaking down of the national resistance to the foreigner, it is possible 
to raise up a people and make it happy. That it cannot do, and so it remained at a distance. 

And the Jew's second instrument was the Marxist theory in and for itself. For directly one went on to 
assert that property as such is theft, directly one deserted the obvious formula that only the natural 
wealth of a country can and should be common property, but that that which a man creates or gains 



through his honest labor is his own, immediately the economic intelligentsia with its nationalist outlook 
could, here too, no longer co-operate: for this intelligentsia was bound to say to itself that this theory 
meant the collapse of any human civilization whatever. Thus the Jew succeeded in isolating this new 
movement of the workers from all the nationalist elements.... 

More and more so to influence the masses that he persuaded those of the Right that the faults of the Left 
were the faults of the German workman, and similarly he made it appear to those of the Left that the 
faults of the Right were simply the faults of the so-called 'Bourgeois,' and neither side noticed that on 
both sides the faults were the result of a scheme planned by alien devilish agitators. And only so is it 
possible to explain how this dirty joke of world history could come to be that Stock Exchange Jews 
should become the leaders of a Workers Movement. It is a gigantic fraud: world history has seldom seen 
its like. 

And then we must ask ourselves: what are the final aims of this development? 

So soon as millions of men have had it hammered into them that they are so oppressed and enslaved that 
it matters not what their personal attitude may be to their people, their State, or economic life, then a 
kind of passive resistance must result, which sooner or later will do fatal damage to the national 
economy. Through the preaching of the Marxist economic theory the national economy must go to ruin. 
We see the results in Russia: the end of the whole economic life of the State: the handing over of the 
community to the international world of finance. And the process is furthered through the organization 
of the 'political strike.' Often there are no adequate economic grounds for a strike, but there are always 
political grounds and plenty of them. 

And to this must be added the practical political sabotage of the State, since the thought of the individual 
is concentrated on the idea of international solidarity. It is clear that a nation's economic life depends 
upon the strength of a national State: it does not live on such phrases as Appeasement of the peoples' or 
'Freedom of the Peoples.' 

At the moment when no people supports the economic life of a nation, ready to give it its protection, at 
that moment economic life collapses. The breaking in pieces of a nation's strength is the end of a nation's 
prosperity, the national existence must cease altogether. 

And one can see constantly how wonderfully the Stock Exchange Jew and the leader of the workers, 
how the Stock Exchange organ and the journal of the workers, co-operate. They both pursue one 
common policy and a single aim. Moses Kohn on the one side encourages his association to refuse the 
workers' demands, while his brother Isaac in the factory incites the masses and shouts, 'Look at them! 
they only want to oppress you! Shake off your fetters....' 

His brother takes care that the fetters are well and truly forged. The Stock Exchange organ seeks without 
intermission to encourage fevered speculation and unparalleled corners in grain and in the food of the 
people, while the workmen's newspaper lets off all its guns on the masses, telling them that bread is 
dearer and this, that, and the other is dearer: up Proletarians! endure it no longer-down with . . . 

How long can this process last? It means the utter destruction not only of economic life, but of the 
people. It is clear that all these apostles who talk their tongues out of their heads, but who spend the 
night in the Hotel Excelsior, travel in express trains, and spend their leave for their health in Nice - these 
people do not exert their energies for love of the people. No, the people is not to profit, it shall merely be 
brought into dependence on these men. The backbone of its independence, its own economic life, is to 
be destroyed, that it may the more surely relapse into the golden fetters of the perpetual interest-slavery 
of the Jewish race. And this process will end when suddenly out of the masses someone arises who 
seizes the leadership, finds other comrades and fans into flame the passions which have been held in 



check and looses them against the deceivers. 

That is the lurking danger, and the Jew can meet it in one way only - by destroying the hostile national 
intelligentsia. That is the inevitable ultimate goal of the Jew in his revolution. And this aim he must 
pursue; he knows well enough his economics brings no blessing: his is no master people: he is an 
exploiter: the Jews are a people of robbers. He has never founded any civilization, though he has 
destroyed civilizations by the hundred. He possesses nothing of his own creation to which he can point. 

Everything that he has is stolen. Foreign peoples, foreign workmen build him his temples, it is 
foreigners who create and work for him: it is foreigners who shed their blood for him. He knows no 
'people's army': he has only hired mercenaries who are ready to go to death on his behalf. He has no art 
of his own: bit by bit he has stolen it all from the other peoples or has watched them at work and then 
made his copy. He does not even know how merely to preserve the precious things which others have 
created: as he turns the treasures over in his hand they are transformed into dirt and dung. He knows that 
he cannot maintain any State for long. That is one of the differences between him and the Aryan. True, 
the Aryan also has dominated other peoples. But how? He entered on the land, he cleared the forests; out 
of wildernesses he has created civilizations, and he has not used the others for his own interests, he has, 
so far as their capacities permitted, incorporated them into his State and through him art and science 
were brought to flower. In the last resort it was the Aryan and the Aryan alone who could form States 
and could set them on their path to future greatness. 

All that the Jew cannot do. And because he cannot do it, therefore all his revolutions must be 
'international.' They must spread as a pestilence spreads. He can build no State and say 'See here, Here 
stands the State, a model for all. Now copy us!' He must take care that the plague does not die, that it is 
not limited to one place, or else in a short time this plague-hearth would burn itself out. So he is forced 
to bring every mortal thing to an international expansion. For how long? Until the whole world sinks in 
ruins and brings him down with it in the midst of the ruins. 

That process today in Russia is practically complete. The whole of present-day Russia has nothing to 
show beyond a ruined civilization, a colony ripe for development through alien capital, and even this 
capital in order to supply resources in labor for its practical work must introduce Aryan intellects, since 
for this again the Jew is useless. Here, too, he is all rapacity, never satisfied. He knows no ordered 
economy, he knows no ordered body of administrators. Over there in Russia he is laying his hands on 
everything. They take the noble's diamonds to help 'the People.' The diamonds then stray into foreign 
societies and are no more seen. He seizes to himself the treasures of the churches, but not to feed the 
people: oh no! Everything wanders away and leaves not a trace behind. In his greed he has become quite 
senseless: he can keep hold of nothing: he has only within him the instinct for destruction, and so he 
himself collapses with the treasure that he has destroyed. 

It is a tragic fate: we have often grown excited over the death of a criminal: if an anarchist is shot in 
Spain we raise a mighty howl over 'the sacrifice of valuable human blood' . . . and here in the East thirty 
million human beings are being slowly martyred - done to death, some on the scaffold, some by machine 
guns . . . millions upon millions through starvation.... A whole people is dying, and now we can perhaps 
understand how it was possible that formerly all the civilizations of Mesopotamia disappeared without a 
trace so that one can only with difficulty find in the desert sand the remains of these cities. We see how 
in our own day whole countries die out under this scourge of God, and we see how this scourge is 
threatening Germany, too, and how with us our own people in mad infatuation is contributing to bring 
upon itself the same yoke, the same misery. 

We know that the Revolution which began in 1918 has covered perhaps but the first third of its course. 
Two things, however, there are which must scourge it forward upon its way: economic causes and 
political causes. On the economic side, the ever-growing distress, and in the political sphere, are not 



nearly all Germans in their hearts - let each one admit it - in despair when they consider the situation 
which leaves us quite defenseless in face of a Europe which is so hostile to Germany? AND WHY IS 
EUROPE HOSTILE? WE SEE HOW OVER THERE IN THIS OTHER EUROPE IT IS NOT THE 
PEOPLES WHICH AGITATE AGAINST US, IT IS THE SECRET POWER OF THE ORGANIZED 
PRESS WHICH CEASELESSLY POURS NEW POISON INTO THE HEARTS OF THESE 
PEOPLES. 

And who are then these bandits of the press? The brothers and the relatives of the publishers of our own 
newspapers. And the capital source which provides the energy which here - and there - drives them 
forward is the Jewish dream of World Supremacy. 

Today the idea of international solidarity has lost its force, one can still bring men out of the factories, 
but only by means of terrorism. If you ask for an honest answer the worker will confess that he no 
longer believes in this international solidarity. And the belief in the so-called reasonableness of the other 
peoples has gone too. How often have we been told that reason will lead them not to be too hard with us: 
true, reason should have moved them thus, but what did move them had nothing to do with reason. For 
here there is no question of the thought of reasonable peoples: it is the thought of a wild beast, tearing, 
raging in its unreason, that drives all of them to the same ruin as that to which we ourselves are driven. 

So the masses of the people in Germany are becoming, in the political sphere, completely lost. Yet here 
and there people are beginning to get some practice in criticism. Slowly, cautiously, and yet with a 
certain accuracy the finger is being placed on the real wound of our people. And thus one comes to 
realize: if only this development goes on for a time, it might be possible that from Germany the light 
should come which is destined to light both Germany and the world to their salvation. And at that point 
the everlasting lie begins to work against us with every means in its power.... 

It is said, if one criticizes the state of affairs to which we have been brought today, that one is a 
reactionary, a monarchist, a pan-German. I ask you what would probably have been the state of 
Germany today if during these three years there had been no criticism at all? I believe that in fact there 
has been far, far too little criticism. OUR PEOPLE UNFORTUNATELY IS MUCH TOO 
UNCRITICAL, OR OTHERWISE IT WOULD LONG AGO HAVE NOT ONLY SEEN THROUGH 
MANY THINGS, BUT WOULD HAVE SWEPT THEM AWAY WITH ITS FIST! The crisis is 
developing towards its culmination. The day is not far distant when, for the reasons which I have stated, 
the German Revolution must be carried forward another step. The leaders know all too well that things 
cannot always go on as they are going today. One may raise prices ten times by 100 per cent, but it is 
doubtful if in the end even a German will accept a milliard of marks for his day's wage if in the last 
resort with his milliard-wage he must still starve. It is a question whether one will be able to keep up this 
great fraud upon the nation. There will come a day when this must stop - and therefore one must build 
for that day, before it comes. 

And so now Germany is reaching that stage which Russia has drunk to the lees. Now in one last 
stupendous assault they will finally crush all criticism, all opposition, no, rather whatever honesty is still 
left to us, and that they will do the more rapidly the more clearly they see that the masses are beginning 
to understand one thing - National Socialist teaching. 

Whether for the moment it comes to them under that name or under another, the fact is that everywhere 
more and more it is making headway. Today all these folk cannot yet belong to a single party, but, 
wherever you go, in Germany, yes almost in the whole world, you find already millions of thinking men 
who know that a State can be built only on a social foundation and they know also that the deadly foe of 
every social conception is the international Jew. 

Every truly national idea is in the last resort social, i.e., he who is prepared so completely to adopt the 



cause of his people that he really knows no higher ideal than the prosperity of this - his own - people, he 
who has so taken to heart the meaning of our great song 'Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles,' that 
nothing in this world stands for him higher than this Germany, people and land, land and people, he is a 
Socialist! And he who in this people sympathizes with the poorest of its citizens, who in this people sees 
in every individual a valuable member of the whole community, and who recognizes that this 
community can flourish only when it is formed not of rulers and oppressed but when all according to 
their capacities fulfill their duty to their Fatherland and the community of the people and are valued 
accordingly, he who seeks to preserve the native vigor, the strength, and the youthful energy of the 
millions of working men, and who above all is concerned that our precious possession, our youth, 
should not before its time be used up in unhealthy harmful work - he is not merely a Socialist, but he is 
also National in the highest sense of that word. 

It is the teaching of these facts which appears to the Jews as leaders of the Revolution today to constitute 
a threatening danger. And it is precisely this which more than anything else makes the Jew wish to get in 
his blow as soon as possible. For one thing he knows quite well: in the last resort there is only one 
danger which he has to fear-and that danger is this young Movement. 

He knows the old parties. They are easily satisfied. Only endow them with a few seats as ministers or 
with similar posts and they are ready to go along with you. And in especial he knows one thing: they are 
so innocently stupid. In their case the truth of the old saying is proved afresh every day: 'Those whom 
the gods wish to destroy, they first strike with blindness.' They have been struck with blindness: 
therefore it follows that the gods wish to destroy them. Only look at these parties and their leaders, 
Stresemann and the rest of them. They are indeed not dangerous. They never go to the roots of the evil: 
they all still think that with forbearance, with humanity, with accommodation they can fight a battle 
which has not its equal in this world. Through gentleness they think that they must demonstrate to the 
enemy of the Left that they are ready for appeasement so as to stay the deadly cancerous ulcer through a 
policy of moderation. 

No! A thousand times No! Here there are only two possibilities: either victory or defeat! 

What today is the meaning of these great preparations for the decisive battle on the part of bolshevist 
Judaism?- 

To make the nation defenseless in arms and to make the people defenseless in spirit. 

Two great aims! 

Abroad Germany is already humiliated. The State trembles before every French Negro-captain, the 
nation is no longer dangerous. And within Germany they have seen to it that arms should be taken away 
from the decent elements of the people and that in their stead Russian-Jewish-bolshevist bands should be 
armed. Only one thing remains still to do: viz., the muzzling of the spirit, above all the arrest of the evil 
'agitators' - that is the name they give to those who dare to tell the people the truth. Not only are their 
organizations to be known to all, but the masses are to be incited against their persons. Just as the Jew 
could once incite the mob of Jerusalem against Christ, so today he must succeed in inciting folk who 
have been duped into madness to attack those who, God's truth! seek to deal with this people in utter 
honesty and sincerity. And so he begins to intimidate them, and he knows that this pressure in itself is 
enough to shut the mouths of hundreds, yes, of thousands. For they think, if I only hold my tongue, then 
I shall be safe in case they come into power. No, my friend. The only difference will be that I may hang 
perhaps still talking, while you will hang - in silence. Here, too, Russia can give us countless examples, 
and with us it will be the same story. 

We know that the so-called 'Law for the Protection of the Republic' which comes from Berlin today is 



nothing else than a means for reducing all criticism to silence. We know, too, that no effort will be 
spared so that the last outstanding personalities - those who within Germany foresee the coming of 
disaster - shall in good time disappear. And to that end the population of North Germany will be 
scourged into opposition to Bavaria with every lie and every misrepresentation that comes to hand. Up 
there they have the feeling that in one corner of the Reich the spirit of the German people is not yet 
broken. And that is the point to which we National Socialists have to grapple ourselves. We National 
Socialists are, God's truth! perhaps the most loyal, the most devoted of all men to our German 
Fatherland. For three years we have waged a war, often against death and devil, but always only for our 
German Fatherland. We got so far that at the last, as crown of all our labors, we had to land in prison. 
But in spite of everything there is one thing we would say: We do make a distinction between a 
Government and the German Fatherland. When today here in the Landtag or in the Reichstag at Berlin 
some lousy half- Asiatic youth casts in our teeth the charge that we have no loyalty to the Reich, I beg 
you do not distress yourselves. The Bavarian people has sealed its loyalty to the Reich with its countless 
regiments which fought for the Reich and often sank under the earth two or three times. We are 
convinced, and that in the last resort is our one great faith, that out of this bitterest distress and this utter 
misery the German Reich will rise again, but not as now, not as the offspring of wretchedness and 
misery - we shall possess once again a true German Reich of freedom and of honor, a real Fatherland of 
the whole German people and not an asylum for alien swindlers. There is today constant talk about 
'Federalism,' etc. I beg you not to abuse the Prussians while at the same time you grovel before the Jews, 
but show yourselves stiff-necked against the folk of Berlin. And if you do that, then you will have on 
your side in the whole of Germany millions and millions of Germans, whether they be Prussians or men 
of Baden, Wurttembergers, men of Saxony, or Germans of Austria. Now is the hour to stand stiff-necked 
and resist to the last! 

We National Socialists who for three years have done nothing but preach - abused and insulted by all, by 
some mocked and scorned, by others traduced and slandered - we cannot retreat! For us there is only one 
path which leads straight ahead. We know that the fight which now is blazing will be a hard struggle. It 
will not be fought out in the court of the Reich at Leipzig, it will not be fought out in a cabinet at Berlin, 
it will be fought out through those factors which in their hard reality have ever up to the present time 
made world history. I heard recently in the speech of a minister that the rights of a State cannot be set 
aside through simple majority decisions, but only through treaties. BISMARCK ONCE USED 
DIFFERENT LANGUAGE ON THIS SUBJECT: HE THOUGHT THAT THE DESTINIES OF 
PEOPLES COULD BE DETERMINED NEITHER THROUGH MAJORITY DECISIONS NOR 
THROUGH TREATIES, BUT ONLY THROUGH BLOOD AND IRON. 

On one point there should be no doubt: we will not let the Jews slit our gullets and not defend ourselves. 
Today in Berlin they may already be arranging their festival-dinners with the Jewish hangmen of Soviet 
Russia - that they will never do here. They may today begin to set up the Cheka - the Extraordinary 
Commission - in Germany, they may give it free scope, we surrender to such a Jewish Commission 
never! We have the conviction, firm as a rock, that, if in this State seven million men are determined to 
stand by their 'No' to the very last, the evil specter will collapse into nothingness in the rest of the Reich. 
For what Germany needs today, what Germany longs for ardently, is a symbol of power, and strength. 

So as I come to the end of my speech I want to ask something of those among you who are young. And 
for that there is a very special reason. The old parties train their youth in the gift of the gab, we prefer to 
train them to use their bodily strength. For I tell you: the young man who does not find his way to the 
place where in the last resort the destiny of his people is most truly represented, only studies philosophy 
and in a time like this buries himself behind his books or sits at home by the fire, he is no German 
youth! I call upon you! Join our Storm Divisions! And however many insults and slanders you may hear 
if you do join, you all know that the Storm Divisions have been formed for our protection, for your 
protection, and at the same time not merely for the protection of the Movement, but for the protection of 
a Germany that is to be. If you are reviled and insulted, good luck to you, my boys! You have the good 



fortune already at eighteen or nineteen years of age to be hated by the greatest of scoundrels. What 
others can win only after a lifetime of toil, this highest gift of distinguishing between the honest man and 
the brigand, falls as a piece of luck into your lap while you are but youths. You can be assured that the 
more they revile you, the more we respect you. We know that if you were not there, none of us would 
make another speech. We know, we see clearly that our Movement would be cudgelled down if you did 
not protect it! You are the defense of a Movement that is called one day to remodel Germany in 
revolutionary fashion from its very foundations in order that there may come to birth what perhaps so 
many expected on the ninth of November: a German Reich and a Germanic and, so far as in us lies, a 
German Republic. 

Every battle must be fought to the end - better that it come early than late. And he ever stands most 
securely who from the first goes to the fight with the greatest confidence. And this highest confidence 
we can carry with us in our hearts. For he who on our side is today the leader of the German people, 
God's truth! he has nothing to win but perhaps only everything to lose. He who today fights on our side 
cannot win great laurels, far less can he win great material goods - it is more likely that he will end up in 
jail. He who today is leader must be an idealist, if only for the reason that he leads those against whom it 
would seem that everything has conspired. 

But in that very fact there lies an inexhaustible source of strength. The conviction that our Movement is 
not sustained by money or the lust for gold, but only by our love for the people, that must ever give us 
fresh heart, that must ever fill us with courage for the fray. 

And as my last word, take with you this assurance: if this battle should not come, never would Germany 
win peace. Germany would decay and at the best would sink to ruin like a rotting corpse. But that is not 
our destiny. We do not believe that this misfortune which today our God sends over Germany has no 
meaning: it is surely the scourge which should and shall drive us to a new greatness, to a new power and 
glory, to a Germany which for the first time shall fulfill that which in their hearts millions of the best of 
our fellow countrymen have hoped for through the centuries and the millennia, to the Germany of the 
German people! 



Munich - Speech of September 18, 1922 

ECONOMICS is a secondary matter. World history teaches us that no people became great through 
economics: it was economics that brought them to their ruin. A people died when its race was 
disintegrated. Germany, too, did not become great through economics. 

A people that in its own life [volkisch] has lost honor becomes politically defenseless, and then becomes 
enslaved also in the economic sphere. 

Internationalization today means only Judaization. We in Germany have come to this: that a sixty- 
million people sees its destiny to lie at the will of a few dozen Jewish bankers. This was possible only 
because our civilization had first been Judaized. The undermining of the German conception of 
personality by catchwords had begun long before. Ideas such as 'Democracy,' 'Majority,' 'Conscience of 
the World,' 'World Solidarity,' 'World Peace,' 'Internationality of Art,' etc., disintegrate our race- 
consciousness, breed cowardice, and so today we are bound to say that the simple Turk is more man 
than we are. 

No salvation is possible until the bearer of disunion, the Jew, has been rendered powerless to harm. 

1. We must call to account the November criminals of 1918. It cannot be that two million Germans 



should have fallen in vain and that afterwards one should sit down as friends at the same table with 
traitors. No, we do not pardon, we demand - Vengeance! 

2. The dishonoring of the nation must cease. For betrayers of their Fatherland and informers the gallows 
is the proper place. Our streets and squares shall once more bear the names of our heroes; they shall not 
be named after Jews. In the Question of Guilt we must proclaim the truth. 

3 . The administration of the State must be cleared of the rabble which is fattened at the stall of the 
parties. 

4. The present laxity in the fight against usury must be abandoned. Here the fitting punishment is the 
same as that for the betrayers of their Fatherland. 

5. WE MUST DEMAND A GREAT ENLIGHTENMENT ON THE SUBJECT OF THE PEACE 
TREATY. WITH THOUGHTS OF LOVE? NO! BUT IN HOLY HATRED AGAINST THOSE WHO 
HAVE RUINED US. 

6. The lies which would veil from us our misfortunes must cease. The fraud of the present money- 
madness must be shown up. That will stiffen the necks of us all. 

7. AS FOUNDATION FOR A NEW CURRENCY THE PROPERTY OF THOSE WHO ARE NOT OF 
OUR BLOOD MUST DO SERVICE. If families who have lived in Germany for a thousand years are 
now expropriated, we must do the same to the Jewish usurers. 

8. WE DEMAND IMMEDIATE EXPULSION OF ALL JEWS WHO HAVE ENTERED GERMANY 

SINCE 1914, and of all those, too, who through trickery on the Stock Exchange or through other shady 
transactions have gained their wealth. 

9. The housing scarcity must be relieved through energetic action; houses must be granted to those who 
deserve them. Eisner said in 1918 that we had no right to demand the return of our prisoners - he was 
only saying openly what all Jews were thinking. People who so think must feel how life tastes in a 
concentration camp! 

Extremes must be fought by extremes. Against the infection of materialism, against the Jewish 
pestilence we must hold aloft a flaming ideal. And if others speak of the World and Humanity we say 
the Fatherland - and only the Fatherland! 



Munich - Speech of April 10, 1923 

IN THE Bible we find the text, 'That which is neither hot nor cold will I spew out of my mouth.' This 
utterance of the great Nazarene has kept its profound validity until the present day. He who would 
pursue the golden mean must surrender the hope of achieving the great and the greatest aims. Until the 
present day the half-hearted and the lukewarm have remained the curse of Germany.... 

To the half-heartedness and weakness of the parties in Parliament was added the half-heartedness of 
Governments... Everything stood under the sign of half-heartedness and lukewarmness, even the fight 
for existence in the World War and still more the conclusion of peace. And now the continuation of the 
half-hearted policy of those days holds the field. The people, inwardly united in the hard struggle-in the 
trenches there were neither parties nor Confessions-has been torn asunder through the economics of 
profiteers and knaves. Appeasement and the settlement of differences would certainly soon be there if 



only one were to hang the whole crew. But profiteers and knaves are, of course, 'Citizens of the State,' 
and what is more important still, they are adherents of the religion which is hallowed by the Talmud. 

EVEN TODAY WE ARE THE LEAST LOVED PEOPLE ON EARTH. A world of foes is ranged 
against us and the German must still today make up his mind whether he intends to be a free soldier or a 
white slave. THE ONLY POSSIBLE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH A GERMAN STATE CAN 
DEVELOP AT ALL MUST THEREFORE BE: THE UNIFICATION OF ALL GERMANS IN 
EUROPE, education towards a national consciousness, and readiness to place the whole national 
strength without exception in the service of the nation. . . . 

NO ECONOMIC POLICY IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT A SWORD, no industrialization without power. 
Today we have no longer any sword grasped in our fist-how can we have a successful economic policy? 
England has fully recognized this primary maxim in the healthy life of States; for centuries England has 
acted on the principle of converting economic strength into political power, while conversely political 
power in its turn must protect economic life. The instinct of self preservation can build up economics, 
but we sought to preserve World Peace instead of the interests of the nation, instead of defending the 
economic life of the nation with the sword and of ruthlessly championing those conditions which were 
essential for the life of the people. 

Three years ago I declared in this same room that the collapse of the German national consciousness 
must carry with it into the abyss the economic life of Germany as well. For liberation something more is 
necessary than an economic policy, something more than industry: IF A PEOPLE IS TO BECOME 
FREE IT NEEDS PRIDE AND WILL-POWER, DEFIANCE, HATE, HATE, AND ONCE AGAIN 
HATE.... 

The spirit comes not down from above, that spirit which is to purify Germany, which with its iron besom 
is to purify the great sty of democracy. To do that is the task of our Movement. The Movement must not 
rust away in Parliament, it must not spend itself in superfluous battles of words, but the banner with the 
white circle and the black Swastika will be hoisted over the whole of Germany on the day which shall 
mark the liberation of our whole people. 



Munich - Speech of April 13, 1923 

IN OUR view, the times when there was no 'League of Nations' were far more honorable and more 
humane.... We ask: 'Must there be wars?' The pacifist answers 'No!' He proceeds to explain that disputes 
in the life of peoples are only the expression of the fact that a class has been oppressed by the ruling 
bourgeoisie. When there are in fact differences of opinion between peoples, then these should be 
brought before a 'Peace Court' for its decision. But he does not answer the question whether the judges 
of this court of arbitration would have the power to bring the parties before the bar of the court. I believe 
that an accused ordinarily only appears 'voluntarily' before a court because, if he did not, he would be 
fetched there. 

I should like to see the nation which would allow itself to be brought before this League of Nations 
Court in the case of a disagreement without external force. In the life of nations, what in the last resort 
decides questions is a kind of Judgment Court of God. It may even happen that in case of a dispute 
between two peoples - both may be in the right. Thus Austria, a people of fifty millions, had most 
certainly the right to an outlet to the sea. But since in the strip of territory in question the Italian element 
of the population was in the majority, Italy claimed for herself the 'right of self-determination.' Who 
yields voluntarily? No one! So the strength which each people possesses decides the day. ALWAYS 
BEFORE GOD AND THE WORLD THE STRONGER HAS THE RIGHT TO CARRY THROUGH 



WHAT HE WILLS. 

History proves: He who has not the strength - him the 'right in itself profits not a whit. A world court 
without a world police would be a joke. And from what nations of the present League of Nations would 
then this force be recruited? Perhaps from the ranks of the old German Army? THE WHOLE WORLD 
OF NATURE IS A MIGHTY STRUGGLE BETWEEN STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS - AN 
ETERNAL VICTORY OF THE STRONG OVER THE WEAK. There would be nothing but decay in 
the whole of Nature if this were not so. States which should offend against the elementary law would 
fall into decay. You need not seek for long to find an example of such mortal decay: you can see it in the 
Reich of today.... 

. . . Before the war two States, Germany and France, had to live side by side but only under arms. It is 
true that the War of 1870-1 meant for Germany the close of an enmity which had endured for centuries, 
but in France a passionate hatred against Germany was fostered by every means by propaganda in the 
press, in school textbooks, in theaters, in the cinemas. . . . All the Jewish papers throughout France 
agitated against Berlin. Here again to seek and to exploit grounds for a conflict is the clearly 
recognizable effort of world Jewry. 

The conflict of interests between Germany and England lay in the economic sphere. Up till 1850 
England's position as a World Power was undisputed. British engineers, British trade conquer the world. 
Germany, owing to greater industry and increased capacity, begins to be a dangerous rival. In a short 
time those firms which in Germany were in English hands pass into the possession of German 
industrialists. German industry expands vastly and the products of that industry even in the London 
market drive out British goods. 

The protective measure, the stamp 'Made in Germany,' has the opposite effect from that desired: this 
'protective stamp' becomes a highly effective advertisement. The German economic success was not 
created in Essen alone but by a man who knew that behind economics must stand power, for power 
alone makes an economic position secure. This power was born upon the battlefields of 1870-71, not in 
the atmosphere of parliamentary chatter. Forty thousand dead have rendered possible the life of forty 
millions. When England, in the face of such a Germany as this, threatened to be brought to her knees, 
then she bethought herself of the last weapon in the armory of international rivalry - violence. A press 
propaganda on an imposing scale was started as a preparatory measure. 

But who is the chief of the whole British press concerned with world trade? One name crystallizes itself 
out of the rest: Northcliffe - a Jew! ... A campaign of provocation is carried on with assertions, libels, 
and promises such as only a Jew can devise, such as only Jewish newspapers would have the effrontery 
to put before an Aryan people. And then at last 1914: they egg people on: Ah, poor violated Belgium! 
Up! To the rescue of the small nations - for the honor of humanity!' The same lies, the same provocation 
throughout the entire world! And the success of that provocation the German people can trace 
grievously enough! 

WHAT CAUSE FINALLY HAD AMERICA TO ENTER THE WAR AGAINST GERMANY? WITH 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE WORLD WAR, WHICH JUDAH HAD DESIRED SO 
PAASSIONATELY AND SO LONG, ALL THE LARGE 

JEWISH FIRMS OF THE UNITED STATES BEGAN SUPPLYING AMMUNITIONS. They supplied 
the European 'war-market' to an extent which perhaps even they themselves had never dreamed of - a 
gigantic harvest! Yet nothing satisfied the insatiable greed of the Jew. And so the venal press which 
depended upon the Stock Exchange kings began an unparalleled propaganda campaign. A GIGANTIC 
ORGANIZATION FOR NEWSPAPER LYING WAS BUILT UP. AND ONCE MORE IT IS A 
JEWISH CONCERN, THE HEARST PRESS, WHICH SET THE TONE OF THE AGITATION 



AGAINST GERMANY. 

The hatred of these Americans' was not directed solely against commercial Germany or against military 
Germany. It was directed specially against social Germany, because this Germany had up to that time 
kept itself outside of the principles which governed the world trusts. The old Reich had at least made an 
honorable attempt to be socially-minded. We had to show for ourselves such an initiative in social 
institutions as no other country in the wide world could boast. . . . This explains why, even in Germany 
itself, the 'comrades' under Jewish leadership fought against their own vital interests. This explains the 
agitation carried on throughout the world under the same watchword. 

For this reason the Jewish-democratic press of America had to accomplish its masterpiece - that is to 
say, it had to drive into the most horrible of all wars a great peace-loving people which was as little 
concerned in European struggles as it was in the North Pole: America was to intervene 'in defense of 
civilization,' and the Americans were persuaded so to do by an atrocity propaganda conducted in the 
name of civilization which from A to Z was a scandalous invention the like of which has never yet been 
seen - a farrago of lies and forgeries. Because this last State in the world where social aims were being 
realized had to be destroyed, therefore twenty-six peoples were incited one against the other by this 
press which is exclusively in the possession of one and the same world people, of one and the same race, 
and that race on principle the deadly foe of all national States. 

Who could have prevented the World War? Not the Kul- tursolidaritat, the 'solidarity of civilization,' in 
whose name the Jews carried on their propaganda: not the so-called World Pacifism - again an 
exclusively Jewish invention. Could the so-called 'Solidarity of the Proletariat?' . . . All the wheels stand 
silent, still, If that be your strong arm's will.... The German wheel on November 9, 1918, was indeed 
brought to a standstill. The Social Democratic party in its principal organ, Vorwarts, declared in so 
many words that it was not in the interest of the workers that Germany should win the war. . . 

Could the Freemasons perhaps stop the war? - this most noble of philanthropic institutions who foretold 
the good fortune of the people louder than anyone and who at the same time was the principal leader in 
promoting the war. Who, after all, are the Freemasons? You have to distinguish two grades. To the 
lower grade in Germany belong the ordinary citizens who through the claptrap which is served up to 
them can feel themselves to be 'somebodies,' but the responsible authorities are those many-sided folk 
who can stand any climate, those 300 Rathenaus who all know each other, who guide the history of the 
world over the heads of Kings and Presidents, those who will undertake any office without scruples, 
who know how brutally to enslave all peoples - once more the Jews! 

Why have the Jews been against Germany? That is made quite clear today - proved by countless facts. 
They use the age-old tactics of the hyena - when fighters are tired out, then go for them! Then make 
your harvest! In war and revolutions the Jew attained the unattainable. Hundreds of thousands of 
escaped Orientals become modern Europeans.' Times of unrest produce miracles. Before 1914 how long 
would it have taken, for instance, in Bavaria before a Galician Jew became - Prime Minister? - Or in 
Russia before an anarchist from the New York Ghetto, Bronstein (Trotsky), became - Dictator? Only a 
few wars and revolutions - that was enough to put the Jewish people into possession of the red gold and 
thereby to make them masters of the world. 

Before 1914 there were two States above all, Germany and Russia, which prevented the Jew from 
reaching his goal - the mastery of the world. Here not everything which they already possessed in the 
Western democracies had fallen to the Jews. Here they were not the sole lords alike in the intellectual 
and economic life. Here, too, the Parliaments were not yet exclusively instruments of Jewish capital and 
of the will of the Jew. The German and the genuine Russian had still preserved a certain aloofness from 
the Jew. In both peoples there still lived the healthy instinct of scorn for the Jew, and there was a real 
danger that in these monarchies there might one day arise a Frederick the Great, a William I, and that 



democracy and a parliamentary regime might be sent to the devil. 

So the Jews became revolutionaries! The Republic should bring them to wealth and to power. This aim 
they disguised: they cried 'Down with the monarchies!' 'Enthrone the sovereign people!' I do not know 
whether today one could venture to call the German or the Russian people 'sovereign.' At least one 
cannot see any trace of it! What the German people can trace, however, what every day stands in the 
most crass form before its eyes, is debauchery, gluttony, speculation ruling unchecked, the open 
mockery of the Jew.... 

So Russia and Germany had to be overthrown in order that the ancient prophecy might be fulfilled. So 
the whole world was lashed into fury. So every lie and propaganda agency was brutally set in action 
against the State of the last - the German - idealists! AND THUS IT WAS THAT JUDAH WON THE 
WORLD WAR. OR WOULD YOU WISH TO MAINTAIN THAT THE FRENCH, THE ENGLISH, 
OR THE AMERICAN 'PEOPLE' WON THE WAR? THEY, ONE AND ALL, VICTORS AND 
VANQUISHED ARE ALIKE DEFEATED: one thing raises itself above them all: the World Stock 
Exchange which has become the master of the people. 

WHAT GUILT HAD GERMANY HERSELF FOR THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR? HER GUILT 
CONSISTED IN THIS: THAT AT THE MOMENT WHEN THE RING CLOSED ABOUT HER 
EXISTENCE GERMANY NEGLECTED TO ORGANIZE HER DEFENSE WITH SUCH VIGOR 
THAT THROUGH THIS DEMONSTRATION OF HER POWER EITHER THE OTHERS, DESPITE 
THEIR ABOMINABLE PURPOSES, WOULD HAVE BEEN ROBBED OF THEIR WILL TO 
STRIKE, OR ELSE THE VICTORY OF THE REICH WOULD HAVE BEEN ASSURED. 

The guilt of the German people lies in this: that when in 1912 a criminal Reichstag in its unfathomable 
baseness and folly had refused to allow the raising of three army corps the people did not create for itself 
those army corps in the Reichstag's despite. With these additional 120,000 men the Battle of the Marne 
would have been won and the issue of the war decided. Two million fewer German heroes would have 
sunk into their graves. Who was it who in 1912 as in 1918 struck its weapons from the hands of the 
German people? Who was it that in 1912, as in the last year of the war, infatuated the German people 
with his theory that if Germany throws down her arms the whole world will follow her example - who? - 
the democratic-Marxist Jew, who at the same hour incited and still today incites the others to arm and to 
subjugate 'barbarous' Germany. 

But someone may perhaps yet raise the question whether it is expedient today to talk about the guilt for 
the war. Most assuredly we have the duty to talk about it! For the murderers of our Fatherland who all 
the years through have betrayed and sold Germany, they are the same men who, as the November 
criminals, have plunged us into the depths of misfortune. We have the duty to speak since in the near 
future, when we have gained power, we shall have the further duty of taking these creators of ruin, these 
clouts, these traitors to their State and of hanging them on the gallows to which they belong. Only let no 
one think that in them there has come a change of heart. On the contrary, these November scoundrels 
who still are free to go as they will in our midst, they are, even today, going against us. From the 
recognition of the facts comes the will to rise again. Two millions have remained on the field of battle. 
They, too, have their rights and not we, the survivors, alone. There are millions of orphans, of cripples, 
of widows in our midst. They, too, have rights. For the Germany of today not one of them died, not one 
of them became a cripple, an orphan, or a widow. We owe it to these millions that we build a new 
Germany! 

Munich - Speech of April 24, 1923 



I REJECT the word 'Proletariat.' The Jew who coined the word meant by 'Proletariat,' not the oppressed, 
but those who work with their hands. And those who work with their intellects are stigmatized bluntly as 
'Bourgeois.' It is not the character of a man's life which forms the basis of this classification, it is simply 
the occupation - whether a man works with his brain or with his body. And in this turbulent mass of the 
hand-workers the Jew recognized a new power which might perhaps be his instrument for the gaining of 
that which is his ultimate goal: World supremacy, the destruction of the national States. 

And while the Jew 'organizes' these masses, he organizes business, too, at the same time. Business was 
depersonalized, i.e., Judaized. Business lost the Aryan character of work: it became an object of 
speculation. Master and man were torn asunder . . . and he who created this class division was the same 
person who led the masses in their opposition to this class division, led them not against his Jewish 
brethren, but against the last remnants of independent national economic life. 

And these remnants, the bourgeoisie which also was already Judaized, resisted the great masses who 
were knocking at the door and demanding better conditions of life. And so the Jewish leaders succeeded 
in hammering into the minds of the masses the Marxist propaganda: 'Your deadly foe is the bourgeoisie; 
if he were not there, you would be free.' If it had not been for the boundless blindness and stupidity of 
our bourgeoisie the Jew would never have become the leader of the German working-classes. And the 
ally of this stupidity was the pride of the 'better stratum' of society which thought it would degrade itself 
if it condescended to stoop to the level of the 'Plebe.' The millions of our German fellow countrymen 
would never have been alienated from their people if the leading strata of society had shown any care for 
their welfare. 

You must say farewell to the hope that you can expect any action from the parties of the Right on behalf 
of the freedom of the German people. The most elementary factor is lacking: the will, the courage, the 
energy. Where then can any strength still be found within the German people? It is to be found, as 
always, in the great masses: THERE ENERGY IS SLUMBERING AND IT ONLY AWAITS THE 
MAN WHO WILL SUMMON IT FROM ITS PRESENT SLUMBER AND WILL HURL IT INTO 
THE GREAT BATTLE FOR THE DESTINY OF THE GERMAN RACE. 

The battle which alone can liberate Germany will be fought out with the forces which well up from the 
great masses. Without the help of the German workingman you will never regain a German Reich. Not 
in our political salons lies the strength of the nation, but in the hand, in the brain, and in the will of the 
great masses. Now as ever: Liberation does not come down from above, it will spring up from below.... 
If we today make the highest demands upon everyone, that is only in order that we may give back to him 
and to his child the highest gift: Freedom and the respect of the rest of the world.... 

The parties of the Right have lost all energy: they see the flood coming, but their one longing is just for 
once in their lives to form a Government. Unspeakably incapable, utterly lacking in energy, cowards all 
- such are all these bourgeois parties and that at the moment when the nation needs heroes -not 
chatterers. 

In the Left there is somewhat more energy, but it is used for the ruin of Germany. The Communists on 
principle reject the discipline imposed by the State: in its stead they preach party discipline: they reject 
the administration of the State as a bureaucracy, while they fall on their knees before the bureaucracy of 
their own Movement. There is arising a State within the State which stands in deadly enmity against the 
State which we know, the State of the community of the people. This new State ultimately produces men 
who reject with fanaticism their own people so that in the end Foreign Powers find in them their allies. 
Such is the result of Marxist teaching.... 

What we want is not a State of drones but a State which gives to everyone that to which on the basis of 
his own activity he has a right. He who refuses to do honest work shall not be a citizen of the State. The 



State is not a plantation where the interests of foreign capital are supreme. Capital is not the master of 
the State, but its servant. Therefore the State must not be brought into dependence on international loan 
capital. And if anyone believes that that cannot be avoided, then do not let him be surprised that no one 
is ready to give his life for this State. Further, that greatest injustice must be corrected which today still 
weighs heavily upon our people and upon almost all peoples. If in a State only he who does honest work 
is a citizen, then everyone has the right to demand that in his old age he shall be kept free from care and 
want. That would mean the realization of the greatest social achievement. 



Munich - Speech of April 27, 1923 

WHAT we need if we are to have a real People's State is a land reform.... We do not believe that the 
mere dividing up of the land can by itself bring any alleviation. The conditions of a nation's life can in 
the last resort be bettered only through the political will to expansion. Therein lies the essential 
characteristic of a sound reform. 

And land [Grund und Boden], we must insist, cannot be made an object for speculation. Private property 
can be only that which a man has gained for himself, has won through his work. A natural product is not 
private property, that is national property. Land is thus no object for bargaining. 

Further, there must be a reform in our law. Our present law regards only the rights of the individual. It 
does not regard the protection of the race, the protection of the community of the people. It permits the 
befouling of the nation's honor and of the greatness of the nation. A law which is so far removed from 
the conception of the community of the people is in need of reform. 

Further, changes are needed in our system of education. We suffer today from an excess of culture 
[Ueberbildung] Only knowledge is valued. But wiseacres are the enemies of action. What we need is 
instinct and will. Most people have lost both through their 'culture.' We have, it is true, a highly 
intellectual class, but it is lacking in energy. If, through our overvaluation of mechanical knowledge, we 
had not so far removed ourselves from popular sentiment, the Jew would never have found his way to 
our people so easily as he has done. What we need is the possibility of a continuous succession of 
intellectual leaders drawn from the people itself. 

Clear away the Jews! Our own people has genius enough - we need no Hebrews. If we were to put in 
their place intelligences drawn from the great body of our people, then we should have recovered the 
bridge which leads to the community of the people. 

AGAIN, WE NEED A REFORM OF THE GERMAN PRESS. 

A press which is on principle anti-national cannot be tolerated in Germany. Whoever denies the nation 
can have no part in it. We must demand that the press shall become the instrument of the national self- 
education. 

FINALLY WE NEED A REFORM IN THE SPHERE OF ART, LITERATURE, AND THE 
THEATER. The Government must see to it that its people is not poisoned. There is a higher right which 
is based on the recognition of that which harms a people, and that which harms a people must be done 
away with. 

And after this reform we shall come to recognize the duty of self-preservation. A man who says: 'I deny 
that I have a right to defend my personal life' has thereby denied his right to exist. TO BE A PACIFIST 
ARGUES A LACK OF CONVICTION, A LACK OF CHARACTER. For the pacifist is indeed ready 



enough to claim the help of others, but himself declines to defend himself. It is precisely the same with a 
people. A people which is not prepared to protect itself is a people without character. We must recover 
for our people as one of its most elementary principles the recognition of the fact that a man is truly man 
only if he defends and protects himself, that a people deserves that name only if in case of necessity it is 
prepared as a people to enter the lists. That is not militarism, that is self-preservation. 

