A people that in its own life [volkisch] has lost honor becomes politically defenseless, and then becomes enslaved also in the economic sphere.

Internationalization today means only Judaization. We in Germany have come to this: that a sixty-million people sees its destiny to lie at the will of a few dozen Jewish bankers. This was possible only because our civilization had first been Judaized. The undermining of the German conception of personality by catchwords had begun long before. Ideas such as 'Democracy,' 'Majority,' 'Conscience of the World,' 'World Solidarity,' 'World Peace,' 'Internationality of Art,' etc., disintegrate our race-consciousness, breed cowardice, and so today we are bound to say that the simple Turk is more man than we are.

No salvation is possible until the bearer of disunion, the Jew, has been rendered powerless to harm.

1. We must call to account the November criminals of 1918. It cannot be that two million Germans should have fallen in vain and that afterwards one should sit down as friends at the same table with traitors. No, we do not pardon, we demand - Vengeance!

2. The dishonoring of the nation must cease. For betrayers of their Fatherland and informers the gallows is the proper place. Our streets and squares shall once more bear the names of our heroes; they shall not be named after Jews. In the Question of Guilt we must proclaim the truth.

3. The administration of the State must be cleared of the rabble which is fattened at the stall of the parties.

4. The present laxity in the fight against usury must be abandoned. Here the fitting punishment is the same as that for the betrayers of their Fatherland.

5. We must demand a great enlightenment on the subject of the peace treaty. With thoughts of love? No! But in holy hatred against those who have ruined us.

6. The lies which would veil from us our misfortunes must cease. The fraud of the present money-madness must be shown up. That will stiffen the necks of us all.

7. As foundation for a new currency the property of those who are not of our blood must do service. If families who have lived in Germany for a thousand years are now expropriated, we must do the same to the Jewish usurers.

8. We demand immediate expulsion of all jews who have entered germany since 1914, and of all those, too, who through trickery on the Stock Exchange or through other shady transactions have gained their wealth.

9. The housing scarcity must be relieved through energetic action; houses must be granted to those who deserve them. Eisner said in 1918 that we had no right to demand the return of our prisoners - he was only saying openly what all Jews were thinking. People who so think must feel how life tastes in a concentration camp!

Extremes must be fought by extremes. Against the infection of materialism, against the Jewish pestilence we must hold aloft a flaming ideal. And if others speak of the World and Humanity we say the Fatherland - and only the Fatherland!

April 10, 1923 in Munich

In the Bible we find the text, 'That which is neither hot nor cold will I spew out of my mouth.' This utterance of the great Nazarene has kept its profound validity until the present day. He who would pursue the golden mean must surrender the hope of achieving the great and the greatest aims. Until the present day the half-hearted and the lukewarm have remained the curse of Germany...

To the half-heartedness and weakness of the parties in Parliament was added the half-heartedness of Governments... Everything stood under the sign of half-heartedness and Luke warmness, even the fight for existence in the World War and still more the conclusion of peace. And now the continuation of the half-hearted policy of those days holds the field. The people, inwardly united in the hard struggle-in the trenches there were neither parties nor Confessions-has been torn asunder through the economics of profiteers and knaves. Appeasement and the settlement of differences would certainly soon be there if only one were to hang the whole crew. But profiteers and knaves are, of course, 'Citizens of the State,' and what is more important still; they are adherents of the religion, which is hallowed by the Talmud.

Even today we are the least loved people on earth. A world of foes is ranged against us and the German must still today make up his mind whether he intends to be a free solder or a white slave. The only possible conditions under which a German state can develop at all must therefore be:the unification of all germans in Europe, education towards a national consciousness, and readiness to place the whole national strength without exception in the service of the nation.

No economic policy is possible without a sword, no industrialization without power. Today we have no longer any sword grasped in our fist-how can we have a successful economic policy? England has fully recognized this primary maxim in the healthy life of State; for centuries England has acted on the principle of converting economics strength into political power, while conversely political power in its turn must protect economic life. The instinct of self-preservation can build up economics, but we sought to preserve World Peace instead of the interests of the nation, instead of defending the economic life of the nation with the sword and of ruthlessly championing those conditions, which were essential for the life of the people.

Three years ago I declared in this same room that the collapse of the German national consciousness must carry with it into the abyss the economic life of Germany as well. For liberation something more is necessary than an economic life policy, something more than industry: If a people is to become free it needs pride and willpower, defiance, hate, hate, and once again hate...

The spirit comes not down from above, that spirit which is to purify Germany, which with its iron besom is to purify the great sty of democracy. To do that is the task of our Movement. The Movement must not rust away in Parliament, it must not spend itself in superfluous battles of words, but the banner with the white circle and the black Swastika will be hoisted over the whole of Germany on the day which shall mark the liberation of our whole people.

April 27, 1923 Munich

. . . What we need if we are to have a real People's State is a land reform.... We do not believe that the mere dividing up of the land can by itself bring any alleviation. The conditions of a nation's life can in the last resort be bettered only through the political will to expansion. Therein lies the essential characteristic of a sound reform.

And land [Grund und Boden], we must insist, cannot be made an object for speculation. Private property can be only that which a man has gained for himself, has won through his work. A natural product is not private property, that is national property. Land is thus no object for bargaining.

Further, there must be a reform in our law. Our present law regards only the rights of the individual. It does not regard the protection of the race, the protection of the community of the people. It permits the befouling of the nation's honor and of the greatness of the nation. A law which is so far removed from the conception of the community of the people is in need of reform.

Further, changes are needed in our system of education. We suffer today from an excess of culture [Ueberbildung] Only knowledge is valued. But wiseacres are the enemies of action. What we need is instinct and will. Most people have lost both through their 'culture.' We have, it is true, a highly intellectual class, but it is lacking in energy. If, through our overvaluation of mechanical knowledge, we had not so far removed ourselves from popular sentiment, the Jew would never have found his way to our people so easily as he has done. What we need is the possibility of a continuous succession of intellectual leaders drawn from the people itself.

Clear away the Jews! Our own people has genius enough - we need no Hebrews. If we were to put in their place intelligences drawn from the great body of our people, then we should have recovered the bridge which leads to the community of the people.

Again, we need a reform of the german press.

A press which is on principle anti-national cannot be tolerated in Germany. Whoever denies the nation can have no part in it. We must demand that the press shall become the instrument of the national self-education.

Finally we need a reform in the sphere of art, literature, and the theater. The Government must see to it that its people is not poisoned. There is a higher right which is based on the recognition of that which harms a people, and that which harms a people must be done away with.

And after this reform we shall come to recognize the duty of self-preservation. A man who says: 'I deny that I have a right to defend my personal life' has thereby denied his right to exist. TO BE A PACIFIST ARGUES A LACK OF CONVICTION, A LACK OF CHARACTER. For the pacifist is indeed ready enough to claim the help of others, but himself declines to defend himself. It is precisely the same with a people. A people which is not prepared to protect itself is a people without character. We must recover for our people as one of its most elementary principles the recognition of the fact that a man is truly man only if he defends and protects himself, that a people deserves that name only if in case of necessity it is prepared as a people to enter the lists. That is not militarism, that is self-preservation.

