Hitler's Diaries: The Mind & God & "Wisdom" & Philosophy of
Adolf Hitler (Edited, compiled, analyzed, etc., by edited by Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D. )
Chapter 5 On Politics by Adolf Hitler Edited by R. Joseph, Ph.D.
"TELL A LIE ENOUGH TIMES AND IT BECOMES THE TRUTH."
In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility. The broad masses...more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.
"Give a propagandist reason for starting the war." 'The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war it is not right that matters, but victory." (593)."
At the beginning of our movement, I acted above all by intuition. During my imprisonment I had time to provide my philosophy with a natural, historical foundation. From their own point of view, the rulers of the day made a miscalculation in locking me up. They would have been far wiser to let me make speeches all the time, without giving me any respite!
That whoever comes to visit us may be cured of his prejudices concerning us. I don;t want to force National Socialism on anybody. If I;m told that some countries want to remain democrats;very well, they must remain democrats at all costs! The French, for example, ought to retain their parties. The more social-revolutionary parties they have in their midst, the better it will be for us.
When one wants to deceive an adversary by simulating weakness, what a mistake to use a brave man and ask him to simulate the weakness for you! Itís better to choose somebody who is out-and-out weak.
I sent a few of our own people to take a course in public speaking in the schools organised by the other parties. Thanks to this, we obtained a good insight into the arguments which would be used by those sent to heckle at our meetings, and we were, thus, in a position to silence them the moment they opened their mouths. I dealt with the women from the Marxist camp who took part in the discussions by making them look ridiculous, by drawing attention either to the holes in their stockings or to the fact that their children were filthy. To convince women by reasoned argument is always impossible; to have had them roughly handled by the ushers of the meetings would have aroused public indignation, and so our best plan was to have recourse to ridicule, and this produced excellent results.
At all my meeting, I always spoke extempore. I had, however, a number of Party members in the audience, with orders to interrupt along lines carefully prepared to give the impression of a spontaneous expression of public opinion, and these interruptions greatly strengthened the force of my arguments.
If the police intervened, women of our Party were given the task of drawing their attention either to opponents or to completely unknown people who happened to find themselves near the entrance to the hall. In cases like this, the police invariably go about their job quite blindly, like a pack of hounds, and we found that this method was most efficacious, both for ridding ourselves of undesirable elements of the audience, and for getting rid of the police themselves.
I disorganised the meetings of other Parties by sending members of our Party in the guise of ushers to maintain order, but in reality, with instructions to riot and break up the meeting.
By judicious use of all the above methods, I succeeded in winning the support of such large numbers of the better elements of the working classes that, in the last elections that took place before our assumption of power, I was able to organise no fewer than a hundred and eighty thousand Party meetings.
Julius Streicher rendered particularly valuable service in our struggle to gain the support of the working classes. And now, it is he whom we must thank for the capture of Nuremberg, that one-time stronghold of Marxism. The population of that cityóin so far as they were interested in any way in politics, and with the exception of the Jewish colonyówas made up of working men who were members either of the Socialist Party or of the Communist Party.
By his unrelenting attacks on the Jews, Streicher succeeded in alienating the workmen from their Jewish masters. Even so, the workers of Nuremberg, engaged for the most part in the metal trades, were by no means an unintelligent lot, and they were most stubborn adherents of Marxism. Streicherís success, then, is all the more meritorious, and he showed himself to be a master of tactics in the handling of a meeting. Not only did he annihilate the shop stewards with a torrent of ridicule, but he deprived them of any means of retaliation, and made use of their discomfiture as an additional weapon with which to convince the workers.
Propaganda destined for abroad must not in any way be base on that used for home consumption.
Broadcasts to Britain, for example, must contain plenty of music of the kind that is popular among Britons. In this way, when their own transmitting stations starve them of music, they will acquire the habit of listening-in more and more to the concerts we broadcast for them. As regards news-bulletins to Britain, we should confine ourselves to plain statements of facts, without comment on their value or importance. News about British high finance, its interests in certain sections of the armament industry, in the leadership and conduct of the war should be given without comment, but couched in such a way that the British listeners will themselves draw their own conclusions. As the old saying has it, little drops of water will gradually wear the stone away.
For our own people, we must broadcast not only the facts, but also copious and precise commentaries on their importance and significance. Good propaganda must be stimulating. Our stations must, therefore, go on talking about the drunkard Churchill and the criminal Roosevelt on every possible occasion.
In politics, that is generally a medicine that is always effective. Somehow, politics is always a struggle, a pressure one side tries to exert. If one pushes back, the attack becomes reinforced. If one evades it and offers no resistance whatsoever, then the push stops being a push and becomes a gust of air. But as such, it cannot pull down anything, it has failed of its purpose and in time, it will give up.
The worst that can happen to a person, to a party, to a people is that it is ignored to death, that no one anywhere talks about it or reads about it.
But that's the odd thing! Our political enemies at home and abroad are our beast propagandists. Even if we make mistakes, the others make the error of not exclusively harping on our mistake, but instead, use it to pull into the mud everything they want to oppose about us.
We thank God that we are not like them!îóif only they knew how terribly stupid they are and how, by their behavior, they are performing precisely our work, theyíd almost die of shame. But they are so stupid that they do not even realize it. May God preserve them for us! Without them, we would never attain power.
