Background:
Hitler’s Reichstag Speech of December 11, 1941
Commentary: It has often been said that Hitler's greatest mistakes were his decisions to go to war against the Soviet Union and the United States . Whatever the truth may be, it's worth noting his own detailed justifications for these fateful decisions. On Thursday afternoon, December 11, 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler spoke to the Reichstag in Berlin.
Hitler’s Reichstag Speech of December 11, 1941
Commentary: It has often been said that Hitler's greatest mistakes were his decisions to go to war against the Soviet Union and the United States . Whatever the truth may be, it's worth noting his own detailed justifications for these fateful decisions. On Thursday afternoon, December 11, 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler spoke to the Reichstag in Berlin.
The 88-minute address, which he had written himself, was broadcast to the nation.
In it the German leader recounted the reasons for the outbreak of war in September 1939, explained why he decided to strike against the Soviet Union in June 1941, reviewed the dramatic course of the war thus far, and dealt at length with President Franklin Roosevelt's hostile policies toward Germany.
Hitler detailed the increasingly belligerent actions of Roosevelt's government, and then dramatically announced that Germany was now joining Japan in war against the United States.
-- From Mark Weber
Read whole speech here: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p389_Hitler.html
Edited speech follows
Germany’s Declaration of War Against the United States
Hitler’s Reichstag Speech of December 11, 1941
Deputies! Men of the German Reichstag!
A year of world-historical events is coming to an end. A year of great decisions is approaching. In this grave period I speak to you, deputies of the Reichstag, as the representatives of the German nation. In addition, the entire German nation should also review what has happened and take note of the decisions required by the present and the future. …
First of all, the personal side of things: I understand very well that there is a world of difference between my own outlook on life and attitude, and that of President Roosevelt. Roosevelt came from an extremely wealthy family. By birth and origin he belonged to that class of people that is privileged in a democracy and assured of advancement. I myself was only the child of a small and poor family, and I had to struggle through life by work and effort in spite of immense hardships. …
Two different paths in life! Franklin Roosevelt took power in the United States as the candidate of a thoroughly capitalistic party, which helps those who serve it. When I became the Chancellor of the German Reich, I was the leader of a popular national movement, which I had created myself. The powers that supported Mr. Roosevelt were the same powers I fought against, out of concern for the fate of my people, and out of deepest inner conviction. The “brain trust” that served the new American president was made up of members of the same national group that we fought against in Germany as a parasitical expression of humanity, and which we began to remove from public life. …
The circle of Jews around Roosevelt encouraged him in this. With Old Testament vindictiveness they regarded the United States as the instrument that they and he could use to prepare a second Purim [slaughter of enemies] against the nations of Europe, which were increasingly anti-Jewish. So it was that the Jews, in all of their satanic baseness, gathered around this man, and he relied on them.
The American president increasingly used his influence to create conflicts … that he could use to create political entanglements with American economic obligations to one of the contending sides, which would then steadily involve America in the conflict and thus divert attention from his own confused domestic economic policies.
His actions against the German Reich in this regard have been particularly blunt. Starting in 1937, he began a series of speeches, including a particularly contemptible one on October 5, 1937, in Chicago, with which this man systematically incited the American public against Germany . He threatened to establish a kind of quarantine against the so-called authoritarian countries. As part of this steady and growing campaign of hate and incitement, President Roosevelt made another insulting statement [on Nov. 15, 1938] and then called the American ambassador in Berlin back to Washington for consultations. …
Starting in November 1938, he began systematically and consciously to sabotage every possibility of a European peace policy. In public he hypocritically claimed to be interested in peace while at the same time he threatened every country that was ready to pursue a policy of peaceful understanding by blocking credits, economic reprisals, calling in loans, and so forth. In this regard, the reports of the Polish ambassadors in Washington, London, Paris and Brussels provide a shocking insight.
