Joseph Goebbels was born into a strict Catholic, working-class family from Rheydt, in the Rhineland, on 29 October 1897.

He was educated at a Roman Catholic school and went on to study history and literature at the University of Heidelberg.

Goebbels was exempted from military service during World War I because of a crippled foot - the result of contracting polio as a child.

He joined the NSDAP in 1922.

In 1925 he was made business manager of the NSDAP in the Ruhr district and at the end of the year was already the principal ally of Gregor Strasser, leader of the social-revolutionary North German wing of the Party.

In 1928 Joseph Goebbels was elected to the Reichstag.

Goebbels became the party's Primary Propaganda Leader. Joseph Goebbels was appointed as Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. He produced hundreds of essay's and speeches.

Joseph Goebbels describes one of his first meetings with
Adolf Hitler in his diary: "Shakes my hand. Like an old friend.
And those big blue eyes. Like stars. He is glad to see me.
I am in heaven. That man has everything to be king."

Josef and Magda Goebbels were married in 1931,
with Hitler as a witness at their wedding. The marriage
produced six children within eight years, one boy and five girls.

by Joseph Goebbels

It is a happy accident that my first speech since taking charge of the Ministry for Propaganda and People's Enlightenment is to German women. Although I agree with Treitschke that men make history, I do not forget that women raise boys to manhood. You know that the National Socialist movement is the only party that keeps women out of daily politics. This arouses bitter criticism and hostility, all of it very unjustified. We have kept women out of the parliamentary-democratic intrigues of the past fourteen years in Germany not because we do not respect them, but because we respect them too much. We do not see the woman as inferior, but rather as having a different mission, a different value, than that of the man. Therefore we believed that the German woman, who more than any other in the world is a woman in the best sense of the word, should use her strength and abilities in other areas than the man.

The woman has always been not only the man's sexual companion, but also his fellow worker. Long ago, she did heavy labor with the man in the field. She moved with him into the cities, entering the offices and factories, doing her share of the work for which she was best suited. She did this with all her abilities, her loyalty, her selfless devotion, her readiness to sacrifice.

The woman in public life today is no different than the women of the past. No one who understands the modern age would have the crazy idea of driving women from public life, from work, profession, and bread winning. But it must also be said that those things that belong to the man must remain his. That includes politics and the military. That is not to disparage women, only a recognition of how she can best use her talents and abilities.

Looking back over the past year's of Germany's decline, we come to the frightening, nearly terrifying conclusion, that the less German men were willing to act as men in public life, the more women succumbed to the temptation to fill the role of the man. The feminization of men always leads to the masculinization of women. An age in which all great idea of virtue, of steadfastness, of hardness and determination have been forgotten should not be surprised that the man gradually loses his leading role in life and politics and government to the woman.

It may be unpopular to say this to an audience of women, but it must be said, because it is true and because it will help make clear our attitude toward women.

The modern age, with all its vast revolutionary transformations in government, politics, economics and social relations has not left women and their role in public life untouched. Things we thought impossible several years or decades ago are now everyday reality. Some good, noble, and commendable things have happened. But also things that are contemptible and humiliating. These revolutionary transformations have largely taken from women their proper tasks. Their eyes were set in directions that were not appropriate for them. The result was a distorted public view of German womanhood that had nothing to do with former ideals.

A fundamental change is necessary. At the risk of sounding reactionary and outdated, let me say this clearly: The first, best, and most suitable place for the women is in the family, and her most glorious duty is to give children to her people and nation, children who can continue the line of generations and who guarantee the immortality of the nation. The woman is the teacher of the youth, and therefore the builder of the foundation of the future. If the family is the nation's source of strength, the woman is its core and center. The best place for the woman to serve her people is in her marriage, in the family, in motherhood. This is her highest mission. That does not mean that those women who are employed or who have no children have no role in the motherhood of the German people. They use their strength, their abilities, their sense of responsibility for the nation, in other ways. We are convinced, however, that the first task of a socially reformed nation must be to again give the woman the possibility to fulfill her real task, her mission in the family and as a mother.

The national revolutionary government is everything but reactionary. It does not want to stop the pace of our rapidly moving age. It has no intention of lagging behind the times. It wants to be the flag bearer and pathfinder of the future. We know the demands of the modern age. But that does not stop us from seeing that every age has its roots in motherhood, that there is nothing of greater importance than the living mother of a family who gives the state children.

German women have been transformed in recent years. They are beginning to see that they are not happier as a result of being given more rights but fewer duties. They now realize that the right to be elected to public office at the expense of the right to life, motherhood, and her daily bread is not a good trade.

A characteristic of the modern era is a rapidly declining birthrate in our big cities. In 1900 two million babies were born in Germany. Now the number has fallen to one million. This drastic decline is most evident in the national capital. In the last fourteen years, Berlin's birthrate has become the lowest of any European city. By 1955, without emigration, it will have only about three million inhabitants. The government is determined to halt this decline of the family and the resulting impoverishment of our blood. There must be a fundamental change. The liberal attitude toward the family and the child is responsible for Germany's rapid decline. We today must begin worrying about an aging population. In 1900 there were seven children for each elderly person, today it is only four. If current trends continue, by 1988 the ratio will be 1 : 1. These statistics say it all. They are the best proof that if Germany continues along its current path, it will end in an abyss with breathtaking speed. We can almost determine the decade when Germany collapses because of depopulation.

We are not willing to stand aside and watch the collapse of our national life and the destruction of the blood we have inherited. The national revolutionary government has the duty to rebuilt the nation on its original foundations, to transform the life and work of the woman so that it once again best serves the national good. It intends to eliminate the social inequalities so that once again the life of our people and the future of our people and the immortality of our blood is assured.

I welcome this exhibition, whose goal is to explain and teach, and to reduce or eliminate harm to the individual and the whole people. This serves the nation and popular enlightenment, and to support it is one of the happiest duties of the new government.

Perhaps this exhibition titled "The Woman" will represent a turning point. If the goal of the exhibition is to give an impression of women in contemporary society, it does so at a time when German society is undergoing the greatest changes in generations. I am aware of how difficult this is. I know the obstacles that had to be overcome to give this exhibition a clear theme and a firm structure. It should show the significance of the woman for the family, the people, and the whole nation. Displays will give an impression of the actual life of women today, and will provide the knowledge necessary to resolve today's conflicting opinions, which were not primarily the result of the contemporary women's movement.

But that is not all. The main purpose of the exhibition "The Woman" is not only to show the way things are, but to make proposals for improvement. It aims to show new ways and new opportunities. Clear and often drastic examples will give thousands of German women reason to think and consider. It is particularly pleasing to us men in the new government that families with many children are given particular attention, since we want to rescue the nation from decline. The importance of the family cannot be overestimated, especially in families without fathers that depend entirely upon the mother. In these families the woman has sole responsibility for the children, and she must realize the responsibility she has to her people and nation.

