In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterise down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life. Let the nation know that its existence—which depends on its internal order and security—cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.- Adolf Hitler, Speech to the Reichstag (13 July 1934)
On
this date, 13 July 1934, Adolf Hitler gave a speech to the Reichstag justifying
the Rohm Purge.
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://comicism.tripod.com/340713.html] |
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://der-fuehrer.org/reden/english/34-07-13.htm
Adolf
Hitler-Speech to the Reichstag
Berlin, July 13, 1934
Deputies! Men
of the German Reichstag!
Acting on behalf of the Reich Government, the
President of the Reichstag, Hermann Göring, has
called you together today in order to give me an opportunity to enlighten the
Volk before this body, the highest appointed forum of the nation, concerning
events which will hopefully live on in our history for all time as both a sad
reminder and a warning.
Out of a combination of objective circumstances and personal guilt, of
human incompetence and human defects, a crisis arose in our young Reich which
all too easily may have brought about truly destructive consequences for an
indeterminate period of time.
The purpose of my remarks is to explain to you and thus to the nation
how they came about and were overcome. The contents of my remarks will be
completely frank. Only in respect to scope must I impose upon myself
limitations necessitated, on the one hand, by consideration to the interests of
the Reich and, on the other, by the boundaries drawn by the feeling of shame.
Street riots, barricade fighting, mass terror, and an individualistic
propaganda of disintegration today trouble nearly all countries throughout the
world. In Germany as well, a few isolated fools and criminals of this type are
still making repeated attempts to ply their destructive trade. Since the defeat
of the Communist Party, we have experienced, albeit growing constantly weaker,
one attempt after another to establish Communist organizations with varying
degrees of anarchist character and to put them to work. Their methods are
always the same. While portraying the present lot as unbearable, they extol the
Communist paradise of the future and, in doing so, are practically only waging
war for hell. For the consequences of their victory in a country like Germany
could be nothing other than destructive.
However, the trial run of their capability and of the consequences of
their rule have, in the concrete case, already produced results so clear to the
German Volk that the overwhelming majority, particularly of the German workers,
has recognized this Jewish-international benefactor of mankind and inwardly
defeated it.
The National Socialist State will wage a Hundred Years’ War, if
necessary, to stamp out and destroy every last trace within its boundaries of
this phenomenon which poisons and makes dupes of the Volk (Volksvernarrung).
The second group of discontented is comprised of those political leaders
who regard their futures as having been settled by January 30 but who have
never been able to reconcile themselves to the irreversibility of this fact.
The more Time veils their own incompetence with the merciful cloak of
forgetfulness, the more they believe themselves entitled to gradually
reintroduce themselves to the mind of the Volk. However, because their
incompetence then was not a matter of time but a matter of inborn incompetence,
they are equally unable today to prove their worth by positive, useful work but
instead perceive their purpose in life as being fulfilled by voicing criticism
which is as underhanded as it is false. The Volk does not belong to them
either. They can neither seriously threaten the National Socialist State nor
seriously damage it in any way.
A third group of destructive elements is made up of those
revolutionaries who were shaken and uprooted in 1918 in regard to their
relation to the State and who thus have lost all inner connection to a
regulated human social order.
They have become revolutionaries who pay homage to the revolution for
its own sake and would like to see it become a permanent state of affairs.155
All of us once suffered from the horrible tragedy that, as obedient and dutiful
soldiers, we were suddenly faced by a revolt of mutineers who actually
succeeded in gaining possession of the State. Each of us had originally been
trained to abide by the laws, to respect authority and to show obedience to the
commands and orders it issues, and instilled with an inner devotion to the
representatives of the State.
Now the revolution of deserters and mutineers forced us to inwardly
disassociate ourselves from these concepts.
We were unable to muster any respect for the new usurpers. Honor and
obedience forced us to refuse to obey; love of the nation and the Vaterland
obliged us to wage war on them; the amorality of their laws extinguished in us
the conviction of the necessity for complying with them-and hence we became
revolutionaries.
However, even as revolutionaries, we had not disassociated ourselves
from the obligation to apply to ourselves the natural laws of the sovereign
right of our Volk and to respect these laws.
It was not our intention to violate the will and the right of
selfdetermination of the German Volk, but to drive away those who violated the
nation.
And when finally, legitimated by the trust of this Volk, we drew the
consequences from our fourteen-year-long struggle, this was not done in order
to unloose a chaos of unreined instincts, but with the sole aim of establishing
a new and better order.
For us, the revolution which shattered the Second Germany was nothing
other than the tremendous act of birth which summoned the Third Reich into
being. We wanted to once again create a State to which every German can cling
in love; to establish a regime to which everyone can look up with respect; to
find laws which are commensurate with the morality of our Volk; to install an
authority to which each and every man submits in joyful obedience.
For us, the revolution is not a permanent state of affairs. When a
deathly check is violently imposed upon the natural development of a Volk, an
act of violence may serve to release the artificially interrupted flow of
evolution to allow it once again the freedom of natural development. However,
there is no such thing as a permanent revolution or any type of profitable
development possible by means of periodically recurring revolts.
