Nazis

"I salute you, Freja, as your lover for ever. Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!"

"In death as in life, I defy the Jews who caused this last war, and I defy the power of darkness which they represent. I warn the British people against the crushing imperialism of the Soviet Union. May Britain be great once again and in the hour of the greatest danger in the West may the standard be raised from the dust, crowned with the words – "You have conquered nevertheless". I am proud to die for my ideals and I am sorry for the sons of Britain who have died without knowing why."

"It is rotten and dismal that a world of so many hundred million people should be ruled by a single caste that has the power to lead millions to life or to death, indeed on a whim...This caste has spun its web over the entire earth; capitalism recognizes no national boundaries...Capitalism has learned nothing from recent events and wants to learn nothing, because it places its own interests ahead of those of the other millions. Can one blame those millions for standing up for their own interests, and only for those interests? Can one blame them for striving to forge an international community whose purpose is the struggle against corrupt capitalism? Can one condemn a large segment of the educated Stürmer youth for protesting against the greatest ability? Is it not an abomination that people with the most brilliant intellectual gifts should sink into poverty and disintegrate, while others dissipate, squander, and waste the money that could help them? … You say the old propertied class also worked hard for what it has. Granted, that may be true in many cases. But do you also know about the conditions under which workers were living during the period when capitalism “earned” its fortune?"

"This man's rhetoric and ability to organise are unique. There was no situation he couldn’t deal with. The party members followed him with great love. The stormtroopers would have let themselves be hewn to pieces for him. Goebbels, that was like Hitler himself. Goebbels, well that was our Goebbels."

"It was Strasser’s radicalism, his belief in the ‘socialism’ of National Socialism, which attracted the young Goebbels. Both wanted to build the party on the proletariat. The diary of Goebbels is full of expressions of sympathy for Communism at this time."

"Goebbels saw the ultimate enemy as international capitalism, and those who held power in Germany as its lackey, betraying their nation for personal gain. These were the traditional targets of the Communists, of course, so the Nazis and the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany, were in direct competition for the same constituency, two rabid dogs fighting for one bone… And Goebbels, who has so recently been happy to describe himself as a ‘German Communist’ led the fight with all the intensity of a religious convert."

"Hitler and Goebbels also argued at length about Russia and the Fuehrer made it unequivocally clear that Goebbels was no longer to indulge in praising Lenin as a ‘national liberator’ nor to draw any parallels between the Bolshevists and the Nazis. On April 16 [1926], Goebbels noted: ‘His arguments are convincing, but I think he has not quite recognized the Russian problem. Still, I may have to reconsider some of its aspects.’"

"[Goebbels] specialized in articles on Bolshevism of a decidedly pro-Russian tone. He worked on a speech, "Lenin or Hitler?" (Oct. 15, 1925) In this comparative study he came to the conclusion that Hitler’s ideas were superior. Nevertheless, the comparison was not necessarily unflattering to the Russian."

"In a number of contributions published in the Voelkischer Beobachter [Goebbels] celebrated Lenin as the national liberator of his country. ‘The Soviet system does not endure because it is Bolshevist or Marxist or international, but because it is national—because it is Russian,’ he wrote to a leftist friend. ‘No Czar has ever aroused the national passion of the Russian people as Lenin did.’"

"It is true that in the National Socialist Letters, Goebbels put the accent on Socialism rather than on Nationalism, to such an extent that he sponsored an alliance between a Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; he also flirted with an ideological alliance with other rebellious ‘have not’ counties such as India and China."

"After the first few issues [of Nationalsozialistische Briefe] appeared most of its readers were convinced that Joseph Goebbels was a communist in disguise. In Rheydt, people had thought so for years. There was indeed very little difference between the language of Goebbels and the language of the communists. The Party ‘big shots’ became apprehensive."

"Goebbels envisioned a Russia ‘freed from Jewish internationalism’ that would win the struggle for a ‘socialist nation state’ as an ‘eternal rejection of materialism.’ Russia would serve as Germany’s model, for it was ‘our natural ally against the fiendish temptation and corruption of the West.’"