THEREFORE WE NATIONAL SOCIALISTS STAND FOR COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE 
FOR EVERY MAN. If a State is not worth that - then away with it! Then you must not complain if you 
are enslaved. But if you believe that you must be free, then you must learn to recognize that no one gives 
you freedom save only your own sword. What our people needs is not leaders in Parliament, but those 
who are determined to carry through what they see to be right before God, before the world, and before 
their own consciences - and to carry that through, if need be, in the teeth of majorities. And if we 
succeed in raising such leaders from the body of our people, then around them once again a nation will 
crystallize itself... It is the pride of our Movement to be the force which shall awake the Germany of 
fighters which yet shall be. 



Munich - Speech of May 1, 1923 

IF THE first of May is to be transferred in accordance with its true meaning from the life of Nature to 
the life of peoples, then it must symbolize the renewal of the body of a people which has fallen into 
senility. And in the life of peoples senility means internationalism. What is born of senility? Nothing, 
nothing at all. Whatever in human civilization has real value, that arose not out of internationalism, it 
sprang from the soul of a single people. When peoples have lost their creative vigor, then they become 
international Everywhere, wherever intellectual incapacity rules in the life of peoples, there 
internationalism appears. And it is no chance that the promoter of this cast of thought is a people which 
itself can boast of no real creative force - the Jewish people.... 

So the first of May can be only a glorification of the national creative will over against the conception of 
international disintegration, of the liberation of the nation's spirit and of its economic outlook from the 
infection of internationalism. That is in the last resort the question of the restoration to health of peoples 
. . . and the question arises: Is the German oak ever destined to see another springtime? And that is 
where the mission of our Movement begins. We have the strength to conquer that which the autumn has 
brought upon us. Our will is to be National Socialists - not national in the current sense of the word - not 
national by halves. We are National Socialist fanatics, not dancers on the tight-rope of moderation! 

There are three words which many use without a thought which for us are no catch-phrases: Love, Faith, 
and Hope. We National Socialists wish to love our Fatherland, we wish to learn to love it, to learn to 
love it jealously, to love it alone and to suffer no other idol to stand by its side. We know only one 
interest and that is the interest of our people. 

We are fanatical in our love for our people, and we are anxious that so-called 'national governments' 
should be conscious of that fact. We can go as loyally as a dog with those who share our sincerity, but 
we will pursue with fanatical hatred the man who believes that he can play tricks with this love of ours. 
We cannot go with governments who look two ways at once, who squint both towards the Right and 
towards the Left. We are straightforward: it must be either love or hate. 

We have faith in the rights of our people, the rights which have existed time out of mind. We protest 
against the view that every other nation should have rights - and we have none. We must learn to make 
our own this blind faith in the rights of our people, in the necessity of devoting ourselves to the service 
of these rights; we must make our own the faith that gradually victory must be granted us if only we are 



fanatical enough. And from this love and from this faith there emerges for us the idea of hope. When 
others doubt and hesitate for the future of Germany - we have no doubts. We have both the hope and the 
faith that Germany will and must once more become great and mighty. 

We have both the hope and the faith that the day will come on which Germany shall stretch from 
Koenigsberg to Strassburg, and from Hamburg to Vienna. 

We have faith that one day Heaven will bring the Germans back into a Reich over which there shall be 
no Soviet star, no Jewish star of David, but above that Reich there shall be the symbol of German labor - 
the Swastika. And that will mean that the first of May has truly come. 



Munich — Speech of August 1, 1923 

THERE are two things which can unite men: common ideals and common criminality. We have 
inscribed upon our banner the great Germanic ideal and for that ideal we will fight to the last drop of our 
blood. We National Socialists have realized that from the international cesspool of infamy, from the 
Berlin of today, nothing can come to save the Fatherland. We know that two things alone will save us: 
first, the end of internal corruption, the cleansing out of all those who owe their existence simply to the 
protection of their party comrades. Through the most brutal ruthlessness towards all party officials we 
must restore our finances. It must be proved that the official is not a party man, but a specialist! The 
body of German officials must once more become what once it was. But the second and the most 
important point is that the day must come when a German government shall summon up the courage to 
declare to the Foreign Powers: 'The Treaty of Versailles is founded on a monstrous lie. We refuse to 
carry out its terms any longer. Do what you will! If you wish for war, go and get it! Then we shall see 
whether you can turn seventy million Germans into serfs and slaves!' 

If cowards cry out: 'But we have no arms!' that is neither here nor there! When the whole German people 
knows one will and one will only - to be free - in that hour we shall have the instrument with which to 
win our freedom. It matters not whether these weapons of ours are humane: if they gain us our freedom, 
they are justified before our conscience and before our God. When the eyes of German children look 
questioning into ours, when we see the suffering and distress of millions of our fellow-countrymen who 
without any fault of theirs have fallen into this frightful misfortune, then we laugh at the curses of the 
whole world, if from these curses there issues the freedom of our race. 

But since we know that today the German people consists for one-third of heroes, for another third of 
cowards, while the rest are traitors, as a condition of our freedom in respect of the outside world we 
would first cleanse our domestic life. The present 'United Front' has failed in that task. The day of 
another 'United Front' will come. But before that there must be a day of reckoning for those who for four 
and a half years have led us on their criminal ways. The domestic battle must come before the battle 
with the world without - the final decision between those who say 'We are Germans and proud of the 
fact' and those who do not wish to be Germans or who are not Germans at all. Our Movement is opposed 
with the cry 'The Republic is in danger!' Your Republic of the Ninth of November? In very truth it is: 
the November-Republic is in danger! How long, think you, you can maintain this 'State? . . . 

Our Movement was not formed with any election in view, but in order to spring to the rescue of this 
people as its last help in the hour of greatest need, at the moment when in fear and despair it sees the 
approach of the Red Monster. The task of our Movement is still today not to prepare ourselves for any 
coming election but to prepare for the coming collapse of the Reich, so that when the old trunk falls the 
young fir-tree may be already standing. The Via dolorosa of Germany from Wirth, by way of Cuno to 
Stresemann, will end in the dictatorship of a Jewish lord of finance.... WE WANT TO BE THE 



SUPPORTERS OF THE DICTATORSHIP OF NATIONAL REASON, OF NATIONAL ENERGY, OF 
NATIONAL BRUTALITY AND RESOLUTION. GERMANY CAN BE SAVED ONLY THROUGH 
ACTION, WHEN THROUGH OUR TALKING HERE THE BANDAGE HAS BEEN TORN FROM 
THE EYES OF THE LAST OF THE BEFOOLED. It is from our Movement that redemption will come 
- that today is the feeling of millions. That has become almost a new religious faith! And there will be 
only two possibilities: either Berlin marches and ends up in Munich, or Munich marches and ends up in 
Berlin! A bolshevist North Germany and a nationalist Bavaria cannot exist side by side, and the greatest 
influence upon the fortunes of the German Reich will be his who shall restore the Reich.... Either 
Germany sinks, and we through our despicable cowardice sink with it, or else we dare to enter on the 
fight against death and devil and rise up against the fate that has been planned for us. THEN WE 
SHALL SEE WHICH IS THE STRONGER: THE SPIRIT OF INTERNATIONAL JEWRY OR THE 
WILL OF GERMANY. 



Munich — Speech of September 12, 1923 

THE Republic was founded to be a milk-cow for its founders - for the whole parliamentary gang. It was 
never intended to be a State for the German people, but a feeding ground, as pleasant and as rich a 
feeding-ground as possible. There never was any thought of giving to the German people a free State: 
the object was to provide a mob of the lowest scoundrels with an obliging object for their exploitation. 
The fruit of the honest work of other folk has been stolen by those who themselves have never worked. 
And if we refuse to grasp the facts, the outside world knows better. The outside world despises the 
representatives of this November-Republic! Neither in society nor in the meetings of diplomats are they 
regarded as equals, much less as men of character. 

Think of Lloyd George - this man with the single fanatical idea - that England must be led to victory. 
There comes up to him one of the 'November men' of whom he knows: 'My people would have been 
defeated if your people by you had not been...' How will Lloyd George receive him? Surely with 
unspeakable contempt! For he knows what we can only guess, how in the war the millions of gold 
poured into Germany, how they began to take effect, how great associations of traitors were formed 
through foreign gold - through his gold. And now he sees face to face the man to whom before he paid 
out the Judas-wage. What do you think Lloyd George will do? He can only spit at the sight. Never can 
any one of the 'November criminals' represent Germany before the world! . . . 

The Republic, by God! is worthy of its fathers. For hardly was the first deed of shame committed when 
there followed the second - one dishonor after another! One can scarcely believe any longer that there 
was once a time when one could speak of the Germans as the first people in the world. 

The essential character of the November-Republic is to be seen in the comings and goings to London, to 
Spa, to Paris and Genoa. Subserviency towards the enemy, surrender of the human dignity of the 
German, pacifist cowardice, tolerance of every indignity, readiness to agree to everything until nothing 
more remains. This November Republic bore the stamp of the men who made it. The name 'November 
criminals' will cling to these folk throughout the centuries.... 

How are States founded? Through the personality of brilliant leaders and through a people which 
deserves to have the crown of laurel bound about its brows. Compare with them the 'heroes' of this 
Republic! Shirkers, Deserters, and Pacifists: these are its founders and their heroic acts consisted in 
leaving in the lurch the soldiers at the front, in stopping reinforcements, in withholding from them 
munitions, while at home against old men and half-starved children they carried through a revolutionary 
coup d'etat. They have quite simply got together their November State by theft! In the face of the armies 
returning wearied from the front these thieves have still posed as the saviours of the Fatherland! They 



declared the Pacifist-Democratic Republic. On the other hand I ask: What can be the only meaning of 
loyalty to the State? The loyalty of heroes! This Revolution has dishonored the old heroes on whom the 
whole earth had looked with wonder; it allowed the scum of the streets to tear off their decorations and 
to hurl into the mire all that was sacred to the heroes of the front line. And how does the Republic honor 
now the new heroes? Schlageter? By warrants for his arrest. 

Pacifism as the idea of the State, international law instead of power - all means are good enough to 
unman the people. They hold India up to us as a model and what is called 'passive resistance.' True, they 
want to make an India of Germany, a folk of dreams which turns away its face from realities, in order 
that they can oppress it for all eternity, that they may span it body and soul to the yoke of slavery.... 

In the economic sphere this Revolution has proved to be an immense misfortune. The districts which 
were most important for the feeding of our people were lost and districts which are the condition for the 
feeding of the nation have been treasonably alienated. And what did the Revolution not prophesy for us 
in the political sphere? One heard of the right of Self-Determination of Peoples, of the League of 
Nations, of Self-Government of the People. And what was the result? A World Peace, but a World Peace 
over a Germany which was but a field of corpses. Disarmament, but only the disarmament of Germany, 
with Germany looting its own resources. Self-determination, yes, but self-determination for every Negro 
tribe: and Germany does not count as a Negro tribe. League of Nations, yes: but a League of Nations 
which serves only as the guarantor for the fulfillment of the Peace Treaty, not for a better world order 
which is to come. And government by the people - for five years past no one has asked the people what 
it thinks of the act of November of the year 1918: at the head of the Reich there stands a President who 
is rejected by the overwhelming majority of the people and who has not been chosen by the people. 
Seventeen million Germans are in misery under foreign rule. 

Hardly ever in five years has so much been torn away from the German nation as in these years of the 
so-called successful Revolution. We have been rendered defenseless: we are without rights: we have 
become the pariahs of the world. What are our organs of government today but organs for executing the 
will of foreign tyrants? . . . 

We were given a Free State which never deserved the name of 'free.' Then they called it a 'People's 
State.' But think you that bankers can form a government which befits a 'People's State'? 

In fact the Revolution made three changes in our State: it internationalized the German State, the 
economic life of Germany, and the German people itself. Thereby Germany has been turned into a 
colony of the outside world. Those who were fed with the ideal of the International were in fact placed 
under the 'Diktat' of the International. They have their international State: today international finance is 
king.... 

While the masses were still told lies about 'socialization,' the economic life of Germany was in fact 
socialized, not by the German people, but by the outside world.... 

Through the internationalization of the nation itself in the end a people ceases to be master of its own 
fate: it becomes the puppet of alien forces. 

Is that, now, a People's Revolution? Is such a construction a People's State? No, it is the Jews' Paradise. 
Before The Munich Court — Speech of February 26, 1924 



IT SEEMS strange to me that a man who, as a soldier, was for six years accustomed to blind obedience, 
should suddenly come into conflict with the State and its Constitution. The reasons for this stem from 
the days of my youth. When I was seventeen I came to Vienna, and there I learned to study and observe 
three important problems: the social question, the race problem, and, finally, the Marxist movement. I 
left Vienna a confirmed anti-Semite, a deadly foe of the whole Marxist world outlook, and pan-German 
in my political principles. And since I knew that the German destiny of German- Austria would not be 
fought out in the Austrian Army alone, but in the German and Austrian Army, I enlisted in the German 
Army.... 

When, on November 7, [1918] it was announced that the Revolution had broken out in Munich, I at first 
could not believe it. At that time there arose in me the determination to devote myself to politics. I went 
through the period of the Soviets, and as a result of my opposition to them I came in contact with the 
National Socialist German Workers Movement, which at that time numbered six members. I was the 
seventh. I attached myself to this party, and not to one of the great political parties where my prospects 
would have been better, because none of the other parties understood or even recognized the decisive, 
fundamental problem. 

By Marxism I understand a doctrine which in principle rejects the idea of the worth of personality, 
which replaces individual energy by the masses and thereby works the destruction of our whole cultural 
life. This movement has utilized monstrously effective methods and exercised tremendous influence on 
the masses, which in the course of three or four decades could have no other result than that the 
individual has become his own brother's foe, while at the same time calling a Frenchman, an 
Englishman, or a Zulu his brother. This movement is distinguished by incredible terror, which is based 
on a knowledge of mass psychology.... 

The German Revolution is a revolution, and therefore successful high treason; it is well known that such 
treason is never punished.... 

For us it was a filthy crime against the German people, a stab in the back of the German nation. The 
middle class could not take up arms against it because the middle class did not understand the whole 
revolution. It was necessary to start a new struggle and to incite against the Marxist despoilers of the 
people who did not even belong to the German race - which is where the Marxist problem is linked with 
the race problem, forming one of the most difficult and profound questions of our time.... 

Personally, at the beginning I held a lost position. Nevertheless, in the course of a few years there has 
grown from a little band of six men a movement which today embraces millions and which, above all, 
has once made the broad masses nationalistic... 

In 1923 came the great and bitter scandal. As early as 1922 we had seen that the Ruhr was about to be 
lost. France's aim was not merely to weaken Germany, to keep her from obtaining supremacy, but to 
break her up into small states so that she [France] would be able to hold the Rhine frontier. After all the 
Government's reiterations of our weakness, we knew that on top of the Saar and Upper Silesia we would 
lose our third coal region, the Ruhr; each loss brought on the next one.... 

Only burning, ruthless, brutal fanaticism could have saved the situation. The Reich Government should 
have let the hundreds of thousands of young men who were pouring out of the Ruhr into the Reich under 
the old colors of black-white-red flow together in a mighty national wave. Instead, these young people 
were sent back home. The resistance that was organized was for wages; the national resistance was 
degraded to a paid general strike. It was forgotten that a foe like France cannot be prayed away, still less 
can he be idled away.... 

Our youth has - and may this be heard in Paris - but one thought: that the day may come when we shall 



again be free My attitude is this: I would rather that Germany go Bolshevist and I be hanged than 

that she should be destroyed by the French rule of the sword.... It turned out that the back-stabbers were 
stronger than ever.... With pride I admit that our men were the only ones to really resist in the Ruhr. We 
intended to hold fourteen meetings and introduce a propaganda campaign throughout Germany with the 
slogan: DOWN WITH THE RUHR TRAITORS!, But we were surprised by the banning of these mass 
meetings. I had met Herr von Kahr in 1920. Kahr had impressed me as being an honest official. I asked 
him why the fourteen mass meetings had been banned. The reason he gave me simply would not hold 
water. THE REAL REASON WAS SOMETHING THAT COULD NOT BE REVEALED. . - - 

From the very first day the watchword was: UNLIMITED STRUGGLE AGAINST BERLIN.... 

The struggle against Berlin, as Dr. von Kahr would lead it, is a crime; one must have the courage to be 
logical and see that the struggle must be incorporated in the German national uprising. I said that all that 
had been made of this struggle was a Bavarian rejection of Berlin's requests. But the people expected 
something other than a reduction in the price of beer, regulation of the price of milk and confiscation of 
butter tubs and other such impossible economic proposals - proposals which make you want to ask: who 
is the genius that is advising them? Every failure could only further enrage the masses, and I pointed out 
that while the people were now only laughing at Kahr's measures, later on they would rise up against 
them. I said: 'Either you finish the job - and there is only the political and military struggle left. When 
you cross the Rubicon, you must march on Rome. Or else you do not want to struggle; then only 
capitulation is left....' 

The struggle had to turn toward the North; it could not be led by a purely Bavarian organization ... I 
said: 'The only man to head it is Ludendorff.' 

I had first seen Ludendorff in 1918, in the field. In 1920 I first spoke personally with him. I saw that he 
was not only the outstanding general, but that he had now learned the lesson and understood what had 
brought the German nation to ruin. That Ludendorff was talked down by the others was one more reason 
for me to come closer to him. I therefore proposed Ludendorff, and Lossow and Seisser had no 
objections. 

I further explained to Lossow that right now nothing could be accomplished by petty economic 
measures. The fight was against Marxism. To solve this problem, not administrators were needed but 
firebrands who would be in a position to inflame the national spirit to the extreme. Kahr could not do 
that, I pointed out; the youth were not behind him. I declared that I could join them only on the condition 
that the political struggle was put into my hands alone. This was not impudence or immodesty; I believe 
that when a man knows he can do a job, he must not be modest.... 

One thing was certain: Lossow, Kahr, and Seisser had the same goal that we had: to get rid of the Reich 
Government with its present international and parliamentary position, and to replace it by an anti- 
parliamentary government. If our undertaking was actually high treason, then during this whole period 
Lossow, Seisser, and Kahr must have been committing high treason along with us - for during all those 
months we talked of nothing but the aims of which we now stand accused.... 

How could we have called for a new government if we had not known that the gentlemen in power were 
altogether on our side? How else could we, two days before, have given such orders as: at 8:30 o'clock 
such and such a government will be proclaimed.... 

Lossow talked of a coup d'etat. Kahr quite openly declared that he would give the word to strike. The 
only possible interpretation of this talk is that these men wanted to strike, but each time lost their nerve. 
Our last conversation, on November 6, was for me the absolute confirmation of my belief that these men 
wanted to, but - !.... 



Before The Munich Court - Speech of March 27, 1924 

WHEN did the ruin of Germany begin? You know the watchword of the old German system in its 
foreign policy: it ran - maintenance of world peace, economic conquest of the world. With both these 
principles one cannot govern a people. The maintenance of world peace cannot be the purpose and aim 
of the policy of a State. The increase and maintenance of a people - that alone can be the aim. If you are 
going to conquer the world by an economic policy, other peoples will not fail to see their danger. 

What is the State? Today the State is an economic organization, an association of persons, formed, it 
would seem, for the sole purpose that all should co operate in securing each other's daily bread. THE 
STATE, HOWEVER, IS NOT AN ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION, IT IS A 'VOLKIC ORGANISM. 
The purpose, the aim of the State is to provide the people with its food-supply and with the position of 
power in the world which is its due. Germany occupies in Europe perhaps the most bitter situation of 
any people, Militarily, politically, and geographically it is surrounded by none but rivals: IT CAN 
MAINTAIN ITSELF ONLY WHEN IT PLACES A POWER-POLICY (MACHTPOLITIK) 
RUTHLESSLY IN THE FOREGROUND. 

Two Powers are in a position to determine the future development of Europe: England and France. 
England's aim remains eternally the same: to balkanize Europe and to establish a balance of power in 
Europe so that her position in the world will not be threatened. ENGLAND IS NOT ON PRINCIPLE 
AN ENEMY OF GERMANY, IT IS THE POWER WHICH SEEKS TO GAIN THE FIRST PLACE IN 
EUROPE. The declared enemy of Germany is France. Just as England needs the balkanization of 
Europe, so France needs the balkanization of Germany in order to gain hegemony in Europe. After four 
and a half years of bitter struggle at last through the Revolution the scale of victory turned in favor of the 
coalition of these two Powers, with the following result: France was faced with the question: Was she to 
realize her eternal war-aim or not? That means: Could France destroy Germany and deprive it of all the 
sources whereby its people was fed? Today France watches the ripening to fulfillment of her age-old 
plan: it matters not what Government will be at the helm in France: the supreme aim will remain - the 
annihilation of Germany, the extermination of twenty million Germans, and the dissolution of Germany 
into separate States.... 

The army which we have formed grows from day to day; from hour to hour it grows more rapidly. 
EVEN NOW I HAVE THE PROUD HOPE THAT ONE DAY THE HOUR IS COMING WHEN 
THESE UNTRAINED BANDS WILL BECOME BATTALIONS, WHEN THE BATTALIONS WILL 
BECOME REGIMENTS AND THE REGIMENTS DIVISIONS, when the old cockade will be raised 
from the mire, when the old banners will once again wave before us: and then reconciliation will come 
in that eternal last Court of Judgment - the Court of God - before which we are ready to take our stand. 
Then from our bones, from our graves will sound the voice of that tribunal which alone has the right to 
sit in judgment upon us. For, gentlemen, it is not you who pronounce judgment upon us, it is the eternal 
Court of History which will make its pronouncement upon the charge which is brought against us. The 
judgment that you will pass, that I know. But that Court will not ask of us: 'Have you committed high 
treason or not?' That Court will judge us ....who as Germans have wished the best for their people and 
their Fatherland, who wished to fight and to die. You may declare us guilty a thousand times, but the 
Goddess who presides over the Eternal Court of History will with a smile tear in pieces the charge of the 
Public Prosecutor and the judgment of the Court: for she declares us guiltless. 



Munich — Speech of September 16, 1930 



THIS election means that the circle is now complete. And the question at this time is: what are the aims 
of this opposition and its leaders? 

It is a fight for an idea - a Weltanschhauung: and in the forefront stands a fundamental principle: Men do 
not exist for the State, the State exists for men. First and far above all else stands the idea of the people: 
the State is a form of organization of this people, and the meaning and the purpose of the State are 
through this form of organization to assure the life of the people. And from this there arises a new mode 
of thought and thus necessarily a new political method. 

We say: a new mode of thought. Today our whole official political outlook is rooted in the view that the 
State must be maintained because the State in itself is the essential thing; we, on the other hand, 
maintain that the State in its form has a definite purpose to fulfill and the moment that it fails to fulfill its 
purpose the form stands condemned. Above everything stands the purpose to maintain the nation's life - 
that is the essential thing and one should not speak of a law for the protection of the State but for the 
protection of the nation: it is of this protection that one must think.... In the place of this rigid formal 
organization - the State - must be set the living organism - the people. Then all action is given a new 
untrammelled freedom: all the formal fetters which can today be imposed on men become immoral 
directly they fail to maintain the people, because that is the highest purpose in life and the aim of all 
reasonable thought and action. 

If today our action employs among its different weapons that of Parliament, that is not to say that 
parliamentary parties exist only for parliamentary ends. For us Parliament is not an end in itself, but 
merely a means to an end ... we are not on principle a parliamentary party - that would be a 
contradiction of our whole outlook - WE ARE A PARLIAMENTARY PARTY BY COMPULSION, 
UNDER CONSTRAINT, AND THAT COMPULSION IS THE CONSTITUTION. The Constitution 
compels us to use this means. It does not compel us to wish for a particular goal, it only prescribes a way 
- a method, and, I repeat, we follow this way legally, in accordance with the Constitution: by the way 
laid down through the Constitution we advance towards the purposes which we have set before us. 

Never can Constitutions determine for all time the content of a purpose, especially when this content is 
not identical with the vital rights of a people. If today the Constitution admits for its protection laws 
which are headed, 'Laws for the Protection of the Republic,' then it is demonstrated that the most which 
our present Constitution can prescribe is nothing but the protection and the maintenance of a form, and 
that does not touch the maintenance of the nation, of a people. This purpose is therefore free: this is the 
goal which we proclaim and to which we shall attain. . . 

From blood, authority of personality, and a fighting spirit springs that value which alone entitles a 
people to look around with glad hope, and that alone is also the condition for the life which men then 
desire. And when that is realized, then that too is realized for which today the political parties strive: 
prosperity, happiness of the individual, family-life, etc. First will come honor and then freedom, and 
from both of these happiness, prosperity, life: in a word, that state of things will return which we 
Germans perhaps dimly saw before the War, when individuals can once more live with joy in their 
hearts because life has a meaning and a purpose, because the close of life is then not in itself the end, 
since there will be an endless chain of generations to follow: man will know that what we create will not 
sink into Orcus but will pass to his children and to his children's children. And so this victory which we 
have just won is nothing else than the winning of a new weapon for our fight.... IT IS NOT FOR SEATS 
IN PARLIAMENT THAT WE FIGHT, BUT WE WIN SEATS IN PARLIAMENT IN ORDER THAT 
ONE DAY WE MAY BE ABLE TO LIBERATE THE GERMAN PEOPLE.... 

Do not write on your banners the word 'Victory': today that word shall be uttered for the last time. Strike 
through the word 'Victory' and write once more in its place the word which suits us better - the word 
'Fight.' 



Dusseldorf, Industry Club — Speech of January 27, 1932 

IF TODAY the National Socialist Movement is regarded amongst widespread circles in Germany as 
being hostile to our business life, I believe the reason for this view is to be found in the fact that we 
adopted towards the events which determined the development leading to our present position an 
attitude which differed from that of all the other organizations which are of any importance in our public 
life. Even now our outlook differs in many points from that of our opponents.... 

I regard it as of the first importance to break once and for all with the view that our destiny is 
conditioned by world events. It is not true that our distress has its final cause in a world crisis, in a world 
catastrophe: the true view is that we have reached a state of general crisis, because from the first certain 
mistakes were made. I must not say 'According to the general view the Peace Treaty of Versailles is the 
cause of our misfortune.' What is the Peace Treaty of Versailles but the work of men? It is not a burden 
which has been imposed or laid upon us by Providence. It is the work of men for which, it goes without 
saying, once again men with their merits or their failings must be held responsible. If this were not so, 
how should men ever be able to set aside this work at all? I am of the opinion that there is nothing which 
has been produced by the will of man which cannot in its turn be altered by another human will. 

Both the Peace Treaty of Versailles together with all the consequences of that Treaty have been the 
result of a policy which perhaps fifteen, fourteen, or thirteen years ago was regarded as the right policy, 
at least in the enemy States, but which from our point of view was bound to be regarded as fatal when 
ten or less years ago its true character was disclosed to millions of Germans and now today stands 
revealed in its utter impossibility. I am bound therefore to assert that there must of necessity have been 
in Germany, too, some responsibility for these happenings if I am to have any belief that the German 
people can exercise some influence towards changing these conditions. 

IT IS ALSO IN MY VIEW FALSE TO SAY THAT LIFE IN GERMANY TODAY IS SOLELY 
DETERMINED BY CONSIDERATIONS OF FOREIGN POLICY, that the primacy of foreign policy 
governs today the whole of our domestic life. Certainly a people can reach the point when foreign 
relations influence and determine completely its domestic life. But let no one say that such a condition is 
from the first either natural or desirable. Rather the important thing is that a people should create the 
conditions for a change in this state of affairs. 

If anyone says to me that its foreign politics is primarily decisive for the life of a people, then I must first 
ask: what then is the meaning of the term 'Polities'? There is a whole series of definitions. Frederick the 
Great said: 'Politics is the art of serving one's State with every means.' Bismarck's explanation was that 
'Politics is the art of the Possible,' starting from the conception that advantage should be taken of every 
possibility to serve the State - and, in the later transformation of the idea of the State into the idea of 
nationalities, the Nation. Another considers that this service rendered to the people can be effected by 
military as well as peaceful action: for Clausewitz says that war is the continuation of politics though 
with different means. Conversely, Clemenceau considers that today peace is nothing but the 
continuation of war and the pursuing of the war-aim, though again with other means. To put it briefly: 
politics is nothing else and can be nothing else than the safeguarding of a people's vital interests and the 
practical waging of its life-battle with every means. Thus it is quite clear that this life -battle from the 
first has its starting-point in the people itself and that at the same time the people is the object - the real 
thing of value - which has to be preserved. All functions of this body formed by the people must in the 
last resort fulfill only one purpose - to secure in the future the maintenance of this body which is the 
people. I can therefore say neither that foreign policy nor economic policy is of primary significance. Of 
course, a people needs the business world in order to live. But business is but one of the functions of this 



body-politic whereby its existence is assured. But primarily the essential thing is the starting-point and 
that is the people itself.... 

It is therefore false to say that foreign politics shapes a people: rather, peoples order their relations to the 
world about them in correspondence with their inborn forces and according to the measure in which 
their education enables them to bring those forces into play. We may be quite convinced that if in the 
place of the Germany of today there had stood a different Germany, the attitude towards the rest of the 
world would also have been different, and then presumably the influences exercised by the rest of the 
world would have taken a different form. To deny this would mean that Germany's destiny can no 
longer be changed no matter what Government rules in Germany.... 

And as against this conception I am the champion of another standpoint: three factors, I hold, essentially 
determine a people's political life: 

First, the inner value of a people which as an inherited sum and possession is transmitted again and 
again through the generations, a value which suffers any change when the people, the custodian of this 
inherited possession, changes itself in its inner blood-conditioned composition. It is beyond question that 
certain traits of character, certain virtues, and certain vices always recur in peoples so long as their inner 
nature - their blood-conditioned composition - has not essentially altered. I can already trace the virtues 
and the vices of our German people in the writers of Rome just as clearly as I see them today. This inner 
value which determines the life of a people can be destroyed by nothing save only through a change in 
the blood causing a change in substance. Temporarily an illogical form of organization of life or 
unintelligent education may prejudice it. But in that case, though its effective action may be hindered, 
the fundamental value in itself is still present as it was before. And it is this value which is the great 
source of all hopes for a people's revival, it is this which justifies the belief that a people which in the 
course of thousands of years has furnished countless examples of the highest inner value cannot 
suddenly have lost overnight this inborn inherited value, but that one day this people will once again 
bring this value into action. If this were not the case, then the faith of millions of men in a better future - 
the mystic hope for a new Germany - would be incomprehensible. It would be incomprehensible how it 
was that this German people, at the end of the Thirty Years War, when its population had shrunk from 
eighteen to thirteen and one-half millions, could ever have once more formed the hope through work, 
through industry, and capacity to rise again, how in this completely crushed people hundreds of 
thousands and finally millions should have been seized with the longing for a re-formation of their State. 



I said that this value can be destroyed. There are indeed in especial two other closely related factors 
which we can time and again trace in periods of national decline: the one is that for the conception of the 
value of personality there is substituted a levelling idea of the supremacy of mere numbers - democracy 
- and the other is the negation of the value of a people, the denial of any difference in the inborn 
capacity, the achievement, etc., of individual peoples. Thus both factors condition one another or at least 
influence each other in the course of their development. Internationalism and democracy are inseparable 
conceptions. It is but logical that democracy, which within a people denies the special value of the 
individual and puts in its place a value which represents the sum of all individualities - a purely 
numerical value - should proceed in precisely the same way in the life of peoples and should in that 
sphere result in internationalism. Broadly it is maintained: peoples have no inborn values, but, at the 
most, there can be admitted perhaps temporary differences in education. Between Negroes, Aryans, 
Mongolians, and Redskins there is no essential difference in value. This view which forms the basis of 
the whole of the international thought- world of today and in its effects is carried to such lengths that in 
the end a Negro can sit as president in the sessions of the League of Nations leads necessarily as a 
further consequence to the point that in a similar way within a people differences in value between the 
individual members of this people are denied. And thus naturally every special capacity, every 
fundamental value of a people, can practically be made of no effect. For the greatness of a people is the 



result not of the sum of all its achievements but in the last resort of the sum of its outstanding 
achievements. Let no one say that the picture produced as a first impression of human civilization is the 
impression of its achievement as a whole. This whole edifice of civilization is in its foundations and in 
all its stones nothing else than the result of the creative capacity, the achievement, the intelligence, the 
industry, of individuals: in its greatest triumphs it represents the great crowning achievement of 
individual God-favored geniuses, in its average accomplishment the achievement of men of average 
capacity, and in its sum doubtless the result of the use of human labor-force in order to turn to account 
the creations of genius and of talent. So it is only natural that when the capable intelligences of a nation, 
which are always in a minority, are regarded only as of the same value as all the rest, then genius, 
capacity, the value of personality are slowly subjected to the majority and this process is then falsely 
named the rule of the people. For this is not rule of the people, but in reality the rule of stupidity, of 
mediocrity, of half-heartedness, of cowardice, of weakness, and of inadequacy.... 

Thus democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people's true values. And this also serves to 
explain how It is that peoples with a great past from the time when they surrender themselves to the 
unlimited, democratic rule of the masses slowly lose their former position; for the outstanding- 
achievements of individuals which they still possess or which could be produced in all spheres of life are 
now rendered practically ineffective through the oppression of mere numbers. And thus in these 
conditions a people will gradually lose its importance not merely in the cultural and economic spheres 
but altogether, in a comparatively short time it will no longer, within the setting of the other peoples of 
the world, maintain its former value. . . . 

And to this there must be added a third factor: namely, the view that life in this world, after the denial of 
the value of personality and of the special value of a people, is not to be maintained through conflict. 
That is a conception which could perhaps be disregarded if it fixed itself only in the heads of 
individuals, but yet has appalling consequences because it slowly poisons an entire people. And it is not 
as if such general changes in men's outlook on the world remained only on the surface or were confined 
to their effects on men's minds. No, in course of time they exercise a profound influence and affect all 
expressions of a people's life. 

I may cite an example: you maintain, gentlemen, that German business life must be constructed on a 
basis of private property. Now such a conception as that of private property you can defend only if in 
some way or another it appears to have a logical foundation. This conception must deduce its ethical 
justification from an insight into the necessity which Nature dictates. It cannot simply be upheld by 
saying: 'It has always been so and therefore it must continue to be so.' For in periods of great upheavals 
within States, of movements of peoples and changes in thought, institutions and systems cannot remain 
untouched because they have previously been preserved without change. It is the characteristic feature 
of all really great revolutionary epochs in the history of mankind that they pay astonishingly little regard 
for forms which are hallowed only by age or which are apparently only so consecrated. It is thus 
necessary to give such foundations to traditional forms which are to be preserved that they can be 
regarded as absolutely essential, as logical and right. And then I am bound to say that private property 
can be morally and ethically justified only if I admit that men's achievements are different. Only on that 
basis can I assert: since men's achievements are different, the results of those achievements are also 
different. But if the results of those achievements are different, then it is reasonable to leave to men the 
administration of those results to a corresponding degree. It would not be logical to entrust the 
administration of the result of an achievement which was bound up with a personality either to the next 
best but less capable person or to a community which, through the mere fact that it had not performed 
the achievement, has proved that it is not capable of administering the result of that achievement. Thus it 
must be admitted that in the economic sphere, from the start, in all branches men are not of equal value 
or of equal importance. And once this is admitted it is madness to say: in the economic sphere there are 
undoubtedly differences in value, but that is not true in the political sphere. IT IS ABSURD TO BUILD 
UP ECONOMIC LIFE ON THE CONCEPTIONS OF ACHIEVEMENT, OF THE VALUE OF 



PERSONALITY, AND THEREFORE IN PRACTICE ON THE AUTHORITY OF PERSONALITY, 
BUT IN THE POLITICAL SPHERE TO DENY THE AUTHORITY OF PERSONALITY AND TO 
THRUST INTO ITS PLACE THE LAW OF THE GREATER NUMBER - DEMOCRACY. In that case 
there must slowly arise a cleavage between the economic and the political point of view, and to bridge 
that cleavage an attempt will be made to assimilate the former to the latter - indeed the attempt has been 
made, for this cleavage has not remained bare, pale theory. The conception of the equality of values has 
already, not only in politics but in economics also, been raised to a system, and that not merely in 
abstract theory: no! this economic system is alive in gigantic organizations and it has already today 
inspired a State which rules over immense areas. 

But I cannot regard it as possible that the life of a people should in the long run be based upon two 
fundamental conceptions. If the view is right that there are differences in human achievement, then it 
must also be true that the value of men in respect of the production of certain achievements is different It 
is then absurd to allow this principle to hold good only In one sphere - the sphere of economic life and 
its leadership - and to refuse to acknowledge its validity in the sphere of the whole life-struggle of a 
people - the sphere of politics. Rather the logical course is that if I recognize without qualification in the 
economic sphere the fact of special achievements as forming the condition of all higher culture, then in 
the same way I should recognize special achievement in the sphere of politics, and that means that I am 
bound to put in the forefront the authority of personality. If, on the contrary, it is asserted - and that, too, 
by those engaged in business - that in the political sphere special capacities are not necessary but that 
here an absolute equality in achievement reigns, then one day this same theory will be transferred from 
politics and applied to economic life. But in the economic sphere communism is analogous to 
democracy in the political sphere. We find ourselves today in a period in which these two fundamental 
principles are at grips in all spheres which come into contact with each other; already they are invading 
economics. 

To take an example: Life in practical activity is founded on the importance of personality: but now 
gradually it is threatened by the supremacy of mere numbers. But in the State there is an organization - 
the army - which cannot in any way be democratized without surrendering its very existence. But if a 
Weltanschauung cannot be applied to every sphere of a people's life, that fact in itself is sufficient proof 
of its weakness. In other words: the army can exist only if it maintains the absolutely undemocratic 
principle of unconditional authority proceeding downwards and absolute responsibility proceeding 
upwards, while, in contradistinction to this, democracy means in practice complete dependence 
proceeding downwards and authority proceeding upwards. But the result is that in a State in which the 
whole political life - beginning with the parish and ending with the Reichstag - is built up on the 
conception of democracy, the army is bound gradually to become an alien body and an alien body which 
must necessarily be felt to be such. It is for democracy an alien world of ideas, an alien Weltanschauung 
which inspires the life of this body. An internal conflict between the representatives of the democratic 
principle and the representatives of the principle of authority must be the inevitable consequence, and 
this conflict we are actually experiencing in Germany.... 

So in the same way the education to pacifism must of necessity have its effect right through life until it 
reaches the humblest individual lives. The conception of pacifism is logical if I once admit a general 
equality amongst peoples and human beings. For in that case what sense is there in conflict? The 
conception of pacifism translated into practice and applied to all spheres must gradually lead to the 
destruction of the competitive instinct, to the destruction of the ambition for outstanding achievement. I 
cannot say: in politics we will be pacifists, we reject the idea of the necessity for life to safeguard itself 
through conflict - but in economics we want to remain keenly competitive. If I reject the idea of conflict 
as such, it is of no importance that for the time being that idea is still applied in some single spheres. In 
the last resort political decisions are decisive and determine achievement in the single sphere.... 

To sum up the argument: I see two diametrically opposed principles: the principle of democracy which, 



wherever it is allowed practical effect is the principle of destruction: and the principle of the authority of 
personality which I would call the principle of achievement, because whatever man in the past has 
achieved - all human civilizations - is conceivable only if the supremacy of this principle is admitted. 

The worth of a people, the character of its internal organization through which this worth of a people 
may produce its effect, and the character of a people's education - these are the starting-points for 
political action: these are the foundations for the success of that action.... 

That the evidences of a crisis should today spread over almost the entire world is comprehensible when 
one considers that the world has been opened up and mutual relations have been strengthened to an 
extent which fifty, eighty, or a hundred years ago appeared scarcely possible. And yet, despite this fact, 
one must not believe that such a state of affairs is conceivable only now, in the year 1932. No, similar 
conditions have been experienced more than once in the history of the world. Always when relations 
between peoples produced conditions such as these, the malady affecting these peoples was bound to 
spread and to influence the position of all. 

It is, of course, easy to say: we prefer to wait until there is a change in the general position, but that is 
impossible. For the position which faces you today is not the consequence of a revelation of God's will, 
but the result of human weaknesses, of human mistakes, of men's false judgments. It is but natural that 
there must first be a change in these causes, that men must first be inwardly transformed, before one can 
count on any alteration in the position. 

That conclusion is forced upon us if we look at the world today: we have a number of nations which 
through their inborn outstanding worth have fashioned for themselves a mode of life which stands in no 
relation to the life-space - the Lebensraum - which in their thickly populated settlements they inhabit. 
We have the so-called white race which, since the collapse of ancient civilization, in the course of some 
thousand years has created for itself a privileged position in the world. But I am quite unable to 
understand this privileged position, this economic supremacy, of the white race over the rest of the 
world if I do not bring it into close connection with a political conception of supremacy which has been 
peculiar to the white race for many centuries and has been regarded as in the nature of things: this 
conception it has maintained in its dealings with other peoples. Take any single area you like, take for 
example India. England did not conquer India by the way of justice and of law: she conquered India 
without regard to the wishes, to the views of the natives, or to their formulations of justice, and, when 
necessary, she has upheld this supremacy with the most brutal ruthlessness. Just in the same way Cortez 
or Pizarro annexed Central America and the northern states of South America, not on the basis of any 
claim of right, but from the absolute inborn feeling of the superiority of the white race. The settlement of 
the North American continent is just as little the consequence of any claim of superior right in any 
democratic or international sense; it was the consequence of a consciousness of right which was rooted 
solely in the conviction of the superiority and therefore of the right of the white race. If I think away this 
attitude of mind which in the course of the last three or four centuries has won the world for the white 
race, then the destiny of this race would in fact have been no different from that, say, of the Chinese: an 
immensely congested mass of human beings crowded upon an extraordinarily narrow territory, an over- 
population with all its unavoidable consequences. If Fate allowed the white race to take a different path, 
that is only because this white race was convinced that it had the right to organize the rest of the world. 
It matters not what superficial disguises in individual cases this right may have assumed, in practice it 
was the exercise. 



Berlin: Proclamation To The German Nation — February 1, 1933 

MORE than fourteen years have passed since the unhappy day when the German people, blinded by 
promises from foes at home and abroad, lost touch with honor and freedom, thereby losing all. Since 



that day of treachery, the Almighty has withheld his blessing from our people. Dissension and hatred 
descended upon us. With profound distress millions of the best German men and women from all walks 
of life have seen the unity of the nation vanishing away, dissolving in a confusion of political and 
personal opinions, economic interests, and ideological differences. Since that day, as so often in the past, 
Germany has presented a picture of heartbreaking disunity. We never received the equality and 
fraternity we had been promised, and we lost our liberty to boot. For when our nation lost its political 
place in the world, it soon lost its unity of spirit and will.... 

We are firmly convinced that the German nation entered the fight in 1914 without the slightest feeling of 
guilt on its part and filled only with the desire to defend the Fatherland which had been attacked and to 
preserve the freedom, nay, the very existence, of the German people. This being so, we can only see in 
the disastrous fate which has overtaken us since those November days of 1918 the result of our collapse 
at home. But the rest of the world, too, has suffered no less since then from overwhelming crises. The 
balance of power which had evolved in the course of history, and which formerly played no small part in 
bringing about the understanding of the necessity for an internal solidarity of the nations, with all its 
advantages for trade and commerce, has been set on one side. The insane conception of victors and 
vanquished destroyed the confidence existing between nations, and, at the same time, the industry of the 
entire world. 

The misery of our people is horrible to behold! Millions of the industrial proletariat are unemployed and 
starving; the whole of the middle class and the small artisans have been impoverished. When this 
collapse finally reaches the German peasants, we will be faced with an immeasurable disaster. For then 
not only shall a nation collapse, but a two-thousand-year-old inheritance, some of the loftiest products of 
human culture and civilization. 

