If Hitler was devoutly
religious and god-fearing, if he was thoroughly committed to the dominance
and expansion of capitalism; if he was a zealous and insidious foe of Marxism,
as so many of the prior quotes clearly demonstrate, then the questions
obviously become one of explaining why the words “socialist” and “workers”
were in the name of the Party and why the Nazis called themselves National
Socialists. If they are socialists, then why were they working so
assiduously to destroy every vestige of Marxist socialism. The answers
to these understandable questions are rather simple and direct and can
be found in the writings of Hitler himself for he, more than anyone else,
is responsible for their utilization. An initial brief look at German
history will bring it all into focus.
As was noted earlier,
in Germany of the 1920’s and early 30’s not thousands but millions of workers
were voting for socialists and communists. The latter were winning
major electoral victories as well as assuming positions of real potency
in the government in general and parliament in particular. To say
that they were a force to be reckoned with was an understatement and Hitler
was unscrupulous enough to realize this could be most effectively opposed
by co-opting much of that which appealed to the masses. By adopting
some of the major externals and appearances, while jettisoning many of
the major internals and the essence, the Nazis could attract or win over
people who would not normally support allies of their bosses or factory
owners. So, Hitler adopted the simple expedient of adopting some
key terms because of their attraction and deception. It was beguilement,
duplicity, and skullduggery on a grandiose scale and Hitler made no attempt
to disguise the fakery involved. In fact, he openly admitted as much
in several comments and performed some verbal sleigh-of-hand in the process.
First, he simply redefined
the word “socialist” to suit his own purposes and deceptions by giving
it a meaning unrelated to the actual meaning of the term which is common
ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
Socialism is essentially an economic philosophy; yet, an article published
in the Sunday Express on 28 September 1930 quotes Hitler as saying:
"Socialist"
I define from the word "social" meaning in the main "social equity."
A Socialist is one who serves the common good without giving up his individuality
or personality or the product of his personal efficiency.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 93
Using that definition
virtually any kindhearted, socially concerned, do-gooder, or humanitarian
would qualify. According to Hitler a socialist is not someone seeking
common ownership of the productive forces and the abolishment of private
ownership (capitalism), but someone displaying an ideological preference
for social equity and improvement of the common good.
A nationalist according
to him is one who applies that ideology to his specific nation or nationality.
In Munich on 21 November
1928 Hitler stated:
This
is the new front, which has solved the concept of what is national and
what is social by melting the two into one, and discovered that the SOCIALIST
and the NATIONALIST is that person who in the best sense of the word supports
the interests of the people as a whole, who in the field of foreign affairs
fights for the rights of his people, which has outgrown the curse of social
cleavage of former years, the people unified in the belief of the necessity
of struggle....
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolph Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 103
In Berlin on 17 November
1928:
The
goal which the National Socialist German Workers Party has set up for itself
is to invest the terms nationalism and socialism of their former meaning.
A nationalist can only be he who stands for his people, and a socialist
can only be who intercedes for the rights of his people--also in the field
of foreign affairs.
