One would be severely
challenged to find a word thrown around with more reckless abandon by Rightists,
fascists, and Nazis than the word “freedom.” For them it is a virtual
rallying cry and is used to justify the most heinous of acts and egregious
propaganda. In its name no crime is too flagrant no deed too extravagant.
Conveniently forgotten in this equation, of course, is the simple fact
that Nazi freedom is of primary concern while that of others is of no consequence.
Hitler’s writings and speeches reek with encomiums to freedom. For
him freedom is what counts:
What
matters to a nation is to be free. And it was the German nation's
despair that gave birth to National Socialism.
HITLER'S TABLE TALK,
1941-1944, Translated by Cameron & Stevens, 2000, page 259
The most important
goal for his regime allegedly was the attainment of freedom.
In his Munich speech delivered
on 24 February 1935--the Anniversary of the Founding of the Party--Hitler
outlined his vision of the future tasks of the State and the Party:
And
finally for the present we have a splendid goal: the freedom of our people.
We must ourselves win this freedom. How often have I said to you
in this hall: We dare not leave to those who come after us the restoration
of this German freedom.... Youth cannot grow up otherwise--it can grow
up only in the spirit of freedom.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 618
In a Regensburg speech
on 6 June 1937 regarding his mission:
...To
protect this people and its work and to restore to it freedom, honor, and
power.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 120
Indeed, the restoration
of freedom was supposedly the highest goal, as it is allegedly the highest
goal of the Bushites in Iraq.
In the Proclamation by the
Government to the German Nation on 1 February 1933:
As
regards their foreign policy the National Government considers its highest
mission to be the securing of the right to live and the restoration of
freedom to our nation.
MY NEW ORDER by Hitler,
Edited by Raoul de Roussy de Sales, 1941, Page 145
HITLER'S SPEECHES by Norman
Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1002
Hitler felt people
can remain free only by recognizing the importance of freedom, as was so
stated by him in May 1933 in answer to Vice Admiral Albrecht's speech of
greeting:
And
only that people is worthy which maintains a consciousness of the necessity
for honor and freedom. It is in this sense that this German uprising
proclaims its struggle for German freedom and equality of rights in the
world.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1079
To further perpetuate
his bogus image in the eyes of millions, the Fuhrer proclaimed freedom
to be sacred.
In his Reichstag speech
on 23 March 1933:
The
national honor, the honor of our army and the ideal of freedom must once
more become sacred to the German people.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1016
In a statement on the
Enabling Act to the Reichstag on 23 March 1933:
For
Germany wants nothing except equal rights to live and equal freedom.
However, the National Government wishes to cultivate this spirit of a will
for freedom in the German Volk. The honor of the nation, the honor
of our Army, and the ideal of freedom-- all must once more become sacred
to the German Volk!
HITLER, SPEECHES AND
PROCLAMATIONS 1932-45, Vol. 1, by Max Domarus, page 282
His religious outlook
inspired his belief that others will pray for freedom:
Men
have already learned to cry for bread, but one of these days they will
still pray for freedom.
MEIN KAMPF, Adolf
Hitler, New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939, page 973
His religious faith
also prompted him to call upon God, as does Bush, to assist the youth of
the nation in obtaining and valuing freedom.
In his address to German
youth at the Parteitag in Nuremberg on 11 September 1937 Hitler said:
Over
and over again it is the same petition that we would make to Providence--we
have only one prayer: that our people may be sound and true; we would that
Providence should teach our people the meaning of true freedom, that Providence
should keep alive in it its love of honor. We would not ask that
we should receive freedom as a gift: we would ask only that we may be a
people of character that we may be ready at any time to conquer for ourselves
that position in the world which a free people needs.
... And when I look on you [Germany's youth] I know the answer: this people
will in the future, as in the past, earn its freedom and with freedom its
honor and its life.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 550
Germany must prepare
to re-take the freedom it lost as a result of WWI:
In
other words: the goal of a German foreign policy of today must be the preparation
of the re-conquest of freedom for tomorrow.
MEIN KAMPF, Adolf
Hitler, New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939, page 888
In a cry repeatedly
emanating from those predisposed toward warfare, Hitler asserted that freedom
comes only through violence.
Hitler ended his speech
at the Harvest Thanksgiving on 6 October 1935 with a pledge and a prayer:
Life
can be born only out of freedom, and freedom can be won only by fighting
for it.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1749
Volkischer Beobachter,
3 March 1933
And in accord with
that attitude, he pledged to fight till victory.
