Discursos de año nuevo

[Francis Currey]

The New Year 1934

My fellow German citizens!

My goal is not to add a bitter taste to the holiday's festive glass of cheer. I believe that every level and class of the German people has reason to celebrate today with confidence. And there is no reason to be moderate. We Germans over the last 20 years have had too much pain, sorrow, and disappointment to run the risk of overdoing our celebration. A bit of pain is behind all our joy, and the cheer with which we look back on the past year and forward to the coming one is filled with earnestness and proud manliness.

But now we raise our hearts and see with satisfaction that a year of success is behind us, and that the blessing of heaven has fallen on the German people. Our whole hearts rejoice. It is a kind of joy that looks back with pride on what has been accomplished, and that gives strength for new plans and decisions. The powerful movement that has seized the entire German people in the past year is a movement of life that is filled with a firm and faithful optimism that gives endurance and strength. We Germans have once more learned to love life in all its splendor. We affirm it and accept all its demands, even if they be hard and pitiless. National Socialism affirms life, it does not deny it. We draw from it the joyful strength that so wonderfully fills us in the last hours of the passing year.

No one is left out. It fills the festive streets of the great cities and the lonely alleys and paths of our German villages. It fills huts and palaces, the rich and the poor. It fills the heart of the lonely wanderer who greets the new year in the snow-capped and towering mountains, or those who are part of the crowds on Berlin's Unter den Linden. It was a blessed year. The German people found themselves once more, and regained a hope that lets them look confidently into the coming year.

What a difference from the New Year's Eve of a year ago. Then the Reich stood before the abyss. The people were torn by hatred and civil war. The parties and the government lacked the strength even to recognize the catastrophe, much less to deal with it. Collapse and desperation were rising wherever one looked, and the specter of Bolshevism was everywhere. But today? The Reich is once more strong and powerful, the people more united and firm than ever before, led by a strong hand who is dealing with the problems we face. Where once there was hopelessness and despair, today a whole nation is filled with faithful devotion.

A year of unprecedented victories and triumphs is behind us. What twelve months ago seemed the product of an overactive imagination has become reality. The flags of national renewal fly over the Reich, and a revolution of vast extent has captured the German people and given them back their true nature.

There were probably only a few last 30 January, when the great transformation began, who imagined that a new era of German history was beginning, and that within a year the revolution would be over. Remember 21 March, 1 May, the unforgettable days in Nuremberg, 1 October, and 12 November. A wonderful transformation unified the nation, one that future generations will scarcely be able to comprehend. They will judge the year 1933. It will go down in history as the year the German nation finally broke free of its two thousand years of misery.

What an astonishing collection of significant political, cultural and economic events mark this year of German awakening! It finally destroyed the Marxist nonsense that had tortured the German people for six decades, condemning them to political impotence. Only a year ago it threatened the Reich, ready at any moment to seize power. Today we know of it only through stories. It was replaced by the idea of a true community of the people that was not the empty theory of a meeting hall, but rather step by step and piece by piece became a total and happy reality. The socialism that we preached for years found its living expression in the active participation of all Germans, perhaps the most wonderful and exciting event of the past year.

Twelve months ago the parties carried on their nonsense in the parliaments, government crisis followed crisis, and the fate of the Reich was determined by special interests that used the holy idea of Germany only for their party's benefit. This contemptible parliamentarianism, whose only Christmas gift to the people was the collapse of a cabinet, is gone. The German people overwhelmingly have affirmed one man and one idea. A movement fully aware of its responsibility governs the Reich.

The people themselves, however, could not support the new regime any more strongly than they do. People, state and nation have become one, and the strong will of the Führer is over us all. The eternal quarreling particularism that threatened the Reich has been overthrown. Germany once more stands before the world as an unshakable unity, and no one inside our outside of our borders is able to damage the interests of the German nation by using some kind of group within the Reich.

This political foundation had to be established if the government had any intention of dealing with the big problems of the day, if it was to do everything possible to deal with the specter of unemployment. The government had not only the intention to do something, it acted. It attacked unemployment with impressive measures. With God's help, it was able to do even more than it promised: over two million people are at work again, and even the hard winter did not slow us down. The entire world admires this accomplishment of the German people, gained by our will and toughness. The world is just as astonished as it watches the German people fight hunger and cold; the first half of the battle has already been won. It fills us with pride that in this first National Socialist winter no one, however poor and needy, has been left alone, that none of us, no matter how heavy our burdens, has gone uncared for through winter's cold months, that we have done our duty and need not fear anyone's gaze.

Is it any wonder that courage, confidence and optimism in growing measure fill the German people? Is not the flame of a new faith rising in the people from this sacrificial readiness? This people is noble, brave, generous, willing, and full of devotion under the care of a strong hand, and it may rightly believe that it is spotless and pure, and that it has the blessing of God.

Is there any reason to doubt that we will return this people to its just place among the nations of the world? We have had the courage to break with the unacceptable methods of international post-war diplomacy and claim the absolute right of the German nation to national honor and equality. We knew from the beginning that it would take a tough battle. Today we think we can say that we will win if we keep our nerve.

The year 1933 ends under this happy sign. With nostalgia we look back once again. It was a proud and manly year. It was a year of beginning and renewal, the first since the end of the war of which we can say that it ended for Germany better than it had begun.

As always, we stand at the helm even more firmly after the battle. The new year is before us, with its new challenges and tasks. Nothing will be given to us; we will have to seize it. Hard and challenging problems await us. We will need all our strength and intelligence to hold the ground that we have won, to increase it, to build on it, for only from it can we make the leap to new territory.

The comradeship of the people that has begun in so wonderful a way is not something that has found eternal root in German hearts. It is the foundation from which we will find the strength to bring a victorious end to coming battle against hunger and cold, and then to begin in the spring a second great campaign against the unemployment that we will eliminate in the coming year.

A major political problem in the coming year will be to give a new and organic structure to the Reich. Based on the firm ground of tradition, a reform must be implemented that will give the same unity to the Reich as to the people. The National Socialist idea and movement will fill both people and state for all time. Then we will be able to view our foreign problems with calmness. The people and nation stand on firm ground. No power on earth can split them apart.