"On the question of social justice, so crucial to Goebbels, Hitler did not share his view that bolshevism was the heir to Russia nationalism. According to Goebbels, no czar had understood the Russian people’s nationalist instincts as well as Lenin, who, in contrast to the German Communists, was not an internationalist Marxist."

"I always had the feeling that Goebbels didn't respect people as a whole. He was reckless in his contacts in his own office. He had no consideration for anyone. He was only concerned about governing."

"I met him several times. He was clever, fanatic; having a clubfoot he might have suffered a minority inferiority complex, knowing that because of his physical appearance, he knew he never could reach leadership. He was unscrupulous in his propaganda. I always opposed Goebbels. I always tried to have people educated on a broad basis, while Goebbels tried to supply them with knowledge for the moment. Goebbels considered humans as objects to be used for political purposes - for the moment."

"Among the higher leadership [in the Nazi Party], while there is still a certain unity, personalities are beginning to play a constantly greater part. Hitler is perhaps more powerful than before, but he becomes more and more a figure separated from actualities. He depends a great deal on Hess, who is really his confidential man now and whom it is likely he may make Foreign Minister. Goering and Goebbels still remain good comrades of Hitler and are undoubtedly attached to him, but the difference* between Goering and Goebbels are becoming more evident. Goering is more moderate, while Goebbels, sensing the feeling of the masses and being above all an opportunist is becoming more radical. If It would come to a show-down between the radical and moderate elements, Goering would, however, undoubtedly be likely to be on the radical side as the one having the more chances. [...] If this Government remains in power for another year and carries on in the same measure in this direction, it will go far towards making Germany a danger to world peace for years to come. This is a very disjointed and incoherent letter. I am dictating it under pressure as I wish to catch the courier pouch. What I do want to say really is that for the present this country is headed in directions which can only carry ruin to it and will create a situation here dangerous to world peace. With few exceptions, the men who are running this Government are of a mentality that you and I cannot understand. Some of them are psychopathic cases and would ordinarily be receiving treatment somewhere. Others are exalted and in a frame of mind that knows no reason. The majority are woefully ignorant and unprepared for the tasks which they have to carry through every day. Those men in the party and in responsible positions who are really worth-while, and there are quite a number of these, are powerless because they have to follow the orders of superiors who are suffering from the abnormal psychology prevailing in the country."

"Goebbels was at this time writing articles and making speeches which implied that although Communism was misguided it was the potentially ally of the brand of revolutionary National Socialism that he was promoting. ‘We will never get anywhere’ he wrote in Briefe, ‘if we lean on the interests of the cultured and propertied classes. Everything will come to us if we appeal to the hungry and despair of the masses.'"

"The next day, the last of Lord Halifax's visit, Goebbels came to tea. He was really the cleverest of the Nazis and the only leading member of the party with whom conversation was amusing. But there was a bitter streak in his character. He once told me that he often looked back with nostalgia on the early days of the party when there was something to attack. The task of making public speeches was now dreary. He merely wrote on a sheet of paper: Hitler's services to Germany, 5 minutes; the Jews, 10 minutes; Winter Help, 5 minutes, and so on. When he came to each item he merely spouted the old story. He did not, however, tell me that Nazi plans for aggression would soon bring new zest to life and that instead of a domestic enemy, there would be a host of foreigners to attack. But all this must have been in his mind, for 1939 found his Ministry as much prepared as any other instrument of German aggression."

"Goebbels and some other northern leaders thought of themselves as revolutionaries, with more in common with the Communists than with the hated bourgeoisie. There was some sympathies for Russia. And there was talk of a party trade union."

"Goebbels never doubted that he was a socialist. He understood Nazism to be a better and more plausible form of socialism than that propagated by Lenin. Instead of spreading itself across different nations, it would operate within the unit of the Volk."

"On 16 June 1941, as Hitler readied his forces for Operation Barbarossa, Josef Goebbels looked forward to the new order that the Nazis would impose on a conquered Russia. There would be no come-back, he wrote, for capitalists nor priests nor Tsars."

