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Adolf Hitler - Appeal to the German Volk!
September 3, 1939
Appeal to the German Volk!
For centuries England has pursued the goal of rendering the peoples of Europe defenseless against the British idea of world conquest by proclaiming a balance of power. This accords England the right, on the most threadbare of pretexts, to attack and destroy whichever European state appears to be the most threatening. Once this was true of the Spanish Empire, then of the Dutch, then of the French, and, ever since 1871, this has been true of the German Reich. We ourselves have borne witness to the policy of encirclement which Great Britain has sought to implement against Germany since before the war. The moment the German Reich, under National Socialist leadership, began to recover from the dreadful consequences of the Diktat of Versailles and threatened to overcome the crisis, the British policy of encirclement immediately set in once more.
The British warmongers known to us from the days of the World War do not want the German Volk to live. Before the World War, they lied to us, claiming their struggle was directed only against the House of Hohenzollern or against German militarism. They declared they had no designs on German colonies; they were not even as much as thinking about taking our merchant marine. Then, they forced the German Volk beneath the yoke of the Treaty of Versailles. Sooner or later, the obliging compliance with this new Diktat would have meant the eradication of twenty million Germans. I then undertook to mobilize the resistance of the German nation against this, and, in a unique, peaceful effort, to secure bread and labor for the German Volk. To the extent that a peaceful revision of the outrage of the Diktat of Versailles appeared to proceed successfully and the German Volk once more began to live, a new policy of encirclement by England set in. The warmongers of 1914 made their appearance again.
Time and time again, I offered England and the English people an understanding and the friendship of the German Volk. My entire policy was built on this idea of an understanding. I was rejected time and time again.
Instead, there was an ongoing search for ever new, hypocritical pretexts for limiting the German Lebensraum, even in areas where we never threatened British interests. Ever new attempts were made to render our lives more difficult and to cut us off.
It was England which urged on Poland the stance that rendered a peaceful understanding impossible. Its declaration of a guarantee opened for the Polish Government the prospects of provoking Germany without running into any danger, and even of being allowed to attack Germany.
The British Government has been mistaken on one account, however: the Germany of 1939 is not the Germany of 1914! And the name of its present chancellor is not Bethmann-Hollweg! Moreover, in my speeches at Saarbrucken and at Wilhelmshaven, I declared that we shall defend ourselves in view of this British policy of encirclement. I left no doubt that, despite patience and endurance, the Polish attacks against Germans as well as against the Free City of Danzig had to come to an end. Strengthened by the British guarantee and the assurances of British warmongers, Poland believed it could simply disregard these warnings. For two days now the German Wehrmacht has been fighting in the East to restore security to Reich territory. Our soldiers are breaking the Polish resistance.
May England realize: today’s German Reich unites ninety million human beings! And they are determined not to allow themselves to be strangled by England. Unlike England, they have not waged war to conquer forty million square kilometers of this earth. Yet they do have the will to live on the earth belonging to them. And they will not let England take this life from them.
We know that the English people in their entirety cannot be held responsible for all this. Rather it is the aforesaid Jewish-plutocratic and democratic upper class who would like to conceive of the rest of the world as obedient slaves; who hate our new Reich because it sees it as a pioneer of social work which it fears might infect their countries as well.
We shall now take up this struggle against this new attempt to destroy Germany. We shall lead it with National Socialist determination. The British money- and power-politicians shall find out what it means to wage war against National Socialist Germany without any cause whatsoever.
For months I have known that the goal pursued by these warmongers was a long-term one. The determination to attack Germany, at an opportune occasion, was arrived at long ago. My decision, however, to lead this war and to strike back at them is marked by even greater determination.
Germany will not capitulate ever again. Peace, under the conditions of a second Diktat of Versailles or worse, has no meaning.
We have never been a Volk of slaves! And we shall never be one in the future either! And the sacrifices so many Germans have made in the past shall be no greater than those which we are determined to take upon ourselves today. This decision is a relentless one. (Dieser Entschluss ist ein unerbittlicher.) And this forces us to take decisive measures, above all, to take one: no one shall make a profit in this war while our soldiers are fighting at the front. No one shall try to escape fulfillment of his duties while our soldiers are fighting at the front. Whoever attempts to resist these measures cannot expect the Volksgemeinschaft to show consideration to him.
Beyond this, we all know: as long as the German Volk has stood united in its history, it has never yet been vanquished! Only the dissent of the year 1918 led to collapse. Thus, whoever now believes he can sin against this unity cannot expect anything other than his destruction as an enemy of the nation.
If our Volk fulfills its highest duty in this respect, then the Lord Almighty will stand by. He has always bestowed His blessings on him who was determined to help himself! The laws necessary for the defense and security of the Reich are being decreed, the men responsible for their implementation and compliance with them are being appointed. I myself go to the front on this day.
Berlin, September 3, 1939 Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler - Appeal to the German soldiers in the east!
September 3, 1939
Soldiers of the Army in the East!
