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Adolf Hitler

205 quotes

“They bring in high earnings without work. One of these days I'll sweep away this outrage and nationalize all corporations.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Albert Speer, New York, NY, Pocket Books (1977) p. 84
“The god of war has gone over to the other side.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to Alfred Jodl, after losses in the Battle of Stalingrad, as quoted in The Second World War: An Illustrated History (1979) by A. J. P. Taylor
“This German Volksgemeinschaft is truly practical socialism and therefore National Socialism in the best sense of the word. Here everyone is obligated to carry his load.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Stagnation and Renewal in Social Policy: The Rise and Fall of Policy Regimes, editors: Martin Rein, Gøsta Esping-Andersen, and Lee Rainwater (1987) p. 63
“If the Italians hadn't attacked Greece and needed our help, the war would have taken a different course. We could have anticipated the Russian cold by weeks and conquered Leningrad and Moscow. There would have been no Stalingrad.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You will never learn what I am thinking. And those who boast most loudly that they know my thought, to such people I lie even more.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to Franz Halder, as quoted in (1993) by Robert George Leeson Waite, p. xi
“You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speer, Albert (1997). Inside the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 96.
“I regard Ford as my inspiration.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed in Bill McGraw, "Forced Labor and Ford: History of Nazi Labor Stares Ford in the Face", Detroit Free Press, 21 December 1999, p. B1; as cited in Timothy W. Ryback, Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Sha…
“The broad mass is feminine.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris, Ian Kershaw, Page iii (published 4 April 2000)
“The Jews have shown real genius in profiting by politics. This capitalistic people, which was brought into existence by the unscrupulous exploitation of men, has understood how to get the leadership of the Fourth Estate into its own hands; and by acting both on the Right and on the Left it has its apostles in both camps. On the Right the Jew does his best to encourage all the evils there are to such an extent that the man of the people, poor devil, will be exasperated as much as possible— greed of money, unscrupulousness, hard- heartedness, abominable snobbishness. More and more Jews have wormed their way into our upper-class families; and the consequence has been that the ruling class has been alienated from its own people.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A History of National Socialism, Konrad Heiden, Methuen & Company, LTD, London: UK, 1934, p. 58. Speech in April, 1922
“Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows—at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example—as many as traffic allows. Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to Josef Heil, 1922 quoted in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution pg. 17
“The Bolshevisation of Germany, however, means the destruction of the entire Christian-Western culture. In the foreseeable recognition of this catastrophe and the inadequacy of the means to avert it, the National Socialist German Workers' Party was founded three years ago, on 5 January 1919. Its goal, quite briefly, is the destruction and eradication of the Marxist worldview. The means to this end are to be 1. an incomparable, ingeniously organized propaganda and educational organization, encompassing all possibilities of human influence; 2. an organization of the most ruthless force and brutal determination, ready to counter every terror of Marxism with one ten times greater.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hitler's memorandum to his industrial sponsors of October 22, 1922.
“The Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St Germain are kept alive by Bolshevism in Germany. The Peace Treaty and Bolshevism are two heads of one monster. We must decapitate both. .. In my scheme of the German state, there will be no room for the alien, no use for the wastrel, for the usurer or speculator, or anyone incapable of productive work. .. Socialism is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists. Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic. We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with George Sylvester Viereck, 1923
“Wenn deine Mutter alt geworden, und älter du geworden bist, wenn ihr, was früher leicht und mühlos, nunmehr zur Last geworden ist, wenn ihre lieben, treuen Augen, nicht mehr wie einst ins Leben seh'n, wenn ihre Füße, kraftgebrochen, sie nicht mehr tragen woll'n mein Geh'n, dann reich ihr deinen Arm zur Stütze, geleite sie mit froher Lust, die Stunde kommt, da du sie weinend zum letzten Gang begleiten musst. Und fragt sie dich, so gib ihr Antwort, und fragt sie wieder, - sprich auch du, und fragt sie nochmals, - steh' ihr Rede, nicht ungestüm, in sanfter Ruh! Und kann sie dich nicht recht verstehen, erklär ihr alles frohbewegt, die Stunde kommt, die bitt're Stunde, da dich ihr Mund nach nichts mehr frägt.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Adolf Hitler, "Denk' es!" (Be Reminded!) 1923, first published in Sonntag-Morgenpost (14 May 1933).