Once, in 1932, in Nuremberg, Hitler attacked the aged Reich President in a speech: although the party had emerged as the strongest in a new Reichstag election, the Reich President had not charged Hitler with forming a national government, as both democratic principles and parliamentary order would have required; instead, Hitler was expected to let himself be fobbed off with the position of vice-chancellor.
But you know my belief that in politics, one must never say beforehand what one is doing or is going to do. Only when there is no way of proceeding without making oneís action publicóonly then may one do so. But even then, one should reveal oneís purpose only to those who absolutely must know, and even to these people one should say only as much as is absolutely necessary to attain the intended objective. The best thing is surprise action! If there is a lot of talk beforehand about some great plan, it is generally flogged death, and the action never occurs. At the very least, its success is jeopardized.
That is why the senate is pointless or even dangerous so long as we have not carried out and succeeded in our plans, our program, our goal.
Did you hear about Prince Wilhelm's marriage? A Fr‰ulein Salviati? Not a princess! Are those Hohenzollerns completely out of their minds? If there had ever been a chance of offering this Prince Wilhelm to the German Volk in an election, it could only be with the support of the centuries-old tradtion of this foremost German ruling house. Once the tradition is thrown overboard, the idea has to be abandoned as well. The concept of a monarchy in Germany is dead and buried.
One should read the opposition press much more carefully, and I regret especially that I cannot read any foreign papers. For the friendly papers and pamphlets allow you to understand what you may do, but the hostile ones tell you what you must do.
Adolf Muller came in, very excited, and declared: ìI think weíve won. We may get sixty-six seats.î I replied that if the German people could think correctly, it would give us more than that. Within myself, I was saying: ìIf it could be a hundred!î Suddenly, we found ourselves with the certainty of a hundred seats. M¸ller offered to stand a round of drinks. It went up to a hundred and seven! How to express what I felt at that moment? Weíd gone up from twelve seats to a hundred and seven.
Anyone at all can be made a president, but itís not possible to give the title of ìFuehrerî to a nobody.
What a happy inspiration I had, to refuse the title of President of the Reich. You can imagine it: President Adolf Hitler!
There is no finer title than that of Fuehrer, for it was born spontaneously in the people. As for the expression ìmy Fuehrerî, I imagine it was born in the mouth of women. When I wished to influence ìthe old gentlemanî, I used to address him as ìHerr Generalfeldmarschallî. It was only an official occasions that I used to say to him: ìHerr Pr‰sidentî. It was Hindenburg, by the way, who gave prestige to the presidential title. These fine shades may seem to be trifles, but they have their importance. Theyíre what give the framework its rigidity.
On another occasion, I said to Baur: ìWe must go, weíre expected at Munich.î We had no equipment for night flying. So Baur had had an improvised lighting system installed. On arriving at Munich, we wheeled around above the stadium. It was at the time of the Papen elections, when we got our two hundred and ninety-seven seats. That same day, Iíd had meetings at Constance, Friedrichshafen and Kempten. At the meeting in Munich, I could hardly speak. I was dizzy. As I went back home, I thought I was going to faint. I got nothing easily in those days! I remember I once spoke at Stralsund at three oíclock in the morning.
These rapid, incessant moves were due to the necessity of my speaking sometimes in great halls and sometimes in the open air, and we didnít always have a choice of dates. For example, on my birthday in 1932. The day before, Iíd held six meetings at Kˆnigsberg, the last ending at half-past two in the morning. I was in bed by five, and by half-past eight I was back on the airfield. A young girl of ravishing beauty offered me a nosegay, and I regarded that as a happy omen. Meetings at Schneidem¸hl, at Kassel, then at Gˆttingen, where from forty to fifty thousand people were waiting for us in the night, under torrential rain.
Next day, at three o'clock in the morning, we set out by car for Wiesbaden, Trier and Koblenz. The organisation of these round-trips was very difficult, for we had to take mainly into account the possibility of getting halls.My weakness is for motor-cars. I owe it some of the finest hours of my life. The Rhine seen form the air is no great shakes. In a car itís better. But the ideal thing is in a boat.
My first intervention dates two and a half years back. We had to shoot nine agitators and send two thousand five hundred people into concentration camps. Order was restored instantly.
The most impertinent are always those who are treated with the greatest respect. In their eyes, consideration is a sign of weakness or stupidity. Iíd rather be regarded as a brute than as an idiot.
I had a great number of loyal supporters in Munich. They had everything to lose, by adopting this position, and nothing to win. To-day, when I happen to meet one of them, it moves me extraordinarily. They showed a truly touching attachment towards me. Small stallkeepers of the markets used to come running to see me ìto bring a couple of eggs to Herr Hitlerî. There were important like Pˆschl, Fuess and Gahr, but also quite small men, whom to-day I find much aged. Iím so fond of these unpretentious fellows.
Our newspaper-sellers were often boycotted and beaten up.
It's a great time, when an entirely unknown man can set out to conquer a nation, and when after fifteen years of struggle, he can become, in effect, the head of his people. I had the luck to number some strong personalities among my supporters.
It wonít be easy,î he added, ìfor the ëold gentlemanísí habits of thinking and feeling are in revolt against all you represent.î
I must recognise that Meissner was the first man who made me understand Hindenburgís exact situation.
