From LANDMARK SPEECHES OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM
10-5-1933
Executing the will of the German Volk
I want to speak mainly about two things: one is the need for cleaning German culture and the other is how such a purification is to be carried out.
There has been great enthusiasm at two ends: one end represented by Adolf Hitler's leadership and the other end by the masses.
The broad masses have been most vigorous and dynamic. Beginning in the schools and continuing in society, the impact of the movement has spread from the cultural sphere to the economy, politics, and throughout all spheres of society. The gains-the political gains in particular-have been considerable. A number of persons in authority who have taken a bad road have been dragged out from within the Party. Many bourgeois reactionary "authorities" in society have been discredited, and many bad elements have been ferreted out. But what is most important is that ideologically, the movement has truly touched people's souls. This is a profound great revolution that has shattered the old ideology and established a new ideology on a massive scale. Drastic changes have taken place in the face of society and in the mental attitudes of people. In this movement, Adolf Hitler's thoughts have been extensively propagated and popularized. They have become deeply engraved in the minds of people and have exerted a tremendous didactic impact upon the young and upon society in general. In the course of the movement, many young people will grow up to become dependable successors of the National Socialist revolution.
Our movement has set an unprecedented example in the world. In regard to anti-Bolshevism, this action on the part of Germany has great didactic potential.
At the top there is Adolf Hitler. Everybody has seen it quite clearly how from beginning to end, this movement has been unleashed and led by the Führer. With tremendous energy and resolve, The Führer took it upon himself to unleash a large-scale mass movement. An ordinary bourgeois party leader could not possibly have shown such great energy and resolve. Only a great German such as Adolf Hitler-with his extremely rich fighting experience and his profound National Socialist wisdom-would have dared to unleash such a dynamic and totally earth-shaking revolutionary mass movement.
Generally speaking, what we call culture encompasses ideology, social consciousness, world outlook, customs and habits, political viewpoints, legal viewpoints, artistic viewpoints, motion pictures and drama, sculpture, literature, the educational system, etc. So why is there a need for a cultural offensive? The decisive factor prompting us to launch it is the fundamental change that has occurred in the economic base of our society.
Where does ideology come from? National Socialism has always maintained that ideology comes from matter and that social consciousness derives from social existence, e.g. from the economic base of society and the system of ownership in society.
Since the Machtengreifung, the German people have held political power, and the system of ownership in our society has changed fundamentally. We confiscated the land
belonging to Jews who wanted to leave Germany, and gave it back to the German people. Since changes have occurred in the economic base, our social consciousness,
which is part of the superstructure, must also change accordingly in order to catch up.
Thus to clean the German culture or not is a major political question that will decide whether or not national power can be consolidated and the fruits of revolution can be developed. It is a major political question that will decide the success or failure of our revolution.
The National Socialist German revolution has three aspects: one aspect is political, another is economic, and a third is ideological. To overthrow a regime by means of war is a violent act. We succeeded in routing the November republic (naturally, we had already spent many years [fighting them] before that). We achieved victory, seized political power, established our own state, and established National Socialism. The revolution in the system of ownership, i.e. the revolution to abolish the feudal system of ownership and the bourgeois system of ownership, keeps on. But on the other hand, on another front, we shall need to spend more time, and the struggle there will see more twists and turns. I am referring to the ideological sphere, where the struggle will take longer than it took to seize political power and to change the system ot ownership. Six years from now, 1939 will mark the 150th anniversary of the French Revolution. And yet, how much Jewish ideology have they eliminated and how much national ideology have they fostered? After 150 years, the French people are still ruled by Jewish financiers and the French bourgeoisie, who did the Revolution, has now been completely subordinated to Jewish interests. Unless we constantly and persistently purge our own German culture, that will also be the outcome here. Therefore Adolf Hitler said: "You should pay attention to affairs of state and carry the struggle through to the end."
The Führer regards this work as an important state affair and as politics. While revising the minutes of the forum on literature and arts in the armed forces in March this year, he agreed to include a reference to all national struggles being social struggles, hereby reiterating this classic viewpoint of National Socialism and regarding it as an important state affair and as a political question. Unless we make our culture truly German again, and unless we carry the national struggle through to the end, we too will end up changing our color midway.