All about us the warning signs of this collapse are apparent. Communism with its method of madness is 
making a powerful and insidious attack upon our dismayed and shattered nation. It seeks to poison and 
disrupt in order to hurl us into an epoch of chaos.... This negative, destroying spirit spared nothing of all 
that is highest and most valuable. Beginning with the family, it has undermined the very foundations of 
morality and faith and scoffs at culture and business, nation and Fatherland, justice and honor. Fourteen 
years of Marxism have ruined Germany; one year of bolshevism would destroy her. The richest and 
fairest territories of the world would be turned into a smoking heap of ruins. Even the sufferings of the 
last decade and a half could not be compared to the misery of a Europe in the heart of which the red flag 
of destruction had been hoisted. The thousands of wounded, the hundreds of dead which this inner strife 
has already cost Germany should be a warning of the storm which would come.... 

In those hours when our hearts were troubled about the life and the future of the German nation, the 
aged leader of the World War appealed to us. He called to those of us in nationalist parties and leagues 
to struggle under him once more, in unity and loyalty, for the salvation of the German nation. This time 
the front lines are at home. The venerable Reichsprasident has allied himself with us in this noble 
endeavor. And as leaders of the nation and the national Government we vow to God, to our conscience, 
and to our people that we will faithfully and resolutely fulfill the task conferred upon us. 

The inheritance which has fallen to us is a terrible one. The task with which we are faced is the hardest 
which has fallen to German statesmen within the memory of man. But we are all filled with unbounded 
confidence for we believe in our people and their imperishable virtues. Every class and every individual 
must help us to found the new Reich. 

The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of 
unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been 
built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of 
national life.... 



Turbulent instincts must be replaced by a national discipline as the guiding principle of our national life. 
All those institutions which are the strongholds of the energy and vitality of our nation will be taken 
under the special care of the Government. 

The National Government intends to solve the problem of the reorganization of trade and commerce 
with two four-year plans: 

The German farmer must be rescued in order that the nation may be supplied with the necessities of 
life.... 

A concerted and all-embracing attack must be made on unemployment in order that the German working 
class may be saved from ruin.... 

The November parties have ruined the German peasantry in fourteen years. 

In fourteen years they have created an army of millions of unemployed. The National Government will, 
with iron determination and unshakable steadfastness of purpose, put through the following plan: 

Within four years the German peasant must be rescued from the quagmire into which he has fallen. 

Within four years unemployment must be finally overcome. At the same time the conditions necessary 
for a revival in trade and commerce are provided. 

The National Government will couple with this tremendous task of reorganizing business life a 
reorganization of the administrative and fiscal systems of the Reich, of the Federal States, and the 
Communes. 

Only when this has been done can the idea of a continued federal existence of the entire Reich be fully 
realized.... 

Compulsory labor-service and the back-to-the-land policy are two of the basic principles of this 
program. 

The securing of the necessities of life will include the performance of social duties to the sick and aged. 

In economical administration, the promotion of employment, the preservation of the farmer, as well as in 
the exploitation of individual initiative, the Government sees the best guarantee for the avoidance of any 
experiments which would endanger the currency. 

As regards its foreign policy the National Government considers its highest mission to be the securing of 
the right to live and the restoration of freedom to our nation. Its determination to bring to an end the 
chaotic state of affairs in Germany will assist in restoring to the community of nations a State of equal 
value and, above all, a State which must have equal rights. It is impressed with the importance of its 
duty to use this nation of equal rights as an instrument for the securing and maintenance of that peace 
which the world requires today more than ever before. 

May the good will of all others assist in the fulfillment of this our earnest wish for the welfare of Europe 
and of the whole world. 

Great as is our love for our Army as the bearer of our arms and the symbol of our great past, we should 
be happy if the world, by reducing its armaments, would see to it that we need never increase our own. 



If, however, Germany is to experience this political and economic revival and conscientiously fulfill her 
duties toward the other nations, one decisive step is absolutely necessary first: the overcoming of the 
destroying menace of communism in Germany. We of this Government feel responsible for the 
restoration of orderly life in the nation and for the final elimination of class madness and class struggle. 
We recognize no classes, we see only the German people, millions of peasants, bourgeois, and workers 
who will either overcome together the difficulties of these times or be overcome by them. We are firmly 
resolved and we have taken our oath. Since the present Reichstag is incapable of lending support to this 
work, we ask the German people whom we represent to perform the task themselves. 

Reichsprasident von Hindenburg has called upon us to bring about the revival of the German nation. 
Unity is our tool. Therefore we now appeal to the German people to support this reconciliation. The 
National Government wishes to work and it will work. It did not ruin the German nation for fourteen 
years, but now it will lead the nation back to health. It is determined to make well in four years the ills of 
fourteen years. But the National Government cannot make the work of reconstruction dependent upon 
the approval of those who wrought destruction. The Marxist parties and their lackeys have had fourteen 
years to show what they can do. The result is a heap of ruins. 

Now, people of Germany, give us four years and then pass judgment upon us. In accordance with Field 
Marshal von Hindenburg's command we shall begin now. May God Almighty give our work His 
blessing, strengthen our purpose, and endow us with wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are 
fighting not for ourselves but for Germany. 



Stuttgart — Speech of February 15, 1933 

IN FOURTEEN years the system which has now been overthrown has piled mistake upon mistake, 
illusion upon illusion. And that is also true for our foreign policy. Only since the time when through our 
Movement the world has been shown that a new Germany of resolution and resistance is arising - only 
since then are we once more regarded with other eyes. If today in Geneva a people fights side by side 
with us for the freedom of Europe, it is we who have first formed this friendship and not the 
representatives of the former system. 

And now Staatsprasident Bolz says that Christianity and the Catholic faith are threatened by us. And to 
that charge I can answer: In the first place it is Christians and not international atheists who now stand at 
the head of Germany. I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself 
with the parties which destroy Christianity. If many wish today to take threatened Christianity under 
their protection, where, I would ask, was Christianity for them in these fourteen years when they went 
arm in arm with atheism? No, never and at no time was greater internal damage done to Christianity 
than in these fourteen years when a party, theoretically Christian, sat with those who denied God in one 
and the same Government. 

I would ask whether the economic policy of this now superseded system was a Christian policy. Was the 
inflation an undertaking for which Christians could answer, or has the destruction of German life, of the 
German peasant as well as of the middles classes, been Christian? . . . When these parties now say: we 
want to govern for a few more years in order that we can improve the situation, then we say: 

No! now it is too late for that! Besides, you had your fourteen years and you have failed. In fourteen 
years you have proved your incapacity - from the Treaty of Versailles by way of the various agreements 
down to the Dawes and Young plans. Herr Bolz, too, has given his support to the Young Plan while I 
have always opposed it. 



If today we are told that we have no program, then I answer that for the last two years this other 
Germany has lived only by making inroads on our thought- world. All these plans for the creation of 
work, for labor service, etc.- they are not the work of Staatsprasident Bolz, they come from our program 
of reconstruction from which they have taken them over imperfectly and incompletely. 

We are convinced that the restoration to health of our people must start from the restoration to health of 
the body politic itself, and we are persuaded of the truth that the future of our people, as in the past so 
now, lies first of all in the German peasant. If he perishes, our end has come; if he survives, then 
Germany will never go under. There lie the strength and the source of our people's life, the source of our 
renewal. The towns would not exist at all, if the peasant did not fill them with his blood. The dweller in 
our countryside may be primitive, but he is healthy. 

. . . We want, too, to restore to the German intelligentsia the freedom of which it has been robbed by the 
system which has hitherto ruled. In parliamentarianism they did not possess this freedom. We want to 
liberate Germany from the fetters of an impossible parliamentary democracy - not because we are 
terrorists, not because we intend to gag the free spirit. On the contrary, the spirit has never had more 
violence done to it than when mere numbers made themselves its master. 

No, our wish is that responsible folk should once more be brought together so that every class and every 
individual should be given that authority over those below and that responsibility towards those above 
which are essential if one is to build up the life of a community. We do not want so to educate the nation 
that it lives for ideas and artificial constructions; we want to test all ideas and constructions to discover 
how far they are capable of serving the nation's life. 

I will not build myself a villa in Switzerland, nor will I lay claim to any fund with which to fight 
criminality in this election campaign. Then after four years people shall judge whether the policy of 
ruining Germany has come to an end, whether Germany is rising once again. 



Berlin, Reichstag — Speech of March 23, 1933 

IN NOVEMBER, 1918, Marxist organizations seized the executive power by means of a revolution. The 
monarchs were dethroned, the authorities of the Reich and of the States removed from office, and 
thereby a breach of the Constitution was committed. The success of the revolution in a material sense 
protected the guilty parties from the hands of the law. They sought to justify it morally by asserting that 
Germany or its Government bore the guilt for the outbreak of the War. 

This assertion was deliberately and actually untrue. In consequence, however, these untrue accusations 
in the interest of our former enemies led to the severest oppression of the entire German nation and to 
the breach of the assurances given to us in Wilson's fourteen points, and so for Germany, that is to say 
the working classes of the German people, to a time of infinite misfortune.... 

The splitting up of the nation into groups with irreconcilable views, systematically brought about by the 
false doctrines of Marxism, means the destruction of the basis of a possible communal life.... It is only 
the creation of a real national community, rising above the interests and differences of rank and class, 
that can permanently remove the source of nourishment of these aberrations of the human mind. The 
establishment of such a solidarity of views in the German body corporate is all the more important, for it 
is only thereby that the possibility is provided of maintaining friendly relations with foreign Powers 
without regard to the tendencies or general principles by which they are dominated, for the elimination 
of communism in Germany is a purely domestic German affair. 

Simultaneously with this political purification of our public life, the Government of the Reich will 



undertake a thorough moral purging of the body corporate of the nation. The entire educational system, 
the theater, the cinema, literature, the Press, and the wireless - all these will be used as means to this end 
and valued accordingly. They must all serve for the maintenance of the eternal values present in the 
essential character of our people. Art will always remain the expression and the reflection of the 
longings and the realities of an era. The neutral international attitude of aloofness is rapidly 
disappearing. Heroism is coming forward passionately and will in future shape and lead political 
destiny. It is the task of art to be the expression of this determining spirit of the age. Blood and race will 
once more become the source of artistic intuition.... 

Our legal institutions must serve above all for the maintenance of this national community. The 
irremovableness of the judges must ensure a sense of responsibility and the exercise of discretion in their 
judgments in the interests of society. Not the individual but the nation as a whole alone can be the center 
of legislative solicitude. High treason and treachery to the nation will be ruthlessly eradicated in the 
future. The foundations of the existence of justice cannot be other than the foundations of the existence 
of the nation. 

The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, is 
creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life. 

The advantages of a personal and political nature that might arise from compromising with atheistic 
organizations would not outweigh the consequences which would become apparent in the destruction of 
general moral basic values. The national Government regards the two Christian confessions as the 
weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality. It will respect the agreements concluded 
between it and the federal States. Their rights are not to be infringed. But the Government hopes and 
expects that the work on the national and moral regeneration of our nation which it has made its task 
will, on the other hand, be treated with the same respect.... 

Great are the tasks of the national Government in the sphere of economic life. 

Here all action must be governed by one law: the people does not live for business, and business does 
not exist for capital; but capital serves business, and business serves the people. In principle, the 
Government will not protect the economic interests of the German people by the circuitous method of an 
economic bureaucracy to be organized by the State, but by the utmost furtherance of private initiative 
and by the recognition of the rights of property.... 

The Government will systematically avoid currency experiments. We are faced above all by two 
economic tasks of the first magnitude. The salvation of the German farmer must be achieved at all 
costs.... 

Furthermore, it is perfectly clear to the national Government that the final removal of the distress both in 
agricultural business and in that of the towns depends on the absorption of the army of the unemployed 
in the process of production. This constitutes the second of the great economic tasks. It can only be 
solved by a general appeasement, in applying sound natural economic principles and all measures 
necessary, even if, at the time, they cannot reckon with any degree of popularity. The providing of work 
and the compulsory labor service are, in this connection, only individual measures within the scope of 
the entire action proposed.... 

We are aware that the geographic position of Germany, with her lack of raw materials, does not fully 
permit of economic self-sufficiency for the Reich. It cannot be too often emphasized that nothing is 
further from the thoughts of the Government of the Reich than hostility to exporting. We are fully aware 
that we have need of the connection with the outside world, and that the marketing of German 
commodities in the world provides a livelihood for many millions of our fellow-countrymen. 



We also know what are the conditions necessary for a sound exchange of services between the nations 
of the world. For Germany has been compelled for years to perform services without receiving an 
equivalent, with the result that the task of maintaining Germany as an active partner in the exchange of 
commodities is not so much one of commercial as of financial policy. So long as we are not accorded a 
reasonable settlement of our foreign debts corresponding to our economic capacity, we are unfortunately 
compelled to maintain our foreign-exchange control. The Government of the Reich is, for that reason, 
also compelled to maintain the restrictions on the efflux of capital across the frontiers of Germany.... 

The protection of the frontiers of the Reich and thereby of the lives of our people and the existence of 
our business is now in the hands of the Reichswehr, which, in accordance with the terms imposed upon 
us by the Treaty of Versailles, is to be regarded as the only really disarmed army in the world. In spite of 
its enforced smallness and entirely insufficient armament, the German people may regard their 
Reichswehr with proud satisfaction. This little instrument of our national self-defence has come into 
being under the most difficult conditions. The spirit imbuing it is that of our best military traditions. The 
German nation has thus fulfilled with painful conscientiousness the obligations imposed upon it by the 
Peace Treaty, indeed, even the replacement of ships for our fleet then sanctioned has, I may perhaps be 
allowed to say, unfortunately, only been carried out to a small extent. 

For years Germany has been waiting in vain for the fulfillment of the promise of disarmament made to 
her by the others. It is the sincere desire of the national Government to be able to refrain from increasing 
our army and our weapons, insofar as the rest of the world is now also ready to fulfill its obligations in 
the matter of radical disarmament. For Germany desires nothing except an equal right to live and equal 
freedom. 

In any case the national Government will educate the German people in this spirit of a desire for 
freedom. The national honor, the honor of our army and the ideal of freedom must once more become 
sacred to the German people! 

The German nation wishes to live in peace with the rest of the world. But it is for this very reason that 
the Government of the Reich will employ every means to obtain the final removal of the division of the 
nations of the world into two categories. The keeping open of this wound leads to distrust on the one 
side and hatred on the other, and thus to a general feeling of insecurity. The national Government is 
ready to extend a hand in sincere understanding to every nation that is ready finally to make an end of 
the tragic past. The international economic distress can only disappear when the basis has been provided 
by stable political relations and when the nations have regained confidence in each other. 

For the overcoming of the economic catastrophe three things are necessary: 

Absolutely authoritative leadership in internal affairs, in order to create confidence in the stability of 
conditions. 

The securing of peace by the great nations for a long time to come, with a view to restoring the 
confidence of the nations in each other. 

The final victory of the principles of common sense in the organization and conduct of business, and 
also a general release from reparations and impossible liabilities for debts and interest. 

We are unfortunately faced by the fact that the Geneva Conference, in spite of lengthy negotiations, has 
so far reached no practical result. The decision regarding the securing of a real measure of disarmament 
has been constantly delayed by the raising of questions of technical detail and by the introduction of 
problems that have nothing to do with disarmament. This procedure is useless. 



The illegal state of one-sided disarmament and the resulting national insecurity of Germany cannot 
continue any longer. 

We recognize it as a sign of the feeling of responsibility and of the good will of the British Government 
that they have endeavored, by means of their disarmament proposal, to cause the Conference finally to 
arrive at speedy decisions. The Government of the Reich will support every endeavor aimed at really 
carrying out general disarmament and securing the fulfillment of Germany's long-overdue claim for 
disarmament. For fourteen years we have been disarmed, and for fourteen months we have been waiting 
for the results of the Disarmament Conference. Even more far-reaching is the plan of the head of the 
Italian Government, which makes a broad-minded and far-seeing attempt to secure a peaceful and 
consistent development of the whole of European policy. We attach the greatest weight to this plan, and 
we are ready to co-operate with absolute sincerity on the basis it provides, in order to unite the four 
Great Powers, England, France, Italy, and Germany, in friendly co-operation in attacking with courage 
and determination the problems upon the solution of which the fate of Europe depends. 

It is for this reason that we are particularly grateful for the appreciative heartiness with which the 
national renaissance of Germany has been greeted in Italy.... 

In the same way, the Government of the Reich, which regards Christianity as the unshakable foundation 
of the morals and moral code of the nation, attaches the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy 
See, and is endeavoring to develop them. We feel sympathy for our brother nation in Austria in its 
trouble and distress. In all their doings the Government of the Reich is conscious of the connection 
between the destiny of all German races. Their attitude toward the other foreign Powers may be gathered 
from what has already been said. But even in cases where our mutual relations are encumbered with 
difficulties, we shall endeavor to arrive at a settlement. But in any case the basis for an understanding 
can never be the distinction between victor and vanquished. 

We are convinced that such a settlement is possible in our relations with France, if the Governments will 
attack the problems affecting them on both sides in a really broadminded way. The Government of the 
Reich is ready to cultivate with the Soviet Union friendly relations profitable to both parties. It is above 
all the Government of the National Revolution which feels itself in a position to adopt such a positive 
policy with regard to Soviet Russia. The fight against communism in Germany is our internal affair in 
which we will never permit interference from outside.... 

We have particularly at heart the fate of the Germans living beyond the frontiers of Germany who are 
allied with us in speech, culture, and customs and have to make a hard fight to retain these values. The 
national Government is resolved to use all the means at its disposal to support the rights internationally 
guaranteed to the German minorities. 

We welcome the plan for a World Economic Conference and approve of its meeting at an early date. 
The Government of the Reich is ready to take part in this Conference, in order to arrive at positive 
results at last. 



Berlin, Sportpalast — Speech of April 8, 1933 

THE great epoch which for fourteen years we awaited has now begun. Germany is awake now.... 

I can say with pride, comrades of the SA and SS, that if the whole German people now was possessed of 
the spirit which is in us and in you, then Germany would be indestructible. Even without arms, Germany 



would represent an unheard-of strength through this inner will tempered like steel. It is true that this 
equality which is realized in you was realized only at the cost of that freedom of which others spoke. We 
have, too, adopted the principle of leadership, the conception of authority. That was a heavy sacrifice at 
a time when the whole people was running after the illusion of democracy and parliamentarianism, when 
millions believed that the majority was the source of a right decision. It was at this time that we began 
resolutely to build up an organization in which there was not one dictator but ten thousand. When our 
opponents say: 'It is easy for you: you are a dictator'- we answer them, 'No, gentlemen, you are wrong; 
there is no single dictator, but ten thousand, each in his own place.' And even the highest authority in the 
hierarchy has itself only one wish, never to transgress against the Supreme authority to which it, too, is 
responsible. We have in our Movement developed this loyalty in following the leader, this blind 
obedience of which all the others know nothing and which gave to us the power to surmount everything. 
For fourteen years we were assailed; the attempt was made to bend and break us by cunning, chicanery, 
and violence, by malice and terror, by everything imaginable. But this instrument of blind obedience 
remained unbroken, remained steadfast. All we endured was but tests from which we emerged stronger 
than ever. 

In addition we have fostered the virtue of bravery. Today millions are pouring into our ranks. But the 
greater part of them must learn now what this brown army has practiced for years; they must all learn to 
face what tens of thousands of our comrades have faced, and have paid for with their blood, their lives. 

We have succeeded out of our own free wills in once more inculcating in our people the courage which 
dares to attempt a task in the face of a world of foes. 

Were the discipline of this Movement not so firm, those who today complain of the sacrifices demanded 
of them would have even more of which to complain. For what we fighters have gained does not 
compare to the amount of persecution we suffered. Let the bellyachers realize that, wherever they are. 
The Movement trains itself in this perfect discipline for the sake of Germany, to save our people from 
being cast down in the eyes of the world to the level of their opponents. 

We have also utilized the virtue of persistence, of unwearying patience.... 

It was this virtue which made you, and therefore us, unconquerable, and which saved the nation. 
Fourteen years of struggle. It seems as though fate had saved up so terribly many victims especially for 
the last year of the struggle. Our Brown Shirts prohibited, the members tortured, terror heaped upon 
terror, and in the end the dissolution of the organization. It was a terribly sad time, and I know how hard 
it was for many to keep their faith that after all the hour would come at last. We almost doubted justice 
and providence. Then came the turning point, and battle after battle. Once more many doubted, and 
some even were beaten down by their doubt. And then came the time when we had to say 'No,' when for 
the first time it seemed that the way to power was opening before us, tempting us: and yet despite this 
we had to remain hard and say 'No, it is not possible in that way.' And for a second time the doors 
seemed to open and for the second time we had to say 'No, impossible.' And then at the third time the 
hour came and that was given to us which we could not but desire, which we had a right to desire, and at 
last the National Socialist Movement entered into the great period of its historic action.... 

We have now won power in Germany, and it is up to us to win the German people, to incorporate the 
people within the power. We must build the millions of our working men of all classes into a close 
community. This is a struggle which will again take years; but it is necessary if the 600,000 men of 
today are some day to be the six, eight, ten millions we need. Here, too, we know that if we rest, we rust, 
that if we stand still, we will retreat.... 

If in the future you continue to stand behind me as one man, in loyalty and obedience, no power in the 
world will be able to destroy this Movement. It will continue its victorious course. If you preserve the 



same discipline, the same obedience, the same comradeship and the same unbounded loyalty in the 
future - then nothing will ever extinguish this Movement in Germany. This is the request I make of you, 
for myself and in the name of all the comrades who are no longer among us.... 

Our National Socialist Movement, the SA and SS: Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! 



Berlin, Congress of the German Work Front — Speech of May 10, 1933 

AMIDST all the crises under which we suffer and which do but present a single connected picture, 
perhaps that which the people feels most acutely is the economic crisis. The political crisis, the moral 
crisis, are only very rarely felt by the individual. The average man sees in the experiences of his day not 
that which affects the community as a whole but for the most part only that which strikes himself. 
Therefore the present has only very rarely any consciousness of political or moral collapse, so long as 
this collapse does not extend in one way or another into economic life. For when this happens it is no 
longer a question of some abstract problem that can perhaps be observed or studied in its effect on 
others, but one day the individual himself will be caught hold of by this question, and the more 
intimately such a crisis begins to influence his own life, the more clearly does he come to recognize that 
existing conditions cannot remain as they are. Then all of a sudden people talk of economic distress, of 
economic misery, and then, starting from this distress, one can awaken an understanding for that other 
distress which otherwise is wont to remain for a long time hidden from the individual man. 

It is not enough to say that the German economic distress is a phenomenon resulting from a world crisis, 
from a general economic distress, since, of course, exactly in the same way every other people could 
plead the same excuse, could adduce the same reason. It is clear that even so this distress cannot have its 
roots all over the world, those roots must always be found within the life of peoples. And though only 
one thing is probably true - that these roots are perhaps the same in the case of many peoples - yet one 
cannot hope to master this distress by the mere statement that the presence of a certain distress is a 
feature of the age; rather it is clearly a necessity to disclose these roots in the internal life of a single 
people and to cure the distress there where one can really effect a cure. 

Unfortunately it is precisely the German who is only too inclined at such times, instead of looking at his 
own internal life, to let his gaze range into the far distance. Our people has been so long falsely taught to 
think in international terms that even in such a distress as the present it tends to treat this problem, too, 
from international points of view. And the result is that many of us simply cannot believe that perhaps it 
might be possible to remedy such a misfortune in some other way than by international methods. And 
yet that is an error. It is natural that international infirmities which afflict all peoples in one way or 
another must be removed by the peoples who suffer from them, but that in no way alters the fact that 
every people must wage this battle on its own behalf, and above all that no single people can be liberated 
from this distress by international methods if it does not for its own part take the necessary measures. 
These measures can, of course, find their place within the framework of international measures, but 
one's own action must not be made dependent upon the action of others. 

The crisis in German economics is not merely a crisis which is expressed by our economic statistics, but 
it is above all a crisis which can also be traced in the internal course of our economic life, in the 
character of its organization, etc. And here we can indeed speak of a crisis which has hit our people 
more severely than other peoples. It is the crisis which we see in the relations between capital, 
economics, and people. This crisis is particularly obvious in the relations between our workmen and the 
employers. Here the crisis has been more acute than in any other country in the world.... 

The first cause lies in the alteration in the form of business organization which determined the character 



of our economics. That cause may be traced throughout the world precisely as in Germany.... 

The gradual alienation of classes which we in Germany experienced led to the appearance on the one 
side of the special interests of the employers and on the other side the special interests of the employed. 
This was the beginning of our unhappy economic development. When one had once started on this road, 
of necessity the two sides became ever more widely separated. Here a law governs human affairs: when 
one has once chosen the wrong road this road always leads one further from reason. 

On the contrary, the road led necessarily to further alienation and this tendency, as I said, was favored 
by the depersonalization of property. And I might almost say that this process was apparently still 
further encouraged and strengthened on scientific grounds. There gradually arose an ideology which 
believed that it could permanently support the conception of property even though those who derived 
any practical profit from the conception no longer represented more than a minimal percentage of the 
nation. And on the other hand there arose the view that, since there was now only so small a percentage 
of those who enjoyed property, the conception of private property as such should be abandoned.... 

When one has once started on this course, then logically the employers will in turn form their 
organization. And as a matter of course these two organizations will not pursue their own ends in mutual 
toleration, but they will maintain their apparently separate interests with those weapons which are given 
them: viz, lockouts and strikes. In this warfare sometimes one and sometimes the other side will 
conquer. But in either case it is the whole nation which will have to pay the cost of this warfare and 
suffer the damage. And the final result of this development is that these organizations as they build 
themselves up, considering the passion of the German for bureaucratization, will continuously become 
more unwieldy and their personnel will grow constantly larger. And at length the organization will no 
longer serve the interests of its creators, but these will be subservient to the organization, so that the 
warfare is continued in order that the existence of the organization may be justified, even though at 
times reason suddenly comes and says; 'The whole affair is madness; the gain when compared with the 
sacrifices is positively ludicrous. If you reckon up the sacrifices which we make for the organization 
they are far greater than any possible profit.' Then the organizations in their turn will have to prove how 
necessary they are by stirring up the parties to fight each other. And then it may even be that the two 
organizations come to an understanding, when once they have realized the situation. 

The second reason is the rise of Marxism. Marxism, as a conception of the world with disintegration for 
its aim, saw with keen insight that the trade-union movement offered it the possibility in the future of 
conducting its attack against the State and against human society with an absolutely annihilating 
weapon. Not with any idea of helping the worker -what is the worker of any country to these apostles of 
internationalism? Nothing at all! They never see him! They themselves are no workers: they are alien 
litterateurs, an alien gang! . . . 

One had to inoculate the trade union with the idea: You are an instrument of the class war and that war 
in the last resort can find its political leaders only in Marxism. What is then more comprehensible than 
that one should also pay one's tribute to the leadership? And the tribute was exacted in full measure. 
These gentlemen have not been content with a tithe: they demanded a considerably higher rate of 
interest. 

This class war leads to the proclamation of the trade union as simply an instrument for the representation 
of the economic interests of the working classes and therewith for the purposes of the general strike. 
Thus the general strike appears for the first time as a means for exercising political power and shows 
what Marxism really hoped to gain from this weapon - not a means for the salvation of the worker, but 
on the contrary only an instrument of war for the destruction of the State which opposed Marxism. To 
prove to what lengths this whole madness could go we Germans have an unprecedented example, as 
frightful as it is instructive, in the War. 



We can add only one remark: Had the German trade unions been in our hands during the War, if they 
had been in my hands and had they been trained with the same false end in view as was in fact the case, 
then we National Socialists would have placed the whole of this gigantic organization at the service of 
the Fatherland. We should have declared: We recognize, of course, the sacrifices entailed; we are ready 
ourselves to make those sacrifices; we do not wish to escape, we want to fight with you on the same 
terms; we give our destiny and our life into the hand of Almighty Providence just as the others must do. 
That we should have done as a matter of course. For, German workmen, we should have said, you must 
realize: It is not the fate of the German State which is now to be decided, not of the Empire as a 
constitutional form, not of the monarchy; it is not a question of capitalism or militarism; it is the 
existence of our people which is at stake and we German workmen make up seventy per cent of this 
people. It is our fate which is to be decided! 

That is what should have been known then, and it could have been known. We should have known it.... 

It was a crime that this was not done. It was not done because it would have violated the inner meaning 
of Marxism, for Marxism wanted only the destruction of Germany. . . . For since the days of November, 
1918, millions of Germans have held the view that it was the fault of the German workingman which 
caused the country's collapse. He who himself had made such unspeakable sacrifices, he who had filled 
our regiments with the millions of their riflemen - he as a class was suddenly made collectively liable for 
the act of the perjured, lying, degenerate destroyers of the Fatherland. That was the worst that could 
have happened, for at that moment for many millions in Germany the community of the people was 
shattered.... 

The third cause of this fatal development lay in the State itself. There might have been something which 
could perhaps have opposed these millions and that something would have been the State, had it not 
been that this State had sunk so low that it had become the plaything of groups of interested parties. It is 
no mere chance that this whole development runs parallel with the democratization of our public life. 
This democratization tended to bring the State directly into the hands of certain strata of society which 
identified themselves with property as such, with big business as such. The masses increasingly got the 
impression that the State itself was no objective institution standing above parties, that in particular it 
was no longer the incorporation of any objective authority, but that it was itself the mouthpiece of the 
economic will and of the economic interests of certain groups within the nation, and that even the 
leadership of the State justified such an assumption. The victory of the political bourgeoisie was nothing 
else than the victory of a stratum of society which had arisen as the result of economic laws.... 

While it is natural that amongst soldiers he only can be a leader who has been trained for that post, it 
was by no means a matter of course that only he should be a political leader who had been trained in that 
sphere and had besides proved his capacity; gradually the view gained ground that membership of a 
certain class which had arisen as the result of economic laws carried with it the capacity to govern a 
people. We have come to realize the consequences of this error. The stratum of society which claimed 
for itself the leadership has failed us in every hour of crisis and in the nation's hour of supreme difficulty 
it collapsed miserably.... Let no one say to me: 'No other course was possible.' It was only for these 
leaders that no other course was possible.... 

We must penetrate to the inner causes of the collapse with the resolution that these inner causes shall be 
removed. I believe that immediately we must begin at the point where in the last resort a beginning must 
today be made - we must begin with the State itself. A NEW AUTHORITY MUST BE SET UP, AND 
THIS AUTHORITY MUST BE INDEPENDENT OF MOMENTARY CURRENTS OF 
CONTEMPORARY OPINION, ESPECIALLY OF THOSE CURRENTS WHICH FLOW FROM A 
NARROW AND LIMITED ECONOMIC EGOISM. THERE MUST BE CONSTITUTED A 
LEADERSHIP OF THE STATE WHICH REPRESENTS A REAL AUTHORITY, an authority 



independent of any one stratum of society. A leadership must arise in which every citizen can have 
confidence, assured that its sole aim is the happiness, the welfare, of the German people, a leadership 
which can with justice say of itself that it is on every side completely independent. People have talked so 
much of the past Age of Absolutism, of the absolutism of Frederick the Great, and of the Age of Popular 
Democracy, our Parliamentary Epoch. Regarded from the standpoint of the people the earlier period was 
the more objective: it could really more objectively safeguard the interests of the nation, while the later 
period continuously descended more and more to the representation merely of the interests of individual 
classes. 

Nothing can prove that more clearly than the mere conception of a class war - the slogan that the rule of 
the bourgeoisie must be replaced by the rule of the proletariat. That means that the whole question 
becomes one of a change in a class dictatorship, while our aim is the dictatorship of the people, i.e., the 
dictatorship of the whole people, the community. 

And further it is essential that one should sweep away all those forces which consciously abuse human 
weaknesses in order with their help to carry into execution their deadly schemes. When fourteen or 
fifteen years ago and over and over again since then I declared before the German nation that I saw my 
task before the bar of German history to lie in the destruction of Marxism, that was for me no empty 
phrase, that was a sacred oath which I will keep so long as I draw breath. This confession of faith, the 
confession of faith of an individual, through my effort has become the confession of faith of a mighty 
organization.... 

We must accordingly wage our battle without any compromise whatsoever against the force which has 
eaten at the heart of our German people during the last seventeen years, which has inflicted on us such 
fearful injuries and which, if it had not been conquered, would have destroyed Germany. Bismarck once 
declared that liberalism was the pacemaker for social democracy. And I do not need in this place to say 
that social democracy is the pacemaker for communism. But communism is the pacemaker for death - 
the death of a people - downfall. WE HAVE BEGUN THE FIGHT AGAINST COMMUNISM AND 
WE SHALL WAGE IT TO THE END. As so often in German history, it will once more be proved that 
the greater the distress, the greater is the power of the German people to find its way upwards and 
forwards. This time, too, it will find the way; indeed, I am convinced that it has already found it. 

Thus the unification of the German Workmen's Movement has a great moral significance. When we 
complete the reconstruction of the State which must be the result of very great concessions on both 
sides, we want to have two parties to the contract facing each other who both are in their hearts on 
principle nationally minded, who both look only to their people, and who both on principle are ready to 
subordinate everything else in order to serve the common weal. Only if that is possible from the first can 
I believe in the success of our efforts. It is the spirit from which efforts spring that helps to decide the 
issue. There must be no conquerors and no conquered; our people must be the only conqueror - 
conqueror over classes and castes, and conqueror over the interests of these single groups in our people! 
And thereby we shall come naturally to a nobler conception of work.... But the Movement which I and 
my fellow-fighters represent will, nothing daunted, exalt the word 'Worker' till it becomes the great title 
of honor of the German nation.... 

Personally, I am against all honorary titles, and I do not think that anyone has much to accuse me of on 
this score. What is not absolutely necessary for me to do, that I do not do. I should never care to have 
visiting cards printed with the titles which in this earthly world of ours are given with such ceremony. I 
do not want anything on my gravestone but my name. All the same, owing to the peculiar circumstances 
of my life, I am perhaps more capable than anyone else of understanding and realizing the nature and the 
whole life of the various German castes. Not because I have been able to look down on this life from 
above but because I have participated in it, because I stood in the midst of this life, because fate in a 
moment of caprice or perhaps fulfilling the designs of Providence, cast me into the great mass of the 



people, amongst common folk. Because I myself was a laboring man for years in the building trade and 
had to earn my own bread. And because for a second time I took my place once again as an ordinary 
soldier amongst the masses and because then life raised me into other strata of our people so that I know 
these, too, better than countless others who were born in these strata. So fate has perhaps fitted me more 
than any other to be the broker - 1 think I may say - the honest broker for both sides alike. Here I am not 
personally interested; I am not dependent upon the State or on any public office; I am not dependent 
upon business or industry or any trade union. I am an independent man, and I have set before myself no 
other goal than to serve, to the best of my power and ability, the German people, and above all to serve 
the millions who, thanks to their simple trust and ignorance and thanks to the baseness of their former 
leaders, have perhaps suffered more than any other class. 

I have always professed that there is nothing finer than to be the advocate of those who cannot easily 
defend themselves. I know the masses of my people, and there is only one thing which I should always 
wish to say to our intellectuals: Every Reich that is founded only on the classes which represent intellect 
and intelligence has weak foundations. I know this intellect, always so subtle, always inquiring, but also 
always uncertain, always hesitating, vacillating from side to side - never steadfast! He who would 
construct a Reich on these intellectual classes alone will find his building insecure. It is no chance that 
religions are more stable than constitutional forms. Generally they tend to sink their roots deeper into the 
soil; they would be unthinkable in the absence of the masses of the people. I know that the intellectual 
classes fall all too easily a victim to that arrogance which measures the people according to the standards 
of its knowledge and of its so-called intelligence; and yet there are things in the people which very often 
the intelligence of the 'intelligent' does not see because it cannot see them. The masses are certainly 
often dull, in many respects they are certainly backward, they are not so nimble, so witty, or intellectual; 
but they have something to their credit - they have loyalty, constancy, stability.... 

Because I know this people better than any other, and at the same time know the rest of the people, I am 
not only ready in this case to undertake the role of an honest broker but I am glad that destiny can cast 
me for the part. I shall never in my life have any greater reason for pride than when at the end of my 
days I can say: I have won the German workingman for the German Reich. 



Berlin - Speech of May 1, 1935 

A WRITER has summed up the impressions made on him by this time in a book which he entitled 'The 
Decline of the West.' Is it then really to be the end of our history and of our peoples? No! we cannot 
believe it. This age must be called, not the decline of the West, but the resurrection of the peoples of this 
West of ours! Only that which was old, decayed and evil perishes; and let it die! But new life will spring 
up. Faith can be found, if the will is there. Our leadership has the will, and faith is with the people.... 

So we have come together on this day to prove symbolically that we are more than a collection of 
individuals striving one against another, that none of us is too proud, none of us too high, none is too 
rich, and none too poor, to stand together before the face of the Lord and of the world in this 
indissoluble, sworn community. And this united nation, we have need of it. When was a leadership at 
any time faced with a heavier task than our German leadership? Consider, my comrades, what our 
Germany is, and compare it with other countries. What have we? One hundred and thirty-seven people 
to the square kilometer; no colonies; no raw materials; no foreign exchange, no capital, no longer any 
foreign credits; only heavy burdens, sacrifices, taxation, and low wages. What have we, compared with 
the wealth of other States, the wealth of other countries, the wealth of other peoples, with the 
possibilities of living that they possess? What have we? One thing only; we have our people. Either it is 
everything or it is nothing. On it alone can we count. On it alone can we build. Everything that we have 
created up to the present we owe solely to its goodness of heart, its capacity, its loyalty, its decency, its 



industry, its sense of order. And if I weigh all this in the balance, it seems to me to be more than all that 
the rest of the world can offer us. So this, I believe, can be our message to the other peoples on this first 
of May: 'You need have no fear that we want anything of you. We are proud enough to confess that we 
ourselves own that treasure, which you certainly could not give us - our people.' I could, as leader, think 
of no more glorious, no prouder task in this world than to serve this people. One might give me 
continents, but I would rather be the poorest citizen among this people. And with this people we must 
and shall succeed in achieving also the tasks that are still to come. 

What we want lies clear before us: not war and not strife. Just as we have established peace within our 
own people, so we want nothing else than peace with the world. For we all know that our great work can 
succeed only in a time of peace. But just as the leadership of the nation in the domestic sphere has never 
sacrificed its honor in its relations with the German people, so it can never surrender the honor of the 
German people in its dealings with the world. 

We know what we owe to the world. May the world come to understand what she can never deny to a 
proud people, and above all may she comprehend one thing: the Germany of today is not the Germany 
of yesterday -just as little as the Germany of yesterday was the Germany of today. The German people 
of the present time is not the German people of the day before yesterday, but the German people of the 
two thousand years of German history which lie behind us. 



Schwerin, Gustloff's Funeral — Speech of February 12, 1936 

BEHIND every murder stood the same power which is responsible for this murder; behind these 
harmless insignificant fellow-countrymen who were instigated and incited to crime stands the hate-filled 
power of our Jewish foe, a foe to whom we had done no harm, but who none the less sought to subjugate 
our German people and make of it its slave - the foe who is responsible for all the misfortune that fell 
upon us in 1918, for all the misfortune which plagued Germany in the years that followed. Those 
members of the Party and honorable comrades of ours all fell, and the same fate was planned for others: 
many hundreds survived as cripples or severely wounded, blinded or lamed; more than 40,000 others 
were injured. And among them were so many loyal folk whom we all knew and who were near and dear 
to us, of whom we were sure that they could never do any harm to anyone, that they had never done any 
harm to anyone, whose only crime was that they devoted themselves to the cause of Germany. 

In the ranks of those whose lives were thus sacrificed there stood also Horst Wessel, the singer who 
gave to the Movement its song, never dreaming that he would join those spirits who march and have 
marched with us. 

And now on foreign soil National Socialism has gained its first conscious martyr - a man who did 
nothing save to enter the lists for Germany which is not only his sacred right but his duty in this world: a 
man who did nothing save remember his homeland and pledge himself to her in loyalty. He, too, was 
murdered, just like so many others. Even at the time when on January 30 three years ago we had come 
into power, precisely the same things happened in Germany, at Frankfort on the Oder, at Kopenick, and 
again at Brunswick. The procedure was always the same: a few men come and call someone out of his 
house and then stab or shoot him down. 

That is no chance: it is the same guiding hand which organized these crimes and purposes to do so again. 
Now for the first time one who is responsible for these acts has appeared in his own person. For the first 
time he employs no harmless German fellow-countryman. It is a title to fame for Switzerland, as it is for 
our own Germans in Switzerland, that no one let himself be hired to do this deed so that for the first time 
the spiritual begetter of the act must himself perform the act. So our comrade has fallen a victim to that 



power which wages a fanatical warfare not only against our German people but against every free, 
autonomous, and independent people. We understand the challenge to battle and we take up the gage! 
My dear comrade! You have not fallen in vain! 



Nuremberg, Labor-Front — Speech of September 12, 1936 

HOW Germany has to work to wrest a few square kilometers from the ocean and from the swamps 
while others are swimming in a superfluity of land! 

If I had the Ural Mountains with their incalculable store of treasures in raw materials, Siberia with its 
vast forests, and the Ukraine with its tremendous wheat fields, Germany and the National Socialist 
leadership, would swim in plenty! . . . 

There was sometimes advanced as an excuse for Russia that she had been through war and through 
revolution. Well, we stood against twenty-six States in the war and we had a revolution, but I have taken 
as my fundamental law not to destroy anything. Had I done so there would have been an excuse for 
rebuilding during another eighteen years. 

But that was not our plan. We wanted additional work for our unemployed and the use of the volume of 
their increased production to increase every man's share in consumption. Wages are not based on 
production; production itself is the wage. 

If I had wished I could have substituted officials for employers, but nature and reality select best. We do 
not wish bureaucratic economics as in Russia, nor do we wish to establish economic democracy here. 

Yet that does not mean either that we wish to let things drift as they please. Our fundamental economic 
principles are, first, to unite all the forces existing, and secondly, to educate our people better in their 
use. 

This Labor Front is the greatest element in such education. You are servants of the nation, but you alone 
are nothing. As part of the organic whole you are everything.... 

It is hard to build up a new life out of your poverty, but I am not complaining. On the contrary, I find it 
wonderful to face difficult problems. 

Some people say, 'He has brought out another plan.' When he had completed the first, why couldn't he 
leave us in peace? Now he is tackling problems that cannot be solved.' 

I say that they can be solved; there is no problem that cannot be, but faith is necessary. Think of the faith 
I had to have eighteen years ago, a single man on a lonely path. Yet I have come to leadership of the 
German people.... 

People complain of a shortage of this and that - for instance, of a shortage of cotton. I say that in the next 
four years we shall produce our own German cloth. 

Others raise the question of rubber. I tell you that factories will spring from the earth and that in four 
years we shall ride on our own German rubber tires. 

It may then be asked, With what motive power will you drive you cars?' I say that we shall take gasoline 
from our own oil and coal. 



Whenever I see the Labor Front I am impressed by the word 'front.' It signifies one will, one goal of 
achievement. Life is hard for many, but it is hardest if you are unhappy and have no faith. Have faith. 
We are not a helpless State. 

Nothing can make me change my own belief. I am convinced that the unworthiest among us is he who 
cannot master his ill fortune. 



Nuremberg — Speech of September 14, 1936 

I CAN come to no terms with a Weltanschhauung [bolshevism] which everywhere as its first act after 
gaining power is - not the liberation of the working people - but the liberation of the scum of humanity, 
the asocial creatures concentrated in the prisons - and then the letting loose of these wild beasts upon the 
terrified and helpless world about them.... 

Bolshevism turns flourishing countrysides into sinister wastes of ruins; National Socialism transforms a 
Reich of destruction and misery into a healthy State and a flourishing economic life.... 

