Disclaimer: this is
not an endorsement of Adolf Hitler or the Nazis.
When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933
he convinced President von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call new
elections, scheduled to be held on March 5th. Eleven days later [February 10th] he
made his first public speech at the Berlin Sportpalast. It was a campaign speech but this one was
different. For once, the Nazis had all
the resources of the government at their disposal. This speech was filmed, and it was broadcast
nationwide over German radio. In practically
every documentary I’ve seen about Hitler and Nazi Germany [and there have been
many], there are excerpts from this speech.
It shows how Hitler could build tension in a room. He begins quietly, as if making his audience
shut up and pay attention. Then as the
speech continues, he becomes more animated – his audience is spellbound. And when he finishes the entire arena erupts
in ecstasy. Hitler’s speeches during
this campaign are pretty much the same – they all hit on the same themes. They never provide any details about how
Hitler is going to fix Germany. They are
clarion calls to make Germany great again.
A good chunk of the speech was an indictment of what he
called the ‘November parties’, the who ruled Germany in a variety of coalitions
since the founding of the Weimar Republic: German Social Democratic Party
(SPD), the Catholic Centre Party (Zentrum), and the liberal German Democratic
Party (DDP). In Hitler’s view, the
November parties were responsible for all the misery the German people had
suffered since the end of World War I in November 1918. And by addressing all the November parties as
Marxists, he lumps them together with the Communists, of whom many were afraid.
“I have therefore
rejected it ever come before this people, and make cheap promises. It can stand
no one here against me and bear witness that I have ever said, the resurgence
of Germany is only a matter of a few days. Again and again I preach, the
resurgence of the German nation is the question of the recovery of the inner
strength and health of the German people. So, as I even 14 years now worked,
constantly and without becoming ever wavering in the development of the movement,
and so how I managed seven man to these to come from 12 million, so I want and
so we want to build and work on recovery of our German people.” My interpretation: Hitler claims to
have built the Nazi party from nothing into a huge national movement. He can do the same for the German nation if
given the chance. And by the way, making
Germany great again will take time; it won’t happen overnight.
“I want to promise
you that this resurrection of our people comes by itself. We want to work, but
the people themselves, it must help. It should never believe that sudden
freedom, happiness and life from heaven is given.” My interpretation: if you want a better life,
you’ll have to work for it.
“We want guide all
of our work from a knowledge, a belief: faith never on anybody's help, never to
help, which is located outside of our own nation, of our own people! The future
of the German people themselves alone lies in us.” This alludes to the Dawes and Young
plans, which were meant to help Germany pay the war reparations as part of the
Treaty of Versailles. Hitler opposed
both plans because the German economy cratered after October 1929, when
American banks called in their loans after the stock market crash. Hitler blamed the subsequent massive
unemployment on the November parties, for they were the ones that agreed to the
plans with the American banks.
“The fourth item on our program dictates that we rebuild our Volk not according
to theories hatched by some alien brain, but according to the eternal laws
valid for all time. Not according to theories of class, not according to concepts
of class.” My interpretation: the Communists don’t have the answer for
Germany’s problems. It took fourteen
years for the Marxists to bring Germany to ruin. They’ve had their chance to make things good
and right and they blew it – why trust them again?
“Never I will remove me from the task to eradicate Marxism and its
side-effects from Germany. Never I will be here inclined to compromise. One
must be winners here: either Marxism or the German people.” No need for interpretation here – it’s “us” or the
Marxists.
“By I fight for the German future, I fight for the German place and must
fight for the German farmers. He gives us the people in our towns and cities.
He has been the eternal source for millennia, and it must be preserved. And I'm
going to the second pillar of our nationhood, then further on to the German
workers to that German workers that no stranger should be more, and may be in
Germany in the future, and we want to return again in the community of our
people, for, we will be blast the gates, that he moves with in the German
community as a carrier of the German nation.”
Farmers and workers of Germany, the Nazis are your
friends.
"We combat the phenomena of our parliamentary democratic systems, so we go
over immediately to a twelfth point: restore cleanliness in our people,
cleanliness in all areas of our lives, cleanliness in our management,
cleanliness in public life, but also cleanliness in our culture. We want to
recover mainly the German honor, restore respect for it and the commitment to
her and want to burn in our hearts the commitment to freedom, want to titillate
but again our people so that a real German culture, with a German art, with its
German architecture, a German music, which should reflect the soul. And we want
to awaken the awe of the great tradition of our people, bring the deep
reverence for the achievements of the past, the humble reminder of the great
men of German history." Hindsight is
20/20 - here he wants to rid German culture of non-German elements [Jewish
elements, perhaps?].
“We want to introduce our youth again in this wonderful realm of our past,
the work and creativity of our ancestors; humbly she should bow before those
who lived before us and have created, worked, and worked, that we can live on.
And we want to educate these young people especially to the reverence for those
who have made the heaviest sacrifices once for our people life and future of
our people.” Again hindsight
being 20/20, he’s telegraphing the creation of the Hitler Youth here.
After talking for almost an hour, he finally makes the sales
pitch - “For 14 years, have the parties of decay, of November, the
revolution led the German people and abused, destroyed for 14 years, decomposed
and resolved. It is not presumptuous when I step today before the nation and
implore you: People of Germany, give us four years and then pass
judgement upon us! People of Germany, give us four years and I swear to you:
just as we, just as I have entered into this office, so will I leave it.”
The Speech - https://youtu.be/zu9aBznOIC8
Coming February 27th: The Reichstag Fire
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