That we normally grasp economic construction firmly is good. Nonetheless, with regard to destruction and construction in culture and in the ideological sphere, not all comrades have grasped the situation as firmly and emphasized these tasks as strongly as Adolf Hitler. There are people who feel that this is an extra burden. They maintain that everything is all right and ask why does there have to be a cultural offensive? In fact, since we gained political power, on the one hand, we have had to undertake economic construction; but on the other hand, from a long-range point of view, it is even more important to undertake ideological construction. Ideology has a tremendous impact upon political and economic developments. Jewish ideology serves the Jewish economic base and reflects the demands of the pathologically degenerate elements, thus obstructing the development of society; German ideology, and in particular National Socialism, serves the new economic base and reflects the demands of the German people, thus exercising an accelerating impact on the development of society. As soon as the masses are in the grip of national ideology, that ideology will become a tremendous material
force propelling the development of society forward. This is why we should destroy on a massive scale (and not just on a small or medium scale) the Jewish ideology and establish a true German ideology. We should establish on a massive scale the ideology of our Führer Adolf Hitler, who represents new ideology, the German people's ideology, National Socialist ideology, and ideology strong enough to stand up against Jewish ideology. This is a point that many comrades have failed to grasp firmly. They have failed to grasp firmly what should be destroyed on a massive scale and what should be established on a massive scale.
You also know about the attitude taken in the past by the November criminal politicians. That was infuriating and simply intolerable. After seizing political power, with respect to our domestic tasks, we must, apart from suppressing the opposition of the exploiters and engaging in economic construction, carry out cultural construction. Not only we, but all ruling classes in history have engaged in destruction and construction in the cultural field. There is no state and no ruling class that would allow the propagation of an ideology that is opposed to its world view. One must insist on one's own ideology in order to consolidate one's political and economic systems. Though the ruling ideology of each epoch in history would appear to have represented the outlook of the entire society, it actually represented only the interests of the ruling exploiting classes. The ideology of the ruling class in each epoch was an ideology that merely represented the interests of that ruling class. In the past the ideology of the laboring German people did not occupy a governing status; moreover, most German laboring people have for a long time been fooled and deceived. Our Party is one of National Socialist thought. According to our world view, there must be a complete break with Jewish decadent culture and a complete break with non-German ideas. We have the power and the obligation to establish the ideological rule of the German Volk!
The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism has come to an end and the German revolution has again opened the way for the true essence of being German. This revolution was not started at the top, it burst forth from the bottom, upwards. It is, therefore, in the very best sense of the word, the expression of the will of the Volk. There stands the worker next to the bourgeois, student next to soldier and young worker, here stand the intellectuals next to the proletariat.
During the past fourteen years while you, students, had to suffer in silent shame the humiliations of the November Republic, your libraries were inundated with the trash and filth of Jewish "asphalt" literati. While scholarship gradually isolated itself from real life, the young Germany has re-established new conditions in our legal system and normalized our life.
The movement which in the past attacked the state has now penetrated the state, indeed even more so, it has become the state. And with that the German spirit has achieved quite different possibilities of effectiveness. Revolutionary elán and revolutionary energy which were experienced by German youth during the past years have now become the tempo and elán of the whole nation. Revolutions that are genuine stop at no boundaries. No area must remain untouched. Just as it revolutionizes people it also revolutionizes things.
Therefore, you are doing the right thing as you, at this midnight hour, surrender to the flames the evil spirit of the past. There the intellectual basis of the November Republic is crushed to the ground. But from the rubble will arise victoriously the Phoenix of a new spirit, a spirit that we carry forth, that we nourish and to which we give decisive weight.
I believe that never before was a group of youthful students as justified as you are to be proud of your life, proud of your tasks, and proud of your duty. Never before had young men the justification to exclaim with Ulrich von Hutteng: 'Oh Century, Oh Sciences, it is a joy to be alive!'
Barriers that separated us are torn down. Volk has reunited with Volk. And if old people do not understand this -- we young ones have already completed the process.
No to decadence and moral corruption! Yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Gläser, Erich Kästner.
The old past lies in flames; the new times will arise from the flame that burns in our hearts. Wherever we stand together, wherever we march together, we want to dedicate ourselves to the Reich and its future.
As we did so often, while we were still fighting in the opposition, now that we hold the power, and with it the responsibility, we join together in the vow that we previously so often promised to the nightly sky: 'Illuminated by many flames let it be an oath! The Reich and the nation and our Führer Adolf Hitler - Heil.'"
The Horst-Wessel song thunderously rings out and the flames are still crackling while stacks upon stacks of the collected Jewish subversive writings are thrown into them. With this demonstration, the continuing fight against the un-German mind has been started. This struggle will not cease until all Germans are again of the German mind-set.