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Ομιλία Γκέμπελς μετά τις 20 Ιουλίου 1944
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National Bolshevik
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Ομιλία Γκέμπελς μετά την απόπειρα δολοφονίας του Χίτλερ
German men and women!
The one good aspect to 20 July was that it brought each of us to attention. Suddenly the nation stood before an abyss and peered into its terrifying depth. Everyone realized what the failed attempt against the Führer and his top military advisors would have meant. The whole nation realized that its very existence might have ended had the plans of the traitorous Putsch clique succeeded. It is easy to sit in judgment of this or that measure when a strong government is in control. That does not necessarily mean one does not support the government. A nation realizes what such a government means only when it for a moment faces the possibility of losing it. Only then does the nation see the real value of an authority that everyone takes for granted, and to which everyone, without exception, gives the right to rule and to decide. What would these nitpickers do if that authority suddenly disappeared? At such a time as this, a strong hand at the helm is the most important prerequisite to keep things going, and ultimately to win the victory. Few successes are the result of luck or accident; nearly all have to be won in a hard battle with fate. The historical burdens bound to such successes can only be mastered by a personality of historic scale. If that personality is lacking, the struggle is hopeless from the start.
The German people made major decisions on 20 July and the days following and the leadership could not and did not hesitate to carry them out. None of these decisions weakened us; all of them were aimed at increasing and concentrating our war effort. There is no more eloquent proof of the level of German war morale. A nation that after five years of such a war has no thought but to work harder and fight more bravely than ever before, and that responds to such an attack on the life of its Führer, and thereby its own life, with such a wave of confidence and faith, is certain of victory. It need only work resolutely and loyally, undismayed by the dangers and difficulties it faces. At the end of the war the balance will be drawn. Victory can be won neither by cheating nor swindling; the nations must win it honestly, and each action or lack of action is a step toward it or away from it. If 20 July has any larger meaning it is this: It brought each one of us back to the essence of our struggle for existence and reminded us that we have overcome many obstacles in the past, but there are things still worse that could not be overcome.
The total war that is to be realized step by step has both a moral and a material side. It is true that the duties and obligations of each German toward the war effort are laid out more extensively than before in laws, regulations and rules. However, there remains room for individual initiative. It is more than a matter of bringing to bear the not yet fully used reserves of German fighting and working strength. The war is more than a military, political, and economic matter. It is also a matter of morale and worldview, and we must deal with them along with the material issues. Each of us must start with himself, if he wants to change the course of the war in the way each of us longs for. Many of us have given ourselves too much consideration, and have not become stronger and firmer as a result. One individual passed along the hardest burdens of the war to another, who in turn decided he was not up to them either, and that the war could and would be won without him. This viewpoint is as despicable as it is ominous. We find ourselves in no bed of roses, and must use our full strength if our chances of victory are to remain undiminished. More than ever before, we are a fighting community on board the same ship that is plowing through stormy seas. It will either bring us all safely to the secure harbor of a happy peace, or we will all go down together with it.
If we are to take total war seriously, as more than an empty phrase, each must draw the proper conclusions both for his work and for his personal life style. Up until now we boasted about all left over from peace that was still ours in this fifth year of the war. Now we must learn to boast about what we have thrown overboard. A simple, spartan lifestyle does not have to be unhealthy. The more we adjust our lives to the realities of war, the more we benefit our cause, which we all want to see triumph.
It is no great honor for us that one hardly notices the war in public life, save in those areas suffering air attacks. In the future, the war should be everywhere evident. Every foreign visitor should encounter the war everywhere, and see that he is in a nation that is fighting for its life and future, and that is determined to make every necessary sacrifice. Only fools think this will diminish our national prestige. Rather, our friends will admire us and our foes will fear us. The more we bow to the demands of the war, the sooner it will bend to our will. An old proverb says that a nation should think only of war during peace. How much more true is this during war! Nothing takes precedence over the war effort. The more consistently we realize this, the easier it will be to give up the last remnants of peace and serve only the war effort.
We have often said that this is not a matter of fundamentals that we want to maintain forever. We are the last to call for primitivizing public and private life. When, however, there is no other alternative, we must have the courage to toss overboard all the old comforts and conveniences. We will soon see how little we miss them. We know that there are countless millions in our nation who are ready to make any sacrifice, as long as they do not have to fear that their neighbor will fail to join them, leaving them looking like a fool. They do not need to worry. The total war we are waging is on the one hand a matter of each individual doing what obviously has to be done, but it is also a matter of law and penalties. We cannot allow millions of German women to work ten or twelve hours a day while a few thousand do no work at all, for example. And they may not believe that they can meet their duty to the nation by some sort of make-work for their father or uncle. We will take the necessary action against such elements. They sin not only against the material requirements of the war effort, they also harm our morale.