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolph Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 41
In a speech on July
28, 1922 in Munich:
Every truly national idea is in the last resort Social, i.e., he who is
prepared so completely to adopt the cause of his people that he really
knows no higher ideal than the prosperity of this--his own--people, he
who has so taken to heart the meaning of our great song "Deutschland, Deutschland
uber alles," that nothing in this world stands for him higher than this
Germany, people and land, land and people, he is a Socialist! And
he who in this people sympathizes with the poorest of its citizens, who
in this people sees in every individual a valuable member of the whole
community, and who recognizes that this community can flourish only when
it is formed not of rulers and oppressed but when all according to their
capacities fulfill their duty to their Fatherland and the community of
the people and are valued accordingly, he who seeks to preserve the native
vigor, the strength, and the youthful energy of the millions of working
men, and who above all is concerned that our precious possession, our youth,
should not before its time be used up in unhealthy harmful work--he is
not merely a Socialist, but he is also National in the highest sense of
that word.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 39
In a speech in Munich
on April 12, 1922:
"National"
and "Social" are two identical conceptions. It was only the Jew who
succeeded, through falsifying the social idea and turning it into Marxism,
not only in divorcing the social idea from the national, but in actually
representing them as utterly contradictory. That aim he has in fact
achieved. At the founding of this Movement we formed the decision
that we would give expression to this idea of ours of the identity of the
two conceptions: despite all warnings, on the basis of what we had come
to believe, on the basis of the sincerity of our will, we christened it
"National Socialist." We said to ourselves that to be "national"
means above everything to act with a boundless and all-embracing love for
the people and, if necessary, even to die for it. And similarly to
be "social" means so to build up the State and the community of the people
that every individual acts in the interest of the community of the people
and must be to such an extent convinced of the goodness, of the honorable
straightforwardness of this community of the people as to be ready to die
for it.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 22
Stripped of the magnanimous
rhetoric and exposed for the real message this perverted reasoning masks,
the actual message underlying this charade is that all that matters is
Germany; all those living in other nations are second class; all efforts
should focus on the betterment of Germany; the welfare of other nations
is of no consequence; all that hinders the improvement of the German community
is bad, and all that fosters the advancement of the social welfare of Germany
is good. Only the “social” well-being of one “nation” matters, hence
the phrase ‘National Socialist’ which is a formula for disaster.
This portrayal of
socialism has nothing to do with Marxism which: is international in scope
as opposed to being nationalistic, is opposed to private ownership instead
of supporting capitalism, and considers all people as members of one nation
as opposed to being factionalized on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationhood,
etc. In fact, Hitler readily concedes the differentiation.
He not only makes no attempt to equate the two but specifically and forcefully
makes a clear distinction between them.
In an article published
in the Sunday Express 28 September 1930 he said:
Our
adopted term "Socialist" has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism.
Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not. Marxism places no
value on the individual, or individual effort, or efficiency; true Socialism
values the individual and encourages him in individual efficiency, at the
same time holding that his interests as an individual must be in consonance
with those of the community.
All great inventions, discoveries, achievements were first the product
of an individual brain.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 93
My
Socialism is not the same thing as Marxism. My socialism is not class
war, but order. Whoever imagines Socialism as revolt and mass demagogy
is not a National Socialist.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 175
I am a socialist, and a very different kind of socialist from your rich
friend Reventlow. I was once an ordinary workingman. I would
not allow my chauffeur to eat worse than I eat myself. But your kind
of socialism is nothing but Marxism.
HITLER AND I by Otto
Strasser, 1940, page 106
What Hitler means is
that he is a ‘socialist’ according to his concocted definition of the word
‘socialist’ which no economist worthy of the title would accept.
In his speech at the
Second Workers' Congress of the Labor Front on 16 May 1934 he again distinguishes
the two by saying:
Socialism
cannot exist for Socialism's sake. If someone says: Socialism is
a marvelous idea, but it entails vast sacrifices and continuously imposes
upon man cares and distresses, then the answer is: This Socialism is something
so harmful that man must get rid of it as quickly as possible, and that
whether it be the Socialism of Marx or of National Socialism.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 895
When Otto Strasser
complained that Fascism had hitherto simply maintained the supremacy of
capital over the workers, Hitler replied by saying:
That
is all theorizing. In actual fact only one system is possible in
business: responsibility proceeding upwards and authority proceeding downwards....
That has been so for thousands of years and it can never be otherwise.
...This sharing of the workers
in possession and control is simply Marxism: I would give the right to
exercise such an influence only to the State controlled by a higher class.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 112
But
the Marxist gentry are mistaken if they think it is the workers who will
take the place of the Junkers as the new, leading social power.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 41
In Nuremberg on 14
September 1936 Hitler stated:
We
rejected Bolshevism and fought Bolshevism because we are Socialists, and
because by Socialism we do not understand the regime of a small group and
the forced labor and the starvation of millions of others.... Above
all, we rejected Bolshevism and fought Bolshevism because by Socialism
we do not understand the lowering of the standard of living of a people
for the benefit of an unscrupulous Soviet bourgeoisie and an equally unscrupulous
objective....
