Adolf Hitler – Speech Before the Old Guard in Munich

Source: https://nseuropa.blogspot.com/2020/11/adolf-hitler-speech-before-old-guard-in.html

August 11, 1940

"Party comrades!

My comrades!

We now celebrate November 9th again just like back then on the eve of the rally. For us, the year 1923 was a highpoint in the struggle for power in Germany. This struggle, and hence the significance of the day that we celebrate, is understood only by the one who remembers back to the time in which we were placed back then, and, above all, the one who again visualizes the prehistory of this whole mighty struggle.

When we entered into the nation’s political life, our names were unknown. The largest portion of us - I at the top - did not even belong to a party. Most had been soldiers, returned from the great war with rage or desperation in the heart. The folk’s, the German Reich’s situation seemed to many to be a desperate, a hopeless one. The Germany of the time before the year 1914 is no longer our Germany. Nonetheless, we feel bound to this Germany as well, for it already embodied the union of a large portion of German human beings. It was a land of work and also a land of prosperity. In this Germany of back then, after all, despite everything that may otherwise be said against it, the beginnings of a social legislation are to be seen. In this Germany, one took a position, for the first time at all, on problems, which still today, soon 30 years later, the so-called democracies blindly and deafly ignore. Certainly, these problems, as it was not conceivable otherwise, were solved from the perspective of back then, this means: the, in the deepest sense still capitalist, state could naturally approach the solution of social questions only hesitantly and only half-way, which, if they were really supposed to succeed, would have had as prerequisite that the state as well, the folk community, would have already gotten a different face. That was not the case. But all the more noteworthy, if one nonetheless concerned oneself with such problems at all and tried to solve them according to the possibilities back then.

Furthermore, Germany back then was still a land of democrats. Democracy celebrated precisely in this land greater orgies than anywhere else. It was the land of freedom. Everybody could do and leave what and how he wanted. This freedom went so far that one also kept the borders of the Reich back then open for anybody; not, so, like in America, the so-called land of infinite possibilities, for there every immigrant must pass an extraordinarily difficult exam before he is finally granted permission to step upon this sacred soil of democracy, although hardly ten people lived on a square kilometer. Among us, where, even back then, there were already 130 people per square kilometer, one did not take this measure. We were so free that any Jew, any Pollack could come to us without further ado and immediately acquire full equal rights. Germany later had to pay dearly for that. Back then, that mass of international stamp and international origin gathered, which in the year 1918 waved the flag of revolution.

Above all, however, Germany back then was without doubt a land of peace. One lived, one wanted to live. One earned, one wanted to earn. One knew that war is generally poorly suited for profit. So one hoped for peace so much that, in a period when, without a doubt, the other world already armed against Germany, one let pass that favorable moment for conflict.

When the war finally came, it struck Germany in the most unarmed condition thinkable. I am not a critic of the period back then, although I could be one, for I have, like perhaps hardly another in history, drawn my conclusions from the past and have taken them to heart. And I have endeavored to no longer allow the German folk to approach a danger in a similar condition as back then.

And back then, England was already our enemy. If I say England, then I know quite precisely that here as well, folk and leadership are not one and the same. A small clique of international democrats, Jews and plutocrats dominates this land. And this clique, back then as well, already engaged in agitation for war. They are even the same persons as today. Mr. Churchill of now was already back then one of the biggest warmongers. Many who are today old did it back then in their youth. The British agitators managed back then as well to mobilize a world against Germany.

So the war came that Germany did not want. For it would have had better opportunities to wage this war, had it wanted. And although the armament of Germany back then was poor - today we can comfortably state this the Germany of back then nonetheless held out for four years. And as former soldier of the World War and present-day supreme commander of the German Wehrmacht, I can comfortably say: back then as well, they would not have defeated Germany, if its ally in the interior had not broken us. They endeavored for four years, and it was first necessary to let an American magician priest arise who now found the formula for which the German folk, in trust in the word of honor of a foreign president, fell. If one later acted as if one would have defeated us even without it anyway, then one can only raise the question: Then why did one call the spirit through which we were supposed to be fooled, if it would work without it?

