Adolf
Hitler
Speech
of April 12, 1921
(Simple Version created by James Couture
5/29/2006)
[Comments in square
brackets are from Couture.]
[The first part of this speech, which is wildly
anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish), was cut to keep it short. His point was essentially: Treaty of Versailles bad, Jews
bad. He wasn't subtle.]
The government of a
country needs power. It needs
strength. It must push forward the
ideas it believes to be right with brutal ruthlessness. But even with the most ruthless brutality,
it can ultimately succeed only if what it seeks to create is good for the whole
population.
[cut historical reference
paragraph]
The conservatives in German politics have … completely forgotten that democracy is fundamentally not German. Democracy is Jewish. Conservatives have completely forgotten that this Jewish democracy, with its majority rule, has always been only a means towards the destruction of any existing Aryan [White] leadership. The conservatives in German politics do not understand that asking for 'public opinion' on every small issue doesn't work. He who knows how to manipulate this 'public opinion' to serve his own interests becomes immediately master of the State. This successful control of 'public opinion' is easiest for the man who can lie most artfully, most infamously. At the end, this manipulator is not the German, he is 'the great master in the art of lying' - the Jew.
The conservatives and the
radicals in this country have forgotten that the will and the courage to speak
the truth should come before every act.
There are only two
possibilities in Germany. Do not
imagine that the German people will forever go with the moderate party, the
party of compromises. One day the
Germans will turn to those who have most consistently warned of the coming
disaster and have sought to separate themselves from that disaster. There are two political options in
Germany. One is the Left, the
Communists and radicals. If we choose
them, God help us! That choice will
lead us to complete destruction - to communism. The second option is a hard-core party of the conservative
Right. When the German people reach
complete despair about politics, when they have lost all their spirit and have
no more faith in anything, this Right-wing party will be determined to seize
power ruthlessly. That is the beginning
of resistance to the broken present political system. There can be no compromise.
There are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan or
annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew.
Realization of this
political situation has resulted in the formation of our Movement [the future
Nazi party]. We decided on two
principles when we founded the Movement: first, to base it on facing the real
facts of the German condition and, second, to proclaim these facts with the
most ruthless truthfulness.
By facing facts we have
decided upon the key principles that hopefully will guide our young Movement to
greatness:
1. 'National' and
'social' are identical ideas. It was
only the Jew who succeeded, through the lies of Marxism, of making the social
idea seem separate and opposite of the idea of nationalism. Marxism lies when it says that socialism and
nationalism do not fit together.* When we founded the [Nazi] Movement, we made
the decision, despite all warnings, not to separate the ideas of 'national' and
'social.' We named our movement
'National Socialist.' We said to
ourselves that to be 'national' means to act with an all-embracing love for the
people and, if necessary, even to die for the people. Similarly, to be 'social'
means so to build up the State and the community of the people so that every
individual acts in the interest of the community. The Germans must be so convinced of the goodness and honesty of
this community of the people as to be ready to die for that community.
2. And then we said to
ourselves, 'there are no such things as classes. They cannot be.' Class
means caste and caste means race. If there are castes in India, that's well and
good. In India it is possible, because
in India there used to be Aryans and dark aborigines. It was the same in Egypt and Rome. But with us in Germany, where everyone who is a German at all has
the same blood, has the same eyes, and speaks the same language, here there can
be no class. Here there can be only a
single people and beyond that nothing else. [cut 2 sentences about class]
And if you say, 'But
there must be a difference between honest creators and those who do nothing at
all,' - we agree! That is the key issue
of work in the modern world. Work must
be the great connecting link between people.
But at the same time it is the factor that separates one man from
another. The thoughtless, disconnected
worker, the drone, is the enemy of us all.
But the creators - it doesn’t matter whether they are brain-workers or
hand-workers - they are the nobility of our State. They are the German people!
We understand under the
term 'work' to mean only 'activity which not only profits the individual, but
which also in no way harms the community.'
In fact, work must contribute to the good of the community.
3. In the third place it
was clear to us that this particular view of work is based on our race and our
blood. We said to ourselves that race
differs from race and, further, that each race naturally shows certain specific
tendencies. These racial tendencies can
perhaps be most clearly found in the way the various races understand the idea
of work. The Aryan regards work as
helping the community of the people.
