Adolf Hitler

“ Three hundred years earlier England had gradually built her Empire, not perhaps through the free will or the unanimous demonstrations of those affected, but for 300 years this World Empire was welded together solely by force. War followed war. One nation after another was robbed of its freedom-one state after another was shattered so that the structure which calls itself the British Empire might arise. Democracy was nothing but a mask covering subjugation and the oppression of nations and individuals. ”

“ They can rest assured, the German people will do everything necessary for its interest. It will follow its leadership. It knows that its leadership has no other goal. It knows that today the man at the head of the Reich is not one with a packet of shares in his pocket and with ulterior motives. This German people, I know it and I am proud of it, is pledged to me and will go with me through thick and thin. An ancient spirit has come to life again in this people-a spirit which was with us once before, a fanatic readiness to accept any burden. ”

“ The generation of today-it is the bearer of Germany's destiny; of Germany's future or Germany's fall. Our enemies, they already cry out today: Germany shall fall! Yet Germany can give but one answer: Germany will live, and hence Germany will win! At the beginning of the eighth year of the National Socialist revolution, our hearts turn to our German Volk and its future. ”

“ Not only have I found comrades in arms, but also countless people in the course of these years, who have now helped us, women and men, who have given all, for whom the Party, in particular, was everything. The other wretched bourgeois, especially, cannot understand that. Only those can understand who belong to National Socialism, for whom the movement means everything, so that they have thought of their movement the whole day, so that they have risked all, and have offered every sacrifice. ”

“ Those people have no conception of the German nation, of the National-Socialist State, of our community, the army of our marching masses, of our people. Those people have no conception of our propaganda. ”

“ They are not only the same causes, but, above all, they are the same individuals. And I can proudly say that the only exceptions are the very nations which today are embodied as allies by the German Reich, by Italy, by Japan, and so on. For certainly no one can deny that Churchill even in 1914 was one of the most rabid (literally: mean) war-mongers of his time; that Roosevelt was then the disciple of President Wilson; that the capitalistic countries then also had thrown the weight of their alliance into the scales on the side of war. ”

“ Time and time again, trusting in the necessity of our struggle, it leapt up once more to face the enemy and to carry the victory in the end.
This is the task of the German nation today. Eighty million men are stepping up to the line now. As many enemies are standing across from them.
These, our eighty million today, enjoy an excellent internal organization-the best possible in fact. They have a strong faith. Their leadership is not bad.
Rather, as I am convinced, it is the best.
Fuhrer and Volk today realize that no understanding is possible if we do not insist upon our rights. ”

“ Considering how pious and religious are the outward gestures of men who deliberately, and with a cold heart, drive nation after nation into a struggle serving only their material interests, one is compelled to state that rarely has human hypocrisy reached such a pitch as that of the English today. At any rate, at the end of the blood-stained path of British history over three centuries stands the fact that 46,000,000 Englishmen in the mother country are ruling about a quarter of the globe. ”

“ Now we are being credited with many a truly astounding war aim, especially by the English. After all, England is quite experienced in issuing proclamations of objectives in warfare as it has waged the greatest number of wars the world over.
Truly astounding are the war aims announced to us today. A new Europe will arise. This Europe will be characterized by justice. This justice will render armament obsolete. This will lead to disarmament at last. This disarmament in turn will bring about an economic blossoming. Change and trade will spring up-much trade-free trade. ”

“ In a few months the German people sank into a state of unimaginably deep despair and despondency-starving people without hope any longer. A people that did not get its war-prisoners back, even after the armistice and peace-treaty had been signed! A people that was not given food, even after it was defenseless! A people that was now repeatedly coerced,-if one carefully studies those times-from whom re-subjection was again and again demanded, extorted by some new repression. ”

“ Not a single pledge has been fulfilled. Never before has a great nation been deceived as the German nation was then deceived. It had received so many assurances, this credulous nation had been promised so much, and what did they do to our nation? It was plundered, it was exploited. A foreign statesman, an American, was employed to make the German people even more credulous. Perhaps this was really the reason why the German people were duped by this manoeuvre. ”

“ The fact that in the years 1918 to 1921 the simple belief of the broad masses slowly came to us, was the beginning of our Movement. That made the little man from the factories and the mines, from the farms, from the offices, believe in his future, in the future of this idea and this Movement, and in the victory which was yet to come. At that time our point of view was that if the German nation were not to repair its prestige in the world, that is to say, did not again become a powerful factor, Germany would shortly have 20,000,000 people less. ”

“ And thus today we have 140 men living on one square kilometer. And when such numbers unite, they have power. When they are divided, they are defenseless and impotent. There is a moral imperative lying within their unity also. What does it matter when thirty, fifty or 200 small states rise to protest or to claim their vital rights? Who takes note? When eighty million men rise up-that is a completely different story! Hence the disinclination against the state-forming activities in Italy, the unity of Germany. ”

“ The British World Empire has left behind an icy stream of blood and tears in the path of its creation. It rules today, undoubtedly, a tremendous section of the globe. But this world government is affected not by the power of an idea, but essentially by force, and where force does not suffice, by the power of capitalist or economic interests. ”

