Adolf Hitler – Speech in The Sportpalast, Berlin - 1941-01-30
January 30, 1941
"My German folk comrades!
Change of government has already often occurred in history, also in the history of our own folk.
But no change of government has ever been accompanied by such far-reaching consequences as the one eight years ago. The Reich’s situation back then was a desperate one. One did not call us to take over the nation’s leadership at the moment when it seemed in the process of great rise, rather one gave us power under the most severe compulsion that could exist, namely under the weight of the realization that, in itself, everything was lost, and that, in the eyes of the best-intending, this could perhaps still be a last attempt, but, in the eyes of the ill-meaning, so that the National Socialist movement as well would finally be damned to fail.
As a result, the situation back then, if it was not possible to save the German folk as if by a miracle, had to have a catastrophic end. For already fifteen years earlier, the path downward was an unbroken one. However, this situation itself, after all, was only the result of the World War and of the outcome of the World War, of our own inner political, moral and hence also military collapse.
It is hence important precisely on such a day to remember the cause for this whole national misfortune.
What was the reason for the World War? I do not wish to push this into the personal area. Too many dissertations have already been written about that. American doctors, on assignment from the curredmporary moments only if they enter the orbit of the surrounding world as really towering manifestations. That was not the case back then. Neither on the German nor on the other side were there personalities of towering format. Hence the reason could not lie at all in the failure, or even just the desire, of individuals, rather the causes were deeper ones.
The German form of government could not initially be the cause for the war back then. For Germany was already a democracy, and indeed what kind of one! Strictly copied according to the examples of foreign countries, of the west, a compromise solution between monarchy and parliamentarian democracy, hence so-called constitutional monarchy, practically with parliamentarian leadership. Hence this state in its form of government could really not be the cause for the war back then by the democracies against the Reich of back then.
Germany, seen as political factor, facing the world, could already provide more reason, for after centuries of fragmentation and hence equal impotence, the German tribes and states, even if viewed more externally, united into a new state, into a Reich, and hence thereby naturally added a new element of force to the so-called balance of power, which was understandably felt to be a foreign body.
More compelling was perhaps the disdain against the Reich of back then as economic factor. While Germany sought to alleviate its economic distress for centuries in that it either let people starve or forced them to emigrate, the Germany of back then now began increasingly, with the consolidation of its political power, to also develop itself economically, this means, instead of exporting people, to export wares and to thereby secure for itself the necessary markets in the world. A process that, seen from our standpoint, was natural and just, but from the standpoint of others, was felt to be an encroachment into their most sacred domains. And we then come right to the state that felt this encroachment as unbearable: England!
For three hundred years, England had previously gradually built its so-called world empire. Not through free will or through the consenting declarations of the intentions or views of the affected, rather, for three hundred years, this empire as forged together only through force. War after war was waged, folk after folk was robbed of its freedom, state after state was smashed, in order to finally create this structure, which calls itself British Empire.
In the process, democracy was everywhere just a pure mask.
Behind the democracy stands, in reality, the domination of folks on the large scale and human suppression and enslavement on the small scale. This state cannot dare today to really let its parts vote, whether they now, after centuries of processing, would, say, be ready to voluntarily be parts of this world community. Quite the opposite! Egyptian nationalists, Indian nationalists, they wind up by the thousands in dungeons and prisons. Concentration camps were not invented in Germany, rather Englishmen are the brilliant inventors of this idea. They helped, through such institutions, to gradually break the back of other folks, to dissolve the national resistance, to exhaust it, and to finally make the folks inclined to adopt this British yoke of democracy. In the process, however, there was an even mightier means, the means of the lie, of the slogan and hence of propaganda. There is a saying which goes that, when the Englishman speaks of God, he means cotton. And it is so even today. When one reflects how pious and devote people act outwardly, who ice-cold drive folk after folk into a war that serves only their material interests, then one can only say: Seldom has human hypocrisy prospered to such a maximum performance as this is the case with the present-day Englishman. At any rate, however, the result of a three hundred year long, blood-covered path, which British history put behind itself, is the fact that 46 million Englishmen in the motherland today rule around a quarter of the world’s surface, in terms of space and also in terms of people, this means that for 46 million people there are around 40 million square kilometers of space.
It is important, my folk comrades, that we again and again shout this out into the world, because shameless democratic liars step up and claim the so-called authoritarian states want to conquer the world, while, in reality, the world conquerors are our old enemies. This British world empire has left behind, along the path of its emergence, only a single river of blood and tears. Today it rules without doubt a mighty portion of the earth. Only, even now, this world domination is not carried out, say, only through the power of an idea, rather basically through the power of force and, insofar as this force does not suffice, through the power of capitalist or economic interests.
If we hold this odd emergence of the British world empire before our eyes, then the process itself becomes self-evident only through the fact of the total elimination of the European continent as a factor opposing this development. And this absence was documented, above all, through the elimination of the German Reich. For three hundred years, a Germany practically did not exist. While the England indeed talked about God, but had on eye on their economic interests, the German folk, out of over-tension, elevated controversial religious questions to such a significance that it waged bloody wars over them for centuries, something that was one of the prerequisites for the possibility for the emergence of the British world empire. For to precisely the degree to which the German nation began to consume its energy internally and thereby gradually practically as well was eliminated as an outward power factor, to precisely that degree could England naturally, basing itself upon this newly forming Europe re-organization, rob up its world empire in all leisure.