Hindenburg invited me: ìHerr Hitler, I wish to hear from your own mouth a summary of your ideas.î It is almost impossible, across such a gap, to communicate to others oneís own conception of the world. I tried to establish contact with the Field-Marshal by having recourse to comparisons of a military nature. Connection was fairly rapidly made with the soldier, but the difficulty began the instant there was a question of extending our dawning comprehension to politics. When Iíd finish my summary, I felt that Iíd moved Hindenburg and that he was yielding. At once, he made this a pretext for reproaching me with an incident that had occurred in East Prussia: ìBut your young people have no right to behave as they do. Not long ago, at Tannenberg, they shouted out, so that I could hear: ëWake up, wake up!í And yet, Iím not asleep!î Certain charitable souls had given ìthe old gentlemanî to suppose that the shout was meant for him personally, whereas in reality, our supporters were shouting: ìWake up, Germany!î (Deutschland, erwacheóa Nazi slogan).
Shortly after this interview, Hindenburg informed me that he would consult me whenever there was a decision to take. But the influence of the enemies I numbered amongst those about me remained so strong that even in 1933, I couldnít see him except in the presence of Papen. One day, Papen being absent, I appeared in the Field-Marshalís presence by myself.
Why is Herr von Papen always with you?î he asked. ìBut itís you I want to talk to!î When Papen came back, he must have regretted the trip that had called him away.
"The old gentleman' regarded Papen as a sort of greyhound, but I think he was fond of him. Papen knew admirably how to handle him. We owe a debt of gratitude to Papen, by the way, for it was he who opened the first breach in the sacred constitution.
Marvelous result!î Papen said to me, after his return from Geneva, speaking of the hundred and fifty thousand millions that appeared on paper. ìWith that, on the 30th of January, weíll have eighty-three millions in the Reichís vaults!î Then we had the following dialogue: ìWith what do you propose to pay?î ìBut weíll have to pay, otherwise theyíll make us go bankrupt.î ìHow will they do that? They have nothing to distrain on!î
When I demanded three thousand millions for rearmament, I again met this objection of what we owed abroad. I replied: ìYou want to give this money to foreigners? Letís rather use it in our own country!î
I made my point of view clear to the British Ambassador when he presented his credentials. His reply was: ìYou mean to say that the new Germany does not recognise the obligations of preceding governments?î I replied: ìFreely negotiated agreements, yes! But blackmail, no! Everything that comes under the headings of Treaty of Versailles I regard as extortion.î ìWell, I never!î he said. ìI shall immediately inform my Government of that.î
Never again, from that day on, did England or France think themselves entitled to claim the smallest payment from us.
As regards the English, I had no worries. But I feared that the French might take this pretext for occupying Mainz, for example.
What luck for governments that the peoples they administer donít think! The thinking is done by the man who gives the orders, and then by the man who carries them out. If it were otherwise, the state of society would be impossible.
I don't see anything in politics, anyway, but a means to an end. Some people suppose it would deeply grieve me to give up the activity that occupies me at this moment. They are deeply mistaken, for the finest day of my life will be that on which I leave politics behind me, with its griefs and torments. When the warís over, and I have the sense of having accomplished my duties, I shall retire. Then, I would like to devote five or ten years to clarifying my thought and setting it down on paper. Wars pass by. The only things that exist are the works of human genius.
As an orator, my most dangerous opponent was Ballerstedt. What a feat it was to hold my own against him! His father was a Hessian, his mother was from Lorraine. He was a diabolical dialectician. To give his hearers the impression that he agreed with them, heíd begin with a eulogy of the Prussians. Iíve been condemned several times for accusing this man of treasonóand yet, he was in fact sold to the French.
Finally, I got three monthís imprisonment for breaking up one of his meetings.
The Court recorded that this was simply a matter of a policy which I, personally, regarded as treason.
The experience Iíve had, in the course of my life, of the stupidity of lawyers has resulted in these peopleís being definitely classified, in my view. Theyíre the people who used to burn witches!
My first long term of imprisonment was at Stadelheim. As he led me into my cell, the warder amiably pointed out to me that a number of celebrated men had lived there before: Ludwig Thoma, for exampleóand likewise Kurt Eisner.
The confessions of this Swiss interested me in so far as they confirmed my conviction that not a soul could cope with an assassin who, for idealistic reasons, was prepared quite ruthlessly to hazard his own life in the execution of his object. I quite understand why 90 per cent of the historic assassinations have been successful. The only preventive measure one can take is to live irregularlyóto walk, to drive, and to travel at irregular times and unexpectedly. But that, after all, is merely normal caution, and not prevention.
As far as is possible, whenever I go anywhere by car, I go off unexpectedly and without warning the police. I also have given Ratenhuber, the commander of my personal Security Squad, and Kempka, my chauffeur, the strictest orders to maintain absolute secrecy about my comings and goings, and have further impressed on them that this order must still be obeyed even when the highest officials in the land make enquiries.
