GERMAN COMPATRIOTS! NATIONAL SOCIALISTS!
Twelve years ago, when, as the leader of the strongest party, I was
entrusted by the deceased Reich President, [Field Marshal Paul] von
Hindenburg, with the office of Chancellor, Germany found herself faced
with the same situation internally as the one that today faces it
externally. The forces of economic destruction and annihilation of
the Versailles dictate led to a situation that had gradually become
a permanent one-namely, the existence of almost 7,000,000 unemployed,
7,000,000 part-time workers, a destroyed farmers' class, a ruined
industry and a commerce that had become correspondingly prostrate.
The German ports were nothing but ship cemeteries. The financial
situation of the country threatened at any moment to lead to a collapse
not only of the state but also of the provinces and of the communities.
The decisive thing, however, was this: Behind this methodical destruction
of Germany's economy, there stood the specter of Asiatic bolshevism.
It was there then, just as much as it is there today.
In the years before our assumption of power the bourgeois world was
incapable of opposing this development effectively on a small scale,
just as it is incapable of doing so today on a large scale. Even after
the collapse of 1918 this bourgeois world had failed to realize that
an old world was vanishing and a new one being born and that there
is no use in supporting and thus artificially maintaining what has
been found to be decayed and rotten, but that something healthy must
be substituted for it. A social structure that had become obsolete
had cracked and every attempt to maintain it was bound to fail.
It was no different from today on a large scale, when the bourgeois
states are doomed and when only clearly defined and ideologically
consolidated national communities can survive the most difficult crisis
Europe has seen in many centuries.
We were granted only six years of peace after Jan. 30, 1933. During
these six years tremendous feats were achieved, and even greater ones
were planned, so many and such huge ones that they caused envy among
our democratic, impotent neighbors.
But this was decisive: That we succeeded during these six years,
with superhuman exertions, to restore the German nation militarily-that
is, to imbue it with the spirit of resistance and self-assertion rather
than to equip it with a material war potential.
The horrid fate that is now taking shape in the east and that exterminates
hundreds of thousands in the villages and market places, in the country
and in the cities will be warded off in the end and mastered by us,
with the utmost exertion and despite all setbacks and hard trials.
But if this is possible at all, it is only because a change has taken
place in the German people since 1933. If Germany today were the Germany
envisaged by the Versailles Treaty, Europe would long since have been
swept away by the hurricane from Central Asia. It is hardly necessary
to argue with those eternal blockheads who maintain that an unarmed
Germany would, owing to its impotence, not have become the victim
of this Jewish international world plot. Such reasoning would amount
to a reversal of all laws of nature.
When was a helpless goose ever not eaten by the fox because she was
constitutionally incapable of harboring aggressive designs? And when
has a wolf ever reformed and become a pacifist because sheep do not
wear armor? If there are still bourgeois states who earnestly believe
this, that only proves how necessary it was to do away with an era
that by its educational system managed to cultivate and maintain such
notions, nay, even granted them political influence.
The fight against this Jewish Asiatic bolshevism had been raging
long before National Socialism came into power. The only reason why
it had not already overrun Europe during the years 1919-20 was that
it was then itself too weak and too poorly armed.
Its attempt to eliminate Poland was not abandoned because of its
compassion for the Poland of that time but only because of the lost
battle before Warsaw. Its intention to annihilate Hungary was not
discarded because they changed their minds, but because Bolshevist
power could not be maintained militarily. Nor was the attempt to smash
Germany given up because this achievement was not desired but because
it proved impossible to overcome the natural resistance stamina of
our people.
Thereupon Judaism began systematically to undermine our nation from
within, and it found its best ally in those narrow-minded bourgeoisie
who would not recognize that the era of a bourgeois world is ended
and will never again return, that the epoch of unbridled economic
liberalism has outlived itself and can only lead to its self-destruction
and, above all, that the great tasks of our time can be mastered only
under an authoritarian coordination of natural strength, based on
the law of same rights for all and, thence, of same duties. On the
other hand, the fulfillment of the same duties must necessarily entail
an equality of rights.
Thus National Socialism, in the midst of gigantic economic, social
and cultural reconstruction work, has also educationally given to
the German people that armor without which no military values can
be created.
The power of resistance of our nation has increased so tremendously
since Jan. 30, 1933, that it cannot be compared any more with that
of former times But the maintaining of this inner power of resistance
is by the same token the safest guarantor of final victory. If Europe
today finds itself stricken with a severe illness, the stricken countries
will either overcome this illness by exerting their full and utmost
power of resistance or they will succumb.
Yet the convalescent and survivor overcomes the climax of such an
illness only in a crisis, a crisis that utterly weakens him, but in
spite of all, it is all the more our immutable will not to shrink
from anything in this battle for the salvation of our people from
the most dreadful fate of all times and unflinchingly and faithfully
to obey the law of the preservation of our nation.
