Those Damned Nazis

[RickHolland]

The source: Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932).

Why Are We Nationalists?


We are nationalists because we see the nation as the only way to bring all the forces of the nation together to preserve and improve our existence and the conditions under which we live.

The nation is the organic union of a people to protect its life. To be national is to affirm this union in word and deed. To be national has nothing to do with a form of government or a symbol. It is an affirmation of things, not forms. Forms can change, their content remains. If form and content agree, then the nationalist affirms both. If they conflict, the nationalist fights for the content and against the form. One may not put the symbol above the content. If that happens, the battle is on the wrong field and one’s strength is lost in formalism. The real aim of nationalism, the nation, is lost.

That is how things are today in Germany. Nationalism has turned into bourgeois patriotism and its defenders are battling windmills. One says Germany and means the monarchy. Another proclaims freedom and means Black-White-Red [the colors of the German flag]. Would our situation today be any different if we replaced the republic with a monarchy and flew the black-white-red flag? The colony would have different wallpaper, but its nature, its content, would stay the same. Indeed, things would be even worse, for a facade that conceals the facts dissipates the forces today fighting against slavery.

Bourgeois patriotism is the privilege of a class. It is the real reason for its decline. When 30 million are for something and 30 million are against it, things balance out and nothing happens. That is how things are with us. We are the world’s Pariah not because we do not have the courage to resist, but rather because out entire national energy is wasted in eternal and unproductive squabbling between the right and the left. Our way only goes downward, and today one can already predict when we will fall into the abyss.

Nationalism is more wide-reaching than internationalism. It sees things as they are. Only he who respects himself can respect others. If as a German nationalist I affirm Germany, how can I hold it against a French nationalist who affirms France? Only when these affirmations conflict in vital ways will there be a power-political struggle. Internationalism cannot undo this reality. Its attempts at proof fail completely. And even when the facts seem to have some validity, nature, blood, the will to life, and the struggle for existence on this hard earth prove the falsity of fine theories.

The sin of bourgeois patriotism was to confound a certain economic form with the national. It connected two things that are entirely different. Forms of the economy, however firm they may seem, are changeable. The national is eternal. If I mix the eternal and the temporal, the eternal will necessarily collapse when the temporal collapses. This was the real cause for the collapse of liberal society. It was rooted not in the eternal, but in the temporal, and when the temporal declined it took the eternal down with it. Today it is only an excuse for a system that brings growing economic misery. That is the only reason why international Jewry organizes the battle of the proletarian forces against both powers, the economy and the nation, and defeat them.

From this understanding, the young nationalism draws its absolute demand. The faith in the nation is a matter for everyone, never a group, a class or an economic clique. The eternal must be distinguished from the temporal. Maintaining a rotten economic system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation of the Fatherland. I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not only can I, I must. Only the annihilation of a system of exploitation carries with it the core of the rebirth of our people.

We are nationalists because as Germans, we love Germany. Because we love Germany, we want to preserve it and fight against those who would destroy it. If a Communist shouts “Down with nationalism!”, he means the hypocritical bourgeois patriotism that sees the economy only as a system of slavery. If we make clear to the man of the left that nationalism and capitalism, that is the affirmation of the Fatherland and the misuse of its resources, have nothing to do with each other, indeed that they go together like fire and water, then even as a socialist he will come to affirm the nation, which he will want to conquer.

That is our real task as National Socialists. We were the first to recognize the connections, and the first to begin the struggle. Because we are socialists we have felt the deepest blessings of the nation, and because we are nationalists we want to promote socialist justice in a new Germany.

A young fatherland will rise when the socialist front is firm.

Socialism will become reality when the Fatherland is free.


Why Are We Socialists?


We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state.

Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and regaining German freedom. Socialism, therefore, is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone, for freeing the German people from slavery is the goal of contemporary policy. Socialism gains its true form only through a total fighting brotherhood with the forward-striving energies of a newly awakened nationalism. Without nationalism it is nothing, a phantom, a mere theory, a castle in the sky, a book. With it it is everything, the future, freedom, the fatherland!

The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism’s nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism was to degrade socialism into a question of wages and the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its national existence. An understanding of both these facts leads us to a new sense of socialism, which sees its nature as nationalistic, state-building, liberating and constructive.