Among the countless files which I was obliged to read through in the
past few weeks, I also found a journal with the notes of a man who was cast
onto the route of resistance to the laws in 1918 and now lives in a world in
which the law itself appears to provoke resistance; an unnerving document, an
uninterrupted sequence of conspiracies and plots, an insight into the mentality
of people who, without realizing it, have found in nihilism their ultimate
creed. Incapable of any real cooperation, determined to take a stand against
any kind of order, filled by hatred of every authority as they are, their
uneasiness and their restlessness can be quelled only by their permanent mental
and conspiratorial preoccupation with the disintegration of whatever exists at
the given time. Many of them stormed the State with us in our early period of
struggle, but an inner lack of discipline led most of them away from the disciplined
National Socialist Movement in the course of the struggle.
The last remnant seemed to have withdrawn after January 30. Their link
with the National Socialist Movement was dissolved the moment this itself, as
State, became the object of their pathological aversion. As a matter of
principle, they are enemies of every authority and thus utterly incapable of
being converted. Accomplishments which appear to strengthen the new German
State only provoke their even greater hatred. For there is one thing, above
all, which all of these oppositional elements principally have in common: they
do not see before them the German Volk, but the institution of order they so
abhor. They are filled not by a desire to help the Volk, but by the fervent
hope that the government will fail in its work to rescue the Volk. Thus they
are never willing to admit that an action is beneficial but are instead filled
by the will to contest any success as a matter of principle and to extract from
every success any potential weaknesses.
This third group of pathological enemies of the State is dangerous
because, until a new order has begun to crystallize from a state of chaotic
conflict, they represent a reservoir of willing accomplices for every attempt
at revolt.
I must, however, now devote my attention to the fourth group, which on
occasion-perhaps even unintentionally-nonetheless plies a truly destructive
trade. I am speaking of those who belonged to a relatively small class in
society, who have nothing to do and thus find the time and the opportunity to
deliver oral reports on everything capable of bringing some interesting-and
important-variety to their lives which are otherwise completely meaningless.
For while the overwhelming majority in the nation is made to earn its
daily bread by toilsome labor, in certain classes of life there are still
people whose sole activity consists of doing nothing, followed by more of the
same to recuperate from having done nothing. The more pathetic the life of such
a drone is, all the more avidly will he seize upon whatever can fill this
vacuum with some interesting content.
Personal and political gossip is caught up eagerly and passed on even
more eagerly. And because these people, as a result of doing nothing, have no
living tie to the masses of the nation’s millions, their lives are delimitated
by the scope of the sphere within which they move.
Every bit of prattle which becomes absorbed by these circles throws its
reflection back and forth endlessly as between two distorting mirrors.
Because their very beings are filled with a nothingness which they
constantly see reflected in those like them, they believe that this phenomenon
is universal. They mistake the view of their circle for the view of all. Their
doubts, they fancy, constitute the troubles of the entire nation.
In reality, this little colony of drones is only a state within the
State, without any living contact with life, with the feelings, hopes and cares
of the rest of the Volk. However, they are dangerous, for they are veritable
germ-carriers for unrest, uncertainty, rumors, allegations, lies, suspicions,
slander, and fear, and thus they contribute to creating a gradually increasing
tension until, in the end, it is difficult to recognize or draw the natural
boundaries between them and the Volk.
Just as they wreak their havoc in every other nation, they do so in
Germany, too. They regarded the National Socialist Revolution as a conversation
topic just as interesting as, on the other hand, the fight of the enemies of
the National Socialist State.
But one thing is certain: the work of rebuilding our Volk and, with it,
the work of our Volk itself is only possible if the German Volk follows its
leadership with inner calm, order and discipline and above all if it trusts in
its leadership. For it is only the trust and the faith placed in the new State
which have enabled us to take on and solve the great tasks put to us by former
times.
Even though the National Socialist regime was forced to come to terms
with these various groups from the very beginning and has, in fact, come to
terms with them, a mood has nonetheless arisen in the past few months which, in
the end, could no longer be taken lightly.
The prattle of a new revolution, of a new upheaval, of a new uprising-
while at first infrequent-gradually took on such intensity that only a
foolhardy leadership of state would have been capable of ignoring it. It was no
longer possible to simply dismiss as empty chatter what was put down in
hundreds and ultimately thousands of oral and written reports. Even three
months ago, the leadership of the Party was convinced that it was simply the
foolish gossip of political reactionaries, Marxist anarchists and all sorts of
idlers, completely lacking any substantiation in fact.
In mid-March I directed that preparations be made for a new wave of
propaganda. It was to make the German Volk immune against any new attempts at
poisoning. At the same time, however, I also gave certain Party Offices the
order to track down the recurring rumors of a new revolution and, if possible,
to locate the source of these rumors.
It was found that tendencies had appeared in the ranks of several
highranking SA leaders which naturally gave rise to serious doubts.
At first, there were only isolated manifestations, the inner connections
of which were not yet quite clear.
1. Against my express order and contrary to reports given me by former
Chief of Staff Röhm, the SA had been blown into such proportions as to
necessarily endanger the inner homogeneity of this unique organization.
2. Education in the National Socialist Weltanschauung was becoming more
and more neglected in the ranks of these certain SA offices I have mentioned.
3. The natural relations between the Party and the SA slowly began to
weaken. Methodical steps were taken, by means of which it was ascertained that
endeavors were being made to disengage the SA from the mission which I had
assigned to it in order to utilize it for other tasks or interests.