The tasks before us are large and difficult, almost discouragingly so. Only our strong and fanatic faith will give us the strength to solve them. If the German people stay united and work together, they will master fate and build a new future. Peoples never lose because of inadequate weapons, only through a lack of self- confidence and will.

Let us then stand together and enter the new year with courage. The whole people should be confident of the government's thanks. Each of us is proud that we serve the people in a high position. We are all members of the people, we express its spirit and its will. The lowliest of our people is dearer to us than the king of another nation. And we would rather be the lowliest citizen of our nation than the king of another.

This nation has displayed remarkable heroism both during the war and thereafter. Covered with scars, it has recovered from the blows dealt us by fate. It lives once more and will live as long as we faithfully affirm its life.

No one has the right to become weary. Everyone is needed, each in his place. We know full well how much need remains in Germany, but we will never surrender to it. We do not stick our head in the sand, but rather we raise it high and offer it to fate.

No one should lose courage. Only he who thinks he is lost is lost.

In these last hours of the year, we join in humble thanks to the great God who gave us the gift of doing our work loyally and industriously. We ask his blessings for the coming year, and promise that we will not be unworthy of his blessings.

The year of revolution is over. The year of construction is beginning.

We give our respectful greeting to the General Field Marshall and Reich President [Hindenburg], who in the past year was once more the loyal Ekkehard of his people. May fate preserve him for us for many years to come. We give our loyalty and eternal allegiance to the Führer, who, never wavering, bore the flag through storms and dangers. May he stay strong and healthy, and complete his work.

I wish a happy New Year, filled with struggle and victory, to all good Germans at home and to our brothers on the other side of the border.

We will not fail if we have the courage to be stronger than the need that once defeated Germany.

Fecha: 31 December 1933

[Francis Currey]

The New Year 1938-39

We are at the close of the most successful year in the history of the National Socialist government. It is rather strange how hard it is to find the right words for the events of the past year. Everyday language is not enough to express what we feel in this emotionally festive hour, to say what moves us so deeply.

There is no doubt that the year 1938 was unique in German history. It fulfilled a thousand-year dream of the German nation. The Greater German Reich has become reality.

All other political events pale before this historical fact. Other events may be important, but in comparison they are but of passing interest. The return of over ten million Germans to the Reich is an event of historic significance that goes far beyond the year. It will affect the most distant future.

Things are happening all too quickly. The years are filled with dramatic events. They are so exciting and intense that we sometimes are not able to appreciate them individually. Hardly is one political problem resolved and along comes another. We often fail to be thankful enough to our age and to ourselves. Given the rapid pace in which history is happening, we incline all too easily to forget the difficulties that were involved. We can easily consider the government's successes as obvious, things that had to be. If last year we had a harvest of unprecedented size in our barns, we can easily believe that it was the result of political good fortune and a kind of historic miracle.

Of course, a certain element of luck is involved in historical successes, and the sheer scope of the Führer's success does seem miraculous. But the kind of luck we are having is the kind that, as Moltke once said, is enjoyed only by those who work for it. The historic miracle we are experiencing is one of those miracles that are mysterious and inexplicable in their totalities, but are brilliantly clear in individual events.

As long as we are speaking of miracles, it is worth asking why the National Socialist government has been so blessed with miracles, but not its predecessors. In those preceding governments, there was usually a party that never tied of maintaining that it had particularly close relations with God. Still, there were no miracles. They waited for one. They did not happen.

The most miraculous thing about miracles is that they always come when one does not simply wait for them, but works and fights for them. That is what has happened here. The Führer did not bring about the miracles of 1938 by waiting for them. He gathered and organized the strength of the nation and used it courageously. It paid off. There was certainly risk involved. Without big risks, history never grants big successes. This is further proof of the proverb that the world belongs to the brave.

It is characteristic of historic miracles that they seem almost impossible until they happen, and when they happen, it sometimes looks as if it had been easy. It is therefore no great thing to recognize a historic miracle that has happened. One must believe in ones yet to come.

That is the important thing about the big historic events of the past year. The people did not waver during the difficult tensions that were involved, and had to be involved. The broad masses of the people have a primitive and incorruptible ability to believe that everything is possible and reachable if one devotes one's full energies and fights with a strong and courageous heart.

This ability to believe is rather weak in some circles, above all in those with money and education. They may trust more in pure cold reason than a glowing idealistic heart. Our so-called intellectuals do not like to hear this, but it is true anyway. They know so much that in the end they do not know what to do with their wisdom. They can see the past, but not much of the present, and nothing at all of the future. Their imagination is insufficient to deal with a distant goal in a way such that one already thinks it achieved.

They were also unable to believe in the victory of National Socialism while the National Socialist movement was still fighting for power. They are as little able today to believe in the greatness of our national German future. They perceive only what they can see, but not what is happening, and what will happen.

That is why their carping criticisms generally focus on laughable trivialities. Whenever some unavoidable difficulty pops up, the kind of thing that always happens, they are immediately inclined to doubt everything and to throw the baby out with the bath water. To them difficulties are not there to be mastered, but rather to be surrendered to.

One cannot make history with such quivering people. They are only chaff in God's breath. Thankfully, they are only a thin intellectual or social upper class, particularly in the case of Germany. They are not an upper class in the sense that they govern the nation, but rather more a fact of nature like the bubbles of fat that always float on the surface of things.

Today, they seek to give good advice to National Socialist Germany from abroad. We do not have to ask them for it. They focus all their energies on the small problems that always are there, complain about the cost and believe that crises and unavoidable tensions are on the way. They are the complainers who never tire of bringing National Socialist Germany before the so-called court of world opinion. In the past they always found willing and thankful followers. Today, they only have a few backward intellectual Philistines in their camp.

The people want nothing to do with them. These Philistines are the 8/10 of one percent of the German people who have always said "no", who always say "no" now, and who will always say "no" in the future. We cannot win them over, and do not even want to. They said "no" when Austria joined the Reich; they said "no" when the Sudetenland followed. They always say "no" as a matter of principle.