We do not believe that the German people is destined by fate to decline. We have blind confidence that Germany still has a great mission in the world. We have faith that we are not at the end of our history, but rather that a new, great and honorable period of our history is now beginning. This faith give us the strength to work and not despair. It enabled us to make great sacrifices over the past fourteen years. It gave millions of German women the strength to hope in Germany and its future, and to let their sons join in the reawakening of the nation. This faith was with the brave women who lost their husbands and breadwinners in the war, with those who gave their sons in the battle to renew their people. This faith kept us standing during the need and desperation of the past fourteen years. And this faith today fills us with new hope that Germany will again find its place in the sun.

Nothing makes one harder and more determined than struggle. Nothing gives more courage than to face resistance. During the years when Germany seemed destined to decline, a new kind of womanhood developed under the confused veneer of modern civilization. It is hard, determined, courageous, willing to sacrifice. During the four years of the great war and the fourteen years of German collapse that followed, German women and mothers proved themselves worthy companions of their men. They have borne all the bitterness, all the privation and danger, and did not fail when hit by misfortune, worry and trouble. As long as a nation has such a proud and noble womanhood, it cannot perish. These women are the foundation of our race, of its blood and of its future.

This is the beginning of a new German womanhood. If the nation once again has mothers who proudly and freely choose motherhood, it cannot perish. If the woman is healthy, the people will be healthy. Woe to the nation that neglects its women and mothers. It condemns itself.

We hope that the concept of the German woman will again earn the honor and respect of the entire world. The German woman will then take her pride in her land and her people, in thinking German and feeling German. The honor of her nation and her race will be most important to her. Only a nation that does not forget its honor will be able to guarantee its daily bread.

The German woman should never forget that.

I declare this exhibition open. May it reveal all the former errors and show the way to the future.

Then the world will once again respect us, and we will be able to affirm the words of Walther von der Vogelweide, who had this to say about the German woman in his famous poem:

He who seeks
Virtue and proper love,
Should come to our land.
There is much joy.
Long may I live there.

The German people is an enslaved people. Under international law, it is lower than the last Negro colony in the Congo. One has taken all sovereign rights from us. We are just good enough that international capital allows us to fill its money sacks with interest payments. That and only that is the result of a centuries-long history of heroism. Have we deserved it? No, and no again!

Therefore we demand that a struggle against this condition of shame and misery begin, and that the men in whose hands we put our fate must use every means to break the chains of slavery.

Three million people lack work and sustenance. The officials, it is true, work to conceal the misery. They speak of measures and silver linings. Things are getting steadily better for them, and steadily worse for us. The illusion of freedom, peace and prosperity that we were promised when we wanted to take our fate in our own hands is vanishing. Only complete collapse of our people can follow from these irresponsible policies.

Thus we demand the right of work and a decent living for every working German.

While the front soldier was fighting in the trenches to defend his Fatherland, some Eastern Jewish profiteer robbed him of hearth and home. The Jew lives in the palaces and the proletarian, the front soldier, lives in holes that do not deserve to be called "homes." That is neither necessary nor unavoidable, rather an injustice that cries out to the heavens. A government that stands by and does nothing is useless and must vanish, the sooner the better.

Therefore we demand homes for German soldiers and workers. If there is not enough money to build them, drive the foreigners out so that Germans can live on German soil.

Our people is growing, others diminishing. It will mean the end of our history if a cowardly and lazy policy takes from us the posterity that will one day be called to fulfill our historical mission.

Therefore we demand land on which to grow the grain that will feed our children.

While we dreamed and chased strange and unreachable fantasies, others stole our property. Today some say this was an act of God. Not so. Money was transferred from the pockets of the poor to the pockets of the rich. That is cheating, shameless, vile cheating!

A government presides over this misery that in the interests of peace and order one cannot really discuss. We leave it to others to judge whether it represents Germany's interests or those of our capitalist tormenters.

We however demand a government of national labor, statesmen who are men and whose aim is the creation of a German state.

These days anyone has the right to speak in Germany - the Jew, the Frenchman, the Englishman, the League of Nations, the conscience of the world and the Devil knows who else. Everyone but the German worker. He has to shut up and work. Every four years he elects a new set of torturers, and everything stays the same. That is unjust and treasonous. We need tolerate it no longer. We have the right to demand that only Germans who build this state may speak, those whose fate is bound to the fate of their fatherland.

Therefore we demand the annihilation of the system of exploitation! Up with the German worker's state!

Germany for the Germans!

by Joseph Goebbels

Following the celebration of the ten year anniversary of the Russian Revolution, three young Berlin communists from the Köpernick district committed suicide after they had taken a touching farewell from their comrades. They explained calmly that they had lost faith in the future of the Internationale.

It is said of Ernst Thälmann, the communist leader, that during the Hamburg uprising he laid stone drunk in his own vomit. In Berlin-Wedding a few weeks ago, Ruth Fischer spoke at a meeting of the KPD opposition, calling for a fight against the Third Internationale. When a representative of the KPD began to speak he was shouted down by his former comrades and thrown out the door. The affair ended in a general melee.

The tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution was recently celebrated in Moscow. As the honored guests from the entire world who had gathered to praise Moscow's principles watched, the opposition to the workers' and peasants' state stormed the gathering and took over the university. The end of the story: twelve leading Bolshevists, nearly all Jews of the old guard, were expelled form the Communist Party.

What does this all mean?

Things are becoming clear all over. The smoke of rhetoric is vanishing, and all that remains is a miserable remnant of fantasies that absolutely no one confuses with reality. The German proletariat is one hope poorer, perhaps its last one. Marx's game is over. Nature is in charge once again, and it has made the eternal laws pitilessly and unmistakably clear: the laws of personality, struggle and race.

Did things have to turn out this way?

Yes, a thousand times yes.

There was no other possible outcome. We have it prophesied a hundred times. If the Jews speak, the people must beware. The Jew is rootless, a ferment of decomposition. Whether he lives as a capitalist or a Bolshevist, his nature remains the same: Ahasver, the eternal destroyer. His gospel is chaos, and where he succeeds in fomenting revolution, he rises to the top. He brought the worker's movement to its present deplorable state: a mixture of phrases, cowardice, terror and class hatred. What does the cause of the proletariat have to do with pacifism, protection of the republic, the elimination of personality and the destruction of national dignity and honor? Where is it written that utopias, wishes, programs and books rule the world instead of strength and the facts? Why do you demonstrate here for the national freedom of the oppressed colonial peoples, yet forget that Germany is a province of high finance? Why shout "China for the Chinese," yet stand by in cowardice as the Jews sell Germany piece by piece and turn it over to the world dictatorship? You cry "Reaction" when one speaks of a lost fatherland. You smell treason when one names things by their right names. You retreat stubbornly and silently to your own troubles, and find that nothing remains but desperation and suicide.