“His [the Jewish person's] life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties — and this against their own nation.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mein Kampf, p. 307, first published 1926
“Jewry is a Folk with a racial core that is not wholly unitary. Nevertheless, as a Folk, it has special intrinsic characteristics which separate it from all other Folks living on the globe. Jewry is not a religious community, but the religious bond between Jews; rather is in reality the momentary governmental system of the Jewish Folk. The Jew has never had a territorially bounded State of his own in the manner of Aryan States. Nevertheless, his religious community is a real State, since it guarantees the preservation, the increase and the future of the Jewish Folk. But this is solely the task of the State. That the Jewish State is subject to no territorial limitation, as is the case with Aryan States, is connected with the character of the Jewish Folk, which is lacking in the productive forces for the construction and preservation of its own territorial State.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because of the lack of productive capacities of its own, the Jewish Folk cannot carry out the construction of a State, viewed in a territorial sense, but as a support of its own existence it needs the work and creative activities of other nations. Thus the existence of the Jew himself becomes a parasitical one within the lives of other Folks. Hence the ultimate goal of the Jewish struggle for existence is the enslavement of productively active Folks. In order to achieve this goal, which in reality has represented Jewry's struggle for existence at all times, the Jew makes use of all weapons that are in keeping with the whole complex of his character. Therefore in domestic politics within the individual nations he fights first for equal rights and later for superior rights. The characteristics of cunning, intelligence, astuteness, knavery, dissimulation, and so on, rooted in the character of his Folkdom, serve him as weapons thereto. They are as much stratagems in his war of survival as those of other Folks in combat. In foreign policy, he tries to bring nations into a state of unrest, to divert them from their true interests, and to plunge them into reciprocal wars, and in this way gradually rise to mastery over them with the help of the power of money and propaganda. His ultimate goal is the denationalisation, the promiscuous bastardisation of other Folks, the lowering of the racial levy of the highest Folks, as well as the domination of this racial mishmash through the extirpation of the Folkish intelligentsia and its replacement by the members of his own Folk.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Zu einer solchen weisen Maßnahme waren einst Spart[j]aken [sie] fähig, aber nicht unser heutiges, verlogen sentimentales, bürgerlich-patriotisches Zeug. Die Herrschaft der 6000 Spartaner über 3 1/2 Hunderttausend Heloten war nur denkbar infolge des rassischen Hochwertes der Spartaner. Dieser aber war das Ergebnis einer planmäßigen Rasseerhaltung, so daß wir im spartanischen Staat den ersten völkischen zu sehen haben. Die Aussetzung kranker, schwächlicher, mißgestalteter Kinder, d. h. also deren Vernichtung, war menschenwürdiger und in Wirklichkeit tausendmal humaner als der erbärmliche Irrsinn unserer heutigen Zeit, die krankhaftesten Subjekte zu erhalten, und zwar um jeden Preis zu erhalten, und hunderttausend gesunden Kindern infolge der Geburtenbeschränkung oder durch Abtreibungsmittel das Leben zu nehmen, in der Folgezeit aber ein Geschlecht von mit Krankheiten belasteten Degeneraten heranzuzüchten.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As translated in Hitler's Secret Book (1961) Grove Press edition, pp. 8-9, 17-18
“To put it quite clearly: we have an economic programme. Point No. 13 in that programme demands the nationalisation of all public companies, in other words socialisation, or what is known here as socialism. ... the basic principle of my Party's economic programme should be made perfectly clear and that is the principle of authority... the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State; it is his duty not to misuse his possessions to the detriment of the State or the interests of his fellow countrymen. That is the overriding point. The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners. If you say that the bourgeoisie is tearing its hair over the question of private property, that does not affect me in the least. Does the bourgeoisie expect some consideration from me?... Today's bourgeoisie is rotten to the core; it has no ideals any more; all it wants to do is earn money and so it does me what damage it can. The bourgeois press does me damage too and would like to consign me and my movement to the devil. .. I will tolerate no opposition. We recognize only subordination – authority downwards and responsibility upwards. You just tell the German bourgeoisie that I shall be finished with them far quicker than I shall with Marxism... When once the conservative forces in Germany realize that only I and my party can win the German proletariat over to the State and that no parliamentary games can be played with Marxist parties, then Germany will be saved for all time, then we can found a German Peoples State. .. Over the last forty years the German bourgeoisie has been a lamentable failure; it has not given the German people a single leader; it will have to bow without gainsaying to the totality of my ideology... The bourgeoisie rules by intrigue, but it can have no foothold in my movement because we accept no Jews or Jewish accomplices into our Party.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hitler's interview with Richard Breiting, 1931, published in Edouard Calic, ed., "First Interview with Hitler,4 May 1931," Secret Conversations with Hitler: The Two Newly-Discovered 1931 Interviews, New York: John Day C…