But not only Germany was in these three centuries practically eliminated from the competition on this earth. The same was also true of Italy. Similar manifestations as in Germany, there less of a religious nature, rather of governmental nature, of dynastic nature. And again, for other reasons, the elimination of another great nation in East Asia, which likewise, for almost four hundred years, gradually began to set itself off from the rest of world and no longer viewed its own living space as important and which submerged itself into a voluntary isolation.
So there arose, especially in Europe, an arrangement of powers, which England designated as so-called balance of power, this means, in reality, a disorganization of the European continent in favor of the British island empire. Hence it was also the goal of British politics for centuries to preserve this disorganization; naturally, not under the term disorganization, rather again under a prettier word. One speaks, as is said, not of cotton, rather one says God. One does not speak of Europe’s disorganization, rather one speaks of “balance of power”.
And this so-called balance of power, this means, Europe’s real inner impotence, has enabled England to again and again, from case to case, and according to need, to play state against state, and thereby to constantly consume the European forces in internal fighting, in order, for its part, to now at all leisure advance into the relatively resistance weak areas of the rest of the world.
And yet, if one today still speaks of a world power England or of England as master of the world, then this is still just a delusion. England is first, already in its interior, despite its world conquest, the socially most backward state that probably exists in Europe; socially backward, this means, a state whose whole alignment runs toward the interests of a relatively small and thin upper stratum and of the Jewish society allied with this upper stratum. The interests of the broad masses play no role at all in the alignment of this state. Here as well, one makes use of slogans, one speaks of freedom, one speaks of democracy, one speaks of the accomplishments of the liberal system, and yet means by that nothing else than the stabilization of the regime of a social stratum that makes it possible, thanks to its capital, to get its hands on the press and to organize and direct it and to thereby shape public opinion. So it is possible that, in a state that possesses the greatest riches on earth, that has at its disposal gigantic living spaces, that, viewed overall, has hardly one human being per square kilometer, so is it possible that, in such a structure blessed by nature, millions of people have no share at all in these blessings, rather live more wretchedly than the people in any other of our overpopulated central European states. The land that is a paradise for a few, is for many, this means, for the mass, in reality, only an ongoing misery. Misery in nourishment, misery in clothing, misery, above all, in housing, misery in the security of earnings, misery in the whole social legislation.
And if today a British labor secretary, who, by the way, as “opposition” figure, is paid by the state, if he now suddenly steps up and says: “After this war, after its victory, will have to begin to attack the social question and to solve social problems”, - then I can only say to this secretary: That happened among us already long ago!
It is only interesting to us, because it is a confirmation of our claim that England is, in reality, the socially most backward land in the world. So seen initially toward the inside, this gigantic wealth outwardly is actually an unfruitful one, if one disregards a few people and looks at the broad mass in comparison.
But outwardly as well, this world domination is still only an appearance. The world has received new centers. Huge states have emerged that can never be attacked by England, nor even threatened, after all. The whole of British world domination is still based on again and again on being able to get strangers in order to proceed against the continent. Just that, outside of this European continent, or far beyond this continent, great state structures have emerged. And these state structures are unassailable for England. British diplomacy can, at most, through skillful wangling, through the attempt of playing other forces there, to try to hold its position. This hence means, it must try already now to elevate the so-called balance of power in Europe to a balance of power in the world, in other words, to play world states against each other in order to preserve at least the appearance of a world power.
In Europe itself, however, the awakening of the folks has already eliminated the so-called balance theory, this means the disorganization of the continent. The folk development and hence the formation of the new Reich, of the German nation, has pushed into this disorganized European continent. And to our south, Italy’s. New elements have hence come that make this balance of powers look like an illusion. It no longer exists. And indeed, we see in this really the deepest reason for the World War.
Since 1871, since the German tribes began to organize and, under the leadership of a brilliant great statesman, again formed a Reich, hence since the already slowly proclaiming itself national rebirth of the German folk found governmental unity, since then, England began to persecute this new structure with its hatred. Already in 1871, yes, already in 1870, immediately after the Battle of Sedan, British newspapers began to point out that this new structure was more harmful for England than, say, the old France. Yes, one had hoped - already back then - that Prussia could manage, perhaps in a long war, to repulse France again. But one did not want that, say, the Prussian rebellion turned into a German national rebirth or even a new German Reich would emerge. So that time came, from 1871 to 1914, in which England constantly agitated for war against Germany, showed enmity toward and feuded with Germany at every opportunity, until finally the World War broke out, the work of a very small group of international, unprincipled scoundrels.
And England received foreign help for this World War, which it could also wage again only with foreign help. And it is now interesting to present the whole development of this British world power policy for about four hundred years. First the war against Spain with the help of the Dutch, then war against the Dutch with the help of other European states, among them France as well, then the war finally against France with Europe’s help, then finally war against Germany with the help of Europe and of the other world standing at its disposal. The World War, which convulsed Europe from 1914 to 1918, was exclusively the desired product of British statecraft. Although the whole world was now mobilized against Germany, Germany was actually not defeated. We can comfortably say that today. I do not want to be a critic of the past, if I have not done a thing better. But today, as one of the historical men who has done a thing better, I can also view the past critically and judge. And I can only say: the success of the year 1918 is exclusively the result of a combination of personal inability in our folk’s leadership, of a unique combination, which existed neither previously in history nor will reoccur in the future, the gentlemen can believe that.
