Adolf
Hitler - New Year’s Proclamation to the National Socialists
and
Party Comrades
Fuhrer Headquarters, January 1, 1945
German Volk! National Socialists! My Volksgenossen!
Only
the turn of the year causes me to speak to you today, my German Volksgenossen.
The times had demanded more than speeches from me. The events of the past twelve
months, in particular the incident on July 20, forced me to devote my attention
and my capacity for work to a single task, for which I had lived for many years:
the fateful struggle of my Volk. Although our enemies had proclaimed our
collapse every New Year, they placed particular hopes on the year 1944. Never
before did victory seem so close to them, as in those days of August of last
year when one catastrophe had followed another.
Now that
we have managed, as so many times before, to bring about a turn of events,
credit is due not only to the struggle and work of all my Volksgenossen in the
homeland and at the front, but also to my own work and my own commitment. By so
doing, I have only acted in the spirit of a statement that I made at the
memorable Reichstag session of September 1, 1939, declaring that Germany would
never be defeated by the force of arms or time, and that a day like November 9
would never repeat itself in the German Reich.
Whoever
knew Germany only from this time of decline could perhaps hope that this state
would not be granted a resurrection nor the strength to hold its own against a
world of enemies.
That is
how the Jewish-international conspiracy has lived on hopes from the first day.
Every time when the nations began to become suspicious, these hopes were
transformed into prophecies. With a certain rabble-rousing audacity, they were
portrayed to the masses as certainties, as matters of course.
This
propaganda used two methods, even though it has short wings as all lies do. On
the one hand, it set dates by which the German collapse was certainly to be
expected, in order to calm the impatient masses. On the other hand, it dealt
with questions whose solution would become necessary for the Allies following
this collapse. Before the war ever started, the first English statement was
already published, declaring that the joint Anglo-French declaration of war
would lead within seven to eight days, at the latest, to an internal revolution
and thereby to the collapse of the German Reich. With nearly astronomical
regularity, this was followed by ever new assurances every winter, spring,
autumn, and sometimes even between the seasons [sic], that the
unconditional German collapse and surrender-both would mean the same thing-was
imminent. Already in the autumn of 1939, one such assurance followed hot on the
heels of the other. One minute it was “General Mud,” the next “General Hunger,”
and then again “General Winter” who were supposed to defeat us.
Particularly the beginning of 1940 witnessed such Allied declarations galore.
After
the campaign in France, new prophecies were made, namely that if Germany was not
be able to end the war in two months, by September at the latest, then the
German collapse would inevitably come in the spring of 1941.
Spring
had barely passed when new goals were set for the summer, and new deadlines for
our certain destruction were finally set for the winter of 1941.
Since
this time, the game has repeated itself every year. At one time it was said that
the war would be over before the leaves fall; another time that Germany would be
ready to capitulate before the next winter. With the assuredness of a
sleepwalker, they called August 1944 the deadline for the unconditional
surrender and, shortly afterwards, they planned to arrange a joint meeting of
the leading [Allied] statesmen in Berlin just before Christmas. Not long ago, it
was rescheduled for January and then March 1945. Right now, they are cautiously
declaring that, in view of the rapidly approaching two months, it would be
August. In July, they will surely talk about the winter of 1946, provided that
the war does not actually end in the meantime, not with a German capitulation,
which will never come, but with a German victory! Parallel to these
prophecies-in order to stress the correctness of these assumptions
psychologically-followed the theoretical appointment of ever new commissions for
the treatment of European questions after the war, the foundation of societies
for the regulation of food supplies after the German collapse, in other words
the resurrection of those profiteer institutions (Schieberinstitutionen)
that we know from the World War, the proclamation of economic agreements, the
setting up of traffic networks and air bases, as well as the drafting and
promulgation of sometimes truly idiotic laws on the treatment of the German
Volk. They always acted as though they had already won the war, as though they
could now already consider at their leisure all the measures necessary for
ruling Europe for those who have themselves set a sorry example of how not to
rule people. Of course, you can practice this propagandistic maneuver with the
unenlightened masses in the democratic states for a surprisingly long time, but
even there it will one day become obvious that this is nothing other than the
usual swindle in these countries. Should one or the other of the leading men in
these western democratic states nevertheless truly believe all that is told the
people, then there are only three possible explanations for this:
1. They
do not know the German Volk at all. Above all, they do not realize that the past
three hundred years of German history did not give an accurate picture of the
essence of the German Volk, but reflected only the consequences of its inner
conflicts at home. Since this German Volk made its appearance in history, it has
not only been one of the decisive factors in European and world history but even
the most decisive one. It remains so today and will continue to be so even more
in the future.