Do not say that the First, Second or Third Internationale is responsible! Found a new one, a Fourth! It will betray you just as its three predecessors did.

The Internationale itself is in error. It is thought out, not lived. The Jew preaches it to you because it is his last chance to hold power. It has destroyed nations and peoples. It sets citizen against citizen, destroys and poisons the community, sows mistrust between the peoples. Above it all is the triumphant mocking laughter of your enemy, of our enemy: The eternal Jew!

You stand over hecatombs of corpses. The scent of blood surrounds you. Children beg, mothers weep, nations perish! What have you gained: Nothing but chaos, hopeless, hunger and desperation!

It that the way you want things to remain?

Stand up and demand a Germany that belongs to you, one that is free of the chains of the oppressor. This is the historic mission of the German working class.

Freedom and prosperity!

This is the war cry against the rotting world of capitalism!

Away with the empty rhetoric! Risk looking cold reality in the face.

Hold out your hand, German working men! The day of freedom is coming, if only you want it!

Adolf Hitler is showing you the way!

by Joseph Goebbels

Everything is discussed openly in Germany, and every German claims the right to have an opinion on any and all questions. One is Catholic, the other Protestant, one an employee, the other an employer, a capitalist, a socialist, a democrat, an aristocrat. There is nothing dishonorable about choosing one side or the other of a question. Discussions happen in public, and where matters are unclear or confused one settles it by argument and counter argument. But there is one problem that is not discussed publicly, one that it is delicate even to mention: the Jewish question. It is taboo in our republic.

The Jew is immunized against all dangers: one may call him a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a Jew and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: "I've been found out."

One cannot defend himself against the Jew. He attacks with lightning speed from his position of safety and uses his abilities to crush any attempt at defense.

Quickly he turns the attacker's charges back on him, and the attacker becomes the liar, the troublemaker, the terrorist. Nothing could be more mistaken than to defend oneself. That is just what the Jew wants. He can invent a new lie every day for the enemy to respond to, and the result is that the enemy spends so much time defending himself that he has no time to do what the Jew really fears: to attack. The accused has become the accuser, and loudly he shoves the accuser into the dock. So it always was in the past when a person or a movement fought the Jew. That is what would happen to us as well were we not fully aware of his nature, and if we lacked the courage to draw the following radical conclusions:

1. One cannot fight the Jew by positive means. He is a negative, and this negative must be erased from the German system, or he will forever corrupt it.

2. One cannot discuss the Jewish question with the Jews. One can hardly prove to a person that one has the duty to render him harmless.

3. One cannot allow the Jew the same means one would give an honest opponent, for he is no honorable opponent. He will use generosity and nobility only to trap his enemy.

4. The Jew has nothing to say about German questions. He is a foreigner, an alien, who only enjoys the rights of a guest, rights that he always abuses.

5. The so-called religious morality of the Jews is no morality at all, rather an encouragement to betrayal. Therefore, they have no claim to protection from the state.

6. The Jew is not smarter than we are, rather only cleverer and craftier. His system cannot be defeated economically - he follows entirely different moral principles than we do. It can only be broken through political means.

7. A Jew cannot insult a German. Jewish slanders are but badges of honor for a German opponent of the Jews.

8. The more a German person or a German movement opposes the Jew, the more valuable it is. If someone is attacked by the Jews, that is a sure sign of his virtue. He who is not persecuted by the Jews, or who is praised by them, is useless and dangerous.

9. The Jew evaluates German questions from the Jewish standpoint. As a result, the opposite of what he says must be true.

10. One must either affirm or reject anti-Semitism. He who defends the Jews harms his own people. One can only be a Jewish lackey or a Jewish opponent. Opposing the Jews is a matter of personal hygiene.

These principles give the anti-Jewish movement a chance of success. Only such a movement will be taken seriously by the Jews, only such a movement will be feared by them.

The fact that he shouts and complains about such a movement therefore is only a sign that it is right. We are therefore delighted that we are constantly attacked in the Jewish gazettes. They may shout about terror. We answer with Mussolini's familiar words: "Terror? Never! It is social hygiene. We take these individuals out of circulation just as a doctor does to a bacterium.

by Joseph Goebbels

A leader must possess character, will, ability, and luck. If these four characteristics form a harmonious unity in a brilliant person, we have a man called by history.

Character is the most significant factor. Knowledge, book learning, experience and practice do more harm than good if they are not based on strong character. Character brings them to their best expression. It requires courage, endurance, energy, and consistency. Courage gives a person not only the ability to recognize what is right, but also to say and do it. Endurance gives him the ability to pursue the chosen goal, even if apparently impossible obstacles stand in the way, and to proclaim it even if it is unpopular, even if it makes him unpopular. Energy mobilizes the strength to risk everything for the goal and the persistence to keep at it. Consistency gives his eye and mind the sharpness of knowledge and logic in thought and action that gives truly great people the ability to reach the eternally wavering masses. These manly virtues together comprise that which we call character. Character, in short, is style and behavior in the highest form.

Will raises character from the individualistic to the universal. Will makes the man of character into a political man. Any man of significance wants something, and indeed is ready to use every means to attain his end. The will distinguishes the man who acts from the man who merely thinks. It is the intermediary between knowledge and action. It is much more important for us to want that which is right than it is simply to know what is right. This is particularly true in politics. What good is it for me to know the enemy if I do not have the will to destroy him! Many know why Germany has collapsed, but few have the will to end its misfortunes. What distinguishes he who is called to leadership from all the rest is this: He not only has the will to want, but also the want to will.

But in politics it is also important not only what one wants, but what one accomplishes. This leads us to the third characteristic of the able political person: ability. Progress requires accomplishment. Leadership means to want something, and to be able to show the way to realize what one wants. History judges by what has been done. We Germans need to realize that. Politics is a public affair, and one cannot apply the laws of private matters to public matters. We Germans often tend to confuse the desire for something with the ability to do it, and to forgive the incompetent who says that he wanted good and proper things. "We have not brought about socialism," say the November Marxists, "but at least we wanted to." That is irrelevant, just as we do not care if someone wants to play the violin. He must be able in fact to do so. He who wants to rescue a people must above all have the necessary ability.

Character, will and ability, the three prerequisites to leadership, show themselves in capable people. They are either there, or they are not there. The fourth characteristic binds the other three together: luck. The leader must have luck. He must have a blessed hand. One must be able to see that all his actions stand under the protection of a higher power. A leader can lack everything save luck. That is irreplaceable.

The masses do not oppose leaders. They do instinctively oppose usurpers who claim power without having the necessary will and ability. The leader is hardly an enemy of the masses. He shuns only the cheap tricks of mass flattery that feed the people with phrases rather than bread.