One does not need to take them all that seriously. They do not like us, but they do not like themselves any better. Why should we waste words on them? They are always living in the past and believe in success only when it has already happened, but then waste no time in claiming credit for it.

The people want nothing to do with these intellectual complainers. The year 1938 was filled with great and sometimes unnerving tension. But they are delighted at the close of this year with the Führer's great historical successes.

This people are once more happy about life. Never before has there been such a happy Christmas as that of a week ago, and never before have we looked forward with so much confidence and courage to a new year as we do to 1939.

It is always hard to bid farewell to a year. Each year has many joys and sorrows. Each has its high points and low points. We would not want to miss a single year of our lives.

It has never been as difficult, however, to bid farewell to a year as it is to the year 1938. It was a splendid year, crowned with victory and success, a year without equal.

The ten million Germans who returned to the Reich feel this above all. They join us for the first time in celebrating the new year.

A year ago they gathered in dark cellars and blacked out rooms to listen to the radio as I gave the political report for the year. The voice of the nation reached them as they sat in the prisons or concentration camps that Austrian clericalism, with its pure Christian neighborly love, had established. They could do nothing but long for the Reich.

Now they are part of the great German fatherland. They sit in their rooms and dwellings. They are surrounded by comfortable warmth and are filled with pure and cheerful joy.

They are united with us. For the first time, 80 million Germans of the great German motherland join in celebrating the new year.

I take pleasure in this festive hour to send over the radio the last greetings of the passing year to all from Flensburg to Klagenfurt and from Aachen to Tilsit. We 80 million Germans are united in this great Reich in the center of Europe. We have a common fatherland and serve common national goals.

In these last hours of the old year I greet Germans everywhere. I greet the Germans in the Reich. I greet the Germans throughout the world, in foreign countries and in distant continents. I greet the Germans on the high seas. And in the name of countless millions of Germans I send our common greeting to the Führer.

Never were our wishes for him heartier and deeper than in this hour. We thank him for the Greater German Reich that is now a reality. Only his courage, his steadfastness, his actions, and his nerves made this great miracle possible.

It has been six years since we gathered with him at the end of 1932 at the Obersalzberg. It was at National Socialism's gravest hour. The movement had experienced a depressing electoral loss and many had begun to lose faith in ultimate victory. Those who always live in the past were saying that Hitler's star was sinking.

More than ever, however, we believed in him and in his strong and unshakable belief in the greatness of the Reich and the historical mission of the German people. Because he believed so firmly and unshakably, the Greater German Reich has become reality.

Today we once more join with him in this strong and unshakable belief in the greatness of the Reich and the historic future of the German nation. Loyal and unshakable, we trust this man and his historical mission, and will do everything to ensure that his orders will always find a ready and determined people.

In the closing hours of the old year, we Germans join for the first time in a great national community and give our warm and fervent thanks to the Almighty, who so blessed our land in this last year. We pray that he give the Führer strength and health. May he rest always in God's divine grace!

We promise the Führer that we will remain his most obedient and loyal followers.

The year 1939 has been the most blessed year in Germany's history. May it be followed by a new year also filled with success and victory! May it bring our land and its people blessing and good fortune!

I greet all Germans, above all those who in the past year carried the heaviest burdens, deprivations, sorrows, and responsibilities. You have the thanks of the fatherland.

May God hold his hand of blessing over Germany in the future.

We join at the end of this year in a single prayer from all Germans to the Almighty:

May our people and Reich be eternal,
and long live the Führer!


Fecha: 31 de Diciembre de 1938

[GoRSH]

Buenas, si estais interesados enviadme un mensaje privado, tengo discursos de la II Guerra Mundial en mp3, se los puedo enviar mediante un enlace que suba a un servidor, gratis por supuesto. Un saludo!

[Francis Currey]

The New Year 1939/40

It is harder for me than it was in years past to recall the old year for my listeners. Certainly there is no lack of material. To the contrary, the year 1939 was so dramatic and filled with historical splendors that one could fill a library writing about them. One hardly knows where to begin.

Much that happened in the past year already seems as if it happened years or even decades ago. It was a year burned into the book of history. It will surely give the historians enough material to write about for decades to come. They will explain the events and look into the motives and drives of the central characters. They will attempt to explain all that moved us so deeply, all that we have done, and they will probably fall short in the attempt. Whether friend or foe, supporter or opponent, all will have to admit that this was a great and eventful year, a year in which history was made, in which the face of Europe changed, in which the map took new form. More than that, our people began to restore its national life in 1939, beginning a great effort finally to throw off the chains of constraint and slavery and to once again take our place as a great power after our deep fall [after 1918]. When the diligent historians investigate this year, the worries and difficulties we all had will be forgotten; the sacrifices will appear in a milder and more becoming light, the tears shed will be concealed and the blood that has been shed will be the cement that forever holds our Reich together.

From the beginning, it was clear to everyone who can not only read history, but can experience it, that this year would deeply affect the fate of Germany and the European peoples. True, the first two months were relatively uneventful, but he who saw clearly knew it was only the calm before the storm. Everyone felt that it would be a year of important decisions.

On 13 February the ethnic Germans in Bohemia and Moravia made it clear that their legal, economic and social situation in the former Czechoslovakia had not become better since the solution of the Sudeten problem, but had in fact worsened. On 22 February, the Slovakians called for independence. At the beginning of March there were severe persecutions of Germans in Prague, Brünn and other cities in Bohemia and Moravia. On 8 March the Carpathian-Ukranian government in Prague protested against the appointment of a Czech general as Carpathian-Ukrainian interior minister. On 10 March, the Czech government deposed the Slovakian government and the persecution of Germans in Bohemia and Moravia intensified. It was clear that the time had come to settle the problems in these areas, which had been cultivated by Germans for centuries. On 13 March, the Slovakian leader Tiso visited the Führer, and on 14 March the Czech President Dr. Hacha placed the fate of Bohemia and Moravia in the hands of the Führer.