"On Sunday, 21st November [1937], Goebbels and his wife came to tea at the Embassy. I had expected to dislike him intensely, but am ashamed to say that I did not. We had a good deal of talk about the Press, concerning which he contrasted the admirably restrained behaviour of the German Press at the time of King Edward's abdication with the shameless fashion in which our Press was for ever attacking the Führer. To this I said that there was a great difference between a constitutional monarch and a very controversial Führer. He admitted this was a very fair answer, but "do not forget that your Crown has a thousand years behind it and is very strong—we are only three or four years old and are very sensitive." This confirmed what I had always been inclined to think about part of the Nazi attitude arising from an inferiority complex."

"One of the cleverest men in Hitler's close circle was Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Gauleiter of Berlin and also Minister for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda. He was a skilled orator and in the struggle against the Communists for Berlin's vote he had demonstrated great personal courage. But he was also a dangerous demagogue, quite unscrupulous in his agitations against parents and school teachers; and he was largely responsible for the notorious pogrom, the so-called 'Crystal night', of November 1938. He was certainly in a position to recognize the errors and weaknesses of the National-Socialist system, but he lacked the courage necessary to lay his knowledge before Hitler. In Hitler's presence he- like Goering and Himmler- was a little man. He both feared and idolised him. Hitler's powers of suggestions were seldom so apparent as in his relationship with Goebbels. The highly skilled demagogue fell silent in Hitler's presence. He did his best to unravel his master's wishes, and in his propaganda- at which he might almost be called a genius- he seldom, if ever, displeased the dictator."

"Goebbels was the strongest representative of anti-Semitism. He saw his big chance to become powerful by using the press for anti-Semitic reasons. Personally, I think Goebbels was using anti-Semitism merely as a means of achieving personal power. Whether he had any deep-seated hatred against the Jews is questionable. I think he was too much of a thief and dishonest opportunist to have any deep-seated feelings for or against anything. But for years Goebbels had been trying in vain to become a big power. At last he saw his chance. He had whipped up anti-Semitic feelings to such a point by his vicious propaganda that he now thought he could do anything. He probably didn't think about the consequences himself. He was a fanatic of an abnormal caliber. Streicher was a tame man compared to Goebbels, because Streicher is half crazy and stupid, whereas Goebbels was just unscrupulous, clever and dangerous. You couldn't discuss anything with Goebbels. And for the same reason, you couldn't discuss anything with Himmler. Goebbels was so dishonest that it didn't pay to discuss anything with him."

"Did I ever tell you about Goebbels? He incurred Hitler's disapproval after that incident with the movie actress for which he was beaten up. That clubfooted fanatic! He forced women to submit to him sexually because of his powerful position. He influenced Hitler to become anti-Semitic more than Hitler had been before. Hitler used to come to my house once in a while for a cup of coffee, and because I led a normal life, he would leave about nine o'clock. I was in the habit of retiring early. However, Hitler used to spend practically all of his nights, sometimes until four a.m., with Goebbels and his family. God knows what evil influence Goebbels had on him during those long visits."

"Goebbels must have had a tremendous hatred for the Jews - but not more than Himmler. I have no doubt, at this date, that Goebbels knew of the murder of 5 million Jews, a fact which he kept hidden from me and others at that time."

"Looking for formulas which could unite the nationalistic socialists with Communists, Goebbels found a whole catalogue of identical attitudes and convictions. He by no means rejected the theory of class struggle. He contended that the collapse of Russia would ‘bury forever our dreams of a National Socialist Germany.’"

