Adolf Hitler's Address to the Reichstag (30 January 1939)
Greatly disconcerted about the future of my Volk, I moved into Wilhelmstrasse on January 30, 1933. Today—six years later—I am able to speak before this first Greater German Reichstag! Truly, we are today better equipped than any generation before us to appreciate the pious import of the saying: “What a turn of events brought about by divine dispensation!” Six years sufficed to fulfill the dreams of many a century; one year to afford our Volk enjoyment of the unity which many a generation yearned for in vain.
When I look at you today, the representatives of our German Volk from all Gaus of the Reich gathered around me, and I know the elected men of the Ostmark and the Sudetenland to be among you, then I am once more overwhelmed by those tremendous impressions recollected from that one year which realized the longings of centuries. How much blood was shed for this object—for naught! How many millions of German men strode forth on this bitter path throughout the years, conscious or unconscious of the higher ambitions they served—a path which led them to a swift or painfully prolonged death. How many others were condemned to end their lives behind fortress or dungeon walls, lives they sought only to dedicate to Greater Germany! How many hundreds of thousands, bending under the yoke of misery and worry, were forced to join that never-ending stream of German emigrants surging forth into the world, for decades cherishing the memory of the unfortunate homeland, after generations forgetting her. And now, in the span of this one year, a dream has come true.
It was not realized without a fight, as many an forgetful bourgeois might believe. For before this year of German unity, a political idea had to struggle fanatically for nearly two decades. Hundreds of thousands, millions risked their lives, their physical existence and economic livelihood. They put up with mockery and scorn as willingly as they faced abusive treatment, base defamation, and near-unbearable terror. Throughout the German Gaus, countless corpses and the injured splattered with blood bore witness to this struggle. And, moreover, this success was secured by an immeasurable rallying of willpower and perseverance in valiant and zealous determination. I must say this today because there is a danger that certain elements who contributed the least to the practical implementation of German unity now seek, as brash orators, to appropriate to themselves the creation of this Reich. They portray the events of 1938 as a most natural, long-overdue, foregone conclusion, only belatedly realized by National Socialism.
To counter these elements, I must first state that perseverance through this year required a strength of nerves of which these dwarfs have not an inkling.
They are well-known to us, these old incorrigible pessimists, skeptical and apathetic, who throughout the twenty years of our struggle made a positive contribution by making none. Now, after the victory, these self-proclaimed experts of the national uprising feel called on to contribute their comments and criticism to it.
I will now in a few sentences offer you an objective recapitulation of the historic events in this memorable year 1938.
Friday evening [March 11, 1938] a plea reached me, in the interest of preventing anarchy and chaos in this country, to order German troops to march.
Already by 10:00 p.m., units were crossing the border at several locations. The general invasion began at 6:00 in the morning [March 12, 1938], to the great and unforgettable jubilation of the people now finally liberated.
The man responsible for these developments was the then State President Dr. Beneš, who transformed Czechoslovakia into the exponent of the outside world’s hostile intentions against the Reich. It was he who, on the prodding and with the active participation of certain foreign circles,114 carried out the mobilization in May a year ago which sought first to provoke the German Reich and, second, to do injury to the German Reich’s prestige abroad.
The fictitious report of a German mobilization allegedly forcing Czechoslovakia to mobilize its armed forces was maintained and propagated, despite an official declaration twice conveyed at my bidding to the Czech State President Beneš, stating that Germany had not mobilized even a single soldier, and in spite of identical assertions to representatives of foreign powers. Insistent demands called for Germany to countermand the fictitious mobilization order and to renounce its pretenses. Beneš labored to spread the rumor that the determined nature of the steps he had taken had forced the German Reich back within its appropriate borders. Since the Reich had neither mobilized its forces nor entertained any intentions of attacking…
