Source: Domarus, pp. 359-361.

Hitler's Speech of September 23, 1933

Ministers, Presidents of the Reichsbahn and the Reichsbank! Statthalters, Gauleiters, Party Comrades, and German Workers!

Today we stand at the threshold of a tremendous task. Its significance not only for German transportation, but in the broadest sense for the German economy, too, will come to be appreciated in full only in the course of future decades. We are now beginning to build a new artery for traffic! Aspects of modern traffic will be given deserved and necessary consideration in the development of the German motorway system. In future decades, transportation will be coupled with these great new roads which we now plan to build throughout Germany. The first step toward this goal is 6,400 kilometers long.

I know that this gigantic project is only conceivable given the cooperation of many; that this project could never have evolved had the realization of its greatness and the will to turn it into reality not seized hold of so many, all the way from the Cabinet and the Reich Government, up to the German Reichsbank and the German Reichsbahn.

At the same time we are fighting the most severe crisis and the worst misfortune which have descended upon Germany in the course of the past fifteen years.

The curse of unemployment, which has condemned millions of people to a degrading and impossible way of life, must be eliminated!

It is quite clear to us that the battle against unemployment cannot become a complete success overnight, but we are also aware of the fact that this battle must be waged under any circumstances. We are determined to take it up, for we have taken a vow to the nation to resolve this crisis.

Back then we asked for four years, and we plan to turn these four years to the benefit and advantage of our German Volk and, above all, of the German worker. Workers, I myself was often attacked for my origins during the period of my struggle for power in Germany by those who pretended to represent the interests of the workers. At that time people were fond of saying: what does that ex-construction worker and painter want? I am happy and proud that Fate forced me to tread this path. In this way perhaps I have gained a greater understanding for the German worker, for his character, for his suffering, but also for that which makes up the vital necessities of his life.

In beginning this project today, I am acting on these feelings, on these experiences from my own life; therefore I also know that what is beginning today with a celebration will mean toil and sweat for many hundreds of thousands. I know that this day of celebration will pass and that the time will come when rain, frost and snow will make the work trying and difficult for everyone. But it is necessary: this work must be done, and no one will help us if we do not help ourselves.

In my view, the most productive way of leading the German Volk back into the process of work is to once again get German industry going by means of great and monumental projects.

In taking on a difficult task today which you must continue in the hard times which fall, winter and spring will bring, you are ensuring that hundreds of thousands more will receive work in the factories and workshops by virtue of your increased buying power. It is our goal to slowly increase the buying power of the masses and thus to provide orders to the centers of production and get German industry off the ground again.

Therefore I ask you to constantly bear in mind that today it is not at our discretion to choose the work to be done. I ask you to bear in mind that we are living in an age which perceives its very essence in work itself; that we wish to build up a State which values work for its own sake and holds the worker in high regard because he is fulfilling a duty to the nation; a State which aims, by means of its labor service, to educate everyone—even the tender sons of highborn parents—to hold work in high regard and to respect physical labor in the service of the Volksgemeinschaft.

I know that this great process of inwardly welding our Volk together cannot be completed overnight. Even we are incapable of doing away with what has gradually disintegrated, become deformed and distorted in the course of thirty, forty, fifty or a hundred years within a few months. The biases have been too deeply implanted in the people to be forgotten overnight. But they will forget. It is our task to build this resolve on the concept of respecting work, no matter what it may be. Fate has not allowed us the freedom to pick and choose the type of work that fits our fancy.

We want to educate the Volk so that it moves away from the insanity of class superiority, of arrogance of rank, and of the delusion that only mental work is of any value; we want the Volk to comprehend that every labor which is necessary ennobles its doer, and that there is only one disgrace, and that is to contribute nothing to the maintenance of our Volksgemeinschaft, to contribute nothing to the maintenance of the Volk itself. It is a necessary transposition which we will effect not with theories, not with declarations or with wishes and hopes, but which we will effect only by life itself, in that today we are setting millions of people to the task of restoring health to the German economy.

In setting hundreds of thousands to work which is great, monumental, and of—I would like to say, eternal—value, we shall ensure that the product is no longer separated from those who have created it. In the future one should not only think of those who have planned or drafted it as engineers, but rather also of those who, by their industry, by their sweat, and by work which was just as hard, have translated the plans and the ideas into reality for the benefit of the entire Volk. Thus, in this hour I cannot hope for anything better than that it be not only the hour when the construction of this, the greatest road network in the world, was initiated, but that this hour also be, at the same time, a milestone for the construction of the German Volksgemeinschaft, a community which will bestow upon us as Volk and as State all that we may rightfully demand and expect from this world.

And so I ask of you: go to work now! Construction must begin today! Let us commence the task! And before many years have passed, a gigantic work shall bear witness to our service, our industry, our capability, and our determination: Deutsche Arbeiter, ans Werk!