In May 1933 in answer to
Vice Admiral Albrecht's speech of greeting Hitler said:
...however
great our longing for peace, no less great is our determination to recover
for the German people its freedom and equality of rights. Thus resolved,
we greet our German people with the pledge that we will wage this battle
to the end--this legacy left to our generation--until there shall arise
once more a Germany of honor and of freedom.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1080
Hitler said he will
take any risk for freedom.
I
say that if German freedom can be attained not with a 51 percent, but with
a 1% probability, then I would risk the 1% rather than be responsible for
letting the German nation perish in shame and misery.
THE HITLER TRIAL IN
MUNICH, Volume 1, 1976, page 181
And he will make any
sacrifice for freedom.
In his speech in the Reichstag
on 7 March 1936:
This
people is anxious for its own security and is prepared to make every sacrifice
for its freedom....
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1293
In an interview on
16 January 1935 Hitler told Pierre Huss of the Hearst press:
We
are prepared for a very great sacrifice, but never will we renounce our
freedom.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1197
And he was fully prepared
to seize freedom if necessary.
In Berlin on 26 September
1938:
He
[Benes] now holds the decision in his hand. Peace or war! Either
he will now accept this offer and at last give the Germans their freedom,
or we will take this freedom for ourselves.
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolf Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 114
For Hitler only the
brave remain free. On 14 September 1936:
For
we all know the kingdom of heaven cannot be gained by half-men! Freedom
cannot be preserved by cowards! And the future belongs only to the
brave!
HITLER, [Speeches
and Proclamations], by Max Domarus, Vol. 2, page 838
And people fighting
for freedom can’t be conquered. On 8 November 1938 in Munich:
I believe that in most conditions a people in its courageous fight for
its freedom is unconquerable.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1552
Is it
any wonder Hitler was loved by millions. With some fine-tuning and
sophisticated packaging tailor-made for an American audience, ingratiating
a Rightist demagogue to millions of Americans through promulgating analogous
teachings could be quite feasible. But, then, again the tailor appears
to have already cut, sewed, and fitted the suit.
For Hitler acts beyond the pale were quite acceptable in the cause of freedom.
His view was a omen of Goldwater’s famous statement at the 1964 Republican
National Convention that “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice;
moderation is no virtue.”
In a speech in Munich on 1 August 1923 he stated:
... When the whole German people knows one will and one will only--be free--in
that hour we shall have the instrument with which to win our freedom.
It matters not whether these weapons of ours are humane: if they gain us
our freedom, they are justified before our conscience and before our God....
But since we know that today
the German people consists of one-third heroes, another third cowards,
while the rest are traitors, as a condition of our freedom in respect of
the outside world we would first cleanse our domestic life.
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolf Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 65
In a proclamation at
a party convention on 9 September 1936:
Whoever
believes he cannot exist because of the curtailing of freedom has no right
to exist in our community. Posterity will not ask us whether in this
critical and dangerous period we held high democratic freedom, meaning
license, but whether we succeeded in keeping a great people from economic
and political collapse....
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolf Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 395
Freedom can be entrusted
to no foreign powers according to Hitler.
In his speech on 27
April 1923:
Then
you must not complain if you are enslaved. But if you believe that
you must be free, then you must learn to recognize that no one gives you
freedom save only your own sword.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 67
At the annual Harvest
Celebration on 6 October 1935:
Germany
has become free once again, and her freedom is not entrusted to an institution,
it does not lie in the hands of foreign Powers.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1254
...
our movement above all fundamentally stood for, and must always stand for,
the view that external freedom will not be handed down as a gift either
from heaven or through some earthly power, but rather can be only the fruit
of an inner exercise of force. Only the elimination of the causes
of our collapse, along with the destruction of those who exploit it, can
lay down the premises for an external struggle for freedom.
MEIN KAMPF, Adolf
Hitler, New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939, page 887
The Fuhrer asserted
that if attacked a unanimous cry for freedom would arise in the German
masses. In Berlin on 1 May 1939:
Above
all I expect that, if the time should come when the other world [the democracies]
believes that it can attack German freedom, a cry millions strong will
rise up from this youth; a cry so unanimous and so powerful, that everybody
will realize that the days when one could count on disunion within Germany
are definitely past....
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolf Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 134
And anybody attacking
Germany, as if some nations actually had the intent, will be stung terribly.
In an interview with Ward Price on 17 January 1935:
I
know the horrors of war too well. No possible profits could justify
the sacrifices and sufferings that war entails. And the results of
another general bout of European slaughter would be even more catastrophic
in the future than in the past.
The only gainers would be the Communists, and I have not fought them for
15 years, only at the end, by this roundabout means, to set up their mad
rule.
