One of the most redeeming
features of Hitler’s writings and oratory is the extent to which he is
willing to state openly and candidly that which the majority of his Rightist
confederates fully accept but keep under wraps for reasons of political
expediency. Although some Bushites are surprisingly open in their
opinions on what should be done on the world scene, they are yet to attain
the level of candor exhibited by the Fuhrer. That could easily come
later, however, but for now they are restricted to that which the American
people can abide. Almost from the outset Hitler did not operate under
these strictures as the following comments demonstrate. Ruthlessness,
whatever got the job done, was the hallmark of his regime and he made little
effort to hide that fact. Indeed, he openly proclaimed as much in
a manner that Machiavelli would envy. If only the Bushites would
be as forthcoming and possibly spare the American people great agony.
Read the following and weep because these comments could very well become
a harbinger of that which lies ahead, and always take cognizance of the
fact that they were implemented in the name of national security:
To
govern him [man] everything is permissible. You must lie, betray,
even kill when policy demands it.
HITLER AND I by Otto
Strasser, 1940, page 75
Where
should we be if we had formal scruples? I simply disregard these
things. I am prepared to commit perjury half-a-dozen times a day!
What difference would it make?
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 103
I recognize no moral law in politics. Politics is a game, in which
every sort of trick is permissible, and in which the rules are constantly
being changed by the players to suit themselves.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 280
But
I am concerned with power politics--that is to say, I make use of all means
that seem to me to be of service, without the slightest concern for the
proprieties or for codes of honor. And if people come blubbering
to me, like that man Hugenberg and his tribe, complaining that I am breaking
my word, that I am paying no regard to treaties, that I am making a practice
of trickery and deception and misrepresentation, I reply:
Well, what of it? You are free to do the same. Nobody is preventing
you.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 277
I
shall make any treaty I require. It will never prevent me from doing
at any time what I regard as necessary for Germany's interests.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 110
I am willing to sign anything. I will do anything to facilitate the
success of my policy. I am prepared to guarantee all frontiers and
to make non-aggression pacts and friendly alliances with anybody.
It would be sheer stupidity to refuse to make use of such measures merely
because one might possibly be driven into a position where a solemn promise
would have to be broken. There has never been a sworn treaty which
has not sooner or later been broken or become untenable. There is
no such thing as an everlasting treaty. Anyone whose conscience is
so tender that he will not sign a treaty unless he can feel sure he can
keep it in all and any circumstances is a fool. Why should one not
please others and facilitate matters for oneself by signing pacts if the
others believe that something is thereby accomplished or regulated?
Why should I not make an agreement in good faith today and unhesitatingly
break it tomorrow if the future of the German people demands it?
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 109
What
choice have we? Is an easy conscience more precious to you than the
rise of a new Germany? We have no right to think of ourselves and
our bourgeois immaculateness. We have only one mission. Do
you think I don't know that if things don't go as we hope, we shall be
cursed to our very graves? I walk a dizzy path. Shall I be
held back by paper rules? Only vain people take themselves so seriously
that they posture and say: I can't take it on my conscience! Do you
imagine you can't take on your conscience what I can take on mine?
Do you consider yourself better than me?
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 103
In Munich on 20 April
1923:
... We know only one people for which we fight, and that is our own people.
We may be inhuman, but if we save Germany we will have achieved the greatest
thing on earth. We may do wrong, but if we save Germany, we will
have righted the greatest wrong on earth. We may be immoral, but
if we save our people, morality will have been given a new lease on life.
HITLER'S WORDS, by
Adolf Hitler, Edited by Gordon Prange, 1944, page 78
And
we have no scruples. I have no bourgeois hesitations! I expect
each one of us to become one of a single family of conspirators.
I have had to accept harsh conditions. I shall observe them as long
as I am forced to do so.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 79
When asked by Rauschnigg
what he had adopted from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion Hitler replied:
Political
intrigue, the technique of conspiracy, revolutionary subversion; prevarication,
deception, organization. Is that not enough?
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 241
The
premise for the linking of national fates never lies in mutual respect
or even congeniality, but in a perspective of mutual expediency for both
contracting parties.
MEIN KAMPF, Adolf
Hitler, New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939, page 901
"Hitler once told me
that he had not only read but studied Machiavelli’s The Prince. The
book, he said, is simply indispensable for every politician. For
some time he had it always at his bedside."