Germany was knocked to the ground back then by a band of conspirators, which could practice their evil work in our own folk and land. And then we received the bill for our naivete.

November 8th and 9th 1918 and the following days are for all time a warning for our German folk. Not a single promise was kept by the victors of the time back then. The greatest breach of word of all times set in. The period of suffering and misery began and hence also of desperation in our folk. Back then, there were probably many people who had no desire at all to still live. The suicide rates, they rose, after all, to over 20,000 per year. To most of them, life no longer seemed recommendable to them, which offered no prospect to ever again be able to achieve the equal rights and hence the freedom of the German folk.

Our struggle began back then. It was a beautiful struggle, for it was a struggle that was waged against all probability. When I appeared for the first time in this city and many of you then began to follow me, you who are here today, I was given up even by best friends. One could not grasp at all how an otherwise so reasonable person could suddenly get it into his head to fight alone against a whole world of realities. One said: What does this wretched creature want? He has neither money nor name; he does not even have a newspaper of his own behind him, he has no party. He has against him everything that exists. He wants to find against everything. He wants to fight against the entrepreneur and he wants to fight exactly so against the proletarian. He wants to fight against the present democratic Reich, but exactly so against the provinces. He wants to fight against all the denominations. He wants to fight against the organized business, such as we possess today, of capital, but exactly the same against the organizations of the unions. There is nothing at all against which this man does not want to fight. He wants to build a new state, a new society, and has nobody at all behind him. A crazy man, who undertakes to go out alone and now declare war against a whole compact majority in all areas!

It was not so easy, this struggle, and nonetheless, successes began to show themselves. Against the silent treatment as well as against the method of mockery, of scorn, later against the flood of lies and defamation, and finally against terror, the young movement began to succeed.

You all experienced this. You came to me individually back then. Some in the year 1919, others in the year 1920 and 1921. And you all nonetheless had the feeling inside back then: we will nonetheless win this struggle for power. It may be difficult. What speaks for us, that is reason, that is the correctness of our principles, that is the realization that the present state can no longer be preserved, that it is only a question of time until it breaks one way or another. But it is furthermore also the sense of the necessity of a reevaluation of many concepts. But it was finally also - I almost want to say - mystical faith in the immortality of our nationality, a nationality, however, which, given the continuation of the given conditions, would have nonetheless been destroyed.

So we slower grew. By some, viewed with indifference, by others, followed with rage, hated by many, simply out of comfort. Many of the burghers who looked from their windows at us on the street had a silent rage within themselves, because they said: “Always this noise! If they would just finally be quiet. Again and again, it comes to brawls, only because they are not quiet. They should fit in, we fit in as well, after all. One can think on the inside, after all, like one wants, but not constantly announce it outside, rather keep it to oneself. One can still be a worthy citizen then. We also protest, but we protest within ourselves, in silence and at most otherwise with the mind; but then always with violence right off They know that the others also come with violence, so the smarter person should give in.”

And we were not the smarter ones back then. Already as a child, I was not that. 1 have always rejected this principle, to be the smarter one and hence to give in, rather I have always preferred not to give in, even at the risk that the others then say: “He was not smart.”

So back then as well, we did not give in, and disturbed the peace of these burghers again and again, never bowed, rather again and again rebelled, and slowly managed to conquer the street, to conquer places for ourselves, to bring location after location into our possession.

Then the expansion beyond our narrower homeland here began. But that was also a struggle against the folk that already seemed almost all-powerful in our land, the struggle against Jewry. And what that means, the person who is born today, in the future, no longer knows at all. A satanic power, which had taken possession of our whole folk, which had brought into its hands all key positions of spiritual and intellectual life, but also of political and economic life, and which, from these key positions, watched over the whole nation, a power, which, however, also simultaneously possessed the influence, if necessary, to persecute with the law the one who undertook joining the struggle against this power and who was ready to offer resistance against the advance of this power. Almighty Jewry declared war against us back then. And you also know I have always represented the view that there is no dumber folk than the Jewish one, however, also no more unprincipled and unscrupulous one. But I also always represented the view that the hour will come when we will remove this folk from our ranks. This is the view that also dominates me even today, since we have triumphed in Germany.