And nonetheless, this land and the German soldier withstood for over four years the assault by a hostile world. And it would have withstood it even longer, if the further factor had not come of the back then still existing faith of the German folk in the honorableness of the rest of the democratic world and its statesmen. This trust of the German folk, which was regretted by many back then, received a terrible historical reward.
And if today Englishmen come and believe that it suffices to again put the old propaganda waltzes of the year 1917/18 onto the gramophone in order to achieve a new effect, then I can only say: they have forgotten nothing, but also, unfortunately or to their own detriment, learned nothing! And in this they distinguish themselves from the German folk. The German folk has learned since then, but it has also forgotten nothing. We do not want to be petty in the process. In history, individual breaches of word have already often happened in the past. But what took place in the year 1918, 1919, 1920, 1921 etc., was not a breach of faith, rather those were breaches of faith on an assembly line! Not a breach of faith, rather one did not keep one promise! Never has a great nation been deceived like the German folk back then. What did one assure us, what did one promise this credulous folk - and what did they then do with our folk! Looted and extorted it! In the process, one made use of a foreign statesman, of an American, in order to gain greater trust in the German folk. And perhaps that was also the reason, after all, why the German folk fell for this whole maneuver. Just that it has now, in this regard as well, become immune against all similar attempts in the future. The German folk had the opportunity back then, year after year, to reflect on the honorableness of democratic assurances, promises, democratic words and democratic statesmen, and to make comparisons, and to practically test that on its own body. And from this time, after all, the National Socialist movement finally emerged!
If one now says: “Why have you pounced upon a whole new ideology?” Because the old one failed miserably. Not only in the interior. God, democracy was a miserable structure among us. If so forty, fifty parties compete with their mighty worldview interests, which proceed from property, from the level of bicyclist associations to home-owners etc., then this, in itself, is already a very bad picture. But totally aside from that - if we had at least been rewarded from the outside for this pitiful inner-democratic deformation of our life, then one could still say, certainly, in the interior, the stuff has failed, after all, but externally, you at least got a decent treatment in exchange. In the interior, the whole thing was naturally a joke, but at least one took you seriously externally, one at least acted as if one wanted to take you seriously. One at least fulfilled part of what one promised you, if you want to be well-behaved democrats following the example of the others. - If at least that had been the case. But whom did they plunder for fifteen years, whom did they deceive, whom did they extort, whom did they fleece? Say the National Socialist state? German democracy!
When I came home in 1918 and lived through the winter of 1918/1919, it naturally become clear to me, like many others, that the existing political world in Germany could no longer expect a rejuvenation. And I hence began, like so many others, to seek. And there emerged the conception that later, as National Socialism, conquered the German folk, proceeding from one realization: the German nation fell, because it allowed itself the luxury of consuming its energy in the interior. According to an eternally valid law, this energy consumption in the interior eliminated its outward energy. It hoped to gain the friendly sympathy of the others and it became acquainted with nothing else than the naked egoism of the crudest, vilest finance interests, which now began to plunder where there was something to plunder. One could not expect anything else.
But then, the dice had fallen. One thing seemed to be clear: Any resurrection could not at all take its start from the outside, rather only from the inside. First, the German nation had to learn a new conception of its internal political struggle, which enabled it to again concentrate all of Germany’s energy, and indeed, above all, the idealistic energy. And this idealistic energy, it was located, as things laid back then, after all, in only two camps, in the socialist and in the nationalist. Precisely both the camps that feuded with each other most lethally and fought each other most sharply, both these camps had to be joined together into a new union.
Today, my folk comrades, when millions and millions march under the sign of this union, this seems to be so self-evident. In the year 1918 and 1919, it looked like the product of a sick imagination. One pitied me at best. But perhaps, my folk comrades, this was a good fortune! If one had taken me seriously back then, then one would have probably destroyed me. For the movement, after all, was much too small in order to be able to offer resistance to such a destruction. So it was perhaps wanted by nature or God desired fate, that back then one ridiculed us, mocked us and already back then a certain propaganda just made fun of us and viewed us only as a joke. So we gradually managed to form in our movement the first cell and hence core of a new folk community - an almost unbelievable historical manifestation -, introduced by nothing but unknown people, to win supporters, above all, from the broad mass, from the folk itself.
Only in a second state, in Italy, can this process be viewed as having succeeded, but otherwise still nowhere else in Europe. In a few democracies, one indeed recognizes the significance of such a process, and one now believes to be able to achieve something similar through swindles. But one always forgets one thing, above all; Such a rebirth of a folk is really a wonderful process, a process that preconditions more faith than, say, so-called abstract, witty knowledge. And that in the years 1918 and 1919 and 1920 and 1921 this primitive faith of the broad mass gradually flowed to us, this formed the first core of our movement, this made these little people back then, who came from the plants, from the factories, from the farmsteads, from the offices etc., this made these little people believe in their future, in the future of this idea, of this movement and in the later victory.