This man increased his campaign of incitement in January 1939. In a message [on Jan. 4, 1939] to the U.S. Congress he threatened to take every measure short of war against the authoritarian countries. ….
This man revealed his true attitude in a telegram of June 15 [1940] to French premier [Paul] Reynaud. Roosevelt told him that the American government would double its aid to France, on the condition that France continue the war against Germany. In order to give special emphasis to his desire that the war continue, he declared that the American government would not recognize acquisitions brought about by conquest, which included, for example, the retaking of territories that had been stolen from Germany. I do not need to emphasize that now and in the future, the German government will not be concerned about whether or not the President of the United States recognizes a border in Europe. I mention this case because it is characteristic of the systematic incitement of this man, who hypocritically talks about peace while at the same time he incites to war.
And now he feared that if peace were to come about in Europe, the billions he had squandered on military spending would soon be recognized as an obvious case of fraud, because no one would attack America unless America itself provoked the attack. On June 17, 1940, the President of the United States froze French assets [in the USA] in order, so he said, to keep them from being seized by Germany, but in reality to get hold of the gold that was being brought from Casablanca on an American cruiser. …
He moved still closer to war in September 1940 when he transferred fifty American naval destroyers to the British fleet, and in return took control of military bases on British possessions in North and Central America. Future generations will determine the extent to which, along with all this hatred against socialist Germany, the desire to easily and safely take control of the British empire in its hour of disintegration may have also played a role. …
As early as December 19, 1939, an American cruiser [the Tuscaloosa ] that was inside the security zone maneuvered the [German] passenger liner Columbus into the hands of British warships. As a result, it had to be scuttled. On that same day, US military forces helped in an effort to capture the German merchant ship Arauca. …
On June 27, 1940, he announced a limitation on the free movement of foreign merchant ships in US ports, completely contrary to international law. …
In the meantime, in March [1941] all German ships were confiscated by the American authorities. In the process, German Reich citizens were treated in the most degrading way, ordered to certain locations in violation of international law, put under travel restrictions, and so forth. Two German officers who had escaped from Canadian captivity [to the United States ] were shackled and returned to the Canadian authorities, likewise completely contrary to international law. … On June 4, American troop transports arrived in Greenland to build air fields. And on June 9 came the first British report that a US war ship, acting on orders of President Roosevelt, had attacked a German submarine near Greenland with depth charges.
On June 14, German assets in the United States were frozen, again in violation of international law. On June 17, on the basis of a lying pretext, President Roosevelt demanded the recall of the German consuls and the closing of the German consulates. He also demanded the shutting down of the German “Transocean” press agency, the German Library of Information [in New York] …
On July 6 and 7 [1941], American armed forces acting on orders from Roosevelt occupied Iceland, which was in the area of German military operations. ….
In a speech delivered on September 11 [1941], Roosevelt at last personally confirmed that he had given the order to fire against all Axis ships, and he repeated the order. On September 29, US patrols attacked a German submarine east of Greenland with depth charges. On October 17 the US destroyer Kearny, operating as an escort for the British, attacked a German submarine with depth charges, and on November 6 US armed forces seized the German ship Odenwald in violation of international law, took it to an American port, and imprisoned its crew.
I will overlook as meaningless the insulting attacks and rude statements by this so-called President against me personally. That he calls me a gangster is particularly meaningless, since this term did not originate in Europe, where such characters are uncommon, but in America. And aside from that, I simply cannot feel insulted by Mr. Roosevelt because I regard him, like his predecessor Woodrow Wilson, as mentally unsound [geisteskrank].
We know that this man, with his Jewish supporters, has operated against Japan in the same way. I don't need to go into that here. The same methods were used in that case as well. This man first incites to war, and then he lies about its causes and makes baseless allegations. He repugnantly wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy, while at the same time slowly but very steadily leading humanity into war. And finally, as an old Freemason, he calls upon God to witness that his actions are honorable. His shameless misrepresentations of truth and violations of law are unparalleled in history.
