Adolf Hitler

“ Your comrades of the first hour are seated before you willing to follow your lead loyally as one united whole; to stride forth at your side in the future also, suffused by the single desire to follow you blindly toward the attainment of the greatest of victories: the victory of our great German Volk. You have led us onward to victories unfathomable. You have restored to us a life worth living, a life splendid and magnificent. ”

“ Today’s German Volksstaat knows no social prejudices. Hence, it knows no special social morals. It knows only the laws and necessities of life, as they reveal themselves to man through reason and knowledge.
The unity of the entire German Volkskorper, whose foremost guarantors you are and will continue to be, my Deputies, affords me the certainty that whatever tasks pose themselves to our Volk, the National Socialist State will resolve them sooner or later! Whatever the nature of the difficulties we encounter may be, the valor and the courage of its leadership will master them! ”

“ Today many of them rest in the same graves in which their fathers have rested since the Great War. They bear evidence to silent heroism. They stand as a symbol for all those hundreds of thousands of musketeers, anti-tank gunners and tank gunners, pioneers and artillerymen, soldiers of the Navy and the Luftwaffe, men of the Waffen SS, and all those other fighters who stood for the German Wehrmacht in the struggle for the freedom and future of our Volk and for the eternal greatness of the National Socialist Greater German Reich. ”

“ When I express this to you, my Deputies, I do so under the impression of that year of German history which has taught me, more than my entire previous life, how important and irreplaceable these virtues are and how, in a critical hour, one man of action weighs more than one thousand sophisticated weaklings. As a social phenomenon this new selection of leadership has to be divorced from the numerous prejudices, which I can only term phoney and profoundly nonsensical social morals.
There is no attitude which does not have its ultimate justification in the resulting advantages for the community. ”

“ What it has contributed to the preservation of the culture of man is of astronomic proportions.
Striding through Rome or Florence, who can help being overcome by the contemplation of what fate these unique monuments of human creativity might have met with had it not been for Mussolini and Fascism, which pulled Italy back from the brink of Bolshevist oblivion? Germany, too, faced this danger. Here National Socialism wrought the miracle of rescue. And the belief in a new Renaissance in our day and age clings to these two states in the imagination of countless men of all races. ”

“ The German Volk does not wish to be governed by another people; it does not wish others to determine its affairs in its place. France to the French; England to the English; America to the Americans, and Germany to the Germans! We are determined to undercut the efforts of a certain foreign people to nest here; a people whose members knew how to capture all leading positions. We will banish this people. We are willing to educate our own Volk to assume these leadership functions. We have hundreds of thousands of the most intelligent children of peasants and workers. ”

“ We are all faithful to our old principle. It is quite unimportant whether we ourselves live, but it is essential that our people shall live, that Germany shall live. The sacrifice that is demanded of us is not greater than the sacrifice that many generations have made. If we form a community closely bound together by vows, ready for anything, resolved never to surrender, then our will will master every hardship and difficulty. And I would like to close with the declaration that I once made when I began the struggle for power in the Reich. ”

“ When certain newspapers and politicians in the outside world insist that Germany is threatening other peoples by military extortion, it is on the grounds of a grossly distorted rendition of the facts. Germany has merely realized the right to self-determination of ten million German Volksgenossen in this area in which neither the English nor other Western nations have any business meddling. The Reich does not pose a threat to anyone, it has merely defended itself against the attempts at intervention by third parties. ”

“ To us it is an honor never to have partaken in the sympathy and support extended by a foreign government. Evidently, such support is lent exclusively to those who aim to destroy the German Reich. Hence, in our eyes, the display of such support would indicate the necessity to step up measures previously taken in any such case.
In view of the dangers enveloping us today, I regard it as most fortunate to have found states within Europe and beyond Europe which, like the German Volk, have had to struggle hard to preserve their existence: Italy and Japan. ”

“ We have no right to presume that, should Germany suffer yet another attack of weakness, its destiny would take on a different appearance. To the contrary: they are in part the very same men who once kindled the fire to scorch the entire world who today strive to prepare the grounds for another, renewed struggle as the paid henchmen at the service of those promoting hatred among peoples, to augment existing animosities. ”

“ Field Marshal Goring as creator of the German Luftwaffe, and as an individual man, has made the greatest contribution to the rebuilding of the German Wehrmacht. As the leader of the German Luftwaffe he has, in the course of the war up to date, created the prerequisites for victory. His merits are unequaled! I name him Reichsmarschall of the Greater German Reich and award him the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross. ”

“ And in this context, I can only hold out to these critical gentlemen in the West and in the democracies beyond Europe one simple fact and one simple question: The German Volk survives with 135 inhabitants per square kilometer without any exterior assistance and without access to its earlier savings. The rest of the world has looted Germany throughout the past one-and-a-half decades, has burdened it with enormous debt payments. Without any colonies, its people are nonetheless fed and clothed and, moreover, Germany boasts no unemployment. ”

“ For rarely has this world been governed with a greater deficit of cleverness, morality, and culture than in that part of it which is presently at the mercy of the fury of certain democratic statesmen.
The National Socialist Movement has, besides its delivery from the Jewishcapitalist shackles imposed by a plutocratic-democratic, dwindling class of exploiters at home, pronounced its resolve to free the Reich from the shackles of the Diktat of Versailles abroad. The German demands for a revision were an absolute necessity, a matter of course for the existence and the honor of any great people. ”

“ Today I have named the men who, before history, enabled me to accomplish this great task. They have done their best, dedicating their talents and their industry to the German Volk.
I now wish to conclude in mentioning all those nameless men who have no less done their duty. Millions of them have risked life and liberty and, as brave German officers and soldiers, have been ready at every hour to make the last sacrifice a man can make. ”