“ We were called upon to take over the leadership of the nation at a moment when it did not seem to develop towards a great rise. We were given power in circumstances of the greatest conceivable pressure, the pressure of the knowledge that, by itself, everything was lost, and that, in the eyes of the noblest minds, this represented a last attempt, while in the eyes of evil-wishers it should condemn the National-Socialist Movement to final failure. Unless the German nation could be saved, by a miracle, the situation was bound to end in disaster. ”

“ The country which is a paradise for a few, is nothing but continuous misery for many, that is, for the masses. Misery in nourishment, misery in clothing, misery particularly in housing; misery in security of income, and in the entire social legislation. And if all of a sudden a British Labour Secretary, who, incidentally, as a member of the Opposition, is paid by the State, appears and says: "After this war, after victory, England will have to tackle social problems; we will have to care for the wide masses," I can only reply, "We have done this long ago." ”

“ Wherever we can meet England we will meet her. However, if they regard the present setbacks of our partner as evidence of their victory, then I really cannot understand Englishmen. Whenever they have setbacks of their own they regard them as big victories. The gentlemen over there may be convinced our calculation is quite accurate, and the reckoning will be made after the war, foot by foot, square kilometre by square kilometre. Another thing these people must understand, the Duce and myself are not Jews nor out for bargains. If we shake hands, that is the handshake of men of honour. ”

“ I do not want to miss pointing out what I pointed out on 3rd of September [1940] in the German Reichstag, that if Jewry were to plunge the world into war, the role of Jewry would be finished in Europe. They may laugh about it today, as they laughed before about my prophecies. The coming months and years will prove that I prophesied rightly in this case too. But we can see already how our racial peoples which are today still hostile to us will one day recognise the greater inner enemy, and that they too will then enter with us into a great common front. ”

“ But still it would have been wonderful if England had led the way to the rest of the world in its abhorrence of war in this manner, that it would have liberated the fruits of its own wars, that is, that it would have placed them again at the disposition of the rest of the world. If England had done that, if it had therefore declared: "We abhor war. Therefore, we will immediately return South Africa; because we won it through war. We hate war. Therefore, we will return the East Indies; we also won those in a war. For instance, we hate war. ”

“ And the hopes they entertain to drive a wedge between Volk and Party, or Party and State, or Party and Wehrmacht, or Party and me, are childishly naive.
Fifteen years ago my adversaries clung to exactly the same hopes.
As a National Socialist, I have known nothing other than work, struggle, worries, labors. I believe Providence has destined our generation for nothing else. Once, twenty-five years ago, the German Volk set out to fight a war forced upon it. The Volk was not well armed. France applied the power of its people in a fashion quite different from the Germany of the time. ”

“ That the German nation has no quarrel with the Americans is evident to everybody who does not consciously wish to falsify truth. At no time has Germany had interests on the American Continent except perhaps that she helped that Continent in its struggle for liberty. If States on this continent now attempt to interfere in the European conflict, then the aim will only be changed more quickly. Europe will then defend herself. And do not let people deceive themselves. ”

“ The German nation had hoped to gain, in turn, the goodwill of others but it met only the naked egotism of the cruelest and meanest vested interests, which began to loot everything there was to loot. One should not have expected anything else. But now the die was cast. One thing seemed obvious to me: any rise could not originate from outside. First, the German nation had to learn to understand its own political struggle, which enabled it to rally Germany's entire strength above all its idealistic strength. ”

“ But it was perhaps destiny willed by nature or by God, that they laughed at us, mocked us, and that a certain type of propaganda only ridiculed us and regarded us as a joke. Thus we succeeded, gradually, in forming the first germ, and the first nucleus of a new national community-an almost incredible historical phenomenon started by unknown people and willing followers among the masses of the people itself.
There is only one other State in which this process may be regarded as having come to a successful conclusion: Italy; nowhere else in Europe. ”

“ And today Germany is the greatest world power.,, It is not as though age as such results in wisdom. No more are the blind restored to sight by old age. Whoever was afflicted with blindness before remains so today. Whoever is afflicted with blindness will be cursed by the gods.
Today the German Wehrmacht, the best of its kind, is fencing off these forces. Above all, the German Volk is fencing off these forces with its insight and its discipline. For seven years, National Socialist work has educated it in all areas. That this is not just a fantasy is something you can see today. ”

“ They do not perceive that the German workingman has worked more than ever before; why should he not then recover? Is it not above all a joke when that man from the White House says: "We have a World Program and this World Program will give mankind freedom and the right to labor." Mr. Roosevelt, open your eyes, we have had that in Germany for a long time already. Or when he says that care will be taken of illness. Go and look at the battle-cry of our party program that is National Socialistic, not its doctrine, my dear sir, those are high ideas like those of a Democrat. ”

“ To make this disarmament more evident, it was to be crowned by the establishment of an association of nations bearing no arms.
These were to settle their differences in the future-for even back then there was no doubt that differences would still arise-by talking them to death in discussion and debate, just as is the custom in democratic states. There would be no more shooting under any circumstances! In 1918, they declared a blessed and pious age to come! What came to pass in its stead we all lived to see: the old states were destroyed without even as much as asking their citizenry. ”

“ I wish to draw attention not to my own person and my surroundings, but rather to the past and to the future. I wish to stand up in honor before the past and the future, and with me the German Volk shall honorably hold its own. ”