As soon as the police get to hear that I am going somewhere they abandon al normal procedure and adopt emergency measures, which, to say the least of it, are most alarming to normal people, and yet they never seem to realise that it is just these emergency antics which are conspicuous and draw attention where no attention is desired. I had a splendid example of this sort of thing when, at the time of the Anschluss, I went to Vienna and Pressburg. The police raised the alarm along the whole route both from Vienna to Nicolsburg and on to Pressburgóan action which was all the more dangerous because they simply did not have the necessary forces at their disposal to guard the roads. Apart from this, the Gestapo plain-clothes men dressed themselves in such an astonishing collection of clothesórough woollen mackintosh coats, ostlerís capes and so forthóthat I, and indeed any moron, could recognise them for what they were at a glance. When I gave orders that we were to follow a route other than the one agreed upon and were to stop, like any other citizen, at the traffic lights in the villages, I was able to continue my journey unnoticed and unmolested.
Police protection is of great importance only on those occasions when the date, time, and place have been precisely fixed. Even on these occasions the activities of the police have a disturbing effect, cause crowds to collect and lead to endless difficulties. These things, however, must be accepted with good grace on occasion like the First of May, the Ninth of November, the Harvest Festival of Buckeburg, where seven hundred thousand people foregather, and my own birthday. In the midst of such crowds, it is easy for some fanatic armed with a telescopic-sighted firearm to take a shot at me from some corner or other; any likely hole or corner, therefore, must be kept under careful observation. During the hours of darkness, police searchlights must be so sited that their rays light up these danger-spots and are not, as happened to me in Hamburg, concentrated all the time on my own car.
I have now installed a searchlight in the back of the car, which allows me to blind the driver of any following car at will.
In the political field, there is no stupider a class than the bourgeoisie. It is sufficient for an end to be put to some individual's activities, on the score that he is a public menace, and, for reasons of security, for him to be arrested, tried, condemned and put to death, and immediately these tender souls set up a howl and denounce us as brutes.
I am firmly opposed to any attempt to export National Socialism. If other countries are determined to preserve their democratic systems and thus rush to their ruin, so much the better for us.
Obviously, then, those in authority must never permit their decisions to be criticised by those subordinate to them.
When I roundly refused to consider any compromise and accept the Vice-Chancellorship in a von Papen Cabinet, and after the vain and treacherous attempts of General Schleicher, supported by Gregor Strasser, had failed to split the solid unity of the Party, political tension reached its zenith. Not only did Schleicher fail to win over a log-rolling majority in the Reichstag, but as a result of his go-slow policy as regards national economy, the number of unemployed rose, during the first fifteen days of his regime, by no less than a quarter of a million. In January 1933óone month, that is, after his assumption of officeóSchleicher saw no other alternative but to dissolve the Reichstag and form a military Cabinet, upheld solely by the support of the President of the Reich.
But the idea of a military dictatorship, in spite of his great personal confidence in General Schleicher, filled old von Hindenburg with the liveliest apprehension. For in his heart of hearts, the Old Gentlemen was opposed to soldiers meddling in politics; besides that, he was not prepared to go further in the delegation of political plenipotentiary power than he felt himself able to do in accordance with his constitutional oath.
Faced with this situation of extreme political tension, von Hindenburg, through the intermediary of von Papen, approached me, and in the famous Cologne conversations explored the ground. For myself, I had the impression that all was going well for me. I made it quite clear, therefore, that I would not hear of any compromise, and threw myself, heart and soul, personally into the Lippe electoral campaign.
After the electoral victory at Lippeóa success whose importance it is not possible to over-estimateóthe advisers of the Old Gentleman approached me once more. A meeting was arranged at Ribbentrop's house with Hindenburg's son and Herr von Papen.
At this juncture, I deliberately neglected my work within the Party in order to take part in these negotiations, because I considered it of the highest importance that I should legitimately take over the Chancellorship with the blessing of the Old Gentleman. For it was only as constitutionally elected Chancellor, obviously, and before undertaking any measures of reconstruction, that I could overcome the opposition of all the other political parties, and avoid finding myself in constant conflict with the Wehrmacht. My decision to attain power constitutionally was influenced primarily by my knowledge of the attitude of the Wehrmacht vis-‡-vis the Chancellorship. If I had seized power illegally, the Wehrmacht would have constituted a dangerous breeding place for a coup díÈtat in the nature of the Rˆhm putsch; by acting constitutionally, on the other hand, I was in a position to restrict the activities of the Wehrmacht to its legal and strictly limited military functionóat least until such a time as I was able to introduce conscription. Once that was accomplished, the influx into the Wehrmacht of the masses of the people, together with the spirit of National Socialism and with the ever-growing power of the National Socialist movement, would, I was sure, allow me to overcome all opposition among the armed forces, and in particular in the corps of officers.
On 24th January 1933óthe day after the SA assault on the Karl Liebknecht-Haus in Berlin had resulted in a tremendous loss of prestige for the Communist Party and caused great indignation in BerlinóI was again invited by von Papen to a conference. Von Papen told me at once that Schleicher had formally asked the Old Gentleman for plenipotentiary powers to set up a military dictatorship, but that the latter had refused and had stated that he proposed inviting Adolf Hitler, in the rÙle of leader of a national front, to accept the Chancellorship and to form a Government, with the proviso that von Papen should be nominated Vice-Chancellor.
I replied that I took cognisance of the offer, and, without permitting any discussion of detail, stated the conditions under which I was prepared to accept.
