The 






New Germany 

desires 





Work and Peace 



















I I ic N<*.w Germany desires Work and Peace 


Speeches by 

I!rich Chancellor Adolf Hitler 

the Leader of the New Germany 


With an Introduction 

by 

Dr. Joseph Goebbels 


Printed and published by Liebheit & Thiesen, Berlin 

Printed in Germany 






















INTRODUCTION 


The New Germany desires Work and Peace 

The above is the title given to this collection of the speeches 
which the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, has delivered since 
his entry into office on the 30 th January 1933. That this Germany 
wishes for work needs no further demonstration. Nearly five uullion 
men and women are struggling to regain the positions they have lost 
in factories and offices. Unemployment, that terrible disease of our 
times, keeps them idle. The governments of the past, who, along 
with their system, have been superseded by National Socalism, were 
embarrassed and inactive when faced by this pressing problem. The 
Hitler Government have made their plans and declared war on 
unemployment. It is not with outside aid that they intend to overcome 
the evil; they are not going to the other nations of the world, as their 
predecessors did, to beg humbly for protection and assistance. They 
know that crises and despair are prevalent in every country, and for 
this reason they have determined to master the evil in their own way 
and on their own initiative. The return of two million men and 
women to work bears witness to the fact that Hitler’s attempt to 
solve the problem of unemployment has not been without success. 

But just as this New Germany desires work, it also desires peace. 
It has announced to the whole world, through the mouth of the 
Chancellor himself, speaking in the Reichstag, that it has no 
aggressive intentions whatever, that it does not wish to provoke 
anyone nor to stir up unrest. It wishes to pursue its work in peace 




















and in a spirit of deep moral conviction, in order to make sure of its 
daily bread. It stands unarmed before the world, and has no other 
means of proving the genuineness of its intentions but its industry 
and assiduity. It is firmly convinced that the world cannot regard 
its claims with indifference. 

When this Germany announces that it will not sign any treaties 
that cannot be observed, it only does so because it intends to observe 
faithfully all treaties that have once been signed. It is an orderly 
and disciplined Germany in which authority rules that has been 
awakened by Adolf Hitler and his movement, and is endeavouring to 
gain the confidence and understanding of the world. 

The world is still suspicious; with the exception of a few men 
who have had the courage to look the facts in the face, the world 
has no understanding whatever, or at best a very poor one, for the 
meaning of the events that have taken place in Germany. Then only 
will it ready appreciate the overwhelming importance of the internal 
revolution in Germany when Europe’s need has become so great that 
people everywhere begin to realize that, without mutual understanding 
and respect between nations, peace cannot flourish and that the 
scourge of unemployment will continue to afflict the nations of the 
world. 

The speeches delivered by Adolf Hitler since the 30 th January 
1933 are eloquent proofs of Germany’s desire for work and peace. 
May the world learn at least one thing from them, namely, that the 
German nation once more deserves to be respected by the other 
nations in the same way as it can now once more respect itself. 


Dr. Joseph Goebbels 


CONTENTS 

Proclamation by the Government of the Reich to the German 

People on 1 February 1933 .. 5 

Speech by President von Hindenburg on the occasion of the 

Opening of the Reichstag on 21 March 1933 . 10 

Speeches delivered by Chancellor Adolf Hitler 

1. on the occasion of the Opening of the Reichstag 

on 21 March 1933 . . . .. 11 

2. in the Reichstag on 23 March 1933 . 15 

3. to the representatives of German Agriculture 

on 5 April 1933 . 27 

4. on the Day of National Labour, 1 May 1933 . . . . 31 

5. at the Congress of the German Labour Front on 

10 May 1933 . 38 

6. in the Reichstag on 17 May 1933 . 53 

7. to the Reich Commissioners on 6 July 1933 . 65 















Proclamation by the Government to the 

German Nation. 

Berlin, 1 February 1933 * 

More than fourteen years have gone by since that unhappy day 
on which the German nation, deceived by promises from without and 
from within, forgot the glories of its past, forgot its honour and its 
freedom and thereby lost everything. Since that day of betrayal the 
Almighty has turned His countenance away from us.. Strife and 
hatred have been the order of the day. Millions of the finest German 
men and women in all stations of life have had to behold with 
heavy hearts the unity of the nation breaking up and disappearing 
in a welter of egoistic political theories, selfish business interests and 
conflicting social doctrines. 

Since that day of revolution, Germany has presented, as so often 
before in our history, a heartbreaking picture of disunity. We have 
not received the promised equality and fraternity, and we have lost 
our liberty. The collapse of the spiritual unity at home was followed 
by the loss to our people of their political standing in the world. 

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 its 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 own 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 
appalling! Millions of our proletariate are without work and without 


* Authorised translation of the official text. 






































6 















I 




means of existence, and the entire middle class is rapidly becoming 
impoverished. If the German peasantry is to go under too, we shall 
be faced by a catastrophe beyond all conception, for this will not 
only mean the collapse of a single nation but of a cultural inheritance 
of the highest importance which has stood for two thousand years. 

Symptoms of approaching collapse are all around us. 
Communism, with its method of madness, is making a powerful and 
insidious attack upon our discouraged and shattered nation. It 
wishes to poison the minds of the people, and to drive them into a 
period which will fall far shorter of its promises than the period 
through which we have just passed falls short of the promises of the 
very same apostles of November 1918. 

This negative, destroying spirit has 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 honour. 
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 this hour of overwhelming anxiety as to the future of the 
German nation, the aged leader of our armies in the War summoned 
us men of the national parties and organisations to fight at home 
under him once more, as of old at the front, in unity and loyalty, to 
save the Reich. Our venerable President has joined our hands 
together in this spirit and for this purpose, and we are determined, as 
leaders of the nation, to fulfil, as a national Government, the task 
which has been allotted to us, swearing fidelity only to God, our 
conscience and the nation. 

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 their first and 
foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and 
cooperation. They will preserve and defend those basic principles 
on which our nation has been built up. They regard Christianity as 
the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis 
of national life . They are determined, without regard for class and 
social status, to restore the nation to a consciousness of its political 




Mil! 



•» »• 


7 


and national unity and of the duties consequent upon this realisation. 
They intend to make respect for our glorious past and pride in our 
ancient traditions the ground principles for the education of German 
youth. In this way they will wage a pitiless warfare upon spiritual, 
political and cultural Nihilism. Germany must not, Germany shall 
not go under in the chaos of Communism. 

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 especial care of the Government. 

The National Government intends to solve the problem of the 
reorganisation 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 
unshakeable 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 reorganising business life a reorganisation of the administration 
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 realised. 

Compulsory labour service and the << back-to-the-land ,, policy 
are two of the basic principles of this programme. 

The securing of the necessities of life will include the perform¬ 
ance 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 see the best guarantee for the avoidance 
of any experiments which would endanger the currency. 


































8 


As regards their foreign policy, the National Government consider 
their highest mission to be the securing of the right to live and the 
restoration of freedom to our nation. Their 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. They are impressed 
with the importance of their 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 fulfilment 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 again 
increase our own. 

If, however, Germany is to experience this political and economic 
revival and conscientiously fulfil her duties towards the other nations, 
one decisive step is absolutely necessary first: the 

overcoming of the destroying menace of Communism in Germany. 

We of this new Government feel ourselves responsible to posterity 
for the reorganisation of an ordered national State, and, at the same 
time, for the overcoming of class mania and class warfare. We are 
not concerned with only a part of the nation but with the entire 
German people, with the millions of peasants, working men and 
members of all classes who will either vanquish together the 
difficulties of this time or together succumb to them. 

With our minds made up and true to our oath, we wish, in the 
face of the inability of the former Reichstag to support this work, 
to set the German nation itself the task which lies before us. 

The President, Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, has summoned 
us with the command to give to the nation by our united front the 
possibility of a recovery. 

We now therefore call upon the German people to set its 
signature to this act of reconciliation. 

The Government of the national renaissance wishes to work and 
will work. 

It was not this Government which in the course of fourteen 
years brought the German nation to ruin. What this Government 
intends to do is to restore the nation to its former eminence. 

They are determined to make good in four years the evil done 
in fourteen. 

They cannot, however, subject the work of restoration to the 
approval of those who are responsible for the collapse. 



9 


The parties of Marxism and their followers have had fourteen 
years to show what they can do. 

The result is a heap of ruins. 

We now appeal to the German nation to give us four years' time 
and then to pass judgement. 

Obedient to the command of the Field-Marshal, we are ready to 
begin. 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! 

The Government of the Reich. 

Adolf Hitler, von Papen, Freiherr von Neurath, Dr. Frick, Graf 
Schwerin von Krosigk, Dr. Hugenberg, Seldte, Dr. Gurtner, 
von Blomberg, Eltz von Riibenach, Goring. 





































10 


President von Hindenburg 

in Potsdam on 21 March 1933 
on the Occasion of the Opening of the Reichstag of the 

National Renaissance 1 


By my decree of the 1 st February of this year I dissolved the 
Reichstag in order that the German people might have an opportunity 
to record its decision concerning the national coalition government 
formed by me. In the elections of the 5 th March our people have 
placed themselves with a clear majority behind the government which 
I have summoned by reason of my confidence in them and have thus 
given them a constitutional mandate to commence their work. 

Many and arduous are the tasks which you, Herr Reichskanzler, 
and you, gentlemen, Members of the Cabinet, have before you. Both 
in home and foreign politics, in our own household as in the world, 
there are difficult problems to solve and important decisions to be 
made. I am convinced that Chancellor and Government will attack 
these problems with firm determination, and I trust that you, the 
members of the newly formed Reichstag, will take your stand behind 
the Government in a full appreciation of the state of affairs and the 
measures which are necessary, and that you for your part will do all 
in your power to support the work of the Government. 

The place 2 in which we are assembled today summons up 
memories of the Prussia of former days which became great in the 
fear of God by devotion to duty, unfailing courage and selfless 
patriotism, which principles have welded the German peoples into one 
nation. May the spirit of this hallowed spot inspire the men of 
today, may it free us from selfish concerns and party strife and join 
us together in a feeling of devotion to the best of our national 
traditions and spiritual renewal for the service of a proud, free and 
united Germany. 

With this desire in my heart, I extend my greetings to the Reichs¬ 
tag at the beginning of its new term of office and 

call upon the Chancellor to address the assembly. 

1 Authorised translation of the official text. 

2 Owing to the burning by Communists of the Reichstag, the opening 
of the new Reichstag session took place in the Garrison Church at Potsdam 
which is the last resting-place of Frederick the Great. 











11 


Chancellor Adolf Hitler* 

Herr Reichsprasident, Members of the German Reichstag, 

For years our people has been oppressed by care. 

After a period of prosperity and progress when every branch 
of our national life flourished, we have fallen once more — as so 
often in the past — upon times of misery and want. 

Millions of Germans are seeking in vain their daily bread, in spite 
of industry and the will to work, and in spite of ability, knowledge 
and experience. Business is at a standstill, finance in ruins and 
millions are without work. 

The world sees our cities only from the outside, and knows 
nothing of the misery which is under the surface. 

Ever changing has been the lot of our nation for two thousand 
years, a rise has always been followed by a fall. The causes have 
always been the same. The German, restless and distraught, at 
war within himself and ignorant of what he really desires, sinks 
into a state of coma. He dreams of justice in the stars and loses his 
contact with reality. 

The more nation and country fall into decay and national life 
grows weaker, the more have men sought in all times to make a 
virtue of necessity. The theory of the individual value of our tribes 
hid from view the fact that cooperation was a vital necessity. 
Ultimately there was only one way left for the German, the way 
within. As a nation of poets and thinkers, they dreamed then of the 
better world in which the others lived, and only when need and 
suffering had rained their heaviest blows upon them did there arise, 
perhaps out of their art, the longing for a period of revival, for a 
new Reich and, at the same time, for a new life . 

When Bismarck steered the cultural aspirations of the German 
nation into the channels of national unity, the long period of misery 
and internal strife seemed for ever ended. Obedient to the spirit of 
the proclamation of the Empire, our nation played its part in the 
revival of prosperity, of culture and moral standards. Its consciousness 
of its own strength has always been inseparably bound up with its 
feeling of responsibility for cooperation among the European nations. 

It was during this time of growing national solidarity of the 
German peoples that our nation began to lose its sense of political 
perspective, and under this loss we are suffering today. 

This inner decay it was which played once more, as so often 
before, into the hands of the world around us. The revolution of 
November 1918 ended a conflict into which the German nation had 


* Authorised translation of the official text. 




























































been drawn in the most sacred conviction that it was but protecting 
its liberty and its right to live. 

The Myth of Germany’s War Guilt. 

Neither the Kaiser nor the Government nor the nation wanted 
this war. It was only the collapse of our nation which compelled a 
weakened race to take upon itself, against its most sacred convictions, 

the guilt for this war. 

This collapse, however, was followed by the disintegration of 
our entire life. Politically, morally, culturally and economically, our 
nation sank deeper and deeper into the morass. # 

Worst of all was the deliberate annihilation of our faith in our 
own strength, the soiling of our traditions and the destruction of the 

very roots of our belief in ourselves. 

Since then, crisis after crisis has shaken our nation to its very 

foundations. , 

But the rest of the world has not been made any happier or 

richer by this severing of a politically and economically important 
limb from the body corporate. Out of the insane theory of a 
permanent status of victors and vanquished arose the folly of 
reparations and, as a result, the breakdown of the entiie economic 

system of the world. _ . . .. 

While the German nation and the German Reich were thus 

sinking into the bog of inner political strife and economic ruin, a 
small group of Germans was beginning to come forward which had 
not lost faith in the nation and was determined to weld it once more 

into a united entity. _ ... 

It is to this young Germany that you, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, 

magnanimously entrusted, on the 30^ January 1933, the leadership o 
the nation. 

The Appeal to the Nation. 

In the conviction that the German people was bound to give its 
approval to the new order of things in Germany, we of this National 
Government made a final appeal to the nation. 

On the 5 th March the people decided with a majority in our 
favour Rising as never before, it has in a few weeks restored the 
national honour, and, thanks to your clear judgment, Herr Reichs- 
prasident, has united the symbol of past greatness to that of the 

strength and vitality of youth. . 

In this solemn hour the National Government faces the Reichs¬ 
tag for the first time and proclaims its unshakeable determination to 
undertake the reorganisation of the German Reich and nation, and to 
carry it through successfully. 

The National Government, conscious that they have the will 
of the nation behind them, demands from the parties and the 
representatives of the nation that, alter fifteen years of misery in 
Germany they raise themselves above the doctrinaire conceptions 


13 


of party politics and recognize the inevitable necessity of cooperation 
which has been laid upon us by the needs of the times and their 
threatening consequences. 