“What matters is to emphasize the fundamental idea in my party's economic program clearly; the idea of authority. I want the authority; I want everyone to keep the property he has acquired for himself according to the principle: Benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual. But the state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In 1931, as quoted in Nazi Economics: Ideology, Theory, and Policy (1990), by Avraham Barkai, pp. 26–27
“This whole edifice of civilization is in its foundations and in all its stones nothing else than the result of the creative capacity, the achievement, the intelligence, the industry, of individuals: in its greatest triumphs it represents the great crowning achievement of individual God-favored geniuses, in its average accomplishment the achievement of men of average capacity, and in its sum doubtless the result of the use of human labor-force in order to turn to account the creations of genius and of talent. So it is only natural that when the capable intelligences of a nation, which are always in a minority, are regarded only as of the same value as all the rest, then genius, capacity, the value of personality are slowly subjected to the majority and this process is then falsely named the rule of the people. For this is not rule of the people, but in reality the rule of stupidity, of mediocrity, of half-heartedness, of cowardice, of weakness, and of inadequacy. .. Thus it must be admitted that in the economic sphere, from the start, in all branches men are not of equal value or of equal importance. And once this is admitted it is madness to say: in the economic sphere there are undoubtedly differences in value, but that is not true in the political sphere. It is absurd to build up economic life on the conceptions of achievement, of the value of personality, and therefore in practice the authority of personality, but in the political sphere to deny the authority of personality and to thrust into this place the law of the greater number — democracy.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Industry Club (21 January 1932) as quoted in (1994) by , , p.787
“The November parties have ruined the German peasantry in fourteen years. In fourteen years they have created an army of millions of unemployed. The National Government will, with iron determination and unshakable steadfastness of purpose, put through the following plan: Within four years the German peasant must be rescued from the quagmire into which he has fallen. Within four years unemployment must be finally overcome. At the same time the conditions necessary for a revival in trade and commerce are provided. .. The Marxist parties and their lackeys have had fourteen years to show what they can do. The result is a heap of ruins. .. Now, people of Germany, give us four years and then pass judgment upon us. In accordance with Field Marshal von Hindenburg's command we shall begin now. May God Almighty give our work His blessing, strengthen our purpose, and endow us with wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are fighting not for ourselves but for Germany.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Berlin, 1 February 1933
“And now Staatsprasident Bolz says that Christianity and the Catholic faith are threatened by us. And to that charge I can answer: In the first place it is Christians and not international atheists who now stand at the head of Germany. I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself with the parties which destroy Christianity. If many wish today to take threatened Christianity under their protection, where, I would ask, was Christianity for them in these fourteen years when they went arm in arm with atheism? No, never and at no time was greater internal damage done to Christianity than in these fourteen years when a party, theoretically Christian, sat with those who denied God in one and the same Government.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Stuttgart, 15 February 1933