The negotiations for the formation of a Government were further complicated by General Schleicher and his clique, who did all in their power to wreck them. General von Hammerstein, Schleicherís most trusted colleague and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, was even stupid enough to have the impertinence to ring me up and tell me that ìunder no circumstances would the Wehrmacht sanction my acceptance of the Chancellorshipî! If Herr Schleicher and his friends really imagined they could shake my determination with puerilities of this sort, they were grievously mistaken.
On 28th January, the Weimar Republic finally collapsed. Schleicher resigned, and von Papen was instructed to sound the various parties with a view to the formation of a new Government.
The next afternoon, Gˆring brought me the news that on the morrow, the Old Gentlemen proposed officially to invite me to accept the Chancellorship and the task of forming the Government.
Late in the afternoon, we were surprised by a completely insane action by Schleicher and his clique. According to the information received from Lieut.-Colonel von Alvensleben, General von Hammerstein had put the Potsdam garrison on an alarming footing; the Old Gentlemen was to be bundled off to East Prussia to prevent his interference, and the Wehrmacht was to be mobilised to stop by force the assumption of power by the NSDAP.
My immediate counter-action to this planned putsch was to send for the Commander of the Berlin SA, Graf Helldorf, and through him to alert the whole SA of Berlin. At the same time, I instructed Major Wecke of the Police, whom I knew I could trust, to prepare for a sudden seizure of the Wilhelmstrasse by six police battalions. Through Herr von Papen, I informed the Old Gentleman of the Schleicher cliqueís intentions. Finally, I instructed General von Blomberg (who had been selected as Reichswehr Minister elect) to proceed at once, on arrival in Berlin at 8 a.m. on the 30th January, direct to the Old Gentleman to be sworn in, and thus to be in a position, as Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, to suppress any possible attempts at a coup díÈtat.
By eleven oíclock on the morning of 30th January, I was able to inform the Old Gentleman that the new Cabinet had been formed, and that the majority in the Reichstag required by constitution to enable it to function had been acquired. Shortly afterwards, I received at the hands of the Old Gentleman my appointment as Chancellor of the German Reich.
Apart from the difficulties inherent in the formation of a Government, I very quickly realised that the Old Gentleman had called upon me to accept the Chancellorship only because he could see other constitutional way out of the political impasse. This was obvious from the number of conditions he imposed. He informed me, for instance, that all questions connected with the Reichswehr, the Foreign Office and overseas appointments remained in his hands. He further decided that von Papen must be present whenever he received me officially; and it was only after much hesitation and the intervention of Meissner, that the Old Gentleman was pleased to sign the order for the dissolution of Reichstag, which I had managed to rattle through during the session of 31st January.
Within a week or so, however, my relations with Hindenburg began to improve.
Within three weeks, we had progressed so far that his attitude towards me became affectionate and paternal.
When later the first results of the elections began to come in, our relations had attained such a degree of frank cordiality, that the Old Gentleman exclaimed in a voice charged with real satisfaction: ìHitler wins!î
And when the overwhelming victory of the National Socialists was confirmed, he told me straight out that he had always been averse to the parliamentary game and was delighted that the comedy of elections was now done with, once and for all.
I had some difficulty, also, in persuading the Old Gentleman of the necessity of curtailing the liberty of the press. On this occasion, I played a little trick on him and addressed him not a civilian with ìMr. Presidentî, but as a soldier with ìField Marshalî, and developed the argument that in the Army criticism from below was never permittedóonly the reverse, for what would happen if the N.C.O. passed judgement on the orders of the captain, the captain on those of the general and so on? This the Old Gentleman admitted and without further ado approved of my policy, saying: ìYou are quite right, only superiors have the right to criticise!î And with these words, the freedom of the press was doomed.
For the fact that the Old Gentleman so faithfully followed my lead and always did his utmost to understand my intentions, I am deeply grateful.
If you wish to wage war successfully or to lead a people successfully through a difficult period of its history, you must have no doubts whatever on one pointónamely, any individual who in such times tries, either actively or passively, to exclude himself from the activities of the community, must be destroyed.
One day, the police made a raid on the Brown House. I had in my strong-box some documents of the highest importance. One of the keys I had on me, and I happened to be in Berlin. The other was in Hessís possession. The police demanded he should open the strong-box. He excused himself for not being able to do so, pleading that I was absent and it was I who had the key. The police therefore had to content themselves with putting seals on the box and waiting for my return. Hess had informed me by telephone of this search. Two days later, he told me I could return. The fact was, he had noticed that it was possible to unscrew the handles on which the seals had been placed. Very cleverly, Hess had himself performed this operation, had opened the box with his own key, and had shut it again (replacing the seals), after having emptied it of compromising documents.
What a struggle there was before we could obtain the right to hoist our flag over the Brown House! The police were against it but they were not themselves in agreement on the subject, and they even brought us in to be present at their disputes. For once our luck lay in the immeasurable stupidity of the lawyers.
It was Weber who opened up for us, unknown to the proprietor, the Villa Lehmann, in which we locked up the members of the Government. Weíd threatened them that if a single one of them attempted to flee, weíd shoot them all. Their panic was so great that they remained shut up for two days, though the revolution had come to an end long before. When Lehmann returned to his house, he was quite surprised to discover this brilliant assemblage.
It's destiny that wishes us to be adversaries. To put it briefly, the Czechs are a foreign body in the midst of the German community. Thereís no room both for them and for us. One of us must give way.