Therefore we National Socialists stand for compulsory military service for every man. If a State is not worth that - then away with it! Then you must not complain if you are enslaved. But if you believe that you must be free, then you must learn to recognize that no one gives you freedom save only your own sword. What our people needs is not leaders in Parliament, but those who are determined to carry through what they see to be right before God, before the world, and before their own consciences - and to carry that through, if need be, in the teeth of majorities. And if we succeed in raising such leaders from the body of our people, then around them once again a nation will crystallize itself... It is the pride of our Movement to be the force which shall awake the Germany of fighters which yet shall be.

Feburary 26, 1924 in Munich

It seems strange to me that a man who, as a soldier, was for six years accustomed to blind obedience, should suddenly come into conflict with the State and its Constitution. The reasons for this stem from the days of my youth. When I was seventeen I came to Vienna, and there I learned to study and observe three important problems: the social question, the race problem, and, finally, the Marxist movement. I left Vienna a confirmed anti-Semite, a deadly foe of the whole Marxist world outlook, and pan-German in my political principles. And since I knew that the German destiny of German-Austria would not be fought out in the Austrian Army alone, but in the German and Austrian Army, I enlisted in the German Army....

When, on November 7, [1918] it was announced that the Revolution had broken out in Munich, I at first could not believe it. At that time there arose in me the determination to devote myself to politics. I went through the period of the Soviets, and as a result of my opposition to them I came in contact with the National Socialist German Workers Movement, which at that time numbered six members. I was the seventh. I attached myself to this party, and not to one of the great political parties where my prospects would have been better, because none of the other parties understood or even recognized the decisive, fundamental problem.

By Marxism I understand a doctrine which in principle rejects the idea of the worth of personality, which replaces individual energy by the masses and thereby works the destruction of our whole cultural life. This movement has utilized monstrously effective methods and exercised tremendous influence on the masses, which in the course of three or four decades could have no other result than that the individual has become his own brother's foe, while at the same time calling a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a Zulu his brother. This movement is distinguished by incredible terror, which is based on a knowledge of mass psychology....

The German Revolution is a revolution, and therefore successful high treason; it is well known that such treason is never punished....

For us it was a filthy crime against the German people, a stab in the back of the German nation. The middle class could not take up arms against it because the middle class did not understand the whole revolution. It was necessary to start a new struggle and to incite against the Marxist despoilers of the people who did not even belong to the German race - which is where the Marxist problem is linked with the race problem, forming one of the most difficult and profound questions of our time....

Personally, at the beginning I held a lost position. Nevertheless, in the course of a few years there has grown from a little band of six men a movement which today embraces millions and which, above all, has once made the broad masses nationalistic....

In 1923 came the great and bitter scandal. As early as 1922 we had seen that the Ruhr was about to be lost. France's aim was not merely to weaken Germany, to keep her from obtaining supremacy, but to break her up into small states so that she [France] would be able to hold the Rhine frontier. After all the Government's reiterations of our weakness, we knew that on top of the Saar and Upper Silesia we would lose our third coal region, the Ruhr; each loss brought on the next one....

Only burning, ruthless, brutal fanaticism could have saved the situation. The Reich Government should have let the hundreds of thousands of young men who were pouring out of the Ruhr into the Reich under the old colors of black-white-red flow together in a mighty national wave. Instead, these young people were sent back home. The resistance that was organized was for wages; the national resistance was degraded to a paid general strike. It was forgotten that a foe like France cannot be prayed away, still less can he be idled away....

Our youth has - and may this be heard in Paris - but one thought: that the day may come when we shall again be free. .. . . My attitude is this: I would rather that Germany go Bolshevist and I be hanged than that she should be destroyed by the French rule of the sword.... It turned out that the back-stabbers were stronger than ever.... With pride I admit that our men were the only ones to really resist in the Ruhr. We intended to hold fourteen meetings and introduce a propaganda campaign throughout Germany with the slogan: Down with the Ruhr traitors!, But we were surprised by the banning of these mass meetings. I had met Herr von Kahr in 1920. Kahr had impressed me as being an honest official. I asked him why the fourteen mass meetings had been banned. The reason he gave me simply would not hold water. The real reason was something that could not be revealed. . - -

From the very first day the watchword was: Unlimited struggle against Berlin....

The struggle against Berlin, as Dr. von Kahr would lead it, is a crime; one must have the courage to be logical and see that the struggle must be incorporated in the German national uprising. I said that all that had been made of this struggle was a Bavarian rejection of Berlin's requests. But the people expected something other than a reduction in the price of beer, regulation of the price of milk and confiscation of butter tubs and other such impossible economic proposals - proposals which make you want to ask: who is the genius that is advising them? Every failure could only further enrage the masses, and I pointed out that while the people were now only laughing at Kahr's measures, later on they would rise up against them. I said: 'Either you finish the job - and there is only the political and military struggle left. When you cross the Rubicon, you must march on Rome. Or else you do not want to struggle; then only capitulation is left....'

The struggle had to turn toward the North; it could not be led by a purely Bavarian organization . . . I said: 'The only man to head it is Ludendorff.'

I had first seen Ludendorff in 1918, in the field. In 1920 I first spoke personally with him. I saw that he was not only the outstanding general, but that he had now learned the lesson and understood what had brought the German nation to ruin. That Ludendorff was talked down by the others was one more reason for me to come closer to him. I therefore proposed Ludendorff, and Lossow and Seisser had no objections.

I further explained to Lossow that right now nothing could be accomplished by petty economic measures. The fight was against Marxism. To solve this problem, not administrators were needed but firebrands who would be in a position to inflame the national spirit to the extreme. Kahr could not do that, I pointed out; the youth were not behind him. I declared that I could join them only on the condition that the political struggle was put into my hands alone. This was not impudence or immodesty; I believe that when a man knows he can do a job, he must not be modest....

One thing was certain: Lossow, Kahr, and Seisser had the same goal that we had: to get rid of the Reich Government with its present international and parliamentary position, and to replace it by an anti-parliamentary government. If our undertaking was actually high treason, then during this whole period Lossow, Seisser, and Kahr must have been committing high treason along with us - for during all those months we talked of nothing but the aims of which we now stand accused....

How could we have called for a new government if we had not known that the gentlemen in power were altogether on our side? How else could we, two days before, have given such orders as: at 8:30 o'clock such and such a government will be proclaimed....

Lossow talked of a coup d'etat. Kahr quite openly declared that he would give the word to strike. The only possible interpretation of this talk is that these men wanted to strike, but each time lost their nerve. Our last conversation, on November 6, was for me the absolute confirmation of my belief that these men wanted to, but lost their nerve!