The leader must be able to do everything. That does not mean that he understands all the details, but he must know the basics. There are other helpful people who can keep the wheels of politics spinning.

The art of organization is one of the most important factors in the capabilities of political leaders. Organization means rightly assigning work and responsibility. The leader is the master in the clockwork of an intricate political machine.

Today we celebrate Adolf Hitler's 40th birthday. We believe that fate has called him to show the German people the way. We greet him with honor and devotion, and wish only that he be preserved for us until his work is finished.

by Joseph Goebbels

It was late in the evening and I was enjoying the rare pleasure of reading a good book. I was relaxed and at ease. The telephone rang. I picked up the phone with trepidation. It is worse than I expected. "Horst Wessel has been shot." Trembling with fear, I asked: "Dead?" "No, but there is no hope." I felt as if the walls were collapsing around me. It was unbelievable. It cannot be!

A few days later. I step into the small hospital room on the ground floor and am shocked by the sight. A bullet in the head has done terrible damage to this heroic lad. His face is distorted. I hardly recognize him. But he is happy. His clear, bright eyes shine, though we cannot talk for long. The doctor has ordered him to keep calm. He only repeats a few words: "I am happy." He does not need to say it. One sees it by looking at him. His young, bright smile overcomes the blood and wounds. He still believes.

I sat by his bed on a Sunday afternoon as streams of visitors came until evening. One can hope. He is improving. The fever has dropped, the wounds healed. He sat up part way and talked. What about? A foolish question! About us, about the movement, about his comrades. They stood outside his door today, and one after the other came by and raised his arm to salute the young leader for a moment. "I could not bear it otherwise!"

I look at his hands, which are now small and white. His strong nose stands out in the middle of his face, and two bright eyes sparkle. But the fever is back? He cannot eat, his strength gradually declines, though his spirit remains fresh and alert. He is not allowed to read. He may only talk. It is hard to obey the warning look of the nurse. Will I ever see him again? Who knows! If blood poisoning does not develop, everything will be OK.

A lonely mother sits outside. He face reflects a question. "Will he make it?" One can one say but yes? I try to persuade myself and others.

Blood poisoning develops. By Thursday, there is little hope. He wants to talk with me.

The doctor gives me a minute. How hard it is to walk past the death watch into the room! He does not know how serious his condition is. But he senses it may be the last time: "Do not go away!", he begs. The nurse relents, and he is comforted. "Do not lose hope. The fever comes and goes. The movement too has suffered in the last two years, but today it is hard and strong." That consoles him. Come back!," his eyes, his hands, his hot dry lips, say, as I leave with a heavy heart. I fear I have seen him for the last time.

Saturday morning. It is hopeless. The doctor is no longer allowing visits. He is hallucinating. He does not even recognize his own mother any longer.

It is 6:30 Sunday morning. He dies after a hard struggle. As I stand by his bed two hours later, I can not believe that it is Horst Wessel. His face is yellow, the wounds still covered with white band aids. Stubble shows on his chin. The half-open eyes stare glassily into the eternity that we all face. The small cold hands lie in the midst of flowers, while and red tulips and violets.

Host Wessel has passed on. His mortal remains have given up struggle and conflict. Yet I can feel almost physically his spirit rise, to live on with us. He believed it, he knew it. He himself put it in words: He "marches in spirit in our ranks."

One day in a German Germany, workers and students will march together singing his song. He will be with them. He wrote it in a moment of ecstasy, of inspiration. The song flowed from him, born of life and bearing witness to that life. The brown soldiers are singing it across the country. In ten years, children will sing it in the schools, workers in the factories, soldiers on the march. His song makes him immortal. That is how he lived, that is how he died. A wanderer between two worlds, between yesterday and tomorrow, between that which was and that which will be. A soldier of the German revolution! Once he stood with his hand on his belt, proud and upright, with the smile of youth on his red lips, always ready to risk his life. That is how we will remember him.

I see endless columns marching in spirit. A humiliated people rises up and begins to move. An awakening Germany demands its rights: Freedom and prosperity!

He marches behind them in spirit. Many of them will not know him. Many will have gone where he now is. Many others will have come.

He strides silently and knowingly with them. The banners wave, the trumpets sound, the pipes sound, and from a million threats the song of the German revolution resounds:

"Raise high the flag!" [This was the opening line to the "Horst Wessel Song," a poem he had written that became the Nazi party anthem.]

by Joseph Goebbels

Adolf Hitler's goal is the union of all Germans. He experienced our people's need not in books, rather as a person born Austrian whose entire earlier life was filled with the longing for a Greater German Reich. Adolf Hitler will give this longing, which today fills 100 million Germans, political reality.

Hitler, the Great German

Adolf Hitler's goal is to solve the social and labor questions. His knowledge of social need does not come from hearsay. For many years in Vienna and Munich, he had to earn his little daily bread as a simple construction worker. There he came to know the people and the working lass, sharing in their hard lot and their need. He therefore has the right to defend the German working class, wherever it may be.

Hitler, the Führer

Adolf Hitler, the born mass leader, has as his goal to unify the German people and forge from them unprecedented strength. He works toward this goal not by words and empty phrases, rather by founding the National Socialist German Workers Party, which shows the way.

He began in 1919 with six comrades from the front and labor; in 1923, his movement was crushed as it reached for power. Adolf Hitler spent more than a year in prison, founding his old party anew in 1925.

Through hard, exhausting and sacrificial struggle he lead the mocked and scorned little sect to the most impressive mass movement in Europe.

Hitler, the Prophet

In the National Socialist movement, the farmer stands beside the worker, the prince beside the worker, the student next to the front soldier. Millions and millions have joined together under the idea of the German people's community. They want no differences of occupation or class. They have sworn allegiance to the German people and its historic mission.

Amidst all the desperate babble of the post-war period, a new political faith came to life. It is based in flowing, sacrificial idealism, without thereby falling prey to some romantic idol. The National Socialist movement is firmly rooted on earth, but its goals reach boldly for the stars.

Millions and millions of National Socialists have found in National Socialism new meaning and purpose for their lives. They thank Adolf Hitler and his saving idea that they have not fallen into hopelessness and anarchy,

Hitler, the Fighter

A man who has the strength and gifts to build a movement of millions from a small sect of seven men, a movement that today already encompasses the largest and best part of the whole German people, will also find a way to unify the entire nation, freeing it from the terrible political, worldview and social contradictions that tear apart and wound our people.

The System [the Nazi term for the Weimar Republic] has had 13 years to prove that it does not even recognize the problem, much less solve it. Its policies have divided the people into two classes. The economy is in anarchy, the finances are in a desperate state, and millions and millions of German workers, farmers and the middle class are the victims of this fateful course. Countless people have despaired of the future of the German people and have fallen into hopelessness.