For months England once more has engaged in that policy of encirclement directed against Germany which is known to us from before the World War. To this end, it has sought to take advantage of all states and peoples of Europe.
Poland was chosen to play an ever more important role in this policy once the Soviet Union refused to subordinate its own interests to those of the English.
First and foremost, the persistent persecution of Germans in Poland, the all-out war against the Free City of Danzig, forced me to take steps along our Eastern Front for the Reich’s security. The Non-Aggression and Mutual Consultation Pact with the Soviet Union has united these two biggest and strongest of European states in their determination never again to allow their peoples to fight one another. Poland must and will be forced to peace as the most important element in the chain of the British policy of encirclement and destruction.
Soldiers of the Army in the East! Within barely two days you have secured accomplishments upon which all of Germany reflects with pride. I know that you are aware of the magnitude of the task lying before you, and that you are doing your utmost to speedily throw down the adversary as a first step. The West Wall built with immense resources shall in the meantime shield Germany against France and England and thereby shall protect it.
As an old soldier of the World War and as your Supreme Commander, I go to the front to join you on this day.
Berlin, September 3, 1939 Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler - Appeal to the German soldiers in the west!
September 3, 1939
Soldiers of the Army in the West!
Just as it did before the war, England has continued after the war to pursue the policy of encirclement against Germany. In spite of Germany’s not making demands on any state located west of the Reich, in spite of Germany’s not demanding territorial revisions in these areas, and in spite of Germany’s extending its hand repeatedly to England and France, offering an understanding-yes, even friendship-in spite of all this, the British Government, urged on by the warmongers known to us from the World War, has determined to drop its mask and, on a threadbare pretext, to proclaim that a state of war exists between us. For months it has covered for the Polish attacks on the life and security of ethnic Germans and the rape of the Free City of Danzig with the promise to come to the rescue of the Poles should Germany dare to defend itself against this.
Now that Poland, given this feeling of protection, has undertaken acts of aggression against Reich territory, I have determined to break open this ring placed around Germany. The Non-Aggression and Mutual Consultation Pact with the Soviet Union affords us the security of a policy of peaceful understanding with this greatest of empires in the East. In response to Polish acts of aggression, parts of the German Wehrmacht are fighting in the East to restore peace, a peace which is to secure life and liberty for the German Volk.
The Wehrmacht’s advances have been crowned by success in only fortyeight hours. Although only a small portion of the German aerial fleet is being deployed in the East, it already reigns supreme in Polish air space. The German Volk and your comrades in the East now expect you, soldiers of the Western Front, to stand fast, as unshakeable as a wall of steel and iron which defends the borders of the Reich against any attack, as a system of fortification which is one hundred times stronger than the never-vanquished Western Front of the Great War. If you do your duty, then the struggle in the East will be brought to a successful conclusion within a few weeks. And then the undivided force of a state of ninety million will stand behind you.
As an old soldier of the World War and as your Supreme Commander, I go to the front to join the Army in the East on this day, suffused by my faith in you. Our plutocratic opponents will soon learn that another Germany faces them today than in the year 1914!
Berlin, September 3, 1939 Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler - Appeal to the N.S.D.A.P.!
September 3, 1939
Our Jewish-democratic world-enemy has succeeded in bringing into existence a state of war between the English people and Germany. The reasons given for this are just as libelous and threadbare as those of 1914 were. Nothing has changed.
What has changed, however, are the forces and the will of the Reich to lead this struggle with the determination necessary to frustrate this intended crime against humanity. The year 1918 will not repeat itself. The German Wehrmacht will shatter the ring created by the English policy of encirclement in the East within a few weeks’ time. In the West, by means of the greatest fortification system of all time, it will defend German soil. The German Volk will make this sacrifice in the realization that it need not fear this confrontation, given its numbers and its great historical past. History has only witnessed us beaten when we stood divided.
Let all of us pledge ourselves to the German Reich’s entering this struggle and emerging from it in indestructible unity! In this lies the highest mission of the National Socialist Movement. Whoever resists the demands placed on him by the community, whoever seeks to distance himself from this community, or whoever believes he can even sabotage it, will be eradicated without mercy this time. The brave soldier at the front shall know that we value his life more highly than that of traitors.
And he shall likewise know that in this struggle, for the first time in history, one shall not profit while others bleed to death! Whoever believes he can enrich himself in these fateful months or years, shall not reap wealth in return but shall meet the grim reaper instead.
I hold all National Socialist functionaries responsible for taking upon themselves all sacrifices to be borne by the community in an exemplary fashion in their private lives.
What we possess today is of no import. What is important is that Germany wins! What we lose today is of no import. What is important is that our Volk overcomes the aggressor and hence wins a future for itself. In a few weeks, the National Socialist combat readiness must have transformed itself into a unity sworn unto life and death. And then the capitalist war agitators in England and its satellite states shall shortly realize what it means to have attacked Europe’s greatest Volk state without proper cause.
The path on which we stride forth today is no more difficult than that leading from Versailles up to 1939. We have nothing to lose, but everything to win!
Berlin, September 3, 1939 Adolf Hitler |