“ In any event, I believe that all the world’s states face so many urgent problems at home these days that their peoples would undoubtedly be glad if the statesmen responsible accorded greater attention to domestic issues in their own countries. As concerns Germany, my own experiences have taught me that the tasks to be mastered are so great that they are almost beyond a single man’s capacity for insight and concerted action. ”

“ In the Occident, Italy and Germany today constitute the most ancient peoples, Italians as the descendants of Ancient Rome and Germans as the descendants of the Germanic tribes, and hence we have been in touch with one another the longest. Already on the occasion of my speech in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome during my visit to Italy, I underlined the tragic nature of the centuries-long and fruitless confrontation between this most mighty of cultured peoples of the Ancient world and the young German Volk, which belonged to a new world coming into being. ”

“ Churchill himself since by then he will surely be secure in Canada, where the money and the children of the most distinguished of war profiteers have already been brought. But there will be great tragedy for millions of other men. And Mr. Churchill should make an exception and place trust in me when as a prophet I now proclaim: A great world empire will be destroyed. A world empire which I never had the ambition to destroy or as much as harm. ”

“ Hence, we have before us today a form of representation of the German Volk which can claim to be a truly constituent body.
The German Volk of earlier decades, politically and socially disorganized, squandered large part of its inherent strength in an inner struggle as fruitless as it was senseless. The so-called democratic freedom to live to the full according to one’s persuasions and instincts leads not to an evolutionary advancement nor to a freeing of exceptional forces or values. ”

“ For when was there ever a stronger opposition movement in Germany than the National Socialist one? Never were political adversaries suppressed by like base means, persecuted, and hunted as those of the National Socialist Party. ”

“ And then, of course, victory would come about of its own accord, so to speak. It would then be within grasp; one need only reach out for it. And, naturally, so they said, I was very well aware of all this myself, and indeed had known it for a long time, and it was only because of this that I had laid before the world my appeal for peace. For, if I were in a position to believe in victory, I would not have approached England and France with an understanding without any conditions attached. ”

“ I now hold it to be the duty, my Reichstag Deputies, of every German man and every German woman to comprehend the conduct of the Reich’s economic policy. In the cities and in the countryside you have to consider in particular that Germany’s economic policy is not based on some sort of financial theory, but rather on a very primitive understanding of production, on the realization that the sole determining factor is the quantity of goods produced. ”

“ Poland’s most outstanding marshal and patriot rendered his people as great a service as the National Socialist State’s leadership rendered the German Volk.
And, in the course of the tense months last year, German-Polish friendship became a reassuring factor in the otherwise troubled political life in Europe.
Our relations with Hungary are based on a long-standing, well-tried friendship and shared interests. Each people has traditionally avowed its high regard for the other. Germany rejoiced in participating in the restitution for a misfortune inflicted on Hungary. ”

“ On September 1 of the year now past, I already explained to you that, come what may, neither the force of weapons nor time shall force Germany to the ground. The Reich today stands stronger militarily than ever before.
You have seen the losses, individually surely heavy, though as a total relatively low, which the German Wehrmacht has suffered in battle within the past three months. When you consider that, within this time, we erected a front which reaches from the North Cape to the Spanish border, then our losses are extraordinarily low, especially when compared with those of the World War. ”

“ Now it is easy to imagine that, without such ignorant men, a Volk may well be capable of the greatest actions and deeds. However, it is impossible to imagine a nation, much less to lead it, which has at its core a multitude of such ignorant men instead of a mass of full-blooded, idealistic, believing, and positive men. ”

“ At this moment, the Jews are still propagating their campaign of hatred in certain states under the cover of press, film, radio, theater, and literature, which are all in their hands. Should indeed this one Volk attain its goal of prodding masses of millions from other peoples to enter into a war devoid of all sense for them, and serving the interests of the Jews exclusively, then the effectiveness of an enlightenment will once more display its might. Within Germany, this enlightenment conquered Jewry utterly in the span of a few years. ”

“ Only a hysterical, mean-spirited press, as obstinate as it is tactless, can so quickly repress memories of the embarrassment it suffered through its false prophecies of Italy’s Abyssinian campaign. And its present assessment of the Nationalist forces under General Franco affords it a similar embarrassment once over.
Men make history! They forge the tools to mold history and, above all, they lend them their spirit. ”

“ For Europe cannot find peace before it has dealt properly with the Jewish question.
It is possible that the necessity of resolving this problem sooner or later should bring about agreement in Europe, even between nations which otherwise might not have reconciled themselves as readily with one another. There is more than enough room for settlement on this earth. All we need to do is put an end to the prevailing assumption that the Dear Lord chose the Jewish people to be the beneficiaries of a certain percentage of the productive capacities of other peoples’ bodies and their labors. ”

“ According to the understanding of these gentlemen, they apparently have the unchallenged right to attack other peoples and their leadership, but no one in turn has the right to defend himself against these attacks. I need not assure you that, as long as the German Reich shall exist as a sovereign state, its leadership will not allow one or another English or American politician to forbid it to reply in kind to such attacks. In the future, the weapons we forged shall insure that we remain such a sovereign state, as shall a great number of our friends. ”

“ How many hundreds of thousands, bending under the yoke of misery and worry, were forced to join that never-ending stream of German emigrants surging forth into the world, for decades cherishing the memory of the unfortunate homeland, after generations forgetting her. ”

“ Great men are no more than the strongest, most concentrated representation of a Volk. National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy are sufficiently strong to secure peace in the face of any infringement and stand determined to bring to a successful close this conflict which irresponsible forces have far too thoughtlessly embarked on. ”

“ should the international Jewry of finance succeed, both within and beyond Europe, in plunging mankind into yet another world war, then the result will not be a Bolshevization of the earth and the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. ”