The task, which fate has demanded that we fulfil, makes it our 
bounden duty to rise high above the petty considerations of everyday 
party politics. 

We are determined to restore once more unity of spirit and of 
determination to our people. 

We are determined to protect the eternal foundations of our 
national life, the strength and the virtues which are our birthright. 

We are determined to raise once more to the guiding principles 
of organisation and government those ideas without which no nation 
and no country can rise to greatness. 

We are determined to combine trust in the sound and natural 
instincts of life with a steady development of inner and foreign 
policy. 

We are determined to constitute a government which, instead 
of constantly wavering from side to side, shall be firm and purposeful, 
and restore to our people a source of unshakeable authority. 

We are determined to profit from all those experiences which in 
past centuries have proved of value to mankind, politically and 
economically, both to the individual and to the community. 

We are determined to restore politics to that level which shall 
enable them to act as the reorganizing and guiding principles of 
national life. 

We are determined to make use of all the truly vital forces in 
the nation which shall serve to ensure the future of Germany, to 
gather together all men of good will under our banner, and to deprive 
those who wish to harm our nation of the power to do so. 

We are determined to create a new community out of the 
German peoples — a community formed of men of every status and 
profession and of every so-called class, which shall be able to 
achieve that community of interests which the welfare of the entire 
nation demands. All classes must be welded together into a single 
German nation. 

This nation shall take under its protection for all time our faith 
and our culture, our honour and our freedom. 

In our relations to the world we wish, having clearly before our 
eyes the sacrifices of the War, to be the champions of a peace which 
shall finally heal those wounds from which all are suffering. 

The Government of the national renaissance is determined to 
fulfil the task which they have undertaken before the German nation. 
They stand today before the German Reichstag with the earnest 
desire to receive from it the support necessary for the fulfilling of 
their mission. May you, the elected representatives of the nation, 
recognise the meaning of this epoch and join with us in the great 
work of national restoration. 















14 








II M 












Hindenburg as symbol. 

There is among us today a grand old man. We rise to salute 

you, Herr Generalfeldmarschall. , .. 

Three times you have fought on the field of honour for the 

existence and the future of our nation. , , 

As lieutenant in the army of the King of Prussia, you fought tor 
the unity of Germany; under him who afterwards became the first 
German Kaiser you fought for the glorious founding of the German 
Empire and, as our supreme leader, you fought in the greatest war 
of all time for the existence of the Reich and for the freedom ot 

our people. . . , , . 

You were present when the German Empire came into being, you 

beheld the work of the Great Chancellor, the glorious # rise of our 
nation, and you have led us in those momentous times in which late 
has allowed us to play our part. 

Hindenburg, the Patron of the National Renaissance. 

Providence has willed it, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, that you 
should be present here today as the patron of the renaissance of our 
nation. Your marvellous career is a symbol for us all of the 
indestructible forces which are latent in the German nation, ihe 
youth of Germany and, indeed, the whole nation is filled with 
gratitude to you that you have lent your approval and given your 
blessing to the rehabilitation of the German nation. May these 
forces give strength also to the newly elected representatives of the 

people. 

May Providence at the same time grant us that courage and 
perseverance of which this spot, hallowed for every German, reminds 
us and give us who stand here at the tomb of our greatest monarch 
the strength to fight for the freedom and greatness of our people. 







15 


Chancellor Adolf Hitler 

before the Reichstag on 23 March 1933* 

Men and Women of the German Reichstag, 

The National Socialist Party and the German National People’s 
Party, with the concurrence of the Government of the Reich, have 
proposed a motion for the adoption of a law for the removal of 
the distress of the people and the Reich. The reasons for this extra¬ 
ordinary procedure are as follows:— 

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 con¬ 
sequence, 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. 

All the promises made by the men of November 1918 proved 
to be, if not intentionally misleading from the start, no less damnable 
illusions. The “achievements of the revolution”, taken as a whole, were 
only pleasing to the smallest fraction of our people. But for the 
overwhelming majority, at least in so far as they had to earn their 
daily bread by honest work, they were absolutely tragic. It is, 
of course, comprehensible, that the instinct of self-preservation of 
the parties and men responsible for this state of affairs provided 
them with a thousand palliatives and excuses. The sober comparison 
of the average results of the last fourteen years with the promises 
proclaimed aloud at the time is disastrous for the responsible 
instigators of this crime unparalleled in German history. 

In the course of the last fourteen years our nation has suffered 
from a decline in all spheres of life on such a scale that anything 
worse can hardly be imagined. The question of what could have 
been worse in this period is unanswerable in view of the basic 


* Authorised translation of the official text. 































values of our German nation and the formerly existing political and 

economic heritage. . 

The German nation itself, in spite of the difficulty it finds in 
changing its political feelings and opinions, has more and more 
turned its back on the views, parties and associations responsible 
in its eyes for these circumstances. 

The number of Germans who were wholehearted supporters of 
the Weimar Constitution was, in spite of the power of suggestion and 
the ruthless exploitation of govermental authority, actually no more 

than a fraction of the whole nation. 

It was, further, a characteristic feature of these fourteen years 
that—apart from natural fluctuations—the line of development led 
constantly downwards. The recognition of this depressing fact was 
one of the causes of the general despair. It furthered the realization 
of the necessity of a fundamental abandonment of the ideas, organi¬ 
zations and men that the nation gradually began rightly to recognize 
as the underlying causes of our decline. 

The National Socialist movement was consequently able, in 
spite of the worst forms of oppression, to attract a constantly in¬ 
creasing number of Germans who were ready to devote themselves 
heart and soul to the struggle. In combination with the other 
national associations, it has now, in the course of a few weeks, 
removed the powers that had dominated the country since November 
1918 and, by a revolution, placed public authority in the hands 
of the National Government. On the 5 th of March the German 
people gave its approval to this act. 


The Programme of Reconstruction 

of the nation and the Reich arises from the intensity of the needs 
of our political, moral and economic life. Fully convinced, as they 
are that this collapse is due to internal infirmities in our national 
body corporate, it is the aim of the Government of the National 
Revolution to remove from our national life those defects which 
would prevent any real recovery in future too. The splitting up 
of the nation into groups with irreconcilable views, systematically 
brought about by the false doctrines of Marxism, means the destruc¬ 
tion of the basis of a possible communal life. 

The disintegration attacks all the foundations of social order. 
The completely irreconcilable views of different individuals with 
regard to the terms state, society, religion, morals, family and 
economy give rise to differences that lead to internecine war. 

Starting from the liberalism of the last century, this develop¬ 
ment is bound by natural laws to end in communistic chaos. 

The mobilization of the most primitive instincts leads to a 
connection between the views with regard to a political idea and 
the doings of real criminals. Starting with plunderings, incendiarism, 
train-wrecking, political outrages and so on, everything receives its 
moral sanction from the principles of Communism. The method 






17 

of individual terrorization of the masses alone has cost the National 
Socialist movement over 350 dead and tens of thousands of wounded 
in the course of a few years. 

The setting on fire of the Reichstag, as an unsuccessful attempt 
forming part of a well organized plan, is only a sample of what 
Europe had to expect from the victory of this infernal doctrine. 
When a certain section of the press, especially abroad, now attempts, 
in accordance with political untruth adopted as a principle by 
Communism, to identify the national renaissance in Germany with 
this outrage, this can only strengthen my determination to leave 
nothing undone in order to exact expiation for this crime by the 
public execution of the guilty incendiary and his accomplices. 

The whole extent of the intended action of this organization 
has not been sufficiently realized either by the German nation or 
by the rest of the world. It was only by taking immediate action 
that the Government prevented a development whose catastrophic 
results would have shaken the whole of Europe. Many of those 
both in and outside Germany who now associate themselves with 
the interests of communism out of hatred for the national renaissance 
would themselves have been the victims of such a development. 

It will be the supreme task of the National Government to 
utterly eliminate and remove this symptom in our country, not only 
in Germany’s interest but also in that of the rest of Europe. 

They will constantly keep in view the fact that it is not a question 
of the negative problem which these organizations constitute, but 
of carrying out the positive task of gaining the German workman 
for the national state. 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 . The rest of the world may well have just as great 
an interest in it, for the outbreak of communistic chaos in the densely 
populated German Reich would lead to political and economic 
consequences of inconceivable extent, especially in the rest of 
Western Europe. The internal decay of our national life led inevitably 
to a more and more serious weakening of the authority of the 
supreme government. The decrease in the respect felt for the Govern¬ 
ment of the Reich which was the inevitable consequence of such 
insecure internal conditions led, in the case of various parties in 
the different federal States, to conceptions that are incompatible 
with the unity of the Reich. All regard for the traditions of the 
federal States cannot brush aside the recognition of the bitter fact 
that the excessive disintegration of state life in the past was not 


2 




















18 

only not helpful but really injurious to the position held by our 
nation in the world. 

It is not the task .of a supreme government subsequently to 
surrender to the theoretical principle of an unrestrained system of 
standardization what has grown up organically. But it is its duty 
to establish beyond any doubt this spiritual and generally desired 
unity of the leadership of the nation, and thus of the idea of the Reich 
as such. 

The welfare of our communes and federal States has need of 
state protection just as much as the existence of every individual 
German. Therefore the Government of the Reich do not intend to 
abolish the local governments of the federal States by an enabling 
act. But, on the other hand, they will adopt those measures that 
will guarantee from now on and for ever a uniformity of political 
intentions in the Reich and the States. The greater the spiritual 
and generally desired unanimity, the less can it be in the interest 
of the Reich in the future to do violence to the cultural and economic 
life in the individual States. The recently prevailing state of a 
mutual disparagement of the governments of the federal States and 
the Reich, with the aid of the modern means offered by popular 
propaganda, is absolutely impossible. Under no circumstances will 
I permit, and the Government of the Reich will take all measures 
to prevent, that in future ministers of German governments ever 
again accuse or disparage each other in the eyes of the world at 
public mass meetings and even on the wireless. 

It also leads to a complete discrediting of the legislative body 
in the eyes of the people, when, even if it be assumed that times are 
normal, the people is forced to go to the polls, either in the Reich 
or in the various States, almost twenty times in the course of four 
years. The Government of the Reich will find a way of reaching 
the goal that the expression of the people’s will when once given 
shall lead, for the Reich and the States, to uniform consequences. 

A still more comprehensive 

Reform of the Reich 

can only result from active development. Its aim must be the 
construction of a constitution combining the people’s will with the 
authority of real leadership. The legal sanction to such a 
constitutional reform will be granted by the nation itself. 

The Government of the National Revolution regard it in principle 
as their duty, in accordance with the vote of confidence given them by 
the nation, to prevent the exercise of influence on the structure of the 
life of the nation by those elements who knowingly and intentionally 
deny this life. Theoretical equality in the eyes of the law cannot be 
extended to the toleration on an equal basis of those who scorn the 
laws on principle, or indeed to surrendering the nation’s freedom to 
them on the basis of democratic doctrines. But the Government will 
accord equality in the eyes of the law to all those who take their 


19 


•.land, in face of this danger, on the line adopted by our nation and 
behind the national interests, and who do not deny their support to 
the Government. 

Our immediate task is now to call to account the spiritual leaders 
of these destructive tendencies, and to rescue their misguided victims. 

We consider in particular the millions of German workmen who 
profess these ideas of madness and self-destruction merely as the 
result of the unpardonable weakness of earlier governments who did 
not prevent the dissemination of theories, the putting into practice 
of which they themselves were bound to punish. The Government will 
allow no-one to deter them from their resolve to solve this question. 
It is now the business of the Reichstag, for its part, to adopt a 
definite attitude to this question. This will not affect the fate of 
Communism and of the organizations affiliated with it. The 
National Government adopt their measures in this respect from no 
other point of view but that of protecting the German people, and 
especially the millions of the working classes, from untold misery. 

They therefore regard the question of a 

Monarchical Restoration 

as one which cannot be discussed at present, if for no other reason 
than the existence of this state of affairs. They would have to regard 
an attempt by the individual States to solve this problem on their 
own responsibility as an attack on the unity of the Reich, and act 
accordingly. 

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 theatre, 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 essence of our nationality. .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 
ardently 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. 
It is the task of the Government to take measures to secure that, 
especially at a time of limited political power, the inner life’s value 
and will to live of the nation find all the greater cultural expression. 
'Phis resolve obliges us to regard our great past with thankful 
admiration. A bridge must be constructed between this past and 
I lie future in all spheres of our historical and cultural life. Respect 
for the great men of the past must once more be impressed on the 
youth of Germany as a sacred heritage. The Government, being 
resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our 


2* 












































20 


public life, are 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 regard the two Christian confessions 
as the weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality. 
They will respect the agreements concluded between them and the 
federal States. 

Their rights are not to be infringed. But the Government hope 
and expect that the work on the national and moral regeneration of 
our nation which they have made their task will, on the other hand, be 
treated with the same respect. They will adopt an attitude of 
objective justice towards all other confessions. But they cannot 
permit that the fact of belonging to a certain confession or a certain 
race should constitute a release from general legal obligations or 
even a licence for the commission with impunity or the toleration of 
crimes. It will be the Government’s care to maintain honest 
cooperation between Church and State; the struggle against 
materialistic views and for a real national community is just as much 
in the interest of the German nation as in that of the welfare of our 
Christian faith. 

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 judgements in the interests of 
society. Not the individual but the nation as a whole alone can be 
the centre of legislative solicitude. High treason and treachery to 
the nation will be ruthlessly eradicated in future. The foundations 
of the existence of justice cannot be other than the foundations of the 
existence of the nation. Let the judges therefore always pay regard 
to ihe gravity of the decisions taken by those who are responsible for 
forming the life of the nation under the hard pressure of reality. 

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. 

A just balance must be established between productive intention 
on the one hand and productive work on the other. Administration 


21 


must respect, by means of economy, the results of ability, diligence 
and work. The problem of our public finances is also to no small 
degree a problem of economical administration. The proposed 

Reform of our Fiscal System 

must lead to a simplification of assessment and thus to a reduction 
of the costs and burdens. In principle, the mill of taxation must be 
built beside the stream and not at the source. These measures must 
be accompanied by a reduction of burdens through simplification of 
the administration. This reform of the fiscal system to be carried 
out in the Reich and the federal States is, however, not a question 
which can be settled in a moment, but only during a period 
commensurate with the necessities of the situation. 

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. 

