Victory Will Be Ours

IT IS SO ORDAINED

By ADOLF HITLER, Chancellor of Germany

Delivered at Munich, February 24, 1940

(Partial Text)

MY German Comrades: Twenty years ago I appeared for the first time before the German public. That was the hardest and most dramatic decision of mylife.

Now again I stand among you. That in itself is remarkable. When I appeared before at that time I was not a pacifist; I am still a soldier.

Our nation at that time had collapsed, which was unexampled in history. We were the victims of an enormous world deception, but we were not alone; the others were also deceived.

They cheated the Arabs, but, incidentally, they also cheated the Jews. In their own States the victorious nations did not get what they expected.

To be sure, most of all, our own German people were deceived. A world of equality, a world in which no arms would be needed and in which, therefore, eternal peace would rule.

Germany laid down her arms because of the fourteen points. The German people at that time were deceived in their hope for a new organization of the world.

Germany was without rights because she was defenseless. Germany at that time was a paradise but not for the German people, but for the Jews, the speculators, the exploiters, for the gangsters.

We had at that time the rule of the victors as opposed to the vanquished. We were, of course, not in a position to ask what we thought was due us. We had a democratic regime at that time, but this regime of ours was treated, perhaps, as it should have been treated, because it did not have the means to back up its words.

We had approximately forty-six political parties, all trying to do their best to work in the interest of the German nation. Financial burdens were assumed by the regime for the purpose of rebuilding our nation; but these financial obligations were slowly turning into economic obligations. As far as I was concerned, at that time, I was of a strictly different opinion. I was of the opinion that things could not continue in that fashion. I decided that our political arena was nothing but the fighting arena for the various political factions. I realized that our government structure at that time was absolutely untenable, and that it could not be maintained.

I realized above all, that bourgeois nationalist ideals were confronted and opposed by socialist principles. I realized that compromise in itself was impossible. I realized that only the victory of one side or the other could bring about a solution.

But in all these internal upheavals of that period, in all the readjustments we were facing, I realized that there was one thing which was indestructible. And that one thing was the individual German, in other words, the German character.

The German nation and the German character have proved their mettle during the four years of the World War. Proceeding from this point, I realized that out of all these political parties there had to arise the one, united German Reich, the one Reich of one unified will. It was necessary to call forth the best that is, and has always been, in the German nation.

And that force, that strength inherent in the German people, was called forth at that memorable occasion twenty years ago. A great many things had to be brought about in order to assert this power. At that time, of course, it was principally a question of fighting our internal enemies.

You all know that I had to face these battles in a fighting spirit. I was always willing to accomplish our ends through peaceful means, but force was essential whenever force was the only means by which our aims could have been accomplished.

You all remember how we proceeded, step by step, starting here in this place, spreading over Bavaria, and from then on gradually extending over the nation as a whole. It was a fight which took us roughly thirteen years—thirteen years of struggle, crowned by ultimate success.

After that time we were faced with the necessity of translating our initial success into wider results. You all know the things we accomplished in the fields of rebuilding the national character, in rebuilding our cities, in rehabilitating our unemployed. But then our democratic enemies began to tell us what to do.

These people who tell us what to do are those who possess half the world, and they cannot even solve their own problems. Our reconstruction, on the other hand, has been accomplished entirely with our small resources, and we shall eventually and completely succeed without their help.

It seems that these people, who rule half the world, believe that they are called upon by God to continue this rule, and as soon as anybody else lays claim to what they are honestly entitled they raise the cry that tyranny is the issue. God Almighty has not created the world for the English to dominate.

We Germans lay no claim to world domination. We only ask to be left alone in our own living space. But, as far as this living space is concerned, we permit no interference. Of course, we also insist on our just share of our own colonies.

At the time when the Arabs are protesting, Chamberlain steps up and says Germany is fighting for the supremacy of the world. This capitalistic, plutocratic conception, that there are only two kinds of people, the haves and the have nots, will also be destroyed.

The influence of England has not been perceptible in Central Europe. Central Europe has been built up by Germany and we won't suffer any threats in this Lebensraum of ours.

Already during the Great War Churchill was one of the great warmongers, and at that time I was a very small man without political influence. We have therefore come from entirely different worlds.

After the war these people carried on their business and made enormous profits through rearmament. Now these people have begun again with their warmongering. They again have the hopes that other people will fight for them and these hopes are in part well founded. So they have prepared this war in their own peculiar manner.

One thing we know: Neither in a military nor in an economic way can Germany be defeated. Today we have nothing but leaders of the German people up to the very top. Today Germans achieve their standing through energy and not through birth. The German nation has regained confidence in itself.

After the World War was over we Germans concentrated on the reconstruction of the German nation. The other side, however, immediately began concentrating again on increasing their commercial profits. As far as I am concerned, it has always been my aim to liberate the German nation.

Is it not natural that they should hate me? If Eden or Chamberlain does not trust me, then I am proud of that fact, because to be respected and honored by them would mean that I am a traitor to the German nation.

The hatred of my enemies does not concern me in the least. As I have fought inside Germany for a period of thirteen years in order to achieve harmony, so will I now fight our external enemies. Of course, they think that the affair of 1918 can be repeated. But little do they know what the present-day Germany is like.

We are traveling along parallel lines with Italy because our interests are mutual. Likewise do we have a complete understanding with Russia. Of course, it is only natural that the English should feel horrible at not having been able to accomplish what we have done.

But even Japan is today not on the side of our enemies. We can definitely say that, at least, they are friendly neutrals.

An Englishman once told me that one should make public all the facts relating to mutual armament programs, but I told him that it would perhaps be wiser if we did not do that, because otherwise the nations at large might feel even more uneasy.

It is the leadership of the German nation that counts. It is the leadership which must display the same courage as is expected to be displayed by the common soldier. And I am happy to say that, thank God, today we do have just such leadership.

We are able to say at this time, with the utmost assurance, that militarily and economically, Germany today is invincible. As far as I am concerned, I am nothing but the flint that strikes the spark out of the German nation.

Let us not forget that in our national effort, as we have exerted it in all these years, we have mobilized every ounce of energy there is within the total capacity of the Reich. We are a nation that is led by innumerable men, by innumerable leaders who, individually, do all in their power to maintain the Reich at the level of the might it displays today.

The German nation has traversed a strenuous school of political education and it has emerged strong and purified. How sorrowful is the spectacle of English propaganda, tryingto bring about the downfall of the German nation through sowing the seed of distrust. When these English propaganda voices are taking to the air their German accent sounds as peculiar as perhaps their own English sounds.

They have got their war because they wanted it. Think of it, these people, these plutocratic warmongers, are the ones who believe that perhaps every twenty years they should be in a position to tell others how far they could develop. But now things are different this time; we are prepared to wage this war as long as it may last, to the bitter end.

Furthermore, these people forget that during the World War they faced us in outspoken numerical superiority. But today everything is vastly changed. We are at the peak of our efficiency.

But there is something else I believe, and that is that there is a God. This God has given the same right to all nations. And this God again has blessed our efforts during the past thirteen years.

Some people, of course, call it luck; others, Providence. And others again speak of it as coincidence.

I, however, believe that we are here dealing with divine justice. If you deal with people who have given everything they have, who have worked in the belief that they are right, then it cannot be but that Providence, our God, as I prefer to say, will not abandon such a nation.

This God of whom I speak will not abandon us. He will guide us further along the path we have set our foot upon, and in this feeling of righteousness and justice we shall continue our efforts as we have begun them, certain that victory will be ours, because it is so ordained.