But the greater part of the nation has a new will to resist. It wants the German people to rise from blind resignation to a new ideal.

That is Adolf Hitler's work! The masses see in him their last hope. For millions, his name has become the bright symbol of the German will for freedom.

We want to put Germany's future in the hands of this man. He shows us the way. We are ready to follow him. A new German will to life is rising from shame and disgrace, from collapse and anarchy, and we are its bearers!

Hitler, the Reich President

He who wishes that everything should stay as it is in Germany gives himself over to despair. We do not mind if he casts his vote for the representatives of this system. But we want everything in Germany to change.

He who opposes class struggle and fraternal murder, who is looking for the way out of chaos and confusion, this man will vote for Adolf Hitler! He represents an awakening young German idealism, he is the spokesman for national activism, he is the bearer of the coming economic and social renewal. That is why we cry: Give Adolf Hitler power so that the German people once again receive what is its due. For freedom and bread!

by Joseph Goebbels

Why Are We Nationalists?

We are nationalists because we see the nation as the only way to bring all the forces of the nation together to preserve and improve our existence and the conditions under which we live.

The nation is the organic union of a people to protect its life. To be national is to affirm this union in word and deed. To be national has nothing to do with a form of government or a symbol. It is an affirmation of things,not forms. Forms can change, their content remains. If form and content agree, then the nationalist affirms both. If they conflict, the nationalist fights for the content and against the form. One may not put the symbol above the content. If that happens, the battle is on the wrong field and one's strength is lost in formalism. The real aim of nationalism, the nation, is lost.

That is how things are today in Germany. Nationalism has turned into bourgeois patriotism and its defenders are battling windmills. One says Germany and means the monarchy. Another proclaims freedom and means Black-White-Red [the colors of the German flag]. Would our situation today be any different if we replaced the republic with a monarchy and flew the black-white-red flag? The colony would have different wallpaper, but its nature, its content would stay the same. Indeed, things would be even worse, for a facade that conceals the facts dissipates the forces today fighting against slavery.

Explanation: A tied-up Nazi watches while a Jew reading the Berliner Tageblatt, which the Nazis accused of being a Jewish paper, mistreats a Germany chained to the Treaty of Versailles. The Jew is probably supposed to be a journalist, since he is smearing Gemany with his pen. A Black French colonial soldier and another figure (either a policeman or a Polish soldier) assist.

Bourgeois patriotism is the privilege of a class. It is the real reason for its decline. When 30 million are for something and 30 million are against it, things balance out and nothing happens. That is how things are with us. We are the world's Pariah not because we do not have the courage to resist, but rather because out entire national energy is wasted in eternal and unproductive squabbling between the right and the left. Our way only goes downward, and today one can already predict when we will fall into the abyss.

Nationalism is more wide-reaching than internationalism. It sees things as they are. Only he who respects himself can respect others. If as a German nationalist I affirm Germany, how can I hold it against a French nationalist who affirms France? Only when these affirmations conflict in vital ways will there be a power-political struggle. Internationalism cannot undo this reality. Its attempts at proof fail completely. And even when the facts seem to have some validity, nature, blood, the will to life, and the struggle for existence on this hard earth prove the falsity of fine theories.

The sin of bourgeois patriotism was to confound a certain economic form with the national. It connected two things that are entirely different. Forms of the economy, however firm they may seem, are changeable. The national is eternal. If I mix the eternal and the temporal, the eternal will necessarily collapse when the temporal collapses. This was the real cause for the collapse of liberal society. It was rooted not in the eternal, but in the temporal, and when the temporal declined it took the eternal down with it. Today it is only an excuse for a system that brings growing economic misery. That is the only reason why international Jewry organizes the battle of the proletarian forces against both powers, the economy and the nation, and defeat them.

From this understanding, the young nationalism draws its absolute demand. The faith in the nation is a matter for everyone, never a group, a class or an economic clique. The eternal must be distinguished from the temporal. Maintaining a rotten economic system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation of the Fatherland. I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not only can I, I must. Only the annihilation of a system of exploitation carries with it the core of the rebirth of our people.

We are nationalists because as Germans, we love Germany. Because we love Germany, we want to preserve it and fight against those who would destroy it. If a Communist shouts "Down with nationalism!", he means the hypocritical bourgeois patriotism that sees the economy only as a system of slavery. If we make clear to the man of the left that nationalism and capitalism, that is the affirmation of the Fatherland and the misuse of its resources, have nothing to do with each other, indeed that they go together like fire and water, then even as a socialist he will come to affirm the nation, which he will want to conquer.

That is our real task as National Socialists. We were the first to recognize the connections, and the first to begin the struggle. Because we are socialists we have felt the deepest blessings of the nation, and because we are nationalists we want to promote socialist justice in a new Germany.

A young fatherland will rise when the socialist front is firm.

Socialism will become reality when the Fatherland is free.

Why Are We Socialists?

We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state.

Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and regaining German freedom. Socialism, therefore, is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone, for freeing the German people from slavery is the goal of contemporary policy. Socialism gains its true form only through a total fighting brotherhood with the forward-striving energies of a newly awakened nationalism. Without nationalism it is nothing, a phantom, a mere theory, a castle in the sky, a book. With it it is everything, the future, freedom, the fatherland!

The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism's nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism was to degrade socialism into a question of wages and the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its national existence. An understanding of both these facts leads us to a new sense of socialism, which sees its nature as nationalistic, state-building, liberating and constructive.

The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its place will come the class of productive workers, the working class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part of the national organism. The battle began in the economic realm; it will finish in the political. It is not merely a matter of wages, not only a matter of the number of hours worked in a day - though we may never forget that these are an essential, perhaps even the most significant part of the socialist platform - but it is much more a matter of incorporating a powerful and responsible class in the state, perhaps even to make it the dominant force in the future politics of the fatherland. The bourgeoisie does not want to recognize the strength of the working class. Marxism has forced it into a straitjacket that will ruin it. While the working class gradually disintegrates in the Marxist front, bleeding itself dry, the bourgeoisie and Marxism have agreed on the general lines of capitalism, and see their task now to protect and defend it in various ways, often concealed.

We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating him in the state organism is not only a critical matter for him, but for the whole nation. The question is larger than the eight-hour day. It is a matter of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It is aimed domestically at the bourgeois parties and Marxism at the same time, because both are sworn enemies of the coming workers' state. It is directed abroad at all powers that threaten our national existence and thereby the possibility of the coming socialist national state.

Explanation: "The thinking worker comes to Hitler," the caption says. A communist and a socialist are accusing each other of betraying the working class.

Socialism is possible only in a state that is united domestically and free internationally. The bourgeoisie and Marxism are responsible for failing to reach both goals, domestic unity and international freedom. No matter how national and social these two forces present themselves, they are the sworn enemies of a socialist national state.