Russia planned a world revolution and German workmen would be used but as cannon-fodder for 
bolshevist imperialism. But we National Socialists do not wish that our military resources should be 
employed to impose by force on other peoples what those peoples themselves do not want. Our army 
does not swear on oath that it will with bloodshed extend the National Socialist idea over other peoples, 
but that it will with its own blood defend the National Socialist idea and thereby the German Reich, its 
security and freedom, from the aggression of other peoples.... The German people as soldiers is one of 
the best peoples in the world: It would have become a veritable 'Fight to the Death Brigade' for the 
bloody purposes of these international disseminators of strife. We have removed this danger, through the 
National Socialist Revolution, from our own people and from other peoples.... 

These are only some of the grounds for the antagonisms which separate us from communism. I confess: 
these antagonisms cannot be bridged. Here are really two worlds which do but grow further apart from 
each other and can never unite. When in an English newspaper a Parliamentarian complains that we 
wish to divide Europe into two parts, then unfortunately we are bound to inform this Robinson Crusoe 
living on his happy British island that - however unwelcome it may be - this division is already an 
accomplished fact.... That one should refuse to see a thing does not mean that it is not there. For many a 
year in Germany I have been laughed to scorn as a prophet; for many a year my warnings and my 
prophecies were regarded as the illusions of a mind diseased.... 

Bolshevism has attacked the foundations of our whole human order, alike in State and society, the 
foundations of our conception of civilization, of our faith and of our morals: all alike are at stake. If this 
bolshevism would be content to promote this doctrine in a single land, then other countries might remain 
unconcerned, but its supreme principle is its internationalism and that means the confession of faith that 
these views must be carried to triumph throughout the whole world, i.e., that the world as we know it 
must be turned upside down. That a British headline-writer refuses to recognize this signifies about as 
much as if in the fifteenth century a humanist in Vienna should have refused to admit the intention of 
Mohammedanism to extend its influence in Europe and should have objected that this would be to tear 
the world asunder - to divide it into East and West. Unfortunately I cannot escape the impression that 
most of those who doubt the danger to the world of bolshevism come themselves from the East. As yet 
politicians in England have not come to know bolshevism in their own country; we know it already. 
Since I have fought against these Jewish Soviet ideas in Germany, since I have conquered and stamped 
out this peril, I fancy that I possess a better comprehension of its character than do men who have only 
at best had to deal with it in the field of literature.... I have won my successes simply because in the first 



place I endeavored to see things as they are and not as one would like them to be; secondly, when once I 
had formed my own opinion I never allowed weaklings to talk me out of it or to cause me to abandon it; 
and thirdly, because I was always determined in all circumstances to yield to a necessity when once it 
had been recognized. Today when fate has granted me such great successes I will not be disloyal to 
these funda- mental principles of mine.... 

. . .: It is not necessary for me to strengthen the fame of the National Socialist Movement, far less that of 
the German Army, through military triumphs. He who is undertaking such great economic and cultural 
tasks as we are and is so determined to carry them through can find his fairest memorial only in peace.... 
But this bolshevism which as we learned only a few months since intends to equip its army so that it 
may with violence, if necessary, open the gate to revolution amongst other peoples - this bolshevism 
should know that before the gate of Germany stands the new German Army.... I believe that as a 
National Socialist I appear in the eyes of many bourgeois democrats as only a wild man. But as a wild 
man I still believe myself to be a better European, in any event a more sensible one, than they. It is with 
grave anxiety that I see the possibility in Europe of some such development as this: democracy may 
continuously disintegrate the European States, may make them internally ever more uncertain in their 
judgment of the dangers which confront them, may above all cripple all power for resolute resistance. 
Democracy is the canal through which bolshevism lets its poisons flow into the separate countries and 
lets them work there long enough for these infections to lead to a crippling of intelligence and of the 
force of resistance. I regard it as possible that then - in order to avoid something still worse - coalition 
governments, masked as Popular Fronts or the like, will be formed and that these will endeavor to 
destroy - and perhaps will successfully destroy - in these peoples the last forces which remain, either in 
organization or in mental outlook, which could offer opposition to bolshevism. 

The brutal mass-slaughters of National Socialist fighters, the burning of the wives of National Socialist 
officers after petrol had been poured over them, the massacre of children and of babies of National 
Socialist parents, e.g. in Spain, are intended to serve as a warning to forces in other lands which 
represent views akin to those of National Socialism: such forces are to be intimidated so that in a similar 
position they offer no resistance. If these methods are successful: if the modern Girondins are succeeded 
by Jacobins, if Kerensky's Popular Front gives place to the Bolshevists, then Europe will sink into a sea 
of blood and mourning. 



Berlin, Reichstag — Speech of January 30, 1937 

MEN! Deputies of the German Reichstag! The Reichstag has met today on a day momentous for the 
German people. Four years have passed since the greatest national revolution and reformation that 
Germany has ever experienced began. These were the four years which I asked for as a trial period.... 

I do not know whether there has ever been such a thorough revolution as ours, which nevertheless left 
unmolested numerous former political functionaries and allowed them to work in peace and paid 
pensions to its bitterest enemies. 

But our policy has not been of much use to us as far as other countries are concerned. Only a few 
months ago honorable British citizens felt they must make a protest to us for detaining in a concentration 
camp one of the most criminal subjects of Moscow. [Presumably Herr von Ossietzky, winner of the 
Nobel Peace Prize.] I do not know whether these honorable men have also protested against the slaying 
and burning of tens of thousands of men, women, and children in Spain. We are assured that the number 
of people slain in Spain is 170,000. On this basis we would have had the right to murder 400,000 to 
500,000 people in the Nazi Revolution! 



The National Socialist program replaces the liberalistic conception of the individual by the conception of 
a people bound by their blood to the soil. Of all the tasks with which we are confronted, it is the grandest 
and most sacred task of man to preserve his race. This will not lead to an estrangement of the nations; on 
the contrary, it will lead for the first time to a mutual understanding. It will also prevent the Jewish 
people from trying to disintegrate and dominate other people under the mask of an innocent bourgeoisie. 

Within a few weeks the social prejudices of a thousand years were swept away. So great was the 
Revolution that its spiritual foundations have not been understood even today by a superficial world. 
They speak of democracies and dictatorships, and have not realized that in this country a Revolution has 
taken place that can be described as democratic in the highest sense of the word. Does a more glorious 
socialism or a truer democracy exist than that which enables any German boy to find his way to the head 
of the nation? The purpose of the Revolution was not to deprive a privileged class of its rights, but to 
raise a class without rights to equality.... 

There is now only one representative of German sovereignty - the people itself. 

The will of the people finds its expression in the Party as its political organization. 

Therefore there is only one legislative body. 

There is only one executive authority. 

Therefore the people is the basis, and Party, State, Army, industry, justice, etc., are only the means of 
maintaining the people. 

In a new penal code, justice will be put for all time into the service of maintaining the German race. 

When I took over power there were more than 6,000,000 unemployed and the farmers seemed doomed 
to decay. Today you-must admit that I have fulfilled my promises. . . 

The Four-Year Plan will give permanent employment to those workmen who are now being released 
from the armament industry. It is significant for the gigantic economic development of our people that 
there is today a lack of trained workmen in many industries. There will be no strikes or lockouts in 
Germany, because every one has to serve the interests of the entire nation. 

Education of the people will never come to an end, and this education includes the Hitler Youth, the 
Labor Service, the Party, and the Army,, as well as books, newspapers, theaters, and films. 

The restoration of Germany's equality of status was an event which exclusively concerns Germany 
herself. We have never taken anything from any people or harmed any people. In this sense I will 
deprive the German railways and the Reichsbank of their former character and place both without 
reservation under the sovereignty of the Government. 

The time of so-called surprises has thus been ended. 

I solemnly withdraw the German signature from the declaration, extracted by force from a weak 
Government against its better judgment, that Germany was responsible for the War. 

The restoration of the honor of the German people was the most difficult and the most audacious task 
and work of my life. 

As an equal State, Germany is conscious of its European task to co-operate loyally in removing the 



problems which affect us and other nations. My views concerning these prob- lems can perhaps be most 
suitably stated by referring to the statements recently made by Mr. Eden in the House of Commons. I 
should like to express my sincere thanks for the opportunity of making a reply offered me by the frank 
and notable statement of the British Foreign Minister. 

I shall first try to correct what seems to me a most regrettable error - namely, that Germany never had 
any intention of isolating herself, of passing by the events of the rest of the world without sharing them, 
or that she does not want to pay any consideration to general necessities. I should like to assure Mr. 
Eden that we Germans do not in the least want to be isolated and that we do not feel at all that we are 
isolated. Our relations with most States are normal, and are very friendly with quite a number. I only call 
your attention to our agreement with Poland, our agreement with Austria, our excellent relations with 
Italy, our friendly relations with Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc., and our 
no less friendly relations with a whole series of nations outside Europe. The agreement with Japan for 
fighting the Comintern is a virile proof of how little the German Government is thinking of isolating 
itself. 

Germany, and I solemnly repeat this here, has declared that there can be no humanly conceivable object 
of dispute whatsoever between Germany and France. 

The German Government has assured Belgium and Holland of its readiness to recognize and guarantee 
these States as untouchable and neutral regions for all time. 

From the economic point of view there is not the least reason to assert that Germany is giving up 
international cooperation. 

When I consider the speeches of many statesmen in the last few months, the impression may be obtained 
that the whole world is waiting to inundate Germany with economic favors, which we refuse to share. 
The German people have been making commercial treaties to bring about a more lively exchange of 
goods. German foreign trade has increased since 1932 both in volume and in value. 

I do not believe that there can be durable economic cooperation except on the basis of a new mutual 
exchange of goods. World economics are not suffering from any refusal of Germany to participate in 
them. When we got into power the world economic crisis was worse than today. 

I fear that I must interpret Mr. Eden's words as meaning that he sees in the carrying out of the Four-Year 
Plan a refusal of international relations on the part of Germany. The decision to carry out this plan does 
not allow of any change. Germany has an enormous number of people who do not only want to work but 
to eat. I cannot build the future of the German nation on the assurances of a foreign statesman or on any 
international help, but only on the real facts of production. 

If Europe does not awaken to the danger of bolshevist infection, commerce will decrease in spite of all 
the good will of individual statesmen. Therefore I am not in a position to judge the economic future of 
Europe as optimistically as Mr. Eden apparently does. I rejoice at every increase of our foreign trade, but 
in view of the political situation I shall not regret anything that will guarantee to the German people their 
existence when other nations have perhaps become the victims of bolshevist infection. The British 
Foreign Minister offers us theoretical prospects of existence, whereas in reality totally different things 
are happening - for instance, the revolutionizing of Spain has driven 15,000 Germans from the country 
and done great harm to our commerce. Should this revolutionizing of Spain spread to other European 
countries the damage would be increased.... 

The League of Nations has never been a real league of peoples. A number of great nations do not belong 
to it or have left it, without anybody being able to assert that these countries were in favor of a policy of 



isolation. I think, therefore, that in this respect Mr. Eden misjudges Germany's intentions and views. I 
have already tried to bring about a good understanding in Europe, and I have especially assured the 
British people and Government how ardently we wish for sincere and hearty co-operation with them. 

The division into two parts, not only of Europe but of the rest of the world, is an accomplished fact. It is 
to be regretted that the British Government did not decide earlier that a division of Europe must be 
avoided under all circumstances, for then we would not have had a Treaty of Versailles. 

Secondly, division has been brought about by the proclamation of the bolshevist doctrine, the chief 
feature of which is to enforce itself on all peoples. For Mr. Eden, bolshevism is perhaps a thing which 
has its seat in Moscow, but for us it is a pestilence against which we have had to struggle at the cost of 
much bloodshed - a pestilence which tried to make of our country the same desert as Spain. National 
Socialism has not sought to conquer bolshevism in Russia, but Jewish International Moscow Bolshevists 
have tried to invade Germany and are still trying to. It is not suitable that National Socialist Germans 
should ever hope to protect bolshevism or that we should ever accept help from a bolshevist State. 

Three times I have made concrete offers for armament restriction or at least limitation. These offers 
were rejected.... 

It would be better to mention in the first instance the armaments of that Power which is the basis of the 
armaments of all the others. Mr. Eden believes that in future all States should have only that armament 
which is necessary for their defense. I do not know whether Mr. Eden has already got into touch with 
Moscow about the realization of this fine idea or what assurances he has got there. I must, however, 
state one thing. It is absolutely clear that the amount of armaments for defense is determined by the 
degree of dangers which threaten a country. We cannot imagine anyone outside London being 
competent to estimate the strength necessary for the protection of the British Empire. The estimate of 
our need for protection is decided exclusively in Berlin. A general recognition of these principles would 
contribute to a lessening of the tension. Germany is happy to have found Italy and Japan to be of the 
same opinion. Nobody welcomed the apparent lessening of the tension in the Mediterranean brought 
about by the Anglo-Italian agreement more than we. 

Germany has no interest in Spain but the cultivation of those economic relations which Mr. Eden 
himself has described as so important and profitable. 

Germany has no colonial claims on countries which have taken no colonies away from her. Our 
sympathies with General Franco and his Government are in the first place of a general nature, but they 
are also based on the hope that the consolidation of a real National Spain may lead to a strengthening of 
the European economic system. We are ready to do everything which may lead to a restoration of 
orderly conditionsin Spain. 

During the last 100 years a number of new nations have arisen in Europe which, owing to their 
incapacity, have been of no economic importance and almost of no political significance. They have 
brought into the world new tensions. The new Italian State, however, is a reality. The German people 
and the German Reich are also a reality. The Polish people and State are also a reality. 

The unreasonable division of the world into peoples who have and peoples who have not does not 
remove or solve problems. If it is to be the task of the League of Nations only to guarantee the existing 
state of the world and to safeguard it for all time, then we might as well entrust it also with the task of 
guarding the high tide and the low tide, or of regulating for the future the direction of the Gulf Stream. 
Its continued existence depends on the extent to which it is realized that necessary reforms which 
concern the relations of the nations must be considered and put into practice. 



The German people once built up a Colonial Empire, without robbing anyone and without any war. This 
was taken away from us. It was said that the natives did not want to belong to Germany, that the 
colonies were not adminis- tered properly by the Germans, and that these colonies had no true value. If 
this is true, this valuelessness would also apply to the other nations, and there is no reason why they 
should wish to keep them from us. Germany has never demanded colonies for military purposes, but 
exclusively for economic ones. It is obvious that in times of general prosperity the value of certain 
territories may shrink, but it is just as clear that in time of distress such value changes. Today Germany 
lives in a time of fierce struggle for foodstuffs and raw materials. Sufficient imports are only 
conceivable if there is a continued increase in our exports. Therefore the demand for colonies for our 
densely populated country will again and again be raised as a matter of course. 

I should like to express a few opinions on possible ways of bringing about a genuine pacification of 
Europe, and beyond: - 

1 . It is in the interests of all nations that individual countries should possess stable political and 
economic conditions. This is the most important condition for lasting and solid economic and political 
relations between the nations. 

2. The vital interests of the different nations must be frankly recognized. 

3. The League of Nations, to be effective, must be reformed and must become an organ of evolutionary 
common sense and not remain an organ of inactivity. 

4. The relations of the nations with one another can only be regulated and solved on a basis of mutual 
respect and absolute equality. 

5. It is impossible to make one nation responsible for armaments or another responsible for armaments 
limitation, but it is necessary to see this problem as it really is. 

6. It is impossible to maintain peace so long as an international, irresponsible clique continues its 
agitation un-checked. I greatly regret that the British Foreign Minister did not state categorically that 
there was not one word of truth in the calumnies about Morocco spread by these international war 
agitators. Thanks to the loyalty of a foreign diplomat and his Government, the immediate clearing up of 
this stirring case was made possible, but is it not conceivable that on another occasion it might not be 
possible to enable the truth to come to light so quickly, and what would happen then? 

7. It has been proved that European problems can be solved properly only within the limits of the 
possible. Germany is hoping to have close and friendly relations with Italy. May we succeed in paving 
the way for such relations with other European countries. The German Reich will watch over its security 
and honor with its strong Army. On the other hand, convinced that there can be no greater treasure for 
Europe than peace, it will always be a reasonable supporter of those European ideals of peace, and will 
be conscious of its responsibilities. 

8. It would be profitable to European peace as a whole if, in the treatment of the nationalities who are 
forced to live as minorities within other nations, mutual consideration were shown for national honor 
and consciousness. This would lead to a decisive lessening of tension between the nations who are 
forced to live side by side and whose State frontiers are not identical with the frontiers of the people. 

In concluding these remarks I should like to deal with the document which the British Government 
addressed to the German Government on the occasion of the occupation of the Rhineland. We are 
convinced that the British Government at that time did everything to lessen the tension, and that the 
document in question was intended to contribute to disentangling the situation. Nevertheless it was not 



possible for the German Government, for reasons which the British Government will certainly 
appreciate, to reply to those questions. 

We preferred to settle some of those questions in the most natural way by the practical improvement of 
our relations with our neighbors. I should like to state now that complete 

German sovereignty and equality have been restored, and that Germany will never sign a treaty which is 
in any way incompatible with the honor of the nation and of the Government which represents it, or 
which otherwise is incompatible with Germany's vital interests and therefore in the long run cannot be 
kept. With all my heart I hope that the intelligence and good will of responsible European governments 
will succeed, in spite of all opposition, in preserving peace for Europe. Peace is our dearest treasure.... 

When I look upon the work of the past four years my first feeling is of gratitude to the Almighty who 
made it possible, and who has blessed our work and enabled us to pass through all obstacles. 

I have had three unusual friends in my life. In my youth, poverty accompanied me for many years. When 
the Great War came to an end it was great sorrow that took hold of me and prescribed my path - sorrow 
at the collapse of our people. Since January 30 four years ago I have made the acquaintance of anxiety 
as the third friend - anxiety for the people and Reich which have been confided to my leadership. Since 
that time it has never left me, and in all probability will accompany me to my end. How could a man 
shoulder the burden of this anxiety if he had not faith in his mission and the consent of Him who stands 
above us? 



Nuremberg — Speech of September 6, 1938 

THE proof of the endowment of a true artist is always to be found in the fact that his work of art 
expresses the general will of a period. Perhaps that is most clearly shown in architecture.... The religious 
mystical world of the Christian Middle Ages, turning inwards upon itself, found forms of expression 
which were possible only for that world - for that world alone could they be of service. A Gothic 
stadium is as unthinkable as a Romanesque railway station or a Byzantine market hall. The way in 
which the artist of the Middle Ages, of the beginnings of the modern world, found the artistic solution 
for the buildings which he was commissioned to create is in the highest degree striking and admirable. 
That way, however, is no evidence that the conception of the content of life held by the folk of his day 
was in itself either absolutely right or absolutely wrong; it is evidence only that works of art have rightly 
mirrored the inner mind of a past age. It is therefore quite comprehensible that insofar as the attempt is 
made to carry on the life of that past age, those who search for solutions of artistic problems can still 
seek and find there fruitful suggestions. Thus one can easily imagine that, for instance, in the sphere of 
religion men will always work backwards to the form-language of a period in which Christianity in its 
view of the world appeared to meet every need. On the other hand, at the present moment the expression 
of a new view of the world which is determined by the conception of race will return to those ages 
which in the past have already possessed a similar freedom of the spirit, of the will, and of the mind. 
Thus, naturally, the manifestation in art of a European conception of the State will not be possible 
through civilizations, as, for example, the civilization of the Far East, which - because foreign to us - 
have no message for our day, but will rather be influenced in a thousand ways through the evidences and 
memories of that mighty imperial Power of antiquity which, although in fact destroyed fifteen hundred 
years ago, still as an ideal force lives on and works on in the imaginations of men. The more nearly the 
modern State approaches to the imperial idea of the ancient World-Power, so more and more will the 
general character of that civilization be manifested in its influence upon the formation of the style of our 
own day. 



National Socialism is not a cult-movement - a movement for worship; it is exclusively a 'volkic' political 
doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership 
of a people defined by a common blood-relationship. Therefore we have no rooms for worship, but only 
halls for the people - no open spaces for worship, but spaces for assemblies and parades. We have no 
religious retreats, but arenas for sports and playing-fields, and the characteristic feature of our places of 
assembly is not the mystical gloom of a cathedral, but the brightness and light of a room or hall which 
combines beauty with fitness for its purpose. In these halls no acts of worship are celebrated, they are 
exclusively devoted to gatherings of the people of the kind which we have come to know in the course 
of our long struggle; to such gatherings we have become accustomed and we wish to maintain them. We 
will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world 
beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else - in any 
case, something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our program there stand no secret 
surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the 
central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security 
for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a 
divine will - not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord. 

There were times when a half-light was the necessary condition for the effectiveness of certain 
teachings: we live in an age when light is for us the fundamental condition of successful action. It will 
be a sorry day when through the stealing in of obscure mystic elements the Movement or the State itself 
issues obscure commissions.... It is even dangerous to issue any commission for a so-called place of 
worship, for with the building will arise the necessity for thinking out so-called religious recreations or 
religious rites, which have nothing to do with National Socialism. Our worship is exclusively the 
cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the 
unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men: it is to 
these we pay our respect. Our commandment is the courageous fulfillment of the duties arising from 
those laws. But for religious rites we are not the authorities, but the churches! If anyone should believe 
that these tasks of ours are not enough for him, that they do not correspond with his convictions, then it 
is for him to prove that God desires to use him to change things for the better. In no event can National 
Socialism or the National Socialist State give to German art other tasks than those which accord with 
our view of the world. 

The only sphere in which the Jewish international newspapers still today think that they can attack the 
new Reich is the cultural sphere. Here they attempt, by a constant appeal to the sentimentality - 
untroubled by any sort of knowledge - of the world-citizens of democracy to bewail the downfall of 
German culture: in other words, they lament the commercial closing-down of those elements which, as 
the heralds and exponents of the November Republic, forced their cultural characteristics, as unnatural 
as they were deplorable, upon the period between the two Empires; and which have now played out their 
role for good and all.... 

Fortunately, however, despite the short time which the National Socialist leadership has been able to 
allot to works of culture, positive facts, here too, speak louder than any negative criticism. We Germans 
can today speak with justice of a new awakening of our cultural life, which finds its confirmation not in 
mutual compliments and literary phrases, but rather in positive evidences of cultural creative force. 
German architecture, sculpture, painting, drama, and the rest bring today documentary proof of a 
creative period in art, which for richness and impetuosity has rarely been matched in the course of 
human history. And although the Jewish-democratic press magnates in their effrontery even today seek 
brazenly to turn these facts upside down, we know that the cultural achievements of Germany will in a 
few years have won from the world respect and appreciation far more unstinted even than that which 
they now accord to our work in the material field. The buildings which are arising in the Reich today 
will speak a language that endures, a language, above all, more compelling than the Yiddish gabblings 
of the democratic, international judges of our culture. What the fingers of these poor wretches have 



penned or are penning the world will - perhaps unfortunately - forget, as it has forgotten so much else. 
But the gigantic works of the Third Reich are a token of its cultural renascence and shall one day belong 
to the inalienable cultural heritage of the Western world, just as the great cultural achievements of this 
world in the past belong to us today. 

Moreover, it is naturally not decisive what attitude, if any, foreign peoples take toward our works of 
culture, for we have no doubt that cultural creative work, since it is the most sensitive expression of a 
talent conditioned by blood, cannot be understood, far less appreciated, by individuals or races who are 
not of the same or related blood. Therefore we do not trouble in any way to make German art and 
culture suit the tastes of international Jewry.... 

The art of Greece is not merely a formal reproduction of the Greek mode of life, of the landscapes and 
inhabitants of Greece; no, it is a proclamation of the Greek body and of the essential Greek spirit. It does 
not make propaganda for an individual work, for the subject, or for the artist; it makes propaganda for 
the Greek world as such, which confronts us in Hellenism.... 

And so art today will in the same way announce and herald that common mental attitude, that common 
view of life, which governs the present age. It will do this not because this age entrusts commissions to 
artists, but because the execution of these commissions can meet with understanding only if it reveals in 
itself the true essence of the spirit of this age. The mysticism of Christianity, at the period of its greatest 
intensity, demanded for the buildings which it ordered an architectonic form which not only did not 
contradict the spirit of the age, but rather helped it to attain that mysterious gloom which made men the 
more ready to submit to renunciation of self. The growing protest against this crushing of the freedom of 
the soul and of the will, which had lasted for centuries, immediately opened the way to new forms of 
expression in artistic creation. The mystic narrowness and gloom of the cathedrals began to recede and, 
to match the free life of the spirit, buildings became spacious and flooded with light. Mystical twilight 
gave way before increasing brightness. The unsteady, groping transition of the nineteenth century led 
finally in our days to that crisis which in one way or another had to find its solution. Jewry, with its 
bolshevist onslaught, might smash the Aryan States and destroy those native strata of the people whose 
blood destined them for leadership, and in that case the culture which had hitherto sprung from these 
roots would be brought to the same destruction. 



Sportpalast, Berlin — Speech of October 5, 1938 

WHEN six years ago I took over the leadership of the Reich one of our so-called 'statesmen' of that day 
said: 'Now this man has taken the decisive step. Up to now he has been popular, because he has been in 
opposition. Now he must govern and we shall see in six or eight weeks how his popularity will look! 
Six years - not six weeks only - have passed and I believe that they have been the most decisive years 
for German history. The most characteristic feature of this period is the close unity of the German 
people. What I have achieved in these six years was possible only because I had standing behind me the 
whole German people. The problems which faced us no single man could solve unaided: only when he 
could speak and, if necessary, also act in the name of the whole German people could he master these 
questions.... 

During the last few months and weeks I have had in my foreign policy a great helper and previously, in 
my last speech in this hall [the Sportpalast], I expressed my thanks to the man who took his stand in 
support of Germany as a true, great friend, Benito Mussolini. He has thrown into the scale of a just 
solution the entire force not only of his own genius but of the power which stands behind him. I must 
also thank the two other great statesmen who at the last minute recognized the historical hour, declared 
themselves ready to give their support to the solution of one of Europe's most burning problems and who 



thereby made it possible for me, too, to offer the hand towards an understanding. But above all my 

thanks fly to the German people which in these long months has never deserted me I am proud of 

my German people! I hope that in a few days the problem of the Sudeten Germans will be finally solved. 
By October 10 we shall have occupied all the areas which belong to us. Thus one of Europe's most 
serious crises will be ended, and all of us, not only in Germany but those far beyond our frontiers, will 
then in this year for the first time really rejoice at the Christmas festival. It should for us all be a true 
Festival of Peace.... 

Above us all stands the motto: 'no one in the world will help us if we do not help ourselves.' This 
programme of self-help is a proud and manly programme. It is a different programme from that of my 
predecessors who continually ran round through the world, going a-begging now in Versailles, then in 
Geneva, now in Lausanne or at some conference or other elsewhere. It is a prouder thing that to-day we 
Germans are determined to solve our own problems and to help ourselves. . . . 

We have been witnesses of a great turning-point in history. At this moment we must bethink ourselves, 
too, of those who through twenty years in an apparently hopeless state still nursed a fanatical faith in 
Germany and never surrendered their *Deutschtum*-their life as Germans. It is so easy here in the heart 
of the Empire to profess one's belief in Germany. But it is inexpressibly difficult, in the face of an 
unceasing persecution, not to allow oneself to be drawn away from this faith - to remain fanatically true 
to it, as though redemption were coming the next day. But now the hour of redemption has come. I have 
just had my first sight of these areas and what moved me so profoundly was two impressions. First: I 
have often known the jubilation and the enthusiasm of joy, but here for the first time I have seen 
hundreds of thousands shedding tears of joy. And secondly I saw appalling distress. When in England a 
Duff Cooper or a Mr. Eden say that injustice has been done to the Czechs, then these men should just for 
once see what in reality has happened there. How can one so pervert the truth! I have seen here whole 
villages undernourished, whole towns reduced to ruin. My fellow-countrymen, you have a great debt of 
honor to pay! ... I expect of you that the Winter Help Contribution of 1938-39 shall correspond with the 
historical greatness of this year. 

In the history of our people the year 1938 will be a great, incomparable, proud year.... Later historians 
will show that the German nation found its way back again to the position of an honourable great nation 
- that our history has once more become a worthy history. . . 



Saarbruecken — Speech of October 9, 1938 

German Folk! 

If in the midst of these great days and their occurrences I have come into your district, then it was done 
in the conviction that nobody can evince greater appreciation of these last weeks and days than yourself. 

You may, men and women of Saarland, you have experienced for yourselves what it means to be 
separated from the Reich and you yourselves have gone through the joy of being reunited. You, too, 
suffered all this woe for two decades, and you, too, were supremely happy when the hour of reunion 
struck and you could return to the common Reich. Exactly that same thing was experienced and 
participated in by millions of Germans. The same joy seized them that once stirred you. At the 
beginning of this year, the twentieth after our collapse, I made a decision to lead back into the Reich 
10,000,000 Germans who still stood outside. 

It was perfectly clear to me that this return could be compelled only by our own strength. The rest of the 
world, for the largest part, had no understanding. It neither saw nor wanted to see that here, 10,000,000 



humans, in violation of the so-called right of self-determination of peoples, had been separated from the 
German people and the Reich and had been maltreated. But it has not understood that these human 
beings had but one great yearning, namely, to return to the Reich. These international world citizens 
have compassion indeed, for every scoundrel who is called to account in Germany, but they are deaf to 
the sufferings of millions. That world is still filled with the spirit of Versailles. It did not free itself from 
it. No, Germany has liberated herself from it. 

Even today it still is a mixture of terrible inconsiderateness and appalling ignorance for these countries 
to overlook justice and give lasting effect to injustice. And so these world democracies remained deaf 
for twenty years to all the sufferings and demands of 10,000,000 Germans. Accordingly, a hard decision 
had to be made. Among us, too, there were weak characters who did not understand this. It is self- 
evident, however, that statesmen conscious of their responsibility made it a point of honor to take 
responsibility. 

The following were the preconditions for bringing about and carrying through solutions: 

First, internal unity of the nation. I am convinced I am Leader of a manly people. I know what probably 
many in the rest of the world and even isolated ones in Germany do not seem as yet to know - namely, 
that the people of the year 1938 are not the people of 1918. Only those who were blind concerning 
National Socialism could overlook the tremendous work of education that the good philosophy of life 
has accomplished. There has been created today a community of spirit throughout our people of power 
and strength such as Germany never before has known. This was the first precondition for the 
undertaking, and for the success of this task. 

Second was national rearmament, which I sponsored fanatically for six years. I am of the opinion that it 
is cheaper to prepare one's self before events than to lie prostrate unprepared for events and then pay the 
foreign country. 

The third thing was rendering secure the Reich, and here you yourselves are witnesses to the tremendous 
work that is being accomplished in your very neighborhood. I need tell you no details about it. I will 
give expression, however, to but one conviction: NO POWER IN THE WORLD WILL BE ABLE TO 
PUSH THROUGH THIS WALL. 

Fourth, we have gained foreign friends. That axis that people in other countries so often think they can 
ridicule has, during the last two and a half years, not only proved durable but has proved that even in the 
worst hours it con- tinues to function. Nevertheless, we are especially happy that this task of the year 
1938 of again joining 10,000,000 Germans and about 1 10,000 square kilometers [42,470 square miles] 
to the Reich could be accomplished in peace. 

We are all so happy no blood was shed over this despite the hopes of so many international agitators and 
profiteers. If I mention the help of the rest of the world in bringing about this peaceful solution, I must 
again and again place at the head of it our only real friend whom we possess today - Benito Mussolini. 

I know, and I know that you know what we owe this man. I should like also to mention two other 
statesmen who tried hard to find a way to peace and who, together with the great Italian and us have 
concluded an agreement that secured justice for 10,000,000 Germans and peace for the world. I am 
happy these millions of Germans are free, that they belong to us and that peace has been secured. 

Nevertheless, the experiences, especially of the last eight months, must strengthen our resolve to be 
careful and never to leave anything undone that must be done for the protection of the Reich. Opposite 
us are statesmen who - that, we must believe of them - also want peace. HOWEVER, THEY GOVERN 
IN COUNTRIES WHOSE INTERNAL CONSTRUCTION MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR THEM AT 



ANY TIME TO BE SUPPLANTED BY OTHERS WHO DO NOT AIM AT PEACE. THESE OTHERS 
ARE THERE. IN ENGLAND, IT MERELY IS NECESSARY THAT rNSTEAD OF CHAMBERLAIN, 
A DUFF COOPER OR AN EDEN OR A CHURCHILL COME INTO POWER. WE KNOW THAT 
THE AIM OF THESE MEN WOULD BE TO START WAR. They do not attempt to hide it. That 
obligates us to be on the watch to think of the protection of the Reich. 

We know further that now, as before, there is lurking threateningly that Jewish-international world 
enemy who has found a living expression in bolshevism. We also know the power of the international 
press that lives solely on lies and calumniation. In view of this peculiarity of the world about us and of 
these forces we must be careful about the future. We must at all times have a will for peace but be ready 
for defense. 

I have, therefore, decided to continue construction of our fortifications in the west with increased energy 
as already indicated in my Nuremberg speech. Also, I shall include large districts that hitherto lay before 
our fortifications namely the Aachen region and Saarbruecken region, in this belt of fortifications. That 
will be done for the protection of the Reich. 

As for the rest, I am happy now to be able within the next few days to rescind those measures that we 
have projected or been compelled to introduce during critical months and weeks. I am happy hundreds 
of thousands of men can go home and reservists can be discharged. I am happy to be able to thank them 
for doing their duty. I am particularly happy to be able to thank the German people for having conducted 
itself in so wonderfully manly a manner. Especially do I thank a hundred thousand German workers, 
engineers and others of whom 10,000 are standing in your midst - men who helped build fortifications. 
You have helped, my comrades, to secure peace for Germany, and so, as a strong State, we are ready at 
all times to embark upon a policy of understanding with the world about us. We can do that. We want 
nothing from others. We have no wishes or demands. We want peace. 

There is only one thing - THIS REFERS TO OUR RELATIONS TO ENGLAND: IT WOULD BE 
GOOD IF IN ENGLAND CERTAIN MANNERISMS HELD OVER FROM THE VERSAILLES 
PERIOD WERE DISCARDED. WE JUST CANNOT STAND FOR A GOVERNESS-LIKE 
GUARDIANSHIP OF GERMANY. 

Inquiries by British statesmen or Parliamentarians concerning the fate of the Reich's subjects inside 
Germany are out of order. We do not bother about similar things in England. The rest of the world 
would sometimes have had reason enough to bother about international happenings - happenings in 
Palestine. We leave this to those who feel themselves pre-ordained by God to solve these problems. And 
we observe with amazement how they do solve them. We must, however, give these gentlemen advice 
to attend even more to the solution of their own problems and to leave us in peace. 

It also is part of the task of securing world peace that responsible statesmen and politicians look after 
their own affairs and refrain from constantly meddling talk with the problems of other countries and 
peoples. By such mutual considerateness, preconditions are really created for durable peace, of which no 
one is more earnestly desirous than the German people. 

We have great tasks facing us, great cultural tasks. Economic problems must be solved. No people can 
make better use of peace than we. However, no people knows better than we what it means to be weak 
and be at the mercy of others for better or for worse. 



Weimar — Speech of November 6, 1938 



WHAT seems to us almost a miracle as we look back upon it is nothing else than the reward for infinite 
and unwearying labor.... And now for that labor we have received from Providence our reward, just as 
the Germany of 1918 received its reward. At that time Germany shared in those blessings which we 
think of under the collective idea Democracy. But Germany has learned that democracy in practice is a 
different thing from democracy in theory. 

If today at times in foreign countries Parliamentarians or politicians venture to maintain that Germany 
has not kept her treaties, then we can give as our answer to these men: the greatest breach of a treaty that 
ever was practiced on the German people. Every promise which had been made to Germany in the 
Fourteen Points - those promises on the faith of which Germany had laid down her arms - was 
afterwards broken. In 1932 Germany was faced with final collapse. The German Reich and people both 
seemed lost. And then came the German resurrection. It began with a change of faith. While all the 
German parties before us believed in forces and ideals which lay outside of the German Reich and 
outside of our people, we National Socialists have resolutely championed belief in our own people, 
starting from that watchword of eternal validity: God helps only those who are prepared and determined 
to help themselves. In the place of all those international factors - Democracy, the Conscience of 
Peoples, the Conscience of the World, the League of Nations, and the like - we have set a single factor - 
our own people. . . . 

We were all convinced that a true community of the people is not produced overnight - it is not attained 
through theories or programs - but that through many decades, yes, and perhaps always and for all time 
the individual must be trained for this community. This work of education we have carried through ever 
since the Party was founded and especially since we came into power. But nothing is perfect in this 
world and no success can be felt to be finally satisfying. And so, even today, we have no wish to 
maintain that our achievement is already the realization of our ideal. We have an ideal which floats 
before our minds and in accordance with that ideal we educate Germans, generation after generation. So 
National Socialism will continually be transformed from a profession of political faith to a real 
education of the people.... 

The umbrella-carrying types of our former bourgeois world of parties are extinguished and they will 
never return... 

From the very first day I have proclaimed as a fundamental principle: 'the German is either the first 
soldier in the world or he is no soldier at all.' No soldiers at all we cannot be, and we do not wish to be. 
Therefore we shall be only the first. As one who is a lover of peace I have endeavored to create for the 
German people such an army and such munitions as are calculated to convince others, too, to seek 
peace. 

There are, it is true, people who abuse the hedgehog because it has spines. But they have only got to 
leave the animal in peace. No hedgehog has ever attacked anyone unless he was first threatened. That 
should be our position, too. Folk must not come too near us. We want nothing else than to be left in 
peace; we want the possibility of going on with our work, we claim for our people the right to live, the 
same right which others claim for themselves. And that the democratic States above all others should 
grasp and understand, for they never stop talking about equality of rights. If they keep talking about the 
rights of small peoples, how can they be outraged if in its turn a great people claims the same right? Our 
National Socialist Army serves to secure and guarantee this claim of right. 

It is with this in view that in foreign policy also I have initiated a change in our attitude and have drawn 
closer to those who like us were compelled to stand up for their rights. 

And when today I examine the results of this action of ours, then I am able to say: Judge all of you for 
yourselves: Have we not gained enormously through acting on these principles? 



But precisely for this reason we do not wish that we should ever forget what has made these successes of 
ours possible. When certain foreign newspapers write: 'But all that you could have gained by the way of 
negotiation,' we know very well that Germany before our day did nothing but negotiate continuously. 
For fifteen years they only negotiated and they lost everything for their pains. I, too, am ready to 
negotiate but I leave no one in any doubt that neither by way of negotiation nor by any other way will I 
allow the rights of Germany to be cut down. Never forget, German people, to what it is you owe your 
successes - to what Movement, to what ideas, and to what principles! And in the second place: always 
be cautious, be ever on your guard! 

It is very fine to talk of international peace and international disarmament, but I am mistrustful of a 
disarmament in weapons of war so long as there has been no disarmament of the spirit. 

There has been formed in the world the curious custom of dividing peoples into so-called 'authoritarian' 
States, that is disciplined States, and democratic States. In the authoritarian, that is, the disciplined 
States, it goes without saying that one does not abuse foreign peoples, does not lie about them, does not 
incite to war. But the democratic States are precisely 'democratic,' that is, that all this can happen there 
In the authoritarian States a war - agitation is of course impossible, for their Governments are under an 
obligation to see to it that there is no such thing. In the democracies, on the other hand, the Governments 
have only one duty: to maintain democracy, and that means the liberty, if necessary, to incite to war.... 

Mr. Churchill had stated his view publicly, namely that the present regime in Germany must be 
overthrown with the aid of forces within Germany which would gladly co-operate. If Mr. Churchill 
would but spend less of his time in emigre circles, that is with traitors to their country maintained and 
paid abroad, and more of his time with Germans, then he would realize the utter madness and stupidity 
of his idle chatter. I can only assure this gentleman, who would appear to be living in the moon, of one 
thing: there is no such force in Germany which could turn against the present regime. 

I will not refuse to grant to this gentleman that, naturally we have no right to demand that the other 
peoples should alter their constitutions. But, as leader of the Germans, I have the duty to consider this 
constitution of theirs and the possibilities which result from it. When a few days ago in the House of 
Commons the Deputy Leader of the Opposition declared that he made no secret of the fact that he would 
welcome the destruction of Germany and Italy, then, of course, I cannot prevent it if perhaps this man on 
the basis of the democratic rules of the game should in fact with his party in one or two years become 
the Government. But of one thing I can assure him: I can prevent him from destroying Germany. And 
just as I am convinced that the German people will take care that the plans of these gentlemen so far as 
Germany is concerned will never succeed, so in precisely the same way Fascist Italy will, I know, take 
care for itself! 

I believe that for us all these international hopes can only teach us to stand firm together and to cling to 
our friends. The more that we in Germany form a single community, the less favorable will be the 
prospects of these inciters to war, and the closer we unite ourselves in particular with the State which is 
in a position similar to ours, with Italy, the less desire they will have to pick a quarrel with us! . . . 

Germany has become greater by the most natural way, by a way which could not be more morally 
unassailable.... When the rest of the world speaks of disarmament, then we too are ready for 
disarmament, but under one condition: the war-agitation must first be disarmed! 

So long as the others only talk of disarmament, while they infamously continue to incite to war, we must 
presume that they do but wish to steal from us our arms, in order once more to prepare for us the fate of 
1918-19. And in that case, my only answer to Mr. Churchill and his like must be: That happens once 
only and it will not be repeated! 



Wilhelmshaven — Speech of April 1, 1939 

German Fellow-Citizens:- He who wants to have the deepest impression of the decay and resurrection of 
Germany most vividly must go and see the development of a city like Wilhelmshaven, which today 
reverberates with life and activity and which still a short time ago was a dead spot nearly without means 
of existence and without prospects of a future - it pays to revisualize this past. 

When this city experienced its first upward move it coincided with the rise of the German Reich after its 
unification. This Germany was in a state of peace. 

During the same time as the so-called peace-loving and Puritan nations led a great number of wars, 
Germany then knew only one aim: To maintain peace, to work in peace, to raise the prosperity of its 
inhabitants, and thereby to contribute to human culture and civilization. 

This Germany of peace times has attempted, with unending diligence, with geniality, and with 
steadiness, to form its life within and to safeguard outwardly - through participation in peaceful 
competition with the nations - its due place in the sun. 

Even though this Germany through the decades was the safest guarantor of peace, and even though she 
occupied herself with peaceful things, she was unable to prevent other nations, and especially their 
statesmen, from following this rise with envy and hatred and finally to answer with a war. 

Today we know from the documents of history how the encirclement policy of those times was carried 
on in a planned way by England. 

We know from numerous findings and publications that in that country the conception was that it would 
be necessary to bring down Germany militarily because its destruction would insure every British citizen 
a greater abundance of life's possessions. 

Certainly at that time Germany made mistakes. Its most serious mistake was to see this encirclement and 
not to stave it off in time. 

The only fault we can blame the regime of that time for is that the Reich had full knowledge of this 
devilish plan of a raid and yet it did not have the power of decision to ward it off in time and could only 
let this encirclement ripen until the beginning of the catastrophe. 

The result was the World War. In this war the German people, although it had by no means the best 
armaments, fought heroically. No people can claim the glory for itself to have forced us down - much 
less so that nation whose statesmen today speak the greatest words. 

Germany at that time remained undefeated and unconquered on land, at sea, and in the air - however, it 
was Germany. 

But there was the power of the lie and the poison of propaganda which did not balk at misinterpretation 
and untruth. 

This Germany faced the world in absolute defenselessness because it was unprepared. 

When [President Woodrow] Wilson's Fourteen Points were published, not only many German fellow- 



citizens but above all the 'leading' men saw in these Fourteen Points not only the possibility of ending 
the World War but also the pacification of the world at large. 

A peace of reconciliation and understanding was promised-a peace that was to know neither victor nor 
vanquished, a peace of equal justice for all, a peace of equal distribution of colonial domains and equal 
recognition of colonial desires, a peace that was to be finally crowned by a league of all free nations. 