I am sure that all of you have regarded it as an act of deliverance that a country [Japan] has finally acted to protest against all this in the very way that this man had actually hoped for, and which should not surprise him now [the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941]. After years of negotiating with this deceiver, the Japanese government finally had its fill of being treated in such a humiliating way. All of us, the German people and, I believe, all other decent people around the world as well, regard this with deep appreciation.
We know the power behind Roosevelt. It is the same eternal Jew that believes that his hour has come to impose the same fate on us that we have all seen and experienced with horror in Soviet Russia. We have gotten to know first hand the Jewish paradise on earth. Millions of German soldiers have personally seen the land where this international Jewry has destroyed and annihilated people and property. Perhaps the President of the United States does not understand this. If so, that only speaks for his intellectual narrow-mindedness.
And we know that his entire effort is aimed at this goal: Even if we were not allied with Japan, we would still realize that the Jews and their Franklin Roosevelt intend to destroy one state after another. … For our part, we will now do what this provocateur has been trying to achieve for years. And not just because we are allied with Japan, but rather because Germany and Italy with their present leaderships have the insight and strength to realize that in this historic period the existence or non-existence of nations is being determined, perhaps for all time. What this other world has in store for us is clear. They were able to bring the democratic Germany of the past [1918-1933] to starvation, and they seek to destroy the National Socialist Germany of today. …
Our nation has a history of nearly two thousand years. Never in this long period has it been so united and determined as it is today, and thanks to the National Socialist movement it will always be that way. At the same time, Germany has perhaps never been as far-sighted, and seldom as conscious of honor. Accordingly, today I had the passports returned to the American charge d'affaires, and he was bluntly informed of the following:
President Roosevelt's steadily expanding policy has been aimed at an unlimited world dictatorship. In pursuing this goal, the United States and Britain have used every means to deny the German, Italian and Japanese nations the prerequisites for their vital natural existence. For this reason, the governments of Britain and the United States of America have opposed every effort to create a new and better order in the world, for both the present and the future.
Since the beginning of the war [in September 1939], the American President Roosevelt has steadily committed ever more serious crimes against international law. Along with illegal attacks against ships and other property of German and Italian citizens, there have been threats and even arbitrary deprivations of personal freedom by internment and such. The increasingly hostile attacks by the American President Roosevelt have reached the point that he has ordered the U.S. navy, in complete violation of international law, to immediately and everywhere attack, fire upon and sink German and Italian ships.
American officials have even boasted about destroying German submarines in this criminal manner. American cruisers have attacked and captured German and Italian merchant ships, and their peaceful crews were taken away to imprisonment In addition, President Roosevelt's plan to attack Germany and Italy with military forces in Europe by 1943 at the latest was made public in the United States [by the Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers on Dec. 4, 1941], and the American government made no effort to deny it.
Despite the years of intolerable provocations by President Roosevelt, Germany and Italy sincerely and very patiently tried to prevent the expansion of this war and to maintain relations with the United States. But as a result of his campaign, these efforts have failed.
Faithful to the provisions of the Tripartite Pact of September 27, 1940, German and Italy accordingly now regard themselves as finally forced to join together on the side of Japan in the struggle for the defense and preservation of the freedom and independence of our nations and realms against the United States of America and Britain.
The three powers have accordingly concluded the following agreement, which was signed today in Berlin:
With an unshakable determination not to lay down arms until the common war against the United States of America and Britain has been fought to a successful conclusion, the German, Italian and Japanese governments have agreed to the following:
... Germany, Italy and Japan will together conduct the war that has been forced upon them by the United States of America and Britain with all the means at their command to a victorious conclusion. ….