We must therefore break both groups politically. The lines of German socialism are sharp, and our path is clear.

We are against the political bourgeoisie, and for genuine nationalism!

We are against Marxism, but for true socialism!

We are for the first German national state of a socialist nature!

We are for the National Socialist German Workers Party!

Why a Workers' Party?

Work is not mankind's curse, but his blessing. A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him great and aware, raises him above all other creatures. It is in the deepest sense creative, productive, and culture-producing. Without labor, no food. Without food, no life.

The idea that the dirtier one's hands get, the more degrading the work, is a Jewish, not a German, idea. As in every other area, the German first asks how, then what. It is less a question of the position I fill, and more a question of how well I do the duty that God has given me.

We call ourselves a workers' party because we want to rescue the word work from its current definition and give it back its original meaning. Anyone who creates value is a creator, that is, a worker. We refuse to distinguish kinds of work. Our only standard is whether the work serves the whole, or at least does not harm it, or if it is harmful. Work is service. If it works against the general welfare, then it is treason against the fatherland.

Marxist nonsense claimed to free labor, yet it degraded the work of its members and saw it as a curse and disgrace. It can hardly be our goal to abolish labor, but rather to give new meaning and content. The worker in a capitalist state - and that is his deepest misfortune - is no longer a living human being, a creator, a maker.

He has become a machine. A number, a cog in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated from what he produces. Labor is for him only a way to survive, not a path to higher blessings, not a joy, not something in which to take pride, or satisfaction, or encouragement, or a way to build character.

We are a workers' party because we see in the coming battle between finance and labor the beginning and the end of the structure of the twentieth century. We are on the side of labor and against finance. Money is the measuring rod of liberalism, work and accomplishment that of the socialist state. The liberal asks: What are you? The socialist asks: Who are you? Worlds lie between.

We do not want to make everyone the same. Nor do we want levels in the population, high and low, above and below. The aristocracy of the coming state will be determined not by possessions or money, but only on the quality of one's accomplishments. One earns merit through service. Men are distinguished by the results of their labor. That is the sure sign of the character and value of a person. The value of labor under socialism will be determined by its value to the state, to the whole community. Labor means creating value, not haggling over things. The soldier is a worker when he bears the sword to protect the national economy. The statesman also is a worker when he gives the nation a form and a will that help it to produce what it needs for life and freedom.

A furrowed brow is as much a sign of labor as a powerful fist. A white collar worker should not be ashamed to claim with pride that of which the manual laborer boasts: labor. The relations between these two groups determine their mutual fate. Neither can survive without the other, for both are members of an organism that they must together maintain if they are to defend and expand their right to exist.

We call ourselves a workers' party because we want to free labor from the chains of capitalism and Marxism. In battling for Germany's future, we freely admit to it, and accept the odium from the liberal bourgeoisie that results. We know that we will succeed in bringing new blessings out of their curses.

God gave the nations territory to grow grain. The seed becomes grain and the grain becomes bread. The middleman of it all is labor.

He who despises labor but accepts its benefits is a hypocrite.

That is the deepest meaning of our movement: it gives things back their original significance, unconcerned that today they may be in danger of sinking into the swamp of a collapsing worldview.

He who creates value works, and is a worker. A movement that wants to free labor is a workers' party.

Therefore we National Socialists call ourselves a worker's party.

When our victorious flags fly before us, we sing:

"We are the army of the swastika,
Raise high the red flags!
We want to clear the way to freedom
For German Labor!"

Why Do We Oppose the Jews?

We oppose the Jews because we are defending the freedom of the German people. The Jew is the cause and beneficiary of our slavery He has misused the social misery of the broad masses to deepen the dreadful split between the right and left of our people, to divide Germany into two halves thereby concealing the true reason for the loss of the Great War and falsifying the nature of the revolution.

Explanation: The caption says "Awakening Germany. You're through! We see behind all your masks." In the cartoon, Jews are concealed as a Christian, a German citizen, a nationalist Jew and an apparently harmless passer by.

The Jew has no interest in solving the German question. He cannot have such an interest. He depends on it remaining unsolved. If the German people formed a united community and won back its freedom, there would be no place any longer for the Jew. His hand is strongest when a people lives in domestic and international slavery, not when it is free, industrious, self-aware and determined. The Jew caused our problems, and lives from them.

That is why we oppose the Jew as nationalists and as socialists. He has ruined our race, corrupted our morals, hollowed out our customs and broken our strength. We owe it to him that we today are the Pariah of the world. He was the leper among as long as we were German. When we forgot our German nature, he triumphed over us and our future.

The Jew is the plastic demon of decomposition. Where he finds filth and decay, he surfaces and begins his butcher's work among the nations. He hides behind a mask and presents himself as a friend to his victims, and before they know it he has broken their neck.

The Jew is uncreative. He produces nothing, he only haggles with products. With rags, clothing, pictures, jewels, grain, stocks, cures, peoples and states. He has somehow stolen everything he deals in. When he attacks a state he is a revolutionary. As soon as he holds power, he preaches peace and order so that he can devour his conquests in comfort.

What does anti-Semitism have to do with socialism? I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have to do with socialism? Socialism has to do with labor. When did one ever see him working instead of plundering, stealing and living from the sweat of others? As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's goods.

What does anti-Semitism have to do with nationalism? I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have to do with nationalism? Nationalism has to do with blood and race. The Jew is the enemy and destroyer of the purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race. As nationalists we oppose the Jews because we see the Hebrews as the eternal enemy of our national honor and of our national freedom.

But the Jew, after all, is also a human being. Certainly, none of us doubts that. We only doubt that he is a decent human being. He does not get along with us. He lives by other laws than we do. The fact that he is a human being is not sufficient reason for us to allow him to subject us in inhumane ways. He may be a human being - but what kind of a human being is he! If someone slaps your mother in the face, do you say: "Thank you! He is after all a human being!" That is not a human being, it is a monster. Yet how much worse has the Jew done to our mother Germany, and is still doing today!

There are also white Jews. True, there are scoundrels among us, even though they are Germans, who act in immoral ways against their own racial and blood comrades. But why do we call them white Jews? You use the term to describe something inferior and contemptible. Just as we do. Why do you ask us why we oppose the Jews when you without knowing it are one too?

Anti-Semitism is not Christian. That means that it is Christian to allow the Jews to go on as they are, stripping the skin from our bodies and mocking us. To be a Christian means to love one's neighbor as oneself! My neighbor is my racial and blood brother. If I love him, I have to hate his enemies. He who thinks German must despise the Jews. The one requires the other.

Christ himself saw that love did not always work. When he found the moneychangers in the temple, he did not say: "Children, love one another!" He took up a whip and drove them out.