The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its place will come the class of productive workers, the working class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part of the national organism. The battle began in the economic realm; it will finish in the political. It is not merely a matter of wages, not only a matter of the number of hours worked in a day — though we may never forget that these are an essential, perhaps even the most significant part of the socialist platform — but it is much more a matter of incorporating a powerful and responsible class in the state, perhaps even to make it the dominant force in the future politics of the fatherland. The bourgeoisie does not want to recognize the strength of the working class. Marxism has forced it into a straitjacket that will ruin it. While the working class gradually disintegrates in the Marxist front, bleeding itself dry, the bourgeoisie and Marxism have agreed on the general lines of capitalism, and see their task now to protect and defend it in various ways, often concealed.

We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating him in the state organism is not only a critical matter for him, but for the whole nation. The question is larger than the eight-hour day. It is a matter of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It is aimed domestically at the bourgeois parties and Marxism at the same time, because both are sworn enemies of the coming workers’ state. It is directed abroad at all powers that threaten our national existence and thereby the possibility of the coming socialist national state.

Socialism is possible only in a state that is united domestically and free internationally. The bourgeoisie and Marxism are responsible for failing to reach both goals, domestic unity and international freedom. No matter how national and social these two forces present themselves, they are the sworn enemies of a socialist national state.

We must therefore break both groups politically. The lines of German socialism are sharp, and our path is clear.

We are against the political bourgeoisie, and for genuine nationalism!

We are against Marxism, but for true socialism!

We are for the first German national state of a socialist nature!

We are for the National Socialist German Workers Party!


Why a Workers’ Party?


Work is not mankind’s curse, but his blessing. A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him great and aware, raises him above all other creatures. It is in the deepest sense creative, productive, and culture-producing. Without labor, no food. Without food, no life.

The idea that the dirtier one’s hands get, the more degrading the work, is a Jewish, not a German, idea. As in every other area, the German first asks how, then what. It is less a question of the position I fill, and more a question of how well I do the duty that God has given me.

We call ourselves a workers’ party because we want to rescue the word work from its current definition and give it back its original meaning. Anyone who creates value is a creator, that is, a worker. We refuse to distinguish kinds of work. Our only standard is whether the work serves the whole, or at least does not harm it, or if it is harmful. Work is service. If it works against the general welfare, then it is treason against the fatherland.

Marxist nonsense claimed to free labor, yet it degraded the work of its members and saw it as a curse and disgrace. It can hardly be our goal to abolish labor, but rather to give new meaning and content. The worker in a capitalist state — and that is his deepest misfortune — is no longer a living human being, a creator, a maker.

He has become a machine. A number, a cog in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated from what he produces. Labor is for him only a way to survive, not a path to higher blessings, not a joy, not something in which to take pride, or satisfaction, or encouragement, or a way to build character.

We are a workers’ party because we see in the coming battle between finance and labor the beginning and the end of the structure of the twentieth century. We are on the side of labor and against finance. Money is the measuring rod of liberalism, work and accomplishment that of the socialist state. The liberal asks: What are you? The socialist asks: Who are you? Worlds lie between.

We do not want to make everyone the same. Nor do we want levels in the population, high and low, above and below. The aristocracy of the coming state will be determined not by possessions or money, but only on the quality of one’s accomplishments. One earns merit through service. Men are distinguished by the results of their labor. That is the sure sign of the character and value of a person. The value of labor under socialism will be determined by its value to the state, to the whole community. Labor means creating value, not haggling over things. The soldier is a worker when he bears the sword to protect the national economy. The statesman also is a worker when he gives the nation a form and a will that help it to produce what it needs for life and freedom.

A furrowed brow is as much a sign of labor as a powerful fist. A white collar worker should not be ashamed to claim with pride that of which the manual laborer boasts: labor. The relations between these two groups determine their mutual fate. Neither can survive without the other, for both are members of an organism that they must together maintain if they are to defend and expand their right to exist.

We call ourselves a workers’ party because we want to free labor from the chains of capitalism and Marxism. In battling for Germany’s future, we freely admit to it, and accept the odium from the liberal bourgeoisie that results. We know that we will succeed in bringing new blessings out of their curses.

God gave the nations territory to grow grain. The seed becomes grain and the grain becomes bread. The middleman of it all is labor.

He who despises labor but accepts its benefits is a hypocrite.

That is the deepest meaning of our movement: it gives things back their original significance, unconcerned that today they may be in danger of sinking into the swamp of a collapsing worldview.