2. They
are ignorant about the National Socialist state. They do not have an inkling of
the essence of this Volksidee. The accomplishments that the National
Socialist regime secured under the most difficult conditions have remained
concealed from most of the people in the countries surrounding us.
Perhaps
they had to be concealed from them because public life and opinion there is
informed by the Jews, that is, everything is distorted and reported wrongly.
They are apparently not yet aware that neither Bolshevism nor the
democratic-plutocratic world of ideas-insofar as you can speak of one-can
replace the National Socialist state, since both have proved themselves to be
unfit for Germany in terms of their achievements, and the results of their
activities in their own countries serve only as the most deterrent example.
3. In
these countries they have known something that the majority of the masses of the
healthy German Volk are not aware of, namely a small coterie of drawing-room
politicians and drawing-room generals who, in complete ignorance of their own
mental, political, and military insignificance, have tried to convince the world
that they will one day seize power in a coup and will then be in a position to
offer capitulation without further notice, much as in Italy, Finland, Hungary,
Romania, and Bulgaria. The less our enemies were familiar with the German Volk,
the less they were aware of the essence of the National Socialist state, the
more readily they placed their hopes in the assurances of these spineless
characters, believed their fantastic chains of reasoning and outpourings to be
true, and rewarded them not only with a strong faith but also with ready cash.
In
opposition to that, at the turn of a year which has given us ample opportunity
to prove that this Volk, this state, and its leading men are unshakable in their
will and staunch in their fanatical determination to fight this war out under
any circumstances, even putting up with setbacks imposed on us by the fickleness
of fate, I would like to state again what arises for us from the past and
present, and what is necessary for the world to know in the future.
1.
We know the
objectives of our enemies from the past and the present.
We are
aware of what the Anglo-American statesmen plan to do with the German Reich,
what measures the Bolshevik rulers and the international Jews, who in the end
are behind them, plan to take against the German Volk. Their successful
implementation would not only lead to the German Reich’s being torn to pieces,
the transport of fifteen to twenty million Germans to foreign countries, the
enslavement of the remnants of our Volk, the corruption of our German youth, but
it would also and above all bring with it the starvation of our masses of
millions. Aside from this, you either live in freedom or die in slavery.
In
opposition to that, we are determined to do anything necessary. The world should
realize that this state will therefore never capitulate. The present German
Reich, like all great states of the past, may meet with setbacks on its path,
but it will never stray from this path. The world should realize that the
present leadership of the state shares the worries and sufferings of its people,
but it will never capitulate under these worries and sufferings. On the
contrary, it is determined to make the utmost effort to face every crisis, make
up for what was lost through carelessness with reinforced eagerness to work, so
that it will be able not only to express its great appreciation to every
individual German who does his duty, but also to assure him that his
contribution to the existence of our Volk will one day be rewarded. On the other
hand, it will destroy anybody who tries to escape making his contribution or
lowers himself to becoming a tool of foreign powers. Since we know the
objectives of our enemies-because they themselves offer the necessary
enlightenment thanks to their propagandistic garrulousness from the mouths of
their statesmen and journalists-the entire German Volk knows what its fate would
be if it lost this war. It will therefore not lose this war. It must and will
win it. After all, what our enemies are fighting for, they do not know
themselves, aside from their Jews. Yet what we are fighting for is clear to all
of us. It is the preservation of the German human being, it is our homeland, it
is our two-thousand-year-old culture, it is the children and grandchildren of
our Volk. It is, in short, everything that makes life worth living for us. For
this reason, the Volk has developed the spirit and attitude that justify its
belief in its own future and its request for a merciful appreciation of its
struggle by Providence.