We oppose the Jews because we affirm the German people. The Jew is our greatest misfortune.

It is not true that we eat Jews for breakfast.

It is true that slowly but surely, he is stealing all that we have.

Things would be different if we behaved as Germans.

Revolutionary Demands

We do not enter parliament to use parliamentary methods. We know that the fate of peoples is determined by personalities, never by parliamentary majorities. The essence of parliamentary democracy is the majority, which destroys personal responsibility and glorifies the masses. A few dozen rogues and crooks run things behind the scenes. Aristocracy depends on accomplishment, the rule of the most able, and the subordination of the less capable to the will of the leadership. Any form of government - no matter how democratic or aristocratic it may outwardly appear - rests on compulsion. The difference is only whether the compulsion is a blessing or a curse for the community.

What we demand is new, decisive, and radical, revolutionary in the truest sense of the word. That has nothing to do with rioting and barricades. It may be that that happens here or there. But it is not an inherent part of the process. Revolutions are spiritual acts. They appear first in people, then in politics and the economy. New people form new structures. The transformation we want is first of all spiritual; that will necessarily change the way things are.

This revolutionary act is beginning to be visible in us. The result is a new type of person visible to the knowing eye: the National Socialist. Consistent with his spiritual attitude, the National Socialist makes uncompromising demands in politics. There is no if and when for him, only an either - or.

He demands:

The return of German honor. Without honor, one has no right to life. A nation that has pawned its honor has pawned its bread. Honor is the foundation of any people's community. Losing our honor is the true cause of the loss of our freedom.

In place of a slave colony, we want a restored German national state. The state is not an end in itself for us, but rather a means to an end. The true end is the race, the sum of all the living, creative forces of the people. The structure that today calls itself the German republic is not a way to maintain our racial inheritance. It has become an end in itself with no real connection to the people and their needs. We want to abolish the slave colony and replace it with a people's state in freedom.

Want work and bread for every productive national and blood comrade. Pay should be according to accomplishment. That means more pay for German workers! That will stop the senseless fighting in which we engage today.

First provide housing and food for the people, then pay reparations! No democrat, no republican, has the right to complain about this demand, for it was first raised by a banner carrier of November Germany [the Weimar Republic, beginning in November 1918]. We only want to make the slogan a reality.

Provide essentials first! First we must meet the critical needs of the people, then we can produce luxury goods. Provide work for those willing to work! Give the farmers land! The German foreign policy that today sells what we have at below-market rates must be completely transformed and must focus radically on the German need for space, drawing the necessary power-political conclusions.

Peace among productive workers! Each should do his duty for the good of the whole community. The state then has the responsibility of protecting the individual, guaranteeing him the fruits of his labor. The people's community must not be a mere phrase, but a revolutionary achievement following from the radical carrying out of the basic life needs of the working class.

A ruthless battle against corruption! A war against exploitation, freedom for the workers! The elimination of all economic-capitalist influences on national policy.

A solution to the Jewish question! We call for the systematic elimination of foreign racial elements from public life in every area. There must be a sanitary separation between Germans and non-Germans on racial grounds exclusively, not on nationality or even religious belief.

Down with democratic parliamentarianism! Establish a parliament based on occupations which determines production. Policies will be determined by a political body that earns is place by the laws of strength and selection.

The return of loyalty and faith in economic life. The complete reversal of the injustice that has robbed millions of Germans of their possessions.

The right of personality before that of the mob. Germans always will have preference before foreigners and Jews.

A battle against the destructive poison of international Jewish culture! A strengthening of German forces and German customs. The elimination of corrupt Semitic principles and racial decay.

The death penalty for crimes against the people! The gallows for profiteers and usurers!

An uncompromising program implemented by men who will implement it passionately. No slogans, only living energy.

That is what we demand!

by Joseph Goebbels

My dear fellow party members!

Our theme this evening is hotly disputed. I realize that my viewpoint is subjective. There is really little point to discussing propaganda. It is a matter of practice, not of theory. One cannot determine theoretically whether one propaganda is better than another. Rather, that propaganda is good that has the desired results, and that propaganda is bad that does not lead to the desired results. It does not matter how clever it is, for the task of propaganda is not to be clever, its task is to lead to success. I therefore avoid theoretical discussions about propaganda, for there is no point to it. Propaganda shows that it is good if over a certain period it can win over and fire up people for an idea. If it fails to do so, it is bad propaganda. If propaganda wins the people it wanted to win, it was presumably good, and if not, it was presumably bad. No one can say that your propaganda is too crude or low or brutal, or that it is not decent enough, for those are not the relevant criteria. Its purpose is not to be decent, or gentle, or weak, or modest; it is to be successful. That is why I have intentionally chosen to discuss propaganda along with a second theme, knowledge. Otherwise, our discussion this evening would be of little value. We have not gathered to discuss lovely theories, but rather to find ways of practically working together to deal with our everyday challenges.

What is propaganda, and what role does it have in political life? That is the question of greatest interest to us. How should propaganda look, and what is its role in our movement? Is it an end in itself, or only a means to an end? We must discuss that, but we can do that only when we begin with the origin of propaganda itself, namely the idea, then move to the target of propaganda, namely people.

Ideas in themselves are timeless. They are not tied to individuals, much less to a people. They rest in a people, it is true, and affect their attitudes. Ideas, people say, are in the clouds. When someone comes along who can put in words what everyone feels in their hearts, each feels: "Yes! That is what I have always wanted and hoped for." That is what happens the first time one hears one of Hitler's major speeches. I have met people who had attended a Hitler meeting for the first time, and at the end they said: "This man put in words everything I have been searching for for years. For the first time, someone gave form to what I want." Others are lost in confusion, but suddenly someone stands up and puts it in words. Goethe's words become reality: "Lost in silent misery, God gave someone to express my suffering."

Some kind of idea is at the beginning of every political movement. It is not necessary to put this idea in a thick book, nor that it take political form in a hundred long paragraphs. History proves that the greatest world movements have always developed when their leaders knew how to unify their followers under a short, clear theme. That is clear from the French Revolution, or Cromwell's movement, or Buddhism, Islam, or Christianity. Christ's goal was clear and simple: "Love your neighbor as yourself." He gathered his followers behind that straightforward statement. Because this teaching was simple, crisp, clear, and understandable, enabling the broad masses to stand behind it, it in the end conquered the world.

One then builds a whole system of thought on such a brief, crisply formulated idea. The idea does not remain limited to this single statement, rather it is applied to every aspect of daily life and becomes the guide for all human activity - politics, culture, the economy, every area of human behavior. It becomes a worldview. We see that in all great revolutionary movements, which begin with a clear, crisp, understandable, all-encompassing idea. They spread more and more and become a mirror of life that reflects all activities of the peoples, and indeed in a particular way.