He who creates value works, and is a worker. A movement that wants to free labor is a workers’ party.

Therefore we National Socialists call ourselves a worker’s party.

When our victorious flags fly before us, we sing:
“We are the army of the swastika,
Raise high the red flags!
We want to clear the way to freedom
For German Labor!”


Why Do We Oppose the Jews?


We oppose the Jews because we are defending the freedom of the German people. The Jew is the cause and beneficiary of our slavery He has misused the social misery of the broad masses to deepen the dreadful split between the right and left of our people, to divide Germany into two halves thereby concealing the true reason for the loss of the Great War and falsifying the nature of the revolution.

The Jew has no interest in solving the German question. He cannot have such an interest. He depends on it remaining unsolved. If the German people formed a united community and won back its freedom, there would be no place any longer for the Jew. His hand is strongest when a people lives in domestic and international slavery, not when it is free, industrious, self-aware and determined. The Jew caused our problems, and lives from them.

That is why we oppose the Jew as nationalists and as socialists. He has ruined our race, corrupted our morals, hollowed out our customs and broken our strength. We owe it to him that we today are the Pariah of the world. He was the leper among as long as we were German. When we forgot our German nature, he triumphed over us and our future.

The Jew is the plastic demon of decomposition. Where he finds filth and decay, he surfaces and begins his butcher’s work among the nations. He hides behind a mask and presents himself as a friend to his victims, and before they know it he has broken their neck.

The Jew is uncreative. He produces nothing, he only haggles with products. With rags, clothing, pictures, jewels, grain, stocks, cures, peoples and states. He has somehow stolen everything he deals in. When he attacks a state he is a revolutionary. As soon as he holds power, he preaches peace and order so that he can devour his conquests in comfort.

What does anti-Semitism have to do with socialism? I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have to do with socialism? Socialism has to do with labor. When did one ever see him working instead of plundering, stealing and living from the sweat of others? As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation’s goods.

What does anti-Semitism have to do with nationalism? I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have to do with nationalism? Nationalism has to do with blood and race. The Jew is the enemy and destroyer of the purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race. As nationalists we oppose the Jews because we see the Hebrews as the eternal enemy of our national honor and of our national freedom.

But the Jew, after all, is also a human being. Certainly, none of us doubts that. We only doubt that he is a decent human being. He does not get along with us. He lives by other laws than we do. The fact that he is a human being is not sufficient reason for us to allow him to subject us in inhumane ways. He may be a human being — but what kind of a human being is he! If someone slaps your mother in the face, do you say: “Thank you! He is after all a human being!” That is not a human being, it is a monster. Yet how much worse has the Jew done to our mother Germany, and is still doing today!

There are also white Jews. True, there are scoundrels among us, even though they are Germans, who act in immoral ways against their own racial and blood comrades. But why do we call them white Jews? You use the term to describe something inferior and contemptible. Just as we do. Why do you ask us why we oppose the Jews when you without knowing it are one too?

Anti-Semitism is not Christian. That means that it is Christian to allow the Jews to go on as they are, stripping the skin from our bodies and mocking us. To be a Christian means to love one’s neighbor as oneself! My neighbor is my racial and blood brother. If I love him, I have to hate his enemies. He who thinks German must despise the Jews. The one requires the other.

Christ himself saw that love did not always work. When he found the moneychangers in the temple, he did not say: “Children, love one another!” He took up a whip and drove them out.

We oppose the Jews because we affirm the German people. The Jew is our greatest misfortune.

It is not true that we eat Jews for breakfast.

It is true that slowly but surely, he is stealing all that we have.

Things would be different if we behaved as Germans.


Revolutionary Demands


We do not enter parliament to use parliamentary methods. We know that the fate of peoples is determined by personalities, never by parliamentary majorities. The essence of parliamentary democracy is the majority, which destroys personal responsibility and glorifies the masses. A few dozen rogues and crooks run things behind the scenes. Aristocracy depends on accomplishment, the rule of the most able, and the subordination of the less capable to the will of the leadership. Any form of government — no matter how democratic or aristocratic it may outwardly appear — rests on compulsion. The difference is only whether the compulsion is a blessing or a curse for the community.

What we demand is new, decisive, and radical, revolutionary in the truest sense of the word. That has nothing to do with rioting and barricades. It may be that that happens here or there. But it is not an inherent part of the process. Revolutions are spiritual acts. They appear first in people, then in politics and the economy. New people form new structures. The transformation we want is first of all spiritual; that will necessarily change the way things are.