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolph Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 258
I did not take the road of politics to smooth the way for international
socialism, much less to preach a new, socialist religion. I am not
made to be the founder of a religion, I am not one and have no desire to
be one. Rather, I am a politician.
HITLER--MEMOIRS OF
A CONFIDANT, by Otto Wegener, 1985, page 165
Hitler is not disputing
the fact that he has manufactured a new definition for the word ‘socialist’
when he says:
For
if we permitted our Gauleiter and speakers to preach pure socialism of
the customary order, we would be doing nothing different from the Bolsheviks.
HITLER--MEMOIRS OF
A CONFIDANT, by Otto Wegener, 1985, page 115
The distinction between
bona fide socialism and Hitler’s bogus variety was accentuated by a conversation
between Hitler and Otto Strasser during a discussion of the 13th point
of Hitler’s official program involving socialization or nationalization
of property.
STRASSER: Let
us assume, Herr Hitler, that you came into power tomorrow. What would
you do about the Krupp's? Would you leave it alone or not?
HITLER: Of
course I should leave it alone. Do you think me crazy enough to want
to ruin Germany's great industry?
HITLER AND I by Otto
Strasser, 1940, page 112
Baynes expands on Hitler’s
reply:
But
of course things would remain as they were. Do you think that I should
be so mad as to destroy business life? Only if people should fail
to act in the interests of the nation, then--and only then--would the State
intervene. But for that you do not need any expropriation, you do
not need to give the workers the right to have a voice in the conduct of
the business: you need only a strong State which alone is in a position
to determine its action solely from large considerations without regard
to interested parties.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 111
The conversation concludes:
STRASSER: If
you wish to preserve the capitalist system, Herr Hitler, you have no right
to talk of socialism. For our supporters are socialists, and your
programme demands the socialization of private enterprise.
HITLER: That
word "socialism" is the trouble. I have never said that all enterprises
should be socialized. On the contrary, I have maintained that we
might socialize enterprises prejudicial to the interests of the nation.
Unless they were so guilty, I should consider it a crime to destroy essential
elements in our economic life. Take Italian Fascism. Our National
Socialist State, like the Fascist State, will safeguard both employers'
and workers' interests while reserving the right of arbitration in case
of dispute.
HITLER AND I by Otto
Strasser, 1940, page 112
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 111
In other words when his hand was called and he was challenged to honor the key word “socialist” in the name of his party, Hitler did not hesitate to opt out by confining socialization of property only to situations of national necessity.
To
put it quite clearly: we have an economic program. Point No. 13 in
that program demands the nationalization of all public companies, in other
words socialization or what is known here as socialism. It is a bad
word. It does not mean that all these concerns must necessarily be
socialized, merely that they can be socialized if they transgress against
the interests of the nation. So long as they do not do that, it would,
of course, be criminal to upset the economy.
SECRET CONVERSATIONS
WITH HITLER, Edited by Edouard Calic, 1971. Page 31
Hitler’s ideological
duplicity is all too obvious because he clearly has no intention of instituting
a socialist system and only coopted the word “socialist” for propaganda
purposes and to attract a large segment of the masses. In a 23 March
1933 Reichstag debate with a key leader of the Social-Democratic Left by
the name of Wels, who had accurately exposed Hitler’s deception, Hitler
repeats Wels’ comment by stating:
You
say the National Socialist Revolution has nothing to do with socialism,
but rather that its "Socialism" exists only in the sense that it persecutes
the "only pillar of socialism in Germany," the SPD [the Socialist Party
of Germany].
HITLER, SPEECHES AND
PROCLAMATIONS 1932-45, Vol. 1, by Max Domarus, page 293
Hitler calls himself a socialist
while rejecting a key plank of socialism--centralized planning.
In his speech in the Reichstag
on 21 May 1935 he said:
This
task can be undertaken only by means of a planned economic system.
And that is a perilous adventure; for planned economics lead to bureaucratic
control and thus to the suppression of individual creative effort....