It was to be a guarantor of equal rights that would make it seem superfluous in the future for peoples to 
bear the armaments that previously, so it was said, were so heavily burdensome. 

Therefore, disarmament-disarmament of all the nations. 

Germany was to go ahead as a good example. Everybody was obliged to follow this disarmament. Also 
the age of secret diplomacy was to be ended. All problems henceforth were to be discussed openly and 
freely. 

First of all, however, the right of self-determination of nations finally was to have been settled and 
raised to its proper importance. 

Germany believed in these assurances. With faith in these declarations it had dropped its weapons. And 
then a breach of a pledge began such as world history had never seen before. 

When our nation had dropped its weapons, a period of suppression, blackmailing, plundering, and 
slavery began. Not another word about peace without victor or vanquished, but an endless sentence of 
condemnation for the vanquished. Not another word about justice, but of justice on your side and 
injustice and illegality on the other. 

Robbery upon robbery, oppression upon oppression were the consequences. 

No one in this democratic world bothered himself any more about the sufferings of our people. 
Hundreds of thousands fell in the war, not from enemy weapons, but from the hunger blockade. And 
after the war ended, this blockade was continued for months in order to oppress our people still more. 

Even German war prisoners, after an endless time, had to remain in captivity. The German colonies 
were stolen from us, German foreign holdings were simply seized and our merchant marine taken away. 

Added to that was a financial plundering such as the world had never before seen. The monetary 
penalties which were imposed on the German people reached astronomical figures. 

Of these an English statesman said that they could only be fulfilled when the German standard of living 
was reduced to the lowest possible level and Germans worked fourteen hours daily. What German spirit, 
German alertness, and German labor through decades and decades had collected and saved was lost in a 
few years. 

Millions of Germans were either torn away from the Reich or were prevented from returning to the 
Reich. The League of Nations was not an instrument of a just policy of understanding among nations, 
but is and was a guarantee of the meanest dictation man ever invented. 

So was a great people raped and led toward a misery that you all know. A great people through a broken 
pledge was cheated of its rights and its existence rendered practically impossible. A French statesman 
coined the following expression: 'There are 20,000,000 Germans too many in the world!' 



Germans ended their lives out of despair, others slid into lethargy and an inevitable destiny and still 
others were of the opinion that everything must be destroyed; still others set their teeth and clenched 
their fists in unconscious rage. Still others believed that the past should be restored - restored just as it 
was. 

Everyone had an idea of some sort. And I, as an unknown soldier of the World War, drew my 
conclusions. 

It was a very short and simple program. It ran: Removal of the internal enemies of the nation, 
termination of the divisions within Germany, the gathering up of the entire national strength of our 
people into a new community, and the breaking of the peace treaty - in one way or another! 

For as long as this dictate of Versailles weighed upon the German people it was actually damned to go 
to the ground. If, however, other statesmen now declare that right must rule on this earth, then they 
should be told that their crime is no right, that their dictate is neither right nor law but above this dictate 
stand the eternal rights of peoples to live. 

The German people were not created by providence in order to follow obediently a law which suits the 
English or the French, but rather in order to champion their right to live. That is why we are here! I was 
determined to take up this battle of advocating the German right to live. 

I took it up first within the nation. 

In place of a great number of parties, social ranks, and societies, a single community now has taken its 
place - the German national community! To bring it to realization and to deepen it more and more is our 
task. 

I had to hurt many in this time. However, I believe that the good fortune in which the entire nation is 
participating today must richly compensate every single one for what he had to give up dearly on his 
own part. 

You all have sacrificed your parties, societies, and associations, but you have obtained in return a great 
strong Reich. And the Reich today, thank God, is strong enough to take your rights under its protection. 

We no longer are dependent on the good graces or disgraces of other States or their statesmen. 

When, more than six years ago, I obtained power, I took over a wretched inheritance. The Reich seemed 
to possess no more possibilities of existence for its citizens. 

I undertook the work at that time with the one single capital which I possessed. It was the capital of your 
strength to work. 

Your strength to work, my fellow-citizens, I now have begun to put to use. I had no foreign exchange. I 
had no gold reserve. I had only one thing - my faith and your work! 

Thus we began the gigantic work of rebuilding based upon the confidence of the nation, instilled with 
the belief and the confidence in its eternal values. 

Now we have found a new economic system, a system which is this: Capital is the power of labor and 
the coverage of money lies in our production. 

We have founded a system based on the most sincere foundation there is, namely: Form your life 



yourself! Work for your existence! Help yourself and God will help you! 

Within a few years we have wrenched Germany from despair. But the world did not help us. If today an 
English statesman says one can and must solve all problems through frank deliberations, I should like to 
tell this statesman just this: An opportunity has been open for fifteen years before our time. 

If the world says today that the nations must be divided into virtuous nations and into such as are not 
virtuous - and that the English and French belong to the first class, and the Germans and Italians belong 
to those not virtuous - we can only answer: The judgment whether a people is virtuous or not virtuous 
can hardly be passed by a human being. That should be left to God. 

Perhaps the same British statesman will retort: 'God has passed the verdict already, because He 
presented the virtuous nations with one quarter of the world and He took everything away from the 
nonvirtuous!' 

The question may be permitted: 'By what means have the virtuous nations obtained for themselves this 
quarter of the world.' 

And one must answer: 'They did not apply virtuous methods!' 

For 300 years this England acted without virtue in order now in maturity to speak of virtue. Thus it 
could appear that during this British period without virtue 46,000,000 Englishmen have subdued nearly 
one-quarter of the world while 80,000,000 Germans, because of their virtue, must live at a rate of 140 to 
one square kilometer. 

Indeed, twenty years ago, the question of virtue still was not entirely clear for the British statesmen 
insofar as it concerned conceptions of property. One still held it compatible with virtue simply to take 
away the colonies of another people that had acquired them through treaty or through purchase because 
one possessed the power - this very power which now, to be sure, should be deemed as something 
abominable and detestable. 

I have only one thing to ask the gentlemen here: whether they believe what they say or do not believe it. 
We do not know. 

We assume, however, that they do not believe what they say. For if we should assume that they 
themselves really believe it then we would lose every respect for them. 

For fifteen years Germany patiently bore its lot and fate. I also sought in the beginning to solve every 
problem through talks. I made an offer in the case of each problem and each time it was turned down! 

There can be no doubt that every people possesses sacred interests, simply because they are identical 
with their lives and their right to live. 

When, today, a British statesman demands that every problem which lies in the midst of Germany's life 
interest first should be discussed with England,, then I, too, could demand just as well that every British 
problem first is to be discussed with us. 

Certainly, these Englishmen may give me the answer: 'The Germans have no business in Palestine!' I 
answer that we do not want anything in Palestine. 

Just as we Germans have little to do in Palestine, just as little business has England mixing in our 
German section of existence. And if they now declare that it involves general questions of law and 



justice I could approve of this opinion only if it was considered as binding to both of us. 

They say we have no right to do this or that. I should like to raise the counter-question: What right, for 
example, has England to shoot down Arabs in Palestine just because they defend their homeland; who 
gives them this right? 

Anyway, we have not slaughtered thousands in Central Europe but instead we have regulated our 
problems with law and order. 

However, I should like to say one thing here: The German people of today, the German Reich of today 
is not willing to surrender life interests, it also is not willing to face rising dangers without doing 
something about them. 

When the Allies, without regard or purpose, right, tradition, or even reasonableness, changed the map of 
Europe, we had not the power to prevent it. If, however, they expect the Germany of today to sit 
patiently by until the very last day when this same result would again be repeated - while they create 
satellite States and set them against Germany - then they are mistaking the Germany of today for the 
Germany of before the war. 

He who declares himself ready to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for these powers must realize he 
burns his fingers. 

Really, we feel no hatred against the Czech people. We have lived together for years. The English 
statesmen do not know this. They have no idea that Hradcany castle was not built by an Englishman but 
by a German and that the St. Vitus Cathedral likewise was not erected by Englishmen but that German 
hands did it. 

Even the French were not active there. They do not know that already at a time when England still was 
very small a German Kaiser was paid homage on this hill [Hradcany castle] -that one thousand years 
before me the first German King stood there and accepted the homage of this people. 

Englishmen do not know that. They could not know that and they do not have to know it. It is sufficient 
that we know it and that it is true that this territory lay in the living space of the German people for over 
a thousand years. 

Despite this, however, we would have had nothing against an independent Czech State if, first, it had not 
suppressed Germans, and, second, if it had not been intended as the instrument of a future attack on 
Germany. When, however, a former French Air Minister writes in a newspaper that on the basis of their 
prominent position it is the task of these Czechs to strike at the heart of German industry with air attacks 
during war, then one understands that this is not without interest to us and that we draw certain 
conclusions from it. 

It would have been up to England and France to defend this airbase. Upon us fell the task of preventing 
such an attack at all events. I sought to accomplish this by a natural and simple way. 

When I first saw that every effort of that kind was destined to be wrecked and that elements hostile to 
Germany again would win the upper hand, and as I further saw that this State had long since lost its 
inner vitality - indeed, that it already was broken to pieces - 1 again carried through the old German 
Reich. And I joined together again what had to be united because of history and geographical positions, 
and according to all rules of reason. 

Not to oppress the Czech people! It will enjoy more freedom than the suppressed people of the virtuous 



nations. 

I have, so I believe, thereby rendered peace a great service, because I have rendered innocuous in time 
an instrument which was destined to become effective in war against Germany. If they now say that this 
is the signal that Germany now wants to attack the entire world, I do not believe that this is meant 
seriously: such could only be the expression of a bad conscience. 

Perhaps it is rage over the failure of a far-flung plan, perhaps it is an attempt to create tactical 
preconditions for a new policy of encirclement. 

Be that as it may: it is my conviction that thereby I have rendered peace a great service and out of this 
conviction I decided three weeks ago to name the coming party rally the 'Party Convention of Peace.' 

For Germany has no intention of attacking other people. What we, however, do not want to renounce is 
the building up of our economic relations. We have a right thereto and I do not accept any condition 
from a European or a non-European statesman. 

The German Reich is not only a great producer but also a gigantic consumer, just as we as a producer 
will be an irreplaceable trade partner, so as a consumer we are capable of honorably and fairly paying 
for what we consume. 

We are not thinking about making war on other peoples. However, our precondition is that they leave us 
in peace. 

In any case the German Reich is not ready everlastingly to accept intimidation or even a policy of 
encirclement. 

I once made an agreement with England - namely, the Naval Treaty. It is based on the earnest desire 
which we all possess never to have to go to war against England. But this wish can only be a mutual 
one. 

If this wish no longer exists in England, then the practical preconditions for this agreement therewith are 
removed and Germany also would accept this very calmly. We are self-assured because we are strong, 
and we are strong because we are united and because in addition we are looking forward. And in this 
city, my fellow citizens, I can address the one exhortation to you: Look into the world and to all its 
happenings with open eyes. Do not deceive yourselves about the most important precondition in life - 
namely, the necessity to be strong. 

We have experienced this for fifteen years. Therefore I have made Germany strong again and erected an 
armed force, an army on land, at sea, and in the air. 

When they say in other countries that they will arm and will keep arming still more, I can tell those 
statesmen only this: They will not be able to tire me out. I am determined to proceed on this road and I 
have a conviction that we shall proceed faster than the others. No power on earth will ever again be able 
to entice the weapons from us through any phrase. 

Should, however, somebody be craving for measuring their strength with ours, then the German people 
also are ready at any time and I am ready and determined. 

Just as we think, our friends also think, especially the State with which we are bound most closely and 
with which we are marching now and will march under all circumstances forever. 



If hostile journalists do not know of anything else to write, then they write about rents or breaks in the 
Axis. They ought to hold their peace. This Axis is the most natural political instrument existing in this 
world. 

It is a political combination which owes its origin not only to reasonable political deliberation and the 
desire for justice but also to the power of an ideal. 

This construction will be more durable than the momentary ties of nonhomogeneous bodies on the other 
side. For if some one tells me today that there are no philosophical or ideological differences of any kind 
between England and Soviet Russia, then I can only say: 

'I congratulate you, gentlemen!' 

I believe that the time is not far distant in which the philosophical community between Fascist Italy and 
National Socialist Germany will prove essentially different than the one between democratic Great 
Britain and the bolshevist Russia of Stalin. 

However, if there really should be no ideological difference, then I can only say: How correct, indeed, is 
my position toward Marxism and communism and democracy! Why two phenomena if they possess the 
same contents? 

In these days we experience a very great triumph and a deep inner satisfaction. A country which also 
was devastated by bolshevism, where hundreds of thousands of human beings, women, men, children, 
and patriarchs have been slaughtered, has liberated itself, liberated despite all the ideological friends of 
bolshevism who sit in Great Britain, France and in other countries. 

We can understand this Spain only too well in its struggle and we greet and congratulate it for its 
success. We Germans of today can express this with special pride, since many German young men have 
done their duty there. They have helped as volunteers to break a tyrannic regime and to return to a nation 
the right of self-determination. 

We are pleased to note how fast, how extremely fast, the philosophical change came over the deliverers 
of war material on the Red side. We note how much they now, all of a sudden, understand this National 
Spain and how ready they are to conduct with this National Spain, if not philosophical, then at least 
economic business. 

This also is a sign showing the trend of development. 

My fellow-citizens, I believe that all States will be facing the same problem which we have faced. 

State after State will either fall under the Jewish bolshevist pest or it will defend itself. 

We have done it and have now erected a national German people's State. This people's State wants to 
live in peace and friendship with any other State but it will never again let itself be forced down by 
another State. 

I do not know whether the world will become fascist! But I am deeply convinced that this world in the 
end will defend itself against the most severe bolshevistic threat that exists. 

Therefore I believe that a final understanding between nations will come sooner or later. Only when this 
Jewish wedge among peoples is removed can the establishment of co-operation among nations - built on 
lasting understanding - be considered. 



Today we must rely upon our own strength! And we can be satisfied with the results of this trust in 
ourselves - inwardly and outwardly. 

When I came to power, my fellow-citizens, Germany was divided and impotent internally, and 
outwardly the sport of foreign designs. Today we are in order domestically. Our business is flourishing. 

Abroad perhaps we are not loved, but respected. Yet we receive attention! That is the decisive factor! 
Above all we have given the greatest possible good fortune to millions of our fellow-citizens - the return 
into our Greater German Reich. 

Second: We have given Central Europe a great piece of good fortune, namely, peace - peace that will be 
protected by German might. And this might can no longer be broken by any world power. That is our 
pledge! 

So we will show that over two million citizens did not fall in the Great War in vain. From their sacrifice 
came Greater Germany. From their sacrifice was this strong young German people that the Reich called 
into being and that has now made itself felt. In the face of this sacrifice we shall not shy away from any 
sacrifice if it is ever necessary. 

Let the world understand that! 

It can make pacts and draw up declarations as much as it wishes. I have no faith in paper, but I do have 
faith in you, my fellow-citizens! 

The greatest breach of faith of all time was committed against us Germans. Let us take care that our 
people internally are never again in a position to be broken. Then no one in the world will threaten us. 
Then peace will either be maintained for our people or, if necessary, peace will be enforced. 

Then our people will bloom and flourish. Our people will be able to put their geniality, their ability, their 
diligence and steadfastness into the works of peace and human culture. This is our desire. We hope for it 
and we believe in it. 

Twenty years ago that party was founded - at that time a tiny organization. Consider the road from that 
time until today! Consider the wonders which have occurred about us. 

Believe, therefore, because of this wonderful road, also in the course of the German people in its coming 
great future! 

Germany - Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! 



Danzig — Speech of September 19, 1939 

My District Leader, My Dear Danzigers: 

Not only you experience this moment with deepest emotion; nay, the entire German nation experiences 
it with you, and I, too, am aware of the greatness of the hour when I, for the first time, tread on the soil 
which German settlers occupied five centuries ago and which for five centuries was German, and which 
- thereof you may rest assured - will remain German. ... 



The fact that a province was torn from the German Reich and that other German territories were given to 
the Polish State was explained on the grounds of national necessity. Later, plebiscites everywhere 
showed that no one wished to become a part of the Polish State - that Polish State which arose out of the 
blood of countless German regiments. It then expanded at the expense of old settlement areas and above 
all at the expense of intelligence and economic possibility. 

One thing has been clearly proved in the last twenty years; the Poles who had not founded that culture 
also were not able to maintain it. It has been shown again that only he who is himself culturally creative 
can permanently maintain real cultural performance. 

Thirty years would have been sufficient to reduce again to barbarism those territories which the 
Germans, painstakingly and with industry and thrift, had saved from barbarism. Everywhere traces of 
this retrogression and decay were visible. 

Poland itself was a 'nationalities State.' That very thing had been created here which had been held 
against the old Austrian State. At the same time Poland was never a democracy. One very thin anemic 
upper class here ruled not only foreign nationalities but also its so-called own people. 

It was a State built on force and governed by the truncheons of the police and the military. The fate of 
Germans in this State was horrible. There is a difference whether people of lower cultural value has the 
misfortune to be governed by a culturally significant people or whether a people of high cultural 
significance has forced upon it the tragic fate of being oppressed by an inferior. 

In this inferior people all its inferiority complexes will be compensated upon a higher culture-bearing 
people. This people will be horribly and barbarically mistreated and Germans have been evidence of this 
fate for twenty years. 

It was, as already emphasized, tragic and painful. Nevertheless, as everywhere else, I tried to find a 
solution here which might have led to a fair adjustment. I have tried in the West and then later in the 
South to maintain final frontier delineations in order thus to deliver region upon region from uncertainty 
and assure peace and justice for the future. I made the greatest efforts to attain the same thing here also. . 



The world, which immediately sheds tears when Germany expels a Polish Jew who only a few decades 
ago came to Germany, remained dumb and deaf toward the misery of those who, numbering not 
thousands but millions, were forced to leave their home country on account of Versailles - that is, if 
these unfortunates were Germans. What was for us and also for me most depressing was the fact that we 
had to suffer all this from a State which was far inferior to us; for, after all, Germany is a Great Power, 
even though madmen believed the vital rights of a great nation could be wiped out by a crazy treaty or 
by dictation. 

Germany was a big power and had to look on while a far inferior people of a far inferior State maltreated 
these Germans. There were two especially unbearable conditions: First, this city whose German 
character nobody could deny was not only prevented from returning to the Reich but in addition an 
attempt was made to Polonize it by all kinds of devices; second, the province [East Prussia] severed 
from the German Reich had no direct contact with the Reich, but traffic with this province was 
dependent upon all kinds of chicanery or upon the good will of this Polish State. 

No power on earth would have borne this condition as long as Germany. I do not know what England 
would have said about a similar peace solution at its expense or how America or France would have 
accepted it. I attempted to find a solution - a tolerable solution - even for this problem. I submitted this 
attempt to the Polish rulers in the form of verbal proposals. You know these proposals. They were more 



than moderate.... 

I do not know what mental condition the Polish Government was in when it refused these proposals. I 
know, however, that millions of Germans sighed with relief, since they felt I had gone too far. As an 
answer, Poland gave the order for the first mobilization. Thereupon wild terror was initiated, and my 
request to the Polish Foreign Minister to visit me in Berlin once more to discuss these questions was re- 
fused. Instead of going to Berlin, he went to London. For the next weeks and months there were 
heightened threats, threats which were hardly bearable for a small State but which were impossible for a 
Great Power to bear for any length of time. 

We could read in Polish publications that the issue at stake was not Danzig but the problem of East 
Prussia, which Poland was to incorporate in a short time. That increased. Other Polish newspapers stated 
that East Prussia would not solve the problem, but that Pomerania must, under all circumstances, come 
to Poland. 

Finally it became questionable in Poland whether the Oder would be enough as a boundary or whether 
Poland's natural boundary was not the Oder but the Elbe. It was debated whether our armies would be 
smashed before or behind Berlin. 

The Polish Marshal, who miserably deserted his armies, said that he would hack the German Army to 
pieces. And martyrdom began for our German nationals. Tens of thousands were dragged off, 
mistreated, and murdered in the vilest fashion. Sadistic beasts gave vent to their perverse instincts, and 
this pious democratic world watched without blinking an eye. 

I have often asked myself: Who can have so blinded Poland? Does anyone really believe that the 
German nation will permanently stand that from such a ridiculous State? Does anyone seriously believe 
that? It must have been believed because certain quarters described it as possible to the Poles, certain 
quarters which general warmongers have occupied decades long, yes, hundreds of years long and which 
they occupy even today. 

These quarters declared that Germany was not even to be considered as a Power. The Poles were told 
that they would easily be able to resist Germany, and, going a step further, assurance was given that if 
their own resistance was not enough they could depend on the resistance and assistance of others. The 
guarantee was given which put it into the hands of a small State to begin a war, or again perhaps not to 
do so. 

For these men Poland, too, was only a means to an end. Because today it is being declared quite calmly 
that Poland was not the primary thing, but that the German regime is. I always warned against these 
men. You will recall my Saarbruecken and Wilhelmshaven speeches. In both these speeches I pointed 
out the danger that in a certain country such men could rise and unmolested preach the necessity of war - 
Herren Churchill, Eden, Duff-Cooper, etc. 

I pointed out how dangerous this is, especially in a country where one does not know whether these men 
may not be the Government in a short time. I was then told that that would never happen. In my opinion 
they are now the Government. It happened exactly as I then foresaw. I then decided for the first time to 
warn the German nation against them. But I also have left no doubt that Germany, under no 
circumstances, will capitulate to the threats or coercion of these people. 

On account of this answer I have been strongly attacked: because certain practices have gradually been 
developed in democracies: namely, in democracies war may be advocated. There foreign regimes and 
statesmen may be attacked, calumniated, insulted, sullied because there reign freedom of speech and the 
press. In authoritarian States, on the other hand, one may not defend one's self because there reigns 



discipline. 

You know, of course, of those August days. I believe it would have been possible in those last August 
days, without the British guarantee and without agitation by these warmongers, to have reached an 
understanding. At a certain moment England herself offered to bring us into direct discussion with 
Poland. I was ready. Of course it was the Poles who did not come. 

I came to Berlin with my Government and for two days waited and waited. Meanwhile, I had worked 
out a new pro- posal. You know it. I had the British Ambassador informed of it on the evening of the 
first day. It was read to him sentence by sentence and the Reich Foreign Minister gave him a 
supplementary explanation. Then came the next day and nothing occurred except for Polish general 
mobilization, renewed acts of terror, and finally attacks against Reich territory. 

Now in the life of nations, patience must not always be interpreted as weakness. For years I patiently 
looked on these continuous provocations. What keen suffering I underwent in these years only few can 
imagine, because there was hardly a month or week in which deputations from these districts did not 
come to me depicting unbearable conditions and imploring me to interfere. 

I have always begged them to try again. This continued for years, but I have recently also warned that 
this could not go on forever. After again waiting and even receiving new proposals I finally decided, as I 
declared in the Reichstag, to talk with Poland in the same language as they talked to us, or believed they 
could talk to us - the language which alone they seem to understand. 

Also, at this moment peace could have been saved. Friendly Italy and II Duce came in and made a 
suggestion for mediation. France agreed. I also expressed my agreement. Then England rejected also 
that suggestion and replied that, instead, Germany might be served with a two-hour ultimatum with 
impossible demands. England erred in one thing. There once was a government in Germany in 
November, 1918, that was kept by England, and they confound the present German regime with one 
they kept and confound the present German nation with the misled and blinded nation of that time. 

One does not send ultimatums to the Germany of today. - May London make note! 

In the last six years I had to stand intolerable things from States like Poland - nevertheless I sent no 
ultimatum. The German Reich is not inclined and will not be addressed in such a tone. I knew if Poland 
chose war she chose it because others drove her into war, those others who believed they might make 
their biggest political and financial killing in this war. But it will not be their biggest killing, but their 
biggest disappointment. 

Poland chose to fight and she received a fight. She chose this fight light-heartedly because certain 
statesmen assured her they had detailed proof of the worthlessness of Germany and her armed forces, of 
the inferiority of our armament, of the poor morale of our troops, of defeatism within the Reich, of a 
discrepancy between the German people and its leadership. 

The Poles were persuaded that it would be easy not only to resist but also to throw our army back. 
Poland constructed her campaign on these assurances of the Western general staffs. Since then eighteen 
days have passed, and hardly elsewhere in history can the following be said with more truth: The Lord 
has struck them down with horse, with man and with wagon. 

As I speak to you our troops stand along a great line from Brest-Litovsk to Lwow, and at this moment 
endless columns of the smashed Polish Army have been marching as prisoners from that sector since 
yesterday afternoon. Yesterday morning there were 20,000; yesterday afternoon 50,000; this morning 
70,000. 1 do not know how great the number is now, but I know one thing: what remains of the Polish 



Army west of that line will capitulate within a few days, they will lay down their arms or be crushed. At 
this moment, our thankful hearts fly to our men. The German Army gave those genius-statesmen, who 
were so well-informed as to conditions within the Reich, a necessary lesson.... 

At this moment we want to give the Polish soldier absolute justice. At many points the Pole fought 
bravely. His lower leadership made desperate efforts, his middle-grade leadership was too unintelligent, 
his highest leadership was bad, judged by any standard. His organization was - Polish... 

I ordered the German Air Force to conduct humanitarian warfare - that is, to attack only fighting troops. 
The Polish Government and army leadership ordered the civilian population to carry on the war as 
francs-tireurs from ambush. It is very difficult under these circumstances to hold one's self back. I want 
to stress that the democratic States should not imagine it must be that way. If they want it otherwise, 
they can have it otherwise. My patience can have limits here also. . . . 

So, we have beaten Poland within eighteen days and thus created a situation which perhaps makes it 
possible one day to speak to representatives of the Polish people calmly and reasonably. 

Meantime, Russia felt moved, on its part, to march in for the protection of the interests of the White 
Russian and Ukrainian people in Poland. We realize now that in England and France this German and 
Russian co-operation is considered a terrible crime. An Englishman even wrote that it is perfidious - 
well, the English ought to know. I believe England thinks this co-operation perfidious because the co- 
operation of democratic England with bolshevist Russia failed, while National Socialist Germany's 
attempt with Soviet Russia succeeded. 

I want to give here an explanation: Russia remains what she is; Germany also remain what she is. About 
only one thing are both regimes clear: neither the German nor the Russian regime wants to sacrifice a 
single man for the interest of the Western democracies. A lesson of four years was sufficient for both 
peoples. We know only too well that alternately, now one then the other, would be granted the honor to 
fill the breach for the ideals of the Western democracies. 

We therefore thank both peoples and both States for this task. We intend henceforth to look after our 
interests ourselves, and we have found that we best have been able to look after them when two of the 
largest peoples and States reconcile each other. And this is made simpler by the fact that the British 
assertion as to the unlimited character of German foreign policy is a lie. I am happy now to be able to 
refute this lie for British statesmen. British statesmen, who continually maintain that Germany intends to 
dominate Europe to the Urals now will be pleased to learn the limits of German political intentions. I 
believe this will deprive them of a reason for war because they profess to have to fight against the 
present regime because it today pursues unlimited political goals. 

Now, gentlemen of the great British Empire, the aims of Germany are closely limited. We discussed the 
matter with Russia - they, after all, are the most immediately interested neighbor - and if you are of the 
opinion that we might come to a conflict on the subject - we will not. 

Britain ought to welcome the fact that Germany and Soviet Russia have come to an understanding, for 
this understanding means the elimination of that nightmare which kept British statesmen from sleeping 
because they were so concerned over the ambitions of the present [German] regime to conquer the 
world. It will calm you to learn that Germany does not, and did not, want to conquer the Ukraine. We 
have very limited interests, but we are determined to maintain those interests despite all dangers, despite 
anyone. 

And that we did not permit ourselves to be trifled with in those past eighteen days may have been 
proved sufficiently. How a definite settlement of State conditions in this conflict will look depends first 



and foremost upon the two countries which there have their most important vital interests. 

Germany has there limited but unalterable claims, and she will realize those claims one way or another. 
Germany and Russia will put in place the hotbed of conflict in the European situation which later will be 
valued only as a relaxation of tension. 

If the Western Powers now declare that this must not be, under any circumstances, and if especially 
England declares that she is determined to oppose this in a three- or five- or eight-year war, then I want 
to say something in reply: 

Firstly, Germany, by extensive yielding and renunciation in the west and south of the Reich, has 
accepted definite boundaries. Germany tried by these renunciations to attain lasting pacification. And we 
believe we would have succeeded were it not that certain warmongers could be interested in disturbing 
the European peace. 

I have neither toward England nor France any war claims, nor has the German nation since I assumed 
power. I tried gradually to establish confidence between Germany and especially its former war 
enemies. I attempted to eliminate all tensions which once existed between Germany and Italy, and I may 
state with satisfaction that I fully succeeded. 

That ever closer and more cordial relations were established was due also to personal and human 
relations between II Duce and myself. I went still further, I tried to achieve the same between Germany 
and France. Immediately after the settlement of the Saar question I solemnly renounced all further 
frontier revisions, not only in theory but in practice. I harnessed all German propaganda to this end in 
order to eliminate everything which might lead to doubt or anxiety in Paris. 

You know of my offers to England. I had only in mind the great goal of attaining the sincere friendship 
of the British people. Since this now has been repulsed, and since England today thinks it must wage 
war against Germany, I would like to answer thus: 

Poland will never rise again in the form of the Versailles Treaty. That is guaranteed not only by 
Germany but also guaranteed by Russia. 

It is said in England that this war, of course, is not for Poland. That is only secondary. More important is 
the war against the regime in Germany. And I receive the honor of special mention as a representative of 
this regime. If that is now set up as a war aim, I will answer the gentlemen in London thus: 

It is for me the greatest honor to be thus classed. On principle I educated the German people so that any 
regime which is lauded by our enemies is poison for Germany and will therefore be rejected by us. If, 
therefore, a German regime would get the consent of Churchill, Duff-Cooper and Eden it would be paid 
and kept by these gentlemen and hence would be unbearable for Germany. That, certainly, is not true 
with us. It is, therefore, only honorable for us to be rejected by these gentlemen. I can assure these 
gentlemen only this: If they should praise, this would be a reason for me to be most crestfallen. I am 
proud to be attacked by them. 

But if they believe they can thereby alienate the German people from me, then they either think the 
German people are as lacking in character as themselves or as stupid as themselves. They err in both. 
National Socialism did not educate the German people in vain during the past twenty years. We are all 
men who, in their long struggle, have been nothing but attacked. That only tended to increase the love of 
our followers and created an inseparable union. And as the National Socialist party took upon itself this 
years-long struggle, finally to win it, thus the National Socialist Reich and the German people take up 
the fight and those gentlemen may be convinced: By their ridiculous propaganda the German people will 



not be undermined. Those bunglers will have become our apprentices for many years before they can 
even attempt propaganda. 

If peoples go to pieces it will not be the German people, who are fighting for justice, who have no war 
aims and who were attacked. 

Rather, those peoples will break when they gradually find out what their misleaders plan, and gradually 
grasp for what little reason they are fighting, and that the only reasons for war are the profits or political 
interests of a very small clique. A part of it declared in Britain that this war will last three years. Then I 
can only say: My sympathies are with the French poilu. What he is fighting for he does not know. He 
knows only that he has the honor to fight at least three years. But if it should last three years, then the 
word capitulation will not stand at the end of the third, and at the end of the fourth year the word 
capitulation also will not be, and not in the fifth either, and also not in the sixth or seventh year. 

These gentlemen should take note of the following: Today you have the Germany of Frederick the Great 
before you. These gentlemen can believe this. The German people will not split up in this fight but 
become more unified. If anything splits up it will be those States that are not so homogeneous, those 
empires built on the oppression of peoples. We are fighting only for our naked beings. We are not able 
ourselves to be misled by propaganda. 

Just imagine! There are people who say there are those ruling in another land who do not please us, so 
now we have war with them. Naturally they do not carry on the war themselves, but look about for 
someone to conduct it for them. They provide cannon and grenades while others provide grenadiers and 
soldiers. Such an utter lack of conscience! 

What would be said if one of us should say that the present regime in France or Britain does not suit us 
and consequently we are conducting a war? What immeasurable lack of conscience. For that, millions of 
persons are whipped into death. These gentlemen can say that calmly, for they themselves never have 
been on the battlefield for even an hour. 

But we will see how long they keep nations at war. There can be no doubt of one thing, however. We 
will take up the gauntlet and we will fight as the enemy fights. England, with lies and hypocrisy, already 
has begun to fight against women and children. They found a weapon which they think is invincible: 
namely, sea power. And because they cannot be attacked with this weapon they think they are justified 
in making war with it against women and children - not only of enemies but also of neutrals if necessary. 

Let them make no mistake here, however. The moment could come very suddenly in which we could 
use a weapon with which we cannot be attacked. I hope then they do not suddenly begin to think of 
humaneness and of the impossibility of waging war against women and children. We Germans do not 
like that. It is not in our nature. In this campaign I gave an order to spare human beings. When columns 
cross a market-place it can occur that someone else becomes the victim of attack. 

In those places where insane or crazy people did not offer resistance not one windowpane was broken. 
In Cracow, except for the air field, railroads and the railroad station, which were military objectives, not 
one bomb fell. On the other hand, in Warsaw the war is carried on by civilian shootings in all streets and 
houses. There, of course, the war will take in the whole city. We followed these rules and would like to 
follow them in the future. It is entirely up to England to carry out her blockade in a form compatible 
with international law or incompatible with international law. We will adapt ourselves thereto. 

But there should be no doubt about one thing: 

England's goal is not 'a fight against the regime' but a fight against the German people, women and 



children. Our reaction will be compatible, and one thing will be certain: This Germany does not 
capitulate. We know too well what fate would be in store for Germany. Mr. King-Hall [Commander 
Stephen King-Hall, retired naval officer who writes a privately-circulated news letter] told us in the 
name of his masters: A second Versailles, only worse. 

What can be worse? The first Versailles Treaty was intended to exterminate 20,000,000 Germans. Thus 
the second can only realize this intention. We received more detailed illustrations of what has been 
intended, what Poland shall have, what crowns will be placed on what heads in France, etc. The German 
people take notice of this and shall fight accordingly. . . 

We are determined to carry on and stand this war one way or another. We have only this one wish, that 
the Almighty, who now has blessed our arms, will now perhaps make other peoples understand and give 
them comprehension of how useless this war, this d=E9b=E2cle of peoples, will be intrinsically, and 
that He may perhaps cause reflection on the blessings of peace which they are sacrificing because a 
handful of fanatic warmongers, persons who stand to gain by war, want to involve peoples in war. 



Berlin, Reichstag — Speech of October 6, 1939 

IT WAS a fateful hour, on the first of September of this year, when you met here as representatives of 
the German people. I had to inform you then of serious decisions which had been forced upon us as a 
result of the intransigent and provocative action of a certain State. 

Since then five weeks have gone by. I have asked you to come here today in order to give you an 
account of what has passed, the necessary insight into what is happening at present and, so far as that is 
possible, into the future as well. 

For the last two days our towns and villages have been decorated with flags and symbols of the new 
Reich. Bells are ringing to celebrate a great victory, which, of its kind, is unique in history. A State of no 
less than 36,000,000 inhabitants, with an army of almost fifty infantry and cavalry divisions, took up 
arms against us. Their arms were far-reaching, their confidence in their ability to crush Germany knew 
no bounds. 

After one week of fighting there could no longer be any doubt as to the outcome. Whenever Polish 
troops met German units, they were driven back or dispersed. Poland's ambitious strategy for a great 
offensive against the territory of the Reich collapsed within the first forty-eight hours of the campaign. 
Death-defying in attack, advancing at an unconquerable rate of progress, infantry, armored detachments, 
air force and units of the navy were soon dictating the course of events. 

They were masters of the situation throughout the campaign. In a fortnight's time the major part of the 
Polish Army was either scattered, captured, or surrounded. In the meantime, however, the German Army 
had covered distances and occupied regions which twenty- five years ago would have taken over 
fourteen months to conquer. 

Even though a number of peculiarly gifted newspaper strategists in other parts of the world attempted to 
describe the pace at which this campaign progressed as not coming up to Germany's expectations, we 
ourselves all know that in all history there has scarcely been a comparable military achievement. 

That the last remnants of the Polish Army were able to hold out in Warsaw, Modlin, and on Hela 
Peninsula until October 1 was not due to their prowess in arms, but only to our cool thinking and our 
sense of responsibility. 



I forbade the sacrifice of more human lives than was absolutely necessary. That is to say, I deliberately 
released the German Supreme Command from adherence to a principle still observed in the Great War 
demanding that for the sake of prestige certain objectives must under all circumstances be reached 
within a certain time limit. 

Everything which it is imperative to do will be done regardless of sacrifice, but what can be avoided will 
not be done. 

There would have been no difficulty for us in breaking the resistance of Warsaw between the 10th and 
12th of September, just as we finally broke it September 25-27, only that in the first place I wanted to 
spare German lives and in the second place I still clung to the hope, misdirected though it was, that the 
Polish side might for once be guided by responsible common sense instead of by irresponsible lunacy. 
But in this instance we were once more confronted with the spectacle which we had witnessed before on 
the largest possible scale. 

The attempt to convince the responsible Polish command - in so far as it existed - that it was futile and 
in fact insane to attempt resistance, especially in a city of more than a million inhabitants, proved 
entirely fruitless. A 'generalissimo,' who himself took to inglorious flight, forced upon the capital of his 
country a resistance which could never lead to anything but its destruction. 

Since it was realized that Warsaw's fortifications alone were not likely to withstand the German attack, 
the entire city was converted into a fortress and barricaded in every direction. Batteries were mounted in 
every square and great courtyard, thousands of machine-gun posts manned and the whole population 
called up to take part in the fighting. 

Sheer sympathy for women and children caused me to make an offer to those in command of Warsaw at 
least to let civilian inhabitants leave the city. I declared a temporary armistice and safeguards necessary 
for evacuation, with the result that we all waited for emissaries just as fruitlessly as we had waited at the 
end of August for a Polish negotiator. The proud Polish commander of the city did not even condescend 
to reply. 

To make sure, I extended the time limit and ordered bombers and heavy artillery to attack only military 
objectives, repeating my proposal in vain. I thereupon made an offer that the whole suburb of Praga 
would not be bombarded at all, but should be reserved for the civilian population in order to make it 
possible for them to take refuge there. 

This proposal, too, was treated with contempt on the part of the Poles. Twice I attempted to evacuate at 
least the international colony from the city. In this I finally succeeded after great difficulties, in the case 
of the Russian colony, actually at the last moment. I then ordered a general attack on the city for 
September 25. 

The same defenders who at first considered it beneath their dignity even to reply to my humane 
proposals, made on grounds of humanity, then very rapidly changed face. The German attack opened on 
September 25, and Warsaw capitulated on the 27th. 

With 120,000 men the defenders did not even attempt to break through as our German General 
Litzmann once did at Brzesiny with a vastly inferior force, but, on the contrary, preferred to lay down 
arms. 

Any comparison with the Alcazar is entirely out of place. There for weeks on end Spanish heroes defied 
the bitterest attacks and earned a right to lasting fame. Here, on the other hand, a great city was 



unscrupulously exposed to destruction, only to capitulate after a forty-eight-hour assault. 

The Polish soldiers as individuals fought bravely on many occasions, but their officers, beginning with 
the command, can only be described as irresponsible, unconscientious and inefficient. Before the 
bombardment of Hela I had also given orders that not a single man should be sacrificed until the most 
careful preparation for action had been made. There, too, surrender came at the very moment when the 
Germans had at length announced their intention of attacking and had begun to do so. 

I have made these statements, gentlemen, with the object of forestalling the invention of historical 
legends, for if legend is to be woven around any who took part in this campaign, it should be woven 
around German soldiers who, during the attack and on the march, added yet another page to their 
immortal glorious record. 

Legends could be woven, too, around the heavy artillery which performed untold feats of endurance in 
rushing to the assistance of the infantry. Men of our armored mechanized units who, with dauntless 
courage and heedless of counterattacks and numerical superiority of the enemy, attacked again and again 
are worthy of this legend. 

Such a legend should also immortalize the airmen who, fearless of death and knowing that if anti- 
aircraft fire did not kill them in the air, they would, if forced to make a parachute landing, inevitably 
suffer frightful death, continued with steadfast courage to carry out reconnaissance flights and attacks 
with bombs or machine-gun fire whenever they were commanded to do so and whenever they found 
objectives. 

The same is true of the brave men of our submarine fleet. If, within four weeks, we totally annihilated a 
State with a population of 36,000,000 and corresponding military strength, and if during this whole 
period our victorious arms have not suffered a single setback, this cannot be ascribed simply to good 
luck but constituted certain proof of fine training, excellent leadership, and indomitable courage. 

Our knowledge of the strength of our fighting forces fills us all with a well of confidence, for they have 
not only proved that they are strong in attack, but also that they are strong in retaining what they have 
won. The excellent training received by the individual officers and men has been amply justified. It is 
this training which is responsible for the extremely few casualties which - hard as they are for the 
individual to bear - are on the whole far less than we ventured to expect. 

Admittedly the total number of casualties gives no idea of the severity of the various encounters, for 
certain regiments and divisions suffered very heavy losses when they were attacked by Polish forces 
which were numerically superior or came into conflict with such forces when they themselves were 
attacking.... 

As I am now about to make known to you the number of our dead and wounded, I request that you rise 
from your seats. Though owing to the training given our troops, the effectiveness of our weapons and 
the command of our forces the figures do not amount to even one-twentieth of what our apprehensions 
had been at the outset of the campaign, we will never forget that every soldier who fell fighting brought 
for his people and our Reich the greatest sacrifice that man can bring. 

According to the casualty list of up to September 30, 1939, which will not change materially, the total 
losses for the army, navy and air force, including officers, are as follows: 10,572 killed; 30,322 
wounded; 3,404 missing. Unfortunately, of those missing a certain number who fell into Polish hands 
will probably be found to have been massacred and killed. 

All our gratitude is due to the victims of the campaign in Poland, while the wounded may be assured of 



our best attention and care, and the families of those killed of our sympathy and help. 

By the capitulation of the fortresses of Warsaw and Modlin and the surrender of Hela, the Polish 
campaign has come to an end. The task of safeguarding the country against vagabonding marauders, 
gangs of robbers and individual groups of terrorists will be carried through with all energy. 

The outcome of the war was the annihilation of all Polish armies, followed by the dissolution of the 
Polish State. Six hundred and ninety-four thousand prisoners have set out on their march to Berlin. The 
amount of war material captured cannot yet be estimated. 

Since the outbreak of the war, the German forces have at the same time in calm preparedness taken up 
positions in the West ready to meet the enemy. 

The naval forces of the Reich have fulfilled their duty in the attack on the Westerplatte, Gdynia, Oxhoeft 
and Hela, and in protecting the Baltic Sea and the German North Sea coast our submarines are fighting 
in a spirit worthy of the memory of our heroes in the last war. 

In the face of this historically unprecedented collapse of a structure purporting to be a State, the question 
in almost everybody's mind is as to the reason for such a phenomenon. 

Versailles was the cradle of a Polish State which had emerged from the untold sacrifice of blood - not of 
Polish but of German and Russian blood. Poland, who for centuries past had proved herself incapable of 
existence, was in 1916 artificially begotten and in 1919 no less artificially born by a German 
government just as incapable of existence. 

In utter disregard of almost 500 years of experience, without consideration for the lesson of historical 
development during many centuries, without appreciation for ethnographic conditions and with no 
regard for all economic expediencies, a State was constructed at Versailles which, according to its whole 
nature, was sooner or later bound to become the cause of a most serious crisis. 

A man who, I am sorry to say, now ranks among our fiercest enemies, at that time clearly foresaw all 
this. I mean Mr. Lloyd George. Like so many others he sounded warning, not only at the time of the 
creation of that structure but also in the course of its subsequent expansion which had taken place in 
utter disregard of reason and right. 

