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Hitler's Words and Hitler's Deeds
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"Hitler's Words and Hitler's Deeds" (2016). War Information Center Pamphlets. Book 443.
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30.
Communique issued in Berlin. November 15, 1933. (Documenla
on International Affairs, 1933. Page 424.)
31.
Speech of January 30, 1934.
1934. Page 3l!4.)
32.
The Timea.
(Documents on International Affaira,
PAt"flPtiLEf OFflCE
January 26, 1939.
33.
The Tim es.
October 7, 1939.
34.
The '.l'i m es.
June 1, 1939.
October 7, 1939.
35.
'.l'he T imes.
36.
Documents on I n ternational Affa irs, 1937.
37.
The T i m es.
38.
N ieuwP, R otlerdamsche Gourant, September 21, 1939.
39.
The T i m es.
40.
Th e T i m es. Apri l 17, 1939.
41.
Bulle tin of Internation al News, Vol. :i..-vi, .r o. 9.
Page 12.
42.
Daily T elegraph, The '.l'im es, September 6, 1939;
Guardian, September 9, 1939.
43.
Mein Kampf. Pages 251, 359, etc.
44.
A History of the .Peace Conference of Paris (Editor: H. W V.
Temperley). (RI.I.A.) Volume!. Page 122.
45.
The first figure is an Allied estimate. German estimates
lower. See C.R. M. F Cruttwell: A History of the Great
(Clarendon Press, 1934.) Appendix on Casualties.
second figure is given by Major-General Sir F Maurice:
Last Four Months. (Cassell, 1919.) Pages 245-6.
46.
Under the WE)imar Republic seats were allotted to the various
parties in the German Reichstag on a basis of Proportional
Representation.
47.
See D. R eed: The Burning of the R eichstag. (Gollancz, 1934), as
supplemented by the same aut hor 's P i re and Bomb (Cape,
1940). See also statement by Dr. H ei·mann Rauschning in
'.l'he Sunday E xpress, November 26, 1939.
48.
'.l'he T im ea. March 18, 1940.
HITLER'S WORDS
l'age 186.
August 28, 1939.
AND
October 7, 1939.
May 6, 1939.
Manchestei·
were
War.
The
The
49.
ManchestP.r Guardian.
50.
51.
Published as a pamphlet by the P etit Parisien at the end of J 933.
'.l'he Times. September 11, 1Q39.
52.
Speech broadcast on November 26, 1939.
September 7, 1934.
(PliT.NTE D IN F.NOLA.ND)
HITLER'S DEEDS
THE NAZI THEORY OF
PROPAGANDA
The presen t rulers of Germany have deli b r ately practii:;ed
dece it to win power , to keep p o1rnr, and to extend t heir powm·
T hey ca.II it '· Pr paga.nda. a nd En lightenment." Mos(, peo pl e
ll'Oul d eit ll it downri <rht ly ing.
1n t heir more honest morn.ents, t he Nazis thcm selvci:; are qu ite
frank about it. Hitler ii:; a self- confessed liar and ra.tber proud
of hi kill in th ii:; parti ular direction . " The very fir. t condi ion wh i ·h has to be fulfilled in every kind of propaganda ,"
he writes in jJf ein Kampf, " is a syst ematically subj ective and
one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be
lealt wit h." <ll*
H e lay · down on ly one conditi on- tha t the lying shall be on
a big scale. Small lies, he ·ays, will not b believed, but real
" whoppers " will find credence because people wi ll t hink n o
one could be q uite su ch a big liar
' · I n the b ig li e there is always a certain for e of crecLibility ,
because the broad ma '. 'eB of a nation are ~t i way· more easily
conuptecl in the deeper ·trata of their em otional nature than
consciou sly or voluntaril y, and thus in the primitive impli city
of t heir minds they more reaclily fall victims t o the bi g lie than
the small lie, sin ce they them elves often tell lies in li ttle
matter , but would be ashamed to r esort to large- ale fal. ·eho d . 1t would never come into their h eads to fabri a te
co lo ·sal untruth s, and they would n ot believe t hat others
l'o uld h a ve the .impuden ce to distort the truth so infamou: ly
Ev en t h ough t he fa ts which prove thjs to be . o m ay be
brought clearly to their minds, t hey will still doubt and waver,
cmtl wi ll continue to think that there may he some oth r
cxplamttion. For t he gro sly impudent lie always leaves
t race behind it , even after it ha been nailed clown, a fact
whi ch is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who
·omipi rc together in the art of Jying."( 2 l
3
• For rPferenrrs RPP 11uyes .11 a.ml 3Z .