4. Promotions to leadership posts in the SA revealed themselves upon
review to be based upon a completely one-sided evaluation of purely external
capabilities or, in many cases, on a merely assumed intellectual capacity. The
greater number of our oldest and most loyal SA men were increasingly neglected
when leaders were appointed and posts filled, while those who had enlisted in
1933 and who are not favored with any especial regard within the Movement were
incomprehensibly given priority. In some cases, only a few months of
uninterrupted membership in the Party or even only in the SA sufficed for
promotion to a higher SA office to which an old SA leader was barred access
even after many years of service.
5. The behavior of these individual SA leaders who, for the most part,
had in no way grown to become part of the Movement, was as un-National
Socialist as, at times, it was positively revolting. However, it could not be
overlooked that these circles contained one source of unrest in the Movement,
which lay in the fact that their lack of practical National Socialism attempted
to veil itself in quite uncalled for demands for a new revolution.
I drew Chief of Staff Röhm’s attention to this and a number of other
problems, but this did not result in any noticeable improvement or even in any
recognizable reaction to my censures. In the months of April and May, there was
a constant increase in these complaints. For the first time, however, during
this period I received reports-with supporting documentation-of discussions
which had been held by individual high-ranking SA leaders and which can be
described in no other terms than “gross insubordination” (große
Ungehörigkeit).
For the first time, there was undeniable supporting documentation in
several cases that references had been made to the necessity of a new
revolution in such discussions and that leaders had received instructions to
prepare both inwardly and materially for such a new revolution. Chief of Staff
Röhm attempted to deny that any of these incidents had in fact taken place,
stating that they could be explained as disguised attacks on the SA.
The gathering of evidence for several of these incidents by means of
statements of parties involved ended in a most serious maltreatment of these
witnesses who, for the most part, came from the ranks of the old SA. As early
as the end of April, the leadership of the Party and a number of State
institutions concerned were convinced that a certain group of high-ranking SA
leaders had deliberately contributed to the alienation of the SA from the Party
and other State institutions or at least had failed to prevent this from
happening.
Repeated attempts to remedy this through normal official channels failed
each time. Chief of Staff Röhm gave me his personal assurance time and time
again that the cases would be investigated and the guilty parties removed and,
if necessary, punished. However, no visible change took place.
In the month of may, several Party and State offices received countless
complaints of offenses committed by high-ranking and middle-ranking SA leaders
which, accompanied by supporting documentation, could not be denied. The
offenses included everything from rabble-rousing speeches to intolerable
excesses. Minister-President Göring had already previously endeavored in
Prussia to give the authority of the National Socialist will of the State
priority over the individual wills of certain elements. In other Länder, Party
offices and public authorities had been forced, on occasion, to take a stand
against certain intolerable excesses. A number of the parties responsible were
arrested. I have always stressed that an authoritarian regime bears
particularly great responsibilities. If it is demanded of the Volk that it
place blind trust in its leadership, that leadership must earn this trust by
its achievements and by particularly good behavior. Mistakes and errors may
occur in a given case, but they can be eradicated. Bad behavior, drunken
excesses, molesting peaceful, upstanding citizens-this is unworthy of a leader,
contrary to National Socialism, and detestable to the utmost degree. Thus I
have always insisted that higher demands be placed upon the behavior and
conduct of National Socialist leaders than upon the other Volksgenossen. He who
would command more respect for himself must in turn achieve more.
The most basic thing which can be expected of him is that his life not
be a disgraceful example to those around him. Thus I do not want National
Socialists to be more leniently judged and punished for such offenses than
other Volksgenossen; rather, I expect that a leader who forgets himself in this
way be punished more severely than an unknown man would under identical
circumstances. And I do not wish to make any distinction here between leaders
of the political organizations and leaders of the formations of our SA, SS, HJ,
etc.
The determination of the National Socialist leadership of State to put
an end to such excesses committed by unworthy elements who serve only to heap
shame upon the Party and the SA evoked extremely vehement counter-reactions on
the part of the Chief of Staff. The first of the original National Socialist
fighters, a number of whom had struggled for nearly fifteen years for the
victory of the Movement and now represented the Movement as high-ranking State
officials in leading positions in our State, were called to account for the
action they took against such unworthy elements; in other words, Chief of Staff
Röhm attempted to take disciplinary action against these persons, the oldest
supporters of the Party, in courts of honor composed in part of the youngest
party comrades and even of persons who were not members of the Party.
These conflicts led to very serious talks between Chief of Staff Röhm
and myself, in the course of which, for the first time, doubts as to this man’s
loyalty began to arise in my mind. Although I had rejected any such thoughts
for many months, although I had personally protected this man in unshakable
loyalty and comradeship for years in the past, warnings gradually began to
leave their mark on me-above all, warnings from my deputy in the Party
leadership, Rudolf Hess-which, try as I might, I could no longer refute.
From May onwards, there could no longer be any doubt that Chief of Staff
Röhm was involved in ambitious plans which, had they become reality, could have
resulted only in the most violent disruptions.
The fact that, throughout these months, I hesitated again and again to
make any final decision, was due to the following: 1. I could not simply
reconcile myself to the idea that a relationship which I had built upon trust
could be nothing but a lie.