Every planned system of production only too easily invalidates the hard
laws of the economic survival of the fittest and elimination of the weak;
or at least it hampers the activity of these laws inasmuch as it guarantees
the preservation of the least valuable average, to the detriment of higher
efficiency and greater productive power and quality, all of which work
out finally to the detriment of the community.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes,1942, VOLUME 1, Page 910
Hitler compounds his
deception of German workers by admitting the word “workers” was inserted
into the Party name not only to lure the workers but to persuade the capitalists
into believing that the word itself was not a code word for Marxist.
He wanted to sever its connection with Marxism in the minds of the bourgeoisie
by redefining it as applicable only to the German working class holding
allegiance to the nation alone and not an international movement.
In a conversation with Hans Johst on 27 January 1934 Johnst asked Hitler:
Inasmuch as you were forced by the Weimar Constitution to organize along
party lines, you called your movement the National Socialist Workers' Party.
In my opinion, you are thus giving the concept of the worker priority over
the concept of the bourgeoisie.
Hitler responded:
I chose the word "worker" because it was more natural and corresponded
with every element of my being, and because I wanted to recapture this
word for the national force. I did not and will not allow the concept
of the worker to simply take on an international connotation and become
an object of distrust to the bourgeoisie. In a certain sense, I had
to "naturalize" the term worker and subject it once again to the control
of the German language and the sovereign rights and obligations of the
German Volk.
HITLER, SPEECHES AND
PROCLAMATIONS 1932-45, Vol. 1, by Max Domarus, page 416
Clearly Hitler did
not place the word “workers” in the party name because he viewed the Nazi
party as being in the vanguard of the workers fight against capital.
In no sense did Hitler create the Nazi party to lead workers in a class
struggle against property owners. It was injected primarily to allure
and entice.
In his speech at the
First Congress of German Workers on 10 May 1933 Hitler said:
But
the Movement which I and my fellow-fighters represent will, nothing daunted,
exalt the word "Worker" till it becomes the great title of honor of the
German nation. It is not without a purpose that we introduced this
word into the name of our Party. Not that this word has ever brought
us any great profit! On the contrary it has brought us on the one
side hatred and enmity, and on the other side misunderstanding. But
we have chosen this word because we wished with the victory of our Movement
to raise this word, too, victoriously. We have chosen it that at
last in this word a second foundation should be found alongside of the
conception of the people: that second basis is the unification of Germans.
For he who is possessed by a really noble purpose cannot do otherwise than
proudly confess his loyalty to this word.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 861
Translated from rather
abstruse verbiage and stripped of duplicity, Hitler’s use of the word “workers”
exposes an obvious attempt to attract workers, redefine the word “workers”
without a class warfare connotation, redignify the word in the eyes of
the capitalists, and unify the entire nation under a term lacking any association
with class struggle, class warfare, or class preference.
The same strategy
was utilized when Hitler originally applied the phrase “Social-Revolutionary”
to the Nazi party. He concocted and manipulated deceptive terminology
in a manner not unlike that now used by George Bush who depicts himself
as a “compassionate conservative,” despite having consented to more executions
as Governor of Texas than almost any governor in American history.
In his infamous work
Hitler indirectly admitted the phrase “Social-Revolutionary” was chosen
to attract the masses by means of a fraudulent revolutionary veneer, not
because he represented the working millions.
He said:
The
name of the new movement to be founded was to offer, from the beginning,
the possibility of approaching the great masses; for without these qualities
the whole work seemed senseless and superfluous. Therefore we arrived
at the name "Social-Revolutionary" Party; this for the reason that the
social ideas of the new foundation indeed meant a revolution.
MEIN KAMPF, Adolph
Hitler, New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939, page 280
He openly and frankly
admitted that colors and symbols were adopted primarily to entice, deceive,
and incite those of a Leftist persuasion:
The
red color of our bill posters alone drew them [Marxists] into our meeting
halls. The normal bourgeoisie was genuinely horrified at the fact
that we too had taken up the red of the bolsheviks, and in this they saw
a very ambiguous affair. The German national minds quietly whispered
to each other the suspicion that fundamentally we too were only a variety
of Marxism, perhaps nothing but disguised Marxists, or rather Socialists.