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 273
If you like I have no objection to describing myself as a disciple of Machiavelli.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 278
A disciple of Machiavelli
he most assuredly was and if only the Bushites were as forthright.
In words reminiscent of the McCarthy and Nixon Watergate eras, as well
as the Guantanamo imprisonments, Hitler expressed his disdain for democratic
restraints and “formalities.”
At the annual Party Congress
on 11 September 1935 he stated:
I
would like to point out in this context that the battle against the inner
enemies of the nation will never be frustrated by formal democracy or its
incompetence; where the formal bureaucracy of the State should prove ill-suited
to solve a certain problem, the German nation will activate its more dynamic
organization as an aid to asserting its vital necessities. For it
is a grave error to suppose that the nation would exist only because of
some formal phenomenon and that, moreover, when such a phenomenon is not
capable of accomplishing the tasks assigned to it, the nation would capitulate
in the face of these tasks.
On the contrary: what can be accomplished through the State will be accomplished
through the State. But whatever the State is incapable of accomplishing,
due to its very essence, will be accomplished by the Movement. For
the State as well is only one of the forms of organization in volkisch
life, driven and controlled by the direct expression of the Volk's will
to live, by the Party, by the National Socialist Movement....
HITLER, [Speeches
and Proclamations], by Max Domarus, Vol. 2, page 692
To the Reichstag on
20 February 1938:
And
above all: he who feels himself called upon to take on the task of leading
a Volk in such an hour is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary
procedure, nor is he under obligation to a certain democratic standpoint;
he is bound exclusively to the mission assigned to him. And he who
interferes with this mission is an enemy of the people--regardless of whether
he attempts to interfere as a Bolshevist, a Democrat, a revolutionary terrorist,
or a reactionary dreamer.
HITLER, [Speeches
and Proclamations], by Max Domarus, Vol. 2, page 1021
Pronouncements of this
nature are nothing more than rationalizations to circumvent the law through
grandiloquent rhetoric and plausible reasoning. In truth, they are
carefully crafted excuses concocted to justify abrogations of the Constitution
and Hitler frankly admits as much by saying:
For us the supreme law of the constitution is: whatever serves the vital
interests of the nation is legal.
SECRET CONVERSATIONS
WITH HITLER, Edited by Edouard Calic, 1971. Page 86
The 28 February 1933
Decree for the Protection of the People and the State declares:
Articles
114,115,117,118,123,124, and 153 of the constitution of the German Reich
are to be suspended until further notice. Consequently restrictions
of personal liberty, of the right of free expression of opinion, including
freedom of the press, of association, and of assembly, interference with
letters, mail, telegraph, and telephone secrets, orders to search houses
and to confiscate as well as restrict property beyond existing legal limits
are permissible.
THE HITLER DECREES,
by James Pollock and Harlow Heneman, 1934, Page 10
I
have no choice. I must do things that cannot be measured with the
yardstick of bourgeois squeamishness. This Reichstag fire gives me
the opportunity to intervene. And I shall intervene.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 81
And in his closing
statement at his 1924 trial Hitler stated:
Of
all the European nations, the situation of the German nation is perhaps
the worst. Militarily, politically, and geographically it is surrounded
by rivals; it can prevail only if ruthless power politics becomes its foremost
priority.
THE HITLER TRIAL IN
MUNICH, Volume 3, 1976, page 359
From Hitler’s vantage
point any laws, limitations, and constitutional restrictions were dispensable
when it came to destroying Marxism, and the Bushites appear to adopting
a similar stance with respect to al Qaeda and the “terrorists.”
In March 1933, after
the Reichstag Fire, Mr. Sefton Delmer, the correspondent of the Daily Express,
asked Hitler: Is this suspension of liberty to be a permanent state of
affairs?
Hitler replied:
No,
when the Communist menace is stamped out, the normal order of things shall
return. Our laws were too liberal for me to be able to deal properly
and swiftly with this Bolshevik underworld. But I myself am only
too anxious for the normal state of affairs to be restored as soon as possible.
First, however, we must crush Communism out of existence.
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 499
In the year 1923, however, the situation was entirely like that of 1918.
No matter what kind of resistance was chosen, the first premise had, in
any case, to be the elimination of the Marxist poison from our body national.