That
this struggle is so endlessly difficult is the result of the essence of the
abovementioned objectives of our enemies. After all, since they intend to
exterminate our Volk, they are already applying this method in the war by means
that civilized mankind has not known hitherto. By wrecking our cities, they hope
not only to kill German women and children but also and above all to eliminate
the documents of our thousand-year-old culture, to which they have nothing to
compare of equal quality. That was also the idea behind the war of annihilation
against the cultural sites in Italy, the actual intention behind the
continuation of the present fight in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Alas,
like a phoenix from the ashes, so the strong German will all the more rise up
anew from the ruins of our cities. It has taken hold not only of millions of our
soldiers, but also of millions of male and female workers, of women, even of
children. The suffering inflicted on them individually is immeasurable, but
equally immeasurable is the greatness of their attitude. Once this time of
suffering is over, every German will be incredibly proud of being allowed to be
a member of such a Volk. Likewise, the day will come when our enemies will
regard the defilement of culture, which they are presently undertaking and which
will continue to burn in our memories, as shameful.
I know,
my dear Volksgenossen, the demands this war makes on you.
There
may be no man in any large country of the world who knows his people and their
homeland better than I know Germany. Not only did I become infinitely close to
all the German cities that are now being wrecked in whatever concerns their life
and their history but also in whatever concerns my personal life. For decades I
was tied to them not only by the love of their history and culture and of their
human feelings, but I was also the most strongly involved in the fate of their
future development. This alone makes this suffering somewhat easier for me to
bear, because I know better than anybody else that, with its will, the German
Volk as such not only always rose up from the most profound misery, but also
that this time will end with the German cities again rising up from the debris
as new sites attesting to the magnificence of our German cities.
Within a
few years, the National Socialist state with its energy and initiative will
rebuild all that is being destroyed today. The outward appearance of our cities
will be mightier and more beautiful than ever before. Healthier homes for the
German human beings will take the place of the destroyed tenement barracks. Our
social and cultural demands will then receive greater consideration than was
possible before.
However,
we will neither possess many of the unfading documents of art and culture nor be
able to restore them. More importantly, we cannot replace the sacrifice of
countless precious human beings and the loss of their collected souvenirs which
became dear to them in the course of a long life. All these great treasures and
small remembrances will in the end be compensated for-even if they cannot be
replaced-by our Volk’s shared memory of a time of the hardest fateful struggle
that a nation ever had to bear and one that it bore with so much heroism.
The year
1944 was the year of the greatest burdens in this mighty struggle.
It was a
year that again proved conclusively that the bourgeois social order is no longer
capable of braving the storms of the present or of the coming age.
State
after state that does not find its way to a truly social reorganization will go
down the path to chaos. The liberal age is a thing of the past. The belief that
you can counter this invasion of the people by parliamentary-democratic
half-measures is childish and just as naive as Metternich’s
methods when the national
drives for unification were making their way through the nineteenth century. The
lack of a truly social, new form of life results in the lack of the mental will
to resist not only in the nations but also in the lack of the moral power of
resistance of their leaders. In all countries we see that the attempted
renaissance of a democracy has proved fruitless. The confused tangle of
political dilettantes and military politicians of a bygone bourgeois world who
order each other around is, with deadly certainty, preparing for a plunge into
chaos and, insofar as Europe is concerned, into an economic and ethnic
catastrophe. And, after all, one thing has already been proved: this most
densely populated continent in the world will either have to live with an order
that gives the greatest consideration to individual abilities, guarantees the
greatest accomplishments, and, by taming all egotistical drives, prevents their
excesses, or states such as we have in central and western Europe will prove
unfit for life, which means that their nations are thereby doomed to perish! In
this manner-following the example of royal Italy-Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, and
Hungary collapsed during this year. This collapse is primarily the result of the
cowardice and lack of resolve of their leaders. They and their actions can be
understood only in light of the corrupt and socially amoral atmosphere of the
bourgeois world. The hatred which many statesmen, especially in these countries,
express for the present German Reich is nothing other than the voice of a guilty
conscience, an expression of an inferiority complex in view of our organization
of a human community that is suspicious to them because we successfully pursue
goals that again do not correspond to their own narrow economic egotism and
their resulting political shortsightedness.