Then one can say that a person has a worldview-not because he knows a lot or has read a lot-but because he sees all of life from a certain standpoint, and measures everything by a certain standard. I am a Christian when I believe that the meaning of my life is the heavy responsibility to love my neighbor as myself. Kant once said: "Act as if the principle of your life could be the principle for your entire nation." I am a National Socialist not when I want this or that from politics, rather when I consider all aspects of daily life. I must act in all things by putting the good of the whole above my personal good, by putting the good of the state above my personal good. But then I also have the guarantee that such a state will be able to protect my personal life. I am a National Socialist when I see everything in politics, culture or the economy from this standpoint. I therefore do not evaluate the theater from the standpoint of whether it is elegant or amusing, rather I ask: Is it good for my people, is it useful for them, does it strengthen the community? If so, the community in turn can benefit, support and strengthen me. I do not see the economy as some sort of way of making money, rather I want an economy that will strengthen the people, make them healthy and powerful. Then too I can expect that this people will support and maintain me. If I see things in this way, I see the economy in National Socialist terms.

If I develop this crisp, clear idea into a system of thought that includes all human drives, wishes and actions, I have a worldview.

As an idea develops into a worldview, the goal is the state. The knowledge does not remain the property of a certain group, but fights for power. It is not just the fantasy of a few people among the people, rather it becomes the idea of the rulers, the circles that have power. The view does not only preach, but it is carried out in practice. Then the idea becomes the worldview of the state. The worldview has become a government organism when it seizes power and can influence life not only in theory, but in practical everyday life.

Now we must consider who is the carrier, the transmitter, the guardian of such ideas. An idea always lives in individuals. It seeks an individual to transmit its great intellectual force. It becomes alive in a brain, and seeks escape through the mouth. The idea is preached by individuals, individuals who will never be satisfied to have the knowledge remain theirs alone. You know that from experience. When one knows something one does not keep it hidden like a buried treasure, rather one seeks to tell others. One looks for people who should know it. One feels that everyone else should know to, for one feels alone when no one else knows. For example, if I see a beautiful painting in an art gallery, I have the need to tell others. I meet a good friend and say to him: "I have found a wonderful picture. I have to show it to you." The same is true of ideas. If an idea lives in an individual, he has the urge to tell others. There is some mysterious force in us that drives us to tell others. The greater and simpler the idea is, the more it relates to daily life, the more one has the desire to tell everyone about it.

If I believe that the nation must be governed by the principle that the common good comes before the individual good, I will tell it to those to whom it applies. As soon as I realize that this principle is not only of a transcendental nature, but that it applies to daily life, I have the need to tell it to those in the economic world. And if I see it applies to culture as well, I have the need to tell it to those people involved in cultural activities. The great masses will never be won simply by such a sentence; it must cast its shadow over all areas of human life.

You see how an idea spreads and becomes a worldview, and how the bearer, the individual, reaches out to form a community, and how an organization, then a movement grows from the individual. The idea is no longer buried in the heart and mind of an individual. Now there are four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, a hundred, and ever more. That is the secret of ideas; they are like a wildfire that cannot be restrained. They are like a gas that seeps through everything. Where an idea finds entry, it enters, and soon that person is influencing others. The others cannot stop it. They may believe they can stop the fire by force. They may even be able to do so for two, or ten, twenty, or fifty years. But that is not significant in the larger course of world history. It is irrelevant if something happens today or tomorrow, or even years in the future.

It is possible to slow an idea by force for a certain period of time. In reality, however, that advances the idea, for force drives out that which is weak. The elements that do not really belong collapse. Suddenly, the individual becomes a community, a movement, or if you prefer, a party.

Each movement begins as a party. That does not mean it has to follow the methods of parliamentary parties. We see a party as a part of the people. As an idea spreads, becoming a worldview that spreads to the community, the community will want to give the idea practical form. The party will feel the necessity to organize. Someone will suddenly have the idea: "You think the way I think. You are working over there, I am working here, and we know nothing of each other. That is absurd. It would be better if we worked together, if I did my part and you did yours. Would it not be good if we met every month and talked?" That is an organization. Gradually, a strong organism develops, a party ready to fight for its ideals. A party that does not want that will indeed continue to preach its ideals, but will never bring them into reality.

A recent example may help. Our movement is often accused of losing its character as a movement. We are accused of taking the vast, broad and ever-moving system of thought of the völkisch movement and forcing it into a Procrustean bed. We supposedly had to chop of the legs of the movement that stuck out, eliminating important parts of the völkisch idea. National Socialism is only a surrogate for the real movement, some say. In fact, the völkisch movement ran aground on this matter. Each declares his own particular interest central to the völkisch movement, and accuses anyone who does not share his views as being a traitor to the cause.

That is the way the völkisch movement was before the war. If someone had been able to take this great idea - and the völkisch idea was greater than the Marxist idea - and develop out of it a tightly disciplined political organization, then the völkisch idea, not the Marxist idea, would have won on 9 November [1918]. Marxism won because it had a better understanding of political conditions, because it had forged the sword it would later use to conquer the state. If a völkisch organizer had understood how to form a great movement - it is a question of life or death for our nation - the völkisch idea, not Marxism, would have won, It was a worldview, but it did not understand how to form a party and how to forge the sharp sword that would have enabled it to conquer the state.

The state needs a worldview. Christianity also conquered the state, and in the moment that it conquered the state it began to carry out practical political activity. You can with justice claim: "Yes, but at the moment Christianity took over the state, it began to cease being Christian." That is the tragedy of all great ideas. At the moment they enter the realm of this life of sin, of the all-too-human, they leave the heavens and lose their romantic magic. They become something normal. We are not discussing whether or not one can change the nature of life. Things have gone on this way for millions of years, and will go on in the same way for millions more. You will have to ask a higher power why that is so. At the moment an idea takes practical form, it loses its angel's wings, its romantic mystery. If someone had had the courage to strip the völkisch idea of its romantic mystery, if one had taken account of the hard facts, it would not look as romantic today as it does to some dreamers. But it would have kept millions of German children from starving. For me, it is more important that a nation lives than that an idea remains as pure as possible in the heads of a few dreamers.

You can see that a movement needs an organization if it is to conquer the state - and it must conquer the state if it wants to do something of positive and historic significance. I have often met the kind of wandering apostle who says: "Well, everything you are doing is fine, but you really must also take a stand against foreign words in the German language." And another comes along who says: "Well, everything you say is good, but you must have a point in your program that says alleopathy is dangerous, and you must support homepathy." If the movement were led by such apostles, the Jew would end up in charge. The Jew would find something new every day until nothing was left. It is not the task of a revolutionary fighting movement to settle the dispute between alleopathy and homeopathy, rather its task is to take power.

The movement must have a program such that every honest fighter can stand behind it. Now, it i