2. I still harbored the secret hope of being able to spare the Movement
and my SA the disgrace of such a confrontation and to repair the damage without
bitter fighting.
However, the end of May brought even more alarming facts to light. Chief
of Staff Röhm began to depart, not only inwardly, but with his entire outward
behavior, from the Party.
All of the principles with which we had become great lost their
validity. The life which the Chief of Staff-and with him, a certain circle of
others-began to lead was intolerable from any National Socialist point of view.
As if it were not terrible enough that he himself and his circle of devotees
broke every single law of decency and modesty, still worse, this poison now
began to spread in ever increasing circles.
But worst of all was the fact that, out of a certain common
predisposition, a sect gradually began to form in the SA which made up the
nucleus of a conspiracy directed not only against the normal conceptions of a
healthy Volk but against the security of the State as well.
Reviews conducted in the month of May of the promotions granted in
certain areas of the SA resulted in the terrible realization that men had been
promoted to positions in the SA without any consideration to their
accomplishments within the Movement and the SA for the sole reason that they
belonged to the circle of these persons with this particular predisposition.
Individual incidents which are well known to you, for instance the case
of the Standartenführer Schmidt157 in Breslau, revealed a state of affairs
which could only be regarded as intolerable. My order to intervene was followed
in theory, but in fact, it was sabotaged.
Three groups gradually crystallized from the leadership of the SA: a
small group, the elements of which were held together by a common
predisposition who would stop at nothing and who had blindly delivered
themselves into the hands of Chief of Staff Röhm.
In principle, these men were the SA leaders Ernst from Berlin, Heines in
Silesia, Hayn in Saxony, and Heydebreck in Pomerania.158 In addition to these
men, there was another group of SA leaders who did not inwardly belong to this
circle but felt themselves obligated to obey Chief of Staff Röhm simply from a
soldierly point of view. And these were faced by a third group of leaders who
made no secret of their inner aversion and disapproval and, as a result, had in
part been removed from positions of responsibility while others had been pushed
aside and, in many respects, simply disregarded.
At the fore of these SA leaders who were rejected because of their basic
decency stood the present Chief of Staff, Lutze, as well as the leader of the
SS, Himmler. Without informing me at all and, initially, without even the
slightest suspicion on my part, Chief of Staff Röhm had established contact
with General Schleicher using as intermediary a thoroughly corrupt swindler, a
certain Herr von A., whom you all know.160 General Schleicher was the man who
gave an external framework to Röhm’s inner desires. He was the one who upheld
and defined in concrete terms the viewpoint that 1. the present German regime
was insupportable; that 2. above all, power over the Armed Forces and all
national associations was to be united in one hand; that 3. Chief of Staff Röhm
was the only man who could be considered for this post; that 4. Herr von Papen
would have to be removed, and he was willing to assume the position of Vice
Chancellor; and that furthermore, other major changes would have to be made in
the Reich cabinet.
As always in such cases, the search for men to make up the new
government began, under the condition that I was to be allowed to remain at my
post-at least for the time being.
The implementation of these proposals from General von Schleicher was
bound to meet with my unconquerable resistance as early as item 2.
It would never have been objectively or humanly possible for me to have
given my consent to a personnel change in the Reich Ministry of Defense and to
have appointed Chief of Staff Röhm to the vacant post.
First of all, for objective reasons: For fourteen years, I have
consistently upheld that the fighting organizations of the Party are political
organizations which have nothing to do with the Army. In my eyes, it would
constitute a disavowal of my view and my policies of fourteen years to appoint
the leader of the SA to head the Army. In November 1923, I proposed appointing
an officer161 to head the Army and not my SA leader at the time, Captain
Göring.
Secondly, it would have been humanly impossible for me to ever consent
to this proposal on the part of General von Schleicher. When I became aware of
these plans, my own view of the inner value of Chief of Staff Röhm was already
such that I would all the more never have been able to accept him for this post
before my own conscience and for the sake of the Army’s honor. However, above
all, the supreme head of the Army is the Field Marshal and President of the
Reich. As Chancellor, I gave him my oath. His person is inviolate for all of
us.
The pledge which I made to him to maintain the Army as an unpolitical
instrument of the Reich is binding for me, due both to my innermost conviction
and to the fact that I gave my word.162 However, it would also have been humanly
impossible for me to have done such a thing to the Reich Minister of Defense. I
myself and all of us are happy to be able to look upon him as a man of honor
from head to toe. From the very depths of his heart, he has reconciled the Army
with the revolutionaries of old and allied it with their present leadership of
State.
He has affirmed his most loyal devotion to that principle to which I
will be devoted until my dying breath.
There is only one bearer of arms in the State: the Wehrmacht. And only
one body in which is vested the political will of the Volk: the National
Socialist Party.163 Any thought of agreeing with General von Schleicher’s plans
would, on my part, have constituted an act of disloyalty not only to the Field
Marshal and the Minister of Defense, but also an act of disloyalty to the Army.
For just as General von Blomberg is doing his duty as Minister of Defense in
the National Socialist State in the most pronounced sense of the word, the
other officers and soldiers are also doing the same. I cannot expect that each
of them find his own position within our Movement; but none of them have
abandoned their basic position of loyalty to the National Socialist State.