For even today these heads have not understood the difference between Socialism
[socialism as redefined by Hitler] and Marxism.... How often we shouted
with laughter at these stupid bourgeois cowards, in the face of the intelligent
guessing at our origin, our intentions and our goal!
We chose the red color of our posters after exacting and thorough reflection,
in order to provoke the leftists by this, to bring them to indignation
and to induce them to come to our meetings, if only to break them up, so
that in this way we were at least enabled to speak to these people.
MEIN KAMPF, Adolph
Hitler, New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939, page 721
While citing quotes
from Hitler Gordon Prange perceptively summarized the duplicity and hypocrisy
permeating Hitler’s grandiose scheme.
“Here, in short, is
a sworn foe of Marxism using a distorted version of Marxist phraseology
to befuddle the German masses.... To complete his Marxian analysis,
he has preached the overthrow of capitalism. German victory, he has
ranted, will be the triumph of socialism over plutocracy.
The suave unconcern
with which Hitler has shed his coat of mail as World Protector against
Bolshevism to don his mantle of Proletarian Deliverer--one of the more
comic interludes in his career as a political magician--demonstrates his
deep contempt for the mentality of his followers.”
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolph Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 322
Hitler went so far
as to describe in detail the multiple deceptions associated with his
underhanded and surreptitious utilization of his enemy’s tactics by saying:
I
have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit.
I don't mean their tiresome social doctrine or the materialist conception
of history, or their absurd "marginal utility" theories and so on.
But I have learned from their methods. The difference between them
and myself is that I have really put into practice what these peddlers
and pen-pushers have timidly begun. The whole of National Socialism
is based on it. Look at the workers' sports clubs, the industrial
cells, the mass demonstrations, the propaganda leaflets written specially
for the comprehension of the masses; all these new methods of political
struggle are essentially Marxist in origin. All I had to do was to
take over these methods and adapt them to our purpose. I had only
to develop logically what Social Democracy repeatedly failed in because
of its attempt to realize its evolution within the framework of democracy....
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 186
I aimed, instead, to awaken the enthusiasm of the working-class world for
my ideas. The first years of my struggle were therefore concentrated
on the object: win over the workers to the National Socialist Party.
Here's how I set about it:
1.
I followed the example of the Marxist parties by putting up posters
in the most striking red.
2. I used propaganda trucks that were literally carpeted with posters
of a flaming red, equipped with equally red flags and occupied by thundering
loud-speakers.
3. I saw to it that all the initiates of the movement came to meetings
without stiff collars and without ties, adopting the free-and-easy style
so as to get the workers into their confidence.
As for the bourgeois elements who, without being real fanatics, wanted
to join the ranks of the National Socialist Party, I did everything to
put them off-- resorting to bawled-out propaganda, disheveled clothes,
etc. My object was to rid myself right from the beginning of the
revolutionaries in rabbit's pelts....
5. I ordered our protective service to treat our opponents roughly
and chuck them out of our meetings with so little mildness that the enemy
press--which otherwise would have ignored our gatherings--used to make
much of the blows and wounds they give rise to, and thus called attention
to them.
6. I sent a few of our own people to take a course in public speaking
in the schools organized by the other parties. Thanks to this, we
obtained a good insight into the arguments which would be used by those
sent to heckle at our meetings, and we were thus in a position to silence
them the moment they opened their mouths. I dealt with the women
from the Marxist camp who took part in the discussions by making them look
ridiculous, by drawing attention either to the holes in their stockings
or to the fact that their children were filthy. To convince women
by reasoned argument is always impossible; to have had them roughly handled
by the ushers of the meeting would have aroused public indignation, and
so our best plan was to have recourse to ridicule, and this produced excellent
results.
7. At all my meetings I have always spoke ex tempore. I had,
however, a number of Party members in the audience, with orders to interrupt
along lines carefully prepared to give the impression of a spontaneous
expression of public opinion, and these interruptions greatly strengthened
the force of my own arguments.