At that time he expressed apprehension that in that State an accumulation of conditions was being 
created containing the risk of conflicts which sooner or later might lead to great European 
complications. 

As a matter of fact, conditions surrounding the structure of this new so-called State, as far as its 
nationalities were concerned, could not be clarified until now. It requires some knowledge of Polish 
census methods to realize how utterly alien to truth, and therefore irrelevant, statistics on the national 
composition of that territory were and are. 

In 1919 the Poles laid claims to the territory where they pretended to have a majority of 95 per cent - in 
East Prussia, for instance - whereas a plebiscite later showed the Poles actually had reached a figure of 2 
per cent. 

In the State finally created, which contained parts of former Russia, Austria, and Germany, non-Polish 
elements were so brutally ill-treated, suppressed, tyrannized and tortured that any plebiscite depended 
entirely on the good will of local administrative officials for producing such results as were desired or 
demanded. 



Nor did indisputable Polish elements receive much better recognition. And then, on top of all this, 
statesmen of our Western Hemisphere spoke of this kind of creation as of democracy of the 
fundamentals of their own system. 

In that country there ruled a minority of aristocratic or non-aristocratic large, vast estate-owners and 
wealthy intellectuals to whom under the most favorable circumstances their own Polish compatriots 
were nothing but mass man power. For that reason the regime was never backed by more than 15 per 
cent of the total population. 

The economic distress and low cultural level corresponded with these conditions. In 1919 this State took 
over from Prussia and also from Austria provinces which had been developed through hundreds of years 
of hard toil, some of them being in a most flourishing condition. Today, after the elapse of twenty years, 
they are at a point of gradually turning into steppes again. 

The Vistula, the river whose estuary has always been of such tremendous importance for the Polish 
Government, owing to the lack of any and all care is now already unsuitable for any real traffic and, 
depending on the season, is either an unruly stream or a dried-up rivulet. 

Towns as well as villages are in a state of neglect. The roads, with very few exceptions, are badly out of 
repair and in a terrible condition. Anyone who travels in that country for two or three weeks will get the 
proper idea of the classical German term 'Polnische Wirtschaft,' meaning a 'Polish state of affairs!' 

In spite of the unbearable conditions prevailing in that country, Germany endeavored to establish 
peaceful relations with it. During the years 1933 and 1934 I endeavored to find some equitable 
compromise between our national interests and our desire for the maintenance of peace with that 
country. There was a time, when Marshal Pilsudski was still alive, when it seemed possible for this hope 
to materialize were it only to a modest extent. 

Unlimited patience and still greater self-restraint were called for because many of the regional Polish 
administrative officials took the understanding between Germany and Poland to be merely a license for 
the persecution and annihilation of the Germans in Poland with even less risk. In the few years up to 
1922 more than one-and-a-half million Germans had been forced to leave their homes. They were 
hunted out, often without being able to take even their most necessary clothing. 

When, in 1938, the Olsa territory went to Poland, they used the same methods against the Czechs who 
lived there. Often within a few hours many thousands of these had to leave their working places, their 
homes, their villages and towns at the shortest notice without being allowed to take anything more with 
them than a suitcase or a little box with clothing. 

Things like this went on for years, and for years we looked on, always striving to attain some 
improvement in the lot of the unhappy Germans living there by establishing closer relations. It was, 
however, impossible to overlook the fact that every German attempt thereby to secure the removal of 
these intolerable conditions was taken by the Polish rulers to be nothing more than a sign of weakness, if 
not of stupidity. 

When the Polish Government proceeded in a thousand ways gradually to subjugate Danzig as well, I 
endeavored, by means of practical proposals, to secure a solution whereby Danzig, in accordance with 
the wishes of its population, could be nationally and politically united with Germany without impairing 
the economic needs and so-called rights of Poland. If today any one alleges that these were ultimative 
demands, that allegation is a lie. 



The proposals for a solution, as communicated to the Polish Government in March, 1939, were nothing 
but the suggestions and the ideas already discussed long ago between myself and Polish Foreign 
Minister Beck, except for the fact that in the spring of 1939 I thought I would be able to facilitate the 
acceptance of these proposals by the Polish Government in the face of their own public opinion by the 
offer to concede to them an equivalent. 

The fact that the Polish Government at that time refused to consider a discussion of these proposals was 
due to two reasons: for one thing, the inflamed chauvinist powers behind the Government never 
intended to solve the problem of Danzig, but on the contrary already lived in the hope, expounded later 
in publications and speeches, of acquiring territory from the Reich far beyond the bounds of Danzig; in 
fact, they hoped to be in a position to attack and conquer. 

'These aims, far from stopping, at East Prussia, were climaxed by a flood of publications and a 
continuous sequence of speeches, addresses, resolutions, etc., in addition to the incorporation of East 
Prussia, for the annexation of Pomerania and Silesia. The Oder represented the minimum of frontier 
claims and finally even the Elbe was described as the natural dividing line between Germany and 
Poland. 

These demands, which today may appear crazy but which were then presented with fanatical 
seriousness, were based in a simply ridiculous manner on the assumption of a 'Polish mission of 
civilization' and declared justified because they were supposed to be capable of fulfillment in view of the 
strength of the Polish Army. 

While I was inviting the then Polish Foreign Minister to take part in a conference for the discussion of 
our proposals, the Polish military generals were already writing about the inefficiency of the German 
Army, the cowardice of the German soldiers, the inferiority of the German weapons, the obvious 
superiority of the Polish forces and the certainty, in case of war, of defeating the Germans at the gates of 
Berlin and of annihilating the Reich. 

The man, however, who intended, as he expressed it, to hack the German Army to pieces at the gates of 
Berlin, was not just an illiterate, insignificant Pole but their commander-in-chief, Rydz-Smigly, who at 
present resides in Rumania. 

Violations and insults which Germany and her armed forces had to put up with from these military 
dilettantes would never have been tolerated by any other State, just as they were not expected from any 
other nation. No French or English generals would ever have presumed to express a judgment of the 
German armed forces similar to that which we heard read from the Polish side for years, particularly 
since March, 1939; and on the other hand no German general would have spoken in that manner of 
English, French or Italian soldiers. 

A great deal of self-control was needed to keep calm in face of these simply shameless insults, in spite 
of the fact that we knew that the German armed forces could destroy and sweep away the whole of this 
ridiculous State and its army within a few weeks. 

But this attitude, for which the Polish leaders themselves were responsible, was the fundamental reason 
why the Polish Government refused even to discuss the German proposals. 

Another reason was that fatal promise of guarantee given to the State which, although not menaced at 
all, very rapidly became convinced it could afford to challenge a Great Power without risk once it was 
assured of the support of two Great Powers, perhaps even hoping this way to lay the foundation for 
realization of all its own insane ambitions. 



For, as soon as Poland felt certain of that guarantee, minorities living in that country had to suffer what 
amounted to a reign of terror. I do not consider it my task to speak of the lot of the Ukrainians, or White 
Russian population, whose interests now lie in the hands of Russia. 

However, I do feel it my duty to speak of the lot of those helpless thousands of Germans who carried on 
the tradition of those who first brought culture to that country centuries ago and whom the Poles now 
began to oppress and drive out. Since March, 1939, they had been victims of truly satanic terrorization. 
How many of them had been abducted and where they are cannot be stated even today. 

Villages with hundreds of German inhabitants are now left without men because they all have been 
killed. In others women were violated and murdered, girls and children outraged and killed. In 1598 an 
Englishman - Sir George Carew - wrote in his diplomatic reports to the English Government that the 
outstanding features of Polish character were cruelty and lack of moral restraint. 

Since that time this cruelty has not changed. Just as tens of thousands of Germans were slaughtered and 
sadistically tormented to death, so German soldiers captured in fighting were tortured and massacred. 

This pet lapdog of the Western democracies cannot be considered a cultured nation at all. 

For more than four years I fought in the great war on the Western Front, but such things did not happen 
on either side. 

Things that have occurred in Poland, in the past few months, and especially the last four weeks, 
constitute flaming accusations against those responsible for the creation of a so-called State lacking 
every national, historical, cultural, and moral foundation. Had only 1 per cent of these atrocities been 
committed in any part of the world against the English people, I should be interested to see the 
indignation of those gentlemen who today in hypocritical horror condemn the German or Russian 
procedure. 

No! To grant guarantees to this State and this Government as was done could only lead to appalling 
disasters. Neither the Polish Government, nor the small cliques supporting it, nor the Polish nation as 
such were capable of measuring the responsibilities which were implied in such guarantees in Poland's 
favor by half of Europe. 

The passionate sentiment thus aroused, together with the sense of that security which had been 
unconditionally guaranteed to them, counted for the behavior of the Polish Government during the 
period between April and August this year. 

It was also the cause of the attitude they adopted toward my conciliatory proposals. The Government 
rejected these proposals because they felt themselves protected, or even encouraged, by public opinion 
and public opinion protected them and encouraged them on their way because it had been left in 
ignorance by its Government and particularly because in its every action it felt itself sufficiently 
protected from without. 

All this led to an increase in the number of appalling atrocities committed against German nationals in 
Poland and to the rejection of all proposals for a solution and in the end to the steadily growing 
encroachments on actual Reich territory. It was quite comprehensible that such a state of mind 
interpreted German longsuffering as a weakness, that is, that every concession on Germany's part was 
regarded as proof of the possibility of some further aggressive steps. 

A warning given Poland to refrain from sending Danzig any more notes amounting to ultimata and 
above all to desist from economic strangulation of that city did not ease the situation in the least; it 



resulted, in fact, in complete stoppage of all Danzig means of communication. 

The warning to suspend or at least to take steps against the unceasing cases of murder, ill treatment and 
torture of German nationals in Poland had the effect of increasing these atrocities and of calling for more 
bloodthirsty harangues and provocative speeches from the Polish local administrative officials and 
military authorities. 

The German proposals aiming at a last-minute agreement on a just and equitable basis were answered by 
a general mobilization. The German request that an intermediary should be sent, founded on a proposal 
made by Great Britain, was not complied with and on the second day was answered by an offensive 
declaration. 

Under these circumstances it was obvious that if further incursions into the Reich's territory occurred, 
Germany's patience would be at an end. What the Poles had erroneously interpreted as weakness was in 
reality our sense of responsibility and my firm determination to come to an understanding if that at all 
was possible. 

Since they believed that this patience and longsuffering was a sign of weakness which would allow them 
to do anything, no other course remained than to show them their mistake by striking back with the 
weapons which they themselves had used for years. 

Under these blows their State has crumbled to pieces in a few weeks and is now swept from the earth. 
One of the most senseless deeds perpetrated at Versailles is thus a thing of the past. 

If this step on Germany's part has resulted in a community of interests with Russia, that is due not only 
to the similarity of the problems affecting the two States, but also to that of the conclusions which both 
States had arrived at with regard to their future relationship. 

In my speech at Danzig I already declared that Russia was organized on principles which differ from 
those held in Germany. However, since it became clear that Stalin found nothing in the Russian-Soviet 
principles which should prevent him from cultivating friendly relations with States of a different 
political creed, National Socialist Germany sees no reason why she should adopt another criterion. The 
Soviet Union is the Soviet Union, National Socialist Germany is National Socialist Germany. 

But one thing is certain: from the moment when the two States mutually agreed to respect each other's 
distinctive regime and principles, every reason for any mutually hostile attitude had disappeared. Long 
periods in the history of both nations have shown that the inhabitants of these two largest States in 
Europe were never happier than when they lived in friendship with each other. The Great War, which 
once made Germany and Russia enemies, was disastrous for both countries. 

It is easy to understand that the capitalist States of the West are interested today in playing off these two 
States and their principles against each other. For this purpose, and until it is realized, they certainly 
regard the Soviet Union as a sufficiently respectable partner for the conclusion of a useful military pact. 
But they regard it as perfidy that their honorable approaches were rejected and in their place 
rapprochement took place between those two very powers who had every reason for seeking happiness 
for their respective peoples in developing their economic relationship along the lines of peaceful co- 
operation. 

Months ago I stated in the Reichstag that the conclusion of the German-Russian non-aggression pact 
marked the turning point in the whole German foreign policy. The new pact of friendship and mutual 
interest since signed between Germany and the Soviet Union will insure not only peace but a constant 
satisfactory co-operation for both States. 



Germany and Russia together will relieve one of the most acute danger spots in Europe of its threatening 
character and will, each in her own sphere, contribute to the welfare of the peoples living there, thus 
aiding to European peace in general. If certain circles today see in this pact either the breakdown of 
Russia or Germany - as suits them best - 1 should like to give them my answer. 

For many years imaginary aims were attributed to Germany's foreign policy which at best might be 
taken to have arisen in the mind of a schoolboy. 

At a moment when Germany is struggling to consolidate her own living space, which only consists of a 
few hundred thousand square kilometers, insolent journalists in countries which rule over 40,000,000 
square kilometers state Germany is aspiring to world domination! 

German-Russian agreements should prove immensely comforting to these worried sponsors of universal 
liberty, for do they not show most emphatically that their assertions as to Germany's aiming at d 
domination of the Urals, the Ukraine, Rumania, etc., are only excrescences of their own unhealthy war- 
lord fantasy? 

In one respect it is true Germany's decision is irrevocable, namely in her intention to see peaceful, stable, 
and thus tolerable conditions introduced on her eastern frontiers; also it is precisely here that Germany's 
interests and desires correspond entirely with those of the Soviet Union. The two States are resolved to 
prevent problematic conditions arising between them which contain germs of internal unrest and thus 
also of external disorder and which might perhaps in any way unfavorably affect the relationship of 
these two great States with one another. 

Germany and the Soviet Union have therefore clearly defined the boundaries of their own spheres of 
interest with the intention of being singly responsible for law and order and preventing everything which 
might cause injury to the other partner. 

The aims and tasks which emerge from the collapse of the Polish State are, insofar as the German sphere 
of interest is concerned, roughly as follows: 

1. Demarcation of the boundary for the Reich, which will do justice to historical, ethnographical and 
economic facts. 

2. Pacification of the whole territory by restoring a tolerable measure of peace and order. 

3. Absolute guarantees of security not only as far as Reich territory is concerned but for the entire sphere 
of interest. 

4. Re-establishment and reorganization of economic life and of trade and transport, involving 
development of culture and civilization. 

5. As the most important task, however, to establish a new order of ethnographic conditions, that is to 
say, resettle ment of nationalities in such a manner that the process ultimately results in the obtaining of 
better dividing lines than is the case at present. In this sense, however, it is not a case of the problem 
being restricted to this particular sphere, but of a task with far wider implications for the east and south 
of Europe are to a large extent filled with splinters of the German nationality, whose existence they 
cannot maintain. 

In their very existence lie the reason and cause for continual international disturbances. In this age of the 
principle of nationalities and of racial ideals, it is Utopian to believe that members of a highly developed 



people can be assimilated without trouble. 

It is therefore essential for a far-sighted ordering of the life of Europe that a resettlement should be 
undertaken here so as to remove at least part of the material for European conflict. Germany and the 
Union of Soviet Republics have come to an agreement to support each other in this matter. 

The German Government will, therefore, never allow the residual Polish State of the future to become in 
any sense a disturbing factor for the Reich itself and still less a source of disturbance between the 
German Reich and Soviet Russia. 

As Germany and Soviet Russia undertake this work of re-establishment, the two States are entitled to 
point out that the attempt to solve this problem by the methods of Versailles has proved an utter failure. 
In fact it had to fail because these tasks cannot be settled sitting around a table or by simple decrees. 
Most of the statesmen who in Versailles had to decide on these complicated problems did not possess 
the slightest historical training, indeed they often had not even the vaguest idea of the nature of the task 
with which they were faced. 

Neither did they bear any responsibility for the consequences of their action. Recognition that their work 
might be faulty was of no significance because in practice there was no way for a real revision. It is true 
that in the Treaty of Versailles provision was made for keeping open the possibility of such revisions but 
in reality all attempts to attain such a revision miscarried and they were bound to miscarry because the 
League of Nations as the competent authority was no longer morally justified to carry out such a 
procedure. 

After America had been first to refuse to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, or to join the League of Nations, 
and later when other countries also felt they could no longer reconcile their presence in this organization 
with the interests of their respective countries, the League degenerated more and more into a clique of 
parties interested in the Versailles dictate. 

At any rate it is a fact that none of the revisions recognized from the outset as necessary had ever been 
effected by the League of Nations. 

Since in our time it became customary to regard a refugee government as still existing even if it consists 
of three members provided they have taken with them sufficient gold so as not to be an economic burden 
to the democratic country offering hospitality, it may be assumed that the League of Nations, too, will 
carry on bravely if but two nations sit there together. Perhaps even one will do! 

But according to the government of the League any revision of the Versailles clauses would still be 
adjudicated exclusively by this illustrious organization - that is, in other words, revision would be 
practically impossible. 

The League of Nations is not living but already a dead thing, nevertheless the peoples concerned are not 
dead but alive and they will uphold their vital interests, however incapable the League of Nations may 
be of seeing, grasping, or respecting those interests. 

National Socialism is not a phenomenon which has grown up in Germany with the malicious intent of 
thwarting League efforts at revision, but a movement which arose because for fifteen years the most 
natural human and social rights of a great nation had been suppressed and denied redress. 

And I personally take exception at seeing foreign states- men stand up and call me guilty of having 
broken my word because I have now put these revisions through. 



On the contrary I pledged my sacred word to the German people to do away with the Treaty of 
Versailles and to restore to them their natural and vital rights as a great nation. 

The extent to which I am securing these vital rights is modest. 

This I ask: If forty-six million Englishmen claim the right to rule over forty million square kilometers of 
the earth, it cannot be wrong for eighty-two million Germans to demand the right to live on 800,000 
square kilometers, to till their fields and to follow their trades and callings, and if they further demand 
the restitution of those colonial possessions which formerly were their property, which they had not 
taken away from anybody by robbery or war but honestly acquired by purchase, exchange and treaties. 
Moreover, in all my demands, I always first tried to obtain revisions by way of negotiation. 

I did, it is true, refuse to submit the question of German vital rights to some non-competent international 
body in the form of humble requests. Just as little as I suppose that Great Britain would plead for respect 
of her vital interests, so little ought one to expect the same of National Socialist Germany. I have, 
however, and I must emphasize this fact most solemnly, limited in the extreme the measure of these 
revisions of the Versailles Treaty. 

Notably in all those cases where I did not see any menace to the natural, vital interests of my people, I 
have myself advised the German nation to hold back. Yet these eighty million people must live 
somewhere. There exists a fact that not even the Versailles Treaty has been able to destroy; although it 
has in the most unreasonable manner dissolved States, torn asunder regions economically connected, cut 
communication lines, etc., yet the people, the living substance of flesh and blood, has remained and will 
forever remain in the future. 

It cannot be denied that since the German people has found its resurrection through National Socialism, 
the relation existing between Germany and the surrounding nations has been cleared up to a great extent. 

The uncertainty that today is weighing down the common life of nations is not due to German demands, 
but to the malignant insinuations published in the so-called democracies. 

The German demands themselves were formulated in a very clear and precise way. They have, it is true, 
found their fulfillment not thanks to the insight of the League of Nations but thanks to the dynamics of 
natural development. 

The aim of the German foreign policy as pursued by me has never been other than to guarantee the 
existence - that is to say, the life - of the German people, to remove the injustice and nonsense contained 
in a treaty which not only destroyed Germany economically but has drawn the victor nations into 
disaster as well. 

For the rest, however, our whole work of rebuilding was concerned with the home affairs of the Reich 
and no country in the world had a greater longing for peace than the German people. It was fortunate for 
humanity and no misfortune at all that I succeeded in removing the craziest, most impossible clauses of 
the Versailles Treaty by peaceful methods and without compromising foreign statesmen in the internal 
politics of their countries. 

That some details of this action may have been painful to certain interested parties is comprehensible. 
But the merit is all the greater for the fact that this reorganization was brought about without bloodshed 
in all cases but the last one. 

The last revision of this treaty could have been brought about in exactly the same peaceful way had not 
two circumstances I have mentioned had the contrary effect. That is chiefly the fault of those who not 



only tool; no pleasure in the former peaceful revision, but on the contrary com- plained of the fact that 
by peaceful methods a new Central Europe was being built up; that is to say, a Central Europe that was 
able once more to give its inhabitants work and bread. 

As I have already mentioned, it was one of the aims of the Government of the Reich to clear up the 
relation between ourselves and our neighbors. Allow me to point out some facts that cannot be refuted 
by the scribblings of international press liars. 

First. Germany has concluded non-aggression pacts with the Baltic States. Her interests there are of an 
exclusively economic nature. 

Second. In former times Germany never had any conflict of interests or indeed litigation points with the 
Northern States and she has none today either. 

Third. Germany has taken no steps in regard to the German territory handed over to Denmark under the 
terms of the Treaty of Versailles; she has, on the contrary, established local and friendly relations with 
Denmark. We have claimed no revision, but we have concluded a non-aggression pact with Denmark. 
Our relations with that country are thus directed toward unswervingly loyal and friendly co-operation. 

Fourth. Holland: the new Reich has endeavored to continue the traditional friendship with Holland; it 
did not take over any differences between the two States nor did it create new ones. 

Fifth. Belgium: immediately after I had taken over the Government I tried to establish friendly relations 
with Belgium. 1 renounced any revision as well as any desire for revision. The Reich has put forward no 
claim which might in any way have been regarded as a threat to Belgium. 

Sixth. Switzerland: Germany adopted the same attitude toward Switzerland. The Reich Government has 
never given the slightest cause for doubt regarding their desires to establish friendly relations with the 
country. Moreover, they themselves have never brought forward any complaint regarding the relations 
between the two countries. 

Seventh. Immediately after the Anschluss [with Austria] became an accomplished fact, I informed 
Yugoslavia that the frontier in common with that country would henceforth be regarded as unalterable 
by Germany and that we wished only to live in peace and friendship with that country. 

Eighth. The bond which binds us to Hungary is old and traditional, one of close and sincere friendship. 
In this instance, too, our frontiers are unalterable. 

Ninth. Slovakia appealed to Germany of her own accord for assistance in connection with her 
establishment as a State. Her independence is recognized and not infringed upon by the Reich. 

Tenth. However, it is not only with these states but also with the Great Powers that Germany has 
improved and settled those relations which to a certain extent had been adversely affected by the Treaty 
of Versailles. 

My first step was to bring about an alteration in the relations between Italy and the Reich. The existing 
frontiers between these two States have been formally recognized as unalterable by both countries. Any 
possibility of a clash of interests of a territorial nature has been removed. One-time enemies during the 
World War, they have in the meantime become sincere friends. 

Establishment of friendly relations was not the final development, but, in the periods which followed, 
this led to the signing of a cordial pact based on our mutual philosophies and political interests which 



has proved itself to be an important factor in European co-operation. 

My chief endeavor, however, has been to rid our relations with France of all trace of ill will and render 
them tolerable for both nations. I once set forth with the utmost clarity Germany's claims in this domain 
and have never gone back on that declaration. Return of the Saar territory was one demand which I 
regarded as an indispensable pre-condition of Franco-German understandings. 

After France herself had found a just solution of this problem, Germany had no further claims against 
France. No such claim exists any longer and no such claim shall ever be put forward. That is to say, I 
have refused even to mention the problem of Alsace-Lorraine not because I was forced to keep silent, 
but because this matter does not constitute a problem which could ever interfere with Franco-German 
relations. 

I accepted the decision made in 1919 and refused to consider ever embarking upon war for the sake of a 
question which, comparatively speaking, is of slight importance for Germany's vital interests, but which 
is certainly likely to involve every second generation in a deadly war fear. France realized this. 

It is impossible for any French statesman to get up and declare I have ever made any demands upon 
France the fulfillment of which would be incompatible with French honor or French interest. It is, 
however, true that instead of demands I have always expressed to France my desire to bury forever our 
ancient enmity and bring together these two nations, both of which have such glorious pasts. 

Among the German people, I have done my utmost to eradicate the idea of everlasting enmity and to 
inculcate in its place a respect for the great achievements of the French nation and for its history, just as 
every German soldier has the greatest respect for the feats of the French Army. I have devoted no less 
effort to the achievement of an Anglo-German understanding, nay, more than that, of an Anglo-German 
friendship. 

At no time and in no place have I ever acted contrary to British interests. Unfortunately I have only too 
often been forced to guard against instances of British interference in German affairs, even in cases 
which did not concern Great Britain in the least. I actually considered it as one of my life aims to 
reconcile these two peoples, not only through mutual understanding but through inner sympathy. 

The German nation has gladly followed my lead in this respect. If my endeavors have been 
unsuccessful, it is only because of an animosity on the part of certain British statesmen and journalists, 
which has deeply affected me personally. 

They made no secret of the fact that - for reasons which are unfathomable to us - their sole aim was to 
seize the first opportunity in order to resume the fight with Germany. The fewer reasons of substantial 
nature these men have for their schemes, the more they attempt to motivate their actions with empty 
phrases and assertions. 

But I believe even today that there can only he real peace in Europe and throughout the world if 
Germany and England come to an understanding. Because of this conviction I have often shown the way 
to an understanding. If in the end there was not the desired result, it was really not my fault. 

Finally, I now also attempted to bring the relations between the Reich and Soviet Russia to a normal 
and, in the end, to a friendly basis. Thanks to a similar trend of thought on the part of Mr. Stalin these 
endeavors have now been realized. Now with that State lasting and friendly relations have been 
established, the effect of which will be a blessing to both nations. 

Thus the revision of the Versailles Treaty carried through by me did not cause any chaos in Europe, but 



on the contrary produced the prerequisite of clear, stable and bearable conditions. 

Only those who detest this order of things in Europe and wish for disorder can feel hostile to these 
actions. If, however, certain people think themselves obliged to reject with a hypocritical air the method 
by which a tolerable order of things was established in Central Europe, then my only reply to them is 
that in the end it is not so much the method but the useful result that counts. 

Before I came into power Central Europe, that is to say not only Germany but also the surrounding 
States, was sinking into the hopeless distress of unemployment and production had decreased, involving 
an automatic jump in commodity consumption. The standard of living went down. Distress and misery 
were the result. 

No criticizing foreign statesman can deny that not only in the old Reich but also in all the territory now 
merged with it, it has become possible to remove these indications of decay in the face of the most 
adverse conditions. 

It has thus been proved that only as an entity is this Central European space capable of existence and 
that whoever breaks up that entity commits a crime against millions of people. 

To have wiped out that crime does not amount to a breach of my word, but to me is honor itself; I am 
proud of it as my deed before history. 

Neither the German people nor myself has taken an oath on the Treaty of Versailles; I have merely taken 
an oath on the welfare of my people, who gave me my mandate and on the welfare of those whom 
destiny has placed within our living space, thus inseparably binding them to our own welfare. 

To guarantee the existence and thus the life of all of them is my sole concern. 

Any attempt to criticize, judge or reject my actions from the rostrum of international presumption has no 
foundation before history and personally leaves me stone-cold. I was called to my post by the 
confidence vested in me by the German people, whose attitude toward me is only strengthened by any 
such attempt at criticism or interference from abroad. 

Moreover, previous to each single revision I have put forward proposals. I had attempted, by means of 
negotiations, to achieve and secure what was absolutely indispensable. In a certain number of cases I 
was successful. In other cases, I am sorry to say, my readiness to negotiate and perhaps also the small 
extent of my demands and the modesty of my proposals were interpreted as a sign of weakness and 
therefore rejected. Nobody could have regretted this more than I did. 

There are, however, in the life of nations certain necessities which, if they are not brought about by 
peaceful methods, must be realized by force, however regrettable this appears, not only to the life of the 
individual citizen but also to the life of the community. It is undeniable that the greater interests 
common to all must never be impaired by the stubbornness or ill will of individuals and communities. 
To Poland, too, I made the most moderate proposals. 

They were not only rejected, but on the contrary brought forth the general mobilization of that State, for 
which reasons were advanced which proved conclusively exactly that it was the very modesty of my 
proposals which was considered a confirmation of my weakness, nay, even of my fear. Really, such an 
experience is apt to make anyone shrink from ever again making any reasonable and moderate 
proposals. 

Also at present I once more read in certain newspapers that every attempt to bring about a peaceful 



settlement of relations between Germany on the one hand and France and England on the other was 
doomed to failure, and that any proposal in that direction only proved that I, filled with apprehension, 
anticipated Germany's collapse and that I only made such a proposal out of cowardice, or from a bad 
conscience. 

When, irrespective of all this, I have expressed my ideas on this problem, I am prepared to appear in the 
eyes of these people as a coward or a finished man. I can afford to run that risk, because the judgment to 
be passed upon me by history will not, thank God, be written by these miserable scribblers but is 
established by my life's work, and because I do not care very much about any judgment that may be 
passed upon me by these people at the time. 

My prestige is sufficient for me to allow myself such an attitude, because the question of whether my 
following thoughts are actually dictated by fear or desperation will in any case be settled by the future 
course of events. Today I can only regret that those people, whose bloodthirstiness cannot have enough 
of war, unfortunately are not where the war is actually being fought, and never were at such places 
where people were shooting it out. 

I can very well understand that there are interested parties who profit more from war than from peace, 
and I also understand that for a certain variety of international journalist it is more interesting to report 
on war than on peaceful activities or cultural achievements, which they are incapable of either judging 
or understanding. And finally it is clear to me that there is a certain Jewish international capitalism and 
journalism that has no feeling at all in common with the people whose interests they pretend to 
represent, but who, like Herostrates of old, regard incendiarism as the greatest success of their lives. But 
there is still another reason why I feel obliged to voice my opinion. 

When reading certain international press publications, or listening to speeches of various capitalist 
glorifiers of war, I consider myself entitled to speak and reply in the name of those who are forced to 
serve as the living substance for the mental activities of these formulators of war aims, that living 
substance to which I myself belonged as an unknown soldier for more than four years during the Great 
War. 

It is, perhaps, a magnificent effect when a statesman or a journalist stands up and in enthusiastic words 
announces the necessity of removing the regime of another country in the name of democracy or 
something similar. Practical execution of these glorious slogans, however, has quite a different aspect. 

Newspaper articles are being written today which are sure of an enthusiastic reception by the 
distinguished public. Realization of demands therein contained, however, is apt to arouse much less 
enthusiasm; I shall not deal with the powers of judgment or the gifts of such people. Whatever they may 
write has no bearing on the real nature of such a struggle. 

These scribblers announced before the Polish campaign that German infantry perhaps was not bad, but 
that tank and mechanized units in general were inferior and would be, sure to break down in action. 

Now, after the defeat of Poland, the same people brazenly assert that the Polish armies have collapsed 
only because o German tank formations and other mechanized troops, but that, on the other hand, 
German infantry had deteriorated most remarkably and had got the worst of it in every clash with the 
Polish. 

'In this fact,' so one such writer actually says, 'one has the free right to see a favorable symptom for the 
course of the war in the West, and the French soldier will know how to take advantage of this.' 

I think so, too, provided he has read that article and can remember it later on. He will then probably box 



the ears of these military soothsayers. But unfortunately that will be impossible, since these people never 
will put their theories on inferiority of the German infantry to a personal test on the battlefields, but will 
merely describe these qualities from their editorial sanctums. 

Six weeks - let us say fourteen days - of concentrated shellfire, and these war propagandists would soon 
think differently. They always are talking of the necessities of world politics, but they have no 
knowledge of military realities. 

I do know them and for that reason I consider it my duty to speak here, even at risk of the warmonger 
again seeing in my speech evidence of my anxiety and symptoms of the degree of my despair. 

Why should this war in the West be fought? For restoration of Poland? Poland of the Versailles Treaty 
will never rise again. This is guaranteed by two of the largest States in the world. Final re-organization 
of this territory and the question of re-establishment of the Polish State are problems which will not be 
solved by a war in the West but exclusively by Russia on the one hand and Germany on the other. 

Furthermore, the elimination of the influence of these two Powers within the territories concerned would 
not produce a new State but utter chaos. 

The problems awaiting solution there will never be solved either at the conference table or in editorial 
offices, but by the work of decades. It is not enough that a few statesmen who are not really concerned 
with the fate of the people affected get together and pass resolutions. It is necessary that someone who 
has himself a share in the life of these territories takes over the task of restoring really enduring 
conditions there. The ability of the Western democracies to restore such ordered conditions has at least 
in recent times not been proved. 

The example of Palestine shows it would be better to concentrate on the tasks at hand and solve these in 
a reasonable manner instead of meddling with problems which lie within the vital spheres of interest of 
other nations and could certainly be better solved by them. At any rate, Germany has in her Protectorate 
of Bohemia and Moravia not only established peace and order but, above all, has laid the foundation for 
a new economic prosperity and increasing understanding between the two nations. England still has 
much to accomplish before she can point to similar results in her Protectorate in Palestine. 

One also realizes that it would be senseless to annihilate millions of men and to destroy property worth 
millions in order to reconstruct a State which at its very birth was termed an abortion by all those not of 
Polish extraction. 

What other reason exists? Has Germany made any demands of England which might threaten the British 
Empire or endanger its existence? On the contrary, Germany has made no such demands on either 
France or England. 

But if this war is really to be waged only in order to give Germany a new regime, that is to say, in order 
to destroy the present Reich once more and thus to create a new Treaty of Versailles, then millions of 
human lives will be sacrificed in vain, for neither will the German Reich go to pieces nor will a second 
Treaty of Versailles be made. And even should this come to pass after three, four, or even eight years of 
war then this second Versailles would once more become the source of fresh conflict in the future. 

In any event, a settlement of the world's problems carried out without consideration of the vital interests 
of its most powerful nations could not possibly, after the lapse of from five to ten years, end in any other 
way than that attempt made twenty years ago which is now ended. No, this war in the West cannot settle 
any problems except perhaps the ruined finances of certain armament manufacturers, newspaper owners, 
or other international war profiteers. 



Two problems are ripe for discussion today. 

First, the settlement of the problems arising from the disintegration of Poland and, second, the problem 
of eliminating those international difficulties which endanger the political and economic existence of the 
nations. 

What then are the aims of the Reich Government as regards the adjustment of conditions within the 
territory to the west of the German-Soviet line of demarcation which has been recognized as Germany's 
sphere of influence? 

First, the creation of a Reich frontier which, as has already been emphasized, shall be in accordance with 
existing historical, ethnographical and economic conditions. 

Second, the disposition of the entire living space according to the various nationalities; that is to say, the 
solution of the problems affecting the minorities which concern not only this area but nearly all the 
States in the Southwest of Europe. 

Third, in this connection: An attempt to reach a solution and settlement of the Jewish problem. 

Fourth, reconstruction of transport facilities and economic life in the interest of all those living in this 
area. 

Fifth, a guarantee for the security of this entire territory and sixth, formation of a Polish State so 
constituted and governed as to prevent its becoming once again either a hotbed of anti-German activity 
or a center of intrigue against Germany and Russia. 

In addition to this, an attempt must immediately be made to wipe out or at least to mitigate the ill effects 
of war; that is to say, the adoption of practical measures for alleviation of the terrible distress prevailing 
there. 

These problems can, as I have already emphasized, perhaps be discussed but never solved at the 
conference table. 

If Europe is really sincere in her desire for peace, then the States in Europe ought to be grateful that 
Russia and Germany are prepared to transform this hotbed into a zone of peaceful development and that 
these two countries will assume the responsibility and bear the burdens inevitably involved. 

For the Reich this project, since it cannot be undertaken in an imperialistic spirit, is a task which will 
take fifty to a hundred years to perform. 

Justification for this activity on Germany's part lies in the political organizing of this territory as well as 
in its economic development. In the long run, of course, all Europe will benefit from it. Second, and in 
my opinion by far the most important task, is the creation of not only a belief in, but also a sense of, 
European security. 

For this it is necessary first that aims in the foreign policy of European States should be made perfectly 
clear. 

As far as Germany is concerned the Reich Government is ready to give a thorough and exhaustive 
exposition of the aims of its foreign policy. 



In so doing, they begin by stating that the Treaty of Versailles is now regarded by them as obsolete; in 
other words, that the government of the German Reich, and with them the whole German people, no 
longer see cause or reason for any further revision of the Treaty, apart from the demand for adequate 
colonial possessions justly due to the Reich, namely, in the first instance, for the return of German 
colonies. 

This demand for colonies is based not only on Germany's historical claim to German colonies but above 
all on her elementary right to a share of the world's resources of raw materials. This demand does not 
take the form of an ultimatum, nor is it a demand backed by force, but a demand based on political 
justice and sane economic principles. 

Secondly, the demand for a real revival of international economic life, coupled with an extension of 
trade and commerce, presupposes a reorganization of the international economic system; in other words, 
of production in the individual States. In order to facilitate the exchange of goods thus produced, 
however, markets must be organized and a final currency regulation arrived at so that the obstacles in 
the way of unrestricted trade can be gradually removed. 

Thirdly, the most important condition, however, for a real revival of economic life in and outside of 
Europe is the establishment of an unconditionally guaranteed peace and of a sense of security on the part 
of the individual nations. 

This security will not only be rendered possible by the final sanctioning of the European status, but 
above all by the reduction of armaments to a reasonable and economically tolerable level. An essential 
part of this necessary sense of security, however, is a clear definition of the legitimate use of an 
application of certain modern armaments which can, at any given moment, have such a devastating 
effect on the pulsating life of every nation and hence create a permanent sense of insecurity. 

In my previous speeches in the Reichstag I made proposals with this end in view. At that time they were 
rejected -maybe for the simple reason that they were made by me. I believe, however, that a sense of 
national security will not return to Europe until clear and binding international agreements have 
provided a comprehensive definition of the legitimate and illegitimate use of armaments. 

A Geneva convention once succeeded in prohibiting, in civilized countries at least, the killing of 
wounded, ill treatment of prisoners, war against noncombatants, etc., and just as it was possible 
gradually to achieve universal observance of this statute, a way must surely be found to regulate aerial 
warfare, use of poison gas and submarines, etc., and also so to define contraband that war will lose its 
terrible character of conflict waged against women and children and against noncombatants in general. 
A growing horror of certain methods of warfare will of its own accord lead to their abolition and thus 
they will become obsolete. 

In the war with Poland I endeavored to restrict aerial warfare to objectives of so-called military 
importance, or only to employ it to combat active resistance at a given point. But it must surely be 
possible to emulate the Red Cross and to draw up some universally valid international regulations. It is 
only when this is achieved that peace can reign, particularly in our densely populated continent - a peace 
which, uncontaminated by suspicion and fear, will provide the only possible condition for real economic 
prosperity. 

I do not believe that there is any responsible statesman in Europe who does not in his heart desire 
prosperity for his people. But such a desire can only be realized if all the nations inhabiting this 
continent decide to go to work together. To assist in assuring this co-operation must be the aim of every 
man who is sincerely struggling for the future of his own people. 



To achieve this great end, the leading nations of this continent will one day have to come together in 
order to draw up, accept, and guarantee a statute on a comprehensive basis which will insure for them all 
a sense of security, of calm - in short, of peace. 

Such a conference could not possibly be held without the most thorough preparation; this is, without 
exact elucidation of every point at issue. 

It is equally impossible that such a conference, which is to determine the fate of this continent for many 
years to come, could carry on its deliberations while cannon are thundering or mobilized armies are 
bringing pressure to bear upon it. 

If, however, these problems must be solved sooner or later, then it would be more sensible to tackle the 
solution before millions of men are first uselessly sent to death and milliards of riches destroyed. 

Continuation of the present state of affairs in the West is unthinkable. Each day will soon demand 
increasing sacrifices. 

Perhaps the day will come when France will begin to bombard and demolish Saarbruccken. German 
artillery will in turn lay Mulhouse in ruins. France will retaliate by bombarding Karlsruhe and Germany 
in her turn will shell Strasbourg. 

Then the French artillery will fire at Freiburg, and the German at Kolmar or Schlettstadt. Long-range 
guns will then be set up and from both sides will strike deeper and deeper and whatever cannot be 
reached by the long-distance guns will be destroyed from the air. 

And that will be very interesting for certain international journalists and very profitable for the airplane, 
arms, and munitions manufacturers, but appalling for the victims. 

And this battle of destruction will not be confined to the land. No, it will reach far out over the sea. 

Today there are no longer any islands. And the national wealth of Europe will be scattered in the form of 
shells and the vigor of every nation will be sapped on the battlefields. 

One day, however, there will again be a frontier between Germany and France, but instead of flourishing 
towns there will be ruins and endless graveyards. 

Mr. Churchill and his companions may interpret these opinions of mine as weakness or cowardice if 
they like. I need not occupy myself with what they think; I make these statements simply because it goes 
without saying that I wish to spare my own people this suffering. 

If, however, the opinions of Messrs. Churchill and followers should prevail, this statement will have 
been my last. 

Then we shall fight. Neither force of arms nor lapse of time will conquer Germany. There never will be 
another November 1918 in German history. It is infantile to hope for the disintegration of our people. 

Mr. Churchill may be convinced that Great Britain will win. I do not doubt for a single moment that 
Germany will be victorious. 

Destiny will decide who is right. 

One thing only is certain. In the course of world history, there have never been two victors, but very 



often only losers. This seems to me to have been the case in the last war. 

May those peoples and their leaders who are of the same mind now make their reply. And let those who 
consider war to be the better solution reject my outstretched hand. 

As Fuehrer of the German people and Chancellor of the Reich, I can thank God at this moment that he 
has so wonderfully blessed us in our hard struggle for what is our right, and beg Him that we and all 
other nations may find the right way, so that not only the German people but all Europe may once more 
be granted the blessing of peace. 



Berlin, Rheinmetall-Borsig Works — Speech of December 10, 1940 

FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN, workers of Germany: 

Nowadays I do not speak very often. In the first place I have little time for speaking, and in the second 
place I believe that this is a time for action rather than speech. We are involved in a conflict in which 
more than the victory of only one country or the other is at stake; it is rather a war of two opposing 
worlds. I shall try to give you, as far as possible in the time at my disposal, an insight into the essential 
reasons underlying this conflict. I shall, however, confine myself to Western Europe only. The peoples 
who are primarily affected - 85 million Germans, 46 million Britishers, 45 million Italians, and about 37 
million Frenchmen -are the cores of the States who were or still are opposed in war. If I make a 
comparison between the living conditions of these peoples the following facts become evident: 

Forty-six million Britishers dominate and govern approximately 16 million square miles of the surface 
of the earth. Thirty-seven million Frenchmen dominate and govern a combined area of approximately 4 
million square miles. Forty-five million Italians possess, taking into consideration only those territories 
in any way capable of being utilized, an area of scarcely 190,000 square miles. Eighty-five million 
Germans possess as their living space scarcely 232,000 square miles. That is to say: 85 million Germans 
own only 232,000 square miles on which they must live their lives and 46 million Britishers possess 16 
million square miles. 

Now, my fellow-countrymen, this world has not been so divided up by providence or Almighty God. 
This allocation has been made by man himself. The land was parcelled out for the most part during the 
last 300 years, that is, during the period in which, unfortunately, the German people were helpless and 
torn by internal dissension. Split up into hundreds of small states in consequence of the Treaty of 
Muenster at the end of the Thirty Years' War, our people frittered away their entire strength in internal 
strife.... While during this period the Germans, notwithstanding their particular ability among the people 
of Western Europe, dissipated their powers in vain internal struggles, the division of the world 
proceeded beyond their borders. It was not by treaties or by binding agreements, but exclusively by the 
use of force that Britain forged her gigantic Empire. 

The second people that failed to receive their fair share in this distribution, namely the Italians, 
experienced and suffered a similar fate. Torn by internal conflicts, devoid of unity, split up into 
numerous small states, this people also dissipated all their energy in internal strife. Nor was Italy able to 
obtain even the natural position in the Mediterranean which was her due. 