This revolutionary act is beginning to be visible in us. The result is a new type of person visible to the knowing eye: the National Socialist. Consistent with his spiritual attitude, the National Socialist makes uncompromising demands in politics. There is no if and when for him, only an either — or.

He demands:

The return of German honor. Without honor, one has no right to life. A nation that has pawned its honor has pawned its bread. Honor is the foundation of any people’s community. Losing our honor is the true cause of the loss of our freedom.

In place of a slave colony, we want a restored German national state. The state is not an end in itself for us, but rather a means to an end. The true end is the race, the sum of all the living, creative forces of the people. The structure that today calls itself the German republic is not a way to maintain our racial inheritance. It has become an end in itself with no real connection to the people and their needs. We want to abolish the slave colony and replace it with a people’s state in freedom.

Want work and bread for every productive national and blood comrade. Pay should be according to accomplishment. That means more pay for German workers! That will stop the senseless fighting in which we engage today.

First provide housing and food for the people, then pay reparations! No democrat, no republican, has the right to complain about this demand, for it was first raised by a banner carrier of November Germany [the Weimar Republic, beginning in November 1918]. We only want to make the slogan a reality.

Provide essentials first! First we must meet the critical needs of the people, then we can produce luxury goods. Provide work for those willing to work! Give the farmers land! The German foreign policy that today sells what we have at below-market rates must be completely transformed and must focus radically on the German need for space, drawing the necessary power-political conclusions.

Peace among productive workers! Each should do his duty for the good of the whole community. The state then has the responsibility of protecting the individual, guaranteeing him the fruits of his labor. The people’s community must not be a mere phrase, but a revolutionary achievement following from the radical carrying out of the basic life needs of the working class.

A ruthless battle against corruption! A war against exploitation, freedom for the workers! The elimination of all economic-capitalist influences on national policy.

A solution to the Jewish question! We call for the systematic elimination of foreign racial elements from public life in every area. There must be a sanitary separation between Germans and non-Germans on racial grounds exclusively, not on nationality or even religious belief.

Down with democratic parliamentarianism! Establish a parliament based on occupations which determines production. Policies will be determined by a political body that earns is place by the laws of strength and selection.

The return of loyalty and faith in economic life. The complete reversal of the injustice that has robbed millions of Germans of their possessions.

The right of personality before that of the mob. Germans always will have preference before foreigners and Jews.

A battle against the destructive poison of international Jewish culture! A strengthening of German forces and German customs. The elimination of corrupt Semitic principles and racial decay.

The death penalty for crimes against the people! The gallows for profiteers and usurers!

An uncompromising program implemented by men who will implement it passionately. No slogans, only living energy.

That is what we demand!

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/haken32.htm

[Heinrich Steiner]

This was very inspirational and I admit, I had had not read that pamphlet before.
Just as back then, it still continues to apply today, especially with what was said in the document about the Jews and how they thrive by submitting a people in domestic and international slavery.
Everything in this document is word by word true.
Thank you for posting this, because I made a copy of it for myself and re-posted it on aryansbook and New Saxon.
I think every White Nationalist, every white person should read this, because I don't think it can be worded any better and more accurately.
I only wish I could post this on my youtube channel as a blog, but alas there is only limited space and it's already taken up by a long post concerning the "The Original 6 millions" article from VNN forum, along with the links.

[RickHolland]

The source: “Rassenfrage und Weltpropaganda,” Reichstagung in Nürnberg 1933 (Berlin: Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller, 1933), pp. 131-142.


The Racial Question and World Propaganda

by Joseph Goebbels

The National Socialist revolution is a typical German product. Its scale and historical significance can only be compared with other great events in human history. It would be false and misleading to compare this revolution to other transformations in recent European history. True, it shares their impulses, their energy, and perhaps even their methods, with some exceptions. But its foundations, causes, and therefore results are entirely different. It could not have happened without the war and the November Revolt, at least in its speed and power.

The Versailles treaty of non-peace stood in its way. Poverty, unemployment, desperation, and decay accompanied it through all its ups and downs. An over-refined democratic parliamentarianism that today seems almost grotesque found its last and highest expression. It provided the stage on which National Socialism rose to power. We told our opposition often enough that although we were using its weapons and rules for our purposes, we had nothing intellectually or politically in common with them. To the contrary, our goal was use these means to put and end to them and their methods, to finally eliminate their theories and policies. Both in theory and practice, National Socialism opposes liberalism.

