Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)


Illustration from Europe at the Crossroads (1935)

Brutality is respected. Brutality and physical strength.
The plain man in the street respects nothing but brutal strength and ruthlessness, women, too, for that matter, women and children.
The people need wholesome fear. . . .
Terror is the most effective political instrument.

there are no longer any free realms in which the individual belongs to himself. . . .
The time of personal happiness is over.

Adolf Hitler
"War-guilt clause", Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919)

Article 231. The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies . . .
Article 232. . . . The Allied and Associated Governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers . . .
Excerpts from the Weimar Constitution (1919)

Article 109. All Germans are equal before the law. Men and women have the same fundamental civil rights and duties. Public legal privileges or disadvantages of birth or of rank are abolished . . .
Article 111. All Germans shall enjoy liberty of travel. . .
Article 114. Personal liberty is inviolable . . .
Article 118. Every German has the right, within the limits of the general laws, to express his opinion freely by word, in writing, in print, in picture form, or in any other way. . . . Censorship is forbidden. . . .
The "stabbed in the back" theory, November, 1919, General Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934)

In spite of the superiority of the enemy in men and materials, we could have brought the struggle to a favourable conclusion if determined and unanimous cooperation had existed between the army and those at home. But while the enemy showed an ever greater will for victory, divergent party interests began to show themselves with us. These circumstances soon led to a breaking up of our will to conquer. . . Our operations therefore failed . . . the Revolution was merely the last straw. As an English General has truly said, "The Germany Army was stabbed in the back." It is plain enough on whom the blame lies.
Contemporary summary of one of Hitler's speeches (1920)

The lecturer [Hitler] spoke on Judaism. Everywhere one looks, he said, there are Jews. Jews rule all of Germany. What dishonor, that German workers, both white collar and manual laborers, allow themselves to be so harassed by the Jews. Of course, because Jews have the money. . . . German should unite and fight against the JEWS. . . . The lecturer's final words: We must struggle until the last Jew is removed from the German Reich, even if it comes to a coup and even more, to another revolution.

The NSDAP "Nazi" Program (February, 1920)

1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples.
2. We demand equality of rights for the German people . . .
4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood . . . Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.
5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest, and must be under the authority of legislation for foreigners . . .
23. We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. In order to enable the provision of a German press, we demand, that: (a) All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in the German language be members of the race. . . .
24. We demand freedom of religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. . . [The party] combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us . . .
25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich . . . The leaders of the Party promise, if necessary by sacrificing their own lives, to support the execution of the points set forth above without consideration.
Speech on the Treaty of Versailles, Adolf Hitler (April, 1923)

With armistice begins the humiliation of Germany. . . . Today [millions] are foes of the Republic not because it is a Republic but because this Republic was founded at the moment when Germany was humiliated. . . .
So long as this Treaty stands there can be no resurrection of the German people. . . The Treaty was made in order to bring 20 million Germans to their deaths and to ruin the German nation. But those who made the Treaty cannot set it aside. As its foundation our Movement formulated three demands:
1. Setting aside of the Peace Treaty.
2. Unification of all Germans.
3. Land and soil to feed our nation. . . .
[This Movement] desires to make the German once more National, that his Fatherland shall stand for him above everything else. . .
Description of hyper-inflation in the 1920s, Konrad Heiden

They all stood in lines outside pay-windows, staring impatiently at the electric wall clock, slowly advancing until at last they reached the window and received a bag full of paper notes. According to the figures inscribed on them, the paper notes amounted to seven hundred thousand or five hundred million, or three hundred and eighty billion, or eighteen trillion marks . . . When you reached the store, a pound of sugar might have been. . . two millions; but, by the time you came to the counter, all you could get for two millions was half a pound . . .
Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler (1925)

Here he stops at nothing, and in his vileness he becomes so gigantic that no one need be surprised if among our people the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew. . . Slowly fear and the Marxist weapon of Jewry descend like a nightmare on the mind and soul of decent people. They begin to tremble before the terrible enemy and thus have become his final victim. . .
With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people. With every means he tries to destroy the racial foundations of the people he has set out to subjugate. . . It was and it is Jews who bring the Negroes into the Rhineland always with the same secret thought and clear aim of ruining the hated white race. . .
In. . . Marxism he has found the weapon which lets him dispense with democracy and in its stead allows him to subjugate and govern the peoples with a dictatorial and brutal fist. . . The end is not only the end of the freedom of the peoples oppressed by the Jew, but also the end of this parasite upon the nations. After the death of his victim, the vampire sooner or later dies too.

The function of propaganda is to attract supporters, the function of organization to win members. . . . Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea. . .

The Brown Plague, Daniel Guerin (1930)

With malicious pleasure, I pick at their weak spot and watch them writhe like impaled butterflies. After making some declaration of love for the German people . . . "One owes the truth to a people one loves, let me tell you . . . a great savant like Einstein . . ." My young blond long-head gives a start; his blue eyes fill up with red blood: "Einstein? A dog! ". . . "But your 'Aryan' race is only a myth!" He draws himself up. "A myth! Look at me. Am I not, are we not, blond-haired Germanics? Unlike you French, we're of a pure race! And to defend ourselves, we won't hesitate to resort to sterilization." This the young musician says with a frightening tenderness. . . . How could 650,000 Jews have deprived 65 million Germans of work? But when things go badly, a scapegoat is needed, and to spare the capitalists who are actually responsible from the people's wrath, the Israelites have been charged with all manner of sins. . . . Hitler has invented nothing; he has simply listened, formulated, and guessed what an outlet anti-Semitism offers to the anticapitalist sentiment of the masses. . . . I understood the true character of this struggle by opening a book that is a real provocation to murder. The title: Jews Are Watching You. . . .
Propaganda pamphlet (1930), Dr. Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)

WHY DO WE OPPOSE THE JEWS?
We are ENEMIES OF THE JEWS, because we are fighters for the freedom of the German people.
THE JEW IS THE CAUSE AND THE BENEFICIARY OF OUR MISERY. . . .
He is the real cause for our loss of the Great War. . . .
That is the reason why we, AS NATIONALISTS and AS SOCIALISTS, oppose the Jew.
HE HAS CORRUPTED OUR RACE, FOULED OUR MORALS, UNDERMINED OUR CUSTOMS, AND BROKEN OUR POWER.
THE JEW IS THE PLASTIC DEMON OF THE DECLINE OF MANKIND. . . .
WE ARE ENEMIES OF THE JEWS BECAUSE WE BELONG TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE.
THE JEW IS OUR GREATEST MISFORTUNE. . . .

Schoolteacher's commentary on Nazi party rally (1932)

"The Fuehrer is coming!" A ripple went through the crowds. Around the speaker's platform one could see hands raised in the Hitler salute. . . . A second speaker welcomed Hitler and made way for the man who had drawn 120,000 people of all classes and ages. There stood Hitler in a simple black coat and looked over the crowd, waiting- a forest of swastika pennants swished up, the jubilation of this moment was given vent in a roaring salute. Main theme: Out of parties shall grow a nation, the German nation. . . When the speech was over, there was roaring enthusiasm and applause. Hitler saluted, gave his thanks. . . Then he went.- How many look up to him with touching faith as their helper, their saviour, their deliverer from unbearable distress.

song of the Hitler Jungvolk

Adolf Hitler is our Saviour, our hero
He is the noblest being in the whole wide world.
For Hitler we live,
For Hitler we die.
Our Hitler is our Lord
Who rules a brave new world.
American journalist in Berlin, William Shirer

They looked up at him as if he were a Messiah, their faces transformed into something positively inhuman.