“In a most generous and humane manner you, Mr. Field Marshal, plead the cause of those members of the Jewish people who were once compelled, by the requirements of universal military service, to serve in the war. I entirely understand these lofty sentiments, Mr. Field Marshal. But, with the greatest respect, may I point out that members and supporters of my movement, who are Germans, for years were driven from all government positions, without consideration for their wives and children or their war service... Those responsible for this cruelty were the same Jewish [political] parties which today complain when their supporters are denied the right to official positions, with a thousand times more justification, because they are of little use in these positions but can do limitless harm...”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We want to earn the renewed ascent of the nation by honest means, through our industry, our persistence, our unshakable will! We are not asking of the Almighty, “Lord, make us free!” We want to take an active part, to work, to accept one another as brothers and unite in a common struggle so that one day the hour will come when we can step before the Lord and have the right to ask of Him, “Lord, You can see that we have changed. The German Volk is no longer a Volk of infamy, shame, self-reproach, faintheartedness, and little faith. No, Lord, the German Volk is once again strong in its will, strong in its persistence, strong in bearing any sacrifice. Lord, we will not give You up! Now bless our fight for our freedom and thus our German Volk und Vaterland!”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Lustgarten, Berlin, 1 May 1933
“The struggle between the people and the hatred amongst them is being nurtured by very specific interested parties. It is a small, rootless, international clique that is turning the people against each other, that does not want them to have peace. It is the people who are at home both nowhere and everywhere, who do not have anywhere a soil on which they have grown up, but who live in Berlin today, in Brussels tomorrow, Paris the day after that, and then again in Prague or Vienna or London, and who feel at home everywhere. [Man in audience shouts 'Jews!'] They are the only ones who can be addressed as international elements, because they conduct their business everywhere, but the people cannot follow them. The people are bounded to their soil, bounded to its fatherland, bounded to the possibilities of life that the state, the nation, offers.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A speech at the Siemens Dynamo Works in Berlin (10 November 1933)
“The National Socialist racial idea and the science underlying it do not lead to the underrating or disparagement of other nations but rather to the recognition of the duty to preserve and maintain the life of our own people. Hence it leads inevitably to a natural respect for the life and character of other peoples. It thus frees foreign political activities from those attempts to subjugate other peoples in order to rule them or to incorporate them as a mere numerical mass in one's own nation by imposing a foreign language upon them. This new idea entails equally great and fanatical devotion to the life and hence to the honour and freedom of one's own people as it does respect for the honour and freedom of others. This idea can therefore provide an essentially better basis to the effort for a true pacification of the world than the sorting of the nations into groups of victors and vanquished, of those with rights and of those subjugated without rights, from mere considerations of strength.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1158 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Reichstag, January 30, 1934 [Source: 'Hitler's Speeches (The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922 - August 1939): An English translation of representative passages arranged under subjects and edited by Nor…
“And so long as but a single one of us can draw breath he will devote to this Movement his powers and will champion its cause just as in the years which lie behind us. One cannot become disloyal to that which has given to the whole of life its content, its meaning, and its purpose. It was a great distress and a mighty behest which seized upon us. A thing like this would never have been created out of nothing if a great command had not lain at the foundation of this work. And it was no earthly superior who gave us that command; that was given us by the God Who created our people and Who cannot will that His work should go to ruin only because a single generation had grown feeble.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech from the Sixth Nazi Party Congress, Nuremberg (7 September 1934), quoted in Norman H. Baynes (ed.), The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922 – August 1939, vol. 1, pt. 3 (Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 662
“Why do we call the whole world's attention to the fact that we have no past? It isn't enough that the Romans were erecting great buildings when our forefathers were still living in mud huts; now Himmler is starting to dig up these villages of mud huts and enthusing over every potsherd and stone axe he finds. All we prove by that is that we were still throwing stone hatchets and crouching around open fires when Greece and Rome had already reached the highest stage of culture. We really should do our best to keep quiet about this past. Instead Himmler makes a great fuss about it all. The present-day Romans must be having a laugh at these revelations.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Expounding his view on Himmler's heritage projects, formally pursued by the Ahnenerbe movement launched in July 1935, as quoted in Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer, translated by Richard Winston and Clara…