The goddess of history looked down to earth. German troops entered Bohemia and Moravia, and with breathless excitement the German people and the whole world saw the Führer take up residence in the castle of Prague. Slovakia declared independence on the same day, and the day after the Führer issued his historical decree establishing the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The Slovakians put themselves under the protection of the Reich. The issue of Bohemia and Moravia found its final historic solution. On 22 March, the Memel District returned to the Reich.

Parallel to these developments, the Polish question was intensifying. As early as 5 January, the Führer received the Polish Foreign Minister Beck at the Obersalzberg. He reminded him of Danzig's German character and made suggestions for improving German-Polish relations. These proposals fell on deaf Polish ears. After the reactions from London and Paris to these developments, one knew why.

On 31 March, soon after the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, London hate papers printed lies about German troops gathering on the Polish border. Chamberlain reported to the House of Commons on English-Polish negotiations, and gave a formal declaration of British support to Poland.

The London warmongering clique thus gave Warsaw the freedom to act, in the secret wish that Warsaw would begin the conflict that the London plutocrats needed in order to begin their long desired and carefully prepared military measures against the Reich.

The government in Warsaw understood. Beginning in April, the terror and persecution of ethnic Germans climbed beyond the previous normal and tolerable level. On 13 April, severe anti-German persecutions occurred on the Danzig border. The terrorist attacks on Germans rose throughout Poland after Germany began its efforts to improve relations. German consulates reported countless persecutions every day to Berlin. On 8 May, 300 ethnic Germans were expelled from Neutomischel County. The German theater was closed in Bromberg on 9 May. Two Germans were killed by Poles in Lodsch on 15 May. A Danzig citizen was killed by Poles in Kalthof on 21 May.

One can understand this only after learning that on 15 May the Polish War Minister Kasprzycki was in Paris for secret talks, and that the German representative in Warsaw reported to Berlin on 8 May that maps were being distributed in Polish cities that showed the border moved into German territory past Beuthen, Oppeln, Gleiwitz, Breslau, Stettin and Kolberg.

The situation in Danzig intensified under Polish pressure. On 15 June, the German ambassador lodged an official protest against insults and slanders against the Führer. Border incidents and other problems increased through June and July. On 4 August, the Polish government made an insolent and provocative ultimatum against rumors of alleged resistance against Polish customs officials. Danzig rejected the ultimatum on 7 August. The German government expressed its concern to the Polish representative on 9 August. Poland apparently felt itself under England's protection, and gave an unsatisfactory reply on 10 August. On 18 August, the SS Home Defense was mobilized to protect the German city of Danzig. Things were in motion.

English plutocracy attempted to wash its hands of the situation and claim innocence, seeking to build a moral alibi for the war it wanted. But even a blind man could see what England was doing.

On 24 August, the customs negotiations between Danzig and Poland ended because of Polish intransigence. Poland called up further reserves and intensified its provocations. On 25 August Poland further intensified the situation by firing on a German plane with a Reich Secretary on board on international airspace.

The reaction of the London warmongering clique to the events they had encouraged was clear; on 25 August they demonstratively signed a British-Polish alliance. The day after, a million and a half Poles were under arms.

The Führer spoke to the German Reichstag on 27 August. He announced that he wanted to solve three problems: Danzig, the Corridor, and improving Germany's relations with Poland in a way that would guarantee peaceful cooperation.

Lively diplomatic efforts between Berlin, Rome, London and Paris occurred between 28 and 31 August. The Führer yet again attempted a peaceful solution by announcing that the German government was expecting a Polish emissary. Poland replied by provocatively announcing general mobilization on 30 August. Polish radio on 31 August declared German proposals to solve the existing problems unacceptable. German consulates reported 55 instances between 25 and 31 August of the most serious Polish attacks on ethnic Germans. Polish troops committed a series of serious border violations on 31 August.

The result was that German troops marched into Poland on 1 September. The Führer spoke to the Reichstag and announced that force would be met with force. The same day, Danzig proclaimed its union with the Reich.

The following lightning campaign in Poland was unique in all of history. On 2 September, the Jablunka Pass was taken. The Polish army in the Corridor was destroyed on 4 August. Bromberg was captured on 6 September. The Westernplatte fell on 7 September. Lodsch was captured on 10 September. The encirclement of Radom was completed on 12 September. 52,000 Poles laid down their weapons. Posen, Thorn, Gnesen and Hohensalza were captured on 13 September. Gdingen fell into German hands on 15 September. Brest-Litovsk fell on 17 September. The encirclement of Weichselbogen um Kunto was completed successfully on 18 September. 170,000 Polish prisoners marched into captivity. Warsaw capitulated on 27 September. Modlin fell two days later. The Polish army was defeated and destroyed.

Over 700,000 Poles were captured. The booty was enormous. Over a half million guns, 16,000 machine guns, 32,000 artillery pieces and over 3 3/4 million rounds of artillery munitions fell into our hands.

The London warmongering clique did not lift a finger to support its Polish ally. England saw the solution of the German-Polish problem only as an excuse to begin the long-desired battle with the German people.

The English warmongers had achieved their first goal. Ever since the Munich Agreement, London had more and more been winning the upper hand. They increasingly influenced the governments in London and Paris. The year 1939 was increasingly characterized by Germany's encirclement. London plutocracy used the extremely tense situation to prepare war against Germany. Chamberlain and Halifax were in Paris on 10 January. Chamberlain told the House of Commons on 5 February that the full forces of the Empire were ready to assist France. On 18 March, Britain and France protested the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. War was avoided only because France and England were not ready for it. But as the Protectorate was established, the anti-German press campaign in London and Paris reached its first peak.

At the same time, the London warmongering clique spread alarming rumors to conceal the true situation. A lying report on 19 March claimed that Germany had given Romania an ultimatum. The Norwegian Foreign Minister denied reports from Paris about alleged German threats against the Nordic states on 21 March. On 24 March, England guaranteed the security of Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and the Eastern states. Not a day passed in which the English press did not predict some sort of German attack or spread lies about German threats against the smaller states.