The ruin of this class in our nation would lead to the gravest 
conceivable consequences. The restoration of the 

Remunerative Capacity of Agriculture 

may be hard on the consumer. But the fate that would await the 
entire German nation, if the German farmer were ruined, is not to 
be compared with these hardships. It is only in connection with the 
remunerative capacity of our agriculture which must be attained at all 
costs that the question of protection against distraint or relief from 
indebtedness can be solved. Should that not be achieved, then the 
ruin of our agriculturists would lead not only to the collapse of 
German business as a whole, but above all to the collapse of the 
German body corporate. To maintain our agriculture in a healthy 
state is the first condition for the prosperity and expansion of our 
industry, of German home trade and of German exports. But for 
the counterpoise of the German agricultural class, the communistic 
madness would already have overrun Germany, and thus finally 
ruined German business. What the whole of business, including the 
export trade, owes to the sound commonsense of the German 
agriculturists cannot be repaid by any sacrifice of a business nature. 
We must, therefore, devote our greatest solicitude in future to 
pursuing the back-to-the-land policy in Germany. 

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, 

I hey cannot reckon with any degree of popularity. The providing of 



























22 


work and the compulsory labour service are, in this connection, only 
individual measures within the scope of the entire action proposed. 

The Attitude of the National Government to the Middle Classes 

is similar to that adopted by them to the German agriculturists. 
Their salvation can only be achieved within the scope of the general 
economic policy. The National Government are determined to solve 
this question thoroughly. They recognize it as their historical task 
to support and further the millions of Overman workers in the 
struggle for their right of existence. As Chancellor and National 
Socialist, I feel myself allied with them as the former companions of 
my youth. The increase of the consuming power of these masses will 
be an important means of furthering economic recovery. While 
maintaining our 

Social Legislation, 

the first step must be taken for its reform. Above all, however, all 
working power will be utilized in the service of the nation as a 
whole. The waste of millions of hours of human labour is an act 
of madness and a crime that must lead to the impoverishment of 
everyone. Whatever values may be produced by the utilization of 
our superfluous man-power, they will represent indispensable vital 
necessities for millions of people who are now prostrated by misery 
and distress. It must and will be possible for our national talent 
for organization to succeed in solving this problem. 

We are aware that the geographical 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 woild. 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 foieign debts coiresponding 
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. If the Government of the 
Reich are guided by these principles, we may certainly expect that 
increasing understanding abroad will facilitate the inclusion of the 
German Reich in the peaceful competition of the nations. 


23 


The Furtherance of Transport 

until a sensible balance is reached between all transport interests 
will be initiated at the beginning of the coming month by a reform 
of the tax on motor vehicles. The maintenance of the German 
Railways Company and its return to the hands of the Reich as soon as 
possible is a task imposed upon us not only as an economic but also 
as a moral duty. The- National Government will devote their 
energies to the development of aviation as a means of peaceful 
communication between the nations. 

In all these spheres of activity the Government require the 
support not only of the general forces in our nation, which they are 
resolved to make use of to the greatest extent, but also of the 
devoted trust and work of the professional official classes. It is 
only in cases where the public finances are in dire need that inter¬ 
vention will take place, but even then absolute justice will be the 
supreme law governing our action. 

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 Reichs¬ 
wehr with proud satisfaction. This little instrument for 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 fulfilment 
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, in so far as the rest of the 
world is now also ready to fulfil 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 honour, 
the honour 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 











24 



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 
are ready to extend a hand in sincere understanding to every nation 
that is ready finally to make an end of the tragic past. The inter¬ 
national 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:— 

1. absolutely authoritative leadership in internal affairs, in 
order to create confidence in the stability of conditions; 

2. 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; 

3. the final victory of the principles of commonsense 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 
endeavoured, by means of their disarmament proposal, to cause the 
Conference finally to arrive at speedy decisions. The Government 
of the Reich will support every endeavour aimed at really carrying 
out generally disarmament and securing the fulfilment 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 
broadminded 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 cooperate 
with absolute sincerity on the basis it provides, in order to unite 
the four Great Powers, England, France, Italy and Germany, in 
friendly cooperation 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 




| I 

t ,,l '!**«" i 

I ||i lI'HIll I 

I 


25 


Germany has been greeted in Italy. We hope and trust that the 
similarity of our spiritual ideals will be the foundation of a constant 
strengthening of the friendly relations between the two countries. 

In the same way, the Government of the Reich, who regard 
Christianity as the unshakeable foundation of the morals and moral 
code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations 
with the Holy See, and are endeavouring 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 are con¬ 
scious of the connection between the destiny of all German races. 
Their attitude towards 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 endeavour 
to arrive at a settlement. But in any case the basis for an under¬ 
standing 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 are ready to cultivate with the Soviet Union 
friendly relations profitable to both parties. It is above all the 
Government of the National Revolution who feel themselves 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. Our 
political relations with other Powers to whom we are bound by 
common interests will not be affected thereby. Our relations with 
the remaining countries also deserve to receive our most serious 
attention in future, especially our relations with the great oversea 
states with whom Germany has long been connected by ties of 
friendship and economic interests. 

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 are resolved to use all the means 
at their 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 are ready to take part in this Conference, in order to 
arrive at positive results at last. 

The most important question is the 

Problem of our private short-term and long-term External Indebtedness. 

The complete change in the conditions in the commodity markets 
of the world renders an adjustment necessary. It is only by trustful 
cooperation that a real removal of the general anxiety can be brought 











>til Hill 

h i mi! 1 




,i|ilinn !i 





28 

agriculturist for the renewal, the resurgence and thus also for the 
S in Germany. lead t0 ^ restoration of heal * h y con- 

^ 0ve [ nr P ent ^at overlooks the importance of such an 
essential foundation can only be a government of the moment It 

may govern and administer for some years, but it will never achieve 
permanent or eternal successes, for these demand that the necessity of 
the maintenance of a people’s room to live and thus of its own agri¬ 
cultural class must ever be borne in mind. The recognition of such 
a fundamental fact governs our actions in numerous spheres and 
the essential features of numerous minor decisions; it will serve us 
a guiding idea and always take precedence in the whole of our 
actions and decisions. If we adopt these principles, we shall never 
lose touch with the ground beneath our feet, but will practically 
always from the start do the right thing, even if from time to time 
men—and we are after all merely human beings—may on one 
occasion or another not have chosen or found exactly what is right. 

theiefore believe that this government which regards the main¬ 
tenance of the German nationality as its mission,—which again is 

ependent, as regards its interests, upon the maintenance of the 
German agricultural class—, will never be mistaken in its decisions. 

may make mistakes from time to time as to the means employed 
but never in principle. H y ’ 

wt H, *?, ? ( ^ ue ^^° l n courage not only to see things as they are 
We shall have to break with many old traditions, and be compelled 
I! ? 1 T! a !J y c ^ses to adopt an attitude contrary to public opinion. We 
shall be able to do so all the more and all the sooner, the more 
a block of the nation stands solidly behind the Government. But 
one thing is impossible, namely, that a government should be able 
to fight in all directions at the same time. If a government fights 
for the maintenance of the German nationality, and thus also for 
the maintenance of the German agricultural class, then it is especially 
these sections of the German nation that must give their full support 

*° th £ and th ? actions of the government. This then provides 

it with that inner stability which it requires in order to make decisions 
that are difficult to defend at the moment, but which must be made 
and whose success is not visible at first to its unseeing fellow 
citizens, but which we are aware will contribute in the end to the 
salvation of the entire nation. 

. f As . x the .9 er t man agriculturists have now united to form a great 
whole, it will thus in future facilitate the work of the Government 
to an unprecedented extent by supporting it with its enormous weight 
of numbers. I believe that there is no member of this Government 
who is not imbued with the honest desire for this intimate co¬ 
operation. We regard the solution of this problem as implying 
at the same time the salvation of the German nation in the future 
not only in 1933 and 1934 but for long ages to come. We are 


! fimin unit 11 :it Hi 

■llil'll: 













determined to adopt now and to carry out in the next few years 

I hose measures which we know will be recognized by later generations 
as fundamentally right. 

It was high time to find the energy to adopt the decisions to 

which, in the most profound and final sense, we owe the salvation 
ol the German nation. 

We are ready to accept the burden imposed by this hard fight. 
Owing to the Enabling Law, the work of the deliverance of the German 
people has been freed and released for the first time from the party 
views and considerations of our former representative assembly. With 
its assistance we shall now be able to do what, after clear-sighted 
examination and dispassionate consideration, appears necessary for 
(lie future of the nation. The purely legislative previous conditions 
necessary for this have been provided. But it is also necessary that 
the people itself should take an active part in this action. The nation 
must not imagine that, because the Reichstag can no more restrict 
our decisions, the nation itself no longer needs to take part in the 
shaping of our destiny. On the contrary, we wish that the German 
people at this very time should concentrate once more and cooperate 
actively in support of the Government. The result must be that 
when we appeal to the nation once more in four years’ time, we shall 
not appeal to men who have been asleep, but wilffind ourselves faced 
ny a nation that has finally awakened in the course of these years 
Irom its parliamentary trance and has realized the knowledge 
necessary to understand the eternal conditions of human existence. 

. .u, an l-c a c wa , r , e that the work which lies before us entails tasks of 
tern ole difficulty, not only because we must begin, after fifteen years 

<>f neglect of the most natural previous conditions of human existence 
with perfectly simple principles of common sense, but because during 
this period an unprecedented interlacing of interests has occurred 
and hardly any step appears possible without coming in contact 
with cases of corruption which must be dealt with, whether they 
<ue of a moral or material nature. But the main thing is that this 
problem must be solved, and this will be done. The varying fortunes 
which the German people has lived to see during the thousands 
of years of its history prove that it cannot be the intention of Pro¬ 
vidence that before our times previous generations fought and made 
sacrifices in order that their descendants might ruin their own lives 
and no longer be able to look forward to future ages. The great 

struggles in the past would be purposeless, were we to abandon the 
struggle for the future. 

The sacrifices that we ourselves made for the maintenance of 
I he German Reich were heavy. The generation which fought through 
'he World War suffered to an unprecedented extent. But we must 
not only take that into account, for we must also think of what 
generations before us have performed, suffered and fought for. We 
must calculate the sum total of the sacrifices which have been made 
























































































30 


before our time, not in order that one generation should capitulate 
in the face of destiny, and thus wipe out coming generations, but 
in the hope that each generation in turn will do its duty in this eternal 
succession of generations. 

At the present day the warning finger of fate demands that we 
should fulfil this duty. For fifteen years we have all, without 
exception, transgressed grieviously, some of us actively and 
consciously, and others passively and tolerantly. It is for us, united 
and together, to overcome that time. Let the task be ever so great, 
if it must be solved then it will be solved. In this case also the 
eternal principle applies that where there’s a will there’s a way. 


31 


Chancellor Adolf Hitler 

Before two million workers on 1 May 1933 
the “National Labour Day”. 

My comrades of the German people! 

May is here. That is what the German song says. For many 
centuries the first day of May has been not only the symbol of the 
return of spring to the land, it has also been the day of joy, gaiety 
and festivity. Then there came a time which took over this day 
<md turned it from a day of blossoming life and hopeful joy into 
a day of conflict and internal warfare. A doctrine which had seized 
upon our people attempted to make of this day of awakening nature, 
ot the visible return of spring, a day of hatred, of civil war, of 
strife and sorrow. Decades have gone by and this day seemed ever¬ 
more destined to constitute a record of the inward strife and the 
disunity of our nation. At length, however, came a time, when we 
returned to our senses after endless misery had taken hold of our 
nation, a time of introspection, when the German people found each 
other once more. 

to-day we can sing once more the old German folk-song: 
May is here, our people have awakened once more.” The symbol 
<>i class-warfare, of perpetual strife and contention has become once 
more the symbol of the great unification and rebirth of the nation, 
i herefore we have chosen this day of reawakening nature to be for 
all time the day for the restoration of our own internal force and 
strength and at the same time of that creative work which knows 
no narrow boundaries and which is not tied to the Trade Unions, 
lo the factories and offices, a work which we wish to recognize and 
support everywhere where it is being done with the intention of 
furthering the life of our nation. 

The German nation has a time of cruel need behind it. Nor is 
Ihis to be ascribed in any way to a lack of industriousness. No* 
Millions of our people are as busy as formerly, millions of peasants 
stride, as formerly, behind the plough, millions of workers stand by 
their work tables and by their clanging anvils. Millions of our people 
• ire indeed busy, and millions of others, who wish to be busy, cannot 
be. Tens of thousands are voluntarily putting an end to their own 
lives which seem for them to hold nothing but trouble and misery, 
t hey are exchanging this life for the other side from which they 
hope for something more and better. Frightful misery and mis- 































32 


i 






IliHD'hl t 




fortune have come upon us and brought with them despondency, ay^ 

and despair. And we ask ourselves, why? 

It is a political calamity. The German nation is at war within 
itself its whole strength is being used up in internal strife, 
longer are we relying on the strength of our own wills, no longer 
is the same force there. Millions are looking to the world outside 
and hoping to obtain from there happiness and salvation 1 he nation 
is crumbling to pieces, and in this process of collapse all power and 
all vital energy are disappearing. The results of class warfare are 
to be seen all around us and we wish to learn a lesson from them, 
for we have recognized one thing as necessary for the return to 

health of our nation: 

The German people must learn to know each other again. 

The millions who have been split up into professions and kept 
apart by artificial class distinctions, who, foolishly clinging to pro¬ 
fession and status, cannot understand each other any longer, must 
find once more the way to each other. An enormous and stupendous 
task—we know it. After seventy years of the preaching of this 
madness as a political idea, after the destruction of community feeling 
has been held as a political duty for seventy years, it is, of course, 
difficult to alter the opinions of people at a blow. Nevertheless we 
must not give way to despondency and despair. What has been built 
up by the hands of man, can also be destroyed by the hands ol man, 
what human madness once invented, can be overcome by human 

We know that this process of finding one another again and 
getting to know one another cannot be a question of weeks or months, 
and not even of a few years. We are, however, absolutely determined 
to fulfil this mighty task which has been laid upon us; we have made 
up our minds to lead the people of Germany to one another and, 
if necessary, to compel them. 

That is the meaning of the first of May, which day, from now 
on shall be celebrated in Germany throughout the centuries, in order 
that on it all those who are taking part in our creative national work 
may come together and, once in the year, may give each other their 
hands fully recognizing that nothing can be achieved if all are not 
ready to do their part in the great work. Therefore we have chosen 
as the motto of this day the following sentence: 

Honour work and respect the worker! 

