Adolf Hitler – proclamation

read by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner

Nürnberg, September 6, 1938

Party Comrades! National Socialists!

Moved more deeply than ever, we marched to Nuremberg. In the past years, the Reich Party Congresses have developed from being an occasion of great rejoicing and celebration and of great pride to being an occasion for somber inner reflection. The Old Fighters come here in the anticipation of finding many old acquaintances once more, acquaintances made in the long years of the struggle for power. And hence in this city old comrades in arms greet one another again and again as veterans of the greatest of all German revolutions.

For the first time, our circle has been extended infinitely this year. The National Socialist Reich has taken in new German Volksgenossen. Many of them are in our midst today for the very first time. Many others flowing along in the stream of the Movement, lose themselves to the magic of this city and of these uplifting hours. Others-as members of the fighting organizations-will march for the first time with their brothers from all over the German Reich and in their hearts they will once more pledge themselves to never again let go of this greatest of all communities.

Germany’s leadership has changed. National Socialism has built it up through a relentless process of selection. However, insofar as it still consists of members from the times of struggle, it represents a pinnacle which cannot he replaced by either external or material value or by political or military might.

And this leadership has become the bearer of the German uprising. The miracle that took place between 1805 and 1813 was no different. The Prussian men and women of the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig were no different from those Prussian men and women of the days of Jena and Auerstedt. Then, too, a weak leadership of state and armed forces was replaced by a heroic one in the span of a few years. Names such as vom Stein and Blucher, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Yorck and Clausewitz, and of countless others, alone suffice to explain the miracle of Prussia’s great rise. There is no other way of looking at the miracle of Germany’s rise today. The National Socialist Party has been the creative force behind this ascent. It has done the enormous work required so that Germany could once again find the strength to resume its position in the world. It had to break down and eliminate the other parties.

It had to make war relentlessly on a world filled with prejudices of class and social standing. It had to assure that each German of willpower and ability could make his way to the top in disregard of his birth and origin. It had to cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of Vaterland and Volk. It had to acknowledge the eternal values of blood and earth, and it had to elevate these principles to become the leading imperatives in our lives. It had to begin the fight against the greatest enemy which threatens to destroy our Volk: the international Jewish world enemy!

Just a few weeks ago, one English newspaper wrote that I harbored the burning desire to arrive at some sort of pact with various states on various topics or else I would not be able to step before this year’s Reich Party Congress. I never had this intention nor do I have it now. I step before you today, my old Party Comrades, with no pact in hand, but I bring you my homeland-the seven new Gaus of Germany. It is Greater Germany that steps into the limelight for the first time here in Nuremberg. When the insignias of the Old Reich have returned to this old German city, then they have done so because they were carried back by six and a half million Germans who accompanied them in spirit and whose spirit unites them today with all of the men and women of our Volk.

These days all of them are all the more conscious of the great happiness of being part of a great indissoluble community. What one amongst them bears, all of them bear. Therefore, that which must be borne by all is all the more easily borne by the individual.

The unemployment crisis in the Ostmark of the Reich will, as well, have been completely resolved by the end of next year. Today, we have only two real economic concerns:

a) the concern over manpower, in particular that of skilled laborers for industrial work, and

b) the concern over manpower in the countryside.

If other states regard these concerns as certain evidence for a supposedly persistent economic weakness of the Third Reich, then we shall gladly compare the criticism of our lack of manpower at home to the unemployment in the democracies.

If today I can point to the lack of manpower as the sole economic concern in Germany, then this is so because of two facts:

1. The grace of the Lord has bestowed upon us a bountiful harvest this year.

Despite crop failures during the past years, it was possible nonetheless to stock up considerable reserve supplies for the new year-thanks to the unrelenting steps taken by our Party Comrade Goring. We shall not have to fear for our food stocks for many years to come thanks to these reserve supplies and thanks to this year’s bountiful harvest. Nevertheless, we will proceed with economy. It is our will to accumulate large reserves in wheat so that we shall be spared destitution under any and all circumstances.

2. The fruits borne by the Four-Year Plan are becoming increasingly noticeable. What I believed and forecasted in earlier years has come true: once the national economic prerogatives were pointed out to the leaders of Germany’s economy and to our inventors in particular, the ingenuity and expertise of our chemists, physicists, mechanical engineers, technicians, foremen, and organizers have achieved a success which no one had anticipated and which-I may assuredly say-has been simply astounding.

We are building up Germany’s economy in such a fashion that it can, at any given time, function independently of other countries and stand on its own feet. And this we have achieved. An economic blockade against Germany has become a dead issue. With its own peculiar energy, the National Socialist State has drawn the ultimate consequence from the World War. We will remain true to our principle rather to limit ourselves in one domain or another, should this be necessary, than to ever again become dependent upon other countries. Above all, one resolution will reign supreme in all our economic enterprises: the security of our nation has priority. Hence its material existence must be completely secured within the confines of our Lebensraum and our capacity for self-sufficiency. Only then can the German Wehrmacht guarantee the protection of the Reich, its interests, and freedom of action, under any and all circumstances. And only then does Germany become of interest and value to others as a friend and ally.341 When I pronounce this on the occasion of the tenth Reich Party Congress, then I do this in the confident knowledge that the time of Germany’s political and economic isolation has come to an end. The Reich has befriended strong and great world powers.

Party Comrades! More threatening than ever, the danger of Bolshevist destruction of all peoples looms on the horizon. A thousand times over we have witnessed the activities of the Jewish agitators prodding this global pestilence.

I believe that this is the time and place to, on my own behalf and the behalf of you all, pronounce with great inner movement how we rejoice at the fact that another great European power has realized this, too. On the basis of its own experiences, its own reflections, and its own approach, it has arrived at the same conclusions as we have, and has drawn the consequences with a truly admirable determination.

Above all, let us thank the Almighty for the successful union of the old Ostmark and the new Reich. Through this He bestowed upon the German Volk a great happiness and upon the Reich a great success. It was He who allowed for this without us having to place at risk the life and limb of any of our Volksgenossen. Without the aggregate forces of the entire nation contained in National Socialism this would never have been possible: may all Germans never forget this! It was no longer a symbol of conquest, the banner of the new Reich which was carried across the border in the morning hours of March 12, rather it had become a symbol for the age-old union encompassing all Germans.

This banner which our Wehrmacht carried forth into our new Gaus had become an icon of belief in victory for our brothers in the course of a most difficult struggle. And so it was that in this case, it was foremost an idea that conquered and unified the Volk! From this day onward, to all of us and to all coming generations, this Reich of Germans will forever be known as Grossdeutschland!