Just as liberalism after the French Revolution had various effects on every nation and people, depending on their nature and character, the same is true today for the forces that oppose it. German democracy was always a particular playground of European liberalism. Its innate tendency towards excessive individualism was foreign to us, which lost it any connection to real political life after the war. It had nothing to do with the people. It represented not the totality of the nation, but turned into a perpetual war between interests that gradually destroyed the national and social foundations of our people’s existence.

National Socialism was able to overcome this condition of continual spiritual, economic, and political crises only because the German people themselves regained their composure, and found a political idea and organization that corresponded to the character of the German nation. National Socialism is a completely German phenomenon. It can only be understood in the framework of German conditions and forces. Like Mussolini once said about Fascism, “it is not for export.”

Nonetheless, we see the National Socialist revolution as an event that affects the entire world. Besides, the solution of the German Question cannot be without consequences for the future constellation of Europe. It is a warning for the entire liberal world that Germany has replaced democracy with an authoritarian system, that liberalism broke under the blows of the national uprising, that parliamentarianism and the party system are outdated concepts for us.

The past three years have proven that the strength of a new idea is stronger than the resources of an outdated worldview, even when it defends itself with the instruments of state. A new kind of authority has been established in every area of public life in Germany.

The insane belief in equality that found its crassest expression in political parties is no more. The principle of personality has replaced the notion of popular idiocy. A united German nation was born, despite all the labor pains. It is not surprising that those who benefited from parliamentarianism struck their tents when they saw that National Socialism was firmly established. They decided to take up their activity beyond our borders. That does not mean they have given up on Germany. They believe their hour may not be near, but that it will eventually come.

They do all they can to cause the Reich domestic and international difficulties. These pacifists from head to toe do not even hesitate to urge bloody war against Germany in the foreign papers that are not yet wise enough to refuse them space.

One cannot make sense of this situation without understanding the significance of the racial or Jewish Question.

The National Socialist government also cannot ignore it. Our laws suffer hard and often unjustified criticism abroad, above all from International Jewry itself. But one should not forget that dealing with the Jewish Question through legal means was the best approach. Or should the government have followed the principles of democracy and majority rule and let the people themselves solve the problem?

History has never had a revolution less bloody, more disciplined and more orderly than ours. In attempting to deal with the Jewish question and to approach the matter legally for the first time in Europe’s history, we are only following the spirit of the age. Defending against the Jewish danger is only part of our plan. When it becomes the only issue when National Socialism is discussed, that is Jewry’s fault, not ours. It has attempted to mobilize the world against us in the secret hope of winning back the territory it has lost.

This hope is not only in vain, it also carries with it a series of dangers and difficulties for Jewry itself. It cannot prevent arguments throughout the world not only against our policies, but also for them. The discussion has taken on an extent that both in the immediate and distant future could have extraordinarily unpleasant consequences for the Jewish race.

Richard Wagner once called the Jews the “plastic demon of decomposition” and Theodor Mommsen meant the same when he saw them as the “ferment of decomposition.” In contrast, the Aryan sees himself as a creative creature. There may be a certain tragedy inherent in the nature of the Jews, but is it our fault that this race works destructively among the peoples and is a constant danger to their domestic and international security?

The fundamental differences between the two races were responsible for the repeated explosions during the November years [1918-1933]. As long as the Jews remain anonymous, they are secure. The moment they lose their anonymity, the racial problem became acute and required a suitable solution. We certainly do not hold the Jews solely to blame for the German spiritual and economic catastrophe. We all know the other causes that led to the decline of our people. However, we have the courage to recognize their role in the process, and to name them by name.

It was difficult for a time to persuade the people of this, for public opinion was entirely in Jewish hands.

On a Berlin stage run by the Jews, a steel helmet bearing the words “Away with the filth!” was swept into the dust heap. The Jew Gumbel said the dead of the war had “fallen on the field of dishonor.” The Jew Lessing compared Hindenburg with the mass murderer Haarmann. The Jew Toller said heroism was “the most stupid ideal.” The Jew Arnold Zweig spoke of the German people as a “horde that needed to be unmasked,” as the “animalistic power of the eternal Boche,” and as a “nation of newspaper readers, a herd of voters, businessmen, murderers, marchers, operetta lovers, and bureaucratic cadavers.”