I can say this for myself, that if I shall repent in my life of anything, it will not be of the twenty three years that I have been working under the leadership of the Führer, but of those few early days when I thought that the Führer was too much in a hurry, was forcing events, was committing a mistake, and that I would have to oppose him. It is now as clear as noonday that if the German people, under the Führer's leadership, had not seized power in time in that fateful January of 1933, we should, a few weeks later, have had the dictatorship of the most ruthless, most unscrupulous Jewish rascals, with the Red Army at the gates of Barlin! (Loud and continued applause). It is known now that it had been decided to massacre all of us by February 1933, and if the Communists had had more weapons at their disposal, they would have done so. Even after January 30 the Communists intended to massacre us, and one of their members, Lubbe, even recruited people for the purpose.
Eleven years later, the putschist Stauffenberg admitted himself, that he had succeeded in scraping together 5,000 champions - of a very doubtful quality - to stage a rebellion and cause anarchy in Germany after the death of the Führer. There was the will, but there was not the way. The bomb of the traitors could not kill the Führer, could not kill the German people!
That is why the man who has accomplished such work is entitled to immortality. That is why a blow directed against him is received by everybody as a blow directed against themselves. Field Marshal Keitel was right when he said in Rastenburg: 'When the Führer is cruelly wounded, our own lives seemed so superfluous, so unimportant....'
The Führer has been frequently compared with Gustavus Adolphus, but fate was kinder to him than to Gustavus Adolphus, who became dear to his people after his death. Our teacher and leader came within hair's breadth of death. He was dear enough to our people even before the attempt, but now, after that treacherous attempt, he will become a thousand times dearer to the hearts of the working class. Gustavus lived still in the memory of his people a long time after his physical life had been cut, but Hitler will live long yet, not only in our minds and hearts, but also in our ranks, in order to fight with us and to carry to a triumphant conclusion the war of liberation of Europe. (Storm of applause).
Yes, a Gustavus Adolphus closely connected with the millions of the urban and rural masses. That is Hitler. Take the fanatical devotion to the Nordic soldiers which distinguished Gustavus; take his integrity, his simplicity, his intimate knowledge of the soul of the people, take his elemental faith in the inexhaustible strength of the 'lowest of the lowly', take all this and add to it the first-class education of a National Socialist, an iron will, an acute analytical mind, and you will get Hitler such as we know him now. A National Socialist is just a Nordic soldier who had tied up his fate with the most advanced ideal of modern times. The figure of the leader of the civilized European people, Hitler, will yet throw into shade the glory of the most glorious of the Nordic fighters of the time of the Thirty Years War.
He was never forgiven by the old system for having once declared in the Reichstag: 'I hate your order; yes, I am a deadly enemy of your entire bourgeois society.' And the same Hitler used to say: 'When I am praised by the bourgeoisie, I ask myself, "What folly have you committed to have merited the praises of these cannibals?"' The hidden enemies of the German people, the Stauffenbergs and the Kluges still hate him for that, and he is proud of it. At the tensest moment of struggle, Hitler is fond of repeating, as he did on the eve of the Revolution, the poet's words: 'We get our approbation not in the sweet murmur of praise, but in our enemy's wild shouts of rage.' This is characteristic of Hitler. These words are Hitler himself. The Führer quotes poetry but seldom, but in this case he used it with good reason. The wild shouts of rage of the enemies of the German people have ever been the best music to the Führer's ear. The greater the rage of the enemies, the more calm and assured Hitler is.
Again, the Führer is fond of comparing our cause with a rushing railway engine. Indeed, our railway engine rushes with a dizzy swiftness, but then our driver manages the engine as no else can. His eye is sharp, and his hand is firm and will not tremble for one second even at the most dangerous culverts. Fate gave us a sign on 20 July. Forces were at work that wanted evil, but brought about good. We will not be idle. We will obey the call of duty, wherever and whenever we hear it, and know that our actions will bring about victory. It cannot be otherwise. This is a unique war effort, unprecedented in its length and hardness. We have grown through it such that we can master the growing difficulties.
At this moment our leader has fully recovered. For a moment he struggled with death, but he has vanquished it, and he still lives. This is symbolic. At one time it looked as if our cause had been mortally wounded. It is at present coming round again, as our leader Adolf Hitler is coming round; the clouds will scatter, and we shall vanquish all our enemies. (Storm of applause.)
« Last Edit: July 27, 2016, 04:00:12 am by National Bolshevik »