God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence
we are defending His work. The fact that this defense is fraught with
incalculable misery, suffering and hardships makes us even more attached
to this nation But it also gives us that hard will needed to fulfill
our duty even in the most critical struggle; that is, not only to
fulfill our duty toward the decent, noble Germans, but also our duty
toward those few infamous ones who turn their backs on their people.
In this fateful battle there is therefore for us but one command:
He who fights honorably can thus save his own life and the lives of
his loved ones. But he who, because of cowardice or lack of character,
turns his back on the nation shall inexorably die an ignominious death.
That National Socialism succeeded in awakening and strengthening
this spirit in our German people is a great achievement. Only when
this mighty world drama will have died away and the bells of peace
are ringing will realization come of what the German people owes to
this spiritual renaissance: No less than its existence in this world.
Only a few months and weeks ago Allied statesmen openly outlined
the German fate. Thereupon they were warned by some newspapers to
be more intelligent and rather to promise something, even though nobody
intended to keep this promise later.
As an inexorable National Socialist and a fighter for my people,
I now wish to assure these statesmen once and for all that every attempt
at influencing National Socialist Germany through slogans, lies and
distortions presupposes a simple-mindedness unknown to the Germany
of today. The fact that political activities and lies are inextricably
linked in a democracy is of no consequence. Decisive is that every
promise given by these statesmen to a people is today quite meaningless,
because they are not in a position ever to fulfill any such promise.
This is as if one sheep promised another sheep to protect it against
a tiger.
I herewith repeat my prophecy: England will not only not be in a
position to control bolshevism but her development will unavoidably
evolve more and more toward the symptoms of this destructive disease.
The democracies are unable to rid themselves now of the forces they
summoned from the steppes of Asia.
All the small European nations ,who capitulated, confident of Allied
assurances, are facing complete annihilation. It is entirely uninteresting
whether this fate will befall them a little earlier or later; what
counts is its implacability. The Kremlin Jews are motivated only by
tactical considerations; whether in one case they act with immediate
brutality or, in another case, with some reticence, the result will
always be the same.
Germany, however, shall never suffer this fate. The guarantor thereof
is the victory achieved twelve years ago within our country. Whatever
our enemies may plot, whatever sufferings they may inflict on our
German cities, on German landscapes and, above all, on our people,
all that cannot bear any comparison with the irreparable misery, the
tragedy that would befall us if the plutocratic-Bolshevistic conspiracy
were victorious.
Therefore, it is all the more necessary on this twelfth anniversary
of the rise to power to strengthen the heart more than ever before
and to steel ourselves in the holy determination to wield the sword,
no-matter where and under what circumstances, until final victory
crowns our efforts.
On this day I do not want to leave any doubt about something else.
Against an entire hostile world I once chose my road, according to
my inner call, and strode it, as an unknown and nameless man, to final
success; often they reported I was dead and always they wished I were,
but in the end I remained victor in spite of all. My life today is
with an equal exclusiveness determined by the duties incumbent on
me.
Combined, they are but one: To work for my people and to fight for
it. Only He can relieve me of this duty Who called me to it. It was
in the hand of Providence to snuff me out by the bomb that exploded
only one and a half meters from me on July 20, and thus to terminate
my life's work. That the Almighty protected me on that day I consider
a renewed affirmation of the task entrusted to me.
In the years to come I shall continue on this road, uncompromisingly
safeguarding my people's interests, oblivious to all misery and danger,
and filled with the holy conviction that God the Almighty will not
abandon him who, during all his life, had no desire but to save his
people from a fate it had never deserved, neither by virtue of its
number nor by way of its importance.
Therefore I now appeal to the entire German people and, above all,
to my old fellow-fighters and to all the soldiers to gird themselves
with a yet greater, harder spirit of resistance, until we can again-as
we did before-put on the graves of the dead of this enormous struggle
a wreath inscribed with the words: "And yet you were victorious."
Therefore I expect every German to do his duty to the last and that
he be willing to take upon himself every sacrifice he will be asked
to make; I expect every able-bodied German to fight with the complete
disregard for his personal safety; I expect the sick and the weak
or those otherwise unavailable for military duty to work with their
last strength; I expect city dwellers to forge the weapons for this
struggle and I expect the farmer to supply the bread for the soldiers
and workers of this struggle by imposing restrictions upon himself;
I expect all women and girls to continue supporting this struggle
with utmost fanaticism.
In this appeal I particularly address myself to German youth. In
vowing ourselves to one another, we are entitled to stand before the
Almighty and ask Him for His grace and His blessing. No people can
do more than that everybody who can fight, fights, and that everybody
who can work, works, and that they all sacrifice in common, filled
with but one thought: to safeguard freedom and national honor and
thus the future of life.
However grave the crisis may be at the moment, it will, despite everything,
finally be mastered by our unalterable will, by our readiness for
sacrifice and by our abilities. We shall overcome this calamity, too,
and this fight, too, will not be won by central Asia but by Europe;
and at its head will be the nation that has represented Europe against
the East for 1,500 years and shall represent it for all times: our
Greater German Reich, the German nation.