... If anyone should attack us, they will fall on a hornet's nest-- for
we love freedom just as much as we love peace.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1198
The foes of freedom,
defined by the Nazis of course, must be destroyed.
In a Cologne speech on 19
February 1933 Hitler continued his attack upon Centrum--the Catholic Centre
Party--by saying:
We
shall know freedom once more in Germany only when we have destroyed the
foes of freedom.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 248
Hitler alleged freedom
was being destroyed by other parties such as Centrum. In the same speech
he accused Centrum of not preventing the shrinkage of freedom and working
in collusion with the Marxists. He challenged them to prove him wrong
by actual deeds:
And
the conquest of Bolshevism by the Centrum [the Catholic Center Party].
Here, too, the Centrum has had no blessing on its work. Through the
years the Centrum with its allies has fought Bolshevism within Germany
and the result is that in Germany, in 14 years, the number of Bolshevists
has grown from 14,000 to 6 million.
And then this appeal of the Centrum goes on: “For us freedom is a precious
possession." For us, too! Otherwise I should not be standing
here today, for it is the fight for the unity of the German people that
has summoned both me and my comrades.
And if the Centrum does really see in freedom a precious possession, if
their words are more than a lip homage, there will be opportunity enough
to reinforce their longing for freedom through deeds.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 249
In fact he not only
accused Centrum of denying him freedom to speak during the 1920’s by saying:
For
more than three years, through the order of these "Apostles of Freedom,"
[the Weimar government] I myself might not speak a word in public in Germany.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 248
But he also claimed
to have been the only one to have brought freedom to Germany.
In his address to political
leaders on 10 September 1937:
Since
in four years we have liberated Germany, we have now the right to enjoy
the fruit of our work.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 944
In Berlin on 30 January
1936:
Today
we can proudly stand up before the world as Germans. For particularly
in this last year of our regime, the German Volk has been given back its
honor before the world. We are no longer defenseless Helots but have
become free and self-assured "world citizens."
HITLER, [Speeches
and Proclamations], by Max Domarus, Vol. 2, page 747
In a speech on 10 April
1923:
...
the banner with the white circle and the black swastika will be hoisted
over the whole of Germany on the day which shall mark the liberation of
our whole people.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 44
And in the Proclamation
on 7 September 1937 at the opening of the Nuremberg Parteitag:
The
Treaty of Versailles is dead; Germany is free, and the guarantee of our
freedom is our own army.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1357
Bush is now claiming
to be the only leader to have brought freedom to Iraq.
As with Bush, Hitler
claimed his acts were efforts toward peace not war.
In the Reichstag on 21 May
1935:
...Germany
has nothing to gain by a European war of any kind. What we want are
freedom and independence.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1235
In Kiel on 17 May 1933:
We desire neither war nor bloodshed, but we do want the right to life,
the right to freedom.
HITLER, SPEECHES AND
PROCLAMATIONS 1932-45, Vol. 1, by Max Domarus, page 319
And speaking on 3 July
1936 at Weimar:
But
before this peace we want always to write the word Honor, and under this
conception of peace we want always to include the conception of Freedom!
We wish to be convinced that without this Honor and without this Freedom
there can be no peace.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1324
Hitler claimed to be
threatening no other country’s freedom.
In his Munich speech on
24 February 1935:
We
wish to threaten no people's freedom. But to everyone we say that
he who wishes to rob the German people of its freedom can do that only
by violence....
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1206
And when asked why
he needed an army of such tremendous magnitude if peace was his primary
concern, he, like Bush, attributed it to the need for national protection
rather than to intimidate or terrorize others.
In his speech to the party
leaders at Nuremberg on 14 September 1935:
It
is not to deprive other peoples of their freedom, but to protect our own
German freedom: that is why the Army is here.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 558
MY NEW ORDER
by Adolf Hitler, Edited by de Sales, 1941, page 338
In the Reichstag on
15 September 1935:
The
purpose of building up the German Army was not to threaten the freedom
of any European people, much less deprive them of it, but solely to preserve
the freedom of the German Volk.
HITLER, [Speeches
and Proclamations], by Max Domarus, Vol. 2, page 704
And Hitler, like Bush,
never failed to disguise his acts in the cloak of protecting freedom and
advancing his country.
In an interview with Bertrand
de Jouvenel on 21 February 1936 he stated:
Is
it not logical that I am endeavoring to attain the best advantage for my
country? And is that best advantage not freedom?
HITLER, [Speeches
and Proclamations], by Max Domarus, Vol. 2, page 757