We represented a realization back then: if the German nation does not repair its position toward the world, this means again becomes a power factor, then Germany will actually, in a short time, have twenty million people fewer. For one could calculate that, after all: unemployment spread year after year. There came with it really the aimlessness and desultoriness of national conceptions, of economic planning. The eternal change of government prevented any advance thought for long periods. Projects beyond two, three months duration no longer made any sense., because the affected party could know from the start that, in three months, it would no longer govern. The one said: “Why should I clear away, what others have done badly?” - and the other said: “Why should I do something better, so that another can then take a seat here.” - No reason was still found to pursue thorough, real solutions at all. But national impotence thereby invariably had to increase, economic decline spread, the number of unemployed increase, the number of those still employed decrease, the burden on these shoulders increase ever more, thereby reducing their support ability, and, finally, a collapse had to come, whose end could not be seen. But it was already to be presumed that the kindly and human prophecy of the great French democrat Clemenceau that we had twenty people million too many, that this prophecy would be realized. So there hence emerged opposing that the program of a concentration of German energy with the goal of protecting our life right toward all sides.
We thereby chose a path that laid between two extremes. First, we fell for the one extreme, the liberal, individualistic one, which put the individual at the center point of not just observation, rather also of all action. On the other side stood tempting before our folk the theory of mankind as universal concept, which obligated solely the individual. And between both these extremes now stood our ideal: the folk, in which we see a psychological and physical community, which Providence has formed and thus wanted, into which we are placed and in which alone we can master our existence. And we have now consciously subordinated all of our thoughts to this goal, adapted interests to this goal, brought all measures into agreement with this goal. So emerged the National Socialist world of ideas, which represents an overcoming of individualism, not, say, in the sense that it curtails individual freedom or paralyzes the individual’s initiative, rather only in the sense that the common interest stands above individual freedom and above any initiative of the individual, that this common interest is the regulating, the deciding thing, if necessary, the inhibiting thing, but also, if necessary, the commanding thing.
We thereby began a struggle back then against all, against the followers of the individualist principle as well as against the followers of the idea of mankind. And in this struggle, we have over the course of fifteen years gradually conquered the German nation. I have always taken the view of winning my fellow citizens. And if this movement, after the first year, numbered the first ten thousand followers, and then later always grew, then these followers, after all, were always folk comrades who previously had believed somewhat differently. In our party’s ranks, after all, march only Germans who were previously in other movements. Hundreds of thousands of my SA, of my SS, were previously fighters in other organizations. This means, we have persuaded and conquered all of them, in that we won them inwardly. It was the greatest soul struggle that was perhaps ever fought out in our history. For I could force nobody, after all, to go with me, to join my organizations: they all had to be inwardly convinced, and only from their inner conviction did they then take upon themselves the great sacrifices.
The struggle was really supposed to be waged with the intellect, this means, with the power of speech, of the word, of writing, and hence of persuasion. And only where a malicious opponent said: “In intellect, I cannot resist you, but I am stronger than you. And because I cannot resist you with intellect, I will offer resistance to you with violence”, - only there did I, as former front soldier, also choose the answer that is alone fitting against violence: violence against violence!
So emerged the fighting movement, which fought with the intellect as long as the other was ready to likewise assemble with intellectual weapons, but which also did not shun immediately appealing to force as well, if the other believed, for his part, that he could kill intellect with violence.
In the process, we had opponents who always opposed us outwardly a well: A blend of all international feeling, thinking and acting persons from all camps. We know the coalitions of back then that assembled against us, and I may see today already: in this battle of intellect, we mastered them everywhere, for when I was finally called to power, I came to power along the legal path, under the presidency of General Field Marshall von Hindenburg, as Reich President as the result of the strongest movement that stood behind me!
That hence means: The so-called National Socialist revolution in the democracy defeated democracy with democracy!
It secured for itself along the strictly legal path all means of power. Today as well, I stand before you on the basis of the mandate of the German nation, and indeed of a mandate that is more comprehensive than any so-called democratic statesman possesses today.
When I came to power in 1933, our path was clearly marked. I was precisely determined in the interior through a fifteen year long struggle that in a thousand proclamations obligated us to the German folk. And it would have been dishonorable and would have deserved that one stone me, if I had retreated or would retreat even just one step from this program.
This program said, seen socially: Establishment of the German folk community, overcoming all prejudices of class and rank, education of German man for community, if necessary, breaking the resistance of those who do not want to fit into this community.
Economically: building a German national economy, which, under acknowledgement of the importance of private initiative, nonetheless subordinates all of economic life to the common interest.
And, believe me, here as well, a different goal is no longer thinkable. In times in which folks are compelled to represent their interests on the battlefields and hence cannot make a distinction between those who have much and those who have little to represent, in such periods, economic advantages or hegemonies unfavorable to the interest of commonality are no longer to be preserved.
Like everywhere, here as well, I took the path of instruction, of education, of slow adaptation. For it was my pride to carry out this revolution without a single window-pane being destroyed in Germany, a revolution that leads to the greatest transformations that have ever happened on earth, and which destroy not the slightest thing, rather only gradually reorient everything, which shift anew point after point, until finally this whole great community has found its new path. That was our goal.
And it was exactly the same in terms of foreign policy. And here, I set up a program: elimination of Versailles. One should not act stupid in the other world, as if that were, say, a program that I discovered in the year 1933 or 1935 or 1937. Instead of listening to their stupid emigrant blabber, the gentlemen should have just read about me, what I had written and indeed written a thousand times. No human being declared and wrote down more often what he wants than I did, and I wrote again and again: elimination of Versailles. And indeed not because we got that into our head, rather because Versailles was the greatest injustice and the vilest mistreatment of a great folk that ever happened in world history, and because, without the elimination of this instrument of compulsion of German annihilation, any life preservation of our folk would have been impossible.