We declared war against everything that carried this state back then, that led this state, and were loyal to only one single thing, namely the German folk. We knew only one goal, to benefit the German folk and to serve it, and were also ready to take everything upon ourselves for it.

And then the year 1923 came, and we undertook the first attempt to get the power in the state into our hands. The attempt failed and the first blood martyrs fell back then. I viewed precisely this apparent collapse of the year 1923 as just the beginning of the triumphant march. I was of the conviction that after it had not managed to totally exterminate the movement, it would rise again, and that the blood martyrs of this November 8th and 9th would help to really lead the movement forward and finally ensure it victory. The opponents, however, believed that this was the end. A few months later, a new founding the movement had already come about, and a year later, there roughly followed again the upswing of the movement. In 1925, I was released, and a few months already sufficed in order to form the party anew.

And then began this amazing war and struggle and unique triumphant march in Germany. All the years 1925 and 26 and 27 and 28 and 29 and 30, they may have been unimportant for many others, many a burgher lived his petty life and did not know at all what happened around him, that one of the greatest revolutions of all time prepared itself. These burghers did not see this. But also many proletarian leaders of social democracy or the K.P.D did not grasp it, that a revolution spread, strode forward, of a unique magnitude.

We fought back then year after year, month after month, and we could only see to our proud joy that the movement grew more and spread ever more, until finally, after the years 1931-32, the year 1933 came, which brought us victory.

Perhaps there were many people back then - and we know this, after all, my dear party comrades - who just said:” “Thank God, now they have power, now there will be quiet!” There were many, after all, who told me back then: “Now you have power, now you will stop, after all, party-political fighting.” For these people, National Socialism was still just a party manifestation. They did not comprehend that the struggle of the party ceased, because the party had meanwhile become worldview and state, German Reich, but that the struggle for the German folk would now really be continued, for so long until the last German was forced into the orbit of this idea.

And even with that, there could be no standstill, rather this struggle will set in anew each year. And it must set it. The German youth was now won, class after class schooled, and this whole mighty structure of the National Socialist state erected. At the same time, the great inner resurrection also took place. And I can assure you all of this here again. You know it, after all: I have never sought quarrel and deal. It has always been my goal in the interior to convince the communist folk comrade or the social democratic folk comrade and to win him. Mr. Eden and then naturally the Jews, at their top Hore Belisha and what all their names are, they now began their agitation year after year. But one said: “Yes, he arms.” Yes, I have always done that. One also told me earlier: “Why do you have your SA then, if you want peace? Why do you make an SS then, if you only want brotherhood anyway?” - Because there are people who do not want that, and I want to show them that I am also armed for the other case.

When I came to power, I relieved a Reich that had been a democracy. Today it is namely often so portrayed to the world as if one would have been ready anyway, after all, to give the German folk everything, if it were only a democracy. Yes, the German folk was a democracy back then, after all, before us, and it was plundered and extorted. No, what does democracy or authoritarian state mean for these international hyenas! That does not interest them at all. Only one thing interests them: Is somebody ready to let himself be plundered? Yes or no? Is somebody dumb enough to stand still in the process? Yes or no? And if a democracy is dumb enough to stand still in the process, then it is good. And if an authoritarian state declares: “You will no longer plunder our folk, neither internally nor externally”, then that is bad. If we, as so-called authoritarian state, which distinguished itself from the democracies in that it has the masses of the folk behind it, if we hence, as authoritarian state, had fulfilled all the sacrifices that the plutocrats had burdened upon us, if I had declared in the year 1933: “High sirs in Geneva” or “High sires, for all I care, somewhere else, what do you demand? - Aha, we will immediately write down: 6 billion for the year 1933, 1934, 1935, good, we will deliver that. Do you still have other wishes? Yes, we will deliver that as well” - then they would have said: “Finally, a reasonable regime in Germany”. I represented a different view back then. When I came to power, a credit had been prepared just before us. That was the last one with roughly 5 billion, which we were still supposed to pay. And I made the firm decision to no longer pay anything at ail. But I told myself, the people who had signed before that we pay 5 billion to foreign countries, they had all been good arithmeticians, for one had said of me, after all, that I am not an arithmetician, that I understood nothing about economics, but those people must have understood something, after all. So if these people considered it possible that we would still again pay 5 billion to foreign countries, then I told myself, we can, after all, in any case initially give the 5 billion in the interior for German armament. That is only a transfer of the sums. And so did I start. And afterward, you know this, after all, my old party comrades, I fundamentally do not do things halfway, rather, if I start something, it is complete. I was ready to act in peace. I proposed to the others: Disarmament, for all I care, down to the fingernails. If they had gone along with that, then fine. They did not go along with that, hence armament then. But then everything thoroughly, just no half-measures! I hence made the total decision, namely: Either we are no soldiers at all, or we are the first in the world - one of the two!

