Source: Domarus, pp. 252-254.
I can understand when a State President judges that the hour has come for a confrontation with the new age. I am gladly willing to excuse the less than objective phrases which were used in this context, for it is not difficult to understand the internal uneasiness and nervousness of this man, of this representative of days past. Thus I would like to refrain from replying in kind; I prefer to answer objectively and dismiss each charge step by step.
In reply to State President Bolz' accusation that we have dealt in nothing but empty words for twelve years, I may state:
It was not we who were in power for these twelve years, but rather the State President's party. The Volk will certainly have realized by now which side was voicing these empty phrases. Twelve years constitute conclusive evidence; otherwise the others would not have joined us. In these long years of rule by the State President's party, we have witnessed disintegration in every single sector.
It astounds me that a representative of the Center is trying to tell us something about freedom. Did our Movement not go through an outrageous chain of suppression and gagging for thirteen years at the hands of those who address us like this today? Was that freedom, when our Movement was punished and suppressed for its national aspirations? When our fighters were thrown into prison, when the shirts of our SA men were ripped off their backs, when our press was ruthlessly prohibited and when we were made to suffer everything else in these thirteen years? Those who made no mention of our freedom for fourteen years have no right to talk about it today. As Chancellor l need only use all those means once used against the friends of the nation. I need only use one law for the protection of the national state, just as they made a law for the protection of the Republic back then, and then they would realize that not everything they called freedom was worthy of the name.
And when these parties claim today that at least a gradual improvement had been in the offing, all I can say is that this did not come about because of them, but rather because this young Movement had come to life. If there is a people in Geneva who is well-disposed to us today, it is not they, but we who are to thank for initiating this development. Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany's fore.
I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany's entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period.
It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years.
And were their policies in the economic sector Christian policies? Was the inflation which accompanied their rule supposed to be a Christian undertaking?
Were the destruction of the German economy, the impoverishment of the artisan class, the collapse of the farms, the unrelenting increase in unemployment, all of which we witnessed for fourteen years, acts of Christianity?
And when today you say: we need a few more years to change this situation, then I answer: no, now it is too late for you to change things. You had fourteen years, during which the heavens gave you all the power you needed to demonstrate what you were capable of. You have failed on every count: your work has wrought only one long string of horrible aberrations.
When today we are told that we have no program, my answer is:
For two years now this other Germany has subsisted on burglaries from our store of ideas.
All of the plans for providing work for the unemployed, for labor service, etc.—they are not the work of State President Bolz; they come from our program of reconstruction from which they have been extracted, thus making their implementation outside of the framework of the program a complete impossibiliy. I repeat that our fight against Marxism will be relentless, and that every movement which allies itself to Marxism will come to grief with it. We do not want an internal war between brothers, and we regard as our allies all those wishing to join in our work of reconstruction. But let there be no doubt of one thing: The time of international Marxist-pacifist infiltration and destruction of our Vaterland is over.
On March 5, the German Volk is called upon once more to make its own decision. It shall decide whether it wishes to relive the last fourteen years, or march with us into a future we shall form with the power which lies within us. I am willing to extend my hand to anyone who wishes to help us, even to those who have been blinded hitherto.
I will refrain, in this campaign, from using funds allotted for combatting crime, although I would have more reason to do so than the others.
But together with my allies, I am determined to not allow Germany under any circumstances to revert to the rule of the recent past.
Germany must never again and shall never again fall back into the hands of those who have been its undoing.