“Today women’s battalions were being formed in Marxist countries, and to that one could only reply, “That will never happen here! There are things a man does, and he alone is responsible for them. I would be ashamed to be a German man if ever, in the event of war, but a single woman were made to go to the front.” The woman had her own battlefield. With every child to which she gave birth for the nation, she was waging her battle for the nation. The man stands up for the Volk just as woman stands up for the family. A woman’s equal rights lie in the fact that she is treated with the high regard she deserves in those areas of life assigned to her by nature.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the German women in Nuremberg, 13 September 1935
“We want this people to be faithful, and you must learn fidelity. We want this people to be obedient, and you must practice obedience. We want this people to be peace-loving but also courageous, and you must therefore be peace-loving and at the same time courageous. We do not want this people to grow soft, but we want it to be hard so that it will be able to withstand the hardships of life. And for this you have to harden yourselves in your youth. You must learn to be hard, to stand privations without breaking down. We want this people to love honor and you already in the days of your youth must live up to this concept of honor.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (14 September 1935), quoted in Gordon W. Prange (1945). Hitler's Words. New York: American Council on Public Affairs, p. 124.
“And numerous people whose families belong to the peasantry and working classes are now filling prominent positions in this National Socialist State. Some of them actually hold the highest offices in the leadership of the nation, as Cabinet Ministers, Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter. But National Socialism always bears in mind the interests of the people as a whole and not the interests of one class or another. The National Socialist Revolution has not aimed at turning a privileged class into a class which will have no rights in the future. Its aim has been to grant equal rights to those social strata that hitherto were denied such rights.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech by Adolf Hitler, On National Socialism and World Relations, delivered in the German Reichstag (January 30, 1937). German translation published by H. Müller & Sohn in Berlin.
“I have observed among the pictures submitted here, quite a few paintings which make one actually come to the conclusion that the eye shows things differently to certain human beings than the way they really are, that is, that there really are men who see the present population of our nation only as rotten cretins; who, on principle, see meadows blue, skies green, clouds sulphur yellow, and so on, or, as they say, experience them as such. I do not want to enter into an argument here about the question of whether the persons concerned really do or do not see or feel in such a way; but, in the name of the German people, I want to forbid these pitiful misfortunates who quite obviously suffer from an eye disease, to try vehemently to foist these products of their misinterpretation upon the age we live in, or even to wish to present them as "Art.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech inaugurating the first Great German Art Exhibition on July 18, 1937, translated by Ilse Falk and quoted in Herschel B. Chipp, Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics (University of California…
“There are more than ten million Germans in two states, and in the Great War they fought side by side with German soldiers. Against their will they have been prevented from union with the Reich. Political separation, however, does not justify the disregard of national self-determination. Just as Britain stands up for her interests all over the globe, so Germany will know how to guard her more restricted interests. To these interests of the German Reich belongs the protection of those German peoples along our frontiers who are not in a position to secure their general human, political, and Weltanschauliche freedom by their own efforts.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Reichstag (20 February 1938), quoted in Stephen H. Roberts, The House That Hitler Built (1945), p. 375
“The German people is no warlike nation. It is a soldierly one which means it does not want a war but does not fear it. It loves peace, but it also loves its honor and freedom. The new Reich shall belong to no class, no profession, but to the German people. It shall help the people find an easier road in this world. It shall help them in making their lot a happier one. Party, state, armed forces, economics are institutions and functions which can only be estimated as a means toward an end. They will be judged by history according to the services they render toward this goal. Their purpose, however, is to serve the people. I now pray to God that he will bless in the years to come our work, our deeds, our foresight, our resolve; that the almighty may protect us from both arrogance and cowardly servility, that he may help us find the right way which he has laid down for the German people and that he may always give us courage to do the right thing and never to falter or weaken before any power or any danger. Long live Germany and the German people!”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Reichstag, 20 February 1938