And I thereupon made the preparations, and indeed thoroughly made them. The German folk has, in the process, nonetheless not gone without anything domestically, quite the opposite. We have integrated over 7 million people into the production process again, have brought half of the previously employed - also around 7 million - from short-term work into a normal work week, and we have paid to all these people wages, and we have kept the price of currency stabile, and everybody could buy something with his money. We have increased production most tremendously, always proceeding from our National Socialist principles that the decisive thing in the economy is the existing work force, is the ability to organize and employ this work force, that the foundation of our currency simply cannot be gold, rather that the foundation of our currency is production, this hence means that it lies completely in our estimation to create through industriousness and through work products, to create consumer goods and to let them benefit the folk again, just as one can also prevent this through laziness. We would then experience that the so-called gold states broke down with their currencies, while we, the non-gold state, alone kept the currency. Certainly, this was naturally a very dangerous affair, for a few other lands, they have now hoarded and amassed gold. And now a realization threatens to penetrate into the world, and indeed a practically hardened realization, namely that gold in itself is totally unimportant, that one can live just as well without gold as with gold, yes, even better under conditions. This realization can become dangerous for those who saw in gold an element of their struggle for power, and also always valued and exploited it as such an element.

So our industriousness in the interior has not, say, calmed the other world, rather, quite the opposite, the other world has really become right embittered over this struggle in the interior. First they hoped that we would perish. I know, when I came to power, one said: “Six weeks, eight weeks, we can wait that long.” After three months, one said: “Something must happen, he is not going away.” And then one wanted to do something. I then defended myself against that, and you know, after all, the measures that we had to take right away in the first year, 1933. When I noticed that one wanted to put a noose around my neck, I left the League of Nations and the disarmament conference. One could initially no longer fault me for anything. Furthermore, I naturally drove armament forward even more strongly. The year 1934 came, and in March 1934, I gave the order, after all, to triple our army.

Now the international war against us began with all means, internally and externally. Attempted instigation of revolutions internally, attempts of a general encirclement externally, in the process, again and again the predictions: If they do not collapse politically, they will collapse economically. I do not know how many people prayed back then, insofar as they believe in the dear Lord, that he sends us a bad harvest or that our measures for the elimination of unemployment should not succeed. They were also so hypnotized by their own wish that they suggested to themselves the fulfillment of this wish. They said: “It cannot be different at all, after all, he must collapse economically, after all.” And they said that to themselves so long until they finally even believed it themselves. And they wrote incessantly that we are collapsing. The individual phases of the collapse were always portrayed. Furthermore, it was then proven precisely that the German folk turned away from us and especially from me, that I gradually became a lonely man. And suddenly an election came again, and then it turned out that, instead of 94%, 98% stood behind me. They were naturally embittered and outraged by such a development and then finally began to try to corner us through international plots.

This, my party comrades, has led to the same result as the similar attempt in the interior. You know it, after all: Like, say, from the year 1925, 26, 27, there also began among us the plot of a general party conspiracy against National Socialism. Back then, they walked arm in arm, from the left to the right, the greatest extremes came together. Capitalism with the so-called socialism of international stamp, they walked together. Stock market brokers on the one hand and Marxists on the other, arm in arm against hated National Socialism. And I knew only one recipe back then: Just get hard, clench the teeth and take up the fight. And I took the same position externally. Every such new plot, every such attempt, through treaties, through agreements, to again mobilize states against us, led to me again intensifying armament a bit. I was determined to let everything come down to it.