As regards the pole, itís lucky for us that heís idle, stupid and vain. The Czech Stateóand thatís due to the training the Czechs have hadówas a model of honesty. Corruption practically didnít exist amongst them. Czech officials are generally inspired by a sense of honour. Thatís why a man like Hacha is more dangerous than a rogue of a journalist.
All possibilities exist in it, for good as well as for evil. The duty of National Socialism inevitably boils down to this: all that is best in the people should be allowed ceaselessly to develop.
Our conquest of power was not made without difficulty. The regimes played all its cards, without forgetting a single one, to postpone the fatal event as long as possible.
The inflation could have been overcome. The decisive thing was our home war-debt; in other words, the yearly payment of ten thousand millions in interest on a debt of a hundred and sixty-six thousand millions.
To pay the interest, the people was compelled to walk the plank with paper money;hence the depreciation of the currency. The just thing would have been: firstly, to suspend payment of interest on the debt; secondly, to put a very heavy tax on the scandalous war-profits.
Even to Schacht, I had to begin by explaining this elementary truth: that the essential cause of the stability of our currency was to be sought for in our concentration camps. The currency remains stable when the speculators are put under lock and key.
The basis of Jewish commercial policy is to make matters incomprehensible for a normal brain.
Under the name of ;Ministry of Foreign Affairs;, we are supporting an organisation one of whose functions is to keep us informed of what is happengin abroad;and we know nothing.
Diplomats move in a closed circle.
An up-to-date legation should include, above all, half a dozen young attaches who would busy themselves with influential women.
It's the only way. In the old days, when we wanted to lay siege to an industrialist, we attacked him through his children.
The success of my Four Year Plan is explained precisely by the fact that I set everybody to work, in an economy within a closed circle. It wasn;t by means of rearmament that I solved the problem of unemployment, for I did practically nothing in that field during the first years.
But it was impossible to get the project accepted by the Ministry of Economics. It was objected that, since the foreign market was offering petrol at nice pfennige, it was ridiculous to produce it at home for double that price. It was no use my replying that our unemployed to work; I was met with faulty arguments.
How glad I'd had been in 1933 to find the possibility, in one way or another, of giving the workers jobs! Night and day I racked my brains to know how to set about it in order to bring the ponderous machine of the Economy back into motion. Whoever opened a new firm, I freed him from taxes. When business is going well, the money flows back into the State;s coffers!
Anyone who sells about the set prices, let him be marched off into a concentration camp!
The Party must continue to be as tough as it was during the conquest of power. It;s necessary that the Fuehrer should at all times have the certainty that he can count on the unshakable support of the members of the Party, and that he can count on it all the more inasmuch as certain compatriots, beneath the weight of circumstances, should prove to be waverers. The Party cannot drag dead weights with it, it can do nothing with the lukewarm. If there are any such amongst us, let them be expelled! To those who hold in their hands the destinies of the country, it can be a matter of indifference that not all the bourgeois are behind them; but they must have this certainty;that the Party forms a buttress as solid as granite to support their power.
National Socialist demonstration at Coburg;Successful rioting;Dispersion of the Reds
Coburg. It was the first time we received a positive invitation. I accepted immediately. We must not let such an opportunity escape us. I took eight hundred men. Others were to join us, from Saxony and Thuringia.
At Nuremberg we had our first encounter. Our train, which was beflagged, was not to the taste of some Jews installed in a train halted beside ours.
Dietrich came hobbling over to me to tell me that he;d made an agreement with the Trades Unions, by the terms of which we undertook not to march in ranks, with flags and music in front of us. I pointed out that he had no authority to give undertakings in my name, and that I would pay no attention to them.
A real populace! Things were going to warm up. At once I put myself at the head. We were led, not to the rifle-range, but to the Hofbrauhaus. Around us was an innumberable crowd, shouting, howling, threatening. When we were inside, Dietrich told me that for the present it was impossible for us to go to our billets. At this moment the gate of the beer-hall was barricaded by the police. ;Good God!; I exclaimed. A policeman came and told me we were forbidden to leave the building, since the police declared itself unable to guarantee our protection. I replied that this protection of theirs was no concern of mine, that we were capable of protecting ourselves, and that I ordered him to open the gate. This he did, but explaining that I was compelling him to bow to force. I said to myself: ;If I see a single one of our fellows flinch, I;ll tear off his brassard!; Once we were outside, we gave them such a thrashing that in ten minutes; time the st
street was cleared.
All our weapons came in useful: our musicians; trumpets came out of the affray twisted and dented.
We slept on straw. During the night I learnt that a group of my supporters had been attacked. I sent a few men to the rescue, and soon afterwards three Reds were brought back to me;three Reds whose faces were no longer human. It was at this moment that a policeman confided to me: ;You can;t imagine how we suffer under the domination of these dogs. If only we;d know that you;d settle their hash like that!; I told him that this was the special treatment we reserved for the rabble.
Leaflets were distributed in the street, inviting the population to a counter-manifestation. At the hour stated, we were on the scene. We saw about a hundred and fifty Reds assembling, but at sight of us they took flight. We then went, in procession, to the Citadel, and came down again from it. I;d ordered my men to strike down the first man who hesitated. After our return, we were greeted with cheers from all the windows. The bourgeoisie had regained courage.