"Goebbels spoke with deep respect of the Russian utopia impulse, while Strasser even called for an alliance with Moscow ‘against the militarism of France, against the imperialism of England, against the capitalism of Wall Street.’ Even more socialistic was the group’s economic program: large landholdings were to be abolished, and all peasants were to be organized into agricultural cooperatives; small businesses were to be grouped into guilds; corporations with more than twenty employees were to be partially socialized. Where enterprises continued in private hands, the personnel were to be entitled to a share of 10 per cent of the profits…"

"Along with most of his most senior henchmen, Hitler seems genuinely to have believed that Jews posed an insidious biological threat to the German Volk. Yet it is impossible to overlook an element of self-repression in much Nazi propaganda on this issue; those most publicly averse to the idea of interracial sex often gave the unintended impression that this was precisely the direction of their own private fantasies. As a young man, Goebbels became engaged to Else Janke, an elementary school teacher who was half-Jewish. She helped him to find a job at the Dresder Bank during the 1923 hyperinflation, but was reluctant to marry him, possibly because of his club foot. Shortly after she told him that her mother was Jewish, Goebbels noted that 'the original magic was gone'. 'The discussion recently about the race question kept ringing in my ears,' she wrote to him after a quarrel. 'I could not get it out of my mind, and almost saw the problem as an obstacle to our further life together. I am firmly convinced, you see, that in this respect your thinking goes decidedly too far.' It was at this time that the future Propaganda Minister first read Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, where he found 'the root of the Jewish question . . . laid bare'. Goebbels's first references in his diary to the Jews as 'filthy pigs', 'traitors' and 'vampires' date from the breakdown of his relationship with Janke."

"It helped, too, that the Nazis were able to recruit the widely respected former Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht, who had resigned his post in 1930 after effectively endorsing Hitler's campaign against the revised reparations schedule known as the Young Plan. Yet even with his imprimatur on them, it took real political skill to sell such unorthodox economic solutions to a relatively sophisticated and highly variegated electorate. The Nazis' success without doubt owed much to Joseph Goebbels, the evil genius of twentieth-century marketing, who sold Hitler to the German public as if he were the miraculous offspring of the Messiah and Marlene Dietrich. The Nazi election campaigns of 1930, 1932. and 1933 were unprecedented assaults on public opinion, involving standardized mass meetings and eye-catching posters, as well as rousing songs (like the Horst-Wessel Lied) and calculated physical intimidation of opponents. Though much of this owed its inspiration to Mussolini - not least the snazzy uniforms for supporters, and the Roman salutes - Goebbels understood the need for finesse as well as bombast. For one thing, he saw more clearly than the star himself the need to adjust Hitler's message according to which of the German electorate's many segments was being addressed."

"There remains the problem of Goebbels' reputation. He wore the title of Big Liar (bestowed by Anglo-Saxon propaganda) and yet he never stopped battling for propaganda to be as accurate as possible. He preferred being cynical and brutal to being caught in a lie. He used to say: "Everybody must know what the situation is." He was always the first to announce disastrous events or difficult situations, without hiding anything. The result was a general belief between 1939 and 1942 that German communiqués not only were more concise, clearer and less cluttered, but were more truthful than Allied communiqués (American and neutral opinion) -- and, furthermore, that the Germans published all the news two or three days before the Allies. All this is so true that pinning the title of Big Liar on Goebbels must be considered quite a propaganda success."

"But perhaps we are wrong. Perhaps our memory deceives us. Dr. Goebbels and his Propaganda Machine have their own version of what happened twenty-five years ago. To hear them talk, you would suppose that it was Belgium that invaded Germany! There they were, these peaceful Prussians, gathering in their harvests, when this wicked, Belgium – set on by England and the Jews – fell upon them; and would no doubt have taken Berlin, if Corporal Adolf Hitler had not come to the rescue and turned the tables. Indeed, the tale goes further. After four years of war by land and sea, when Germany was about to win an overwhelming victory, the Jews got at them again, this time from the rear. Armed with President Wilson’s Fourteen Points they stabbed, we are told, the German armies in the back, and induced them to ask for an armistice, and even persuaded them, in an unguarded moment, to sign a paper saying that it was they and not the Belgians who had been the ones to begin the War. Such is history as it is taught in topsy-turvydom. And now it is holiday again, and where are we now? Or, as you sometimes ask in the United States – where do we go from here?"