So this struggle continued, for me, naturally, with the goal to eliminate the Versailles Treaty. And, my party comrades, I had to do that, if I did not want to be a liar. For what did I finally fight for then? When we assembled here in the year 1920 and 1921 and 1922, our program, after all, was: elimination of Versailles. I could not suddenly, in possession of power, say: “We accept that.” I was determined to make Germany free again. And I have now carried out this struggle step by step. In the process, I really had the goal to remain in peace. And you know, after all, from all the rallies, from numerous assemblies and my publications, my foreign policy vision, which I had back then: I wanted to establish the closest friendship relationship with England. I figured both Germanic races actually had to walk together. I then wanted to establish the same relationship with Italy. And already back then, I thought of Japan as an additional power, with which we, because totally without conflicting interests, would be able to walk together.

Insofar as Italy is concerned, this attempt, after all, as you know, has succeeded. It succeeded thanks to the brilliant working of the one man there who founded Fascism and since then has led his folk upward and who had to endure exactly the same fighting with his environment as we National Socialists. This finally succeeded with Japan as well. It has unfortunately failed with England, quite against our own wish. This was not our fault. Quite the opposite, even right down to the last moment, until a few days before the outbreak of the year, I still tried to achieve my foreign policy goal. Back then, I made the greatest offer to the British ambassador. I was ready to walk with England. But it was futile. I already saw back then how certain war agitators agitated constantly for years without having been stopped. And there could no longer be any doubt, after all, that this happened in order to one day put the British folk into a rage against Germany, while, conversely, given my stance, the German folk naturally felt no hatred at all toward England, so that Germany would have one day stumble into war emotionally totally unprepared. I warned against that already in 1938 and 1939, stressed in a speech in Saarbrücken that this could not go on, that, if England continued to tolerate these agitators, I would then be compelled to finally let German propaganda respond.

So the moment came when the question was no longer whether war will be avoided, rather whether it could perhaps still be avoided one, two, three years, and indeed through very deep German humiliations. And here you must understand one thing, my old party comrades: At the moment I became aware that England only wanted to win time, but one was determined there to wage war under any circumstances - something which is now quite openly admitted by the statements of British statesmen, after all - at that same moment, I had only one single wish, that, if they would declare war against us, that they would hopefully still do it while I was alive. For I know that this is the most difficult conflict that was ever imposed upon the German folk. And I imagine that I am the hardest man that the German folk has had for many decades, perhaps for centuries. Furthermore, I possess the greatest authority, and, above ail, I believe in my success, and indeed, I believe in it unconditionally! I am convinced that this struggle will end no differently at all than the struggle I have fought in the interior. I am also of the conviction that Providence has therefore previously only led me this far at all and kept all dangers away from me in order to let me wage this fight, and indeed to let me wage it to victory! And, finally, I also went through the great war, and I belong to those who back then were also swindled out of success. It is hence my unshakeable decision that this fight does not end so.

When I spoke to you the previous year, the first phase of this struggle laid behind us. In 18 days, our Wehrmacht knocked down Poland. One had imagined that quite differently. One was of the conviction back then that this war would last, well, six, eight, ten months. One told oneself: “Today there are no wars of swift and penetrating decisions. In the most favorable case, a kind of trench warfare will come here, a front will establish itself in the east, this will lead to bleeding dry, then the west will meanwhile gradually arm, and then the summer of 1940 will come, and then one will advance against Belgium and Holland toward the border of the Ruhr region, well, and then one will simply slowly become Germany’s master.” That is how one imagined it. Furthermore, one believed that a few weeks later - one heard this from all sides - the revolution will break out in Germany, and, furthermore, distress would then come.

Furthermore, they had no idea of the magnitude of our armament and believed that I would bluff exactly like they themselves constantly bluff. They have swindled for so long that they do not understand at all that there is somebody who simply does not swindle in such things, rather actually does what he says. So they were of the conviction that this war would become a relatively easy war.

A year ago, as stated, Poland was eliminated, the first frustration of their plan. I could refer to this great success back then on November 8th. Today, a year later, I can refer to further successes. These successes can only be appreciated, above all, by the person who was himself a soldier of the great war; he knows what it means, in a few weeks, to beat down not only the entire west, rather also to take possession of Norway up to the North Cape, so that a front exists today starting from Kirkenes to the Spanish border.