August 21,1927 Speech at Nuremberg

Our fellow party member Rosenberg began his speech by saying that it is critical for a nation that its territory correspond to its population. As he put it so well: "The nation needs space." How well we know that the fulfillment of this sentence has guided and determined the fate of our nation for many centuries. We know further that, save for a relatively short period of German history, we have not succeeded in the task. The question confronts us today as insistently as ever: No government, of whatever kind, can long escape dealing with it. Feeding a nation of 62 million means not only maintaining our agricultural productivity, but enlarging it to meet the needs of a growing population. This is true in many areas. We National Socialists maintain that industrial production is not the most important in terms of the future of the European peoples. In coming decades it will be increasingly difficult to increase production. It will reach a dead end as the governments that presently do not pay great heed to industrial production over time give themselves to industrialization.

These governments will not be able to meet their own needs with their population. Difficulties in industrial production will inevitably develop, made more serious because they will affect not only one state, but a large number of states in Europe. Increasing competition will naturally force these states to use ever sharper weapons until one day the sharpest economic weapons will give way to the sharpness of the sword; that is, when a healthy nation faces the last either-or, and despite the greatest diligence cannot withstand the competition, it will reach for the sword because the question of life is always the problem about which life turns. It is a question of power.

The first way to satisfy this need, the adjustment of territory to population, is the most natural, healthy and long-lasting. We must however conclude when considering this first or second way that the foundation is power, always power. Power is also a part of economic struggles. Power is the prerequisite to earth and soil. We can see that today. Even the sorrowful effort to adjust the population to the available territory by encouraging the emigration of new generations requires power, even more today as states hermetically seal themselves from the immigration of uncomfortable elements. The more economic difficulties increase, the more immigration will be seen as a burden. The so-called workers' states seal themselves off more than others as a way of building a protective wall against cheap labor. The newcomer after all must be either cheaper or better. Here too one comes to the conclusion that maintaining this way of supporting the population requires power.

When we examine the concept of power more closely, we see that power has three factors: First, in the numerical size of the population itself. This form of power is no longer present in Germany.

62 million people who seem to hold together are no longer a power factor in a world in which groups with 400 million are increasingly active, nations for whom their population is their major tool of economic policy.

If numbers themselves are no longer a power factor, the second factor is territory. This too is no longer a power factor for us, even seeming laughable when one can fly across our German territory in a mere four hours. That is no longer an amount of territory that provides its own defense, as is the case with Russia. Its size alone is a means of security. If the first two sources of power, population and territory, are inadequate, there remains always the third, that which rests in the inner strength of a people. A nation can do astounding things when it carries this power in its own internal values. When, however, we examine the German people, we must to our horror see that this last power factor is no longer present.

What is the nature of a nation's internal power? Three things are involved: First, a people has intrinsic value in its race. That is the primal value. A people that has the best blood but does not understand it, squandering it, receives no protection from its intrinsic value. And the purity of blood means nothing if the nation can be persuaded of the absurdity that its blood is worthless. Such a deepest value can be present, but not recognized. Individual people today are placed in large groups that no longer enable them to see this value. To the contrary, their program almost claims that there is no value in blood. They see race as completely insignificant.

Second, internal power depends, aside from the value of blood, on the abilities that such a nation still has. A nation cannot be called impotent as long as it is able to produce the minds that are necessary to solve the problems crying out for solution. We can measure the greatness of a people by the minds it produces. That too is a value, but only when it is recognized as a value. If a nation has the ability to produce great minds a thousand times over, but has no appreciation for the value of these minds and excludes them from its political life, these great men are of no use. It can therefore collapse, in the best case perhaps passing on its inventions and ideas to the minds of other nations, teaching these nations, but no longer is it a nation called to lead itself.

The third value hidden within a nation is the drive to self assertion. A people that has lost this has almost given up its place in the world, in which each living creature owes its existence only to the eternal striving to rise higher. If a nation today proclaims the theory that it will find happiness in lasting peace, and attempts to live according to that theory, it will one day inevitably succumb to this most basic form of cowardice. Pacifism is the clearest form of cowardice, possessing no willingness to fight for anything at all.

The same person today who preaches limiting the number of children to the nation murders others so that he himself may live.

He therefore eliminates the second form of intrinsic strength, namely the possibility of producing more minds at all. A people that limits the number of its children cannot demand of fate that it give it great minds from the few children who are born. More likely, such a people will hatch the most unworthy offspring and will attempt to preserve them at any price. Such a nation has first born, but no longer any great men.

Truly these three points that form the intrinsic strength of a people are no longer regarded in Germany. The opposite. As I have said, today one places no value on our blood, on the intrinsic value of our race, rather apostles proclaim that it is completely irrelevant whether one is Chinese, Kaffir or Indian. If a nation internalizes such thinking, its own values are of no use. It has renounced the protection of its values, for they too must be protected and encouraged. A people that sees its blood as worthless cannot possess the intrinsic will to withstand the competitive struggles of this world. It needs no great minds, does not even want them any more. It will inevitably believe that all people are equal in terms of blood, and will no longer have a need to rise above the others. That is why one needs great minds. It will no longer desire to rise, and that is why one needs great spirits. Since such peoples no longer value their race and see themselves as the same as everyone else, and no longer feel the inner need for happiness or great men, they can no longer struggle, nor do they desire to.

That leads to what the large parties proclaim, namely to a nation that thinks internationally, follows the path of democracy, rejects struggle and preaches pacifism. A people that has accepted these three human burdens, that has given up its racial values, preaches internationalism, that limits its great minds, and has replaced them with the majority, that is inability in all areas, rejecting the individual mind and praising human brotherhood, such a people has lost its intrinsic values. Such a people is incapable of policies that could bring a rising population in line with its territory, or better said: adjust the territory to the population.

Our party comrade says one must give the people territory. In Germany, unfortunately, we must first give the territory a people. We see before us today Marxist masses, no longer a German people.

All this would be in vain if the fundamental values were not there. The only thing we may be proud of is this: We have this value, we have our blood-building value, the best proof of which is the great men of world history over the millennia. We have this value of race and personality. We have a third value: a sense of battle. It is there, it is only buried under a pile of foreign doctrines. A large and strong party is attempting to prove the opposite, until suddenly an ordinary military band begins to play. Then the sleeper awakes from his dreams and begins to feel himself a member of a people that is on the march, and he marches along. That is how it is today. We only need to show our people the better way. They see: we are marching already! The German people will come to a knowledge of their intrinsic values when the systematic organized poisoning of their values is replaced by their systematic organized defense.

That large international world power infects a part of the people with the ideas of pacifism to weaken their resistance, and uses another part to attack.

When the German pacifist feels threatened in his practical political activity, he can suddenly become an anti-pacifist, but only against an opponent of his political thinking. He can even reach for bloody weapons. But he calls the battle for the life of the entire nation murder!

This large international power organizes its terror groups by appealing to their lower instincts, but also reduces their potential resistance through intellectual influence. The German people have split in two as a result. In a masterful way, Hitler showed how the split between thinking and action in the politically-minded German citizen or politician leads him to become a democrat, although he knows that the fate of the world is never determined by majorities. This dear German citizen knows that for 1900 years after Christ and for many thousand years before Christ's birth, the world was changed by men, but he now suddenly believes that history is made by the German National Party's Reichstag delegation, which finds the greatest wisdom in the majority principle. In so far as the political citizen has accepted this principle, he has practically given up all hope of victory. The majority, that is cowardice, is for him decisive. Inability, limited wisdom. In theory the majority decides, but in reality it is the international Jew that stands behind it.