With this program, I stood up in the year 1919 still as soldier and talked about it for the first time, and I have carried this program before me as solemn, obligating commandment all the years of the struggle for power. And when I came to power, I did not tell myself like the democratic politicians: Now the Moor has done his duty, now he can go, rather at the moment I told myself: I thank you, Lord, that you have now put me where I can finally achieve my program.
But here, too, I did not want to achieve this program by force, rather I said what a human being can say. My Reichstag speeches, which no democratic statesman can swindle away before history, they are witness for it. What offers did I make them! How did I entreat them to accept reason and not to curtail the life and existence possibilities for a great folk. How did I prove to them that it serves no purpose for them, carries within itself no benefit for them and is senseless, yes, only harms them, too! What all did I do in these long years in order to ease for them the path to an agreement! It would have never been possible to enter this competitive armament, if the others had not wanted it. I presented proposals to them. But it was nonetheless so that each proposal, merely because it came from me, immediately sufficed in order to immediately bring a certain Jewish-internationalist clique into agitation, exactly, my folk comrades, like previously among us ourselves in Germany, where every reasonable proposal from us National Socialists was also already primarily rejected, because it came from us. So it was here as well. My Reichstag speech of May 17, 1933 and my later speeches, my countless proclamations in public assemblies, all my memorandums, which I prepared back then, they are dominated by the one thought: under all circumstances to find a path to carry out the revisions of this treaty peacefully.
And that this treaty was a vile document, even its authors admitted themselves in the end, yes, they even admitted that the possibility of a revision should remain open. They designated the League of Nations for that, which hence means, they set the fox to keep the geese. This League of Nations, which, on the one hand ,was there to prevent that this treaty was revised, was, on the other hand, supposed to be competent for its revision. Initially, we were not in the League of Nations, and later, German participation was basically nothing else than a delivery of the annual payments. That was the only positive thing that made itself noticeable for Germany. But otherwise, Germany, after all, was still a democracy. And this democracy of Berlin begged, it literally fell to its knees in Geneva before this international forum and entreated: “Give us the revision, and the revision!” It was all in vain.
I saw as National Socialist after a few months that nothing more was to be gained before this forum. But I then drew the consequences. For I must say already, our opponents, they apparently also always confused us with the people with whom they had dealt since November 1918. Neither the German folk nor we have anything in common with these people. That was not Germany! They were a few miserable subjects kept by Englishmen and Frenchmen and others, whom they paid. But that was not the German folk! The German folk had nothing to do with them. And to bring us into a connection with them, is for us an insult!
If one hence believed to be able to apply the same methods against us as against the November men, then, however, they erred. Then they naturally talked past things. They could not expect that from us, that we, say, go to Geneva and here constantly beg and receive kicks and beg again. There they confuse the former German front soldiers with the traitors of the year 1918. These November men, they could not act differently than to subjugate themselves. For they were caught in chains, after all, in the financial chains of this other world. But we, we have no reason before this other world, after all, to perhaps subjugate ourselves to it; or did the English really imagine that we had an inferiority complex toward the English, who found it necessary to mobilize a world against us? They knocked us down back then through a swindle and through a lie. But the British soldiers did not knock us down! And in the campaign, it also did not have the appearance as if something has changed.
For us it was hence clear and for me, that if nothing was and is to be achieved in Geneva along the path of voluntary negotiation, then we distance ourselves from Geneva. I have never yet in my life pushed myself on anybody. Whoever does not want to speak with me, does not need to. It is even much less necessary for me.
And here are eighty-five million Germans, and these Ger-mans also do not need it, for they have a mighty historical past. They were already a world power when England was still a very small island. And for somewhat longer than three hundred years.
One thereby forced us upon the path, after all, which we then took. The League of Nations, it had only scorn and mockery left over for us. We then distanced ourselves from it. The disarmament conference: the same thing. We then left it. And now we have taken the path that we invariably had to take, in the process always concerned, if somehow possible, to nonetheless come to an agreement. And I may just point out that, in one case, it almost seemed to succeed, namely with France. When the Saar plebiscite took place and the Saar region returned, we also drew the consequences, very difficult consequences. Back then, I renounced any further revision in the west for the German folk. The French took that as so self-evident. I once stated to the French ambassador back then: “That is not as self-evident as you imagine. We make a sacrifice here for the sake of peace. We make it, but then we at least want for it that we then also get peace.” But the ruthlessness of these capitalist plutocrats in these lands again and again made a breakthrough in a short time, promoted by emigrants, who present a picture of the German situation that was naturally just crazy, but was believed, because it seemed pleasant, and then naturally fertilized by Jewish hatred. This coalition of capitalist interests, on the one hand, Jewish hate instincts and the emigrants' lust for revenge, had managed to cloud the world ever more, to garnish with slogans and to incite it against the present German Reich again just like against the Reich before us. Back then, they said: against Imperial Germany. Now they said: against National Socialist Germany. In reality, therefore, against the respective Germany!
But now my decision was also firm: under no circumstances to surrender something from the rights, for one surrenders here not theories, rather one surrenders the life of millions of people in the future. I do not sacrifice whatever program point of a party program, rather one sacrifices in such a case the future of a race. And nobody is justified for that, unless he steps before a folk and says: I can no longer represent your interests. Then somebody else must simply come.