"Goebbels was a master propagandist who excelled in stirring up hatred and orchestrating gigantic extravaganzas, such as the annual Nazi Party rallies. He was the only one of Hitler's early associates who stayed with him right to the end. When Hitler committed suicide in 1945, Goebbels did so, too: he and his wife, Magda, had their children poisoned before he had her and himself shot. Goebbels's extensive diaries, large parts of which had been published, reveal him to have been a "true believer," committed to Hitler as a person and to the realization of his ideas. To many observers Goebbels was the sinister face of Nazism, an image captured by photographer Alfred Eisenstadt in a 1933 picture taken at the League of Nations conference in Geneva."

"Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) was a rather different kind of Nazi. A journalist and writer, he had a PhD and wrote a novel called Michael, although it remained unpublished until the Nazi Party press picked it up in 1929. Goebbels first came into contact with members of the Nazi Party in 1924; by 1926 he was Gauleiter (Party leader) of Berlin, and two years later Hitler made him head of propaganda. In 1933 Goebbels became minister for popular enlightenment and propaganda. He kept that post throughout the entire Third Reich, although his ambitious, energetic nature meant that he was always trying to find ways to play even bigger roles."

"Hitler neither developed his ideas in a vacuum nor rose to power alone. A rather motley crew of people formed his inner circle. Its membership changed many times, as people fell in and out of favor. Three individuals who stuck with Hitler throughout his political career and gained international profiles were Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler. All of them would play key roles in the Nazi regime, each amassing enormous power even as they fought among themselves for Hitler's favor."

"The National Socialist-Labor Party, of which Adolf Hitler is patron and father, persists in believing Lenin and Hitler can be compared or contrasted in a party meeting. Two weeks ago an attempted discussion of this subject left to one death, sixty injuries and $5,000 damages to beer glasses, tables, chairs, windows and chandeliers in Chemnitz. Last night DR. Göebells tried the experiment in Berlin and only police intervention prevented a repetition of the Chemnitz affair. On the speaker's assertion that Lenin was the greatest man, second only to Hitler, and that the difference between communism and the Hitler faith was very slight, a faction war opened with whizzing beer glasses. When this sort of ammunition was exhausted a free fight in which fists and knives played important roles was indulged in. Later a gang marched to the offices of the Socialist paper Vorärts and smashed plate-glass windows. Police made nineteen arrests."

"The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction."

"Accuse the other side of that of which you are guilty."

"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself."

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."

"Man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior."

"Money is the curse of mankind. It smothers the seed of everything great and good. Every penny is sticky with sweat and blood. . . .It poisons our own values and subjects us to the service of low and base instincts."

"I think it's terrible that we [the Nazis] and the Communists are bashing each other's heads ... Where can we get together sometime with the leading Communists?"

"I demand that the petty bourgeois Adolf Hitler be expelled from the Nazi Party."

"I have devoted exhaustive study to the Protocols of Zion. In the past objection was always made that they were not suited to present day propaganda. In reading them now I find that we can use them very well. The Protocols of Zion are as modern today as they were when published the first time! At noon I mentioned this to the Führer. He believed the protocols to be absolutely genuine!"

"Berndt reicht mir eine Ausarbeitung über die von uns zu betreibende okkultistische Propaganda ein. Hier wird in der Tat Einiges geleistet. Die Amerikaner und Engländer fallen ja vorzüglich auf eine solche Art von Propaganda herein. Wir nehmen alle irgendwie zur Verfügung stehenden Kronzeugen der okkulten Weissagung als Mithelfer in Anspruch. Nostradamus muß wieder einmal daran glauben."

"A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophecy which the Führer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It's a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus."

"The Führer once again expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness."

"The Führer's verdict on the Poles is damning. More like animals than human beings, completely primitive, stupid, and amorphous. And a ruling class that is an unsatisfactory result of a mingling between the lower orders and an Aryan master race. The Poles' dirtiness is unimaginable. Their capacity for intelligent judgment is absolutely nil."

"What does Christianity mean today? National Socialism is a religion. All we lack is a religious genius capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices and putting new ones in their place. We lack traditions and ritual. One day soon National Socialism will be the religion of all Germans. My Party is my church, and I believe I serve the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel."