Source: Domarus, pp. 142-145;
Note: Recorded Speech
The great time of decision has now arrived. Fate has allotted those in power today more than thirteen years to be tested and proven. But they hand down their own worst sentence, in that they themselves confess to the failure of their efforts by the type of propaganda they use today.
Once it was their desire to govern Germany better in the future than in the past, and they are forced to observe that the only real product of their attempts at government is that Germany and the German Volk are still alive. In the
November days of ‘18 [1918], they solemnly pledged to lead our Volk and in particular the German worker into a better economic future. Today, after they have had nearly fourteen years to keep their promise, they cannot cite a single German professional group as witness for the quality of their actions.
The German peasant has become impoverished; the Mittelstand is ruined; the social hopes of many millions of people are destroyed; one third of all German men and women of working age is unemployed and thus without income; the Reich, the communities, and the Länder are overindebted; finances are in a muddle across the board; and all the coffers are empty!
What more could they possibly have destroyed? The worst thing, though, is the destruction of the faith in our Volk, the elimination of all hopes and all confidence. In thirteen years they have not succeeded in mobilizing in any way the powers slumbering in our Volk; on the contrary!
Out of their fear of the awakening of the nation, they have played people off against one another: the city against the country, the salaried workers against the civil servants, those who work with their hands against those who work with their brains, the Bavarians against the Prussians, the Catholics against the Protestants, and so forth, and vice versa.
The activism of our race was entirely consumed at home; outwardly, only fantasies remained: fantastic hopes of a cultural conscience, a law of nations, a world conscience, ambassador conferences, the League of Nations, the second Internationale, the third Internationale, proletarian solidarity, etc.—and the world treated us accordingly.
Thus Germany has slowly disintegrated, and only a madman can still hope that those forces which first caused this disintegration might now bring about the resurrection. If the present parties seriously want to save Germany, why have they not done so already? Had they wanted to save Germany, why has it not happened? Had the men of these parties honestly intended to do so, then their programs must have been bad. If, however, their programs were right, then either their desire cannot have been sincere, or they must have been too ignorant or too weak.
Now, after thirteen years, after they have destroyed everything in Germany, the time has finally arrived for their own elimination. Whether or not today's parliamentary parties exist or not is of no consequence; what is, however, necessary is that the German nation be prevented from falling completely into ruin.
Therefore it is a duty to vanquish these parties, for in order to secure their own existence, they must tear the nation apart over and over again.
For years they have persuaded the German worker into believing that he alone could save himself. Fooled the peasant for years by claiming that only his organization would help him.
The Mittelstand was to be snatched from the jaws of ruin by parties of the Mittelstand; the economy by the parties of business. The Catholic was forced to seek his refuge with the Center, the Protestant with the Christian Socialist People's Service. In the end even the houseowners had their own political representation, just as did the tenants, the salaried workers, and the civil servants.
However, these attempts at breaking the nation down into classes, ranks, professions, and confessions and at leading it piece by piece to the economic good fortune of the future have now failed completely.
Even on the day our National Socialist Movement was founded, we were already governed by the conviction that the fate of the German individual is inseparably bound up with the fate of the entire nation.
When Germany disintegrates, the worker will not flourish in social good fortune and neither will the entrepreneur; the peasant will not save himself then; nor will the Mittelstand.
No, the ruin of the Reich, the disintegration of the nation, means the ruin and the disintegration of all!
Not a single confession and not a single German tribe will be able to escape sharing the same lot.
Even on the day our National Socialist Movement was founded, we had already long been certain that it was not the proletariat which would be victor over the bourgeoisie, and not the bourgeoisie which would be victor over the proletariat, but that international big finance must ultimately become the sole victor over both. And that is what has come to pass!
Recognizing this disintegration, thirteen years ago I took a handful of people and formed a new movement which in its very name is to be a proclamation of the new Volksgemeinschaft.
There is no such thing as socialism which does not have the power of the spirit at its disposal; no such thing as social good fortune which is not protected by—and even finds its prerequisite in—the power of a nation.
And there is no such thing as a nation—and thus no such thing as nationalism—if the army of millions who work with their intellects are not joined by the army of millions who work with their fists, the army of millions of peasants.
As long as Nationalism and Socialism march as separate ideas, they will be defeated by the united forces of their opponents. On that day when both ideas are molten into one, they will become invincible!
And who will deny that, in a time when everything in Germany is falling apart and degenerating, when everything in the business world and political life is reaching a standstill or coming to an end, a single organization has experienced an enormous and miraculous upturn?
With seven men I began this task of German unification thirteen years ago, and today over thirteen million are standing in our ranks. However, it is not the number that counts, but its inner value!
Thirteen million people of all professions and ranks—thirteen million workers, peasants, and intellectuals; thirteen million Catholics and Protestants; members of all German Länder and tribes—have formed an inseparable alliance. And thirteen million have recognized that the future of all lies only in the joint struggle and the joint successes of all.
Millions of peasants have now realized that the important thing is not that they comprehend the necessity of their own existence; rather, it is necessary to enlighten the other professions and walks of life as to the German peasant, and to win them for his cause.
And millions of workers have similarly realized today that, in spite of all the theories, their future lies not in some "Internationale" but in the realization on the part of their other Volksgenossen that, without German peasants and German workers, there simply is no German power.
And millions of bourgeois intellectuals, too, have come to the realization of how insignificant their own illusions are if the masses of millions comprising the rest of the Volk do not finally comprehend the importance of the German intellectual class.
Thirteen years ago we National Socialists were mocked and derided—today our opponents' laughter has turned to tears!
A faithful community of people has arisen which will gradually overcome the prejudices of class madness and the arrogance of rank. A faithful community of people which is resolved to take up the fight for the preservation of our race, not because it is made up of Bavarians or Prussians or men from Württemberg or Saxony; not because they are Catholics or Protestants, workers or civil servants, bourgeois or salaried workers, etc., but because all of them are Germans.
Within this feeling of inseparable solidarity, mutual respect has grown, and from this respect has come an understanding, and from this understanding the tremendous power which moves us all.
We National Socialists thus march into every election with the single commitment that we will, the following day, once more take up our work for the inner reorganization of our body politic.
For we are not fighting merely for the mandates or the ministerial posts, but rather for the German individual, whom we wish to and shall join together once more to inseparably share a single common destiny.
The Almighty, Who has allowed us in the past to rise from seven men to thirteen million in thirteen years, will further allow these thirteen million to once become a German Volk. It is in this Volk that we believe, for this Volk we fight; and if necessary, it is to this Volk that we are willing, as the thousands of comrades before us, to commit ourselves body and soul.
If the nation does its duty, then the day will come which restores to us: one Reich in honor and freedom—work and bread!