It is hard to-day for millions to find the way to each other 
again over all the hatred and misunderstandings which, in the past 
have been artificially cultivated. The recognition of one fact should 
make the following of this way easier. Every man, wherever and 
whatever his work, must always remember that his fellow-citizen, 
who is doing his duty in just the same way as he himself is in¬ 
dispensable, and that the nation is not maintained by the work ot 


33 


.i government, by a certain class, or by its intellectuals, but by the 
common and harmonious work of all. The millions of people who 
believe that the kind of work which is done by the individual carries 
with it any especial distinction are making a great mistake. There 
are tens of thousands among us whose respect for the individual 
depends upon the kind of work which he does. No! Not what 
lie does, but how he does it must be the deciding factor. The fact 
that millions among us are working hard year out and year in, 
without ever being able to hope to achieve riches or even to be 
able to lead a life free from care, should show us that it is to them 
especially that we owe respect, for it is their idealism and their 
devotion alone which make possible the existence and the life of 
the community. It would be a bad day for us if this idealism in 
our nation should disappear and if the worth of a man were only 
to be measured by the material goods which he possessed. Our 
nation would not then be worth much, nor would it survive very long. 

It is no use telling the labourer how valuable he is, nor proving 
to the peasant the necessity of his existence. It is no use going to 
the intellectual, to the brain worker, in order to tell him how im¬ 
portant he is. What is necessary is to teach each class and pro¬ 
fession the importance of the others. . For this reason we wish to 
go to the cities and explain to them the nature and the necessity 
of the German peasantry, and to go into the country and to our 
intellectuals and tell them how important the German labourer is. 
We want to go to the labourer and to the peasant and teach them 
that without a German intellectual class there can be no German 
life, that they all form together one mighty body corporate: brain, 
spirit and fist; labourer, peasant and professional man. 

This first of May is intended to bring to the realization of the 
German nation that diligence and labour alone do not create life, 
unless they are united to the strength and will of a people. Diligence 
and labour, strength and will, even if they work together, still need 
behind them the protection of the mighty fist of the nation, in order 
that real blessings may result. 

And further, this day must bring a message to the nation: You 
are strong if you unite, if you tear from your hearts the spirit of 
class warfare and forget your quarrels. You have an enormous 
reserve of strength to put behind your work if you harness that work 
to the will to live of the entire nation. 

We hope for a German national state which will be able to 
ensure once more to our people their daily bread, and we know that 
the united strength of the nation is’necessary to achieve this. If 
Marxism scoffs that we shall never succeed, we shall give it the 
proof that we will succeed. My friends! Nothing in this world 
that is worth having is given gratis. Everything must be striven 
lor; even the rebirth of a nation will not take place of its own 
iccord; it too must be striven for from within. We must not complain; 





3 










































34 


we know that we shall attain to this rebirth by our own exertions 
and that we shall win the freedom of our nation. Then it will be 
proved to how great an extent Marxism has been nothing but theory 
and, as such, attractive and seductive but unable, in reality, to bring 
happiness or prosperity to a nation. 

This first of May must be the proof that we do not wish to 
destroy anything, but are concerned only with reconstruction. One 
cannot choose the loveliest spring day in the year as a symbol of 
strife, but only as one of constructive work. This day shall not 
stand for disintegration and collapse, but only for national unity 
and thus for rebirth. It is not chance that our opponents,, who have 
wished for the last seventy years to celebrate this day, and who 
have been in power in Germany for the last fourteen years, have 
nevertheless not succeeded in gripping the German nation on this 
day as we have done the very first time. The nation feels sub¬ 
consciously that that Marxism celebration was contrary to the spirit 
of spring time. The people did not wish for hatred and strife; they 
wanted a new life. And to-day they feel that the first of May has 
been given once more its real inner meaning. That is the reason 
why millions in all Germany are joyfully flocking together to bear 
witness to their will to take part in this rebuilding of the nation. 
We who to-day -are celebrating this festival wish to hold before our 
eyes the aim which must be ours in the time which lies before us: 

We will fight undeterred that the power, which the new idea, 
the new political faith in Germany, has attained for itself, shall 
never vanish but, on the contrary, shall become stronger and 

stronger. 

We will fight to preserve the new idea victoriously in the whole 
of Germany and gradually to draw the entire German nation into the 
might of its ban. Bravely and with determination will we defend 
this flag of the resurgence of our nation against all who think that 
they can tear it down. We wish to reawake in our nation both 
self-consciousness and self-confidence, and to see to it that they 
increase from day to day. We know the time which lies behind us 
and the people who represented that time. They have intentionally 
inoculated our people with the idea that it was inferior throughout, 
incapable of great deeds and not worthy of the rights which belong 
to all others. Inferiority complexes were artificially cultivated, 
because they corresponded to the inferiority of those parties who 
led the nation astray during so many years. We want to free the 
nation from this ban, to fill them with the conviction: 

Germans! You are not second-rate, even if the world wishes 
to have it so a thousand times. You are not second-class and inferior. 
Awake to a realization of your own importance. Remember your 
past and the achievements of your fathers, yes, and those of your own 
generation. Forget the fourteen years of decay, and think of the 
two thousand years of German history. 



35 


Fellow-citizens in all Germany! I have spoken thus from the 
very first day in order to arouse in you a feeling of inner unity 

and thus to give you this conviction: 

\ 

Germans! You are a strong nation if you yourselves wish to 

be strong. 

These millions who are demonstrating in Germany today will 
go home; with the feeling of a newly won inner strength and unity. 

I know it, my comrades; your step will be firmer to-morrow than 
it was yesterday. For we all know that the nation can perhaps 
be violated and bound in chains, but never again can we be humiliated 
and made to bow our heads. We wish also, however, to strengthen 
today not only your trust in yourselves, but also your trust in your 
government, which feels itself bound up with you and is a piece of 
you, which belongs to you, which fights for your life, and which has 
no other aim than to make you free and happy once more. 

And finally, this unity will be documented for the future to-day 
through an act. When we for the first time gave to the public 

the idea of compulsory labour-service, 

the representatives of the dying Marxian world raised a howl of 
protest and declared: “That is a new attack on the proletariat, an 
attack on labour, an attack on the life of the working man.” Why 
did they do that? They knew quite well that it could never be an 
attack on labour and, above all, not an attack on the working man, 
but rather an attack on the loathsome prejudice that manual labour 
is something inferior. It is our intention to root out this prejudice 
as far as Germany is concerned. We wish, at a time when millions 
of us are living without understanding of the importance of manual 
labour, to teach the German nation once more, through the institution 
of labour service, that manual labour does not degrade or dishonour 
but rather does honour to everyone who performs it faithfully and 
conscientiously, as does any other work. 

It is our firm determination that every German, be he who he 
may, rich or poor, son of a professional man or of a factory worker, 
shall once in his life be a manual labourer, in order that he may 
learn what manual labour is and that he may be able more easily 
to command because he himself has learned to obey. We are not 
going to be contented with doing away with Marxism superficially; 
we are determined to remove the conditions necessary for its 
existence. We want to spare the generations that come after us 
this intellectual chaos. 

Brain worker and labourer must never again stand in opposition 
to one another. That is the reason why we are rooting out that 
silly pride which so easily takes possession of the individual and 
makes him look down upon his comrades who “only” stand at the 
carpenter’s bench or by the machine or walk behind the plough. 
But not only must every German become acquainted with this kind 


3 * 








































36 


of work, the labourer must also realize that brain work is necessary 
too. He also must learn that no one has the right to look down on 
others and to think himself better, but that everybody must be ready 
to form part of the great community. 

This year we shall, for the first time, put into practice this great 
ethical idea which is bound up with labour service, and we know 
that after forty years the words “manual labour” will have, under¬ 
gone the same change of meaning as did once the expression “lands¬ 
knecht” in the place of which the name “German soldier” came 
into use. 

Another great task which must be accomplished this year is 
the freeing of creative initiative from the disastrous influence of 
majority rule, not only in the parliament but also in our economic 
life. We know that our economic life cannot experience a revival 
unless a synthesis can be found between the freedom of the creative 
genius and his obligation towards the community. It will therefore 
also be our task to give to contracts the meaning which they ought 
to have. Man does not live for contracts, but the contracts are there 
to make possible the life of man. And finally, we shall endeavour 
to take this year the first step on the way to an 

organic economic development, 

working on the fundamental principle that there can be no recovery 
which does not begin at the root of national and economic life, the 
peasant. From him the way leads to the labourer and then to the 
intellectual. 

We shall therefore begin with the farmer and put him first 
of all on a sound basis. We are convinced that this is the first step 
necessary for the restoration of our entire economic life. For the 
last fourteen years the opposite method has been taken. We have 
seen the results. Neither the city dweller nor the labourer nor the 
middle-classes were helped—they were all brought to the brink of 
destruction. 

Our next task is the removal of unemployment, the providing 
of work. This providing of work is divided into two main groups. 
First the private providing of work. . Under this heading we are 
going to undertake a great work this year, a work which will bring 
the buildings and houses in Germany in order and thus give employ¬ 
ment to hundreds of thousands. We wish to make at this moment 
and in this place our first appeal to the entire German nation. Do 
not think that the problem of providing work will solve itself. You 
must help to solve it. You must wisely and trustfully do everything 
you can to provide work. Everyone has the duty not to hesitate 
to buy what he needs and not to wait to have done for himself 
what eventually must be done. Every contractor, every houseowner, 
every business-man and every private individual must think of the 
German worker. If the world is spreading untrue stories about us, 


37 


if German work is being cried down, then it is up to the German 
to look after himself in this respect. This is an appeal which, directed 
to millions of individuals, is most likely to give work to millions. 
Further, it is our intention to start in a large way the public providing 
of work this year. We have made a programme which we do not 
wish to leave to our successors, the programme of road-building, 
a gigantic task, which will demand millions. We will put aside all 
opposition and set about our task on a large scale. With this we 
shall begin a series of public works which will help to lower the 
number of unemployed more and more. 

We wish to work and we shall work. But it must not be forgotten 
that everything depends in the end on the German people themselves. 
It depends on you, on the trust which you put in us, on the strength 
with which you support the national state. Only when you all 
become one in the determination to save Germany can the individual 
in Germany be saved. 

We know that we still have tremendous difficulties to overcome. 
We know too that all human work must in the end be in vain if it 
does not have the blessing of Providence. But we are not of those 
who leave everything to Providence. Nothing will be given 
to us for nothing. Just as the road which we have trod in the last 
fourteen years up to the present day was a road of eternal strife, 
a road which often led us to the point of despair, so will the road 
to a better future also be a hard one. The world is persecuting us, 
it is turning against us, it will not recognise our right to live, nor 
our right to protect our homeland. 

My German comrades! If the world is so against us we must 
all the more unite ourselves together, we must all the more firmly 
proclaim: “You can do what you like but you will never make us 
bow our heads, you will never compel us to recognise a yoke. You 
will never compel our nation to give up its claim to equal rights. 
The German people have come to themselves. They will not endure 
people among them any more who are not for Germany. We are 
determined honourably to earn a recovery for our nation by our 
industriousness, our perseverance and our unshakeable determination. 
We do not pray to God: “Lord, make us free.” We shall work, 
behave as brothers one to another and strive together • until the day 
comes when we can stand before the Lord and say that we have 
become different, that the German nation is no more a nation without 
honour, a nation covered with shame, a, nation at war within itself, 
a nation of little faith. That the German nation is strong again 
in its own will, strong in perseverance and strong to make every 
sacrifice. We will not let Him go until He bless our fight for our 
freedom and bless our German people and fatherland. 



















38 


Chancellor Adolf Hitler 

at the Congress of the German Labour Front in Berlin, 

10 May 1933 * 

Important changes cannot take place in the life of a nation 
unless there is the most urgent necessity for them. 

Nobody can bring about a really decisive revolution unless the 
people themselves in their inmost souls are crying out for one, 

unless the state of affairs makes such a revolution inevitable. It is 
easy to alter the form of government of a state, but a nation can 
only be remoulded from within when a certain process of develop¬ 
ment has already more or less taken place of itself, when that nation 
has discovered—perhaps not quite clearly and only subconsciously— 
that it has been following the wrong path, and would like to leave 
that path, and is only prevented from doing so by the sheer inertia 
of the masses until, from somewhere or other, the impulse comes, 
or until a movement, which has seen the new way, one day leads 
the nation into it. At the first moment the nation may wish to go 
this new way or it may seem not to wish to—but it will go if the 
realization is there, consciously or unconsciously, that the path is 
has been following is not the right one. Of all the crises under 
which we are suffering, all of which are but different aspects of 
the same picture, the one which perhaps affects the people them¬ 
selves most directly is the 

Economic Crisis. 

The political crisis and the moral crisis are not as a rule 
perceived by the individual. The man in the street does not usually 
notice what is affecting the community but only what is affecting 
himself directly. It is seldom that a political or moral state of 
decay makes itself perceptible in the present unless it in some way 
affects the economic situation. But when this happens, it is no longer 
a question of some abstract problem which can be observed or 
studied from outside; one day the individual will be brought face 
to face with the situation, and his recognition of the impossibility 
of the existing state of affairs will be the more pronounced the 
more he himself is affected by it. Then people suddenly begin to 
talk about an economic crisis and economic distress and then it is 


* Authorised translation of the official text. 


39 


possible too, taking this as the starting point, to awake an under¬ 
standing for that other crisis which usually remains hidden so long 
from the individual. 

It is natural too that even the economic crisis cannot at first 
be accurately diagnosed, that one does not immediately perceive 
all those causes which are working together to bring about this 
crisis. It is also quite natural that at first everyone lays the blame 
on somebody else and is particularly prone to hold the community, 
the corporations, etc. responsible for that for which he himself must 
bear part of the blame. At such a time it is a great good fortune 
if one is gradually able to make clear the reasons for such a crisis, 
so that they become evident to more and more people, since that 
is the first essential for finding the way out of the morass. 

It is not enough to say that the German economic crisis is merely 
the result of a world crisis, and that industry is in a bad way every¬ 
where. If that be our excuse, then every other nation can find exactly 
the same excuse for itself. Even so, it becomes evident that this 
evil is not rooted just somewhere in the world but in the nations 
themselves. One thing only is probable; that the root is perhaps 
the same in various different countries but that one cannot hope, 
merely by demonstrating that a certain evil seems to be a symptom 
of the age, thus to overcome this evil. It is clear, on the other hand, 
that what we have to do is to dig up this root in the individual 
nations, in order that one may attack the evil there where one can 
hope to attack it with success. 

