Hitler's Political Testament

More than thirty years have passed since I made my modest contribution as a volunteer in the First World War, which was forced upon the Reich.

In these three decades, love and loyalty to my people alone have guided me in all my thoughts, actions and life. They gave me power to make the most difficult decisions which have ever confronted mortal man. I have spent all my time, my powers and my health in these three decades.

It is untrue that I or anybody else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was wanted and provoked exclusively by those international statesmen who either were of Jewish origin or worked for Jewish interests.

I have made too many offers of limitation and control of armaments that posterity will not for all time be able to disregard for responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be placed on me. Further, I have never wished that after the appalling First World War there should be a second one against either England or America. Centuries will go by, but from the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred of those ultimately responsible will always grow anew. They are the people whom we have to thank for all this: international Jewry and its helpers.

Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war, I suggested to the British Ambassador in Berlin a solution of the German-Polish questions, similar to that in the case of the Saar, under international control. This offer, too, cannot be denied. It was rejected only because the ruling political clique in England wanted war, partly for commercial reasons, partly because it was influenced by propaganda put out by the international Jewry.

I also made it quite plain that, if the peoples of Europe were again to be regarded merely as pawns in a game played by the international conspiracy of money and finance, they, the Jews, the race that is the real guilty party in this murderous struggle, would be saddled with the responsibility for it.

I left no one in doubt that this time not only would millions of children of European Aryan races starve, not only would millions of grown men meet their death and not only would hundreds of thousands of women and children be burned and bombed to death in cities, but this time the real culprits would have to pay for their guilt even though by more humane means than war.

After six years of war, which, in spite of all setbacks, will one day go down in history as the most glorious and heroic manifestation of the struggle for existence of a nation, I cannot forsake the city that is the capital of this state. As our forces are too small to withstand an enemy attack on this place any longer, and our own resistance will gradually be worn down by men who are merely blind automata, I wish to share my fate with that which millions of others have also taken upon themselves by staying in this town. Further, I shall not fall into the hands of the enemy, who requires a new spectacle, presented by the Jews, to divert their hysterical masses.

I have therefore decided to remain in Berlin and there to choose death voluntarily at that moment when I believe that the position of the Fuehrer and the Chancellery itself can no longer be maintained. I die with a joyful heart in my knowledge of the immeasurable deeds and achievements of our soldiers at the front, of our women at home, the achievements of our peasants and workers and of a contribution unique in history, of our youth that bears my name.

That I express to them all the thanks that come from the bottom of my heart is as clear as my wish that they should therefore not give up the struggle under any circumstances but carry it on wherever they may be against the enemies of the Fatherland, true to the principles of the great Clausewitz.

From the sacrifice of our soldiers and from my own comradeship with them to death itself, the seed has been sown that will grow one day in the history of 1 Germany to the glorious rebirth of' the National Socialist movement and thereby to the establishment of a truly united nation.

Many brave men and women have decided to link their lives with mine to the last. I have asked and finally ordered them not to do this, but to continue to take part in the nation's struggle.

I ask the commanders of the armies, of the navy and of the air force to strengthen with all possible means the spirit of resistance of our soldiers in the National Socialist belief with special emphasis oh the fact that I myself, as the founder and cremator of this movement, prefer death to cowardly resignation or even to capitulation.

May it be in the future a point of honor with the German Army officers, as it already is in our navy, that the surrender of a district or town is out of the question and that above everything else the commanders must set a shining example of faithful devotion to duty until death.

Second Part of the Political Testament

Before my death, I expel the former Reich Marshal Hermann Goering from the party and withdraw from him all the rights that were conferred on him by the decree of 29 June, 1941, and by my Reichstag speech of the first of September, 1939. In his place I appoint Admiral Doenitz as President of the Reich and supreme commander of the armed forces.

Before my death I expel the former Reichsfuehrer of the SS and the Minister of the Interior Heinrich Himmler from the party and from all his state offices. In his place I appoint Gauleiter Karl Hanke as Reichsfuehrer of the SS and chief of the German police and Gauleiter Paul Giesler as Minister of the Interior.

Apart altogether from their disloyalty to me, Goering and Himmler have brought irreparable shame on the country and the whole nation by secretly negotiating with the enemy without my knowledge and against my will, and also by illegally attempting to seize control of the state.

In order to give the German people a government composed of honorable men who will fulfill the task of continuing the war with all means, as the leader of the nation I appoint the following members of the new Cabinet: President, Doenitz; Chancellor, Dr. Goebbels; Party Minister, Bormann; Foreign Minister, Seyss-Inquart; Minister of the Interior, Gauleiter Giesler; Minister of War, Doenitz; Supreme Commander of the Army, Schoerner; Supreme Commander of the Navy, Doenitz; Supreme Commander of the Air Force, Greim; Reichsfuehrer of the SS and Chief of the German Police, Gauleiter Hanke; Industry, Funk; Agriculture, Backe; Justice, Theirack; Culture, Dr. Scheel; Propaganda, Dr. Naumann; Finance, Schwerin-Krosigk; Labor, Dr. Hupfauer; Armaments, Sauer; Leader of German Labor Front and member of the Cabinet, Reichsminister Dr. Ley.

Although a number of these men, such as Martin Bormann, Goebbels, etc,, as well as their wives, have come to me of their own free will, wishing under no circumstances to leave the Reich capital, but instead to fall with me here, I must nevertheless ask them to obey my request and, in this case, put the interests of the nation above their own feelings. They will stand as near to me through their work and their loyalty as comrades after death, as I hope that my spirit will remain among them and always be with them. May they be severe but never unjust, may they above all never allow fear to influence their actions, and may they place the honor of the nation above everything on earth.

May they finally be conscious that our task, the establishment of a National Socialist State, represents the work of centuries to come and obliges each individual person always to serve the common interest before his own advantage. I ask all Germans, all National Socialists, men, women and all soldiers of the army, to be loyal and obedient to the new Government and its President until death.

Above all, I enjoin the Government of the nation and the people to uphold the racial laws to the limit and to resist mercilessly the poisoner of all nations, international Jewry.

Berlin, 29 April, 1945, 0400 hours.

Adolf Hitler

Witnesses: Dr, Joseph Goebbels, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Martin Bormann, Hans Krebs.

 

Appendix by Goebbels

The Fuehrer has ordered me to leave Berlin if the defense of the Reich's capital collapses and take part as a leading member in the Government appointed by him.

For the first time in my life I must categorically refuse. Apart from the fact that on the grounds of fellow-feeling and personal loyalty we could never bring ourselves to leave the Fuehrer alone in his hour of greatest need, I would otherwise appear for the rest of my life a dishonorable traitor and a common scoundrel and would lose my own self-respect as well as the respect of my fellow-citizens, a respect that I should need in any further service in the future rebuilding of the German nation and the German State.

In the nightmare of treason that surrounds the Fuehrer in these most critical days of the war, there must be at least some people to stay with him unconditionally until death, even if this contradicts the formal and, from a material point of view, entirely justifiable order that he gives in his political testament.

I believe I am thereby doing the best service to the future of the German people. In the hard times to come, examples will be more important than men. Men will always be found to show the nation the way out of its tribulations, but a reconstruction of the national life would be impossible if it were not inspired by examples that are clear and easily understandable.

For this reason, together with my wife and on behalf of my children, who are too young to be able to speak for themselves, and who if they were sufficiently old would agree with this decision without reservation, I express my unalterable decision not to leave the Reich capital even if it falls, and at the side of the Fuehrer to end a life that for me personally will have no further value if I cannot spend it at the service of the Fuehrer and at his side.