I needed men who could fight. I had no use for the sort of timid doctrinaires who whisper subversive plans into your ear. I preferred men who didn;t mind getting their hands dirty.
Bearing in mind our origins, one can only be stupefied by the results obtained in four years. I had Munich, and I controlled a newspaper.
It's at this period that we laid the first foundations of our present Reich. When I think of the persecutions we met with! Newspapers suspended, meetings forbidden or sabotaged. Seen in retrospect, this was the golden age of our struggle. My entry into the Chancellery marks the end of that inspiring life.
Until then, nine out of ten of the men with whom I was in contact belonged to the people. From that moment onwards, nine out ten belonged to distinguished society. It was a turning upside down of my entire existence.
Churchill is the very type of a corrupt journalist. Thereís not a worse prostitute in politics.
He himself has written that itís unimaginable what can be done in war with the help of lies.
He's an utterly amoral, repulsive creature. Iím convinced that he has his place of refuge ready beyond the Atlantic. He obviously wonít seek sanctuary in Canada. In Canada, heíd be beaten up. Heíll go to his friends, the Yankees.
Muller came in, very excited, and declared: ;I think we've won. We may get sixty-six seats.; I replied that if the German people could think correctly, it would give us more than that. Within myself I was saying: ;If it could be a hundred!; Suddenly, we found ourselves with the certainty of a hundred seats. Muller offered to stand a round of drinks. It went up to a hundred and seven! How to express what I felt at that moment; We;d gone up from twelve seats to a hundred and seven.
It will be one of National Socialismís merits that it knew how to stop the revolution at the proper moment. Itís very nice to see the people arise, but one must be a realist to go further than phrases. Nobody any longer counts the revolutions that have miscarried, or that degenerated for lack of being led. Iíve not forgotten the difficulties I had to overcome in 1933 and 1934. Revolution opens a sluice-gate, and itís often impossible to curb the masses on has let loose.
A revolution has three main objectives. First of all, itís a matter of breaking down the partitions between classes, so as to enable every man to rise. Secondly, itís a matter of creating a standard of living such that the poorest will be assured of a decent existence. Finally, itís a matter of acting in such a way that the benefits of civilisation become common property.
The people who call themselves democrats blame us for our social policy as if it were a kind of disloyalty: according to them, it imperils the privileges of the owning classes. They regard it as an attack on liberty; for liberty, in their view, is the right of those who have power to continue to exercise it. I understand their reaction very wellóbut we had no choice. National Socialism is a purely German phenomenon, and we never intended to revolutionise the world.
In virtue of what law, divine or otherwise, should the rich alone have the right to govern? The world is passing at this moment through one of the most important revolutions in human history. We are witnessing the final somersaults of Christianity. It began with the Lutheran revolution. The revolutionary nature of that rebellion lies in the fact that until then there had been only one authority, on both the spiritual and the temporal level, that of the Popeófor it was he who delegated temporal power.
The problem of monopolies handed over to capitalist interests interested me even in my boyhood. Iíd been struck by the example of the Danube Shipping Company, which received an annual subsidy of four millions, a quarter of which was at once shared out amongst its twelve directors. Each of the big parties was represented in this august college by at least two of its members, each of them pocketing about eighty million kronen yearly! One may feel sure that these mandarins saw to it that the comrades voted punctually for the renewal of the subsidy! But the Socialists were acquiring more and more importance, and it happened that none of their lot was on the board. Thatís why the scandal broke. The Company was attacked in the Parliament and in the press. Threatened with being deprived of the subsidy, it replied by abolishing the passenger-service. And since the politicians on the board had already taken care that no railway should be built along the Danube, the riverside populations were the chief victims of these arbitrary measures. A solution of the conflict was found quite rapidlyóand you can imagine which! Quite simply, the number of members of the board was increased to fourteen, and the two new seats were offered to two well-known Socialistsówho hastened to accept them.
From the moment of our seizure of power, having my own set ideas on the subject, I took the precaution of forbidding every director of a company to be a member of the Reichstag. Since men who have interests in a private company cannot be objective on a great number of questions, I likewise forbade office-holders in the Party to take part in business of a capitalist complexion. The same prohibition applies, by the way, to all servants of the State. I, therefore, cannot allow an official, whether he belongs to the Army or to the civil administration, to invest his savings in industry, except in companies controlled by the State.
In the National Socialist form of State, the title ìFuehrerî is the most suitable. It implies, amongst other things, the idea that the Head of the State has been chosen by the German people.
The stupefaction caused in Europe by that title of ìEmperorî is well characterized by the gesture of Beethoven, who tore up a symphony he had just dedicated to Napoleon. He trampled on the fragments, exclaiming: ìHeís not the extraordinary man I believed, heís only a man!î
What's tragic in Napoleon's case is that when he adopted the imperial title, formed a court and instituted a ceremonial, he didnít realise that, by making common cause with degenerates, he was merely putting himself on their level. Personally, I should regard it as an example of pure lunacy if anyone came and offered me, for example, a dukedom. It would be like asking me to recognise bonds of kinship with all the dwarfs who bear the title.