Unfortunately the German is only too inclined at such times 
to gaze into the distance instead of turning his attention to what 
is going on at home. The fact that for a long time our people 
have been trained to take an international outlook results, even in 
such a crisis, in their seeking to solve this problem from an inter¬ 
national standpoint. It has even caused many people to believe 
that it is not possible to overcome such a misfortune otherwise than 
by international methods. This, however, is not true. It is clear that 
international ills under which all nations are suffering must be cured 
by those nations themselves, but that does not alter the fact that 
every nation must take the cure into its own hands, and that no 
nation can be relieved by international measures which does not 
take the necessary steps for itself. 

These measures can, of course, be consistent with international 
measures, but what we undertake ourselves must not be made 
dependent upon what others undertake. 

The German economic crisis is not merely one which expresses 
itself in economic indices but is primarily one the cause of which 
is to be sought partly in the internal course of our economic life, 
in the type of our economic organisation, etc. In this connection 
one crisis should be mentioned which has affected our nation more 
than the others. 































































It is the crisis which we observe in the relationship between 

capital, economic life and nation. 

This crisis is especially striking in the relationships between our 
employers and our employees. In this respect it has reached a 
higher peak than in any other country in the world. If this question 
is not satisfactorily solved, all other attempts to overcome the 
economic distress will be ultimately fruitless. 

If we examine the real nature of the German labour movement 
as it has gradually developed in the course of the last fifty years, 
we shall be brought up against three reasons which have brought 
about this peculiar development. 

The first reason is the change in the very nature of our 

economic system. 

This change is just as apparent in the whole world as it is in 
Germany. Beginning early in the last century and increasing up 
to the present time, there has been a metamorphosis of our—I would 
almost say—petty bourgeois economic system which is resulting 
in its industrialisation, and finally .doing away with the patriarchal 
relationship between employer and employee. This process was 
accelerated from the moment when the shareholder took the place 
of the owner. We can observe the beginning of an estrangement 
between the head worker and the hand worker, for that is actually 
the only decisive difference. 

The word ‘owner cannot be regarded here as characteristic, 
for we know that very many of the men who were the founders of 
our productive system came originally not from the owner class 
but from the labouring class. In them, strength of arm was united 
to genius, and they became the divinely gifted inventors and 
organizers to whom we, my comrades, owe our very existence; for 
without the ability of these men the nourishing and preserving of 

sixty-five million people on a restricted area would never have been 
possible. 

Without these men we should have remained an export land 
for man-power, and with the workers we should have had to send 
abroad would have gone, as cultural manure for the rest of the world 
the spirit which those workers possessed. That this has not been 
the case, we have those countless men to thank who have worked 
their way up from the bottom of the ladder and now, through their 
ability and their genius, provide a livelihood for millions of human 
bemgs We cannot then simply speak of employers and employees, 
the fact is that, as is always the case in the sphere of human 
endeavour, the man of genius raises himself to a position of command 

°Y <e £. ? w , m £ n# , This S enius is not, however, a prerogative 

of birth but is to be found in all castes and classes. One can say 

with truth that in Germany every status in life has produced 
such men. H 


The separation of interests which gradually became apparent 
gave rise to certain special interests of the employees, and thus 
began the unfavourable development of our economic system. Once 
we had started upon this way, it was bound to lead us further and 
further apart. This is the result of a law: 

When once one has started upon a road which is not the right 
one, it will lead ever further away from the path of reason. We have 
experienced this in practice in the last seventy years. This road 
in all its consequences led us so far away from natural reasonable¬ 
ness that individual men of intelligence, who were themselves leading 
us along this road, had to admit, when the question was put to them 
personally, the madness of this course. Individually, they have 
always admitted it, but, caught up in the machinery of the system, 
they were unable to find the way back to reason. 

On the contrary; the road let inevitably to a further separation, 
helped on, as has been said, by the 

gradual removal of the personal element from ownership. 

The result of this was moreover a seemingly scientific corroboration 
of the rightness of the way. There thus arose gradually a theory 
which conceived that the idea of property can be permanently 
maintained, even when those who actually benefit from this idea 
form only a minimal percentage of the nation. On the other hand, 
some people began to think that, just because only a small part 
of the nation benefited from this idea, the idea itself should be done 
away with. Thus began the endless discussions and the battle over 
the idea of private property and of property as such. The result was 
a continually widening split between the exponents of the two ideas 
in economic life. 

The ensuing developments led again to an unnatural state of 
affairs. 

As soon as the two parties no longer regard their task as a 
common one, it is clear that only organised labour can hold its own 
against the employers, and it is quite natural that the power which 
is inherent in the employer can only be met by the united power 
of the employees. 

Once this course is started upon, the logical result is that 
organised labour finds itself faced with the organisation of the 
employers. It is then inevitable that these two organisations will 
not tolerate one another, but will fight for their seemingly contrasted 
interests with the weapons which they have to hand—lock-out and 
strike. In this warfare sometimes one side and sometimes the other 
wins, but in either case it is the nation which has to pay the price 
and suffer the resulting loss. 

The final result of this is that the organisations which are thus 
built up become, as a result of the German’s tendency to bureau¬ 
cracy, continually larger and more unwieldy. In the end these 




























































42 


apparatuses no longer serve the interests behind them but those 
interests become the slaves of the apparatuses, so that t g 
continues in order to give the apparatuses a reason for existence. 
And so it goes on, even when reason steps in and says: The whole 
thing is lunacy. Measured by the sacrifices, the gains are utterly 
ludicrous; reckoned together, the sacrifices which the apparatus 
demands are far greater than any possible gains. Then it is 
up to the apparatus, more than ever before, to show how necessary 
it is in order to fan the flame of conflict on the respective sides. 
This can even result in the apparatuses coming to a certain under¬ 
standing between themselves. 

For example. Apparatus A says: “I am glad that apparatus B 
is there because 1 can always find a way of getting even with . 
Supposing B was not there but some honest fanatics were to be 
fighting in its place—that would be much worse! We know the 
pfople in apparatus B and how to handle them.” _ And so a way 
is found. To Caesar is rendered what is Caesar s, to the peop e 
what is the people’s and—to the trade unions what is theirs. T u 
a “peaceable” arrangement can always be come to. Sometimes it 
becomes a regular farce. The two sides rant and rage but never 
destroy each other of course-one can’t do that or neither trade 
unions nor employers’ organisations could exist! In the end it is 
the public that pays. 

This conflict, which has devoured incalculable wealth and man¬ 
power, is one of the reasons for the catastrophe which has slowly 

but surely come about. 

The second reason is the rise of Marxism. 

Marxism, which is essentially a destructive philosophy, perceived 
at once in the trade union movement the possibility of using ™ IS 
as an annihilating weapon in its attack against the state and the 
human community. Not of course to help the working-man—what 
is the working-man of any country to these apostles of inter¬ 
nationalism? Nothing at all! 

They do not see him at all! They are no workers, they are 
intelligentsia wihout a country, a denationalised gang! 

They saw only too well that with the help of the trade union 
movement, while kindly supporting the excesses of the other side 
they were in the best position to forge an instrument which would 
carrv on the fight while it took care of them at the same time, for 
in the entire preceding decade political social democracy has 
nourished itself from this fight and from the trade unions. 

It was necessary for them to imbue the trade unions with the 
thought that they were the instrument of class warfare—which, of 
course could only be brought to a successful conclusion under the 
leadership of Marxism. What can- be more natural than that one 
pays the P leader tribute? And they; exacted plenty. These gentry 





43 


were not contented with a tenth but demanded a considerably higher 

PerC This ge class warfare led to the proclamation of the trade unions 
as nothing more than instruments for the representation of the ec ° . 
nomic interests of the workers, and thus for the purpose of thegen 
strike The seneral strike thus appears for the first time as a 
political weapon and shows what Marxism really hoped for from 
this weapon: not a means to save the worker but on the contraiy 
only a weapon for the destruction of the state which was 0 PP? s ® d 

to Marxism How far this madness could go we it °®“^ive 
unparalleled example, which was as frightful as it was instructiv , 

dU " n #oday a number of the leaders of the Social Democrats come to 
me completely changed at heart by the new spirit of the new time, 
and say, P withSomewhat deficient memory: “Social Democracy fought 

in the field too.” 

No, Marxism never fought but the German 
working-man fought. 

In 1914 the German working-man, in a sudden inner, 1 
almost say, clairvoyant, recognition of the truth turned J'S back o^ 
Marxism and returned to his own people. The leaders of Marxism, 
who saw this happening, could do nothing to stop it. Some of them, 
a verv few returned in their hearts to their own people too. We 

know that one great man who has today played a decl *!^ e P^ rt j" 
history of the world, Benito Mussolini, returned at this hour to his 
own people. There were a few in Germany too. The overwhelming 
majority of the political leaders however did not, in comparison to the 
enormous response of the workers, offer themselves immediately and. 
voluntarily for service at the front. In spite of all; their protests 
today they seem to have been spared this spiritual convers on 
Working-men fell—their leaders took very good care of themselves 
to the extent of some 99 percent. 

Thev cannot show the percentage of fallen and wounded that 
the entire nation can. They considered their political activities more 
important. Then in 1914and 1915, they considered their task to 
consist in a careful reticence; later, while delegating certain individual 
outsiders they more and more began to take up a passive attitud _ 
towards ’the national task. The devolution was the fulfilment of 

their ideas. . ... 

We have only one thing to say to that. , . 

Had the German trade unions been in our hands during the 
war had they been in my hands if you like, and had they been 
aiming at the same wrong ends as they actually were, we Nation 
Socialists would have brought this gigantic organisation into t le 
service of the fatherland. We should have said: We know, of 
course the sacrifice, we are ready to make it ourselves, we do not 
.Vir,iri hnr-v hut we will fight too, we put our fate and our 


.... 




T 



















































































lives into the hands of Almighty God just as the others must do. 

That we should have done without hesitation. 

For you, the German workers, must realise: the present decision 
has to be made not about Germany as a state, not about the empire 
as a political form. We are not deciding for or against monarchy, 
capitalism or militarism but whether our nation is to exist at all, 
and we German workers make up 70 per cent of the nation. It is 

our fate that is being decided upon. , ... 

That should have been known and could have been known at the 
time. We would have known it. We should all have taken the 
consequences for our own lives and should, of course, also have 
taken the consequences for the trade-union movement. We should 
have proclaimed: “German workers, we want to represent youi 
rights.” True, we should have had to stand in opposition to the state 
at times for this reason, that is to say we should have protested 
against the monstrosity and shamelessness of the war-time monopoly 

companies. . f ... , 

We should have protested against this pack of profiteers and 

would have seen to it that they were brought to reason, if necessary 
with the halter. 

In the same way we should have put down everyone who 
withheld his services from the fatherland. We .should have said: “In 
facing the enemy our only aim is the victory of our nation, for that 
is not the victory of a form of government but a victory which is 
necessary for our very lives. If we lose the war, it is not a form of 
government that we have lost but millions of us will lose our very 
means of existence, and the first to do this will not be the capitalists 
and the millionaires but the working masses.” 

It was a crime that this was not done. It was not done because 
this course of action was opposed to the very nature of Marxism 
which wished for nothing better than the destruction of Germany. 
The Marxists waited until they believed that nation and country, 
crushed by superior forces, could no longer withstand the attack 
from within. And then they struck. 

And it was Germany that they struck and the German worker 
was the first to suffer and suffered the hardest. 

The sum total of misery and suffering which since then has 
weighed upon millions of small workers’ families and small house¬ 
holds is something which the November criminals can never make 
good. For this reason they have nothing to complain of today. We 
have not exacted vengeance. If we wanted to do so we should have 
had to slay them by tens of thousands! 

They talk so much about the Social Democats having fought at 
the front. The German workers fought at the front! But even if at 
that time they still felt themselves in some dim way as Social Demo¬ 
crats —it was not the case, and everyone who fought at the front 
knows that at that time no one thought about parties—but even if 






in line 














45 


it had been the case, how mean of those leaders that they then 
betrayed their own followers, who were making all the sacrifices, or 
the fruits of those sacrifices, that they robbed their own people ot 
the reward for their misery, hunger, torture, sleeplessness and fear 
of death. They can never make good what they did to our people 
by their crime of that time. And, above all they can never make 
good that for decades they led the German worker into ever deeper 
spiritual isolation and in November 1918, through the meanness of 
small, irresponsible groups, laid on him the responsibility for a deed 
for which he could never be made responsible. For since November 
1918 there are millions of Germans who believe that the German 
workers were responsible for the collapse. They, who endured sue 
unspeakable sacrifices, who filled our regiments with millions of men, 
were suddenly made collectively responsible for the deed of 
perjured, lying and rotten destroyers of the fatherland. That was 
the worst "that could have happened, for at that moment the 
community ceased to exist for millions of men in Geimany. Millions 
were in despair, others gazed blankly ahead and could not find the 
way back to their own people. The inevitable result of the breaking 
up of the community was the breaking down of German economic 
life since economic life is not a thing of itself but is a living process, 
a function of the national community and its course is determined by 
the people that make up that community. If the people thus break 
down, one cannot be surprised if the entire economic life gradually 
falls into decay too. When the individual is working on false 
premises, the result is that the community does the same thing, and 
thus something is destroyed the destruction of which has the worst 
possible effect on the community itself. 

The third reason lies in the State itself. 

There was one thing which could have kept a hold upon the 
masses. That was the State, if it had not itself sunk to the status 
of a plaything of the groups of special interests. It is not chance that 
the general collapse ran parallel to the democratizing of our public 
life. This process resulted in the state’s falling into the hands of 
certain groups which identified themselves with property and the 
employing class. The masses gradually came to the conclusion that 
the state itself was no longer an impartial institution independent or 
contemporary phenomena, and, above all, that it no longer in¬ 
corporated an objective authority but that it had come to be simp y 
the tool of certain economic interests and that the very conduct of the 
state justified this assumption. The victory of political bourgeoisie 
was nothing else than the victory of a definite class which had come 
into being as the result of economic laws and which for its part had 
not the slightest qualification for political leadership and which made 
this leadership dependent upon the ever-changing phenomena of 
economic life and upon the effect of this economic life on the masses 
and public opinion. In other words; the people rightly felt that a 



















































































^ I lIMn I 








46 

natural selection takes place in all spheres of activity, always 
provided that the individual is qualified for this particular sphere, but 
that one sphere was excepted, the sphere of political leadership. In 
this sphere they suddenly found a process of selection based on quite 
other premises. 

While it is quite natural that a leader in the army can only be 
one who has been trained for this post, it was not then taken for 
granted that a political leader can only be one who has had training 
in this work and, moreover, especially one who has shown what he 
can do in this line. Unfortunately people began to get the idea that 
the capacity for political leadership was the prerogative of a certain 
class which had come into existence as the result of economic laws. 
We have seen the results of this mistake. The class which had 
allocated this leadership to itself failed in every critical hour and, in 
the blackest moment of the nation’s history, collapsed miserably. 