This passage shows that Hitler has a great contempt for the
general mass of the people. " The receptive powers of the
masses," he says elsewhere, "are very restrict~d and their
understan~g feeble. Propaganda must appeal to the feelings
of t;11e p~~lic rat~er than to their reasoning powers."<S> And
By skilful and sustained use of propaganda the
agam :
people can be made to see even Heaven as Hell or the most
wretched life as Paradise ."<4>
'
,
Goebbels is an equally great believer in the power of
propaganda to make black appear white. He has described
the German Press as merely " a piano on which the Government can play " <5 > On another occasion he said " A revolutionist must be able to do everything-to arouse outbreaks
of fury, to get masses of men on the march, to organise hate
and suspicion with ice-cold calculation."<6>
This technique of deliberate deception has been systematically
used bY. the Nazi leaders both in their home and in their
for~ign propaganda. The record of their dealings both with
therr own people and with foreign countries is full of instances
of bad faith and broken promises, of intentional hiding or
twisting of the facts.
NAZI BAD FAITH: AT HOME
Fro~ their e_arli~st days the Nazi leaders were always ready
to give proIDlSes m order to win toleration or support for their
cause and then to go back on them the moment their fulfilment
hacl ceased to be in the interests of the movement.
THE
BEER-HALL PUTSCH
Thus in the autumn of 1922, in an attempt to discredit a
rumour that the Nazis were planning a Putsch in Munich,
Hitler asked for an interview with the then Minister of the
Interior for Bavaria. "I give you my word of honour," he
said to him, "that I will never in my life make 11. Pufsch."< 7 >
4
A year later, on November 9, 1923, Hitler and General Ludendorff were the chief ringleaders in the attempt to overthrow
tbe Bavarian Government by force which came to be known
as the Beer-Hall Putsch. The Putsch failed, the ringleaders
were arrested, and in the course of the trial which followed
a witness named Seisser revealed that he had reproached
Hitler at the time for breaking his promise, and that Hitler
had answered "Yes, I have done that. Forgive me. I
did it in the interests of the Fatherland."<8>
SUPPRESSION
OF
THE
WORKERS'
MOVEMENT
The Nazis were equally unscrupulous in overcoming sections
of the population hostile to the Nazi cause. Thus on May
Day, 1933, Hitler said
"You will see how untrue and
unjust is the statement that the Revolution is directed against
the German workers. On the contrary its deepest meaning
and clearest aim is to unite our millions of German workers
in the German Folk-community " <9>
The next day the headquarters of the German Trade Unions
were seized throughout Germany, their leaders arrested,
their funds confiscated, their newspapers suppressed. Within
the following week the Social-Democratic Party, representing
over seven million German workers, was also suppressed and
its funds confiscated; and the German working-classes were
regimented in the " 'German Labour Front" uncler the direct
control of the Nazi Government. On the very day on which
the Trade Unions were suppressed, Dr. Ley, Leader of the
German Labour Front, assured the German workers that
"We have never destroyed anything which had any kind of
value for our nation, nor shall we in the future. This is a
fundamental principle of National-Socialism. This holds
good particularly of the Trade Unions, which have been
built up out of the pennies which the workers have earned
with such bitter toil and starved themselves to give. No,
workers, your institutions are sacred and inviolable to us
National-Socialists. "no>
5
THE
"PURGE"
OF JUNE
30,
1934.