Paris played the same tune. The French government passed emergency measures to strengthen the navy on 28 March. The English Chief of Staff Gort visited France.

The English-French warmongering clique now made a desperate attempt to bring Russia into the alliance against Germany. The English Commerce Minister Hudson traveled to Moscow on 28 March. London newspapers printed lies on 31 March that German troops were gathering on the Polish border. The same day, Chamberlain told the House of Commons that England would stand by Poland and Romania.

The Führer on the following day warned the English encirclers in a speech at Wilhelmshaven. On 5 April, Lord Stanhope said that the air forces of the English fleet were on alert. London established a munitions ministry on 20 April, in case of necessity. The Führer replied to these warmongering actions on the part of English plutocracy in a speech to the German Reichstag on 28 April. He declared the provisions of the German-English naval accord null and void, and also the German-Polish agreement of 1934.

A day before, England had introduced the draft, and negotiations between England, France and Russia began on 14 June in Moscow. London's goal was to organize an attack on Germany from both East and West.

At the same time, English propaganda made the foolish attempt to confuse the German people by leaflets, radio and the press, the same thing they had so often done in the past. The plans failed. The German people stood firmly and unanimously behind the Führer. The English attempt to bring Russia into its encirclement campaign collapsed.

The British Ambassador returned from London to Berlin on 25 August. The Führer presented him with a generous proposal for a lasting understanding between Germany and England. The English government did not intend to respond to this constructive proposal. Their answer came on 28 August. England claimed that it had received assurances from the Polish government that it would negotiate with the Reich government. The Führer replied to the English government on 29 August that the Reich government was ready to accept the English proposal and expected the Polish negotiator on Wednesday, 30 August. On the evening of 30 August and despite the absence of the Polish delegate, the Reich Foreign Minister gave the English Ambassador in Berlin a sixteen point proposal to resolve the questions of Danzig, the Corridor, and German-Polish minority issues.

Poland replied with force, and the Führer had no alternative but to answer force with force.

Paris and London demanded the withdrawal of German troops from Poland on 1 September. The German Reich government rejected the demand. Mussolini's attempts to resolve the situation on 2 September collapsed because of England's stance. On 3 September, London and Paris gave Germany an ultimatum, and declared war against the Reich soon after.

Now the mask fell from the faces of the London warmongering clique. When the government was shuffled on 3 September, leading members of the warmongering clique joined the cabinet. Churchill and Eden became official inciters of British war policy.

The war of the Western powers against the Reich had begun. The Führer's foreign policy had succeeded in destroying Britain's campaign of encirclement. England and France were alone against Germany.

The Reich faced a new challenge. All necessary internal measures had been taken to ensure a victorious conclusion to the war. On 28 August, rationing of food and consumer items was introduced. A Ministry for Defense was established on 30 August. Comprehensive economic measures were announced on 1 September, and a Reich Defense Commission with extensive powers was established on 5 September. Measures to guarantee the necessities of life for dependents of soldiers were implemented on 20 October. As early as 6 November, we could increase food rations. On 16 November, clothing rationing was introduced, and on 20 November better rations for those working at night or in demanding occupations.

The front and the homeland celebrated Christmas as a firm and unshakable community. The Führer was with his troops at the West Wall to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The year 1939 ended with the German people holding to an unshakable confidence in victory.

Another year is behind us, the proudest and most important year of the National Socialist regime. We see its passing with honor and respect. It was a German year in Europe's history. We honor the sacrifices that the entire German people have made in this year. Some were affected more than others. We have done all we could to see that the burdens are fairly shared. This war involves the whole people. It is a war for our national existence. It has not yet seen its full extent on every front. No one can doubt that the warmongering cliques in London and Paris want to stifle Germany, to destroy the German people. They grant that openly today. They reserve their sanctimonious phrases about defeating Hitlerism, but not the German people, only for the stupid. We know what they are doing from experience, and a child once burned is more cautious the second time. No one in Germany listens to them. They want to attack the Führer through Hitlerism, the Reich through Hitlerism, and the German people through the Reich. All the Führer's attempts at peace bore no fruit with them. We 90 million in the Reich stand in the way of their brutal plans for world domination. They hate our people because it is decent, brave, industrious, hardworking and intelligent. They hate our views, our social policies, and our accomplishments. They hate us as a Reich and as a community. They have forced us into a struggle for life and death. We will defend ourselves accordingly. All is clear between us and our enemies. All Germans know what we are doing, and the entire German people is filled with fanatical resolve. There is no comparison here to the World War. Germany today is economically, politically, militarily and spiritually ready to respond to the attack of the enemy.

It would be a mistake to predict what will happen in the New Year. That all is in the future. One thing is clear: It will be a hard year, and we must be ready for it. Victory will not fall into our laps. We must earn it, and not only at the front, but at home as well. Everyone has to work and fight for it.

Therefore in this hour as we bid farewell to a great year and enter a new one, the homeland greets the front. We greet soldiers in bunkers and the front lines, at airbases and in the navy. The homeland and the front join in a common greeting to the Führer. May a gracious fate keep him healthy and strong; then we will look with assurance into the future. Today more than ever he is Germany, the faith of our people, and the certainty of its future. We bow in honor before the great sacrifices of our people. The sacrifices of the past and those yet to come must not be in vain. We owe that to the Reich and its future.

As we raise our hearts in grateful thanks to the Almighty, we ask his gracious protection in the coming year. We do not want to make it difficult for him to give us his blessing. We want to work and fight, and say with that Prussian General: "Lord, if you cannot help us or choose not to, we ask at least that you do not help our damned enemies!"