Furthermore, without the most cogent reasons, I could not have those men removed
who with me jointly made a vow on January 30 to save the Reich and the Volk.
There are certain duties attached to loyalty, duties which we may not
and must not breach. And I believe that, above all, the man who has led the
nation to unity in his own name must under no circumstances commit an act of
disloyalty, for doing so would make all external and internal confidence in
good faith disappear.164 Due to the fact that Chief of Staff Röhm was himself
unsure whether attempts in the direction mentioned might not well meet with
resistance on my part, the first plan was designed to bring this development
about by force.
Extensive preparations were made.
1. The psychological groundwork for the outbreak of a second revolution
was systematically laid. For this purpose, the SA propaganda offices spread a
rumor-penetrating as far as the SA-alleging that the Reichswehr was planning to
dissolve the SA, which was later supplemented by the claim that I had
unfortunately been personally won over in support of this plan. A lie as
pitiful as it is malicious!
2. The SA was now forced to forestall this attack and eliminate, in a
second revolution, both the elements of Reaktion on the one hand and the
resistance of the Party on the other, while entrusting the authority of the
State to the leadership of the SA.
3. For this purpose, the SA was to make all necessary material
preparations within the shortest time possible. By using pretexts-among other
things, by falsely claiming that he intended to implement a social relief plan
for the SA- Chief of Staff Röhm succeeded in raising twelve million marks for
this purpose.
4. In order to be in a position to concentrate exclusively on delivering
the most decisive blows, special terror groups were formed under the name of
“Stabswachen”165 and sworn in for this sole purpose. While an old SA man had
starved his way through an entire decade for the Movement, in this case paid
troops were formed whose inner character and purpose cannot be more clearly
revealed than in the truly horrible criminal records of the elements of which
they are comprised, accompanied by the fact that the tried and true SA leaders
and SA men were now thrust into the background to make room for politically
untrained elements which were better fit for such actions. At certain Führertagungen
and recreational outings, the SA leaders in question were brought together
step by step and given individual treatment; in other words, while the members
of the inner sect made systematic preparations for the action itself, the
second large circle of SA leaders were given only general information to the
effect that a second revolution was knocking at the door, that this revolution
had the single aim of restoring to me my freedom of action; that hence the new
and, this time, bloody uprising-‘The Night of the Long Knives,’ as it was
gruesomely called166-corresponded to my own aim.
The necessity for action on the part of the SA was explained by drawing
attention to my inability to make a decision; this situation could be remedied
only by a fait accompli. Presumably, these false pretexts were used to assign
Herr von Detten167 the task of making preparations for the action in foreign
countries. General von Schleicher personally took care of part of this drama
abroad, leaving the practical work to his messenger, General von Bredow.
Gregor Strasser was brought in.
In a final attempt early in June, I had Röhm summoned for a talk which
went on for nearly five hours and lasted until midnight. I informed him that I
had received the impression from countless rumors and innumerable assurances
and statements from old and loyal party comrades and SA leaders that
preparations were being made by unscrupulous elements for a national Bolshevist
action which could only bring unutterable misfortune upon Germany. I further
informed him that I had also heard rumors that there were plans to include the
Army within the scope of this scheme. I assured Chief of Staff Röhm that the
assertion that the SA was to be dissolved was a malicious lie, and that I could
make no comment whatsoever on the lie that I intended to take action against
the SA, but that I would personally take immediate steps to avert any attempt
to allow chaos to arise in Germany, and that anyone who attacked the State
would have to count me among his enemies from the very onset. I beseeched him
for the last time to take a stand against this madness and use his authority to
prevent a development which could only end in a catastrophe one way or another.
I once more voiced my strongest objection to the growing number of
unimaginable excesses and demanded that every trace of these elements be wiped
out in the SA in order to avoid that the SA itself as well as millions of
decent party comrades and hundreds of thousands of old fighters were robbed of
their honor by isolated inferior subjects. The Chief of Staff left me with the
assurance that a number of the rumors were untrue and others were exaggerated
and, in other respects, he would do everything he could to set things right.
The result of the conference was, however, that Chief of Staff Röhm,
knowing that under no circumstances could he count on me in his planned
undertaking, now proceeded to take steps toward my own elimination.
For this purpose, a larger circle of SA leaders who had been initiated
were told that I myself was basically in agreement with the planned undertaking
but that I could not afford to become personally involved and wished to be
placed under arrest for a period of 24 or 48 hours when the uprising broke out
so as to be relieved, by virtue of the fait accompli, of the embarrassing
incrimination which would otherwise result for me abroad. This explanation is
conclusively illustrated by the fact that, as a precautionary measure, the man
had already been hired in the meantime who was to carry out my elimination at a
later date: Standartenführer Uhl, who confessed only a few hours before his
death that he had been willing to carry out such an order.