And, according to my conviction, the very first task of a really nationalist
government was then to seek and find forces determined to declare a war
of annihilation against Marxism, and to give these forces a free hand;
it was its duty not to prate about the idiocy of "law and order" at a moment
in which the fatherland's foreign foe was delivering the most annihilating
blow, while at home treason lurked at every street corner.
MEIN KAMPF, Adolf
Hitler, New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939, page 984
That is only another
way of saying: Anything goes if it gets the job done, an opinion
with which too many Bushites would no doubt concur.
In fact, Hitler proclaimed
that if the state failed to act, then his Party would do so, legally or
illegally:
We
have no time for paper warfare or moralist discussions before deciding
how the criminal element should be dealt with. I wish to give officials
greater discretion. The State's authority will be increased thereby.
I wish to transform the non-political criminal police into a political
instrument of the highest State authority.
SECRET CONVERSATIONS
WITH HITLER, Edited by Edouard Calic, 1971. Page 86
Herman Goering
chimed in by saying:
“The activities of
subversive organizations are on the contrary to be combated with the most
drastic methods. Communist terrorist acts and attacks are to be proceeded
against with all severity, and when necessary weapons must be ruthlessly
used. Police officers who in the execution of this duty use their
firearms will be supported by me without regard for the effect of their
shots; on the other hand, officers who fail from false considerateness
may expect disciplinary measures.”
HITLER'S SPEECHES
by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 1, Page 220
Separating the innocent
from the guilty was of minimal concern. The operating dictum was
that it is better to imprison 10 who could be innocent than allow one definite
guilty to escape, a philosophy wholly in agreement with many seizures arising
out of 9/11:
With
a movement like mine, which goes whole hog, the righteous suffer with the
wicked. We are at present the only non-Marxist party determined to
assert ourselves by force.
SECRET CONVERSATIONS
WITH HITLER, Edited by Edouard Calic, 1971. Page 34
... We are not in a position to dally with humane feelings, nor can I undertake
tedious investigations into anyone's good-will or innocence. We must
shake off all sentimentality and be hard. Some day, when I order
war, I shall not be in a position to hesitate because of the 10 million
young men I shall be sending to their death. It is preposterous to
expect me to look only for the real criminals among the Communists.
It is just like the cowardly, inconsistent bourgeoisie to pacify their
consciences with legal proceedings. There is only one legal right,
the nation's right to live.
THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION,
by Hermann Rauschnigg, 1940, page 80
Bush and Hitler are
not only in agreement with respect to the circumvention of constitutional
rights when they feel the need but neither has much regard for lawyers
fighting their illegalities or seeking the latter’s exposure:
Nowadays
it's the same thing. During the campaign in Poland, the lawyers tried
to blame the troops because the latter had shot 60 civilians in a region
where wounded soldiers had been massacred. In such a case, a lawyer
opens legal proceedings against X. His inquiry leads nowhere, of
course, for nobody has ever seen anything, and if anyone knows the guilty
man, he'll take good care not to inform against a "member of the Resistance."
Lawyers cannot understand that
in exceptional times new laws become valid.
HITLER'S TABLE TALK,
1941-1944, Translated by Cameron & Stevens, 2000, page 30
Correction! As
far as Hitler and Bush are concerned, in exceptional times no law is irreversibly
valid and they will unilaterally determine what is exceptional:
As
long as I am here, there is no great danger to be feared from the lawyers;
whenever necessary, I shall ride rough-shod over their formalities.
But I am worried about the future.
HITLER'S TABLE TALK,
1941-1944, Translated by Cameron & Stevens, 2000, page 585
The
advocate's profession is essentially unclean, for the advocate is entitled
to lie in the Court.
HITLER'S TABLE TALK,
1941-1944, Translated by Cameron & Stevens, 2000, page 132
No one stands closer in mentality to the criminal than the lawyer;
and if you can see much difference between them, I can't.
HITLER'S TABLE TALK, 1941-1944, Translated by Cameron & Stevens,
2000, page 586
And Hitler had no respect
for trial by jury:
The
worse feature of the legal system is trial by jury. Formerly this
was regarded as the ideal, and up to 1918 I myself regarded the jury in
a case as men apart. As a matter of fact at that time I held all
officials, I think, in similar respect.
HITLER'S TABLE TALK,
1941-1944, Translated by Cameron & Stevens, 2000, page 644