The German battalions did not behave in this way. Consider for 
a moment that this German nation of ours had at that time millions 
of men at the front. Everyone knows what superhuman power of 
determination was needed to lead a troop, let us say of the reserve, 
against the enemy once more, to march once more into the zone of 
fire with death staring one in the face and not to falter. And at' 
home the political leaders break up and give way before a miserable 
gang of deserters who were too cowardly to face the enemy, and those 
at home capitulated in the face of these cowards. Let nobody say 
there was no other way; only for these men was there no other way. 

For any other leaders the way would have been quite clear and 
there would have been no question of excusing the capitulation on 
the ground that higher orders had been received to this effect. At 
certain moments in the history of a nation there are no orders which 
can compel the people or the leaders of a state to give way and 
leave the field in the hands of cowards and incompetents. 

In my opinion, if anybody had the right to lay down his arms it 
was the German soldier who, in his thousands, had the misfortune to 
have to face for four and a half years, thanks to the weakness of 
German diplomacy, an enemy who was nearly always superior in 
strength, but nevertheless, convinced that he was fighting for his 
nation, knew no other duty than that of every decent soldier, to 
conquer or to die. 

No, it was not chance; on the 9 th November a false development 
finally proved itself as a false development and false methods have 
proved themselves today to have been false, and it was only a question 
of time whether these false methods finally ruined Germany completely 
or whether there would yet be found in Germany sufficient strength 
to get rid of them. I believe we are now in a period when they have 
finally been got rid of. 

But we are also in a period when the question of the reconstruc¬ 
tion of our German economic system must not only be thoroughly 
thought out but must also be completely solved, not from without 


47 


but by a thorough examination of the inner causes of the collapse 
and by the determination to get rid of these causes. I believe we 
shall have to begin where a beginning is indicated today; that is 
with the state itself. 

A new authority must be set up 

and this authority must be independent of temporary political 
fluctuations and, above all, of those fluctuations which allow narrow, 
selfish and material interests to predominate. The state must be led 
by a real authority and one which is not dependent on any one class. 
The leaders must be such that every citizen can trust them and be 
sure that they do not wish for anything but the happiness and the 
good of the German nation; they must be able to say with right that 
they are completely independent. 

People talk so much of the absolutism of past times, of the 
absolutism of Frederick the Great and the democratic times of our 
parliamentary era. From the point of view of the nation those past 
times were more objective. Then people were able to perceive the 
interests of the nation in a more objective manner, whereas in later 
times the interests of individual classes came exclusively to the fore. 
There can be no better proof of this than the class warfare whose 
slogan is: “The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie must make way for the 
dictatorship of the proletariat.” It is simply a question of a change 
from the dictatorship of one class to that of another, 

while we wish for the dictatorship of the nation, that is, 
the dictatorship of the entire community. 

We do not regard any one class as being of paramount impor¬ 
tance, such distinctions disappear during the course of centuries, they 
come and go. What remains is the substance, a substance of flesh 
and blood, our nation. That is what is permanent and to that alone 
should we feel ourselves responsible. Only then can we prepare the 
way for the overcoming of our dire economic distress, only then shall 
we be able to restore to the millions of our people the conviction that 
the state does not represent the interests of a single group or class, 
and that the government is there to manage the concerns of the entire 
community. If, on one side or the other, there are people who 
believe that they cannot reconcile themselves to this state of affairs, 
then the new authority will have to be brought to bear against the 
one side or the other. All will have to realize that the new leaders 
do not hold their authority at the pleasure of any one class, but that 
it is theirs by virtue of a law and that law is: the necessity of 
preserving the nation as such. 

And further: all those who play upon human weakness in order 
to carry out their deadly plans must be got rid of. For fourteen or 
fifteen years I have continuously proclaimed to the German nation 
that 

















































48 


f 


I regard it as my task before posterity 
to destroy Marxism, 

and that is no empty phrase but a solemn oath which I shall perform 
as long as 1 live. 

I have made this confession of faith, the confession of faith of 
a single man, that of a mighty organisation. I know now that even 
if fate were to remove me the fight would be fought on to the end; 
this movement is the guarantee for that. This is for us no fight which 
can be finished by a compromise. We see in Marxism the enemy of 
our people which we shall root out and destroy without mercy. 

We know too that only too often in economic life the interests 
seem to be opposed to one another, that the worker feels himself 
out-manoeuvred—and often is out-manoeuvred—that the employer 
often feels himself hard-pressed—and perhaps often is hard- 
pressed—that what seems to be profit for one is considered as loss 
by the other, and that success for one sometimes means the ruin 
of the other. We know that and see it and know that humanity 
has always suffered under it. All the more dangerous is it then 
when an organisation has as its only aim the exploitation of this 
fact for the destruction of. the entire nation. Because this is so, 

that organisation must be destroyed and that doctrine wiped out 

which abuses this natural weakness which has its roots in the foibles 
of human nature. We know quite well that the final end of this 
entire development, of this fight between hand and brain, between 
the masses, that is quantity, and quality can only be—destruction 
of quality, of brain. But that will not benefit the masses or improve 
the lot of the worker but will result in misery and want, will mean 
total extinction. 

We see the economic distress and are not children who believe 
that good will can get rid of it overnight. We are reckoning too 
with human weakness which is always playing new tricks on mankind 
and which often simply brings to nought the best of intentions and 

the best of ideas. But we have the firm intention not to give way 

but to fight day in and day out—the whole of life is a battle - 
against these things and to oppose them by reason and to keep 
the interests of the community in the foreground. If we do not 
succeed today, where we fail today we must succeed to-morrow. 
And if we are asked whether we believe that we can do away with 
suffering, we can only reply that this will happen when there are 
no more fallible people on earth. As 1 am afraid that mankind 
will always be fallible, I am afraid there will also always be suffering. 
At any rate one generation cannot set the whole world right. 

Every nation has the duty of looking after itself. Every age 
has the duty of solving its own particular problems. Do not think 
that we are leaving nothing for future generations to accomplish. 
No, no, we do not want to bring up our children to be lazy parasites 
who shall reap the harvest that others have sown. No, what you 


49 


wish to possess you must continuously build up anew for your¬ 
self, you must ever be fighting for it. It is to this that we wish 
to train the people. We have no idea of teaching them that this 
sort of strife is something unnatural or unworthy; on the contrary, 
we want them to realize that this strife is the necessary prerequisite 
of selection, that without this eternal struggle there would be no 
human race. No, what we are doing today we are doing for 
ourselves. 

In combatting the need of the present we are building 

for the future, 

in that we are showing our successors how they must carry on 
the fight, just as we could only learn from the past what we have 
to do today. If the generation before us had thought in the way 
in which people would like to persuade us that they thought, we 
should not have been here. I cannot recognize as right for the 
future what I must designate as wrong in the past. What gives 
life to me and to us must also be right for the life of our successors, 
and we are in duty bound to act on this principle. 

We must then fight to the very end those tendencies which 
have eaten into the soul of the German nation in the last seventeen 
years, which have done us such incalculable damage and which, if 
they had not been vanquished, would have destroyed Germany. 
Bismarck told us that liberalism was the pace-maker of social 
democracy. I need not say here that social democracy is the pace¬ 
maker of communism. 

And communism is the forerunner of death, 
of national destruction and extinction. 

We have joined battle with it and shall fight it to the death. 
As so often in the history of Germany, it will be proved once more 
that the greater the need is the more strength the German nation 
finds to rise once more above it. It will find it this time too and 
I am convinced that it has already started on the road upwards. 

I must now speak of another measure, the freeing of the at 
present existing unions from the influence of those men who believe 
that they possess in those unions a last line of defence. Let them 
have no illusions as to this. What they built up we hold for wrong. 
We see however that the German genius, working against the will 
of the founders of these unions, gradually awoke in millions of 
individuals a feeling which found its outward expression in mighty 
organisations. Those men would have destroyed those organisations. 
We are taking them over, not to preserve everything in the same 
form for the future but to save for the German working-man all 
that he had put by in these organisations in the way of savings 
and, furthermore, in order that the German worker might cooperate 
in the building of the new state, to enable him to do this on a 


4 
















































50 


basis of equality. We are not erecting a state against him; no, with 
him must the new state be built up. 

He must not have the feeling that he is something inferior and 
to be despised. No, on the contrary! We want to fill him from 
the very beginning, already in the earliest stages, with the feeling 
that he is a German with the same rights as any other. And, in 
my eyes, equal rights have never been anything else than the cheerful 
undertaking of equal duties. 

One must not be always speaking of rights but one must 

also speak of duties. 

The German worker must show the others that he no longer stands 
outside the German nation and its rebirth. There will, of course, 
be elements who do not agree. There will, however, be people 
like this in the right wing too. The day’s work will be carried on 
regardless of them. 

Those in Germany who in purity of heart and profound earnest¬ 
ness wish for nothing else than the greatness of their nation will 
find the way to one another. Such men will be able to come to 
an agreement, will be able to understand one another, and, if some¬ 
times doubts should arise once more and hard facts play unpleasant 
tricks upon them, it is our desire to play the part of honest brokers. 

Then it will be the task of the Government, as upright and 
honest broker, to join together once more the hands of those 

who are on the point of separating 

and more and more to impress upon the German people that they 
must not fight against one another, they must not break with one 
another on superficial questions and forsake one another because 
in the course of centuries things may have taken a course which 
we as individuals regret, but that they must always keep in mind 
that the common duty of all is to preserve the national community. 
If this is done, a way will be found—a way must be found. We 
cannot simply say the way to national life has become impossible 
because at the moment there are certain difficulties. The moment 
will pass, but life must and will go on. 

In this way the unifying of the German labour movement takes 
on a profound moral significance. In thus building up a state which 
will have to be the result of great concessions on both sides, we 
wish to have two contracting parties face one another who think 
nationally with their whole hearts and see only the nation and 
are ready to put all other considerations in the background in order 
to serve the community. Only when this is accomplished can we 
be confident of success. 


51 


And here the will from which the deed proceeds is decisive. 

There can be no victors and vanquished but only one victor: 

our German nation. 

Victor over classes, victor over statuses and victor over the 
individual interest groups in our nation. And thus we shall arrive 
naturally at an understanding of the nobility of work. That too 
is a task which cannot be fulfilled overnight. Just as it took 
centuries to pervert the meaning of the word ‘labour’ so it will take 
centuries to restore to it its original value in the minds of the German 
people. It will be the steadfast aim of the movement which I and 
my fellow-workers represent to exalt the world ‘worker’ to the 
greatest title of honour in the German nation. Not for nothing 
have we included it in the name of our party—certainly not because 
it has been of great advantage to us. On the contrary, it has brought 
us hatred and enmity from the one side and lack of understanding 
from the other. We chose this word because we wished, with the 
victory of our movement, to bring honour to it too. 

We chose it that, with the word ‘nation’, it might be made to 
form the basis of national unity, for every honourable man cannot 
but be proud of such a title. 

Personally, I am against honorary titles and I do not think 
any one can reproach me very much for this. What is not absolutely 
necessary for me to do I do not do. I should never care to have 
visiting cards printed with the titles which in this world are given 
with such ceremony. I do not want anything on my gravestone 
out my name. All the same, owing to the peculiar circumstances 
of my life, I am perhaps more capable than any one else of under¬ 
standing the nature and the life of the various German castes. Not 
because I have been able to observe this life from the higher ranks 
but because I have participated in it, because fate in a moment of 
caprice, or perhaps fulfilling the designs of Providence, cast my 
lot in that of the great masses. Because I myself was a labouring 
man for years. And because for the second time I lived for years 
among the masses as a common soldier, and then fate lifted me 
into another class of our people so that I learned to know this class 
better than many another. And so fate has perhaps destined me 
more than any other to be—I can apply this word to myself—an 
honest broker, 

an honest broker for both sides. 

I am not personally interested here. I am neither dependent on 
the state, nor on an official office, nor am I dependent on any 
industrial or economic concern nor on the trade unions. I am an 
independent man and I have set myself no other aim than to serve 
the German people to the best of my ability and above all to be of 
service to those millions who, thanks to their trusting simplicity and, 
above all, to the ignorance and wickedness of their leaders, have 
perhaps suffered most of all. 


4* 



































f 



It has always been my idea that there can be nothing finer than 
to be the advocate of those who cannot defend themselves. 

I know the people and should like to say just one thing to our 
intellectuals: “Any country that is founded only upon the intellectual 
classes is built on a weak foundation.” 

I know the intellectual too; always indulging in sophistry, always 
probing and searching but always wavering and uncertain, mobile 
but never sure. Whoever tries to build a state on this intellectual 
class alone will see that he is not building securely. It is not chance 
that the religions are more stable than forms of government. They 
usually sink their roots deeper in the soil; they would not be 
conceivable without the masses. I know that the intellectuals are 
only too prone to look down upon the masses and to judge them by 
their own standards and their own so-called intellect, and yet there 
are things here which the intellectual cannot understand because he 
cannot see them. It is true however that the masses are often 
somewhat slow of comprehension and are, in certain .respects, 
backward, not so mobile, not so bright. But they have something, 
they have faithfulness, tenacity and stability. 

I can safely say that the revolution would never have succeeded 
had it not been for my comrades in the masses who stood with such 
steadfastness and faithfulness behind us. 

1 can conceive nothing better for our Germany than that we 
should succeed in bringing those of the masses who now stand 
outside our ranks into the new state and making them the 

foundation of that new state. 

A poet once said: “Germany will then be truly great when her 
poorest son is her most devoted citizen.” I knew these poorest sons 
for four and a half years as soldiers in the great World War; I have 
known those who, with perhaps nothing to gain for themselves, have 
followed the call of the blood and become heroes for no reason but 
that they felt themselves part of the nation. 

No nation has more right to erect a monument to its unknown 
soldier than the German nation. That unshakaeble guard which stood 
firm in a thousand battles, which never shirked and never gave way, 
which has given a thousand examples of courage, devotion, self- 
sacrifice, discipline and obedience must be won for the state, for the 
coming Reich, for our Third Reich. That is perhaps the most 
priceless gift we can give it. 

Because I know these men perhaps better than any one else who 
also knows the others, I am now not only ready to act as honest 
broker, but I am happy that fate has given me the opportunity to 
play this part. 

Nothing in life could make me prouder than, at the end, to be 
able to say: “I have won over the German worker for the 

German Reich.” 