The initial plan for the upheaval was based upon the idea of granting leave
to the SA. During this period and due to the lack of available forces,
inexplicable riots were to break out along the lines of the conditions of
August 1932169 which would force me to summon the Chief of Staff, who alone
would be in a position to restore order, and to entrust to him the executive
authority. However, since it had become clear in the interim that under no
circumstances could one count on such a willingness on my part, this plan was
abandoned and direct action contemplated. Such action was to commence abruptly
in Berlin with a raid on the government building and my arrest in order to
allow other actions to follow in sequence, supposedly at my bidding. The
conspirators proceeded on the assumption that orders given to the SA in my name
would not only mobilize the SA throughout the Reich but also serve to bring
about an automatic fragmentation of all other opposing forces within the State.
Chief of Staff Röhm, Gruppenführer Ernst, Obergruppenführer Heines, Hayn
and a number of others declared before witnesses170 that initially the
bloodiest possible confrontation with their adversaries was to take place,
lasting several days. The question as to the financial side of such a
development was dismissed with a positively insane lack of concern and the
comment that the bloody terror itself would serve to provide the requisite
funds one way or another.
I now must deal with only one more idea, namely whether or not every
successful revolution constitutes its own justification. Chief of Staff Röhm and
his elements explained the necessity of their revolution by citing the fact
that this alone could secure the triumph of pure National Socialism. However,
at this point I must make it clear for the present and for posterity that these
men no longer had any right whatsoever to cite National Socialism as their
Weltanschauung. Their lives had become as bad as the lives of those whom we
overcame and relieved in the year 1933. The conduct of these men made it
impossible for me to invite them to my home or to even once set foot in my
Chief of Staff’s house in Berlin. It is hard to even fathom what would have
become of Germany in the event that this sect had been victorious. The
magnitude of the danger was documented all the more strongly by the
observations which then entered Germany from abroad. English and French
newspapers more and more frequently talked of a forthcoming upheaval in
Germany, and increasing numbers of reports indicated that the conspirators had
systematically impressed upon foreign countries the idea that the revolution of
the true National Socialists was now imminent in Germany and that the existing
regime was no longer capable of action. General von Bredow, who procured these
connections as foreign agent for General von Schleicher, worked only in respect
to the activities of those reactionary circles which-perhaps without having any
direct connection with this conspiracy-allowed themselves to be exploited as a
willing subterranean intelligence center for foreign powers.
At the end of June, I was thus determined to put an end to this
outrageous development, and to do it before the blood of tens of thousands of
innocent persons would seal the catastrophe.
Due to the fact that the danger and the tension which oppressed everyone
had grown unbearable and certain bodies within the Party and the State had been
compelled by virtue of their assigned duties to take defensive measures, the
strange and sudden prolongation of service prior to the SA vacation leave171
aroused my suspicion, and thus I resolved that, on Saturday, June 30, 1 would
dismiss the Chief of Staff from office, place him in custody for the time
being, and arrest a number of SA leaders whose crimes had come to light.
Because it was doubtful whether, in view of the threat of an escalation,
Chief of Staff Röhm would have come to Berlin or anywhere else at all, I
resolved to personally travel to Wiessee for the conference of SA leaders
scheduled there. Relying upon my personal authority and upon my power of
determination, which had never failed me in the hour of need, I planned to
dismiss the Chief of Staff from his post at 12:00 noon, arrest those SA leaders
principally to blame and, in an urgent appeal, call upon the others to return
to their duties.
In the course of June 29,1 received such threatening news of the most
recent preparations for the action that at midday I was forced to interrupt my
tour of the labor camps in Westphalia in order to be available in case of
emergency. At 1:00 in the morning I received two extremely urgent alarm
bulletins from Berlin and Munich. Namely first of all, that an alert had been
issued in Berlin for 4:00 in the afternoon, that the order had already been
given for the requisition of trucks to transport what were actually the raiding
formations and that this was already being carried out, and that the action was
to begin promptly at the stroke of 5:00 as a surprise attack with the
occupation of the government building. This was the reason why Gruppenführer
Ernst had not traveled to Wiessee but remained in Berlinin order to conduct the
action in person. Second of all, an alert had already been given to the SA in
Munich for 9:00 in the evening.
The SA formations would not be allowed to return home but were assigned
to the alert barracks. That is mutiny!172 I am the commander of the SA and no
one else! Under these circumstances, there was only one decision left for me to
make.
If there was any chance to avert the disaster, lightning action was
called for.
Only ruthless and bloody intervention might perhaps still have been
capable of stifling the spread of the revolt. And then there could be no
question of the fact that it would be better to destroy a hundred mutineers,
plotters and conspirators (Meuterer, Verschwörer und Konspiratoren) than
to allow ten thousand innocent SA men on the one hand and ten thousand equally
innocent persons on the other to bleed to death. For if once the plans of that
criminal Ernst were set in motion in Berlin, the consequences were
unimaginable! How well the manipulations with my name had worked was evidenced
in the distressing fact that these mutineers had, for instance, succeeded in
securing four armored vehicles for their action from unsuspecting police
officers in Berlin by citing my name, and that furthermore, even before then,
the conspirators Heines and Hayn had made police officers in Saxony and Silesia
uncertain by demanding that they decide between the SA and Hitler’s enemies in
the coming confrontation.
It finally became clear to me that only one man could and must stand up
to the Chief of Staff. He had broken his vow of loyalty to me, and I
alone had to call him to account for that! At 1:00 in the morning, I received
the last alarm dispatches, and at 2:00 a.m.