8. If the police intervened, women of our Party were given the task
of drawing their attention either to opponents or to completely unknown
people who happened to find themselves near the entrance to the hall.
In cases like this, the police invariably go about their job quite blindly,
like a pack of hounds, and we found that this method was most efficacious,
both for ridding ourselves of undesirable elements of the audience and
for getting rid of the police themselves.
9. I disorganized the meetings of other Parties by sending members
of our Party in the guise of ushers to maintain order, but in reality with
instructions to riot and break up the meeting.
By judicious use of all the above methods, I succeeded in winning the support
of such large numbers of the better elements of the working classes that,
in the last elections that took place before our assumption of power, I
was able to organize no fewer than 180,000 Party meetings.
HITLER'S TABLE TALK,
1941-1944, Translated by Cameron & Stevens, 2000, page 413-14
In fact, in order to
ingratiate himself with the working class, demagogic Hitler was not above
making comments that would cause Karl Marx to smile. Although rare,
a few of his speeches expose a political chameleon of the most egregious
ilk and none performs this task more vividly than the address Hitler
gave in Berlin before workers in the Rheinmetall-Borsig Works on 10 December
1940. It was casuistry, duplicity, and hypocrisy all wrapped into
one, deception at its finest.
Hitler stated:
It
is self-evident that where this democracy rules, the people as such are
not taken into consideration at all. The only thing that matters
is the existence of a few hundred gigantic capitalists who own all the
factories and their stock and, through them, control the people.
The masses of the people do not interest them in the least. They
are interested in them just as were our bourgeois parties in former times--only
when elections are being held, when they need votes. Otherwise, the
life of the masses is a matter of complete indifference to them.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 881
He continues by saying:
In
the other countries--as is shown by their whole economic structure--the
selfishness of a relatively small stratum rules under the mask of democracy.
This stratum is neither checked nor controlled by anyone....
I wish to put before you a few basic facts: The first is that in the capitalistic
democratic world the most important principle of economy is that the people
exist for trade and industry, and that these in turn exist for capital.
We have reversed this principle by making capital exist for trade and industry,
and trade and industry exist for the people. In other words, the
people come first. Everything else is but a means to this end.
When an economic system is not capable of feeding and clothing a people,
then it is bad, regardless of whether a few hundred people say: "As far
as I am concerned it is good, excellent; my dividends are splendid.”
...To take another instance, besides dividends there are the so-called
directors' fees. You probably have no idea how appallingly active
a board of directors is. Once a year its members have to make a journey.
They have to go to the station, get into a first-class compartment and
travel to some place or other. They arrive at an appointed office
at about 10 or 11 a.m. There they must listen to a report.
When the report has been read, they must listen to a few comments on it.
They may be kept in their seats until 1 p.m. or even 2. Shortly after
two o'clock they arise from their chairs and set out on their homeward
journey, again, of course, traveling first class. It is hardly surprising
that they claim 3000, 4000, or even 5000 as compensation for this.
Our directors formerly did the same--for what a lot of time it costs them!
Such effort had to be made worth while! Of course, we have got rid
of all this nonsense, which was merely veiled profiteering and even bribery.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 885-887
Earlier in the same
speech he had said in conjunction with this:
The
people as a whole definitely suffer. I do not consider it possible
in the long run for one man to work and toil for a whole year in return
for ridiculous wages, while another jumps into an express train once a
year and pockets enormous sums. Such conditions are a disgrace.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 881
As a poster child for
bourgeois domination at its worst, Hitler chose Britain and said in a speech
in Berlin on 30 January 1941:
In
spite of her conquest of the world, Britain is socially the most backward
state in Europe, a state managed solely for the benefit of a relatively
small upper class, closely associated with Jewish interests. The
interests of the masses receive no consideration whatever in the affairs
of the State. Here, too, phrases disguise the truth. They may
prate of "liberty," of "democracy," of "the achievements of a liberal system,"
but they mean only the stabilization of the ruling class which, by virtue
of its investments, controls and directs the press and formulates public
opinion.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 905
In that Borsig speech
he said:
In those countries [the democracies], it is actually capital that rules;
that is, nothing more than a clique of a few hundred men who possess untold
wealth and, as a consequence of the peculiar structure of their national
life, are more or less independent and free. They say: "Here we have
liberty." By this they mean, above all, an uncontrolled economy,
and by an uncontrolled economy, the freedom not only to acquire capital
but to make absolutely free use of it. That means freedom from national
control or control by the people both in the acquisition of capital and
in its employment. This is really what they mean when they speak
of liberty. These capitalists create their own press and then speak
of the "freedom of the press."