But we did not come to power with the program point: We are ready to surrender the interests of the German nation, rather I came with the oath: I surrender no interests! It is not so, after all, my folk comrades, as if, say, the surrender of interests in one year would then bring peace for all time. We have seen that in the old German Reich. That started with the surrender of the western Reich provinces and went on and on. And each decade demanded new surrenders, until Germany was finally crushed, and then these centuries of impotence came over our folk. I am determined, in contrast, from the start not to retreat one step!
When I hence saw that in England the old war agitators of the World War took up their criminal activity again, when the gentlemen Churchill and Eden and Duff Cooper and Hore Belisha etc. and Vansittard, our great old friend, and then Chamberlain and Halifax, when these old men began with their agitation again just like back then, then it was clear to me that these people were not about finding a just agreement with Germany, rather that they again believed they could break Germany in a petty manner, and indeed the faster the easier. What then happened, you know that, my folk comrades.
In these years, starting with 1934, I then armed. When I announced the magnitude of German armament in the Reichstag in September 1939, this other world did not believe it. Understandably -, for whoever himself lives only through bluff, also believes only in bluff among the others! But we already experienced that in the interior as well. If one says that the prophet counts for nothing in his own land, then I want to expand that his prophecies also count for nothing. That was always the case with me. And now it extends beyond our own land. We experience exactly the same thing, my National Socialist fellow fighters, as we experienced in the interior. Every prophecy by us, it was ridiculed, every statement was portrayed as ridiculous, every future picture designated and branded as a fantastic illusion. One judged us only with scorn and laugher. I can now only say to this world: I have nonetheless armed, and indeed armed a lot. The German folk knows it today, after all. But it does not know everything by a long shot. It is also not necessary. But it is also not necessary at all that everything is said among us. Decisive it that everything has happened!
We have demanded nothing from the others. When France entered this war, it had no reason at all. It was simply the desire to fight against Germany again. However, they said: “We want the Rhineland! We naturally want to splinter Germany now. We want to rip away Austria again, we want to dissolve Germany!” One gradually became accustomed to literal fantasies about the annihilation of our Reich, which are totally unreal in the 20th century, in the century of the nation idea. Simply childish, all that!
And England? I offered my hand to England, again and again. It was downright my program point to come to an agreement with the English folk. We also have no point of contention at all, none at all. There was a singe point: Return of the German colonies, and I said in the process: We want to negotiate that sometime, I did not fix the time at all. For England, they are pointless, the colonies. They have 40 million square kilometers, what do they do with it? Nothing at all. It is only the greed of old usurers, who possess something and do not want to give it up, sick beings, who see that their neighbor has nothing to eat, cannot use what they possess, pour it into the sea, if necessary, but become ill at the thought that they could give him some of it. Furthermore, I demanded nothing that belongs to the English, rather only what they robbed and stole from us in the year 1918 and 1919, and indeed robbed and stole against the solemn assurance of the American President Wilson! We demanded nothing from them, we asked for nothing from them. Again and again, I gave them my hand and, nonetheless, everything was in vain. The reasons are clear to us: it is simply the German unification in itself. They hate this state here, quite regardless what it looks like, whether it is imperial or National Socialist, democratic or authoritarian. That is all the same. And second: they hate, above all, however, the social rise of this Reich.
And here, lust for power, on the one hand, really combines with the basest egoism inwardly as well. If they said today: “We can never come to an agreement with this world”, - this is the world of awakening social conscience, with which they cannot come to an agreement. There I can say only one thing to the gentlemen on both sides of the ocean: this world will be the successful one in the end! In all folks, the social conscience begins to beat. They can wage wars for their capitalist interests, but the wars themselves will, in the final analysis, be the forerunners for the social rebellions inside their folks.
It is impossible that, in the long run, hundreds of millions of human beings are aligned by the interests of a few individuals. In the long run, the greater interest of mankind will triumph over the interests of these little plutocratic businessmen. We have proof that in these lands as well, in the social area, already today things are beginning to approach a crisis; if English labor leaders now suddenly come with the “new” social idea so worn out and so ancient, then I can only say: Put it back in the trunk, that is already discarded material of ours, already long outdated, gentlemen. If you want to know how one does such a thing, then you must not take programs, which were modern among us in, say, the 80s or 90s, rather you must come and now study by us, then you can learn, gentlemen, how one does that.
But still, already the fact that one now suddenly presents such a thing as goal! Yes, why then do the gentlemen actually wage war? First they said: In order to combat National Socialism, the folks of the world must bleed dry - and now suddenly they fetch from the very bottom drawer of the chest program points of our quite distant predecessors. Why that at all? They could have gotten that cheaper. But it is only the proof that the folks begin to stir there. Or if, for example, a storm breaks out in England, because a colonel, I believe, or a general declares: “In this land - this hence means socially progressive England - in this land, one cannot use officers from the lower strata, rather officers will be fetched only from the upper strata, the lower ones are not suitable for it”, then I can only say: You get excited? Because he said that? You should get excited, because that is not so, but not only because somebody finally says it aloud. It is interesting that nobody gets excited that it is so in reality. This hence means that actually there only people from the upper strata can become something. That is what they should get excited about, but not because somebody stupidly says it now in war. But among us, if they want to learn something, that has already long been abolished. They have, however, recently still proven to us that our officers and generals are not worth anything, because they are all too young and are somewhat peeved by National Socialist ideas, thus also have something to do with, say, the broad mass. Meanwhile, the development, after all, has already shown where the better generals sit, over there or among us. If the war still lasts longer, this will be a great misfortune for England. For then one will still experience all kinds of things. Suddenly, the English will send a commission in order to adopt our program. That will be the end of their whole struggle. This social Germany is what this clique, mixed with Jews and their finance people over there and their businessmen, hate the most.