Chancellor Adolf Hitler 

addressing the German Reichstag on 17 May 1933 * 

Men und Women of the German Reichstag, 

In the name of the German Government I have asked the 
President of the Reichstag to convene the Reichstag in order to make 
a statement before this assembly on the questions which are agitating 
not merely our own people but the whole world. 

The problems, with which you are familiar, are of such 
importance that not only political peace but also economic salvation 
for all depend on their successful solution. 

If, in the name of the German Government, I express the wish 
that they shall be treated in a completely dispassionate manner, I do 
so mainly in the conviction, which is weighing on all, that the deepest 
causes of the present crisis lie in the passions which clouded the 
judgment and wisdom of nations after the war. 

For all the problems which are causing such unrest today lie 
in the deficiencies of the Treaty of Peace which did not succeed in 
solving in a clear and reasonable way the questions of the most 
decisive importance for the future. Neither national nor economic— 
to say nothing of legal—problems and demands of the nations were 
settled by this treaty in such a way as to stand the criticism of reason 
in the future. It is therefore natural that the idea of revision is not 
only one of the constant accompaniments of the effects of this treaty, 
but that it was actually foreseen as necessary by the authors of the 
Treaty and therefore given a legal foundation in the Treaty itself. 

If I deal briefly with the problems which the Versailles Treaty 
ought to have settled, I do so because its failure in this respect has 
inevitably given rise to the later situations under which the political 
and economic relations of States have since then been suffering. 

The political problems. 

For many centuries European States and their frontiers developed 
from conceptions which were only concerned with the State as such. 
With the triumph of the national conception and of the principle of 
nationality in the course of the last century, the seed of many conflicts 
was sown by the failure of States, which had come into existence 


* Authorised translation of the official text. 
































( 


under other conditions, to take into account these new ideas and 
ideals. At the end of the World War there could have been no 
nobler task for a real peace conference than to undertake—-in the 
clear recognition of this fact— 

a territorial and political reorganisation of the European States 

which should in the highest degree ' possible do justice to this 
principle. The more such a settlement succeeded in making the 
frontiers between peoples coincide with the frontiers between States 
ihe more it would have eliminated a whole series of future possibilities 
of conflict. Indeed, this territorial reorganisation of Europe taking 
account of the real and historical frontiers between peoples, would 
have been a far-sighted solution which would perhaps have made the 
sacrifice of life during the Great War appear to conquerors and 
conquered alike not to have been made in vain, because it would have 
given the world a basis for a real and lasting peace. 

As it was, through ignorance, passion and hatred, decisions were 
taken which m their injustice and lack of logic, bore the seeds of 
fresh conflicts. 

The economic problems. 

The main characteristics of the present economic situation of 
Europe are the overcrowding of the west of Europe and the poverty 
,. s , S01 Ijn certain raw materials which are essential to the standard 
of Ufe which has grown up in those territories with their ancient 
culture. If the statesmen at Versailles wanted to bring lasting 
• peace to Europe, they should have recognized and followed, instead 
of the dangerous and sterile conceptions of expiation, punishment 
and reparation, the profound truth that 

the lack of the necessities of life 
has always been a source of conflict between peoples. 

Instead of preaching the idea of extermination, they should have 
embarked upon a reorganisation of international political and 
economic relationships so as to do justice, to the fullest possible 
extent, to the vital needs of each nation. 1 

It is not wise to deprive a people of the economic resources 

fhflf S +n ary °Vr exi . stenc * w Khout taking into consideration the fact 
that the population dependent on them are bound to the soil and will 

e< ^‘ e K ea t:he economic extermination of a nation 
^f si,xty-tive millions would be of service to other nations is absurd. 

/ i.-y people inclined to follow such a line of thought would under 
the law of cause and effect, soon experience that the doom which they 
'.veie preparing for another nation would swiftly overtake them. The 
very idea of reparations and the way .in which they were enforced 
will become a classic example in the history of the nSsothow 
seriously international welfare can be damaged by hasty and 
unconsidered action, ^ ' 1U 


55 


As a matter of fact, the policy of reparations could only be 
financed by German exports. To the same extent as Germany, for 
the sake of reparations, was regarded in the light of an international 
exporting concern, the export of the creditor nations was bound 
•to suffer. The economic benefit accruing from the reparation 
payments could therefore never make good the damage which the 
system of reparations inflicted upon the individual economic systems. 

The attempt to prevent such a development by compensating for 
a limitation of German exports by the grant of credits, in order to 
render payments possible, was no less shortsighted and mistaken 
in the end. For the conversion of political debts into private oblig¬ 
ations led to an interest service which was bound to have the same 
results. The worst feature, however, was that the development of 
internal economic life was artificially hindered and ruined. The 
struggle to gain the world markets by constant underselling led 
to excessive rationalisation measures in the economic field. 

The millions of German unemployed are the final result of 
this development. If it was desired, however, to restrict reparation 
obligations to deliveries in kind, this must naturally cause equally 
serious damage to the internal production of the nations receiving 
them. For deliveries in kind to the amount involved are unthinkable 
without most seriously endangering the production of the individual 
nations. 

The Treaty of Versailles is to blame for having inaugurated 
a period in which financial calculations appear to destroy economic 
reason. 

Germany has faithfully fulfilled the obligations imposed upon 
her, in spite of their intrinsic lack of reason and the obviously 
suicidal consequences of this fulfilment. 

The international economic crisis is the indisputable proof of 

the correctness of this statement. 

The chances of restoring a general international legal sentiment 
have also been no less destroyed by the Treaty. 

For, in order to justify all the measures of this edict, 

Germany had to be branded as the guilty party. 

This procedure is, indeed, just as simple as it is, however, in- 
admissable. In any future cases of conflict the vanquished will 
always be the guilty party, because the victor can establish this fact 
in the easiest manner possible. 

This procedure therefore assumes a terrible significance, because 
it gave at the same time an excuse for the conversion of the power 
ratio existing at the end of the war into a permanent legal status. 
The conception of conqueror and conquered thus literally became 
the foundation of a new international legal and social order. 

The degradation of a great people to a second class nation 
was proclaimed at the same moment as a League of Nations came 
into being. 



































































56 


This treatment of Germany could not lead to the pacification of 
the world. The disarmed state and defencelessness of the conquered 
parties which was thus considered necessary—an unheard of 
procedure in the history of the European nations—was still less 
calculated to diminish the general dangers and conflicts, but merely 
led to that condition of constant menaces, demands and sanctions 
which, by the unrest and insecurity which they give rise to, threaten to 
undermine the entire economic structure of the world. If no 
consideration is given by the nations to the danger of certain actions 
reason may easily be overcome by unreason. At any rate up to the 
present, the League' of Rations has been unable to grant any 
appreciable assistance to the weak and unarmed in such cases 
Treaties concluded for the pacification of the nations only possess 
an inner meaning when they are based on real and honest equality 

f° r al1 - This is the main reason for the state of unrest \ 
which has been weighing on the world for a number of years. 

It is, however, in the interests of all that present day problems I 

should be solved in a reasonable and final manner. No new European 
war could improve the unsatisfactory conditions of the present day. 

On the contrary, the application of violence of any kind in j 
Europe could have no favourable effect upon the political or economic 
position which exists to-day. Even if a fresh European act of 
violence had a decisive result, the ultimate effect would be to increase 
e disturbance of European equilibrium and thus, in one manner or 
another, to sow the seed of further conflicts and complications. 1 

The result would be fresh wars, fresh uncertainty, and fresh 

economic distress. The outbreak of such infinite madness, however 

would necessarily cause the collapse of the present social and 

poiitica. order. A Europe sinking into communistic chaos would 

bring about a crisis, the extent and duration of which could not be 
foreseen. 

It is the earnest desire of the National Government of the 
German Reich to prevent such a disturbing development by means 
of its honest and active cooperation. ' 

This is also the inner meaning of the revolution which has taken 
place in Germany; the following three aims of our revolution are in 
no way opposed to the interests of the rest of the world; 

Firstly: To prevent the threatened Communist revolution, to build 
up a national state which shall unite the interests of the different 
classes and castes and to maintain the idea of property as the basis 
of our culture. Secondly: To solve the most difficult of social 
problems by bringing back the millions of our unfortunate unemployed 
into productive work. Thirdly: To re-establish a stable and authori¬ 
tative government supported by the will and confidence of the 
nation which shall make our great people an acceptable partner of 
the other States of the world. 


57 


Speaking deliberately as a German National Socialist, I desire 
to declare in the name of the National Government, and of the 
whole movement of national regeneration, that we in this new 
Germany are filled with deep understanding for the same feelings 
and opinions and for the rightful claims to life of the other nations. 
The present generation of this new Germany, which, so far, has 
only known in its life the poverty, misery and distress of its own 
people, has suffered too deeply from the madness of our tune to be 
able to contemplate treating others in the same way. 

Our boundless love for and loyalty to our own national 
traditions makes us respect the national claims of others and 
makes us desire from the bottom of our hearts to live with them 

in peace and friendship. 

We therefore have no use for the idea of Germanisation. The 
mentality of the past century which made people believe that they 
could make Germans out of Poles and Frenchmen is completely 
foreign to us; the more so as we are passionately opposed to any 
attempt on the part of others to alienate us from our German 
tradition. We look at the European nations objectively. The 
French, the Poles, etc. are our neighbours, and we know 

that through no possible development of history 
can this reality be altered. 

It would have been better for the world if in Germany s case 
these realities had been appreciated in the Treaty of Versailles. 
For the object of a really lasting treaty should be not to cause new 
wounds and keep old ones open, but to close wounds and heal 
them. A thoughtful treatment of European problems at that tune 
could certainly have found a settlement in the east which would 
have met both the reasonable claims of Poland and the natural 
rights of Germany. The Treaty of Versailles did not provide this 
solution. Nevertheless no German Government will of its own accord 
break an agreement which cannot be removed without being replaced 

by a better one. 

But the legal character of such a Treaty must be acknowledged 
by all. Not only the conqueror but also the conquered party can 
claim the rights accorded in the Treaty. And the right to demand 

a revision of the Treaty 

finds its foundation in the Treaty itself. The German Government, 
in stating the reasons for and the extent of its claims, wishes for 
nothing more than the existing results of previous experience and 
the incontestable consequences of critical and logical reasoning 
show to be necessary and just. The experience of the last fourteen 
years, however, is unambiguous from a political and economic point 

of view. t i . 

The misery of the nations has not been relieved but has in¬ 
creased. The deepest roots of this misery, however, lie in the division 











































t 


58 

of the world into conquerors and conquered, which seems to be 
intended to form a permanent basis of all treaties and all future 
order. The worst effect of this order lies in the compulsory defence¬ 
lessness of one nation as against the excessive armaments of the 
others. If Germany has continued for years to demand the disarma¬ 
ment of all, it is for the following reasons: 

(1) The demand for equality of rights expressed in actual facts 
is a demand of morality, right and reason; it is a demand 
which is recognised in the Peace Treaty itself and the fulfil¬ 
ment of which is indissolubly bound up with the demand for 
German disarmament, as the prelude to world disarmament. 

(2) On the other hand the disqualification of a great people cannot 
be permanently maintained, but must at some time be brought 
to an end. How long is it thought possible that such an 
injustice can be imposed on a great nation? What is the 
advantage of a moment as compared with the permanent 
development through centuries? The German nation will 
continue to exist exactly in the same way as the French 
nation and, as history has proved, the Polish nation.. 

Of what value is the temporary oppression of a nation of 65 
millions as compared with the force of this incontrovertible fact? 
No State can possess a greater understanding for the young, newly 
created European national States than the new Germany which has 
risen out of the national revolution which was inspired by the same 
impulses. Germany wants nothing for herself which she is not 
prepared to give to others . 

Germany, in demanding at present actual equality of rights such 
as can only be achieved by the disarmament of other nations, has 
a moral right to do so since she has herself carried out the provisions 
of the treaties. For 

Germany has disarmed 

and has carried out this disarmament under the strictest inter¬ 
national supervision. 6 million rifles and carbines were surrendered 
or destroyed; the German people were compelled to destroy or 
surrender 130,000 machine-guns, huge quantities of machine-gun 
barrels, 91,000 guns, 38,750,000 projectiles and enormous quantities 
of other arms and ammunition. 

The Rhineland was demilitarised, the German fortresses were 
dismantled, our ships surrendered, our airplanes destroyed, our 
system of military service abandoned and the training of reserves 
thus prevented. Even the most indispensable weapons of defence 
were denied us. 

If, in the face of these indisputable facts, any one should attempt 
to come forward and declare with truly wretched excuses and pretexts 
that Germany has not fulfilled the treaties or has even rearmed, as 


59 


German Chancellor speaking in the Reichstag, I must repudiate such 
views which are as untrue as they are unfair. 

Equally untrue are the statements that Germany has not com¬ 
plied with the provisions of the Treaty in respect of personnel. The 
statement that the S. A. and S.S. of the National socialist Party 
are connected in any way with the Reichswehr, in the sense that 
they represent formations with military training or army reserves, 

is untrue! . 

The irresponsible frivolity with which such assertions are made 

may be seen from the following example: Last year there was a 
a case before the Courts in Brunn against members of the National 
Socialist Party in Czecho-Slovakia. Military experts of the Czecho¬ 
slovak army declared on oath that the defendants were in contact 
with the German National Socialist Party, that they were dependent 
on it, and that, as members of a popular sports association, they 
were to be reckoned as equal to members of the storm sections and 
storm troops of the National Socialistic Party in Germany who 
formed a reserve army organised and trained by the German 

Reichswehr. 

During that period, however, neither the storm sections and 
storm troops nor the National Socialist Party itself had any con¬ 
nection at all with the Reichswehr. On the contrary they were per¬ 
secuted, prohibited and finally suppressed as organisations dangerous 
to the State. Indeed, members of the National Socialist Party, of 
the storm sections and storm troops were not only excluded from 
all official positions, but might not even be employed as workmen 
in works connected with the Reichswehr. But the National Socialists 
in Czecho-Slovakia were condemned to a long term of hard labour 
on the strength of this false evidence! 