We deceive ourselves if we believe that the people want to be governed by majorities. No, you do not know the people. This people does not wish to lose itself in "majorities." It does not wish to be involved in great plans. It wants a leadership in which it can believe, nothing more.

The bourgeois world can no longer master these problems. It does not wish for the elimination of the burdens that weaken our people, The burdens that weaken us are in reality the cause of the success of those powers that Rosenberg calls the world power without a territory. Consider the following facts:

62 million people have an impossible amount of land. There are 20 million "too many." This nation cannot survive in the long term. It must find a way out, which lies neither in the size of its population nor the amount of its territory. Divided in its energies, it must become the victim of those we all know to be our masters. Can that change in the coming years? No!

That is the task of our movement. We are not burdened with the vast and wise experiences of other politicians. We entered political life as soldiers who served at the Front while we were overcome by miserable little scum at home. That was our first motivation to enter politics. Nor could we accept the idea that things were as they were, and that we had to adjust to reality. Hitler then brilliantly described the feelings of Front soldiers to conditions in the homeland.

There was one place in Germany where there were no class divisions. That was in the companies at the Front. There were no middle class or proletarian units, only the company. That was all.

There had to be a way to build this unity at home, and this was clear to them. Why was it possible at the Front? Because of the enemy! Because one knew the danger that one faced. If I am to build unity among the people, I must first find a new front, a common enemy so that everyone knows: We must be united, because this enemy is the enemy of us all. If we are not united, the entire German people will sink into the abyss.

It was necessary to make clear the relationship of the individual to his people. It first had to be made clear why he had to feel that relationship. It was the feeling of honor that said to the individual: I am a member of a people of a certain level, and it would be shameful for me to aid in this people's downfall. It would be a break in the holiest solidarity with the members of my own blood.

As I watched the procession today, I thought: Is it not wonderful to have thousands of men who grew through struggle, who matured in it. It is not the outward patriotism of middle class citizens. We want to put an end to this silly squandering of the values of blood. We want to plant responsibility in the people and put an end to the nonsense that leads our people to spill their blood for fantasies or romantic dreams. We want to teach our people one thing: Take care that your children do not starve.

If someone says to you that you are an imperialist, ask him: You do not want to be one? If you say no, then you may never be a father, for he who has a child must always worry about his daily bread. But if you provide his daily bread, then you are an imperialist.

Our goal must be to form a kernel that will steadily grow, winning energy and strength for the great goal. To whom heaven has given the majority of decisiveness, it has also given the right to rule.

Our entire struggle is a battle for the soul of our people. It is further a structure, a structure consisting of those minds who are the bearers of our worldview and who will be the foundation of the new state. In November 1918 the old colors were lowered. These colors have however for us a special significance, not because they were the symbol of the former state, but because they flew before us during four and a half years of battle. One does not soil that for which one has fought for for four and one half years. In doing so, one soils only his own honor. When democracy lowered the old colors it did not soil the lasting fame of the German army, rather established an eternal monument to its own indecency, a monument that will live longer than this state. One can lower the colors, but one can not destroy the content of four and one half years, it is an historical fact. The Republic chose its own colors. With bitter pain we saw it reach impotently into an earlier period of German history for its colors. Today it is clear that the Republic could not succeed even in winning the general respect of its citizens for these colors. Today it only suggests that these colors were once really quite respectable.

Believe me, if it was possible to set aside the colors of the most glorious war in our people's history by the stroke of a pen, I admire the faith of those in the present government who believe that the colors of the current German republic will last for eternity.

Hitler discussed the fact that the German people today lack a national flag. One has never considered the flag of the leading group of the time to be the symbol of the nation. There is no symbol today that represents the whole people. The order to see the flag as such a symbol cannot succeed. One thing however is clear: A movement today in Germany that fights for the renewal of the people must give its own symbol to this effort, and that is why we have chosen a new flag that is the symbol of the coming new German Reich: a symbol of national strength and power joined with the purity of the blood.

Our goal is for this flag to increasingly lose its character as a party flag and grow to be the German flag of the future. We see this flag is inextricably bound to the renewal of the nation. May these colors be a witness of how the German people broke its chains of slavery and won freedom. On that day this flag will be the German national flag.

Today you see thousands behind this flag. Seven years ago there was no one. All these people marched past us today under this flag with enthusiasm and glowing eyes because they see in these colors the struggle for the freedom of our people.

With one accord, the whole enormous gathering rose to its feet and greeted Hitler's final words with thousands of outstretched hands: sentences of brilliant force and majesty, a holy oath of all National Socialists as this Reich Party Rally were met with constant thundering shouts of "Heil," rendering some of the words unintelligible. Hitler said:

We National Socialists therefore make the holy promise never to rest in raising the honor of this flag, making it our symbol of self discipline, obedience, and order. Let it be to us a symbol of eternal struggle. We see in this flag the victorious sign of freedom and the purity of our blood. We want this flag to be a symbol of salvation, a sign that faith in these great possessions is alive in our people. May in the coming years a party rally occur at which five times as many people march, even if their sacrifice is still greater than ever before!

SEPT 16, 1930 in Munich

. . . This election means that the circle is now complete. And the question at this time is: what are the aims of this opposition and its leaders?

It is a fight for an idea - a Weltanschhauung: and in the forefront stands a fundamental principle: Men do not exist for the State, the State exists for men. First and far above all else stands the idea of the people: the State is a form of organization of this people, and the meaning and the purpose of the State are through this form of organization to assure the life of the people. And from this there arises a new mode of thought and thus necessarily a new political method.

We say: a new mode of thought. Today our whole official political outlook is rooted in the view that the State must be maintained because the State in itself is the essential thing; we, on the other hand, maintain that the State in its form has a definite purpose to fulfill and the moment that it fails to fulfill its purpose the form stands condemned. Above everything stands the purpose to maintain the nation's life - that is the essential thing and one should not speak of a law for the protection of the State but for the protection of the nation: it is of this protection that one must think.... In the place of this rigid formal organization - the State - must be set the living organism - the people. Then all action is given a new untrammeled freedom: all the formal fetters which can today be imposed on men become immoral directly they fail to maintain the people, because that is the highest purpose in life and the aim of all reasonable thought and action.

If today our action employs among its different weapons that of Parliament, that is not to say that parliamentary parties exist only for parliamentary ends. For us Parliament is not an end in itself, but merely a means to an end . . . we are not on principle a parliamentary party - that would be a contradiction of our whole outlook - We are a parliamentary party by compulsion, under constraint, and that compulsion is the constitution. The Constitution compels us to use this means. It does not compel us to wish for a particular goal, it only prescribes a way - a method, and, I repeat, we follow this way legally, in accordance with the Constitution: by the way laid down through the Constitution we advance towards the purposes which we have set before us.