The Jew regards work as the means to the exploitation of other
peoples. The Jew never works as a
productive creator without the great aim of becoming the master. He works unproductively, using and enjoying
other people's work. And thus we
understand: 'The Jews are the cause of decomposition in peoples.' That means that the Jew destroys and must
destroy because he completely lacks the conception of work that builds up the
life of the community. And therefore it
is beside the point whether an individual Jew is 'decent' or not. In himself he carries those characteristics
that Nature has given him, and he cannot ever rid himself of those
characteristics. And to us he is
harmful. Whether he harms us
consciously or unconsciously, that is not our affair. We have consciously to concern ourselves for the welfare of our
own people.
4. Fourthly, we realized
that economic prosperity is inseparable from political freedom. Therefore that house of lies,
'Internationalism,' must immediately collapse. [Internationalism was the communist
idea that nations were a bad idea that kept working people from uniting
together to fight the bourgeoisie.] We
recognized that freedom can be only a result of power and that the source of
power is the will. Consequently the
will to power must be strengthened in a people.
5. Fifthly, we as
National Socialists and members of the German Workers' Party must be fanatical
Nationalists. We realized that the
State can be for our people a paradise only if the people hold power. We realized that a slave state will never be
a paradise, but only - always and for all time - a hell or a colony.
6. And then, sixthly, we
understood the fact that power is possible only where there is strength. Strength lies not in the dead weight of
numbers but solely in energy. Strength
comes not from having the majority of voters, but instead comes from having the
most active people. Even the smallest
number of people can achieve a mighty result if it is inspired by the most
fiery and passionate will to act. World
history has always been made by tiny groups of people.
7. Lastly, even if one
has realized a truth, that truth is useless unless one has the will to turn
this realization into action!
These seven ideas were
the foundations of our Movement - the truths on which it was based.
For three years we have
sought to put into practice these fundamental ideas. And of course it is a fight and will remain a fight. Simply knowing the truth will not carry one far. One must do something about it. Today the German people have been
beaten. German life has lost all
spirit. Germany no longer has any
faith. But how will you put firm ground
beneath the feet of the Germans except by the passionate insistence on one
definite, great, and clear goal?
[cut a paragraph of his
heated attacks on the Treaty of Versailles]
And finally we were also
the first to point out to the people the danger in our midst - a danger which
millions failed to realize and which will nonetheless lead us all into ruin -
the Jewish danger. And today people are saying yet again that we were
'agitators.'
I would like here to
appeal to a man greater than myself, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag
[German congress] that his feeling, 'as a man and a Christian, prevented him
from being an anti-Semite [Jew-hater].'
I say that my feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as
a fighter. It points me to the Man who once, in loneliness, surrounded only by
a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to
the fight against them. Jesus, God's
truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a
man, I read through that passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in
His might and seized the whip to drive the snakes out of the Temple. [Hitler is here talking about when Jesus
threw the money-changers out of the temple.]
How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with
deepest emotion, I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it
was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I do not have to allow myself
be cheated. I have the duty to be a
fighter for truth and justice. And as a
man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same
catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two
thousand years ago - a civilization that was ruined by this same Jewish people.
When Rome collapsed there
were endless streams of new German tribal people flowing into the Empire from
the North. This helped Europe. However, if Germany collapses today, who
will come after us? The German
bloodline is on the way to slow exhaustion unless we pull ourselves together
and make ourselves free!
If anything shows that we
are acting rightly, it is the world's growing sense of unease. For, as a Christian, I have a duty to my own
people. And when I look on my people I
see it work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week it has
earned only wretchedness and misery.
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their bread
lines and unemployment lines and look into their pinched faces, then I believe
I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them. I would be evil if I did not, as did our
Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people
is robbed and exploited.
And through their
troubles there is no doubt that the German people has awoken. On the outside they might seem apathetic,
like they don't care about anything and have given up. But on the inside Germans are bursting with
energy and anger. Many may say, 'It is
a dangerous crime to stir up passions in the people.' I say to myself, 'Passion is already stirred through the rising
tide of distress. One day this passion
will break out in one way or another.'
Now I ask those who today call us 'agitators': 'What hope and ideas can
you give the people to believe in?'
Nothing at all is the
answer. You yourselves have no faith in
your own plans and political beliefs.
That is the mightiest thing that our Movement must create: a new Faith for the lost and leaderless masses of Germany. The Germans need a new Faith that will not fail them in this hour of confusion. They need a faith they can promise to follow. The people need a faith on which they can build so that they may at last find, once again, a place that may bring calm to their hearts.
* Communists of the day believed that nations were a problem that had to be overcome if working class people were to win the struggle for communism. Nationalism was seen as a fake way of keeping the working people of various nations from seeing that working people had more in common with each other than with the bourgeois of their own nations. To a communist, a German worker had more in common with a Russian worker than either of those workers had with the factory owners in their own countries.