“We are not interested in suppressing other nations. We do not want to see other nations among us. We want to live our own life. ... Germany and Poland are two nations, and these nations will live, and neither of them will be able to do away with the other. ... We have assured all our immediate neighbours of the integrity of their territory as far as Germany is concerned. That is no hollow phrase: it is our sacred will. ... The Sudetenland is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe. ... I have assured Mr. Chamberlain, and I emphasize it now, that when this problem is solved Germany has no more territorial problems in Europe.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Berlin (26 September 1938), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 10
“'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. 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, of 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. It is charged against me that I am against property, that I am an atheist. Both charges are false.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech given on December 4, 1938, quoted in The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939, translator and editor Norman Hepburn Baynes, vol. one, Oxford University Press, (1942) pg. 93 at
“In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Reichstag, (30 January 1939), as quoted at The History Place.
“In view of the gravity of the situation, I wish to make a statement which I would like you to forward to M. Daladier. As I have already told him, I bear no enmity whatever towards France. I have personally renounced all claims to Alsace-Lorraine and recognized the Franco-German frontier. I do not want war with your country; my one desire is to maintain good relations with it. I find indeed the idea that I might have to fight France on account of Poland a very painful one. The Polish provocation, however, has placed the Reich in a position which cannot be allowed to continue. Several months ago I made extremely fair proposals to Poland, demanding the return of Danzig to the Reich and of a narrow strip of territory leading from this German city to East Prussia. But the guarantee given by the British Government has encouraged the Poles to be obstinate. Not only has the Warsaw Government rejected my proposals, but it has subjected the German minority, our blood-brothers, to the worst possible treatment, and has begun mobilization. At first, I forbade the Press of the Reich to publish accounts of the cruelties suffered by the Germans in Poland. But the situation has now become intolerable. Are you aware, that there have been cases of castration? That already there are more than 70,000 refugees in our camps? Yesterday seven Germans were killed by the police in Bielitz, and thirty German reservists were machine-gunned at Lodz. Our aeroplanes can no longer fly between Germany and East Prussia without being shot at; their route had been changed, but they are now even attacked over the sea. Thus, the plane which was carrying State Secretary Stuckart was fired at by Polish warships, a fresh incident which I was not yet in a position to bring to the notice of Sir Nevile Henderson this morning. No nation worthy of the name can put up with such unbearable insults. France would not tolerate it any more than Germany. These things have gone on long enough, and I will reply by force to any further provocations. I want to state once again: I wish to avoid war with your country. I will not attack France, but if she joins in the conflict, I will see it through to the bitter end. As you are aware, I have just concluded a pact with Moscow that is not only theoretical, but, I may say, practical. I believe I shall win, and you believe you will win: what is certain is that above all French and German blood will flow, the blood of two equally courageous peoples. I say again, it is painful to me to think we might come to that. Please tell this to President Daladier on my behalf.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 25 August 1939 summary conveyed by M. COULONDRE, French Ambassador in Berlin, to M. GEORGES BONNET, Minister for Foreign Affairs