All the hopes of the British war agitators have thereby been smashed. They had imagined that so beautifully: war on the periphery, throttling our German lifelines, constriction of the Reich, and then gradual strangulation of this Reich. And now it has actually turned out the opposite. This continent slowly mobilizes itself, in that it remembers itself, against the enemy of this continent.

Germany has in a few weeks actually given this continent freedom. The British attempt to balkanize Europe - the British statesmen can note this - has been concluded and ended. England wanted to disorganize Europe, Germany and Italy will organize Europe!

If one now declares in England that the fight goes on, then this is totally indifferent for me. It continues for so long until we will end it, and we will end it, the gentlemen can be convinced of this! And it will be ended with our victory! You can also believe me about that.

I am clear about one thing here: If I had wanted to be a prophet and had declared to the English on January 1st of this war: “in the summer of this year, we will have spoiled your Norway plan, not you will then sit in Norway, rather Germans will sit there; still in the summer of this year, you will not be able to be in Holland or come to Holland, rather we will have occupied it; still in the summer of this year, you will not have passed through Belgium to the German border, rather we will have preempted you.” And if I had told them, “still in the summer of this year, there will no longer be a France”, then they all would have said -: “a madman!” I hence refrain from predicting today. I give just want to give the German folk a few clarifications:

First: The previous struggle has led to rests of unique nature. In terms of personnel, as bitter as it is for the individual family, which has had to make a sacrifice, demanded as good as no sacrifice from German folk property. Overall, the casualties that we have had in this war are not as great as in the 1870/71 war. Yes, they are hardly more than the half of it.

In terms of personnel, all our calculations were untenable insofar as we did not need to bring in all the envisioned huge replacements, which we had figured in for losses, and could hence release many long-serving men, and in the process were and are nonetheless in the position to strengthen the Wehrmacht, and indeed essentially with younger men.

In terms of personnel, the German army looks different than it looked in the World War. Just a few days ago, I traveled through Belgium and through France, and I must say, as old World War soldier, it is wonderful how our Wehrmacht looks today. All formations, regardless of whether army or Luftwaffe or Waffen-SS, they all look equally wonderful. It is not to be compared to what our burned-out cadres presented in the year 1914 or 1915 to 1918.

In terms of material: I have prepared in advance in this war such as has been previously prepared in advance in no other war. And this has richly rewarded itself. The material losses of this war have been totally insignificant. The munitions that we have expended in the previous fighting, this is in part only a portion of a month’s production. The reserves are so huge that, in many areas, I now had production halted, because there is no longer any possibility to somehow anyway rationally pile up these quantities. I have in turn redirected production to those areas where I believe to have to be especially strong. You hear the threats of the other world constantly, after all, what they will produce. Australia has six or seven million inhabitants, of whom, I know not how many, some live in the bush, but, nonetheless, they will produce eight times as many airplanes as Germany. Canada has only nine million inhabitants, but it will produce twelve times as many airplanes as Germany. What the American Union first produces, one can express that only in astronomical figures. I do not want to be a competitor in that area. But I may assure you of one thing: Now as before, our German production capacity is by far the greatest in the world. And we will not step down from that, for we are in the position today to mobilize about half of Europe. And that I can do that industrially, one will already believe. The material armament is hence a huge one, and it is just now growing, for even though we had already prepared mobilization for years, industrial mobilization, as you know, output nonetheless happens, after all, in large quantities only after a year to a year and a half. But that is the case at this time.

I may hence say the following in summary: We are prepared for the future like never before. We are prepared materially, and we are prepared in terms of personnel. And that the Wehrmacht uses every day, anybody who was a soldier himself knows that anyway. No day is lost. This first military instrument of the world is constantly groomed and improved. And when the hour comes for the big action, then I hope exactly the same to achieve similar results such we have behind us. I have a motto: Prepare everything most thoroughly, and then act swift and daring. The moment will come when the gentlemen who now already conquer the world again with their mouth must now stand still, after all, and then we will see who used the months better, we or the others.