For us,
my German Volksgenossen, this, however, represents a new obligation to recognize
ever more clearly that the existence or nonexistence of a German future depends
on the uncompromising organization of our Volksstaat, that all the sacrifices
which our Volk must make are conceivable only under the condition of a social
order which clears away all privileges and thereby makes the entire Volk not
only bear the same duties but also possess the same vital rights. Above all, it
must mercilessly destroy the social phantoms of a bygone era. In their stead, it
must place the most valuable reality there is, namely the Volk, the masses
which, tied together by the same blood, essence, and experiences of a long
history, owe their origin as an individual existence not to an earthly
arbitrariness but to the inscrutable will of the Almighty. The insight into the
moral value of our conviction and the resulting objectives of our struggle for
life give us and, above all, give me the strength to continue to wage this fight
in the most difficult hours with the strongest faith and with an unshakable
confidence. In such hours, this conviction also ties the Volk to its leadership.
It assured the unanimous approval of the appeal that I was forced to direct to
the German Volk in a particularly urgent way this year.
Millions
of Germans of all professions and ranks, men and women, boys and girls, even
children, took up the spade and the shovel. Thousands of Volkssturm battalions
were created or are in the process of being created.
Divisions were newly formed; Volk artillery corps, mortar brigades,
selfpropelled assault-gun brigades, as well as fighter groups were conjured up
out of nothing and provided with new equipment. Above all, our German factories
showed singular achievements with the help of both male and female German
workers. They, I may say so today, are being joined by more and more thoughtful
people from other nations who, as workers in Germany, understand the essence of
our social community. And so what our enemies shattered was rebuilt with
superhuman diligence and unequaled heroism. This rebuilding will continue until
what our enemies began will end one day. The German spirit and the German will
shall bring this about by force! This, my Volksgenossen, will one day go down in
history as the miracle of the twentieth century! A Volk that accomplishes,
suffers, and endures so many incredible things at the front and in the homeland
can therefore never perish.
On the
contrary: it will emerge from this furnace of trials stronger and firmer than
ever before in its history. However, the power to which we owe all this- the
Jewish-international enemy of the world-will not only fail in this attempt to
destroy Europe and exterminate its nations but will also end by annihilating
itself.
At the
end of this year, as the spokesman of the nation and, at this moment, also as
the Fuhrer of its fate, I would like to thank the countless millions of my
Volksgenossen with an overflowing heart for all they have suffered, endured,
done, and accomplished, men and women, down to the level of our children in the
Hitler Youth, in the cities and small market towns, in the villages and in the
countryside. I would like to ask them not to let up in the future either, to
trust the leadership of the movement, and to fight this most difficult struggle
for the future of our Volk with the greatest fanaticism. What I can do to
promote this success, I will do in the future as I did in the past. I am
speaking less these days, not because I do not wish to or cannot speak, but
because my work leaves me little time for speaking, and because I believe that I
am now obliged every hour to think about and seek to increase the power of
resistance of our armies, introduce better weapons, form new units, and assemble
whatever forces can be mobilized from among my Volk. My enemies are perhaps now
seeing the light already and are realizing that I have not been asleep all this
time! For the rest, I wish to assure you, my Volksgenossen, again today, as in
the many years of the struggle for power, that my faith in the future of our
Volk is unshakable. Whomever Providence subjects to so many trials, it has
destined for the greatest things! It is therefore my only concern to do my
utmost to lead the German Volk through this time of misery and open the gate for
it to that future in which we all believe, for which we fight and work.
I cannot
close this appeal without thanking the Lord for the help that He always allowed
the leadership and the Volk to find, as well as for the power He gave us to be
stronger than misery and danger. If I also thank Him for my rescue, then I do so
only because through it I am happy to be able to continue dedicating my life to
the service of the Volk. In this hour, as the spokesman of Greater Germany, I
therefore wish to make the solemn avowal before the Almighty that we will
loyally and unshakably fulfill our duty also in the new year, in the firm belief
that the hour will come when the victory will favor for good the one who is most
worthy of it, the Greater German Reich!