Conversely, our foreign policy and our domestic and economic policy stands strong and clear. There is only one goal of alignment, this is: the folk. All the paths we walk must end there. It is clear to us that, if one wants to destroy everything, one can enter, walk and keep this path only with many, many compromises, with many indulgences. But the movement, after all, is also not just a temporarily manifestation of one man. Already earlier, many years ago in the struggle, I said: National Socialism will determine the coming thousand years of German history. It can no longer be thought away. If will only pass away, when its program points have become self-evident, not sooner.
But even in the war, the possibility of an agreement was still present. Immediately after the Polish War, I again offered my hand. I demanded nothing at all, neither of France nor of England. It was in vain. Then immediately after the collapse in the west, I again extended my hand to England. I was greeted with venom and outcry. They literally spat at me. They were outraged. Also fine. It was all in vain. The finance interests of these democracies triumph over their genuine folk interests! So the blood of the folks must again be put into the service of the money of this very small interest group.
So it came to the first fight, and this fight will simply continue. But looking back, I may already say one thing: already the year that lies behind us, and the last part of the year before that, have practically decided this war. The opponent whom they initially mobilized against us in the east was eliminated in a few weeks. The attempt to cut us off from Norway, from our ore bases, and to gain an attack base against northeastern Germany, was likewise eliminated in a few weeks. The attempt to reach the Ruhr zone through Holland and Belgium collapsed after a few days. France went the same path. England was chased off the continent. I now read a few times that the English have the intention to now start somewhere with a big offensive. I would only have the one wish that they inform me of this in advance. I would then evacuate in advance the area in Europe so that they would come. I would very gladly spare them the difficulties of a landing, and then we would again introduce ourselves and once more converse, and indeed, in the language that they probably alone understand!
They now have hopes, for they must possess hopes. What do they expect then? We stand here on this continent, and where we stand, nobody removes us! And we have created certain bases, and we will, when the hour comes, swing for the decisive blows. And that we have used the time for this, the gentlemen will in this year take note of this historically.
For what do they hope? For other help? For America? I can say only one thing: We have figured in every possibility in advance. That the German folk has nothing against the American folk, this is clear to everybody who does not want to intentionally twist the truth and claim the opposite. Germany has never yet represented interests on the American continent, other than that it has helped fight for this continent’s freedom! If states of this continent now attempt to perhaps intervene into the European conflict, then the goal will change only faster. Europe will simply defend itself.
And one should not surrender oneself to any deception about one thing: Whoever believes he can help England, must know one thing in any case: every ship, whether with or without escort, that comes in front of our torpedo tubes, will be torpedoed!
We are in a war that we did not want. Quite the opposite! One cannot offer the hand to the other more often. But if these finance hyenas want the fight and have, say, the goal to exterminate the German nation, then they are in for the shock of their lives. This time, one does not encounter an exhausted Germany like in the World War, rather this time one encounters a. to the highest degree mobilized and combatable and combat-determined Germany.
But if one has other hopes, then I can only say, I do not understand them. They say: “Italy will fall away.” The gentlemen should not invent revolutions in Milan, after all, rather they should watch out that disturbances do not break out among themselves! Germany’s and Italy’s relationship is seen by these states only like they themselves usually tend to practice. Hence if among the democracies one helps the other, then it demands something for it, strong points or something else - which it then occupies. When the Italians hence moved airplane squadrons to the Atlantic coast, the English newspapers wrote that the Italians now interfered in our war conduct and that they would demand in exchange a strong point on the Atlantic in the future. And now, since German squadrons are in Sicily, they say that Germany will now probably confiscate Sicily. The gentlemen can be convinced: with this nonsense, one can stir a person neither in Germany nor in Italy. It only shows the sick lack of intellect of the people who talk such a thing in England. And, above all, it only shows that they do not grasp the meaning of this war, which we, however, do grasp: Wherever we can strike England, we will strike it! But if they see in our partner’s few setbacks now already the proof of their victory, then I do not understand precisely the English. They have previously always seen in their own setbacks only the proof for their great victory. The gentlemen can be of the conviction: This bill is an overall bill, and it will be settled at the end of this war, point for point, square kilometer by square kilometer. They can be convinced of that!
And they must be of the conviction of still something else: Il Duce and I, we two are neither Jews nor are we businessmen. If the two of us shake hands, then this is the handshake of men who possess honor. This, I hope, will, over the course of this, year also dawn upon these gentlemen and become clear.
Perhaps they still hope in the Balkans. I would also not give much for it, for the one thing is sure: Wherever England puts in an appearance, we will attack it, and we are strong enough for it.
Perhaps they have hope in other states, which they will still bring in. I do not know, I can only give you, my party comrades, who have known me for so many years, as a worried man who always looks ahead, only the one assurance: Any possibility that is at all thinkable, we have soberly weighed and included in our calculation. At the end stands our victory!