Since the beginning of my political activity, I have made it a rule not to curry favour with the bourgeoisie. The political attitude of that class is marked by the sign of cowardice. It concerns itself exclusively with order and tranquillity, and we know in what sense to understand that. I aimed, instead, to awaken the enthusiasm of the working-class world for my ideas. The first years of my struggle were, therefore, concentrated on the object: win over the worker to the National Socialist Party. Hereís how I set about it:
I followed the example of the Marxist parties by putting up posters in the most striking red.
I used propaganda trucks that were literally carpeted with posters of a flaming red, equipped with equally red flags and occupied by thundering loud-speakers.
I saw to it that all the initiates of the movement came to meetings without stiff collars and without ties, adopting the free-and-easy style so as to get the workers into their confidence.
As for the bourgeois elements who, without being real fanatics, wanted to join the ranks of the National Socialist Party, I did everything to put them offóresorting to bawled ñout propaganda, dishevelled clothes, etc. My object was to rid myself right from the beginning of the revolutionaries in rabbitís pelts.
I ordered our protective service to treat our opponents roughly and chuck them out of our meetings with so little mildness that the enemy pressówhich otherwise would have ignored our gatheringsóused to make much of the blows and wounds they give rise to, and thus, called attention to them.
Apart from Mutschmass, it was Dr. Ley who collected the most money for the Party. By describing me as a genuine monster, he made the industrialists and their ladies so curious to see me that they were willing to pay anything up to two hundred marks for a seat at one of my meetings.
This success is all the more remarkable when one realises that, when I took it over, the Volkischer Beobachter had no more than seven thousand subscribers, not a single advertising contract in its pocket, and not a penny in the till for the purchase of the paper it was printed on.
About a year after the victory of our Party, one of our former potentates, Rupprecht of Bavaria, sent as emissary to me to say that he was sure I would recognise the necessity of restoring the monarchy. The emissary, following his instructions, went on to say quite frankly that I could not, of course, remain as Reich Chancellor in the restored monarchy, because my continued presence would be an obstacle to the unification of the German people. I should, however, be most generously treated and should be rewardedówith a dukedom!
This fellow was so damn stupid that he could not even see that it was just he himself and his fellow Princes who had always been the cause of the disintegration of the German people throughout history, and that never has there been a stronger and more integrated unity of the German races than that which we have achieved under my leadership.
And the idiot imagined that some confounded nincompoop could temp me to give up the leadership of this great peopleóby making me a Duke!
When I visited Berlin before we came into power, I used to stay at the Kaiserhof; and as I was always accompanied by a complete General Staff, I generally had to book a whole floor, and our bill for food and lodging usually came to about ten thousand marks a week. I earned enough to defray these costs mostly by means of interviews and articles for the foreign press. Towards the end of the struggle period, I was being paid as much as two or three thousand dollars a time for such work.
In placing these articles and arranging interviews, I often had rows with my Foreign Press Chief, Hanfstaengl, because, as a business man rather than a politician, he judged everything in terms of cash received. Once, for example, when I told him to get a certain article published in the whole world press just as quickly as it could possibly be done, he lost a lot of valuable time haggling over the best terms obtainable.
On one occasion, he came back at me three times in an attempt to gain my consent to the sale of an article to some news agency, finally hoping to persuade me by dangling an offer of a thousand pounds sterling before my eyes. When I turned on him in fury and shouted: ìGet to hell out of this, you and your damned greed! Canít you understand that if I want a certain article to appear at a certain time throughout the world, money just doesnít matter?î he simply shook his head wonderingly, unable to understand how I could possibly let a cool thousand slip through my fingers in this way.
In the course of our many electoral tours, my companions and I have got to know and love the Reich from Berlin to its uttermost corners. As for the most part, I was invited to take my meals en famille, I also got to know intimately Germans all over Germany. There, I used to meet whole families, in which the father would be working in our political section, the mother was a member of the Womenís Association, one brother was in the SS, the other in the Hitler Youth, and the daughter was in the German Girlsí League. And so when we all meet once a year at the Party Rally at Nuremberg, it always gives me the impression of being just one huge family gathering.
The Party Rally has, however, been not only a quite unique occasion in the life of the NSDAP, but also in many respects a valuable preparation for war. Each Rally requires the organisation of no fewer than four thousand special trains. As these trains stretched as far as Munich and Halle, the railway authorities were given first-class practise in the military problem of handling mass troop transportation.
For one thing, the wired-wireless has the great advantage that it eliminates all interference, and for another, it permits the State to choose the broadcasts which it considers suitable. In Russia, the Commissar chooses the programmes, and the listeners are, therefore, completely cut off from the influence of foreign propaganda.
Before the war, I myself directed the Minister for Propaganda to introduce wired-wireless in Germany. In this way, German listeners would have been able to receive only our own national stations and such foreign broadcasts as we decided to retransmit.
It was a bad piece of work on the part of the Ministry of Propaganda, for although Dr. Gˆbbels has tried to put the blame on to other services, it is he who is responsible for the failure. When the execution of an order demands the co-operation of several services, he who receives the original order must assume the responsibility for the execution of the whole.
The desirability of introducing wired-wireless is indisputable. No Government can permit its population to be poisoned by enemy propaganda; otherwise, one might as well invite a thousand enemy propagandists to come over and do their work openly.
"The stupid calf choses its own butcher."
Chapter 6: On Himself (Adolf Hitler), by Adolf Hitler
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