Thus in comparison with others, these two powerful peoples have received much less than their fair 
share. The objection might be raised: Is this really of decisive importance? 

My fellow-countrymen, man does not exist on theories and phrases, on declarations or on systems of 
political philosophy; he lives on what he can gain from the soil by his own labor in the form of food and 



raw materials. This is what he can eat, this is what he can use for manufacture and production. If a man's 
own living conditions offer him too little, his life will be wretched. We see that within the countries 
themselves, fruitful areas afford better living conditions than poor barren lands. In the one case there are 
flourishing villages; in the other poverty-stricken communities. A man may live in a stony desert or in a 
fruitful land of plenty. This handicap can never be fully overcome by theories, nor even by the will to 
work. 

We see that the primary cause for the existing tensions lies in the unfair distribution of the riches of the 
earth. And it is only natural that evolution follows the same rule in the larger framework as it does in the 
case of individuals. Just as the tension existing between rich and poor within a country must be 
compensated for either by reason or often if reason fails, by force, so in the life of a nation one cannot 
claim everything and leave nothing to others.... 

The great task which I set myself in internal affairs was to bring reason to bear on the problems, to 
eliminate dangerous tensions by invoking the common sense of all, to bridge the gulf between excessive 
riches and excessive poverty. I recognized, of course, that such processes cannot be consummated 
overnight. It is always preferable to bring together widely separated classes gradually and by the 
exercise of reason, rather than to resort to a solution based on force. . . 

Therefore, the right to live is at the same time a just claim to the soil which alone is the source of life. 
When unreasonableness threatened to choke their development, nations fought for this sacred claim. No 
other course was open to them and they realized that even bloodshed and sacrifice are better than the 
gradual extinction of a nation. Thus, at the beginning of our National Socialist Revolution in 1933, we 
set forth two demands. The first of these was the unification of our people, for without this unification it 
would not have been possible to mobilize the forces required to formulate and, particularly, to secure 
Germany's essential claims. . . . 

For us, therefore, national unity was one of the essential conditions if we were to co-ordinate the powers 
inherent in the German nation properly, to make the German people conscious of their own greatness, 
realize their strength, recognize and present their vital claims, and seek national unity by an appeal to 
reason. 

I know that I have not been successful everywhere. For nearly fifteen years of my struggle I was the 
target of two opposing sides. One side reproached me: 'You want to drag us who belong to the 
intelligentsia and to the upper classes down to the level of the others. That is impossible. We are 
educated people. In addition to that, we are wealthy and cultured. We cannot accept this.' 

These people were incapable of listening to reason; even today there are some who cannot be converted. 
However, on the whole the number of those who realize that the lack of unity in our national structure 
would sooner or later lead to the destruction of all classes has become greater and greater. 

I also met with opposition from the other side. They said: 'We have our class consciousness.' However, I 
was obliged to take the stand that in the existing situation we could not afford to make experiments. It 
certainly would have been simple to eliminate the intelligentsia. Such a process could be carried out at 
once. But we would have to wait fifty or perhaps a hundred years for the gap to refill - and such a period 
would mean the destruction of the nation. For how can our people, its 360 per square mile, exist at all if 
they do not employ every ounce of brain power and physical strength to wrest from their soil what they 
need? This distinguishes us from the others. In Canada, for example, there are 2.6 persons per square 
mile; in other countries perhaps 16, 18, 20 or 26 persons. Well, my fellow-countrymen, no matter how 
stupidly one managed one's affairs in such a country, a decent living would still be possible. 

Here in Germany, however, there are 360 persons per square mile. The others cannot manage with 26 



persons per square mile, but we must manage with 360. This is the task we face. That is why I expressed 
this view in 1933: 'We must solve these problems and, therefore, we shall solve them.' Of course that 
was not easy; everything could not be done immediately. Human beings are the product of their 
education, and, unfortunately, this begins practically at birth. Infants are clothed in different ways. After 
this has been going on for centuries, someone suddenly comes along and says: - 'I want to unwrap the 
child and remove all its clothing so that I may discover its true nature' - which is, of course, the same in 
every case. You have only created the difference by the external wrappings; underneath these they are 
all alike. 

However, it is not so easy to do this. Everyone resists being unwrapped. Everyone wishes to retain the 
habits he has acquired through his upbringing. But we will carry out our task just the same. We have 
enormous patience. I know that what has been done for three, four, or five centuries cannot be undone in 
two, three, or five years. The decisive point is to make a start.... 

It has been a tremendous task. The establishment of a German community was the first item on the 
program in 1933. The second item was the elimination of foreign oppression as expressed in the Treaty 
of Versailles, which also prevented our attaining national unity, forbade large sections of our people to 
unite, and robbed us of our possessions in the world, our German colonies. 

The second item on the program was, therefore, the struggle against Versailles. No one can say that I 
express this opinion for the first time today. I expressed it, my fellowcountrymen, in the days following 
the Great War when, still a soldier, I made my first appearance in the political arena. My first address 
was a speech against the collapse, against the Treaty of Versailles, and for the re-establishment of a 
powerful German Reich. That was the beginning of my work. What I have brought about since then 
does not represent a new aim but the oldest aim. It is the primary reason for the conflict in which we find 
ourselves today. The rest of the world did not want our inner unity, because they knew that, once it was 
achieved, the vital claim of our masses could be realized. They wanted to maintain the Dictate of 
Versailles in which they saw a second peace of Westphalia. However, there is still another reason. I have 
stated that the world was unequally divided. American observers and Englishmen have found a 
wonderful expression for this fact: They say there are two kinds of peoples - the 'haves' and the 'have- 
nots.' We, the British, are the 'haves.' It is a fact that we possess sixteen million square miles. And we 
Americans are also 'haves,' and so are we Frenchmen. The others - they are simply the 'have-nots.' He 
who has nothing receives nothing. He shall remain what he is. He who has is not willing to share it. 

All my life I have been a 'have-not.' At home I was a 'have-not.' I regard myself as belonging to them 
and have always fought exclusively for them. I defended them and, therefore, I stand before the world as 
their representative. I shall never recognize the claim of the others to that which they have taken by 
force. Under no circumstances can I acknowledge this claim with regard to that which has been taken 
from us. It is interesting to examine the life of these rich people. In this Anglo-French world there exists, 
as it were, democracy, which means the rule of the people by the people. Now the people must possess 
some means of giving expression to their thoughts or their wishes. Examining this problem more 
closely, we see that the people themselves have originally no convictions of their own. Their convictions 
are formed, of course, just as everywhere else. The decisive question is who enlightens the people, who 
educates them? In those countries, it is actually capital that rules; that is, nothing more than a clique of a 
few hundred men who possess untold wealth and, as a consequence of the peculiar structure of their 
national life, are more or less independent and free. They say: 'Here we have liberty.' By this they mean, 
above all, an uncontrolled economy, and by an uncontrolled economy, the freedom not only to acquire 
capital but to make absolutely free use of it. That means freedom from national control or control by the 
people both in the acquisition of capital and in its employment. This is really what they mean when they 
speak of liberty. These capitalists create their own press and then speak of the 'freedom of the press.' 

In reality, every one of the newspapers has a master, and in every case this master is the capitalist, the 



owner. This master, not the editor, is the one who directs the policy of the paper. If the editor tries to 
write other than what suits the master, he is ousted the next day. This press, which is the absolutely 
submissive and characterless slave of the owners, molds public opinion. Public opinion thus mobilized 
by them is, in its turn, split up into political parties. The difference between these parties is as small as it 
formerly was in Germany. You know them, of course - the old parties. They were always one and the 
same. In Britain matters are usually so arranged that families are divided up, one member being a 
conservative, another a liberal, and a third belonging to the labor party. Actually, all three sit together as 
members of the family, decide upon their common attitude and determine it. A further point is that the 
'elected people' actually form a community which operates and controls all these organizations. For this 
reason, the opposition in England is really always the same, for on all essential matters in which the 
opposition has to make itself felt, the parties are always in agreement. They have one and the same 
conviction and through the medium of the press mold public opinion along corresponding lines. One 
might well believe that in these countries of liberty and riches, the people must possess an unlimited 
degree of prosperity. But no! On the contrary, it is precisely in these countries that the distress of the 
masses is greater than anywhere else. Such is the case in 'rich Britain.' 

She controls sixteen million square miles. In India, for example, a hundred million colonial workers with 
a wretched standard of living must labor for her. One might think, perhaps, that at least in England itself 
every person must have his share of these riches. By no means! In that country class distinction is the 
crassest imaginable. There is poverty - incredible poverty - on the one side, and equally incredible 
wealth on the other. They have not solved a single problem. The workmen of that country which 
possesses more than one-sixth of the globe and of the world's natural resources dwell in misery, and the 
masses of the people are poorly clad.. In a country which ought to have more than enough bread and 
every sort of fruit, we find millions of the lower classes who have not even enough to fill their stomachs, 
and go about hungry. A nation which could provide work for the whole world must acknowledge the 
fact that it cannot even abolish unemployment at home. For decades this rich Britain has had two and a 
half million unemployed; rich America, ten to thirteen millions, year after year; France, six, seven, and 
eight hundred thousand. Well, my fellow-countrymen - what then are we to say about ourselves? 

It is self-evident that where this democracy rules, the people as such are not taken into consideration at 
all. The only thing that matters is the existence of a few hundred gigantic capitalists who own all the 
factories and their stock and, through them, control the people. The masses of the people do not interest 
them in the least. They are interested in them just as were our bourgeois parties in former times - only 
when elections are being held, when they need votes. Otherwise, the life of the masses is a matter of 
complete indifference to them. 

To this must be added the difference in education. Is it not ludicrous to hear a member of the British 
Labor Party - who, of course, as a member of the Opposition is officially paid by the government - say: 
'When the war is over, we will do something in social respects'? 

It is the members of Parliament who are the directors of the business concerns -just as used to be the 
case with us. But we have abolished all that. A member of the Reichstag cannot belong to a Board of 
Directors, except as a purely honorary member. He is prohibited from accepting any emolument, 
financial or otherwise. This is not the case in other countries. 

They reply: 'That is why our form of government is sacred to us.' I can well believe it, for that form of 
government certainly pays very well.. But whether it is sacred to the mass of the people as well is 
another matter. 

The people as a whole definitely suffer. I do not consider it possible in the long run for one man to work 
and toil for a whole year in return for ridiculous wages, while another jumps into an express train once a 
year and pockets enormous sums. Such conditions are a disgrace. On the other hand, we National 



Socialists equally oppose the theory that all men are equals. Today, when a man of genius makes some 
astounding invention and enormously benefits his country by his brains, we pay him his due, for he has 
really accomplished something and been of use to his country. However, we hope to make it impossible 
for idle drones to inhabit this country. 

I could continue to cite examples indefinitely. The fact remains that two worlds are face to face with one 
another. Our opponents are quite right when they say: 'Nothing can reconcile us to the National Socialist 
world.' How could a narrow-minded capitalist ever agree to my principles? It would be easier for the 
Devil to go to church and cross himself with holy water than for these people to comprehend the ideas 
which are accepted facts to us today. But we have solved our problems. 

To take another instance where we are condemned: They claim to be fighting for the maintenance of the 
gold standard as the currency basis. That I can well believe, for the gold is in their hands. We, too, once 
had gold, but it was stolen and extorted from us. When I came to power, it was not malice which made 
me abandon the gold standard. Germany simply had no gold left. Consequently, quitting the gold 
standard presented no difficulties, for it is always easy to part with what one does not have. We had no 
gold. We had no foreign exchange. They had all been stolen and extorted from us during the previous 
fifteen years. But, my fellow countrymen, I did not regret it, for we have constructed our economic 
system on a wholly different basis. In our eyes, gold is not of value in itself. It is only an agent by which 
nations can be suppressed and dominated. 

When I took over the government, I had only one hope on which to build, namely, the efficiency and 
ability of the German nation and the German workingman; the intelligence of our inventors, engineers, 
technicians, chemists, and so forth. I built on the strength which animates our economic system. One 
simple question faced me: Are we to perish because we have no gold; am I to believe in a phantom 
which spells our destruction? I championed the opposite opinion: Even though we have no gold, we 
have capacity for work. 

The German capacity for work is our gold and our capital, and with this gold I can compete successfully 
with any power in the world. We want to live in houses which have to be built. Hence, the workers must 
build them, and the raw materials required must be procured by work. My whole economic system has 
been built up on the conception of work. We have solved our problems while, amazingly enough, the 
capitalist countries and their currencies have suffered bankruptcy. 

Sterling can find no market today. Throw it at any one and he will step aside to avoid being hit. But our 
Reichsmark, which is backed by no gold, has remained stable. Why? It has no gold cover; it is backed 
by you and by your work. You have helped me to keep the mark stable. German currency, with no gold 
coverage, is worth more today than gold itself. It signifies unceasing production. This we owe to the 
German farmer, who has worked from daybreak till nightfall. This we owe to the German worker, who 
has given us his whole strength. The whole problem has been solved in one instant, as if by magic. 

My dear friends, if I had stated publicly eight or nine years ago: 'In seven or eight years the problem of 
how to provide work for the unemployed will be solved, and the problem then will be where to find 
workers,' I should have harmed my cause. Every one would have declared: 'The man is mad. It is useless 
to talk to him, much less to support him. Nobody should vote for him. He is a fantastic creature.' Today, 
however, all this has come true. Today, the only question for us is where to find workers. That, my 
fellow countrymen, is the blessing which work brings. 

Work alone can create new work; money cannot create work. Work alone can create values, values with 
which to reward those who work. The work of one man makes it possible for another to live and 
continue to work. And when we have mobilized the working capacity of our people to its utmost, each 
individual worker will receive more and more of the world's goods. 



We have incorporated seven million unemployed into our economic system; we have transformed 
another six millions from part-time into full-time workers; we are even working overtime. And all this is 
paid for in cash in Reichsmarks which maintained their value in peacetime. In wartime we had to ration 
its purchasing capacity, not in order to devalue it, but simply to earmark a portion of our industry for 
war production to guide us to victory in the struggle for the future of Germany. 

My fellow-countrymen, we are also building a world here, a world of mutual work, a world of mutual 
effort, and a world of mutual anxieties and mutual duties. It did not surprise me that other countries 
started rationing only after two, three, five, and seven months, and in some cases only after a year. 
Believe me, in all these countries, this was not due to chance but to policy. Many a German may have 
been surprised that food cards appeared on the first morning of the war. Yet, there are, of course, two 
sides to this food card system. Some people may say: 'Wouldn't it be better to exclude this or that 
commodity from rationing? What use are a few grams of coffee when nobody gets much anyway? 
Without rationing, at least a few would get more.' Now that is exactly what we want to avoid. We want 
to avoid one person having more of the most vital commodities than another. There are other things - a 
valuable painting, for instance. Not everybody is in a position to buy a Titian, even if he had the money. 
Because Titian painted only a few pictures, only a few can afford his work. This or that man can buy one 
if he has enough money. He spends it, and it circulates through the country. But in the case of food, 
everybody must be served alike. 

The other countries waited to see how things would develop. The question was asked: 'Will meat be 
rationed?' That was the first sounding of a warning. In other words: 'If you are a capitalist, cover your 
requirements, buy yourself a refrigerator and hoard up a few sides of bacon.' 

'Shall we ration coffee? There are two opinions as to whether it should be rationed or not. It might be 
possible that in the end those who think that coffee should be rationed might triumph.' They devote four 
whole weeks to the discussion and everybody who has a spark of egotism - as they have in the 
democracies - says to himself: 'Aha, so coffee is to be rationed in the near future; let us hoard it.' Then, 
when the supplies are exhausting themselves, it is at last rationed. 

It was just this that we wanted to avoid. That is why in order to ensure equal distribution, we have had to 
impose certain restrictions from the very start. And we are not well disposed toward those who do not 
observe regulations. 

One thing is certain, my fellow-countrymen: All in all, we have today a state with a different economic 
and political orientation from that of the Western democracies. 

Well, it must now be made possible for the British worker to travel. It is remarkable that they should at 
last hit upon the idea that traveling should be something not for millionaires alone, but for the people 
too. In this country, the problem was solved some time ago. In the other countries - as is shown by their 
whole economic structure - the selfishness of a relatively small stratum rules under the mask of 
democracy. This stratum is neither checked nor controlled by anyone. 

It is therefore understandable if an Englishman says: 'We do not want our world to be subject to any sort 
of collapse.' Quite so. The English know full well that their Empire is not menaced by us. But they say 
quite truthfully: 'If the ideas that are popular in Germany are not completely eliminated, they might 
become popular among our own people, and that is the danger. We do not want this.' It would do no 
harm if they did become popular there, but these people are just as narrow-minded as many once were in 
Germany. In this respect they prefer to remain bound to their conservative methods. They do not wish to 
depart from them, and do not conceal the fact. 



They say, 'The German methods do not suit us at all.' 

And what are these methods? You know, my comrades, that I have destroyed nothing in Germany. I 
have always proceeded very carefully, because I believe - as I have already said - that we cannot afford 
to wreck anything. I am proud that the Revolution of 1933 was brought to pass without breaking a single 
windowpane. Nevertheless, we have wrought enormous changes. 

I wish to put before you a few basic facts: The first is that in the capitalistic democratic world the most 
important principle of economy is that the people exist for trade and industry, and that these in turn exist 
for capital. We have reversed this principle by making capital exist for trade and industry, and trade and 
industry exist for the people. In other words, the people come first. Everything else is but a means to this 
end. When an economic system is not capable of feeding and clothing a people, then it is bad, regardless 
of whether a few hundred people say: 'As far as I am concerned it is good, excellent; my dividends are 
splendid.' 

However, the dividends do not interest me at all. Here we have drawn the line. They may then retort: 
'Well, look here, that is just what we mean. You jeopardize liberty.' 

Yes, certainly, we jeopardize the liberty to profiteer at the expense of the community, and, if necessary, 
we even abolish it. British capitalists, to mention only one instance, can pocket dividends of 76, 80, 95, 
140, and even 160 per cent from their armament industry. Naturally they say: 'If the German methods 
grow apace and should prove victorious, this sort of thing will stop.' 

They are perfectly right. I should never tolerate such a state of affairs. In my eyes, a 6 per cent dividend 
is sufficient. Even from this 6 per cent we deduct one-half and, as for the rest, we must have definite 
proof that it is invested in the interest of the country as a whole. In other words, no individual has the 
right to dispose arbitrarily of money which ought to be invested for the good of the country. If he 
disposes of it sensibly, well and good; if not, the National Socialist state will intervene. 

To take another instance, besides dividends there are the so-called directors' fees. You probably have no 
idea how appallingly active a board of directors is. Once a year its members have to make a journey. 
They have to go to the station, get into a first-class compartment and travel to some place or other. They 
arrive at an appointed office at about 10 or 11 A.M. There they must listen to a report. When the report 
has been read, they must listen to a few comments on it. They may be kept in their seats until 1 P.M. or 
even 2. Shortly after 2 o'clock they rise from their chairs and set out on their homeward journey, again, 
of course, traveling first class. It is hardly surprising that they claim 3,000, 4,000, or even 5,000 as 
compensation for this: Our directors formerly did the same - for what a lot of time it costs them! Such 
effort had to be made worth while! Of course, we have got rid of all this nonsense, which was merely 
veiled profiteering and even bribery. 

In Germany, the people, without any doubt, decide their existence. They determine the principles of 
their government. In fact it has been possible in this country to incorporate many of the broad masses 
into the National Socialist party, that gigantic organization embracing millions and having millions of 
officials drawn from the people themselves. This principle is extended to the highest ranks. 

For the first time in German history, we have a state which has absolutely abolished all social prejudices 
in regard to political appointments as well as in private life. I myself am the best proof of this. Just 
imagine: I am not even a lawyer, and yet I am your Leader! 

It is not only in ordinary life that we have succeeded in appointing the best among the people for every 
position. We have Reichsstatthalters who were formerly agricultural laborers or locksmiths. Yes, we 
have even succeeded in breaking down prejudice in a place where it was most deep-seated -in the 



fighting forces. Thousands of officers are being promoted from the ranks today. We have done away 
with prejudice. We have generals who were ordinary soldiers and noncommissioned officers twenty-two 
and twenty-three years ago. In this instance, too, we have overcome all social obstacles. Thus, we are 
building up our life for the future. 

As you know we have countless schools, national political educational establishments, Adolf Hitler 
schools, and so on. To these schools we send gifted children of the broad masses, children of working 
men, farmers' sons whose parents could never have afforded a higher education for their children. We 
take them in gradually. They are educated here, sent to the Ordensburgen, to the Party, later to take their 
place in the State where they will some day fill the highest posts.... 

Opposed to this there stands a completely different world. In the world the highest ideal is the struggle 
for wealth, for capital, for family possessions, for personal egoism; everything else is merely a means to 
such ends. Two worlds confront each other today. We know perfectly well that if we are defeated in this 
war it would not only be the end of our National Socialist work of reconstruction, but the end of the 
German people as a whole. For without its powers of coordination, the German people would starve. 
Today the masses dependent on us number 120 or 130 millions, of which 85 millions alone are our own 
people. We remain ever aware of this fact. 

On the other hand, that other world says: 'If we lose, our world-wide capitalistic system will collapse. 
For it is we who save hoarded gold. It is lying in our cellars and will lose its value. If the idea that work 
is the decisive factor spreads abroad, what will happen to us? We shall have bought our gold in vain. 
Our whole claim to world dominion can then no longer be maintained. The people will do away with 
their dynasties of high finance. They will present their social claims, and the whole world system will be 
overthrown.' 

I can well understand that they declare: 'Let us prevent this at all costs; it must be prevented.' They can 
see exactly how our nation has been reconstructed. You see it clearly. For instance, there we see a state 
ruled by a numerically small upper class. They send their sons to their own schools, to Eton. We have 
Adolf Hitler schools or national political educational establishments. On the one hand, the sons of 
plutocrats, financial magnates; on the other, the children of the people. Etonians and Harrovians 
exclusively in leading positions over there; in this country, men of the people in charge of the State. 

These are the two worlds. I grant that one of the two must succumb. Yes, one or the other. But if we 
were to succumb, the German people would succumb with us. If the other were to succumb, I am 
convinced that the nations will become free for the first time. We are not fighting individual Englishmen 
or Frenchmen. We have nothing against them. For years I proclaimed this as the aim of my foreign 
policy. We demanded nothing of them, nothing at all. When they started the war they could not say: 'We 
are doing so because the Germans asked this or that of us.' They said, on the contrary: 'We are declaring 
war on you because the German system of Government does not suit us; because we fear it might spread 
to our own people.' For that reason they are carrying on this war. They wanted to blast the German 
nation back to the time of Versailles, to the indescribable misery of those days. But they have made a 
great mistake. 

If in this war everything points to the fact that gold is fighting against work, capitalism against peoples, 
and reaction against the progress of humanity, then work, the peoples, and progress will be victorious. 
Even the support of the Jewish race will not avail the others. 

I have seen all this coming for years. What did I ask of the other world? Nothing but the right for 
Germans to reunite and the restoration of all that had been taken from them - nothing which would have 
meant a loss to the other nations. How often have I stretched out my hand to them? Ever since I came 
into power. I had not the slightest wish to rearm. 



For what do armaments mean? They absorb so much labor. It was I who regarded work as being of 
decisive importance, who wished to employ the working capacity of Germany for other plans. I think the 
news is already out that, after all, I have some fairly important plans in my mind, vast and splendid plans 
for my people. It is my ambition to make the German people rich and to make the German homeland 
beautiful. I want the standard of living of the individual raised. I want us to have the most beautiful and 
the finest civilization. I should like the theater - in fact, the whole of German civilization - to benefit all 
the people and not to exist only for the upper ten thousand, as is the case in England. 

The plans which we had in mind were tremendous, and I needed workers in order to realize them. 
Armament only deprives me of workers. I made proposals to limit armaments. I was ridiculed. The only 
answer I received was 'No.' I proposed the limitation of certain types of armament. That was refused. I 
proposed that airplanes should be altogether eliminated from warfare. That also was refused. I suggested 
that bombers should be limited. That was refused. They said: 'That is just how we wish to force our 
regime upon you.' 

I am not a man who does things by halves. If it becomes necessary for me to defend myself, I defend 
myself with unlimited zeal. When I saw that the same old warmongers of the World War in Britain were 
mobilizing once more against the great new German revival, I realized that this struggle would have to 
be fought once more, that the other side did not want peace. 

It was quite obvious: Who was I before the Great War? An unknown, nameless individual. What was I 
during the war? A quite inconspicuous, ordinary soldier. I was in no way responsible for the Great War. 
However, who are the rulers of Britain today? They are the same people who were warmongering before 
the Great War, the same Churchill who was the vilest agitator among them during the Great War; 
Chamberlain, who recently died and who at that time agitated in exactly the same way. It was the whole 
gang, members of the same group, who believe that they can annihilate nations with the blast of the 
trumpets of Jericho. 

The old spirits have once more come to life, and it is against them that I have armed the German people. 
I, too, had convictions: I myself served as a soldier during the Great War and know what it means to be 
fired at by others without being able to shoot back. I know what it means not to have any ammunition or 
to have too little, what it means always to be beaten by the other side. I gained my wholehearted faith in 
the German people and in the future, during those years, from my knowledge of the German soldier, of 
the ordinary man in the trenches. He was the great hero in my opinion. Of course, the other classes also 
did everything they could. But there was a difference. 

The Germany of that time certainly seemed quite a tolerable country to anybody living at home amid 
wealth and luxury. One could have his share of everything, of culture, of the pleasures of life, and so on. 
He could enjoy German art and many other things; he could travel through the German countryside; he 
could visit German towns and so forth. What more could he wish for? Naturally, he defended it all. 

On the other hand, however, there was the ordinary common soldier. This unimportant proletarian, who 
scarcely had sufficient to eat, who always had to slave for his existence, nevertheless fought at the front 
like a hero for four long years. It was in him that I placed my trust, and it is with his help that I won back 
confidence in myself. When the others had lost their faith in Germany, I regained mine, never losing 
sight of the ordinary man in the street. I knew that Germany could not perish. 

Germany will not perish so long as she possesses such men. I have also seen how these combatants, 
these soldiers again and again faced an enemy who could annihilate them simply by his superior 
material. I was not of the opinion at that time that the British were personally superior to us. Only a 
madman can say that I have ever had any inferiority complex with respect to the British. I have never 



had any such feeling of inferiority. 

The problem of the individual German against the individual Englishman did not present itself at all at 
that time. Even at that time they went whining round the whole world until they found support. This 
time I was determined to make preparations throughout the world to extend our position, and secondly, 
to arm at home in such a manner that the German soldier would no longer be obliged to stand alone at 
the front, exposed to superior forces. 

The trouble has come. I did everything humanly possible - going almost to the point of self-abasement - 
to avoid it. I repeatedly made offers to the British. I had discussions with their diplomats here and 
entreated them to be sensible. But it was all in vain. They wanted war, and they made no secret of it. For 
seven years Churchill had been saying: 'I want war.' Now he has got it. 

It was regrettable to me that nations whom I wished to bring together and who, in my opinion, could 
have cooperated to such good purpose, should now be at war with one another. But these gentlemen are 
aiming at destroying the National Socialist State, at disrupting the German people and dividing them 
again into their component parts. Such were the war aims they proclaimed in the past and such are their 
war aims today. However, this time they will be surprised, and I believe that they have already had a 
foretaste of it. 

There are among you, my fellow-countrymen, many old soldiers who went through the Great War and 
who know perfectly well what space and time mean. Many of you fought in the East during that war, 
and all the names which you read about in 1939 were still quite familiar to you. Perhaps many of you 
marched in bad weather or under the burning sun at that time. The roads were endless. And how 
desperate was the struggle for every inch of ground. How much blood it cost merely to advance slowly, 
mile by mile. Think of the pace at which we covered these distances this time. Eighteen days, and the 
state which wished to cut us to pieces at the gates of Berlin was crushed. 

Then came the British attack on Norway. As a matter of fact, I was told by those Englishmen who 
always know everything that we had slept through the winter. One great statesman even assured me that 
I had missed the bus. Yet we arrived just in time to get into it before the British. We had suddenly 
reawakened. In a few days we made sure of this. We took Norwegian positions as far north as Kirkenes, 
and I need not tell you that no one will take the soil on which a German soldier stands. 

And then they wanted to be cleverer and speedier in the West - in Holland and Belgium. It led to an 
offensive that many, especially among our older men, envisaged with fear and anxiety. I am perfectly 
well aware of what many were thinking at that time. They had experienced the Great War on the 
Western Front, all the battles in Flanders, in Artois, and around Verdun. They all imagined: 'Today the 
Maginot line is there. How can it be taken? Above all, how much blood will it cost; what sacrifices will 
it call for; how long will it take?' Within six weeks this campaign too, had been concluded. 

Belgium, Holland, and France were vanquished; the Channel Coast was occupied; our batteries were 
brought into position there and our bases established. Of these positions, too, do I say: 'No power in the 
world can drive us out of this region against our will.' 

And now my fellow-countrymen, let us think of the sacrifices. For the individual, they are very great. 
The woman who has lost her husband has lost her all, and the same is true of the child that has lost its 
father. The mother who has sacrificed her child, and the betrothed or the sweetheart who have been 
parted from loved ones never to see them again have all made great sacrifices. However, if we add all 
these losses together and compare them with the sacrifices of the Great War, then - however great they 
may be for the individual - they are incomparably small. Consider that we have not nearly so many dead 
as Germany had in 1870-71 in the struggle against France. We have broken the ring encircling Germany 



by these sacrifices. The number of wounded is also extremely small, merely a fraction of what was 
expected. 

For all this, our thanks are due to our magnificent army, inspired by a new spirit and into which the spirit 
of our national community has also penetrated. The army now really knows for what it is fighting. We 
owe thanks to our soldiers for their tremendous achievements. But the German soldier gives thanks to 
you, the munitions workers, for forging the weapons for his use. For this is the first time that he has 
gone into battle without feeling that he was inferior to the enemy in numbers or that his weapons were of 
poorer quality. Our weapons were better in every respect. 

That is your doing; the result of your workmanship, of your industry, your capacity, your devotion. 
Millions of German families still have their breadwinners today and will have them in the future, 
innumerable fathers and mothers still have their sons - and their thanks are due to you, my munitions 
workers. You have forged for them the weapons with which they were able to go forward to victory, 
weapons which today give them so much confidence that everyone knows we are not only the best 
soldiers in the world but that we also have the best weapons in the world. Not only is this true today; it 
will be more so in the future. 

That is the difference between today and the Great War. But not only that. Above all, this time the 
German soldier is not short of ammunition. I do not know, my fellow countrymen, but it may be that 
when exact calculations are made after the war, people will perhaps say: 'Sir, you were a spendthrift. 
You had ammunition made which was never used. It is still lying about.' Yes, my fellow-countrymen, I 
have had ammunition made because I went through the Great War, because I wished to avoid what 
happened then and because shells are replaceable and bombs are replaceable but men are not. 

And thus the problem of ammunition in this struggle was no problem at all; perhaps only a supply 
problem. When the struggle was over we had scarcely used a month's production. Today we are armed 
for any eventuality, whatever Britain may do. Every week that passes Britain will be dealt heavier 
blows, and if she wishes to set foot anywhere on the Continent she will find us ready once more. I know 
that we are not out of practice. I hope that the British have also forgotten nothing. 

As far as the war in the air is concerned, this too, I hoped to avert. We accepted it. We shall fight it to 
the finish. I did not want it. I always struggled against it. We did not wage such a war during the whole 
of the Polish campaign. I did not allow any night attacks to be carried out. In London they said: Yes, 
because you couldn't fly by night.' 

In the meantime, they have noticed whether we can fly by night or not. Naturally, it is not possible to 
aim so well at night and I wanted to attack military objects only, to attack at the front only, to fight 
against soldiers, not against women and children. That is why we refrained from night attacks. We did 
not use this method in France. We carried out no night attacks from the air. When we attacked Paris, 
only the munitions factories were our objectives. Our airmen aimed with wonderful precision. Anybody 
who saw it could convince himself of that. 

Then it occurred to that great strategist, Churchill, to commence unrestricted war from the air by night. 
He began it in Freiburg im Breisgau and has continued it. Not one munitions plant has been demolished. 
Yet according to British news reports, the one in which we are at present assembled is nothing but a 
mass of craters. They have not even caused a single munitions factory to cease production. On the other 
hand, they have unfortunately hit many families, helpless women and children. Hospitals have been one 
of their favorite objectives. Why? It is inexplainable. You yourselves, here in Berlin, know how often 
they have bombed our hospitals. 

Very well, I waited for a month, because I thought that after the conclusion of the campaign in France 



the British would give up this method of warfare. I was mistaken. I waited for a second month and a 
third month. If bombs were to be dropped I could not assume the responsibility before the German 
people of allowing my own countrymen to be destroyed while sparing foreigners. Now, this war, too, 
had to be fought to its end. And it is being fought; fought with all the determination, with all the 
materials, with all the means and all the courage at our disposal. The time for the decisive conflict will 
arrive. You may be sure it will take place. However, I should like to tell these gentlemen one thing: It is 
we who shall determine the time for it. And on this point I am cautious. We might perhaps have been 
able to attack in the West during the autumn of last year, but I wanted to wait for good weather. And I 
think it was worth while waiting. 

We ourselves are so convinced that our weapons will be successful that we can allow ourselves time. 
The German people will certainly hold out. I believe that they will be grateful to me if I bide my time 
and thus save them untold sacrifices. 

It is one of the characteristics of the National Socialist State that even in warfare, at times when it is not 
absolutely necessary, it is sparing of human life. After all, the lives of our fellow-citizens are at stake. 

In the campaign in Poland we forbade many attacks or rapid advances, because we were convinced that 
a week or a fortnight later the problem would solve itself. 

We have gained many great successes without sacrificing a single man. That was also the case in the 
West. It must remain so in the future. We have no desire to gain any successes or to make any attacks 
for the sake of prestige. We never wish to act except in accordance with sober military principles. What 
has to happen must happen. We wish to avoid everything else. As for the rest, all of us hope that reason 
will again be victorious and peace will return. The world must realize one thing, however: Neither 
military force, economic pressure, nor the time factor will ever force Germany to surrender. Whatever 
else may happen, Germany will be the victor in this struggle. 

I am not the man to give up, to my own disadvantage, a struggle already begun. I have proved this by 
my life in the past and I shall prove to those gentlemen - whose knowledge of my life until now has been 
gathered from the emigre' press - that I have remained unchanged in this respect. 

When I began my political career, I declared to my supporters - they were then only a small number of 
soldiers and workers - 'There is no such word as capitulation in your vocabulary or mine.' 

I do not desire war, but when it is forced upon me I shall wage it as long as I have breath in my body. 
And I can wage it today, because I know that the whole German nation is behind me. I am the guardian 
of its future and I act accordingly. 

I could have made my own life much more easy. I have been fighting for twenty years, and I have 
assumed the burden of all these anxieties and of this never-ceasing work, convinced that it must be done 
for the German people. My own life and my own health are of no importance. I know that, above all, the 
German Army, every man and every officer of it, supports me in the same spirit. All those fools who 
imagined that there could ever be any disruption here have forgotten that the Third Reich is not the same 
as the Second. The German people stand behind me to a man. And at this point I thank, above all, the 
German workman and the German peasant. They made it possible for me to prepare for this struggle and 
to create, as far as armaments were concerned, the necessary conditions for resistance. They also provide 
me with the possibility of continuing the war, however long it may last. 

I also give special thanks to the women of Germany-to those numberless women, who must now 
perform part of the heavy work of men, who have adapted themselves to their war duties with devotion 
and fanaticism and who are replacing men in so many positions. I thank you all - you who are making 



this personal sacrifice, who are bearing the many restrictions that are necessary. I thank you in the name 
of all those who represent the German people today and who will be the German people of the future. 

This struggle is not a struggle for the present but primarily a struggle for the future. I stated on 
September 3, 1939, that time would not conquer us, that no economic difficulties would bring us to our 
knees, and that we could still less be defeated by force of arms. The morale of the German people 
guarantees this. 

The German people will be richly rewarded in the future for all that they are doing. When we have won 
this war it will not have been won by a few industrialists or millionaires, or by a few capitalists or 
aristocrats, or by a few bourgeois, or by anyone else. 

Workers, you must look upon me as your guarantor. I was born a son of the people; I have spent all my 
life struggling for the German people, and when this hardest struggle of my life is over there will be new 
tasks for the German people. 

We have already projected great plans. All of our plans have but one aim: to develop still further the 
great German State, to make that great German nation more and more conscious of its existence and, at 
the same time, to give it everything which makes life worth living. 

We have decided to break down to an ever-increasing degree the barriers preventing individuals from 
developing their faculties and from attaining their just due. We are firmly determined to build up a social 
state which must and shall be a model of perfection in every sphere of life.... 

When this war is ended, Germany will set to work in earnest. A great Awake!' will sound throughout 
the country. Then the German nation will stop manufacturing cannon and will embark on peaceful 
occupations and the new work of reconstruction for the millions. Then we shall show the world for the 
first time who is the real master, capitalism or work. Out of this work will grow the great German Reich 
of which great poets have dreamed. It will be the Germany to which every one of her sons will cling 
with fanatical devotion, because she will provide a home even for the poorest. She will teach everyone 
the meaning of life. 

Should anyone say to me: These are mere fantastic dreams, mere visions,' I can only reply that when I 
set out on my course in 1919 as an unknown, nameless soldier I built my hopes of the future upon a 
most vivid imagination. Yet all has come true. 

What I am planning or aiming at today is nothing compared to what I have already accomplished and 
achieved. It will be achieved sooner and more definitely than everything already achieved. The road 
from an unknown and nameless person to Fuehrer of the German nation was harder than will be the way 
from Fuehrer of the German nation to creator of the coming peace. 



Munich — Speech of February 24, 1941 

Fellow Party Members: 

The twenty- fourth of February is always, and rightly so, a day of vivid memories for us. On this date and 
from this very hall began the Movement's amazing march to victory, which bore it to the helm of the 
Reich, to leadership of the nation and its destiny. This day is a great day for me too. 

Surely, it is seldom that a political leader can stand before the same band of followers that hailed his first 



great public appearance twenty-one years before, and repeat the same program. Seldom can a man 
proclaim the same doctrines and put them into practice for twenty-one years without at any time having 
had to relinquish a single part of his original program. In 1920, when we met for the first time in this 
hall, many of you must have asked yourselves: 'Dear me, a new party, another new party! Why do we 
want a new party? Don't we have parties enough? . . .' 

Thus began a heroic struggle, opposed at its inception by nearly all. Nevertheless, the essential objects 
of the Movement embraced the decisive element. Its clear and unambiguous aim did not allow the 
Movement to become the tool of definite and limited individual interests, but raised it above all special 
obligations to the particular obligation of serving the German nation in its entirety, of safeguarding its 
interests regardless of momentary dissensions or confused thoughts. Thus, today, after twenty-one years, 
I again stand before you.... 

It was in this very town that I began my struggle, my political struggle against Versailles. You know 
this, you old members of my party. How often did I speak against Versailles! I probably studied this 
treaty more than any other man. To this day, I have not forgotten it. The treaty could not be abolished by 
humility, by submission. It could only be abolished by reliance upon ourselves, by the strength of the 
German nation. 

The days of bitter struggle necessarily led to a selection of leaders. When today I appear before the 
nation and look at the ranks that surround me, I look at a band of men, real men who stand for 
something. On the other hand when I regard the cabinets of my opponents, I can only say: 'Quite 
incapable of being put in charge even of one of my smallest groups.' Hard times resulted in a selection 
of first class men who naturally caused us a little anxiety now and then. Everybody who is worth his salt 
is sometimes difficult to handle. In normal times it is not always easy to get divergent elements to work 
together instead of against one another. But as soon as danger threatens, they form the most resolute 
body of men. Just as selection is a natural consequence of war and brings real leaders to the fore among 
soldiers, so in the world of politics selection is the outcome of struggle. It was a result of this slow 
development, this eternal struggle against opposition, that we gradually acquired leaders with whose aid 
we can today achieve anything. 

When, on the other hand, I look at the rest of the world I am obliged to say: They were simply asleep 
while this miracle was taking place. Even today they refuse to grasp it. They do not realize what we are, 
nor do they realize what they themselves are. They go on like a figure of 'Justice' - with blindfolded 
eyes. They reject what does not suit them. They do not realize that two revolutions in Europe have 
created something new and tremendous. We are fully conscious of the fact that a second revolution, 
where the assumption of power occurred earlier than it did in our country, proceeded parallel with ours. 
The fascist Revolution, too, yielded the same results. Complete identity exists between our two 
revolutions, not only as regards aims, but also as regards methods. Over and above this there is our 
friendship, which is more than co-operation with a purpose in view. Nor do our opponents realize yet, 
that once I regard a man as my friend, I shall stand by him.... 

... I wish to display no faltering in this matter. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the bond uniting 
the two revolutions, and especially the bond uniting their two leaders, is indissoluble, and that one will 
always support the other. Moreover, it is a common enemy whom we shall defeat. 

There was a time when Italy, fascist Italy, which is engaged in the same struggle as we are, which is shut 
in in the same way as we are, which is as over-populated as we are and, up until now, has been given no 
better chance of living than we, kept powerful enemies engaged in our behalf. Numerous British ships 
were engaged in the Mediterranean; numerous British airplanes were engaged in the African colonies. 
This was a very good thing for us, for, as I told you the other day, our warfare at sea is just beginning. 
The reason for this is that we first wanted to train new crews for the new submarines which will now 



make their appearance on the scene. Let no one doubt that they are about to appear. 

Just two hours ago I received a communique from the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy stating that the 
reports of the last two days from our ships and submarines on the high seas reveal that another 215,000 
tons have been sunk; that of this total 190,000 tons were sunk by submarines alone, and that this figure 
includes a single convoy of 125,000 tons which was destroyed yesterday. 

From March and April on, those gentlemen will have to be prepared for something very different. They 
will see whether we have been asleep during the winter, or whether we have made good use of our time. 
During the long months when we had so few submarines to fight our battles, Italy kept large forces 
engaged. It does not matter to us whether our Stukas attack British ships in the North Sea or in the 
Mediterranean; the result is always the same. One thing is certain: Wherever Britain touches the 
Continent she will immediately have to reckon with us, and wherever British ships appear, our 
submarines will attack them until the hour of decision comes. Thus, except for Germany, only Italy has 
had a revolution which, in the long run, will lead, must lead and has led to the construction of a new 
national community. 

We had to exercise patience for many a long year, and I can only say: My opponents may believe that 
they can terrify me with the threat of time, but I have learned to wait, 

and I have never been idle while waiting. We had to wait ten years after 1923 until we at last came into 
power. But you old members of the Party know that we accomplished much in those ten years.... We 
were never in the habit of setting ourselves a limit and saying: This must be done on March 1, or June 
15, or September 1 .... 

These sharp-witted journalists who are now in England - they are no longer among us - knew all about 
it. Now they said: 'August 13 is the turning point; National Socialism is done for.' August 13 came - and 
National Socialism was not done for. A few months later they had to fix a new date. Finally came 
January 30, 1933. Then they said: 'Well, now they have made their mistake! They have gained power, 
and in six weeks they will be finished - three months at the most. Three months, and that will be the end 
of them.' The six weeks and the three months passed, and still we were not finished. 

And so they kept on fixing new dates for our downfall, and now, in wartime, they are doing exactly the 
same thing. And why not? They are the same people, the same prophets, the same political diviners who 
prophesied the future so wonderfully when they were here. Now they are employed as assistants in the 
British Ministry of Information and the British Foreign Office. They always know exactly that on such 
and such a date the Germans will be finished. We have experienced that more than once. You all know 
what they said. I need only refer to the celebrated utterance of a great British statesman whom you in 
Munich know by sight - Mr. Chamberlain. A few days before April 9, of last year, he said: 'Thank God, 
he has missed the bus.' I can remind you of another - the British Commander-in-Chief- who said: A few 
months ago I was afraid, now I am afraid no longer. They have missed their opportunity. Besides, they 
only have young generals. That is their mistake and their misfortune; it is the same with all their leaders. 
They have lost their opportunity. It is all over.' A few weeks later this general had departed. Probably he, 
too, was too young. 