Perhaps they hope then for still something else - no longer as strong - for hunger. We have organized our life. We knew from the start that there can naturally be no surplus in war. But the German folk will never starve - never! Sooner the English one! The gentlemen can be convinced of that.
Raw material shortage? There, too, we have foreseen everything. Hence the Four-Year Plan! Perhaps some Englishmen as well have become aware of this.
There could still be only one thing: namely, that they really believe, through their lies and propaganda, through their slogans, to once more be able to fog the German folk. And there I can say only one thing: they should not have slept so long! They should have really concerned themselves a little with the inner development of the German folk. The way they now undertook this idiocy, to want to alienate the Italian folk from Il Duce - a British Lord stands up and appeals to the Italian folk that it should no longer follow Il Duce, rather His Lordship! It is idiotic, if one should believe such a thing at all from such a blockhead.
Then another Lord stands up and admonishes the German folk to follow His Lordship and turn away from me. I can only say to these men: totally different people have already tried that in Germany. They have an idea of the German folk, of the National Socialist state, of our community, of the army of our marching masses in our folk! They have an idea of our propaganda!
They have, because they themselves were apparently not quite so convinced of the soundness of their ideas, borrowed a few forces from Germany. But those are precisely the forces that failed miserably here, namely the emigrants who drew the short straw here. Those are their advisors! We see that immediately from the pamphlets. We know precisely: he did that, he did that - just as stupid as here back then. Only that back then the stamp “Vossische Zeitung” stood on it, and now “Times” or something like that stands on it. And the people imagine that such an old, old matter, which among us already before the “Vossische Zeitung” no longer drew, will now draw again, if suddenly such a thing now comes from the “Times” or the “Daily Telegraph”. A real softening of the brain has broken out in these democracies! They can rest assured: The German folk will do everything that is in its interest. It will follow its leadership. It knows that its leadership has no other goal. It knows that today a man does not stand at the top of the Reich who also has a stock portfolio in his pocket, who pursues other interests. This German folk - I know it, and I am so proud of it - is bound to me and goes through thick and thin.
In this folk, an old spirit has now become alive again, which already once accompanied us for a long time: this fanaticism in the readiness to take everything upon ourselves! Every blow that we receive, we will pay back with interest and interest upon interest! It will only make us harder! And whatever they mobilize against us. And if the world were full of devils, then we will nonetheless succeed.
And when they then say as the final thing: “Yes, but the mistakes that they make!” - God, who makes no mistakes? Early this morning I read that an English minister - I do not know from what - calculated through some process that in the past year, hence in the year 1940, I had made seven mistakes, seven mistakes! The man is mistaken, I have added them up: I have not made seven mistakes, rather 724. But I have further calculated: and my opponents have made 4,385,000 mistakes! He can believe me! I have calculated it precisely.
We will get along with our mistakes. If we make as many mistakes this year as in the past, and if I make as many mistakes as in the past one, then at the end of this year, I will thank the Lord on my knees that he let me make only seven mistakes. And if my opponents do so many clever things as in this past year, I will also be satisfied.
So we now enter the new year with an equipped Wehrmacht like never before in our history.
On land, the number of divisions has increased mightily. Their combat value was improved, the tremendous war experience among officers and enlisted men utilized and evaluated. Then there was working and there is constant working. The equipment has been improved, our opponents will see how it was improved.
At sea, the U-boat war will begin in the spring, and it will then also be noticed there that we have not slept in these sixteen months!
And the Luftwaffe will likewise supply its introduction. And the whole Wehrmacht will force the decision one way or another!
Our production is a tremendously escalated one in all areas.
What others plan, is reality among us. The German folk, however, stands composed behind its leadership, in confidence in its Wehrmacht and ready to endure what fate will one day demand from it.
The year 1941, of this I am convinced, will be the historical year of Europe’s great new order! The program can be no other than: Opening the world for all, breaking the privileges of individuals, breaking of the tyranny of certain folks and, better yet, of their financial rulers.
And, finally, this year will help to then really secure the foundations for an agreement of folks and thus a new reconciliation of folks.
And I also do not want to avoid the reference that I once already made, namely on September 1, 1939, in the German Reichstag, that, namely, if the other world would really be plunged by Jewry into a general war, Jewry will have thereby played out its role in Europe! They may still laugh about it today, just like they previously laughed at my prophecies. The coming months and years will prove that I have prophesized correctly here as well. Already now, however, we see how our race knowledge grips folk after folk, and I hope that also the folks which today still stand in hostility toward us will one day recognize their greatest internal enemy, and that they will then enter into a great common front with us: the front of Aryan mankind against international Jewish exploitation and ruination of folks!
This year, which since January 30th now lies behind us, was the year of greatest successes, but also many sacrifices. Even though overall the number of dead and of wounded is small compared to all earlier wars, the sacrifices are nonetheless difficult for each individual family that was affected by them. All our affection, our love, but also our care belongs to those who had to make these sacrifices. They have suffered the sacrifice that generations before us always also had to make. But every single German has also otherwise made sacrifices. The nation has worked in all areas, above all, the woman has worked in the replacement of the man. It is a wonderful community idea, which dominates our folk.
That this idea in its whole force may be preserved for us in the coming year, let that be the wish of the present day. That we all want to work for this community, let that be our oath! That we win victory in the service of this community, that is our faith and our confidence! And that the Lord will not abandon us in this struggle of the coming year, that should be our prayer!
Germany Sieg Heil!"
- Adolf Hitler
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