[Francis Currey]

The New Year 1940-41

One of the most significant years in German history ends today. Not only the Reich, but Europe as a whole changed greatly during its course. States, nations and peoples have been transformed, and changes in the balance of power occurred that one would not have thought possible in decades, much less one short year. People would have thought me a fool and a dreamer, certainly not a politician to be taken seriously, had I prophesied in my New Year address last year that we would now have a front reaching from Kirkenes to Biskaya, that German soldiers would be standing watch along this 5000 kilometer long front, that Norway would be under German protection up to the Arctic Circle, that France would be militarily destroyed, that England would be suffering under the German counter blockade, that it would be receiving attacks by day and night on its centers as revenge from the German Luftwaffe, that it would be reeling from the blows of our army and struggling for its very existence, and that London would be begging for help from the rest of the world to survive even a few months longer. I would have been asked: "How are you even going to get to Kirkenes? Where are the ships you will need? And France has tough and brave soldiers. Its army is well-equipped and armed. It is rich, it has much support, and do not forget the Maginot Line! We have painful memories of the World War, in which we fought for weeks to gain a half a kilometer of land and soaked the French soil with streams of German blood." I would have heard all that and more.

Today such comments are long forgotten. We hardly remember them. We can hardly recall that they were once made seriously. Time passes quickly, and we have all gotten used to accepting our unprecedented successes and historical victories.

Being a prophet is a thankless task. Things always exceed what we prophesy. Things are on the move, transforming the prejudices, obscurities and complexities of the past with a hard, but orderly hand. How can we even begin to say what tomorrow will bring when we can hardly understand what is happening today!

It is however an important principle of clear political judgment that one must be able to understand the future in terms of the past. One must not cling to yesterday, but think about tomorrow, to research, but also to act. Only respect for the past gives one the strength to recognize what is coming. The bourgeois is afraid of action, but is impressed by past successes and victories. He easily forgets the battles that have been won and the things that have been accomplished, since he generally had little to do with planning and executing them. Before something happens he cannot have too much fear, afterwards he has all the courage he needs.

As we reviewed 1939 a year ago, the first four months of this gigantic war were over. We could look back on big, proud, and unprecedented victories by the German army. Poland was no more. The German army stood on the border of the present General-Gouvernment. The threat to the Reich from the east was over, and worries about a two-front war were a matter of the past.

Still, the central question of the military situation remained unresolved. With uncertain expectation the people heard the rumblings of distant thunder. The West was armed, and its dark and threatening speeches rolled over the Reich. If one had believed French statesmen at the time, it was only a matter of weeks before the Reich fell apart. A Paris newspaper wrote that we would be standing in lines outside French field kitchens.

Are Mr. Churchill and his satellites speaking any differently today? In their wild desperation and helplessness they are using the same silly language to conceal their fear of coming events. They are grasping at straws that will fail as soon as they are really believed.

Our opponents have always talked more than we do. Before something happens they talk a lot, only to grow suddenly silent when it actually happens. When things did not seem to be happening, they made the grandest threats against us. It has always been their fate to make the same mistake our enemies did during our struggle for power — they failed to take the Führer seriously. They ignored his warnings and when he was silent concluded that he did not know what to say or do. Three weeks before Hitler became chancellor, the then chancellor said that Hitler's day was over. Schuschnigg railed against the Reich two hours before he was driven in shame from the chancellor's palace in Vienna. Benesch had already packed his bags when he maintained that he had a plan to deal with the apparently hopeless situation. Polish statesmen dreamed of a victory at the gates of Berlin as German guns were already shelling Warsaw. Two months before France's collapse Monsieur Reynaud innocently showed diplomats a map of how Germany would be divided into separate parts. Is Mr. Churchill doing any different today? In his speeches and in the newspapers he explains the peace conditions for Germany once the war is over, while the British Isles in fact are bleeding heavily and gasping for breath. From our beginnings to the present, National Socialism's enemies seem determined to prove the accuracy of the old proverb: "The Lord makes blind those whom he wishes to punish."

Might I ask what Monsieur Reynaud would have done a year ago had he known what 1940 would bring France, or what Mr. Churchill would do now if he knew England's fate in 1941? We National Socialists seldom make prophecies, but we never make false ones. Had one believed the Führer back then, the world would have been spared much misery. Things probably had to happen as they did, however, since a new order of the coming proportions can be born only with pain, and the historical sins of the western democracies must find their historical recompense.

Whatever they may want, the new Germany is the instrument of fate. At the front and at home we have a community of 90 million, ready for any danger or threat. We have the good fortune to have a Führer who has led us down a straight path from the earliest beginnings onward. He can depend on his soldiers, workers, farmers, officials and professionals. They understand him as he understands them. During the hard months of the war we have had but one thought: victory. We will work and fight for it until the last foe is conquered.

In these last hours of the old year we recall with thanks the great victories given us by fate, and celebrate them before the world. We will never flag or fail. We bring the sacrifices the war requires with good cheer. No power in the world will make us deny our duty, or forget even for a moment our historical task of maintaining the freedom of our people.

I greet the entire German people at the end of this great and eventful year. I greet the men at home whose hard work supports the war, the workers at the wharves and munitions factories. I greet the women who accept all the difficulties and challenges the war brings,who have jumped in everywhere to replace the men who have gone to the front, who in the midst of it all still give birth. I greet the children, the countless German children who are touched by the hard facts of war, who often have left their parents' homes in regions threatened by air attacks. I greet our workers, our farmers, our professionals, who together are a people who have proven worthy of the time in which we live.

Are warmest and most grateful greetings go to our soldiers. I express the wishes and greetings of the homeland. From the depths of our heart to think of our brave army, our glorious Luftwaffe, and our victorious German navy.

The homeland and the front form a big family as we bid farewell to a year that was full of challenges, but also of big historic victories.The German people bows in praise before the Almighty, who has so clearly blessed us in the past year by standing by us in battle and crowning our weapons with victory. He knows that we are waging this war for a better peace, that we are fighting for the happiness of people who have so often been oppressed by their governments.

The entire German nation, at home and at the front, joins in a warm thanks to the Führer. 90 million glowing hearts greet him. It is with him both in good times and bad, just as it knows that the Führer is always with his people. We Germans wish him happiness and blessing for the new year, a strong, firm and sure hand, health and strength in all his efforts. Long may he live, long may he protect the people as the first fighter for a true and real peace and for the happiness, honor and fame of his people. The world admires him, but we may love him. We all extend our hands to him and hold firmly and inseparably to him.