In actual fact, the storm sections and storm troops of the 
National Socialist Party came into being without any help or financial 
support from the governments of the Federal States, the Reich or 
from the army, without any military training or equipment, but 
purely out of the political needs and considerations of the times. 
Their object was and is exclusively the removal of the communist 
danger; their development took place without any connection with 
the army purely for purposes of propaganda and national enlight- 
ment, psychological mass effect and the breaking down of the com¬ 
munist terror. They form an institution for creating a true team spirit,, 
for overcoming former class differences and for removing economic 

d i stress 

The Stahlhelm arose out of memories of the great period of 
common experiences at the front, in order to keep alive the old 
traditions and the spirit of true comradeship and, lastly, to protect 
the German people against the danger of a communist revolution 
which had been threatening since November 1918; this is a danger 
which cannot be estimated by countries which have not, like us, 
millions of organised communists, and have not, like Germany, 








































60 

suffered from their terrorism. The real object of these national 
organisations is best characterised by the actual nature of their 

assaults and artist f acrifices - tl As a result of communist murderous 

of the 4 National f- pTo' 511 ?’ f u C Storm sections and storm troops 

ahom Innnn S ,' a ist Party have Iost more than 350 killed and 
about 40,000 wounded within a few years. If attemnts are now 

made at Geneva to rank these organisations, which serve exclusively 

internal put poses, as military effectives, there would be an equally 

rVa e tch 0n an f d 0r r'H Uding the - fire brigades> the athletic associations, 

and X,' “{temrauTCS 1 ^ ^ aSS0dati ™ 8 

of thp'^Jlh* 1 ’ howe . ver > at the same time ^e trained annual contingents 
whn h . other armies of the world, in contradistinction to these men 
thp° a are h ntlfe y w,th ? ut military training, are not included, when 
wHUa th ed reserv ® s of oth er countries are deliberately over ooked 
Mse included^- memb , e ” of the Political associations are in our 

categorically protest. ^ 1 u es a ’ 

If the world wishes to destroy confidence in right and justice 
these are the best means for the purpose. 

On behalf of the German people and the German Government 

has comphed with a ° °oh| g S t tatement: Gennan y disarmed. She 
tv-L*? + ed w . th al1 obligations imposed upon her in the Peace 

army ty consfs n ts e of en /oo a mn ey0nd th ™‘ mi + tS of eC|uity and reason - Her 
army consists of 100,000 men. The strength and the character of 

her police are internationally regulated er oi 

. The atD ! iliary , Police established in the days of the revolution 
have an exclusively political character. In the critical davs of the 

LhTn T ( th 7 h3d *° re P ,ace lhat P art of the regular police force 
1 ft lr i was considered by the new regime to be unreliable - 
now, after the success of the revolution, they are already beine 
reduced and will be completely disbanded before the end of the year! 

h t? ein tn ny D as thus a fully i ustified moral claim to the fulfilment 
by m tbe otb f r p o we rs of their obligations under the Treaty of Ver¬ 
sailles. The equality of status accorded to Germany in December 
has not yet been given practical expression. With regard to the 
contention, repeated by France again and again, that Sfe safSv of 
France must be secured to the tame extent as the equalit? o 
Germany, I would like to ask two questions: ^ ^ 

1. Germany has so far accepted all the obligations with regard 
to security arising from the signing of the Versailles Treatv thp 

It? 0 Wh P f f Vi the Treaties of Arbitration, the Pact of Non-Aggression 
etc. What other concrete assurances are left for Germany to give? 

a ^the other hand , how much security hn c aormnnno 
According to the figures published by the League, France alone has 
3^46 aeroplanes in service, Belgium 350, Poland 700, Czecho-Slovakia 
670. In addition to these numbers there are innumerable reserve 


i 


61 


aeroplanes, thousands of tanks, thousands of heavy guns and all the 
necessary technical equipment for chemical warfare. Has not 
Germany, in her state of defencelessness and disarmament, greater 
justification in demanding security than the over-armed States bound 
together in military alliances? 

Nevertheless Germany is at any time willing -■ to undertake 
further obligations in regard to international security, if all the other 
nations are ready on their side to do the same, and if this security is 
also to benefit Germany. Germany would also be perfectly ready to 
disband her entire military establishment and destroy the small 
amount of arms remaining to her , if the neighbouring countries will 
do the same thing with equal thoroughness. But if these countries 
are not willing to carry out the disarmament measures to which they- 
are also bound by the Treaty of Versailles, Germany must at least 
maintain 

her demand for equality. 

The German Government sees in the British plan a possible basis 
for the solution of this question, but they must demand that the 
defence force existing in Germany shall not be abolished unless at 
least qualitative equality be accorded to Germany. She must further 
demand that any change in her present defence force organisation, 
which was not chosen by her but imposed on her from abroad, shall 
follow step by step in the same degree as the actual disarmament of 
the other States. 

Germany agrees in principle to a transitional period 

of five years during which to build up her national security, 

in the expectation that at the end of this period she will really be 
put on a footing of equality with the other States. She is also 
entirely ready to renounce all offensive weapons of every sort if the 
armed nations, on their side, will destroy their offensive weapons 
within a specified period, and if their use is forbidden by an inter¬ 
national convention. Germany has only one desire, to be able to 
preserve her independence and defend her frontiers. 

According to a statement made by the French Minister of War 
in February 1932, a large portion of the French coloured troops can 
be immediately used on the French mainland. He therefore expressly 
includes them in the forces of the home country. 

It is therefore only just that the coloured troops should also be 
considered by the disarmament conference as forming part of the 
French army. While this is not being done, it is proposed that 
associations and organisations of a purely educational or sporting 
character which have no military training whatsoever should be 
reckoned as forming part of the army in the case of Germany. In 
the case of other countries, however, there is no question of such 
organisations being counted as military effectives. Such a procedure 
is, of course, quite impossible. Germany would declare herself 




































62 

willing at any time, in the event of a mutual international supervision 
of armaments and of equal readiness on the part of other States, to 
subject these associations to such supervision in order to prove 

beyond doubt to the whole world that they are of an entirely un¬ 
military character. 

Moreover the German Government will not reject any prohibition 
of arms as being too drastic if it is applied in the same manner to 
all other States. As long as armaments are allowed to other powers, 
Germany cannot be permanently deprived of all weapons of defence! 
We are fully prepared only to make use of an equal status to an 
extent to be settled by negotiation. 

These demands do not imply rearmament but only a desire for 
the disarmament of the other States. In this connection I again 
welcome on behalf of the German Government the apt and far-sighted 
plan of the head of the Italian Government to create, by means of a 
special pact, close relations of confidence and cooperation between 
the four great European Powers, the United Kingdom, France, Italy 
and Germany. The German Government is in whole-hearted 
agreement with Mussolini’s view that this would facilitate a 
permanent understanding, and will show the greatest good-will, 
Pray 1 *-? ^e other nations are prepared really to overcome any 
difficulties which may arise. 

The proposal made by President Roosevelt, of which I learned 
last night, has therefore earned the warmest thanks of the German 
Government. They are prepared to agree to this method of over¬ 
coming the international crisis, for they are also of the opinion that 
no permanent economic reconstruction is possible unless the 
disarmament question is solved. They are prepared to take part 
unselfishly in this work of bringing order into the political and 
economic conditions of the world. As I stated at the outset they 
are also convinced that there is to-day only one great task: 

to safeguard the peace of the world. 

I am obliged to state that the reason for the present armaments 
of France or Poland can under no circumstances be the fear of 
those nations of a German invasion, for such fear would be only 
justined by the possession by Germany of modern offensive weapons. 
Germany however, does not possess such modern offensive weapons 
at all; she has neither heavy artillery nor tanks nor bombing aero¬ 
planes nor poisonous gases. 

. Jhe onl Y nation therefore which might justifiably fear invasion 
is the German nation, which not only may not possess offensive 
weapons but is also restricted in its right to defensive weapons and 
is even forbidden to erect frontier fortifications. 

Germany is at all times prepared to renounce offensive weapons 
If the rest of the wot Id does the same. Germany is prepared to agree 
to any solemn pact of non-aggression because she does not think of 
attacking but only of acquiring security. 


63 


She would welcome the possibility suggested in President Roose¬ 
velt’s proposal of bringing the United States into European relations 
as a guarantor of peace. The President’s proposal is a ray of 
comfort for all who wish to cooperate sincerely in the maintenance of 
peace. We have no more earnest desire than to contribute to the 
final healing of the wounds caused by the war and the Treaty of 
Versailles. Germany does not wish to take any other path than that 
recognized as justified by the treaties themselves. The German 
Government wishes to come to a peaceful agreement with other 
nations on all difficult questions. They know that in any military 
action in Europe, even if completely successful, the sacrifice would 
be out of all proportion to any possible gains. 

The German Government and the German people will under no 
circumstances allow themselves to be forced to sign what would 
mean a perpetuation of the degradation of Germany. The attempt 
to work on Government and people by threats will make no im¬ 
pression. It is conceivable that Germany might be violated in 
defiance of justice and morality, but it is inconceivable and out of 
the question that such an act should be given legal validity by our 
own signature. 

The attempt has been made in newspaper articles and in 
regrettable speeches to threaten Germany with sanctions, but such 
a monstrous step could only be considered as a punishment meted 
out to Germany for having pressed for the carrying out of the 
treaties by her demand for disarmament. Such a measure could only 
lead to the definite moral and effective invalidation of the treaties. 
Germany, however, even in this case, would never renounce her 
peaceful claims. The political and economic consequences, the chaos 
which such an attempt would bring on Europe would be the 
responsibility of those who used such means against a people which 
is doing the world no harm. 

Any such attempt or any attempt to do violence to Germany 
by means of a simple majority vote, contrary to the clear meaning 
of the treaties, could only be dictated by the intention of excluding us 
from the conferences. The German people, however, today possesses 
sufficient character in such a case not to impose its cooperation on 
other nations but, though with a heavy heart, to draw the only 
possible consequence. 

It would be difficult for us as a constantly defamed nation 

to continue to belong to the League of Nations. 

The German Government and the German nation are only too 
fully aware of the crisis of the present time. For^ many years 
Germany has given warnings regarding the methods which would and 
did inevitably lead to these political and economic results. If the 
present direction and the present methods are continued, there can be 
no doubt as to the ultimate result. After apparent political successes 































V* % 


64 


of individual nations, the resultant economic and political disasters 
for all will be all the more severe. We regard it as our first and most 
important task to avoid these results. 

Hitherto no effective measures have been taken. When we are 
told by the rest of the world that certain sympathies were felt for 
the former Germany, we have indeed experienced the results and 
effects of these “sympathies” in and for Germany. 

Millions of destroyed existences, the ruin of entire professions, 
and an enormous army of unemployed—all these facts reflect a 
state of wretchedness the extent of which I should like to impress 
on the rest of the world by a single figure: 

Since the signature of this Treaty, which was to form the 
foundation stone of a new and better world for all nations, 224,900 
people, men, women, old people and children, have taken their own 
lives, almost exclusively out of distress and misery. 

These unbribable witnesses condemn the spirit and fulfilment 
of a Treaty from which not only the rest of the world but also 
millions of people in Germany expected salvation and peace. 

May the other nations realise the resolute will of Germany to put 
an end to a period of blundering and to find the way to a final 
understanding between all, on the basis of equal rights. 




65 


Chancellor Adolf Hitler 

to the Reich Commissioners in the Reich Chancery, 

Berlin, on 6 July 1933* 

The political parties have now been finally abolished; this is 
a historical event of which the importance and far-reaching effect 
have in many cases not yet been realized at all. We must now get 
rid of the last remains of democracy, especially of the methods of 
voting and of the decisions by the majority, such as still often occur 
in the communes, in economic organisations and in working com¬ 
mittees, and lay stress upon the responsibility in all cases of the 
individual. 

The achievement of external power must be followed by the 
internal education of the individual. We must therefore guard against 
making purely formal decisions from day to day and expecting 
them to lead to a final solution. Mankind are only too ready to 
make the external form fit their own mental conceptions. 

Direction must not be changed until the right men have been 

found for the change. More revolutions have been successful 

at the outset than have, when once successful, been arrested 
and brought to a standstill at the right moment. 

The revolution is not a permanent state of affairs, and it must 
not be allowed to develop into such a state. The stream of revolution 
released must be guided into the safe channel of evolution. The most 
important point in this connection is the education of the individual 
The present state of affairs must be improved, and the men who 
incorporate it must be educated up to the National Socialist view of 
the state. We must therefore not dismiss a business-man if he is a 
good business-man even if he is not yet a National Socialist; and 
e'pecially not if the National Socialist who is to take his place knows 
nothing about the business. 

In business, ability must be the only authoritative standard. 

The task of National Socialism is to secure the development of 
our nation. We must not look round to see if there is still some¬ 
thing a revolutionize, but it is our task to secure position after 
position, in order to hold them and gradually find the very best men 


* Translation of abridged official text. 


5 













66 

for the m. In doing so we must spread our action over many years 
and reckon with long periods. We cannot provide bread for a single 
workman by mere theoretical coordination. History will not judge 
us according as to whether we have removed and imprisoned the 
largest number of economists but according as to whether we have 
succeeded in providing work. 

We have now absolutely the power to enforce our will 

everywhere. 

mon Kt ^rh W K m ^ st be able to re P lace the men we remove by better 

to his IntinPci n fh S ,T an mus , t be Judged in the first place according 
to his business abilities, and we must obviously keep the business 

apparatus in order. We will not get rid of unemployment by means 

of business commissions, organizations, constructions and theories. 

da'i^hlci^Tn^f- at th ?,P resent of Programmes and ideas, but of the 
daily bread for five million men. Business is a living organism 

which cannot be transformed at a single blow. Business develops 

m accordance with primitive laws that are anchored in human nature. 

The spiritual bacillus carriers that are now attempting to find a 

way into business are a danger to the state and the nation. We must 

P?* re J?. ct practical experience because it is contrary to a certain 

idea When we present ourselves to our nation with reforms we 

mas S ter a them Pr0Ve that We understand thin S s and are able to 

Our task is work, work and nothing but work! 

We will derive the most powerful authority from success in the 
provision of work. Our programme has not been drawn up for the 
sake of fine gestures, but in order to maintain the life of the German 
nation. The ideas of the programme oblige us not to act like fools 
and upset everything but to realize our trains of thought wisely 
and carefully. In the long run, our political power will be all the 
Thfp^tlr the more we succeed in underpinning it economically. 

he Reich Commissioners must therefore see to it and are responsible 
that no organizations or party offices assume the functions if 
government, dismiss individuals and make appointments to offices 
to do which the government of the Reich alone and thus, with regard 

P/,ir US f, neSS ’ th A Re ‘ ch ^ in ' ster of Economics, is competent. 8 The 
Paity has now become the State. All power is invested in the Reich 

Government. We must prevent the centre of gravity of German 

i otinnf 8 rT ^ sh / fted to different ^ aarters or even organ¬ 
izations. There is no longer any authority emanating from onv 

one part of the Reich but only that based on the idea of the German 
nation as a whole . J 


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Wirk and Peace 

Collected Speeches by Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler 
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MY FIGHT 


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