I flew to Munich. In the meantime, I had already instructed
Minister-President Göring that, in the event of a purge action, he was
immediately to take corresponding measures in Berlin and Prussia. He crushed
the attack on the National Socialist State with an iron fist before it could
develop. The fact that this action required lightning speed also meant that
very few men were at my disposal in this decisive hour. Then, in the presence
of Minister Goebbels and the new Chief of Staff, the action with which you are
acquainted was carried out and brought to a close in Munich.
English:
Adolf
Hitler delivers a speech at the Kroll Opera House to the men of the Reichstag
on the subject of Roosevelt and the war in the Pacific, declaring war on the
United States. Next to Hitler in the government benches (from right to left)
are Joachim von Ribbentrop, Erich
Raeder, Walther von Brauchitsch, Wilhelm
Keitel, Wilhelm Frick and Joseph
Goebbels. In the second row (from right to left) are Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Walther
Funk, Richard Walther Darré, Bernhard
Rust, Hanns Kerrl, Hans Frank,
Julius Dorpmüller, Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Fritz Todt.
In the third row (from right to left) are Alfred
Rosenberg, Otto Meißner and Johannes
Popitz. (11 December 1941)
|
Although I had been willing to be lenient only a few days before, in
this hour there was no longer any room for such consideration. Mutinies are
crushed only by the everlasting laws of iron. If anyone reproaches me and asks
why we did not call upon the regular courts for sentencing, my only answer is
this: in that hour, I was responsible for the fate of the German nation and was
thus the Supreme Justiciar of the German Volk! Mutinous divisions have always
been recalled to order by decimation. Only one State did not make use of
its wartime legislation, and the result was the collapse of this State:
Germany. I did not want to abandon the young Reich to the fate of the old.
I gave the order to shoot those parties mainly responsible for this treason,
and I also gave the order to burn out the tumors of our domestic poisoning and
of the poisoning of foreign countries down to the raw flesh. And I also gave
the order that if the mutineers made any attempt to resist arrest, they were at
once to be brutally struck down by force (sofort mit der Waffe
niederzumachen).
The nation should know that no one can threaten its existence-which is guaranteed by inner law and order-and escape unpunished! And
every person should know for all time that if he raises his hand to strike out
at the State, certain death will be his lot. And every National Socialist
should know that no rank and no position relieves him of his personal
responsibility and, with it, his due punishment. I have prosecuted thousands of
our former opponents on account of their corruption.173 I would have to
reproach myself if I were now to tolerate the same phenomenon in our own ranks.
Adolf
Hitler on wanting war.
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/551231]
|
No Volk and no leadership of State can be held responsible if creatures
turn up such as those we have known in Germany in the likes of Kutisker etc.,
just as the French came to know Stavisky,174 and as we are witnessing them
again today with the aim of sinning against a nation’s interests. However, any
nation which does not find the strength to exterminate such pests makes itself
guilty.
When people confront me with the view that only a trial in court would
have been capable of accurately weighing the measure of guilt and expiation, I
must lodge a solemn protest. He who rises up against Germany commits treason.
He who commits treason is to be punished not according to the scope and
proportions of his deed, but rather according to his cast of mind as revealed
therein. He who dares to instigate a mutiny, thereby violating the principles
of good faith and sacred vows, can expect nothing other than that he himself
will be the first victim. I do not intend to have the lesser culprits shot and
to spare the major culprits. It is not my responsibility to ascertain whether
and if so, which of these
conspirators, agitators, nihilists and well-poisoners of German public opinion
and, in a wider sense, of world opinion, too, has been dealt too hard a lot;
rather, my duty is to make certain that Germany’s lot is bearable. A foreign
journalist who is enjoying the right to hospitality has filed a protest on
behalf of the wives and children of those shot and expects reprisal from among
their ranks. I can give this man of honor only one answer: women and children
have always been the innocent victims of criminal acts committed by men. I,
too, have sympathy for them, but I believe that the suffering which has been
inflicted upon them by the fault of these men is only a tiny fraction compared
to the suffering which would perhaps have come upon tens of thousands of German
women had this deed been successful. A foreign diplomat has explained that the
meeting between Schleicher and Röhm was naturally of a quite harmless nature. I
refuse to discuss this matter with anyone. The concept of what is harmless and
what is not will never coincide in the political sector.
However, when three traitors arrange and conduct a meeting in Germany
with a foreign statesman which they themselves describe as “business,” conduct
it privately by excluding their staff and keep it concealed from me by the strictest
orders, I will have such men shot dead, even if it were true that, at this
meeting which was kept so secret from me, they talked only of the weather, old
coins and similar topics.
The punishment for these crimes was a hard and severe one.
Nineteen high-ranking SA leaders and 31 SA leaders and members were
shot, as were three SS leaders who were accomplices to the plot. Thirteen SA
leaders and civilians who resisted arrest sacrificed their lives in the
process. Three other lives were ended by suicide.
Five non-SA party comrades were shot for being accomplices.
And last of all, three members of the SS were shot who were guilty of
disgraceful abuse of prisoners in protective custody.
In order to prevent the political passion and indignation from spreading
to the lynch law in respect to other incriminated parties, once the danger had
been removed and the revolt could be regarded as having been defeated, the
strictest orders were issued on Sunday, July 1, to refrain from any further
reprisals.
