I am, due to my unique life path, perhaps more able than any other to understand and comprehend the essence and the life of the diverse German strata, not because I could perhaps view this life from the top down, rather because I have myself experienced it, because I stood in the middle of this life, because fate - in its caprice or perhaps also in its Providence - simply hurled me into this broad mass folk and people, because I myself laboured for years as a worker at a construction site and had to earn my bread, and because I then for a second time again stood for years in the broad mass as a common soldier, and because life then shoved me into other strata of our folk, so that I become better acquainted with them than countless who had been born into them. So perhaps fate has determined me more than anybody else to be - I may use this term for myself - the honest broker, the honest broker toward every side.
Speech of May 10, 1933 in Berlin
I was a worker in my youth...,
and I then gradually worked my way up, through industriousness, through
learning and, I can say, also through hungering. In my innermost essence,
however, I have always remained what I was before.
Speech of November 10, 1933 n Berlin
I left Vienna as an absolute
anti-Semite, as a mortal enemy of the whole Marxist world-view, all-German in
my political thinking - and because I knew that German fate for German- Austria
as well will not be fought out in the Austrian army, rather in the German and
Austrian army.
Speech of February 26, 1924 in Munich
When on November 7 it was
proclaimed that the revolution had broken out in Munich, I could not believe it
at first. But then the decision emerged within me to turn to politics. I
experienced the Soviet period and as a result of the resistance against it came
into contact with the National Socialist German Workers’ Movement in a
political course. I was the seventh one. That I joined this party and not one
of the big parties, where my chances would have been better, had its reason in
that the former parties did not recognize and did not perceive the decisive
basic problem.
Speech of February 26, 1924 in Munich
I am firmly convinced that a
large portion of the German nation in these days of November and December 1918,
and even yet in 1919, was totally of the view that, if Germany continued on
this inner political path, it would outwardly as well rapidly approach an end.
Hence the same view as I had. There was only one difference. I said to myself
back then: It is not enough to recognize that we have been ruined, rather it is
also necessary to comprehend, why! And that, too, is not enough, rather it is
necessary to take up the struggle against this destructive development and to
create for oneself the necessary instrument for that.
Lecture of January 27, 1932 in Düsseldorf
When thirteen years ago I, an
unknown man and German soldier, entered political life, I only obeyed the
command of my conscience. I saw the conditions coming...I could not force
myself, like millions of others, to remain silent or to without resistance bend
to those, who according to all historical experience and human insight through
their action had to drive Germany to ruin. For thirteen years I have, on the
basis of the consciousness of duty, taken a stand against the parties and men
responsible for the German collapse. In countless assemblies I have illustrated
their behaviour and predicted the consequences of this behaviour. It was a
difficult struggle, as an unknown, nameless soldier to call to life a movement
against those who then ruled Germany and to whom... all paths and means of
public life stood to their disposal. They could hence easily keep silent about
me at first, could later mock me, could ban me from speaking, suppress the
movement, restrict propaganda... Only one thing could they not do: They could
not refute me!
„Adolf Hitler’s Program”, appeal for the
election of July 31, 1932
The non-political fighter of
the World War now became a fighting politician.
Speech of August 17, 1934 in Hamburg
Personally, I stood at a lost
post at the start. Nonetheless, in the course of a few years a movement has
grown from the small band of six men, which today embraces millions and which,
above all, makes especially the broad masses national again. It was clear to us
that we could not manage it with the old methods of whining and entreating. A
government cannot protect an intellectual movement. Hence we decided on the
principle: For those who are willing to fight with intellectual means, we have
the intellect, for the others the fist! The propaganda machine was joined by
the Storm Troop in order to prevent it that our movement would be terrorized,
our supporters beaten down. There were after all places where we could not hold
assemblies for a long time.
Speech of February 26, 1924 in Munich
So in the year 19 I
established a program and set down a tendency, which intentionally slapped the
pacifist-democratic world in the face.
Speech of September 3, 1933 in Nuremberg
For you, my workers, can well
imagine this, that if a man in your life situation begins to found a movement,
then successes do not fly to him; that is obvious. It takes a lot of tenacity
and a strong will just to start this work. And this I want to say to you today:
If I had this faith, then I only had it, because I knew the folk and because I
never doubted the quality of the German folk.
Speech of November 10, 1933 in Berlin
In such a time one must be
very hard and must, above all, not budge a centimetre from his right.
Speech of November 10, 1933 in Berlin
If I am once convinced that a
specific course is the only and correct one for my folk, then I hold to it,
come what may. And what I do, I do openly!
Interview of April 3, 1934 in Berlin
We did not fold our hands in
our lap, rather we toiled day after day.
Speech of November 10, 1933 in Berlin
One can believe me when I
assure that in my life, I have never allowed worries about my own fate to come
up.
Speech of July 13, 1934 in Berlin
When I speak of cares, I never
think of capitulation!
Speech of September 30, 1934 at Bückeberg
If I have for years, in all
situations and under all circumstances, believed in the victory of the National
Socialist movement, then this unshakeable conviction came from a thorough
thinking through of the laws of life and the laws of development. My political
opponents neglected to do the same.
Speech of September 3, 1933 in Nuremberg
What you experienced in these
two years (1933,1934) was born back then in Landsberg.
Speech of November 9, 1934 in Munich
My previous life has been a
struggle; but I have never capitulated, and I have reached the goal.
Speech of November 6, 1933 in Kiel
I have never as a private
person pushed my way into a fine society, which did not want me or did not view
me as equal in worth. I did not need it then, and the German folk has just as
much character.
Speech of November 10, 1933 in Berlin
What stood before my eyes was
from the first day on a thousand times more than to become a state minister. I
wanted to become the destroyer of Marxism: I will solve this task! And if I
solve it, then the title of state minister would be ridiculous for me.
Speech of March 27, 1924 in Munich
In the thirteen years of my
struggle for Germany, I have had to put up with so much persecutions and
personal attacks that I gradually really learned to put the great cause, which
I serve, above the miserable own self.
Letter of November 16, 1932 to v. Papen
I also never want to have
business cards printed for myself with the designations, which are so
gloriously bestowed on one in this earthly world. On my gravestone I want to
have nothing other than my name.
Speech of May 10, 1933 in Berlin
That, what moves me, is not
perhaps the idea to now be satisfied, because the present has given me the
position, which I could just demand from it, rather we have the feeling: Now we
want to acquire the confirmation from posterity that we taken this position by
right.
Speech of November 6, 1933 in Elbing
We ask, Lord God, never let us
become wavering and cowardly, never let us forget the duty, which we have
assumed!
Speech of March 4, 1933 in Königsberg
I only want that posterity
once confirms of me that I have decently and honestly endeavoured to make my
program reality.
Speech of November 10, 1933 in Berlin
I promise that I, under full
utilization of my person and my movement, want to dedicate myself to the
salvation of our fatherland.
Letter of November 23, 1932 to the State
Secretary in the Reich Presidium (Dr. Meissner)
What the present thinks of me,
means nothing to me. What the future hopes from me, that I know, and we hence
also want to fulfil that!
Speech of June 19, 1933 in Erfurt
I confidently hope thereby
that, if fate should at any hour take me from my position, my successor acts no
differently, and, in the event he also must leave the position, the third after
us is ready with no less determination to look after the securing of folk and
nation.
Speech of July 13, 1934 in Berlin
Each only hears the sound to
which his innermost is attuned.
Speech of September 3, 1933 in Nuremberg
In order to be able to
criticize, one must have learned something oneself. What one has learned,
however, one proves through the deed!