Hitler ha. betrayed his own friend s in the Nazi movement
just a· reacliJy as he betrayed the workers. One of tb e most
notoriou · example · of treachery among friends is provided
by the events of June 30, 1934, when Rohm, Ernst and
other leading Nazis were shot by tho orders of Hitler
As ln.te a,s January, 1934, Hitler had written to Rohm.
" On the fiT t anniver ·ary of the Nn.tional-Sociali t revolution
I am moved to thank you, Ernst Rohm, for the imperishable
·ervices which you have rendered to the National-Socialist
movement and to the German people, and to assure you how
thankfitl I am to Providence that I may describe such a man
as my friend ancl comrade.
"llll
Exactly five months after the writing of this letter, Hitler
drove out to Rohm's villa in the early hours of the morning,
roughly awakened him and had him shot there and then
without the least pretence of trial. More than sixty' 12'
of the oldest and most trusted leaders of the National-Socialist
movement shared his fate. Amongst them was the young
Karl Ernst who, on the occasion of his wedding a few weeks
earlier, had received a wedding-present from Hitler bearing
the inscription " For ever united ! "
The " purge" of June 30 was, of course, no isolated incident
in the history of National-Socialism. The ruthless and brutal
methods which were used to dispose of Rohm and his associates
had been consistently used by the Nazis in eliminating their
opponents both before and after their advent to power The
horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, U3J the innumerable
reports of kidnappings, " disappearances " and " suicides "
are too fresh in the public memory to need recall.
Yet in spite of all this we find Hitler declaring in February,
1936 " I most solemnly here state that on the road followed
by our movement there lies not one single adversary murdered
nor one single attempted murder We have rejected this from
the very fast day We have never fought with these
weapons. "U4J
G
HITLER WI'l'l:[ ROHM AND GOEBBELS
TH E
NAZ I - S 0 V IE T
PACT.
The utter hypocri y of the Nazi propaganda. is well shown by
the complete reversal, almost overnight, of their attitude to
Communism. Opposition to Communism within Germany
was of the very essence of the Nazi movement, and had
contributed as much as any of their slogans to their triumph
in 1933. It was the invariabl e, though unfounded, boast
of Nazi leaders a,fter 1933 that their triumph aved Germany
from a Communist Revolution.
Having suppressed Communism within Germany, the Nazi
rulers from 1934 onwards turned to denouncing Bolshevism
wherever they saw it abroad, and above all in the home of
the Communist International, Soviet Russia. The Nuremberg
Party Congress of 1936 '.Vas specifically devoted to the crusade
against Bolshevism. "This Congress," declared Hess at
its opening, " will develop the great thesis ancl antithesis of the
century- Bolshevism ancl National-Socialism."
The Nazis
were continually at pains to win over the support of antiCommunist opinion in Great Britain and elsewhere by proclaiming National-Socialism as the last bulwark in Europe
against the spread of the Bolshevist peril. " It is to thfl
7
lasting credit of the Fiihrer," declared Goebbels at Nuremberg
on September 10, 1936, "that the whole world has already
acknowledged that he has set up on the frontier of Germany
a barrier against the assaults of Bolshevism in the East, and
has thereby- become the spiritual pioneer of Europe in his
crusade against the subversive forces of destruction and
anarchy
"< 16>
From the summer of 1936 onwards the Nazi leaders sent
troops and materials to Spain, in violation of the Non-Intervention Agreements, with the sole purpose, so they afterwards
avowed, of crushing Communism in Spain, and in the November
of that year they signed with the Government of Japan the
agreement known as the Anti-Comintern Pact. " Germany
and Japan," said Ribbentrop at the time of its signature,
" being unwilling to tolerate any longer the machinations of the
Communist agitators, have now taken active steps. The conclusion of the agreement signed by Germany and Japan against
the Communist International is an epoch-making event."