Adolf Hitler
Adolf
Hitler – address to the Wehrmacht:
January 1, 1945
Soldiers!
The
decisive significance for the world of the war that we are fighting today is
clear to the German Volk: a merciless struggle for existence or nonexistence,
that is, a struggle for life or death! Because the goal of the
Jewish-international world conspiracy opposing us is the extermination of our
Volk.
As I
pronounced this realization in the year 1939, some among you may have thought it
was an exaggeration. Because of its constant repetition in the course of the
following years, it may have appeared to be “noisy propaganda.” Today, nobody
can doubt the intention of our enemies. It is not only proved by the activities
of subordinate organs, the public media, but also confirmed by the enemy
statesmen opposing us. It is further evidenced by the way the war has been
waged, as well as by the political preparations which our enemies are making for
the postwar period. The Jewish-eastern Bolshevism reflects in its
exterminationist tendencies the goals of Jewish-western capitalism. In any
event, the plan is to enslave all free nations. Mr. Churchill declares that all
of eastern Germany shall be ceded at least to Poland-in truth, that means to the
Soviet Union-namely, not only East Prussia and Danzig but even Pomerania and
Silesia. He dismisses the potential population problems by expressing the hope
that he will be able to kill another six or more million Germans, that is, women
and children, through bomb warfare. His protege de Gaulle again demands that
western Germany be placed under French control and the remainder of Germany
dissolved. This exactly corresponds to the program and statements of the
Stalinist house Jew (Hausjude) Ehrenburg,
who goes further and
announces that the German Volk must be smashed and exterminated. And this again
is the same goal that is being pursued in the plans for the future by the
American cabinet member and Jew Morgenthau.
These thoughts do not come
as a surprise for me. They always existed with our enemies. Only in order to
prevent their implementation did I strive to make the German Volk strong and
resistant. Internally and externally, it should have the strength that is
necessary to defend its life. We have been fighting this struggle of life and
death for over five years now. Perhaps it will even be harsher in its demands in
the sixth year of war. It has, however, passed its zenith.
Up to
the present day, the German Volk and its Wehrmacht have successfully resisted
our enemies’ attempts to strangle us, despite numerous crises and many setbacks.
In the coming year also, we will succeed in parrying the enemy’s offensive
operations and in finally breaking them through counterblows. If we have not
been spared great setbacks in this mighty struggle, which is not only being
fought for Germany but also for the future of all of Europe, then the reason for
that does not lie with the German Volk and its Wehrmacht but on the side of our
European allies. Starting with the collapse of the Romanian-Italian-Hungarian
front at the Don River and their later complete dissolution, to the sabotage of
the joint conduct of the war by the Italian royal house and the putsch against
the Duce’s Fascist Italy, which was on our side, there is a straight line of
treason. It has found its prolongation in the pitiful capitulation of the
Finnish state leadership, the breach of faith of the Romanian king and his
entourage, the giving up of Bulgaria, as well as in the disgraceful behavior of
the former Hungarian regent.
The consequences for the
political and military conduct of the war were grave.
In
addition, there was the perfidious attack at home in the last year, committed by
dishonorable criminals who were however defeated within a few hours and, since
that time, have been relentlessly dealt with. Although July 20 had especially
depressing military consequences at the fronts and, regrettably, helped to shake
the faith in the German power of resistance with friend and enemy, it must be
seen as a turning point of the German fate. After all, this attempt to destroy
the social German Volksstaat at the time of its most bitter fight through a plot
at home and to surrender Germany to the international conspiracy has failed once
and for all. I can assure you that this was the last attempt of its kind.
Thereby, however, my declaration of September 1, 1939, is reconfirmed, namely,
that the German Volk cannot be defeated by force of arms or time in this war,
and that, above all, a November 1918 will never be repeated.
This
resolve, my soldiers, means heavy sacrifices for the entire German Volk and, in
the first place, for you. It alone will save the nation in the future! A nation
would surely be doomed by the misery that Germany has to endure today, if it
gives itself up for lost, because this giving up means at the same time a
renunciation of any claim to life in the future.