Never can Constitutions determine for all time the content of a purpose, especially when this content is not identical with the vital rights of a people. If today the Constitution admits for its protection laws which are headed, 'Laws for the Protection of the Republic,' then it is demonstrated that the most which our present Constitution can prescribe is nothing but the protection and the maintenance of a form, and that does not touch the maintenance of the nation, of a people. This purpose is therefore free: this is the goal which we proclaim and to which we shall attain. . .

From blood, authority of personality, and a fighting spirit springs that value which alone entitles a people to look around with glad hope, and that alone is also the condition for the life which men then desire. And when that is realized, then that too is realized for which today the political parties strive: prosperity, happiness of the individual, family-life, etc. First will come honor and then freedom, and from both of these happiness, prosperity, life: in a word, that state of things will return which we Germans perhaps dimly saw before the War, when individuals can once more live with joy in their hearts because life has a meaning and a purpose, because the close of life is then not in itself the end, since there will be an endless chain of generations to follow: man will know that what we create will not sink into Hades but will pass to his children and to his children's children. And so this victory which we have just won is nothing else than the winning of a new weapon for our fight.... It is not for seats in parliament that we fight, but we win seats in parliament in order that one day we may be able to liberate the german people....

Do not write on your banners the word 'Victory': today that word shall be uttered for the last time. Strike through the word 'Victory' and write once more in its place the word which suits us better - the word 'Fight.'

JAN 27, 1932 in Dusseldorf

If today the National Socialist Movement is regarded amongst widespread circles in Germany as being hostile to our business life, I believe the reason for this view is to be found in the fact that we adopted towards the events which determined the development leading to our present position an attitude which differed from that of all the other organizations which are of any importance in our public life. Even now our outlook differs in many points from that of our opponents....

I regard it as of the first importance to break once and for all with the view that our destiny is conditioned by world events. It is not true that our distress has its final cause in a world crisis, in a world catastrophe: the true view is that we have reached a state of general crisis, because from the first certain mistakes were made. I must not say 'According to the general view the Peace Treaty of Versailles is the cause of our misfortune.' What is the Peace Treaty of Versailles but the work of men? It is not a burden which has been imposed or laid upon us by Providence. It is the work of men for which, it goes without saying, once again men with their merits or their failings must be held responsible. If this were not so, how should men ever be able to set aside this work at all? I am of the opinion that there is nothing which has been produced by the will of man which cannot in its turn be altered by another human will.

Both the Peace Treaty of Versailles together with all the consequences of that Treaty have been the result of a policy which perhaps fifteen, fourteen, or thirteen years ago was regarded as the right policy, at least in the enemy States, but which from our point of view was bound to be regarded as fatal when ten or less years ago its true character was disclosed to millions of Germans and now today stands revealed in its utter impossibility. I am bound therefore to assert that there must of necessity have been in Germany, too, some responsibility for these happenings if I am to have any belief that the German people can exercise some influence towards changing these conditions.

It is also in my view false to say that life in germany today is solely determined by considerations of foreign policy, that the primacy of foreign policy governs today the whole of our domestic life. Certainly a people can reach the point when foreign relations influence and determine completely its domestic life. But let no one say that such a condition is from the first either natural or desirable. Rather the important thing is that a people should create the conditions for a change in this state of affairs.

If anyone says to me that its foreign politics is primarily decisive for the life of a people, then I must first ask: what then is the meaning of the term 'Politics'? There is a whole series of definitions. Frederick the Great said: 'Politics is the art of serving one's State with every means.' Bismarck's explanation was that 'Politics is the art of the Possible,' starting from the conception that advantage should be taken of every possibility to serve the State - and, in the later transformation of the idea of the State into the idea of nationalities, the Nation. Another considers that this service rendered to the people can be effected by military as well as peaceful action: for Clausewitz says that war is the continuation of politics though with different means. Conversely, Clemenceau considers that today peace is nothing but the continuation of war and the pursuing of the war-aim, though again with other means. To put it briefly: politics is nothing else and can be nothing else than the safeguarding of a people's vital interests and the practical waging of its life-battle with every means. Thus it is quite clear that this life-battle from the first has its starting-point in the people itself and that at the same time the people is the object - the real thing of value - which has to be preserved. All functions of this body formed by the people must in the last resort fulfill only one purpose - to secure in the future the maintenance of this body which is the people. I can therefore say neither that foreign policy nor economic policy is of primary significance. Of course, a people needs the business world in order to live. But business is but one of the functions of this body-politic whereby its existence is assured. But primarily the essential thing is the starting-point and that is the people itself....

It is therefore false to say that foreign politics shapes a people: rather, peoples order their relations to the world about them in correspondence with their inborn forces and according to the measure in which their education enables them to bring those forces into play. We may be quite convinced that if in the place of the Germany of today there had stood a different Germany, the attitude towards the rest of the world would also have been different, and then presumably the influences exercised by the rest of the world would have taken a different form. To deny this would mean that Germany's destiny can no longer be changed no matter what Government rules in Germany....

And as against this conception I am the champion of another standpoint: three factors, I hold, essentially determine a people's political life:

First, the inner value of a people which as an inherited sum and possession is transmitted again and again through the generations, a value which suffers any change when the people, the custodian of this inherited possession, changes itself in its inner blood-conditioned composition. It is beyond question that certain traits of character, certain virtues, and certain vices always recur in peoples so long as their inner nature - their blood-conditioned composition - has not essentially altered. I can already trace the virtues and the vices of our German people in the writers of Rome just as clearly as I see them today. This inner value which determines the life of a people can be destroyed by nothing save only through a change in the blood causing a change in substance. Temporarily an illogical form of organization of life or unintelligent education may prejudice it. But in that case, though its effective action may be hindered, the fundamental value in itself is still present as it was before. And it is this value which is the great source of all hopes for a people's revival, it is this which justifies the belief that a people which in the course of thousands of years has furnished countless examples of the highest inner value cannot suddenly have lost overnight this inborn inherited value, but that one day this people will once again bring this value into action. If this were not the case, then the faith of millions of men in a better future - the mystic hope for a new Germany - would be incomprehensible. It would be incomprehensible how it was that this German people, at the end of the Thirty Years War, when its population had shrunk from eighteen to thirteen and one-half millions, could ever have once more formed the hope through work, through industry, and capacity to rise again, how in this completely crushed people hundreds of thousands and finally millions should have been seized with the longing for a re-formation of their State. . . .