Hitler himself had repeatedly announced, in the most abusive
terms, his loathing for the Soviet regime and his abhorrence
of any idea of obtaining Soviet co-operation. The Bolshevist
rulers of Russia, he says in Mein Kampf, are " common blood,stained criminals," "the scum of humanity," who "have no
idea offorming an honourable alliance or of remaining true to
it, if they did.,, Again " THE FORMATION OF AN ALLIANCE
WITH RUSSIA WOULD BE THE SIGNAL FOR A NEW WAR. AND
THE RESULT OF THAT WAR WOULD BE THE END OF GERMANY. "(l6l
This view Hitler has again and again reaffirmed. "We
see in Bolshevism a bestial, mad doctrine which is a threat
to us," he declared at Nuremberg on September 14,
1936.<l 7 >
"We must regard Bolshevism abroad
as our enemy
I cannot make a pact with a
regi,me whose first act is the liberation, not of the workers,
hut of the inmates of gaols.
." And again, in the
Reichstag on February 20, 1938 "With one single country
alone we have refused to enter into relations. That State is
Soviet Russia. We see in Bolshevism now more than ever
before the incarnation of the forces of human destruction."
Yet this was the Power with which, without the least warning,
8
and as the result of negotiations carried on in the most complete
secrecy, the Nazis made a pact on August 23, 1939.
The Pact itself was a complete reversal of the very principles
which Hitler had put before the German people as the foundation of his movement from its earliest beginnings.
Its conclusion made a complete mockery of the policy which
underlay Nazi intervention in Spain and the signature of the
Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan, and it removed the last
shadow of foundation for Hitler's claim that NationalSocialism is the great bulwark against the spread of Communism in Europe.
It is still quite possible, of course, that Hitler's real feelings
about Bolshevism are expressed in Mein Kampf and that,
if he succeeded in crushing the western democracies, he would
then turn his foll forces eastward as laid down in his book.
This possibility will not have escaped the astute master of
the Kremlin. But one trouble with habitual liars is that
they can never be believed even when they speak the truth
because no one knows when they are speaking the truth.
HITLER'S DEEDS
THE
BEER-BAI
" I give you my word of honour that I will never in my
life make a Putsch."
PUTSCH
l\' ovember. 1!
Hitler to the Bavarian Mini ster of the Interior, November l!l22. (See page 4)
'' You will see how untrue and unjust is the statement that
the Revolution is directed against the German workers."
Hitler wit!
Ludendorf
Hitler on May Day, 1933. (See page 5)
'' How thankful I am to Providence that I may describe such
a man as my friend ."
Hitler to R ohm, January 30, 1934. ( 'ee page 6)
HEADLINl
:' We see in Bolshevism a bestial, mad doctrine
I
cannot make a pact with a regime whose first act is the
liberation, not of the workers, but of the inmates of
gaols."
Hitler, September 14, 1936. (Seepage 8 )
" The formation of an alliance with Russia would be the
signal for a new war And the result of that war would be
the end of Germany ,,
Hitler in Mein J(ampj. (See page 8 )
li'ROM
"DAILY
HERALD"
Ma.y 5, 1933
HEADLJN"l
FROM
"DAILY
THE RHINELAND
" The German Government is prepared to accept not only
the letter but the spirit of Locarno."
Hitler, January 30, 1934
TELEGRAI
July 2, 1934
" The German Government will uphold and fulfil all
obligations ·arising out of the Locarno Treaty "
Hitler, May 21, l!l3 5.
(See page 16)
A US TRI A
RTBBENTB
"The assertion that the German Reich intends to violate
the Austrian State is absurd and cannot be substantiated.''
IN MOSCO
Hitler, January 30, 1934
A uo11st. 1939
WITH STA