The old year is over. A new one comes. May it be no less full of happiness, blessing, and proud victory than the last!

[Francis Currey]

31 December 1943

My German Comrades!

The year 1943 is nearing its end. It will never be forgotten by us who fought and worked and lived through it. It was the most difficult year of the war so far, one that subjected us to great moral and material tests. It gave us the task of holding that which we conquered in our glorious offensives of the earlier war years, which is the foundation of our final victory, and of defending it against the raging storm of our enemies with courage and without wavering. In large part we succeeded. We have had it is true to accept losses and setbacks, but they in no way are decisive for the outcome of the war, nor are their causes to be sought in any failure in our morale or material during this long war. The cowardly betrayal of the Italian king and a clique of generals cost the Axis camp the economic and military strength of an ally, and it could not be avoided that the general war situation was affected thereby. We had to pull back our lines in the East as well as in the South. The resulting withdrawals of our troops gave the enemy side a welcome opportunity to speak of the military collapse of the Reich, or even to make overhasty reports of approaching victory. They were fundamentally mistaken.

Our war position has indeed become tighter than it was at the end of 1942, but it is more than sufficient to guarantee us a certain final victory. One need only compare the successes of the other side with what they had hoped for to realize that our prospects of full victory have not been affected by the events of this year. The English and Americans are not at the Brenner Pass, but rather far from Rome. The Bolshevist offensive army has not been able to reach the German Reich's border as they wanted and planned to; our army in the East instead is offering bitter resistance far from our critical territory and interests. The amphibious operations Churchill promised have not occurred, and their constantly promised arrival will meet a battle-ready German Wehrmacht wherever they may come. In a word: the loss of an ally on our fighting front presented us with great and sometimes dangerous difficulties, but we have dealt with them. That in the end is the important thing. The outcome of a war is dependent not on wishes and intentions, but only on facts. The enemy did not succeed in the past year in affecting in a serious way our war effort in any critical area. If the great test of a war is that it brings challenges that can only be met by using all moral and material resources, the German people passed the test in the past year. It will doubtless go down in history as the most glorious of this great struggle for our existence. It is true that we looked back on more glorious victories in the first years of the war that we do this time. This year we had to prove ourselves. We had to prove to ourselves and to history that we could overcome great, even the greatest, difficulties, that we would not fail, but rather that our courage and our tough endurance are growing, and that we did. The year 1943 was thus a hard but proud year for us. It deserves a just evaluation. We have withstood it. The enemy broke his teeth on our military and moral resistance. What that means for the future of the war cannot yet be seen. That is true above all of the Eastern Front. Our soldiers there have survived a test of their steadfastness in the past year that puts everything that came before in the shadows. The OKW Report summarizes in two or three lines a heroism that cannot be put in words. It is frightening to realize that we Germans on our own, with but a few small but brave allies, are waging hot and bitter battles to protect a part of the world that in large part has not deserved it. Each fighting German soldier is therefore closer to our hearts than a thousand overly clever newspaper writers of a certain press that at best have good advice, but scarcely find a word of recognition and thanks for the heroic and sacrificial struggle that our Wehrmacht is also fighting for the preservation of the life of their peoples. The danger of Bolshevism, which threatens all of Europe, could be successfully resisted in the past year. Our troops have surpassed themselves. If the Soviets believed they could drive to our borders, the most recent battles in the wide spaces of the East have probably taught them how vain these hopes were.

It will forever be the greatest shame of the century that England and the United States joined with Bolshevism in their hate-filled battle for military success against our venerable continent. They will also not gain victory; to the contrary, at most they will ruin the economic foundations of their own nations. Only shame will remain. Perhaps it must be that way to speed along the inner decay of this rotten plutocratic government system. One can speak here only of perverse political and military cooperation. Despite that, it is an enormous danger for us and for Europe, and we must gather all forces to meet it. There is no point in hoping for the aid of other threatened peoples and states. They indeed see the danger, but no power in the world can make them do anything about it. They resemble the rabbit that looks hypnotized at the snake until it is devoured. We are mostly dependent on ourselves to successfully carry out this battle for our existence and the existence of our continent. And we can do it. The economic and military strength of the Reich has grown greatly since the beginning of the war, when we faced a far greater danger, which the enemy itself must grant. Europe is largely in our hands. The enemy will leave no method untried in the coming year to rip important positions from the hands of our war leadership. If he is to do this, the state of things requires that he take dangerous risks in the West, which until now he has successfully avoided. He tried to replace them by an air offensive, which everyone knows, and which the enemy even openly admits, is directed more against our war morale than our war potential. I speak of an air offensive, which is a very polite and restrained circumlocution for a completely unsoldierly way of fighting that has no historical parallel in its coarseness and brutality. Through the centuries, it will remain the second great shame of the English and the Americans. During the First World War they tried starvation against women and children. Now they are using phosphorus to beat down a fine and decent nation that demands nothing more than a decent and free life.

What worked for the enemy in the First World War will fail him in the Second World War. There is no point in even speaking about it. Our people survived so brilliantly the test of enemy air terror during the year 1943 that the enemy can bury the hopes he had for it. The nights of bombing have indeed made us poorer, but also harder. The misery of air terror is to some degree the mortar that holds us together as a nation in the midst of all dangers. Our people have not fallen apart during the nightly fire storms as our enemies hoped and wished, but rather have become a firm and unshakable community.

That is the most valuable lesson of the year 1943. Under the pressure of events, we have to a certain extent become accustomed to the horrors of modern war. The English people will have to get used to them again too. The air war is pleasant for the enemy only so long as it is one-sided. When it becomes two-sided again, the outbursts of joy on the part of the London press will soon fall silent. British and American pilots however will soon face defensive measures in the entire Reich during their brutal attacks on German cities and their civilian population that will spoil their fun. There is no weapon in this war that does not in time bring forth a counter-weapon. That will be true here too. The enemy's air war has only limited effects on our war effort. That is also not his goal. Our production campaign is not affected in any serious way, so the further successful continuation of the war is for us absolutely assured. We assume that the English and the Americans will try an invasion in the West during the coming spring. They will have to because Stalin, their supreme lord and ruler, wants them to. Then it will become clear who is right, the enemy side or us. In any event, the English and American public can see what their soldiers have to expect from the battles in Italy, and should not forget that the German Wehrmacht defending Rome is still fighting far from the edge of our zone of interest, while our life is at stake in the West. It is very probable that the war will thereby enter its decisive stage.