“I am determined to solve (1) the Danzig question; (2) the question of the Corridor; and (3) to see to it that a change is made in the relationship between Germany and Poland that shall ensure a peaceful co-existence. In this I am resolved to continue to fight until either the present Polish government is willing to continue to bring about this change or until another Polish Government is ready to do so. I am resolved to remove from the German frontiers the element of uncertainty, the everlasting atmosphere of conditions resembling civil war. I will see to it that in the East there is, on the frontier, a peace precisely similar to that on our other frontiers. In this I will take the necessary measures to se that they do not contradict the proposals I have already made known in the Reichstag itself to the rest of the world, that is to say, I will not war against women and children. I have ordered my air force to restrict itself to attacks on military objectives. If, however, the enemy thinks he can form that draw carte blanche on his side to fight by the other methods he will receive an answer that will deprive him of hearing and sight.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What they hate is the Germany which sets a dangerous example for them, this social Germany. It is the Germany of a social labor legislation which they already hated before the World War and which they still hate today. It is the Germany of social welfare, of social equality, of the elimination of class differences—this is what they hate! They hate this Germany which in the course of seven years has labored to afford its Volksgenossen a decent life. They hate this Germany which has eliminated unemployment, which, in spite of all their wealth, they have not been able to eliminate. This Germany which grants its laborers decent housing—this is what they hate because they have a feeling their own peoples could be "infected" thereby. They hate this Germany of social legislation, this Germany which celebrates the first of May as the day of honest labor.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech "Party Comrades! My German Volksgenossen! at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich (8 November 1939) pp. 664-665
“The National Socialist Movement has, besides its delivery from the Jewish capitalist shackles imposed by a plutocratic-democratic, dwindling class of exploiters at home, pronounced its resolve to free the Reich from the shackles of the Diktat of Versailles abroad. The German demands for a revision were an absolute necessity, a matter of course for the existence and the honor of any great people. Posterity will some day come to regard them as exceedingly modest. .. I was scolded for my peace proposal, even personally insulted. Mr. Chamberlain virtually spat in my face before the world public and declined to even talk of peace... And it was thus that the big capitalist clique of war profiteers cried for a continuation of the war. And this continuation has now begun.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Reichstag "Deputies, Men of the German Reichstag!" (July 19, 1940) pp. 712-713
“We want to build up a new state! That is why the others hate us so much today. They have often said as much. They said: "Yes, their social experiment is very dangerous! If it takes hold, and our own workers come to see this too, then this will be highly disquieting. It costs billions and does not bring any results. It cannot be expressed in terms of profit, nor of dividends. What is the point?! We are not interested in such a development. We welcome everything which serves the material progress of mankind insofar as this progress translates into economic profit. But social experiments, all they are doing there, this can only lead to the awakening of greed in the masses. Then we will have to descend from our pedestal. They cannot expect this of us." And we were seen as setting a bad example. Any institution we conceived was rejected, as it served social purposes. They already regarded this as a concession on the way to social legislation and thereby to the type of social development these states loathe. They are, after all, plutocracies in which a tiny clique of capitalists dominate the masses, and this, naturally, in close cooperation with international Jews and Freemasons.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Berlin Sportpalast on the opening of the Kriegswinterhilfswerk, September 4, 1940, Adolf Hitler collection of speeches 1922-1945
“After the conquest of England, the British Empire would be apportioned as a gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy of forty million square kilometres. In this bankrupt estate there would be for Russia access to the ice-free and really open ocean. Thus far, a minority of forty-five million Englishmen had ruled six hundred million inhabitants of the British Empire. He was about to crush this minority.... Under these circumstances there arose world-wide perspectives.... All the countries which could possibly be interested in the bankrupt estate would have to stop all controversies among themselves and concern themselves exclusively with the partition of the British Empire. This applied to Germany, France, Italy, Russia and Japan.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Vyacheslav Molotov, 13 November 1940, quoted in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
“In those countries, 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. .. Yes, certainly, we jeopardize the liberty to profiteer at the expense of the community, and, if necessary, we even abolish it. .. All my life I have been a 'have-not.' At home I was a 'have-not.' I regard myself as belonging to them and have always fought exclusively for them. I defended them and, therefore, I stand before the world as their representative.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Workers of Berlin (10 December 1940) (Wikisource)