Is it surprising that the German Revolution also broke this unbearable yoke? When one further considers the alienation of German intellectual life by International Jewry, its corruption of German justice that finally led to the fact that only one out of every five judges was German, the takeover of the medical profession, their predominance among university professors, in short, the fact that nearly all intellectual professions were dominated by the Jews, one has to grant that no people with any self esteem could tolerate that for long. It was only an act of national renewal when the National Socialist revolution took action in this area.

People abroad often do not know the real causes of German Jewish legislation. The statistics are most persuasive.

Nonetheless, we held back at the beginning of our work. We had more important things to do than to take on a question of such great scope. It is entirely the fault of Jewry that things turned out differently. The boycott and atrocity propaganda they made in other countries was an attempt by International Jewry to accomplish by means of public opinion in other countries what had been made impossible by our takeover in Germany. They attempted to cause difficulties for Germany’s rebirth through a worldwide boycott campaign, and to render it ineffective.

We finally resorted to a counter-boycott during that critical period. The fact that their racial comrades still in Germany suffered loss is thanks to their racial comrades beyond our borders, who were trying to cause difficulties for us. They only caused economic difficulties for their own race. We can predict the future consequences for Jewry. We have not done anything to encourage them, they are simply the product of the times. Many clever Jews have already realized what they have done, above all to those remaining in Germany, who were the most directly affected. They shouted their warnings. But they could not overcome the radical wing, and in the end had to let things take their course for better or worse. This radical wing has delivered an extraordinarily hard blow to World Jewry and its allies. They put the Jewish Problem up for debate, and where it is debated the results can only be unpleasant. Jewry’s strength is in its anonymity; if it loses that, the results can only be harmful.

The recent Zionist Conference in Paris shows the hopeless situation World Jewry has been driven into by its radical wing. When one of the various Jewish groups is no longer united, when there are only fruitless debates, it is a sign that Jewish power is on shaky ground. That is already beginning to have consequences for Jewry.

These events reveal the racial problem in all its difficulty. It will not fade away until Europe’s peoples solve it. It will be solved when the people for their own good do what is necessary for their security.

Our country still faces a world boycott by International Jewry, even if it is not as open as it was earlier, and we are still threatened by a cleverly thought out and systematically executed world conspiracy. The fight against young Germany is a fight by the Second and Third Internationales against our authoritarian state. The countries that tolerate or promote it, sometimes in the mistaken belief that they are thus reducing troublesome German competition on the world market, are bringing upon themselves and their future a danger that we have overcome.

They can do what they want; Germany has overcome the danger. It has taken radical steps to drive out Bolshevism and its ideological content along with its racially-linked concepts.

If our battle against anarchy results in the racial problem becoming a world problem, that was not our intention, but it is fine with us. The conspiracy being forged against Germany will not lead to our destruction, but it will inevitably open the eyes of all the peoples of the world.

Let me in closing say a few words about the measures we are taking against the world propaganda directed against us. It is clear that such a major campaign against Germany’s peace and security cannot go unanswered. World propaganda against us will be answered with world propaganda for us.

We know what propaganda is, its power, and its ways and means. We did not learn it in school, but became its masters while doing practical work. Our untiring educational campaign succeeded in uniting Catholics and Protestants, farmers, the middle class and workers, Bavarians and Prussians, into a unified German people. We joined the power of persuasion with the power of the idea. We depended only on ourselves, conquering the state with the power of faith and the power of the word. Who cannot believe that we will succeed in persuading the world of the integrity of our actions? A calm presentation of our case may not win love, but it will at least win growing respect. The truth is always stronger than the lie.

The truth about Germany will get through to the other nations, also in respect to the racial question. We have done what is necessary, and therefore fulfilled our duty. We do not need to fear the world’s judgment.

The world is cordially invited to send its journalists and representatives to Germany so that they can see for themselves the courage and determination of the government and people to remove the last remnants of the war and the November revolt, and to introduce a balance of power that will guarantee Germany a secure existence, honor, and its daily bread. No one who sees this nation at work can have doubts about its future. The more foreigners visit us, the more friends young Germany will win.