Our prospects for victory are more than favorable. It is in general a thankless task to play the prophet in such a critical time. However, the German leadership has never faced coming events with such sovereign calm as it does now. Of course the enemy side presents its chances as absolutely certain. The example of Italy proves, however, that it suffers from the fateful disease of overestimating its own strength and underestimating that of its opponent. It is easy to expect, therefore, that English and American soldiers will have an unpleasant surprise in the coming year. They will have to thank their governments, which will lead them blindly into bloody misfortune. A decisive element in victory is a consciousness of the justice of one's cause. We certainly have enough of that. We know very well why we are defending Europe; neither the English nor even less the Americans know what they are fighting for. But they will have to shed the most blood. No one will die gladly for a government based on arrogance and class pride, in which the workers are the slaves of the money moguls, and whose leaders coin lovely social phrases but carefully avoid social actions. But a soldier will defend as his own life a state that is his own, that is a social state in the truest sense of the word, that provides the average man with the chance to rise, that defends in its policies and war leadership only the interests of the whole people and not a small layer of plutocrats, a nation whose best sons lead it to prosperity and happiness. If the English and the Americans come, they will meet such a state, and such soldiers of the National Socialist Germany they hate so much, as to teach them that the effects of their cowardly and stupid propaganda are different now than they were in 1918.

I need not waste words about what this war means to us. Our enemies have left no doubt of that. We are defending our existence. It is good for us to know that. It does not make us weak, but hard. A defeat would destroy us all. The English and Americans would take our commerce, our ships, mines, factories and machines, the Bolshevists our men and children. What remained would no longer be a nation, only a heap of millions of starving and ragged slaves, defenseless and stupidly vegetating and, as the enemy wishes, posing no danger for its torturers and suppressors. Over against that is the victory that we can and will achieve. It will open the door for us to the final freedom and independence of our people. Then we will be on the road to peace and free labor, the reconstruction of our homeland and a deep social happiness that rests in the community of us all. Truly that is a goal that is worth all the labor, sorrow and exertion of this war. Who would not want to accept them, no matter how difficult it might seem! They are the prerequisites for our coming freedom from all the chains, for the salvation of all of civilized humanity. If I am asked what the primary virtue that will lead us to victory is, I can give but one answer: loyalty to ourselves, loyalty to our vision of the world and to our political affirmation of faith. In November 1918, the Reich plunged into the deepest depths of national disgrace because it was failed by its leadership in the final hour and became disloyal to its cause. Just before the end, it lacked the last moment of endurance that in the end makes that possible which seems impossible. That endurance is the most important thing. A nation must fight courageously and intelligently for its existence. But that is not enough. When events intensify and march with giant steps to their culmination, racing toward the crisis, the main thing is that the leadership and people keep their nerve, stubbornly and persistently overcoming dangers and difficulties, letting nothing distract them from the continuation of the course that they once saw as correct, keeping their eye only on the good star of their fate. Suddenly one day the clouds that hid the sun will clear and the sky will again be bright. So it will be in this war, too.

What should I say at the end of this almost concluded stormy year to thank the whole nation for its devotion, hard work, loyalty and sacrifice, for its bravery, its contribution of wealth and blood? I do not know where to begin or where to stop. The front and the homeland have outdone themselves. The party as the political leader of the people has accomplished great things. In the countless sorrows and difficulties of everyday life during the war, particularly in the areas affected by the air war after the worst terror attacks, it is an example of how to deal with every difficulty. More than that, true to its traditions as a soldier's party, it has sent millions to the German front. This is to its great honor, and it far surpasses what is demanded of the German people in general. Here, too, it has proven that it remains a party of fighters.

Countless party members defend Germany's existence at the front; tens of thousands of its leaders and members have sealed their loyalty to the Fatherland with death. The movement consisted of volunteers as it fought for the Reich between 1919 and 1933; once again it is mostly volunteers who stream from its ranks to the front, and continue to stream there from its youth organization, to stop the danger that looms over Germany and all of Europe. This party that grew out of struggle and stands today in the midst of it as well greets its Führer at the end of this and at the beginning of the next year. It greets him in the name of his people, whose honor and pride it is to lead. Countless millions of German soldiers bearing weapons on every front join in this greeting, as do countless millions of German workers and farmers who forge the weapons and give the nation its daily bread. It is also the greeting of millions of German women and mothers who speak in the name of their children, both those who have been born and those who will be born, for whom they wish a good future. They put their fate confidently in the hand of the Führer and in his soldiers. In passionate thankfulness the homeland remembers the fighting front and promises that no trick, no terror, and no power of the enemy will weary it or make it bend. Gathered around the Führer, we German people stand at the end of this hard year of war and step courageously into an as yet unknown future. We know that it will be our future. Fate will give us nothing; we must fight for it. We want to do that. With stubborn doggedness we await the enemy, whether he sneaks over our cities at night, whether he rams against our front in the East with superior numbers of men and material, whether he gets his head bloodied in the South or whether he finally risks an attack on the Atlantic Wall. Wherever he attacks us, he faces a front of German men, and in the homeland where these are lacking, German women, boys, and girls. The year 1944 will find us ready. Trained in the great lessons of history, educated in the spirit of National Socialism, with the example of our fathers before our eyes, we accept the struggle for our existence. In the end it will open the way for us to the future. With such a Führer as we have and such a people as we are and always want to be, who can doubt our victory! What we won in the first half of this war by bravery we must defend with stubbornness in its second half. That we will do with all the strength of our heart. There is none among us who does not know why.