Today they are doing exactly the same thing. They always fix final dates. In the autumn they said: 'If 
they don't land now, all is well. In the spring of 1941 Britain will transfer the offensive to the Continent.' 
I am still waiting for the British offensive. They have transferred the offensive elsewhere, and now, 
unfortunately, we must run after them wherever they happen to be. But we shall find them wherever 
they run. And we shall strike them where they are most vulnerable. 

Thus, twenty-one years of a dauntless struggle for our Movement have passed. After thirteen years we at 



last came to power. Then came years of preparation of our foreign policy, of gigantic work at home. 
You know that it is all an exact repetition of what happened in the Party. We asked nothing of the world 
but equal rights, just as we asked for the same rights at home. At home we demanded the right to meet 
freely, the right which the others possessed. We demanded the right of free speech, the same right as a 
parliamentary party as the others held. We were refused and persecuted with terrorism. Nevertheless, we 
built up our organization and won the day.... 

Of course, a fundamental social principle was necessary to achieve this. It is today no longer possible to 
build up a state on a capitalistic basis. The peoples eventually begin to stir. The awakening of the 
peoples cannot be prevented by wars. On the contrary, war will only hasten it. Such states will be ruined 
by financial catastrophes which will destroy the foundations of their own former financial policy. 

The gold standard will not emerge victorious from this war. Rather, the national economic systems will 
conquer. And these will carry on among themselves the trade that is necessary for them. . . 

In this respect we can look to the future with confidence. Germany is an immense factor in world 
economy, not only as a producer but also as a consumer. We certainly have a great market for our goods. 
But we are not only seeking markets; we are also the greatest buyers. The Western world wants, on the 
one hand, to live upon its empires and, on the other hand, to export from its empires as well. That is 
impossible because in the long run the nations cannot carry on one-sided trade. They not only have to 
buy, but also have to sell. They can sell nothing to these empires. The peoples will therefore trade with 
us in the future, regardless of whether this happens to suit certain bankers or not. Therefore we will not 
establish our economic policy to suit the conceptions or desires of bankers in New York or London.... 

Our economic policy, I repeat, is determined solely by the interests of the German people. From this 
principle we shall never depart. If the rest of the world says: 'War,' I can only say: 'Very well. I do not 
want war, but no one, however peaceable, can live in peace if his neighbor intends to force a quarrel.' 

I am not one of those who see such a war coming and start whining about it. I have said and done all that 
I could; I have made proposal after proposal to Britain; likewise to France. These proposals were always 
ridiculed - rejected with scorn. However, when I saw that the other side intended to fight, I naturally did 
that which as a National Socialist of the early days, I did once before: I forged a powerful weapon of 
defense. And, just as of old, I proclaimed that we should be not merely strong enough to stand the blows 
of others but strong enough to deal blows in return. I built up the German armed forces as a military 
instrument of State policy, so that if war were inevitable, these forces could deliver crushing blows. 

Only a few days ago, an American general declared before an investigating committee in the House of 
Representatives that in 1936 Churchill had personally assured him, 'Germany is becoming too strong for 
us. She must be destroyed, and I will do everything in my power to bring about her destruction.' 

A little later than 1936, 1 publicly issued a warning against this man and his activities for the first time. 
When I noticed that a certain British clique, incited by the Jews - who are, of course, the fellows who 
kindle the flames everywhere - was intentionally provoking war, I immediately made all preparations on 
my part to arm the nation. And you, my old Party comrades, know that when I speak it is not a mere 
matter of words, for I act accordingly. We worked like Titans. The armaments we have manufactured in 
the past few years are really the proudest achievement that the world has ever seen. If the rest of the 
world tells us: 'We are doing likewise now,' I can only reply: 'By all means do so, for I have already 
done it. But above all, don't tell me any of your tales. I am an expert, a specialist in rearmament. I know 
exactly what can be made from steel and what can be made of aluminum. I know what achievements can 
be expected of men and what cannot be expected. Your tales do not impress me in the least. I enlisted 
the strength of the whole German nation in good time to assist in our arming and, if necessary, I shall 
enlist that of half Europe. I am prepared for all impending conflicts and consequently face them calmly.' 



Let the others face them with equal calm. 

I place my confidence in the best army in the world, in the best army which the German nation has ever 
possessed. It is numerically strong, it has the finest weapons and is better led than ever before. We have 
a body of young leaders who have not merely proved their worth in the present war but, I can well say, 
have covered themselves with glory. Wherever we look today, we see a bodyguard of chosen men to 
whom the German soldiers have been entrusted. They in their turn are the leaders of soldiers who are the 
best trained in the world, who are armed with the finest weapons on earth. Behind these soldiers and 
their leaders stands the German nation, the whole German people 

In the midst of this people, forming its very core, is the National Socialist Movement which began its 
existence in this room twenty-one years ago, - this Movement, the like of which does not exist in the 
democratic countries, this Movement whose only pendant is fascism. Nation and Army, Party and State 
are today one indivisible whole. No power in the world can loosen what is so firmly welded together. 
Only fools can imagine that the year 1918 can be repeated. 

We encountered the same ideas among our plutocrats at home. They, too, always hoped for internal 
disruption, dissolution, civil war of German against German. Exactly the same ideas are encountered 
today. They say: 'There will be a revolution in Germany in six weeks.' They do not know who is going 
to make the revolution. There are no revolutionaries among us. Thomas Mann and others like him went 
to England. Some have already left England for America, because England is too close to their 
revolution's future field of operations. They are establishing their headquarters far from their future field 
of battle. Nevertheless, they assert that the revolution will come. Who will make it? I do not know. How 
it will be made, I do not know either. All I know is that in Germany there can be, at the most, only a few 
fools who might think of revolution, and that they are all behind iron bars. 

Then they said: Winter, General Winter is coming, and he will force Germany to her knees.' But, 
unfortunately, the German people are 'winter-proof German history has passed through I do not know 
how many tens of thousands of winters. We will get through this one, too. 

Then they say: 'Starvation will come.' We are prepared against this, too. We know the humanitarian 
sentiments of our British opponents and so have made our preparations. I believe that starvation will 
reach them before it reaches us. 

Then they said: 'Time is on our side.' But time is only on the side of those who work. No one has been 
harder at work than we. Of that I can assure them. In fact, all these vague hopes which they are building 
up are absolutely childish and ridiculous.... 

And so, in all due modesty, I have just one more thing to say to my opponents: I have taken up the 
challenge of many democratic adversaries and up to now I have always emerged the victor from the 
conflict. I do not believe that this struggle is being carried on under different conditions. That is to say, 
the relation of the forces involved is exactly the same as before. In any case I am grateful to Providence 
that this struggle, having become inevitable, broke out in my lifetime and at a time when I still feel 
young and vigorous. Just now I am feeling particularly vigorous. Spring is coming, the spring which we 
all welcome. The season is approaching in which one can measure forces. I know that, although they 
realize the terrible hardships of the struggle, millions of German soldiers are at this moment thinking 
exactly the same thing.... 

If fate should once more call us to the battlefield, the blessing of Providence will be with those who have 
merited it by years of hard work. When I compare myself and my opponents in other countries in the 
light of history, I do not fear the verdict on our respective mentalities. Who are these egoists? Each one 
of them merely defends the interests of his class. Behind them all stands either the Jew or their own 



moneybags. They are all nothing but money-grubbers, living on the profits of this war. No blessing can 
come of that. I oppose these people merely as the champion of my country. I am convinced that our 
struggle will in the future be blessed by Providence, as it has been blessed up to now. 

When I first entered this hall twenty-one years ago, I was an unknown, nameless soldier. I had nothing 
behind me but my own conviction. During the twenty-one years since, a new world has been created. 
The road leading into the future will be easier than the road from February 24, 1920, to the present. I 
look to the future with fanatical confidence. The whole nation has answered the call. I know that when 
the command is given: 'Forward march!' Germany will march. 



Berlin, Zeughaus — Speech of March 16, 1941 

FOR the second time we enter this room for a memorial service to our people. For more than a year we 
have appreciated how inadequate are words to express the nation's thankfulness to its heroes. In times of 
long peace the memory of the terrible experiences of war, out of which rises heroism, gradually grows 
dim. It even happens that a whole generation knows nothing of war as such and honors its heroes 
without being in the least worthy of them. 

In such a circumstance the greatest sacrifice of man is acknowledged with superficial phrases. There is 
even danger that, while remembering heroes of times past, the men of the present regard themselves as 
free of the obligation to conduct themselves with a similar spirit of heroism. 

But if the German people in the year 1941 honors its heroes, it does so at a time and under 
circumstances that give it a right to hold up its head with pride as it pays tribute to men of the near and 
distant past who sacrificed their lives for the State. 

As twelve months ago in this consecrated hall we turned our thoughts to our heroes, there lay behind us 
the thoroughly successful beginning of a war that Germany did not want, but that was forced on us by 
the same forces that were responsible before in history for the great war of the peoples in 1914 to 1918. 

They were the elements whose goal that time was to rob the German nation of the most primitive right 
of life, who in the years of the Versailles Dictate raised as the dogma of the new world order political 
enslavement and economic impotence, and now are opposed to the revival of our people with the same 
hatred with which they once pursued the Second Reich. 

In complete misjudgment of the situation, in a sadly false estimate of their own and Germany's power, 
and in complete ignorance of the will and determination of the new German leadership, they expected a 
second crushing of our people would be as easy as the first attempt. 

The fact that the American General Wood, before the investigation committee of the American Senate, 
testified that as early as 1936 Churchill told him Germany was getting too strong again and must be 
destroyed in a new war established firmly in history the real responsibility for present developments. 

England and France alone wanted war - not so much the people as a thin stratum of political and 
financial leadership behind which, wielding its last power, stood international Jewry and its world 
conspiracies of democracy and Freemasonry. 

But it was the hope of these responsible warmakers that thrust Poland forward not only to attain outward 
justification for war but also to make sure in advance that Poland would play its World War role of 
dividing German strength. 



The eighteen-day campaign in Poland was but the precipitous end of these hopes. Under these 
circumstances the German people were able to enter the year 1940 with proud confidence. But our 
people did not deceive themselves as to the year lying ahead. The battle in the West, which remains in 
the memory of every living German World War soldier as an episode of suffering without end, had to be 
decided. 

In exact knowledge of our preparations and plans, in boundless confidence in the German soldier, his 
armament and leadership and ability and before all in his attitude, I dared on Memorial Day, 1940, to 
predict that the battle before us would end in the most glorious victory in our history. Eight weeks later 
this battle started. 

But before the defense forces struck in the West, what was probably the most important decision of the 
war was taken. On April 9, with just a few hours to spare, a dangerous British attempt to strike German 
defense powers in the heart from the north was anticipated. At dawn on May 10 this perhaps most 
dangerous threat to our military and political position had been swept aside. So the battle to a decision in 
the West could begin. It followed a course previously mapped out. 

What could not be done in four years of indescribable sacrifice in the World War was accomplished in a 
few weeks: the crushing of the British-French front. 

Despite the conclusion of the guilty British Prime Minister of that time, the year 1940 will go down in 
history as one of the most decisive and significant, because in this year there was a shift of power of 
truly historic importance. If in the year 1918 we could have had only a portion of this success the World 
War would have been won. 

Today German forces stand throughout the world, men and material strengthened to an inconceivable 
degree, ready to complete joyfully and confidently what was begun in the epochal year 1940.... 

The German people have recovered everything that once was sacrificed in a foolish delusion. So today 
we can recall with lightened hearts the sacrifice of life in the World War. But in the illustrious events of 
the present we must not overlook the vast spiritual powers for which the German people and its soldiers 
must thank the heroism of their ancestors. 

The soldiers of the World War did not fall in vain. If at that time the sacrifice was not immediately 
crowned by success, their heroic conduct left a heritage that an ever worthy German generation will 
prize with deepest emotion and that paralyzes the memories of our enemies. 

It is perhaps this consciousness of strength that enabled the German people today to achieve such 
greatness. The people feel they are carrying out the will of heroic ancestors. 

Beside the dead of the World War lie now the fallen in continuation of this battle. And again, as then, 
the sons of our people lie in distant places, in the sea, everywhere as courageous fighters for their great 
German home. It is the same German man - be it in World War work or in the present fight that has been 
thrust upon us - who risks and gives his life to win for his people a greater future, a surer peace, a better 
organization and human comradeship than that given us by the dictators of Versailles. 

But we think also of the Italian soldiers, who as allies also must give up their lives in distant parts of the 
world. Their ideals and objectives are the same as ours: The world is not here for a few people, and an 
order based eternally on the distinction between the haves and the have-nots does not exist any more 
because the have-nots have determined to lay claim to their portion of God's earth. 

The home front, too, in this war must make a greater sacrifice than formerly. The heroism of the home 



front contributes its bit to the most decisive battle in German history. And here it is not only the man 
who must show the power of his resistance but the woman, too. The nation has become a battling unity. 
And not because they sought this fight but because it was forced on them. 

Behind us lies a winter of work. What remained to be improved has been done. The German Army is 
now the strongest military instrument in our history. In the months of this winter our allies bore the 
brunt of the whole power of the British attack, but from now on German forces again will resume their 
share of this load. 

No power and no support coming from any part of the world can change the outcome of this battle in 
any respect. England will fall. The everlasting providence will not give victory to him who, merely with 
the object of ruling through his gold, is willing to spill the blood of men. 

Germany demanded nothing of England and France. All the Reich's denunciations, its disarmament and 
peace suggestions, were vain. International finance and plutocracy want to fight this war to the finish. So 
the end of this war will and must be their destruction. Then may providence find a way to lead their 
people, from whom the chains will be struck, into a better order! 

When England and France declared this war, England immediately began a fight against civil life. To 
the blockade of the World War, that war against women and children, it added this time air and fire war 
against peaceful villages and cities. In both of these modes of war England will be defeated. The air war 
that Churchill started will destroy not Germany but England itself. Just so, the blockade will not strike 
Germany but its inventor. 

While the coming of winter limited battle actions on land, the fight in the air and on the sea continued. 
The heroism of submarine and ship crews goes hand in hand with that of our fliers.... 

So we enter the year 1941, cool and determined to end what started the year before. It is quite 
immaterial what part of the earth or in which sea or in what air space our German soldiers fight. They 
will know they battle for fate and freedom and the future of our people forever. 

But while we end this battle victoriously we thank our heroes of the past, for we are saving that for 
which they fell: Germany, our people, and its great German Empire. 



Berlin: Hitler's Order Of The Day - April 6, 1941 

From Berlin, Propaganda Minister Goebbels reads the following Order of the Day to the German Army 
of the East, in the name of the Fuehrer: 

Soldiers of the Southeast Front: 

Since early this morning the German people are at war with the Belgrade Government of intrigue. We 
shall only lay down arms when this band of ruffians has been definitely and most emphatically 
eliminated, and the last Briton has left this part of the European Continent. These misled people realize 
that they must thank Britain for this situation, they must thank England, the greatest warmonger of all 
time. 

The German people can enter into this new struggle with the inner satisfaction that its leaders have done 
everything to bring about a peaceful settlement. 



We pray to God that He may lead our soldiers on the path and bless them as hitherto. 

In accordance with the policy of letting others fight for her, as she did in the case of Poland, Britain 
again tried to involve Germany in the struggle in which Britain hoped that she would finish off the 
German people once and for all, to win the war, and if possible to destroy the entire German Army. 

In a few weeks, long ago, the German soldiers on the Eastern Front swept aside Poland, the instrument 
of British policy. On April 9, 1940, Britain again attempted to reach its goal by a thrust on the German 
north flank, the thrust at Norway. 

In an unforgettable struggle the German soldiers in Norway eliminated the British within a period of a 
few weeks. 

What the world did not deem possible the German people have achieved. Again, only a few weeks later, 
Churchill thought the moment right to make a renewed thrust through the British Allies, France and 
Belgium, into the German region of the Ruhr. The victorious hour of our soldiers on the West Front 
began. 

It is already war history how the German Armies defeated the legions of capitalism and plutocracy. 
After forty-five days this campaign in the West was equally and emphatically terminated. 

Then Churchill concentrated the strength of his Empire against our ally, Italy, in Africa. Now the danger 
has also been banned from the African theater of the war through the co-operation of Italian and German 
units. 

The new aim of the British warmongers now consists of the realization of a plan that they had already 
hatched at the outbreak of the war and only postponed because of the gigantic victories of the German 
Army. The memory of the landing of British troops at Salonika in the course of the first World War also 
caught little Greece in the spider web of British intrigue. 

I have repeatedly warned of the attempt by the British to land troops in Southeastern Europe, and I have 
said that this constitutes a threat to the German Reich. Unfortunately this warning went unheeded by the 
Yugoslav nation. I have further tried, always with the same patience, to convince Yugoslav statesmen of 
the absolute necessity for their cooperation with the German Reich for restoration of lasting peace and 
order within Yugoslavia. 

After long effort we finally succeeded in securing the cooperation of Yugoslavia by its adherence to the 
Tripartite Pact without having demanded anything whatsoever of the Yugoslav nation except that it take 
its part in the reconstruction of a new order in Europe. 

At this point the criminal usurpers of the new Belgrade Government took the power of the State unto 
themselves, which is a result of being in the pay of Churchill and Britain. As in the case of Poland, this 
new Belgrade Government has mobilized decrepit and old people into their inner Cabinet. Under these 
circumstances I was forced immediately to recall the German national colony within Yugoslav territory. 

Members and officers of the German Embassy, employees of our consulates in Yugoslavia were daily 
being subjected to the most humiliating attacks. The German schools, exactly as in Poland, were laid in 
ruins by bandits. Innumerable German nationals were kidnaped and attacked by Yugoslavs and some 
even were killed. 

In addition, Yugoslavia for weeks has planned a general mobilization of its army in great secrecy. This 
is the answer to my eight-year-long effort to bring about closer co-operation and friendship with the 



Yugoslav people, a task that I have pursued most fastidiously. 

When British divisions were landed in Greece, just as in World War days, the Serbs thought the time 
was ripe for taking advantage of the situation for new assassinations against Germany and her allies. 

Soldiers of the Southeast Front: Now your zero hour has arrived. You will now take the interests of the 
German Reich under your protection as your comrades did a year ago in Norway and on the West Front. 
You will do just as well on the Southeast Front. 

In doing this, your duty, you will not be less courageous than the men of those German divisions who in 
1915, on the same Balkan soil, fought so victoriously. You will be humane only in those places where 
the enemy is humane toward you. Where the enemy confronts you with utter brutality you will beat 
them back with the same weapon. 

The fight on Greek soil is not a battle against the Greek people, but against that archenemy, England, 
which is again trying to extend the war far into the Southeast Balkans, the same as he tried far in the 
north last year. For this reason, on this very spot in the Balkans, we shall fight shoulder to shoulder with 
our ally until the last Briton has found his Dunkerque in Greece. 

If any Greeks support this British course, then those Greeks will fall at the same time as the British. 

When the German soldier shall have proved himself, shall have proved that he is capable of beating the 
British in the Balkans, in the midst of snow and mountains, then also he will have proved that he can 
beat the British in the heat of the desert in Africa. 

However, we will pursue no other ultimate aim than to win freedom for our German people and to 
secure a living space for the German family. 

The prayers and thoughts, the very life of all Germans, are again in the heart of every German soldier. 



Berlin, Reichstag — Speech of May 4, 1941 

Deputies. Men of the German Reichstag: 

At a time when only deeds count and words are of little importance, it is not my intention to appear 
before you, the elected representatives of the German people, more often than absolutely necessary. The 
first time I spoke to you was at the outbreak of the war when, thanks to the Anglo-French conspiracy 
against peace, every attempt at an understanding with Poland, which otherwise would have been 
possible, had been frustrated. 

The most unscrupulous men of the present time had, as they admit today, decided as early as 1936 to 
involve the Reich, which in its peaceful work of reconstruction was becoming too powerful for them, in 
a new and bloody war and, if possible, to destroy it. They had finally succeeded in finding a State that 
was prepared for their interests and aims, and that State was Poland. 

All my endeavors to come to an understanding with Britain were wrecked by the determination of a 
small clique which, whether from motives of hate or for the sake of material gain, rejected every 
German proposal for an understanding due to their resolve, which they never concealed, to resort to war, 
whatever happened. 



The man behind this fanatical and diabolical plan to bring about war at whatever cost was Mr. Churchill. 
His associates were the men who now form the British Govern- ment. 

These endeavors received most powerful support, both openly and secretly, from the so-called great 
democracies on both sides of the Atlantic. At a time when the people were more and more dissatisfied 
with their deficient statesmanship, the responsible men over there believed that a successful war would 
be the most likely means of solving problems that otherwise would be beyond their power to solve. 

Behind these men there stood the great international Jewish financial interests that control the banks and 
the Stock Exchange as well as the armament industry. And now, just as before, they scented the 
opportunity of doing their unsavory business. And so, just as before, there was no scruple about 
sacrificing the blood of the peoples. That was the beginning of this war. A few weeks later the State that 
was the third country in Europe, Poland, but had been reckless enough to allow herself to be used for the 
financial interests of these warmongers, was annihilated and destroyed. 

In these circumstances I considered that I owed it to our German people and countless men and women 
in the opposite camps, who as individuals were as decent as they were innocent of blame, to make yet 
another appeal to the common sense and the conscience of these statesmen. On October 6, 1939, 1 
therefore once more publicly stated that Germany had neither demanded nor intended to demand 
anything either from Britain or from France, that it was madness to continue the war and, above all, that 
the scourge of modern weapons of warfare, once they were brought into action, would inevitably ravage 
vast territories. 

But just as the appeal I made on September 1, 1939, proved to be in vain, this renewed appeal met with 
indignant rejection. The British and their Jewish capitalist backers could find no other explanation for 
this appeal, which I had made on humanitarian grounds, than the assumption of weakness on the part of 
Germany. 

They assured the people of Britain and France that Germany dreaded the clash to be expected in the 
spring of 1940 and was eager to make peace for fear of the annihilation that would then inevitably result. 

Already at that time the Norwegian Government, misled by the stubborn insistence of Mr. Churchill's 
false prophecies, began to toy with the idea of a British landing on their soil, thereby contributing to the 
destruction of Germany by permitting their harbors and Swedish iron ore fields to be seized. 

So sure were Mr. Churchill and Paul Reynaud of the success of their new scheme that finally, whether 
from sheer recklessness or perhaps under the influence of drink, they deemed it no longer necessary to 
make a secret of their intentions. 

It was thanks to these two gentlemen's tendency to gossip that the German Government at that time 
gained cognizance of the plans being made against the Reich. A few weeks later this danger to Germany 
was eliminated. One of the boldest deeds of arms in the whole history of warfare frustrated the attack of 
the British and French armies against the right flank of our line of defense. 

Immediately after the failure of these plans, increased pressure was exerted by the British warmongers 
upon Belgium and Holland. Now that the attack upon our sources for the supply of iron ore had proved 
unsuccessful, they aimed to advance the front to the Rhine by involving the Belgian and Dutch States 
and thus to threaten and paralyze our production centers for iron and steel. 

On May 10 of last year perhaps the most memorable struggle in all German history commenced. The 
enemy front was broken up in a few days and the stage was then set for the operation that culminated in 
the greatest battle of annihilation in the history of the world. Thus France collapsed, Belgium and 



Holland were already occupied, and the battered remnants of the British expeditionary force were driven 
from the European continent, leaving their arms behind. 

On July 19, 1940, 1 then convened the German Reichstag for the third time in order to render that great 
account which you all still remember. The meeting provided me with the opportunity of expressing the 
thanks of the nation to its soldiers in a form suited to the uniqueness of the event. Once again I seized 
the opportunity of urging the world to make peace. And what I foresaw and prophesied at that time 
happened. My offer of peace was misconstrued as a symptom of fear and cowardice. 

The European and American warmongers succeeded once again in befogging the sound common sense 
of the masses, who can never hope to profit from this war, by conjuring up false pictures of new hope. 
Thus, finally, under pressure of public opinion, as formed by their press, they once more managed to 
induce the nation to continue this struggle. 

Even my warnings against night bombings of the civilian population, as advocated by Mr. Churchill, 
were interpreted as a sign of German impotence. He, the most bloodthirsty or amateurish strategist that 
history has ever known, actually saw fit to believe that the reserve displayed for months by the German 
Air Force could be looked upon only as proof of their incapacity to fly by night. 

So this man for months ordered his paid scribblers to deceive the British people into believing that the 
Royal Air Force alone - and no others - was in a position to wage war in this way, and that thus ways 
and means had been found to force the Reich to its knees by the ruthless onslaught of the British Air 
Force on the German civilian population in conjunction with the starvation blockade. 

Again and again I uttered these warnings against this specific type of aerial warfare, and I did so for over 
three and a half months. That these warnings failed to impress Mr. Churchill does not surprise me in the 
least. For what does this man care for the lives of others? What does he care for culture or for 
architecture? When war broke out he stated clearly that he wanted to have his war, even though the 
cities of England might be reduced to ruins. So now he has got his war. 

My assurances that from a given moment every one of his bombs would be returned if necessary a 
hundredfold failed to induce this man to consider even for an instant the criminal nature of his action. 
He professes not to be in the least depressed and he even assures us that the British people, too, after 
such bombing raids, greeted him with a joyous serenity, causing him to return to London refreshed by 
his visits to the stricken areas. 

It is possible that this sight strengthened Mr. Churchill in his firm determination to continue the war in 
this way, and we are no less determined to continue to retaliate, if necessary, a hundred bombs for every 
one of his and to go on doing so until the British nation at last gets rid of this criminal and his methods. 

The appeal to forsake me, made to the German nation by this fool and his satellites on May Day, of all 
days, are only to be explained either as symptomatic of a paralytic disease or of a drunkard's ravings. 
His abnormal state of mind also gave birth to a decision to transform the Balkans into a theater of war. 

For over five years this man has been chasing around Europe like a madman in search of something that 
he could set on fire. Unfortunately, he again and again finds hirelings who open the gates of their 
country to this international incendiary. 

After he had succeeded in the course of the past winter in persuading the British people by a wave of 
false assertions and pretensions that the German Reich, exhausted by the campaign in the preceding 
months, was completely spent, he saw himself obliged, in order to prevent an awakening of the truth, to 
create a fresh conflagration in Europe. 



In so doing he returned to the project that had been in his mind as early as the autumn of 1939 and the 
spring of 1940. It was thought possible at the time to mobilize about 100 divisions in Britain's interest. 

The sudden collapse which we witnessed in May and June of the past year forced these plans to be 
abandoned for the moment. But by the autumn of last year Mr. Churchill began to tackle this problem 
once again. 

In the meantime, however, certain difficulties had arisen. As a result, Rumania, owing to internal 
changes, dropped out of England's political scheme. 

In dealing with these conditions, I shall begin by giving you a brief outline of the aims of Germany's 
policy in the Balkans. As in the past, the Reich never pursued any territorial or any other selfish political 
interest in the Balkans. In other words, the Reich has never taken the slightest interest in territorial 
problems and internal conditions in these States for any selfish reason whatsoever. 

On the other hand, the Reich has always endeavored to build up and to strengthen close economic ties 
with these States in particular. This, however, not only served the interests of the Reich but equally the 
interests of these countries themselves. 

If any two national economic systems ever effectively complemented one another, that is especially the 
case regarding the Balkan States and Germany. Germany is an industrial country and requires foodstuffs 
and raw materials. The Balkan States are agrarian countries and are short of these raw materials. At the 
same time, they require industrial products. 

It was therefore hardly surprising when Germany thus became the main business partner of the Balkan 
States. Nor was this in Germany's interest alone, but also in that of the Balkan peoples themselves. 

AND NONE BUT OUR JEW-RIDDEN DEMOCRACIES, WHICH CAN THINK ONLY IN TERMS 
OF CAPITALISM, CAN MAINTAIN THAT IF ONE STATE DELIVERS MACHINERY TO 
ANOTHER STATE IT THEREBY DOMINATES THAT OTHER STATE. IN ACTUAL FACT SUCH 
DOMINATION, IF IT OCCURS, CAN BE ONLY A RECIPROCAL DOMINATION. 

It is presumably easier to be without machinery than without food and raw materials. Consequently, the 
partner in need of raw material and foodstuffs would appear to be more tied down than the recipient of 
industrial products. IN THIS TRANSACTION THERE WAS NEITHER CONQUEROR NOR 
CONQUERED. THERE WERE ONLY PARTNERS. 

The German Reich of the National Socialist revolution has prided itself on being a fair and decent 
partner, offering in exchange high-quality products instead of worthless democratic paper money. For 
these reasons the Reich was interested in only one thing if, indeed, there was any question of political 
interest, namely, in seeing that internally the business partner was firmly established on a sound and 
healthy basis. 

THE APPLICATION OF THIS IDEA LED IN FACT NOT ONLY TO INCREASING PROSPERITY 
IN THESE COUNTRIES BUT ALSO TO THE BEGINNING OF MUTUAL CONFIDENCE. All the 

greater, however, became the endeavor of that world incendiary, Churchill, to put an end to this peaceful 
development and by shamelessly imposing upon these States utterly worthless British guarantees and 
promises of assistance to introduce into this peaceable European territory elements of unrest, 
uncertainty, distrust and, finally, conflict. 

Originally, Rumania was first won over by these guarantees and later, of course, Greece. It has, 



meanwhile, probably been sufficiently demonstrated that he had absolutely no power of any kind to 
provide real help and that these guarantees were merely intended to rope these States in to follow the 
dangerous trend of filthy British politics. 

RUMANIA HAS HAD TO PAY BITTERLY FOR THE GUARANTEES, WHICH WERE 
CALCULATED TO ESTRANGE HER FROM THE AXIS POWERS. 

Greece, which least of all required such a guarantee, was offered her share to link her destiny to that of 
the country that provided her King with cash and orders. 

EVEN TODAY I FEEL THAT I MUST, AS I BELIEVE IN THE rNTEREST OF HISTORICAL 
ACCURACY, DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE GREEK PEOPLE AND THAT THIN TOP LAYER 
OF CORRUPT LEADERS WHO, INSPIRED BY A KING WHO HAD NO EYES FOR THE DUTY 
OF TRUE LEADERSHIP, PREFERRED INSTEAD TO FURTHER THE AIMS OF BRITISH WAR 
POLITICS. To me this is a subject of profound regret. 

Germany, with the faint hope of still being able to contribute in some way to a solution of the problem, 
had not severed relations with Greece. But even then I was bound in duty to point out before the whole 
world that we would not tacitly allow a revival of the old Salonika scheme of the Great War. 

Unfortunately, my warning was not taken seriously enough. That we were determined, if the British 
tried to gain another foothold in Europe, to drive them back into the sea was not taken seriously enough. 

The result was that the British began in an increasing degree to establish bases for the formation of a 
new Salonika army. They began by laying out airdromes and by establishing the necessary ground 
organization in the firm conviction that the occupation of the airdromes themselves could afterward be 
carried out very speedily. 

Finally a continuous stream of transports brought equipment for an army which, according to Mr. 
Churchill's idea and plans, was to be landed in Greece. As I have said, already we were aware of this. 
For months we watched this entire strange procedure with attention, if with restraint. 

The reverses suffered by the Italian Army in North Africa, owing to a certain material inferiority of their 
tanks and anti-tank guns, finally led Mr. Churchill to believe that the time was ripe to transfer the theater 
of war from Libya to Greece. He ordered the transport of the remaining tanks and of the infantry 
division, composed mainly of Anzacs, and was convinced that he could now complete his scheme, 
which was to set the Balkans aflame. 

THUS DID MR. CHURCHILL COMMIT ONE OF THE GREATEST STRATEGIC BLUNDERS OF 
THIS WAR. As soon as there could be no further doubt regarding Britain's intentions of gaining a 
foothold in the Balkans, I took the necessary steps. 

Germany, by keeping pace with these moves, assembled the necessary forces for the purpose of 
counteracting any possible tricks of that gentleman. In this connection I must state categorically that this 
action was not directed against Greece. 

The Duce did not even request me to place one single German division at his disposal for this purpose. 
He was convinced that with the advent of good weather his stand against Greece would have been 
brought to a successful conclusion. I was of the same opinion. 

The concentration of German forces was therefore not made for the purpose of assisting the Italians 
against Greece. It was a precautionary measure against the British attempt under cover of the clamor 



caused by the Italo-Greek war to intrench themselves secretly in the Balkans in order to force the issue 
from that quarter on the model of the Salonika army during the World War, and, above all, to draw other 
elements into the whirlpool. 

This hope was founded principally on two States, namely, Turkey and Yugoslavia. But with these very 
States I have striven during the years since I came into power to establish close co-operation. 

The World War actually started from Belgrade. Nevertheless, the German people, who are by nature so 
ready to forgive and forget, felt no animosity toward that country. Turkey was our ally in the World 
War. The unfortunate outcome of that struggle weighed upon that country just as heavily as it did upon 
us. 

The great genius who created the new Turkey was the first to set a wonderful example of recovery to our 
allies whom fortune had at that time deserted and whom fate had dealt so terrible a blow. Whereas 
Turkey, thanks to the practical attitude of her leaders, preserved her independence in carrying out her 
own resolutions, Yugolsavia fell a victim to British intrigue. 

Most of you, especially my old Party comrades among you, know what efforts I have made to establish a 
straightforward understanding and indeed friendly relations between Germany and Yugoslavia. In 
pursuance of this aim Herr von Ribbentrop, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, submitted to the Yugoslav 
Government proposals that were so outstanding and so fair that at least even the Yugoslav State of that 
time seemed to become increasingly eager for such close co-operation. 

Germany had no intention of starting a war in the Balkans. On the contrary, it was our honest intention 
as far as possible to contribute to a settlement of the conflict with Greece by means that would be 
tolerable to the legitimate wishes of Italy. 

The Duce not only consented to but lent his full support to our efforts to bring Yugoslavia into a close 
community of interests with our peace aims. Thus it finally became possible to induce the Yugoslav 
Government to join the Threepower Pact, which made no demands whatever on Yugoslavia but only 
offered that country advantages. 

Thus on March 26 of this year a pact was signed in Vienna that offered the Yugoslav State the greatest 
future conceivable and could have assured peace for the Balkans. Believe me, gentlemen, on that day I 
left the beautiful city of the Danube truly happy not only because it seemed as though almost eight years 
of foreign policies had received their reward but also because I believed that perhaps at the last moment 
German intervention in the Balkans might not be necessary. 

We were all stunned by the news of that coup, carried through by a handful of bribed conspirators who 
had brought about the event that caused the British Prime Minister to declare in joyous words that at last 
he had something good to report. 

YOU WILL SURELY UNDERSTAND, GENTLEMEN, THAT WHEN I HEARD THIS I AT ONCE 
GAVE ORDERS TO ATTACK YUGOSLAVIA. To treat the, German Reich in this way is impossible. 
One cannot spent years in concluding a treaty that is in the interest of the other party merely to discover 
that this treaty has not only been broken overnight but also that it has been answered by the insulting of 
the representative of the German Reich, by the threatening of his military attache, by the injuring of the 
aide de camp of this attache, by the maltreating of numerous other Germans, by demolishing property, 
by laying waste the homes of German citizens and by terrorizing. 

GOD KNOWS THAT I WANTED PEACE. But I can do nothing but protect the interests of the Reich 
with those means which, thank God, are at our disposal. I made my decision at that moment all the more 



calmly because I knew that I was in accord with Bulgaria, who had always remained unshaken in her 
loyalty to the German Reich, and with the equally justified indignation of Hungary. 

Both of our old allies in the World War were bound to regard this action as a provocation emanating 
from the State that once before had set the whole of Europe on fire and had been guilty of the 
indescribable sufferings that befell Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria in consequence. 

The general directions of operations issued by me through the Supreme Command of the German forces 
on March 27 confronted the Army and the Air Force with a formidable task. By a mere turn of the hand 
an additional campaign had to be prepared. Units that had already arrived had to be moved about. 
Supplies of armaments had to be assured and the air force had to take over numerous improvised 
airports part of which were still under water. 

WITHOUT THE SYMPATHETIC ASSISTANCE OF HUNGARY AND THE EXTREMELY LOYAL 
ATTITUDE OF RUMANIA IT WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY DIFFICULT TO CARRY OUT MY 
ORDERS IN THE SHORT TIME ENVISAGED. 

I fixed April 6 as the day on which the attack was to begin. The main plan of operation was: First, to 
proceed with an army coming from Bulgaria against Thrace in Greece in the direction of the Aegean 
Sea. 

The main striking strength of this army lay in its right wing, which was to force a passage through to 
Salonika by using mountain divisions and a division of tanks; second, to thrust forward with a second 
army with the object of establishing connection as speedily as possible with the Italian forces advancing 
from Albania. These two operations were to begin on April 6. 

Third, a further operation, beginning on the eighth, provided for the break-through of an army from 
Bulgaria with the object of reaching the neighborhood of Belgrade. In conjunction with this, a German 
army corps was to occupy the Banat on the tenth. 

In connection with these operations general agreement had been made with our allies, Italy and 
Hungary. Agreements as to co-operation had also been reached between the two air forces. The 
command of the German Armies operating against Macedonia and Greece was placed in the hands of 
Field Marshal von List, who had already particularly distinguished himself in the previous campaigns. 
Once more and under the most exacting conditions he carried out the task confronting him in truly 
superior fashion. 

The forces advancing against Yugoslavia from the southwest and from Hungary were commanded by 
Col. Gen. von Weick. He, too, in a very short time with the forces under his command reached his 
objective. 

The Army and SS detachments operating under Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, as Commander in Chief, 
and the Chief of the General Staff, Col. Gen. Haider, forced the Greek Army in Thrace to capitulate after 
only five days, established contact with the Italian forces advancing from Albania, occupied Salonika, 
and thus generally prepared the way for the difficult and glorious break-through via Larissa to Athens. 

These operations were crowned by the occupation of the Peloponnesus and numerous Greek islands. A 
detailed appreciation of the achievements will be given by the German High Command. 

The Air Force under the personal command of Reich Marshal Goering was divided into two main 
groups, commanded by Col. Gen. Loehr and General von Richthofen. It was their task, first, to shatter 
the enemy air force and to smash its ground organization; second, to attack every important military 



objective in the conspirators' headquarters at Belgrade, thus eliminating it from the very outset; third, by 
every manner of active co-operation everywhere with the fighting German troops to break the enemy's 
resistance, to impede the enemy's flight, to prevent as far as possible his embarkation. 

The German armed forces have truly surpassed themselves in this campaign. There is only one way of 
characterizing that campaign: 

Nothing is impossible for the German soldier. Historical justice, however, obliges me to say that of the 
opponents that have taken up arms against us, MOST PARTICULARLY THE GREEK SOLDIERS, 
HAVE FOUGHT WITH THE GREATEST BRAVERY AND CONTEMPT OF DEATH. They only 
capitulated when further resistance became impossible and therefore useless. 

But I am now compelled to speak of the enemy who is the main cause of this conflict. As a German and 
as a soldier I consider it unworthy ever to revile a fallen enemy. But it seems to me to be necessary to 
defend the truth from the wild exaggerations of a man who as a soldier is a bad politician and as a 
politician is an equally bad soldier. 

Mr. Churchill, who started this struggle, is endeavoring, as with regard to Norway or Dunkerque, to say 
something that sooner or later might perhaps he twisted around to resemble success. I do not consider 
that honorable but in his case it is understandable. 

The gift Mr. Churchill possesses is the gift to lie with a pious expression on his face and to distort the 
truth until finally glorious victories are made out of the most terrible defeats. 

A British Army of 60,000 to 70,000 men landed in Greece. Before the catastrophe the same man 
maintained, moreover, that it consisted of 240,000 men. The object of this army was to attack Germany 
from the south, inflict a defeat upon her, and from this point as in 1918 turn the tide of the war. 

I prophesied more correctly than Mr. Churchill in my last speech, in which I announced that wherever 
the British might set foot on the Continent they would be attacked by us and driven into the sea. 

Now, with his brazen effrontery, he asserts that this war has cost us 75,000 lives. He causes his 
presumably not overintelligent fellow-countrymen to be informed by one of his paid creatures that the 
British, after having slain enormous masses of Germans, finally turned away from sheer abhorrence of 
the slaughter and, strictly speaking, withdrew for this reason alone. 

I will now present to you the results of this campaign in a few short figures. In the course of the 
operations against Yugoslavia there were the following numbers of purely Serbian prisoners, leaving out 
soldiers of German origin and some other groups, 6,198 officers, 313,864 men. 

The number of Greek prisoners, 8,000 officers and 210,000 men, has not the same significance. The 
number of Englishmen, New Zealanders and Australians taken prisoner exceeds 9,000 officers and men. 

The German share of the booty alone, according to the estimates at present available, amounts to more 
than half a million rifles, far more than 1,000 guns, many thousand machine-guns and anti-aircraft 
machine-guns, vehicles, and large amounts of ammunition .... 

The losses of the German Army and the German Air Force as well as those of the SS troops in this 
campaign are the smallest that we have ever suffered so far. The German armed forces have in fighting 
against Yugoslavia and Greece as well as against the British in Greece lost: 

Army and SS Troops - Fifty-seven officers and 1,042 noncommissioned officers and men killed, 181 



officers and 3,571 noncommissioned officers and men wounded, and 13 officers and 372 
noncommissioned officers and men missing. 

Air Force - Ten officers and 42 noncommissioned officers and men killed and 36 officers and 104 
noncommissioned officers and men missing. 

Once more I can only repeat that we feel the hardship of the sacrifice borne by the families concerned. 
The entire German nation expresses to them its heartfelt gratitude. 

Taking the measures as a whole, however, the losses suffered are so small that they constitute supreme 
justification, first, for the planning and timing of this campaign; second for the conduct of operations; 
third, for the manner in which they were carried through. 

The training of our officers is excellent beyond comparison The high standard of efficiency of our 
soldiers, the superiority of our equipment, the quality of our munitions and the indomitable courage of 
all ranks have combined to lead at such small sacrifice to a success of truly decisive historical 
importance. 

Churchill, one of the most hopeless dabblers in. strategy, thus managed to lose two theaters of war at one 
single blow. The fact that this man, who in any other country would be court-martialed, gained fresh 
admiration as Prime Minister cannot be construed as an expression of magnanimity such as was 
accorded by Roman senators to generals honorably defeated in battle. It is merely proof of that perpetual 
blindness with which the gods afflict those whom they are about to destroy. 

The consequences of this campaign are extraordinary. In view of the fact that a small set of conspirators 
in Belgrade again were able to foment trouble in the service of extracontinental interests, the radical 
elimination of this danger means the removal of an element of tension for the whole of Europe. 

The Danube as an important waterway is thus safeguarded against any further act of sabotage. Traffic 
has been resumed in full. 

Apart from the modest correction of its frontiers, which were infringed as a result of the outcome of the 
World War, the Reich has no special territorial interests in these parts. As far as politics are concerned 
we are merely interested in safeguarding peace in this region, while in the realm of economics we wish 
to see an order that will allow the production of goods to be developed and the exchange of products to 
be resumed in the interests of all. 

It is, however, only in accordance with supreme justice if those interests are also taken into account that 
are founded upon ethnographical, historical, or economic conditions. 

I can assure you that I look into the future with perfect tranquillity and great confidence. The German 
Reich and its allies represent power, military, economic and, above all, in moral respects, which is 
superior to any possible coalition in the world. The German armed forces will always do their part 
whenever it may be necessary. The confidence of the German people will always accompany their 
soldiers.