Our foreign situation today is identical to our domestic situation when we began. Those who attended our meetings then were struck by the crass contrast between what the enemy newspapers wrote about us and what we actually are. Visitors to Germany today have the same experience. Their experiences will be the beginning of respect. Any fair, thinking and objective person, wherever he may come from, will find a people and a government trying to overcome the difficulties of the postwar period by its own strength, and who are attacking the problems they face with hard, manly pride. We need to show the world what we once showed the other parties: We never lose our nerve.

Modesty, clarity, firmness, and decency are the virtues that our kind of German thinking wants to see in the world. There is nothing that is impossible. That which seems impossible can be made possible by the power of the spirit.

Germany will not founder on the racial question; to the contrary, the future of our people depends on solving it. As in so many other areas, here we also shall be pathfinders for the world. Our revolution is of enormous significance. We want it to find the key to world history in the solution of the racial question.

https://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb41.htm

[RickHolland]

The source: “Deutsches Frauentum,” Signale der neuen Zeit. 25 ausgewählte Reden von Dr. Joseph Goebbels (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1934), pp. 118-126.

German Women

by Joseph Goebbels

German women, German men !

It is a happy accident that my first speech since taking charge of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda is to German women. Although I agree with Treitschke that men make history, I do not forget that women raise boys to manhood. You know that the National Socialist movement is the only party that keeps women out of daily politics. This arouses bitter criticism and hostility, all of it very unjustified. We have kept women out of the parliamentary-democratic intrigues of the past fourteen years in Germany not because we do not respect them, but because we respect them too much. We do not see the woman as inferior, but rather as having a different mission, a different value, than that of the man. Therefore we believed that the German woman, who more than any other in the world is a woman in the best sense of the word, should use her strength and abilities in other areas than the man.

The woman has always been not only the man’s sexual companion, but also his fellow worker. Long ago, she did heavy labor with the man in the field. She moved with him into the cities, entering the offices and factories, doing her share of the work for which she was best suited. She did this with all her abilities, her loyalty, her selfless devotion, her readiness to sacrifice.

The woman in public life today is no different than the women of the past. No one who understands the modern age would have the crazy idea of driving women from public life, from work, profession, and bread winning. But it must also be said that those things that belong to the man must remain his. That includes politics and the military. That is not to disparage women, only a recognition of how she can best use her talents and abilities.

Looking back over the past years of Germany’s decline, we come to the frightening, nearly terrifying, conclusion that the less German men were willing to act as men in public life, the more women succumbed to the temptation to fill the role of the man. The feminization of men always leads to the masculinization of women. An age in which all great idea of virtue, of steadfastness, of hardness, and determination have been forgotten should not be surprised that the man gradually loses his leading role in life and politics and government to the woman.

It may be unpopular to say this to an audience of women, but it must be said, because it is true and because it will help make clear our attitude toward women.

The modern age, with all its vast revolutionary transformations in government, politics, economics, and social relations has not left women and their role in public life untouched. Things we thought impossible several years or decades ago are now everyday reality. Some good, noble, and commendable things have happened. But also things that are contemptible and humiliating. These revolutionary transformations have largely taken from women their proper tasks. Their eyes were set in directions that were not appropriate for them. The result was a distorted public view of German womanhood that had nothing to do with former ideals.

A fundamental change is necessary. At the risk of sounding reactionary and outdated, let me say this clearly: The first, best, and most suitable place for the women is in the family, and her most glorious duty is to give children to her people and nation, children who can continue the line of generations and who guarantee the immortality of the nation. The woman is the teacher of the youth, and therefore the builder of the foundation of the future. If the family is the nation’s source of strength, the woman is its core and center. The best place for the woman to serve her people is in her marriage, in the family, in motherhood. This is her highest mission. That does not mean that those women who are employed or who have no children have no role in the motherhood of the German people. They use their strength, their abilities, their sense of responsibility for the nation, in other ways. We are convinced, however, that the first task of a socially reformed nation must be to again give the woman the possibility to fulfill her real task, her mission in the family and as a mother.

The national revolutionary government is everything but reactionary. It does not want to stop the pace of our rapidly moving age. It has no intention of lagging behind the times. It wants to be the flag bearer and pathfinder of the future. We know the demands of the modern age. But that does not stop us from seeing that every age has its roots in motherhood, that there is nothing of greater importance than the living mother of a family who gives the state children.

German women have been transformed in recent years. They are beginning to see that they are not happier as a result of being given more rights but fewer duties. They now realize that the right to be elected to public office at the expense of the right to life, motherhood, and her daily bread is not a good trade.