My
soldiers! I know your sufferings and your sacrifices. I know what I had to ask
of you and what is being asked of you. Fate has set me-who at one time wanted to
build up Germany as a first-rate social and cultural state-the most difficult
task conceivable for a human being. I bear my fate and realize that I owe
gratitude to Providence, which has found me worthy enough to take on such hard
work in the history of our Volk, a work which will decide its future. All the
more after July 20, I lived only for the preparations which would sooner or
later allow us to go from the purely defensive to the offensive. We are aware
that the fortress of Europe cannot be defended by German forces alone to the
extent that this was possible earlier. We were therefore forced, as the victims
of the treason of our allies, to pull in entire fronts and shorten others.
However, I did not take any step backward without putting up the fiercest
resistance. Our enemies must know that every kilometer in the direction of
Germany will demand more blood of them and that they cannot ever count on a
relaxation or giving up of this resistance. What you, my soldiers, accomplished
on so many fronts, on the ground, above or below water, and in the air, is
superhuman. The sacrifices made by the German homeland, especially its women,
old men, and children, are no less so. Finally, what we owe to the German male
and female worker, to the German male peasant and especially to the German
female peasant, is for all of us all the more a sacred obligation to do as
soldiers everything possible, so that these joint sacrifices are not in vain.
In this
spirit, I have gone through endless worries for years, worked, tortured myself
with decisions, and am today more than ever convinced that at the end of this
struggle will stand a glorious success, unique in our history.
Whoever
gained such victories as you, my soldiers, who was not broken by such terrible
setbacks, who so heroically endured and suffered as our homeland did, who worked
so diligently as our entire Volk, cannot be preordained to perish, but is
destined to live! Therefore, my confidence is today stronger than ever before.
In the end, we survived with success this worst year of setbacks in which we
were virtually abandoned by all our allies in Europe. World powers have been
trying for years now to bring about the collapse of the German Reich. In the
formerly allied, yet today betrayed countries, people are beginning to realize
that this struggle is a conflict of life and death and that no nation can avoid
a clear decision. Everywhere the hollowness and meaninglessness of the
assurances of our enemies reveal themselves. As soon as they occupy a territory,
order collapses and chaos ensues. Democracy is unfit to solve even the smallest
task on this continent. Its political anarchy is followed by economic chaos, and
with these two comes misery. The “liberated” areas of Europe at most lose their
German order and gain instead international unemployment with the usual hunger
and need. After all, this most densely populated continent in the world can live
only through a planned utilization of all its individual energies, and at the
same time through a strict taming of its egotistical drives. Only two
leaderships in Europe have honestly tried to deal with this problem: the
National Socialist one in Germany and the Fascist one in Italy. To what extent
the solution of these questions succeeded in particular in Germany is best
proved by the discipline that we still have even in spite of the heaviest
burdens in the sixth year of the war. I will try to see to it, my soldiers,
that, at home, the leadership and initiative of the party supports your fight,
that the nation is provided with life’s necessities, and that all destructive
forces, no matter who they are and what posts they occupy, will be destroyed.
However,
I also expect of you, more than ever before, that you will do your duty
especially in this sixth year of the fight of life and death; that the officers
and men of the entire Wehrmacht, army, navy, Luftwaffe, and Waffen SS realize
that the existence or nonexistence of our Volk depends on their deployment; that
all the other organizations-at their head the newly-born Volkssturm-the Reich
labor service, and all the other formations of our movement in the Wehrmacht’s
service, as well as the women and girls at the fighting or defending front, will
follow your example. The year 1945 will demand of us the utmost in courage and
initiative. At the same time, it will be the year of the historic turn of
events. The soldiers of the allied European governments and nations
who march on our side
represent the cells for a rebuilding of this continent, which is our shared
homeland, in which our ancestors lived, in which they struggled with fate
throughout the millennia, and which today they defend unto death.
The
Almighty, who has led our Volk in its previous fight for life and weighed,
rewarded, and judged it in accordance with its merits, will this time encounter
a generation worthy of His blessings. You were the unfading witnesses for this
in the past years, my German soldiers, and you will be that all the more in the
coming year!
Adolf Hitler