I said that this value can be destroyed. There are indeed in especial two other closely related factors which we can time and again trace in periods of national decline: the one is that for the conception of the value of personality there is substituted a leveling idea of the supremacy of mere numbers - democracy - and the other is the negation of the value of a people, the denial of any difference in the inborn capacity, the achievement, etc., of individual peoples. Thus both factors condition one another or at least influence each other in the course of their development. Internationalism and democracy are inseparable conceptions. It is but logical that democracy, which within a people denies the special value of the individual and puts in its place a value which represents the sum of all individualities - a purely numerical value - should proceed in precisely the same way in the life of peoples and should in that sphere result in internationalism. Broadly it is maintained: peoples have no inborn values, but, at the most, there can be admitted perhaps temporary differences in education. Between Negroes, Aryans, Mongolians, and Redskins there is no essential difference in value. This view which forms the basis of the whole of the international thought-world of today and in its effects is carried to such lengths that in the end a Negro can sit as president in the sessions of the League of Nations leads necessarily as a further consequence to the point that in a similar way within a people differences in value between the individual members of this people are denied. And thus naturally every special capacity, every fundamental value of a people, can practically be made of no effect. For the greatness of a people is the result not of the sum of all its achievements but in the last resort of the sum of its outstanding achievements. Let no one say that the picture produced as a first impression of human civilization is the impression of its achievement as a whole. This whole edifice of civilization is in its foundations and in all its stones nothing else than the result of the creative capacity, the achievement, the intelligence, the industry, of individuals: in its greatest triumphs it represents the great crowning achievement of individual God-favored geniuses, in its average accomplishment the achievement of men of average capacity, and in its sum doubtless the result of the use of human labor-force in order to turn to account the creations of genius and of talent. So it is only natural that when the capable intelligences of a nation, which are always in a minority, are regarded only as of the same value as all the rest, then genius, capacity, the value of personality are slowly subjected to the majority and this process is then falsely named the rule of the people. For this is not rule of the people, but in reality the rule of stupidity, of mediocrity, of half-heartedness, of cowardice, of weakness, and of inadequacy....

Thus democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people's true values. And this also serves to explain how It is that peoples with a great past from the time when they surrender themselves to the unlimited, democratic rule of the masses slowly lose their former position; for the outstanding-achievements of individuals which they still possess or which could be produced in all spheres of life are now rendered practically ineffective through the oppression of mere numbers. And thus in these conditions a people will gradually lose its importance not merely in the cultural and economic spheres but altogether, in a comparatively short time it will no longer, within the setting of the other peoples of the world, maintain its former value. . . .

And to this there must be added a third factor: namely, the view that life in this world, after the denial of the value of personality and of the special value of a people, is not to be maintained through conflict. That is a conception which could perhaps be disregarded if it fixed itself only in the heads of individuals, but yet has appalling consequences because it slowly poisons an entire people. And it is not as if such general changes in men's outlook on the world remained only on the surface or were confined to their effects on men's minds. No, in course of time they exercise a profound influence and affect all expressions of a people's life.

I may cite an example: you maintain, gentlemen, that German business life must be constructed on a basis of private property. Now such a conception as that of private property you can defend only if in some way or another it appears to have a logical foundation. This conception must deduce its ethical justification from an insight into the necessity which Nature dictates. It cannot simply be upheld by saying: 'It has always been so and therefore it must continue to be so.' For in periods of great upheavals within States, of movements of peoples and changes in thought, institutions and systems cannot remain untouched because they have previously been preserved without change. It is the characteristic feature of all really great revolutionary epochs in the history of mankind that they pay astonishingly little regard for forms which are hallowed only by age or which are apparently only so consecrated. It is thus necessary to give such foundations to traditional forms which are to be preserved that they can be regarded as absolutely essential, as logical and right. And then I am bound to say that private property can be morally and ethically justified only if I admit that men's achievements are different. Only on that basis can I assert: since men's achievements are different, the results of those achievements are also different. But if the results of those achievements are different, then it is reasonable to leave to men the administration of those results to a corresponding degree. It would not be logical to entrust the administration of the result of an achievement which was bound up with a personality either to the next best but less capable person or to a community which, through the mere fact that it had not performed the achievement, has proved that it is not capable of administering the result of that achievement. Thus it must be admitted that in the economic sphere, from the start, in all branches men are not of equal value or of equal importance. And once this is admitted it is madness to say: in the economic sphere there are undoubtedly differences in value, but that is not true in the political sphere. IT Is absurd to build up economic life on the conceptions of achievement, of the value of personality, and therefore in practice on the authority of personality, but in the political sphere to deny the authority of personality and to thrust into its place the law of the greater number - democracy. In that case there must slowly arise a cleavage between the economic and the political point of view, and to bridge that cleavage an attempt will be made to assimilate the former to the latter - indeed the attempt has been made, for this cleavage has not remained bare, pale theory. The conception of the equality of values has already, not only in politics but in economics also, been raised to a system, and that not merely in abstract theory: no! this economic system is alive in gigantic organizations and it has already today inspired a State which rules over immense areas.

But I cannot regard it as possible that the life of a people should in the long run be based upon two fundamental conceptions. If the view is right that there are differences in human achievement, then it must also be true that the value of men in respect of the production of certain achievements is different It is then absurd to allow this principle to hold good only In one sphere - the sphere of economic life and its leadership - and to refuse to acknowledge its validity in the sphere of the whole life-struggle of a people - the sphere of politics. Rather the logical course is that if I recognize without qualification in the economic sphere the fact of special achievements as forming the condition of all higher culture, then in the same way I should recognize special achievement in the sphere of politics, and that means that I am bound to put in the forefront the authority of personality. If, on the contrary, it is asserted - and that, too, by those engaged in business - that in the political sphere special capacities are not necessary but that here an absolute equality in achievement reigns, then one day this same theory will be transferred from politics and applied to economic life. But in the economic sphere communism is analogous to democracy in the political sphere. We find ourselves today in a period in which these two fundamental principles are at grips in all spheres which come into contact with each other; already they are invading economics.

To take an example: Life in practical activity is founded on the importance of personality: but now gradually it is threatened by the supremacy of mere numbers. But in the State there is an organization - the army - which cannot in any way be democratized without surrendering its very existence. But if a Weltanschauung cannot be applied to every sphere of a people's life, that fact in itself is sufficient proof of its weakness. In other words: the army can exist only if it maintains the absolutely undemocratic principle of unconditional authority proceeding downwards and absolute responsibility proceeding upwards, while, in contradistinction to this, democracy means in practice complete dependence proceeding downwards and authority proceeding upwards. But the result is that in a State in which the whole political life - beginning with the parish and ending with the Reichstag - is built up on the conception of democracy, the army is bound gradually to become an alien body and an alien body which must necessarily be felt to be such. It is for democracy an alien world of ideas, an alien Weltanschauung which inspires the life of this body. An internal conflict between the representatives of the democratic principle and the representatives of the principle of authority must be the inevitable consequence, and this conflict we are actually experiencing in Germany....

So in the same way the education to pacifism must of necessity have its effect right through life until it reaches the humblest individual lives. The conception of pacifism is logical if I once admit a general equality amongst peoples and human beings. For in that case what sense is there in conflict? The conception of pacifism translated into practice and applied to all spheres must gradually lead to the destruction of the competitive instinct, to the destruction of the ambition for outstanding achievement. I cannot say: in politics we will be pacifists, we reject the idea of the necessity for life to safeguard itself through conflict - but in economics we want to remain keenly competitive. If I reject the idea of conflict as such, it is of no importance that for the time being that idea is still applied in some single spheres. In the last resort political decisions are decisive and determine achievement in the single sphere....