A characteristic of the modern era is a rapidly declining birthrate in our big cities. In 1900, two million babies were born in Germany. Now the number has fallen to one million. This drastic decline is most evident in the nation’s capital. In the last fourteen years, Berlin’s birthrate has become the lowest of any European city. By 1955, without emigration, it will have only about three million inhabitants. The government is determined to halt this decline of the family and the resulting impoverishment of our blood. There must be a fundamental change. The liberal attitude toward the family and the child is responsible for Germany’s rapid decline. We today must begin worrying about an aging population. In 1900 there were seven children for each elderly person, today it is only four. If current trends continue, by 1988 the ratio will be 1 : 1. These statistics say it all. They are the best proof that if Germany continues along its current path, it will end in an abyss with breathtaking speed. We can almost determine the decade when Germany collapses because of depopulation.

We are not willing to stand aside and watch the collapse of our national life and the destruction of the blood we have inherited. The national revolutionary government has the duty to rebuilt the nation on its original foundations, to transform the life and work of the woman so that it once again best serves the national good. It intends to eliminate the social inequalities so that once again the life of our people and the future of our people and the immortality of our blood is assured.

I welcome this exhibition, whose goal is to explain and teach, and to reduce or eliminate harm to the individual and the whole people. This serves the nation and popular enlightenment, and to support it is one of the happiest duties of the new government.

Perhaps this exhibition titled “The Woman” will represent a turning point. If the goal of the exhibition is to give an impression of women in contemporary society, it does so at a time when German society is undergoing the greatest changes in generations. I am aware of how difficult this is. I know the obstacles that had to be overcome to give this exhibition a clear theme and a firm structure. It should show the significance of the woman for the family, the people, and the whole nation. Displays will give an impression of the actual life of women today, and will provide the knowledge necessary to resolve today’s conflicting opinions, which were not primarily the result of the contemporary women’s movement.

But that is not all. The main purpose of the exhibition “The Woman” is not only to show the way things are, but to make proposals for improvement. It aims to show new ways and new opportunities. Clear and often drastic examples will give thousands of German women reason to think and consider. It is particularly pleasing to us men in the new government that families with many children are given particular attention, since we want to rescue the nation from decline. The importance of the family cannot be overestimated, especially in families without fathers that depend entirely upon the mother. In these families the woman has sole responsibility for the children, and she must realize the responsibility she has to her people and nation.

We do not believe that the German people is destined by fate to decline. We have blind confidence that Germany still has a great mission in the world. We have faith that we are not at the end of our history, but rather that a new, great and honorable period of our history is now beginning. This faith give us the strength to work and not despair. It enabled us to make great sacrifices over the past fourteen years. It gave millions of German women the strength to hope in Germany and its future, and to let their sons join in the reawakening of the nation. This faith was with the brave women who lost their husbands and breadwinners in the war, with those who gave their sons in the battle to renew their people. This faith kept us standing during the need and desperation of the past fourteen years. And this faith today fills us with new hope that Germany will again find its place in the sun.

Nothing makes one harder and more determined than struggle. Nothing gives more courage than to face resistance. During the years when Germany seemed destined to decline, a new kind of womanhood developed under the confused veneer of modern civilization. It is hard, determined, courageous, willing to sacrifice. During the four years of the great war and the fourteen years of German collapse that followed, German women and mothers proved themselves worthy companions of their men. They have borne all the bitterness, all the privation and danger, and did not fail when hit by misfortune, worry and trouble. As long as a nation has such a proud and noble womanhood, it cannot perish. These women are the foundation of our race, of its blood and of its future.

This is the beginning of a new German womanhood. If the nation once again has mothers who proudly and freely choose motherhood, it cannot perish. If the woman is healthy, the people will be healthy. Woe to the nation that neglects its women and mothers. It condemns itself.

We hope that the concept of the German woman will again earn the honor and respect of the entire world. The German woman will then take her pride in her land and her people, in thinking German and feeling German. The honor of her nation and her race will be most important to her. Only a nation that does not forget its honor will be able to guarantee its daily bread.

The German woman should never forget that.

I declare this exhibition open. May it reveal all the former errors and show the way to the future.

Then the world will once again respect us, and we will be able to affirm the words of Walther von der Vogelweide, who had this to say about the German woman in his famous poem:

He who seeks
Virtue and proper love,
Should come to our land.
There is much joy.
Long may I live there.

https://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb55.htm