At any rate, Germany, with its allies, is today strong enough to oppose any conceivable combination in this world. There is no power coalition at all that could match us militarily. Economically, the long preparations now reward themselves, which we made already in peace. The Four-Year Plan, which we now extended another four years, it has given us numerous bases. And the English also knew that quite precisely. They have not cursed so in vain against this Four-Year Plan, which makes us independent from the threats of a so-called constriction or of a blockade. Furthermore, we want to see for once who is blockaded in a few months, we or the others. I believe, after all, that already now they have lost the desire for lying in many areas. Mr. Churchill, who about a year ago, eight months ago and six months ago still declared: “The U-boats, we destroyed 50% of them in one month.” The next month, he could no longer say 50%, because otherwise none would have existed, hence the next month it was still just 30%. A month later, he also could no longer say 20%, then he had to say 10%. Now this General Liar of world history must admit that the U-boats appear to be more numerous than they were previously. And he can believe me: boy, do they become more numerous! He has no idea how they become more numerous! We will still challenge these international capital liars. We will see: There will certainly one day no longer be a Mr. Churchill, but German U-boats will exist, and in masses!

And so then, since he can no longer contest this, this most brilliant strategist who has been previously born, pounced on the air war. It was a brilliant idea of Mr. Churchill to start the air war with precisely the weapon in which England is weakest compared to us. You know, I have for years made proposals to the world, one should cease the bombing war, especially against the civilian population. England rejected this back then, probably in premonition of the coming development - democrats are always clairvoyant. Fine. But I have nonetheless never carried out war against the civilian population in this war. In the Polish War, I did not have night attacks against Polish cities carried out. One cannot hit the individual object so precisely at night. Hence I generally attacked only by day and always only military targets. I did the same thing in Norway. I also did that in Holland, in Belgium and in France. Then it suddenly occurred to Mr. Churchill, since the British airforce cannot fly over German soil by day at all, to punish the German civilian population with night attacks.

You know my patience, after all, my party comrades. I hence looked on for eight days. One dropped bombs on the population on the Rhine. One dropped bombs on the population in Westphalia. And I then looked on for 14 days. I thought to myself, the man is crazy, he introduces a fight in which only England can be destroyed.

When the war in the west was at an end, I extended my hand to England one more time. I was again scolded and spat upon most crudely. Mr. Halifax behaved like a lunatic. Also fine. One intensified the bombing attacks. I again waited. I must say that it became hard for me. For many people came to me and said: “Yes, how long, Mr. Führer, will you still wait? They do not stop.” I waited for over three months, and then one day, however, I gave the order: So, now I take up this fight to the end! They want it, now they should get it. They want to destroy Germany through the air war, I will now show them who will be destroyed. England, the English folk, which I only regret, can thank this war general criminal Churchill. It owes it to him. Mr. Churchill has made the greatest military nonsense with this war that a statesman or a field commander could ever make. He fights with the weapons with which he is weakest. And he fights from a position that is also geographically bad for England, since the moment when we sit from Drontheim to Brest. It is the worst position that England possesses here at all. I will hold out in this fight. I regret that it naturally demands victims on our side as well. Only I know National Socialist Germany, only Mr. Churchill does not know it. That is the big difference. He believed he could perhaps exhaust the German folk through it. He has just totally forgotten that now a different Germany has come. This Germany becomes more fanatical, its determination just gets stronger, with each bomb. This nonsense must be cleared away forever. And we are determined about that.

When Mr. Chamberlain was here in Munich in 1938 and hypocritically made his friendship offer to me, this man had made the decision inside to immediately after his return declare: “I have now gotten a certain period, and now we want to arm so that we can then attack Germany.” It is clear to us that any armistice today would only be an armistice. They would hope that then a few years pass, perhaps that I no longer stand at the top of the Reich, and that the struggle could then begin anew. It is hence my inalterable decision to continue to wage the conflict to a clear decision: exactly as I as National Socialist in the struggle for Germany rejected any compromise, so do I reject here as well any compromise. I have offered my hand so many times. It was in vain. They wanted this fight, now they should have it. And the German folk will continue to wage this fight to a quite clear decision. A threat must be eliminated, namely: that in one, two, three years, after highest tension, the thing again goes off anew. The German folk finally wants to have peace, and indeed a peace, which lets it work, which does not make it possible for any international rascal to agitate other folks against us. And these people naturally, for them, war, after all, is the greatest profit. I have no reason to wage war for whatever material interests. For us, it can only be sad. It takes from us time, from the German folk and the whole community infinitely much work and work energy. I have no armaments stocks in my possession. I earn nothing from this fight. I would be happy, if I could work again, like I previously worked for my folk. But these international criminals, they are simultaneously the biggest armaments profiteers that exist. All the factories belong to them, they do business. They are the same people whom we previously had in Germany as well. There is only a conflict with these people. One must break here, and under no circumstances will that be Germany.