In reality, every one of the newspapers has a master, and in every case
this master is the capitalist, the owner. This master, not the editor,
is the one who directs the policy of the paper. If the editor tries
to write other than what suits the master, he is ousted the next day.
This press, which is the absolutely submissive and characterless slave
of the owners, molds public opinion. Public opinion thus mobilized
by them is, in its turn, split up into political parties. The difference
between these parties is as small as it formerly was in Germany.
You know them, of course--the old parties. They were always one and
the same. In Britain matters are usually so arranged that families
are divided up, one member being a conservative, another a liberal, and
a third belonging to the Labor Party. Actually, all three sit together
as members of the family, decide upon their common attitude and determine
it. A further point is that the "elected people" actually form a
community which operates and controls all these organizations. For
this reason, the opposition in England is really always the same, for on
all essential matters in which the opposition has to make itself felt,
the parties are always in agreement. They have one and the same conviction
and through the medium of the press mold public opinion along corresponding
lines. One might well believe that in these countries of liberty
and riches, the people must possess an unlimited degree of prosperity.
But no! On the contrary, is precisely in these countries that the
distress of the masses is greater than anywhere else. Such is the
case in "rich Britain."
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 879
Hitler not only claimed
he represented the workers as was shown by a comment in a 11 November 1933
speech in Berlin:
I wage the struggle for the mass of millions of our good, industrious,
working, producing folk.
ADOLPH HITLER QUOTATIONS,
by Karl Hammer,1990, Page 43
But in a speech on
the Buckeberg near Hamelin on 3 October 1937 he criticized those who tried
to fool the masses by claiming wealth was a burden:
There
are rich people who say, "Wealth is a very heavy burden to bear!
Let no one wish that he, too, might be encumbered by this burden!"
Now one might think that, if wealth is such a heavy burden, they would
be glad to give some of it away. That, however, is something they
do not want to do, either.
HITLER, [Speeches
and Proclamations], by Max Domarus, Vol. 2, page 952
In a Munich speech
on 8 November 1940 the Fuhrer sought to depict himself as a revived Robin
Hood seeking to bridge the wealth gap by stating:
We
see that the primary cause for the existing tensions lies in the unfair
distribution of the riches of the earth....
The great task which I set myself in internal affairs was to bring reason
to bear on the problems, to eliminate dangerous tensions by invoking the
common sense of all, to bridge the gulf between excessive riches and excessive
poverty.
MY NEW ORDER by Adolph
Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 875
He championed the downtrodden
in their struggles by saying in a speech in Berlin on 16 March 1941:
The
world is not here for a few people, and an order based internally on the
distinction between the haves and the have-nots does not exist anymore
because the have-nots have determined to lay claim to their portion of
God's earth.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 940
And in that Borsig
speech predicted the workers and downtrodden would win:
When
we have won this war it will not have been won by a few industrialists
or millionaires, or by a few capitalists or aristocrats, or by a few bourgeois,
or by anyone else.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 898
Notice how he includes
himself within his audience by use of the word “we.”
His prognostication
of worker victory was later repeated in Berlin on 30 January 1941:
It is quite impossible to oblige hundreds of millions of people to submit
themselves to the interests of a few individuals. The interests of
humanity will be victorious over the interests of these small plutocratic
businessmen.