You, my Party comrades, know of my relentless determination to carry through to a successful conclusion any struggle that has already commenced. You know of my determination in such a struggle to do everything necessary to break all resistance that must be broken. In my first speech [of this war] on September 1, 1939, I pledged that neither force of arms nor time would defeat Germany. I want to assure my opponents that while neither force of arms nor time will defeat us, in addition no internal uncertainty will weaken us in the fulfillment of our duty.
…. Our opponents should not deceive themselves. In the two thousand years of recorded German history, our people have never been more determined and united than today. The Lord of the universe has been so generous to us in recent years that we bow in gratitude before a Providence that has permitted us to be members of such a great nation. We thank Him, that along with those in earlier and coming generations of the German nation, our deeds of honor may also be recorded in the eternal book of German history!
Read whole speech here: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p389_Hitler.html
Edited speech follows
Germany’s Declaration of War Against the United States
Hitler’s Reichstag Speech of December 11, 1941
Deputies! Men of the German Reichstag!
A year of world-historical events is coming to an end. A year of great decisions is approaching. In this grave period I speak to you, deputies of the Reichstag, as the representatives of the German nation. In addition, the entire German nation should also review what has happened and take note of the decisions required by the present and the future. …
First of all, the personal side of things: I understand very well that there is a world of difference between my own outlook on life and attitude, and that of President Roosevelt. Roosevelt came from an extremely wealthy family. By birth and origin he belonged to that class of people that is privileged in a democracy and assured of advancement. I myself was only the child of a small and poor family, and I had to struggle through life by work and effort in spite of immense hardships. …
Two different paths in life! Franklin Roosevelt took power in the United States as the candidate of a thoroughly capitalistic party, which helps those who serve it. When I became the Chancellor of the German Reich, I was the leader of a popular national movement, which I had created myself. The powers that supported Mr. Roosevelt were the same powers I fought against, out of concern for the fate of my people, and out of deepest inner conviction. The “brain trust” that served the new American president was made up of members of the same national group that we fought against in Germany as a parasitical expression of humanity, and which we began to remove from public life. …
The circle of Jews around Roosevelt encouraged him in this. With Old Testament vindictiveness they regarded the United States as the instrument that they and he could use to prepare a second Purim [slaughter of enemies] against the nations of Europe, which were increasingly anti-Jewish. So it was that the Jews, in all of their satanic baseness, gathered around this man, and he relied on them.
The American president increasingly used his influence to create conflicts … that he could use to create political entanglements with American economic obligations to one of the contending sides, which would then steadily involve America in the conflict and thus divert attention from his own confused domestic economic policies.
His actions against the German Reich in this regard have been particularly blunt. Starting in 1937, he began a series of speeches, including a particularly contemptible one on October 5, 1937, in Chicago, with which this man systematically incited the American public against Germany . He threatened to establish a kind of quarantine against the so-called authoritarian countries. As part of this steady and growing campaign of hate and incitement, President Roosevelt made another insulting statement [on Nov. 15, 1938] and then called the American ambassador in Berlin back to Washington for consultations. …
Starting in November 1938, he began systematically and consciously to sabotage every possibility of a European peace policy. In public he hypocritically claimed to be interested in peace while at the same time he threatened every country that was ready to pursue a policy of peaceful understanding by blocking credits, economic reprisals, calling in loans, and so forth. In this regard, the reports of the Polish ambassadors in Washington, London, Paris and Brussels provide a shocking insight.
This man increased his campaign of incitement in January 1939. In a message [on Jan. 4, 1939] to the U.S. Congress he threatened to take every measure short of war against the authoritarian countries. ….
This man revealed his true attitude in a telegram of June 15 [1940] to French premier [Paul] Reynaud. Roosevelt told him that the American government would double its aid to France, on the condition that France continue the war against Germany. In order to give special emphasis to his desire that the war continue, he declared that the American government would not recognize acquisitions brought about by conquest, which included, for example, the retaking of territories that had been stolen from Germany. I do not need to emphasize that now and in the future, the German government will not be concerned about whether or not the President of the United States recognizes a border in Europe. I mention this case because it is characteristic of the systematic incitement of this man, who hypocritically talks about peace while at the same time he incites to war.
