Adolf Hitler - “New Year’s Proclamation to the National Socialists and Party Comrades”

Today, more than ever, I am determined to the utmost not to sell out our Movement’s right of the firstborn for the cheap substitute of a participation in a government devoid of power. That protest of the astute that we should come from inside and through the back door and gain gradual success is nothing but the same protest which bade us, in 1917 and 1918, to reach an understanding with irreconcilable opponents and then to debate with them peacefully in a League of Nations. Thanks to the traitors from within, the German Volk surrendered itself to this advice. The Kaiser’s lamentable advisors believed that they should not oppose him. But as long as the Almighty gives me life and health, I will defend myself to my last breath against any such attempt and I know that, in this resolve, I have the millions of zealous supporters and fighters of our Movement behind me who did not hope, argue and suffer with the intention of allowing the proudest and greatest uprising of the German Volk to sell its mission for a few ministerial posts! If our opponents invite us to take part in a government like this, they are not doing it with the intention of slowly but surely putting us in power, but rather in the conviction that they are thus wresting it from us forever! Great are the tasks of our Movement for the coming year. But the greatest task of all will be to make it as clear as possible to our fighters, members, and followers that this Party is not an end in itself, but merely a means to an end.

They should realize that the organization, with all its greatness and beauty, only has a purpose, and thus the justification to exist, when it is the eternally unforbearing and belligerent herald and advocate of the National Socialist idea of a German Volksgemeinschaft to come! Everything which this Movement calls its own-its organizations, whether in the SA or the SS, in the political leadership, or the organization of our peasants and our youth-all of this can have only the single purpose of fighting for this new Germany, in which there will ultimately be no bourgeoisie and no more proletarians, but only German Volksgenossen.

This is the greatest task with which our Volk has been confronted for more than a thousand years.

The movement which accomplishes this task will engrave its name for all eternity in the immortal book of the history of our nation.

Thus in the face of the red flood, the dangers in the East and France’s eternal threat; in the midst of need and wretchedness, misery and desperation, we, my party comrades, SA and SS men, National Socialist peasants and National Socialist youth, shall clench our fists even more firmly about our banner and, with it, march into the coming year.

We shall be willing to sacrifice and fight, and would rather pass away ourselves than allow that Movement to pass away which is Germany’s last strength, last hope, and last future.

We salute the National Socialist Movement, its dead martyrs and its living fighters! Long live Germany, the Volk and the Reich! Munich, December 31, 1932 Adolf Hitler In this New Year’s message, Hitler cited the peasants in the same breath with the SA and the SS. Indeed, the peasants were his largest asset at that time, comprising the bulk of his voters.

In a lengthy address held on January 3 at a Convention of the NSDAP on agricultural policies in Munich, Hitler underlined the special significance of the peasantry for the National Socialist Movement. With a certain amount of bluntness, he proclaimed that the theory of Blut and Boden (blood and soil) applied not to domestic, but rather to foreign policy. Here he was referring to the acquisition of new land and soil which he had propagated in Mein Kampf. On January 3, Hitler declared in part as follows: The fulfillment of the fundamental idea of national policy reawakened by National Socialism which is expressed in the theory of Blut und Boden will be accompanied by the most thorough and revolutionary reorganization which has ever taken place.

Our demand for strengthening the basic racial principles of our Volk, which this term signifies and which at the same time includes safeguarding the existence of our Volk in general, is also the determining factor in all of the aims of National Socialist domestic and foreign policy.

Once we have succeeded in purging and regenerating our Volk, foreign countries will very soon realize that they are confronted with a different Volk than hitherto.

And thus the prerequisites will be given for putting our own land and soil in thorough order and securing the life of the nation on our own for long years to come. The development in world economics and politics which automatically leads to an increasing blockade against our exports in international markets makes a major, fundamental transposition an absolute necessity. Even if today’s rulers shut their eyes to this fact, the chronic cause of our grave economic need and appalling unemployment is nevertheless an indisputable reality. Either we eliminate this cause and accomplish the required reorganization with vigor and energy in good time, or fate will bring it about by force and destroy our Volk. If we succeed in putting the basic principle of Blut und Boden into practice at home and abroad, then for the first time we, as a Volk, will not be tossed at the mercy of events, but rather will then master circumstances on our own.

 Just as the peasant who sows each year must believe in his harvest without knowing whether it may be destroyed by wind and weather and his work remain unrewarded, so must we too have the political courage to do what necessarily must be done-regardless of whether success is already in sight at the moment or not. The German peasant in particular will understand even more of our National Socialist struggle in future than hitherto. But if the German peasant, the foundation and life source of our Volk, is saved, then the entire nation will once again be able to look ahead to the future with confidence.

Adolf Hitler