But if this Germany today possesses a different form, then because National Socialism has pulled up the German folk again. It has created the spiritual, emotional, moral and also material prerequisites for the tremendous victories of the Wehrmacht of our young Reich. Every soldier knows it and must know it, that the armies, which today march under our banner, are the revolutionary armies of the Third Reich. They carry in their heart not only the faith in a Germany such as in the past, rather they carry in their heart the faith in the Germany that hovers before us all in the future, for which we have fought so long, in a better Reich, in which the greatest goals of our national and social movement will be achieved.

And that we today possess this Germany, we owe that to those who marched in the year 1923, and, above all, to those who back then fell for the movement as the first blood martyrs. These 16 dead are simply more than just 16 dead. They have become the crown witnesses of our folk’s resurrection. And their sacrifice was all the greater, since back then they could recognize what has since come only as a pale imagination. They really acted back then in boundless love for Germany. For whoever came to the movement back then, of him one could only say: “You can now give up everything else, now you are ridiculed and scorned and persecuted, who must be aware that you become hungry and that they will throw you out everywhere, you have nothing at all that is secure for you, other than perhaps your own death, you see before you only something for which we all fight; it is a new Germany, a Germany of honor, which pulls itself up again, which secures its sons daily bread again, and again assumes the rank in the world that is owed it on the basis of our folk’s number, of the historical past and our early, present and future value.”

All these men came for this. Many of them, they only felt it unconsciously. There were so many little people in this movement. We were so avoided by what calls itself intelligentsia, what calls itself upper bourgeoisie. We were so avoided by them that the great majority of those joining our movement were mostly just very little people. Perhaps they had no clear concept at all of what would one day develop. They only knew it will be different one day, one day a new Reich will be built, and in this Reich much of that will then be achieved, which even our opponents yearn for deep inside, without them knowing that it was never to be reached along their path.

These people joined for this, and these sixteen also sacrificed their lives back then for this. There were sixteen, it could just as well have been five-hundred or a thousand. Nobody complained: all the wounded, they did not become untrue to the cause, quite the opposite: as wounded, they were really party comrades again, more fanatical than before. And many hundreds followed these sixteen, here and outside the Reich’s borders. It was for years, almost a decade and a half, a single path of martyrs, perhaps most strongly in Austria and in the Sudetenland. Strongest there, because the struggle almost seemed most hopeless. How could these little people surmise the course of history as it really took place! How could they foresee the miracle that a year and a half or two years later they would be gloriously brought home into a great Reich! They nonetheless fought with devote heart, without knowing exactly in detail that it will come so in their lifetime.

But all that took its start from this November 8th and 9th, 1923. And hence we celebrate the memory of these men, especially moved today more than ever before. For they all simultaneously carried in their hearts also the humiliation of the collapse of the year 1918/19. It ate in them as well, and it always raged in them as well. How often did we sit together, always burning with the one thought: that must be repaired again in our history, that cannot last and cannot remain so. That would burden the German folk with a shame for all time. We will eliminate that from our history. We will wash it away again. We will erect again a Germany of honor and of power and of energy and of splendor. We will not let that rest upon us. Germany must arise again, one way or another. And in this spirit, we fought back then, in this spirit, they fell, in this spirit, the struggle was then really continued, and in this spirit, we stand today before the other world and will achieve that for which they have fallen now as well. They believe they will destroy Germany. They will err! Germany will first arise from the struggle!"

- Adolf Hitler

Tags: Speeches, WW1part2, Third Reich

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