And now he feared that if peace were to come about in Europe, the billions he had squandered on military spending would soon be recognized as an obvious case of fraud, because no one would attack America unless America itself provoked the attack. On June 17, 1940, the President of the United States froze French assets [in the USA] in order, so he said, to keep them from being seized by Germany, but in reality to get hold of the gold that was being brought from Casablanca on an American cruiser. …
He moved still closer to war in September 1940 when he transferred fifty American naval destroyers to the British fleet, and in return took control of military bases on British possessions in North and Central America. Future generations will determine the extent to which, along with all this hatred against socialist Germany, the desire to easily and safely take control of the British empire in its hour of disintegration may have also played a role. …
As early as December 19, 1939, an American cruiser [the Tuscaloosa ] that was inside the security zone maneuvered the [German] passenger liner Columbus into the hands of British warships. As a result, it had to be scuttled. On that same day, US military forces helped in an effort to capture the German merchant ship Arauca. …
On June 27, 1940, he announced a limitation on the free movement of foreign merchant ships in US ports, completely contrary to international law. …
In the meantime, in March [1941] all German ships were confiscated by the American authorities. In the process, German Reich citizens were treated in the most degrading way, ordered to certain locations in violation of international law, put under travel restrictions, and so forth. Two German officers who had escaped from Canadian captivity [to the United States ] were shackled and returned to the Canadian authorities, likewise completely contrary to international law. … On June 4, American troop transports arrived in Greenland to build air fields. And on June 9 came the first British report that a US war ship, acting on orders of President Roosevelt, had attacked a German submarine near Greenland with depth charges.
On June 14, German assets in the United States were frozen, again in violation of international law. On June 17, on the basis of a lying pretext, President Roosevelt demanded the recall of the German consuls and the closing of the German consulates. He also demanded the shutting down of the German “Transocean” press agency, the German Library of Information [in New York] …
On July 6 and 7 [1941], American armed forces acting on orders from Roosevelt occupied Iceland, which was in the area of German military operations. ….
In a speech delivered on September 11 [1941], Roosevelt at last personally confirmed that he had given the order to fire against all Axis ships, and he repeated the order. On September 29, US patrols attacked a German submarine east of Greenland with depth charges. On October 17 the US destroyer Kearny, operating as an escort for the British, attacked a German submarine with depth charges, and on November 6 US armed forces seized the German ship Odenwald in violation of international law, took it to an American port, and imprisoned its crew.
I will overlook as meaningless the insulting attacks and rude statements by this so-called President against me personally. That he calls me a gangster is particularly meaningless, since this term did not originate in Europe, where such characters are uncommon, but in America. And aside from that, I simply cannot feel insulted by Mr. Roosevelt because I regard him, like his predecessor Woodrow Wilson, as mentally unsound [geisteskrank].
We know that this man, with his Jewish supporters, has operated against Japan in the same way. I don't need to go into that here. The same methods were used in that case as well. This man first incites to war, and then he lies about its causes and makes baseless allegations. He repugnantly wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy, while at the same time slowly but very steadily leading humanity into war. And finally, as an old Freemason, he calls upon God to witness that his actions are honorable. His shameless misrepresentations of truth and violations of law are unparalleled in history.
I am sure that all of you have regarded it as an act of deliverance that a country [Japan] has finally acted to protest against all this in the very way that this man had actually hoped for, and which should not surprise him now [the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941]. After years of negotiating with this deceiver, the Japanese government finally had its fill of being treated in such a humiliating way. All of us, the German people and, I believe, all other decent people around the world as well, regard this with deep appreciation.