Hence as of Sunday night, July 1, normal conditions have been restored.
A number of acts of violence in no way connected with this action are being
handed over to the regular courts for sentencing.
As heavy as these sacrifices may be, they were not in vain if they may
serve to bring about once and for all the conviction that every attempt to
commit treason against the internal and external security of the State will be
broken, without distinction of person. I am confident in my hope in this
respect that, if Fate were to dismiss me from my post at any given hour, my
successor would not act differently, and were he also made to vacate this post,
that the third in line would exhibit no less determination in his willingness
to uphold the security of the Volk and the nation.
In view of the fact that, in the two weeks which now lie behind us, a
part of the foreign press flooded the world with untrue and incorrect
assertions and reports in the absence of any kind of objective and just
reporting, I cannot accept the excuse that it was not possible to obtain any
other news. In most cases, it would have required merely a short telephone call
to the competent authorities in order to ascertain the groundlessness of most
of these assertions.
When, in particular, it is reported that members of the Reich cabinet
were among the victims or conspirators, it would not have been difficult to
establish that the contrary was the case. The assertion that Vice Chancellor
von Papen, Minister Seldte or other gentlemen in the Reich cabinet had had any
connection with the mutineers is proven wrong most conclusively by the fact
that one of the primary goals of the mutineers included murdering these men.
Similarly, all reports of an involvement on the part of any of the German
princes or of their prosecution are pure fabrication.
Finally, whereas an English paper has reported in the last few days that
I had now had a nervous breakdown, I must note that in this case, too, a short
inquiry would have sufficed to learn the truth immediately. I can only assure
these anxious reporters that I have never suffered a nervous breakdown, neither
in the War nor after the War, but this time I did suffer from the worst
breakdown of the good faith which I had placed in a man whom I had once
protected to the utmost, a man for whom I had veritably sacrificed myself.
However, at this point I must also confess that my confidence in the
Movement-and particularly in the SS-has never wavered. And now my confidence in
my SA has been restored to me as well. Three times175 did the SA have the
misfortune of having leaders-the last time, even a Chief of Staff-to whom they
believed they owed obedience and who deceived them, men in whom I placed my
trust and who betrayed me. However, I have also had three opportunities to
witness how, in that moment in which a deed revealed itself to be treason, the
traitor was abandoned, left alone and shunned by all. But the behavior of this
small group of leaders was just as disloyal as these two National Socialist
organizations were loyal to me in the decisive hour. The SS, aching inside, did
its highest duty in these days, but no less decent was the behavior of the
millions of upright SA men and SA leaders who, standing outside the circle of
treason, did not waver for a second in their concept of duty. This gives me the
conviction that the newly appointed Chief of Staff of the SA, to whom I am
bound by the ties of the old fighting community, will finally succeed in
rejuvenating the organizations according to my guidelines and in making of them
an even stronger part of the Movement. For never will I consent to the
destruction of something which is not only inseparably bound up for all time
with the battles and the victory of the National Socialist Movement, but which
also deserves immeasurable credit for its contribution to the formation of the
new Reich.
The SA has upheld its inner loyalty to me in these days which have been
so difficult for both it and myself. It has thus proven for the third time that
it is mine, just as I am willing to prove at any time that I belong to my SA
men. Within the space of a few weeks, the Brown Shirt will once again dominate
German streets and clearly demonstrate to everyone that the life of National
Socialist Germany has become all the stronger for having overcome a difficult
crisis.
When, in March of last year, our young revolution swept through Germany,
it was my foremost endeavor to shed as little blood as possible. For the new
State, I offered a general amnesty to millions of my former opponents on behalf
of the National Socialist Party; millions of them have since joined our ranks
and are faithfully working with us to rebuild the Reich. I had hoped that it
would not be necessary to ever again defend this State with weapons in our
hands. But now that Fate has nonetheless put us to the test, all of us wish to
pledge to hold fast even more fanatically to that which was first won with so
much of our best men’s blood and today had to be defended once more with the
blood of German Volksgenossen.
Just as, one and a half years ago, I offered reconciliation to our
opponents of that time, I would also like to make a bid of forgiveness from now
on to all of those who shared the blame for this act of madness. May they all
reflect and, in memory of this sad crisis of our recent German history, devote
their entire strength to atoning for it. May they now more clearly than before
recognize the great task which Fate has assigned to us and which cannot be
accomplished by civil war and chaos; may they all feel responsible for the most
valuable possession there can be for the German Volk: inner order and peace
both within and without! I am likewise willing to assume the responsibility, as
history be my witness, for the 24 hours of the most bitter decisions of my life,176
in which Fate once more taught me to anxiously cling fast with my every thought
to the most precious thing we have been given in this world: the German Volk
and the German Reich!
Much to my own regret, I was forced to destroy this man and his following.
[-] What kind of life would one have in this Volk had the precept of
utmost brutal loyalty [to the Army] not been brought to bear here? Where would
we be today? Back then, perhaps we might have been able to take a different
path.
What would we have today? I am not claiming too much when I speak of it
[the militia army] as a completely worthless bunch, in military terms. I do not
believe in the so-called levée en masse. I do not believe that it is possible
to create soldiers only by mobilizing what might be called enthusiasm.
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