To sum up the argument: I see two diametrically opposed principles: the principle of democracy which, wherever it is allowed practical effect is the principle of destruction: and the principle of the authority of personality which I would call the principle of achievement, because whatever man in the past has achieved - all human civilizations - is conceivable only if the supremacy of this principle is admitted.

The worth of a people, the character of its internal organization through which this worth of a people may produce its effect, and the character of a people's education - these are the starting-points for political action: these are the foundations for the success of that action....

That the evidences of a crisis should today spread over almost the entire world is comprehensible when one considers that the world has been opened up and mutual relations have been strengthened to an extent which fifty, eighty, or a hundred years ago appeared scarcely possible. And yet, despite this fact, one must not believe that such a state of affairs is conceivable only now, in the year 1932. No, similar conditions have been experienced more than once in the history of the world. Always when relations between peoples produced conditions such as these, the malady affecting these peoples was bound to spread and to influence the position of all.

It is, of course, easy to say: we prefer to wait until there is a change in the general position, but that is impossible. For the position which faces you today is not the consequence of a revelation of God's will, but the result of human weaknesses, of human mistakes, of men's false judgments. It is but natural that there must first be a change in these causes, that men must first be inwardly transformed, before one can count on any alteration in the position.

That conclusion is forced upon us if we look at the world today: we have a number of nations which through their inborn outstanding worth have fashioned for themselves a mode of life which stands in no relation to the life-space - the Lebensraum - which in their thickly populated settlements they inhabit. We have the so-called white race which, since the collapse of ancient civilization, in the course of some thousand years has created for itself a privileged position in the world. But I am quite unable to understand this privileged position, this economic supremacy, of the white race over the rest of the world if I do not bring it into close connection with a political conception of supremacy which has been peculiar to the white race for many centuries and has been regarded as in the nature of things: this conception it has maintained in its dealings with other peoples. Take any single area you like, take for example India. England did not conquer India by the way of justice and of law: she conquered India without regard to the wishes, to the views of the natives, or to their formulations of justice, and, when necessary, she has upheld this supremacy with the most brutal ruthlessness. Just in the same way Cortez or Pizarro annexed Central America and the northern states of South America, not on the basis of any claim of right, but from the absolute inborn feeling of the superiority of the white race. The settlement of the North American continent is just as little the consequence of any claim of superior right in any democratic or international sense; it was the consequence of a consciousness of right which was rooted solely in the conviction of the superiority and therefore of the right of the white race. If I think away this attitude of mind which in the course of the last three or four centuries has won the world for the white race, then the destiny of this race would in fact have been no different from that, say, of the Chinese: an immensely congested mass of human beings crowded upon an extraordinarily narrow territory, an over-population with all its unavoidable consequences. If Fate allowed the white race to take a different path, that is only because this white race was convinced that it had the right to organize the rest of the world. It matters not what superficial disguises in individual cases this right may have assumed, in practice it was the exercise.

Jan 30, 1934 in the Reichstag

... It was all the more difficult to apply the principles of the National Socialist movement to the economic sector because herethree urgent tasks had to be tackled immediately:

1. It was necessary to introduce measures affecting trade and pricing policy in order to save the farmers who were facing utter disaster, and then to pass legislation in order to restore strong and permanent support for the farmers.

2. The ever-increasing general corruption forced us to take action to cleanse our economic life of ruthless speculators and profiteers.

3. The need to put six and a half million unemployed back to work meant that we simply could not rely on theories whose superficial appeal would all too easily have concealed the fact that today they are irrelevant and thus pointless. For when the National Socialist Revolution took over the government, one person was unemployed for every two persons who were employed. If, as was not merely to be feared but expected, the number of unemployed had increased, this ratio would soon have been reversed, thus creating a hopeless situation.

You cannot feed six and a half million unemployed by the Marxist practice of reciting fine theories; the only way is to create real jobs. And so in this first year we have already made our first general assault on unemployment. In a quarter of the time I asked for before the March elections, useful work has been found for a third of the unemployed. We attacked this problem from all directions and this is what ensured our success.

As we look back on the year which has just ended, we are ready to launch a renewed attack on this problem armed with the experience we have gained from the past year. The combination of government incentives and private initiative and energy was, however, possible only because our People have renewed confidence in their leadership and in the stability of a certain economic and legal system.

Some of our opponents feel obliged to detract from the glory of our achievements by pointing out that after all the entire People have helped to achieve these goals. They are absolutely right! And we are full of pride that we have really succeeded in rallying the entire nation to help in its renewal. For this is the only way that we were able to solve the problems which defeated many earlier governments, because without this confidence they were bound to fail. And ultimately this was the only reason why this gigantic practical and partly improvised task could be so closely linked with our ideological principles.

The simple statement that the People are not there for the sake of the economy nor the economy for the sake of capital, but capital must serve the economy and the economy must serve the People, was already the Government's guiding principle in all the measures which it took in the course of the past year.

This was the primary reason why the major practical measures initiated by the Government could be continued in an atmosphere of understanding and enthusiasm. By introducing tax reductions and by the wise application of government subsidies, we also succeeded in stimulating the production of raw materials to an extent which even twelve months ago most of our critics had considered completely inconceivable.

Some of the measures which were introduced to achieve this goal will not be fully appreciated until the future. This applies particularly to our promotion of the motorization of the German transport system together with the construction of the national freeway system (Reichs-Autobahnen). A solution was found for the old rivalry between the national railway system (Reichsbahn) and the automobile which will one day be of great benefit to the entire German People.

We realized that in order to kick-start the economy in this first year we would have to begin by providing basic types of employment, so that the resulting increase in purchasing power of the broad mass of the population would then gradually stimulate the production of more sophisticated goods.

In the process of achieving all this we attempted by a combination of generous assistance and rigorous economies to restore order to the completely bankrupt finances of the Reich, the individual states and the local authorities.

The extent of the economic recovery can be most clearly seen from the enormous reduction in the numbers of unemployed and the no less significant increase in the entire national income for which we now have statistical evidence. Because our first priority had to be the resumption of national production and reduction of the number of unemployed, we reluctantly decided to forgo some otherwise desirable measures.

It goes without saying that despite this in the course of this year numerous enemies criticized our measures. We coped with this burden and we will continue to cope with it in the future. If degenerate emigrants, who for the most part had left the now unwelcome atmosphere of their original field of operations not for political reasons but from purely criminal motives, try to mobilize a gullible world with truly villainous skill and criminal dishonesty, their lies will soon be revealed for what they are. When tens of thousands of respectable and honest men and women from other countries come to Germany they will be able to see for themselves how the descriptions given by these international "political refugees" compare with the actual reality.

Nor will we be overly concerned if some of the Communist ideologists feel they have to reverse the course of history, and to do this use sub-human elements who think that political freedom means the free expression of criminal instincts. We were able to deal with these elements when they were in power and we were the Opposition. We will be able to deal with them all the more effectively in future since they are now the Opposition and we are in power.