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolph Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 334
In the following month
he went so far as to say In a speech in Munich on 24 February 1941:
It is today no longer possible to build up a state on a capitalistic basis.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 931
And in another sop
to the Leftist orientation of the German working class, he attacked religion,
to which he was so closely attached, by relating Marx’s dictum to the effect
that religion is the opiate of the masses serving the ruling class:
The
Church has succeeded in striking a very pretty balance between life on
earth and in the Hereafter. On earth, they say, the poor must remain
poor and blessed, for in Heaven the earthly rich will get nothing; and
the unfortunate poor on earth believe them!
It is only by keeping the masses ignorant that the existing social order
of things can be maintained;...
HITLER'S TABLE TALK,
1941-1944, Translated by Cameron & Stevens, 2000, page 606
And finally, he sank
to a new low of deceit when he totally distanced himself from the capitalists
by saying:
How
could a narrow-minded capitalist ever agree to my principles? It
would be easier for the Devil to go to church and cross himself with holy
water than for these people to comprehend the ideas which are accepted
facts to us today.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 882
Is it any wonder Hitler
had no compunction about mendaciously describing Germany as the nation
most hated by world capitalism. It is only another plank in a delusory
program calculated to fool millions.
In Berlin on 4 September
1940 he stated:
We
have taken the road toward true social legislation and toward a sociological
development which is hated in other countries. For they are plutocracies
in which a very small clique of capitalists rules the masses and, naturally,
co-operates closely with the international Jews and the Freemasons....
You know our aims, and you know that we defend them persistently and with
fixity of purpose--and that we shall achieve them. That is why all
these international plutocracies, the Jewish newspapers, the stock exchanges
of the world, hate us; that is why all the countries whose attitude is
identical or similar are in sympathy with those democracies.
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolph Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 327
In Munich on 8 November
1942:
This,
too, is a reason why that other world which represents capitalist interests
is active against us. Those people there form a concern which presumes
even today to govern, to direct, and if necessary to maltreat the world
to suit private capitalist interest.
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolph Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 338
In Berlin on 30 January
1941:
It is this social Germany which this clique of Jews, financiers, and business
czars hates the most.
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolph Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 335
And in his Order of
the Day on April 6, 1941:
It is already war history how the German Armies defeated the legions of
capitalism and plutocracy.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolph Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 944
The deceit, duplicity,
and callous disregard for truth which totally permeated Hitler’s entire
economic program are well summarized in a work by Alan Bullock:
“The anticapitalist
elements in the Nazi program were ignored: The big corporations and banks
were not nationalized, the department stores were not closed, the big estates
were not broken up. The corporatist ideas that had attracted a great
deal of support among the middle classes [and the working class] while
the Nazis were still a movement were discarded once they formed a government.
The trade unions were suppressed, collective bargaining banned, and wages
held down. In contrast, the capitalists were left to run the economy,
and made large profits out of rearmament, the war, and German conquests.
The Nazi movement represented not a revolution but a counter-revolution,
the German form of Fascism.”
STALIN AND HITLER
by Alan Bullock (1992), page 320
Bullock concluded:
“... it is not difficult
to follow a consistent line in Hitler's handling of economic issues to
which he reverted after temporary diversions. There were undoubtedly
a substantial number in the Nazi movement who looked for the takeover of
power in the first six months of 1933 to be followed by a radical restructuring
of the economy. Hitler was not among them: To say that he ‘failed’
to carry out such a fundamental reform ignores the evidence that he never
meant to do so. For Hitler the revolution remained a political one,
a decisive change in the internal balance of power, the centerpiece of
which was the elimination of the ‘Marxists’ parties of the left, including
the trade union movement.”
STALIN AND HITLER
by Alan Bullock (1992), page 330
And finally,
The Princeton historian Harold James succinctly traversed the economic
landscape when he wrote:
“The was nothing socialist
about Hitler's economics.... Nazi collectivism was political, not
economic, and left individuals as economic agents. The repeated declarations
of the Nazi intention to socialize people rather than factories meant that
far-reaching programs of state control over the economy were unnecessary.”
STALIN AND HITLER
by Alan Bullock (1992)