“And justice is on the side of those nations that fight for their threatened existence. And this struggle for existence will spur these nations on to the most tremendous accomplishments in world history. If profit is the driving force for production in the democracies—a profit that industrialists, bankers, and corrupt politicians pocket—then the driving force in National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy is the realization by millions of laborers that, in this war, it is they who are being fought against. They realize that the democracies, if they should ever win, would rage with the full capitalist cruelty, that cruelty of which only those are capable whose only god is gold, who know no human sentiments other than their obsession with profit, and who are ready to sacrifice all noble thought to this profit instinct without hesitation... This struggle is not an attack on the rights of other nations, but on the arrogance and avarice of a narrow capitalist upper class, one which refuses to acknowledge that the days are over when gold ruled the world, and that, by contrast, a future is dawning when the people will be the determining force in the life of a nation.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech, "New Year's Proclamation to the National Socialists and Party Comrades", Adolf Hitler: Collection of Speeches 1922-1945 (January 1, 1941) pp. 764-765
“I purchase the necessities of life with the productive power of German workmen. The results of our economic policy speak for us, not for the gold standard people. For we, the poor have abolished unemployment because we no longer pay homage to this madness, because we regard our entire economic existence as a production problem and no longer as a capitalistic problem. We placed the whole organized strength of the nation, the discipline of the entire nation, behind our economic policy. We explained to the nation that it was madness to wage internal economic wars between the various classes, in which they all perish together.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the "21st Anniversary of the National Socialist Party" (24 February 1941)
“I did not want this struggle. Since January, 1933, when Providence entrusted me with the leadership of the German Reich, I had an aim before my eyes which was essentially incorporated in the program of our National Socialist party. I have never been disloyal to this aim and have never abandoned my program... Only when the entire German people become a single community of sacrifice can we expect and hope that Almighty God will help us. The Almighty has never helped a lazy man. He does not help the coward. He does not help a people that cannot help itself. The principle applies here, help yourselves and Almighty God will not deny you his assistance.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“National-Socialism came to power in Germany in the same year as Roosevelt was elected President … Roosevelt comes from a rich family and belongs to the class whose path is smoothed in the Democracies. I am only the child of a small, poor family and had to fight my way by work and industry. When the Great War came, Roosevelt occupied a position where he got to know only its pleasant consequences, enjoyed by those who do business while others bleed … I shared the fate of millions, and Franklin Roosevelt only the fate of the so-called Upper Ten Thousand … he made profits out of the inflation, out of the misery of others, while I, together with many hundreds of thousands more, lay in hospital.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Churchill and Roosevelt state that they want to build up a new social order, later on, it is like a hairdresser with a bald head recommending an unfortunate hair-restorer. These men, who live in the most socially backward states, have misery and distress enough in their own countries to occupy themselves with the distribution of foodstuffs … We are allied with strong peoples, who in the same need are faced with the same enemies. The American President and his Plutocratic clique have mocked us as the Have-nots – that is true, but the Have-nots will see to it that they are not robbed of the little they have.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In my eyes, the year 1942 already has behind it the most fateful trial of our people. That was the winter of '41 to '42. I may be permitted to say that in that winter the German people, and in particular its Wehrmacht, were weighed in the balance by Providence. Nothing worse can or will happen. That we conquered that winter, that "General Winter," that at last the German fronts stood, and that this spring, that is, early this summer, we were able to proceed again, that, I believe, is the proof that Providence was content with the German people... You do not realize what is hidden beneath these words in the way of human heroism, and also of human pain, and suffering, and we may say, often anxiety too, naturally, deathly anxiety on the part of all those who, especially for the first time, are placed before the trial of God in this highest court.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address at the Opening of the Winter Relief Campaign (September 30, 1942)