We know the power behind Roosevelt. It is the same eternal Jew that believes that his hour has come to impose the same fate on us that we have all seen and experienced with horror in Soviet Russia. We have gotten to know first hand the Jewish paradise on earth. Millions of German soldiers have personally seen the land where this international Jewry has destroyed and annihilated people and property. Perhaps the President of the United States does not understand this. If so, that only speaks for his intellectual narrow-mindedness.
And we know that his entire effort is aimed at this goal: Even if we were not allied with Japan, we would still realize that the Jews and their Franklin Roosevelt intend to destroy one state after another. … For our part, we will now do what this provocateur has been trying to achieve for years. And not just because we are allied with Japan, but rather because Germany and Italy with their present leaderships have the insight and strength to realize that in this historic period the existence or non-existence of nations is being determined, perhaps for all time. What this other world has in store for us is clear. They were able to bring the democratic Germany of the past [1918-1933] to starvation, and they seek to destroy the National Socialist Germany of today. …
Our nation has a history of nearly two thousand years. Never in this long period has it been so united and determined as it is today, and thanks to the National Socialist movement it will always be that way. At the same time, Germany has perhaps never been as far-sighted, and seldom as conscious of honor. Accordingly, today I had the passports returned to the American charge d'affaires, and he was bluntly informed of the following:
President Roosevelt's steadily expanding policy has been aimed at an unlimited world dictatorship. In pursuing this goal, the United States and Britain have used every means to deny the German, Italian and Japanese nations the prerequisites for their vital natural existence. For this reason, the governments of Britain and the United States of America have opposed every effort to create a new and better order in the world, for both the present and the future.
Since the beginning of the war [in September 1939], the American President Roosevelt has steadily committed ever more serious crimes against international law. Along with illegal attacks against ships and other property of German and Italian citizens, there have been threats and even arbitrary deprivations of personal freedom by internment and such. The increasingly hostile attacks by the American President Roosevelt have reached the point that he has ordered the U.S. navy, in complete violation of international law, to immediately and everywhere attack, fire upon and sink German and Italian ships.
American officials have even boasted about destroying German submarines in this criminal manner. American cruisers have attacked and captured German and Italian merchant ships, and their peaceful crews were taken away to imprisonment In addition, President Roosevelt's plan to attack Germany and Italy with military forces in Europe by 1943 at the latest was made public in the United States [by the Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers on Dec. 4, 1941], and the American government made no effort to deny it.
Despite the years of intolerable provocations by President Roosevelt, Germany and Italy sincerely and very patiently tried to prevent the expansion of this war and to maintain relations with the United States. But as a result of his campaign, these efforts have failed.
Faithful to the provisions of the Tripartite Pact of September 27, 1940, German and Italy accordingly now regard themselves as finally forced to join together on the side of Japan in the struggle for the defense and preservation of the freedom and independence of our nations and realms against the United States of America and Britain.
The three powers have accordingly concluded the following agreement, which was signed today in Berlin:
With an unshakable determination not to lay down arms until the common war against the United States of America and Britain has been fought to a successful conclusion, the German, Italian and Japanese governments have agreed to the following:
... Germany, Italy and Japan will together conduct the war that has been forced upon them by the United States of America and Britain with all the means at their command to a victorious conclusion. ….
You, my Party comrades, know of my relentless determination to carry through to a successful conclusion any struggle that has already commenced. You know of my determination in such a struggle to do everything necessary to break all resistance that must be broken. In my first speech [of this war] on September 1, 1939, I pledged that neither force of arms nor time would defeat Germany. I want to assure my opponents that while neither force of arms nor time will defeat us, in addition no internal uncertainty will weaken us in the fulfillment of our duty.
…. Our opponents should not deceive themselves. In the two thousand years of recorded German history, our people have never been more determined and united than today. The Lord of the universe has been so generous to us in recent years that we bow in gratitude before a Providence that has permitted us to be members of such a great nation. We thank Him, that along with those in earlier and coming generations of the German nation, our deeds of honor may also be recorded in the eternal book of German history!
No comments:
Post a Comment