Some of our bourgeois intelligentsia also find themselves unable to accept the hard facts of life. Well, the truth is that it is better to have these rootless intellectuals as our enemies than as our supporters, because they deliberately avoid all that is healthy and they are interested in and promote all that is sick. And I would like to add to these enemies of the new regime a little clique of incorrigible backward-looking individuals, who regard the nations of the world only as bankrupt trading posts which are just waiting for a new master, in order to find their only possible inner satisfaction under his merciful guidance. And finally I include amongst these that little group of ultra-nationalistic (völkisch) ideologists who believe that the nation would be happy only if it obliterates the experience and consequences of its two thousand year history, in order to set out again on its wanderings clad, as it were, in a bear-skin.

All these enemies within Germany number less than 2.5 million compared to more than 40 million who support the new state and its government. This two million cannot be regarded as a genuine Opposition, because they are an unruly assortment of people with the most varied opinions and ideas, completely incapable of pursuing any common positive goal, capable only of unanimously rejecting the present state.

More dangerous than these are, however, two types of individuals whom we must regard as a real burden on our present and future Reich. First there are those political birds of passage who constantly appear wherever it is harvest time. These spineless individuals seize on any opportunity to join a successful movement and, either to forestall questions about their origins and their past activities, or else by way of response, they "protest too much" and indulge in super-correct behavior. The reason why they are dangerous is that they, whilst posing as supporters of the new regime, seek to pursue purely personal and selfish interests. In so doing they become a real burden to a movement for whose sake millions of decent people have for years made enormous sacrifices, without the thought even crossing their minds they might one day be rewarded for the suffering and deprivation which they accepted for the sake of their nation.

Purging the state and the Party of these persistent parasites will be an important priority especially for the future. Then the many fundamentally decent individuals who often for understandable, indeed compelling reasons, felt unable to join the movement will find their way to it, with no fear of being confused with obscure elements of this kind.

And another serious threat is that host of individuals who by virtue of their hereditary disposition were born on the "debit side" of national (völkisch) life. In this case the state will have to adopt genuinely revolutionary measures. The National Socialist movement deserves great credit for having in the course of the past year already undertaken its first legislative initiative to combat the threat of this slow process of national decay. In response to concerns which have been expressed by members of various confessions who oppose this legislation, I would like to say the following:

In past decades it would have been more meaningful, more honest and above all more Christian not to have supported those people who consciously destroyed healthy life, rather than to oppose those whose sole purpose is to avoid what is unhealthy. Moreover, to adopt a policy of laissez faire in this area is not only an act of cruelty to individual innocent victims but an act of cruelty to the entire German People. If this development were allowed to proceed unhindered as it has done in the last one hundred years, the number of people living on public support would in the end become dangerously close to the number of those who ultimately would have to support the entire community. It is not the churches which feed the armies of these unfortunate individuals, it is the state. If the churches were to express their willingness to assume the responsibility for the care and maintenance of these individuals who suffer from hereditary diseases, we are perfectly willing to refrain from having them sterilized. But as long as the state is condemned to ask its citizens each year for huge sums of money which increase annually - in Germany today this already exceeds 350 million - for the maintenance of the unfortunate individuals who suffer from hereditary diseases, then the state is compelled to adopt the remedy which will, on the one hand, prevent such undeserved suffering from being passed on to future generations and, on the other, make it unnecessary to deprive millions of healthy people of the bare necessities of life so that millions of sick people can be kept alive unnaturally.

Members of the German Reichstag! Great as the achievements of the year of the National Socialist revolution and of its leadership have been, it is even more noteworthy that this major reorganization within our nation could be achieved at absolutely lightning speed and also with almost no bloodshed. It is the fate of the vast majority of revolutions that in their haste to surge ahead they lose their footing and end in a fatal collision with the hard facts of life.

On the whole, however, we have succeeded in conducting this national uprising in such exemplary fashion that, with the exception of the Fascist revolution in Italy, it is without historical precedent. This is because at the time it was not a desperate and disorganized nation which raised the banner of revolt and put the torch to the existing state; it was a brilliantly organized movement whose disciplined supporters had fought for the cause for many years. For this the National Socialist party and its organizations deserve eternal credit, and credit is also due to the Brown Guard. It prepared the way for the German uprising, carried it out and concluded it with almost no bloodshed and with exemplary adherence to its program.

This miracle, however, was conceivable only because of the voluntary and complete agreement of those who as leaders of similar organizations, sought the same goals, or as its officers represented the German armed forces. It is without historical precedent that between the forces of revolution and the responsible leaders of a highly disciplined army there was such a genuine community of purpose in the service of the Nation as existed between the National Socialist party and myself as its Leader, on the one hand, and the officers and men of the German Imperial Army and the Navy, on the other.

In these past 12 months at the same time as the Steel Helmet (Stahlhelm) organization moved ever closer to National Socialism and then finally joined its ranks in a fine expression of brotherhood, the army and its commanders displayed total loyalty and obedience to the new state thus ensuring the success of our historical mission. For Germany could not have been saved by a civil war but only by the unanimous efforts of all those who even in the worst years had never lost their faith in the German People and the German Reich.

At the conclusion of this year of the greatest revolution in domestic politics, and as a special sign of the powerful unifying force of our ideal, I would like to draw attention to the fact that in a cabinet which in 1933 contained only three National Socialists, all of those ministers are still active, with the exception of one man who left of his own free will, and whom to my great pleasure I see in this room, elected as a genuine German patriot on our list. Thus the men of the government which was formed on January 30 1933 have themselves done what they demanded of the German People: put aside all their former differences and worked together to restore the honour and freedom of our People and our Reich.

The struggle to achieve the internal reorganization of the German nation and the Reich, the highest expression of which was the union of the Party and the State, of the nation with the Reich, is still ongoing. True to our Proclamation when our government took office a year ago, we shall continue it. It will determine our future domestic goals and actions, namely the strengthening of the Reich by concentrating our entire strength in an organizational structure which will finally achieve what was neglected through five hundred years of selfishness and incompetence; namely, to increase the well-being of our People in every sphere of life and to establish a culture based on moral values.

Within hours the German Reichstag will, by passing a new law, provide the Government with the additional legal powers it requires to continue the National Socialist revolution....

... The German Government's guiding principle is that the kind of constitution and the form of government which other nations adopt has no bearing on our relationships with them. Each individual nation has the right to manage its domestic affairs as it sees fit. It is thus the right of the German People to select the appropriate intellectual content and formal structure for the organization and leadership of its state.

For many months we have been forced to observe with discomfort that the difference between our view of the world and that of other nations has caused not only a great deal of unjustified criticism of the German People and the German Reich, but also totally unjustified distrust.

We have not adopted the same attitudes. In the past twelve months we have done our best to maintain good relationships between the German Reich and all other states in a spirit of reconciliation and understanding, even when there are major, indeed irreconcilable differences between these countries' conception of the state and our own. In our relations both with states which subscribe to the idea of democracy and those with an antidemocratic tendency our intention is the same, namely to find ways and means of resolving our differences and furthering interna