Background: The German war situation was looking increasingly grim in June 1943. The month before, the Nazi propaganda system had launched one of its periodic anti-Semitic campaigns and propagandists had been instructed to include anti-Semitism in everything they did. Goebbels follows the propaganda line in this essay, claiming that the recent dissolution of the Comintern was an obvious trick by Kremlin Jews to persuade the Western Allies that the Soviet Union no longer supported world revolution. There is some justice to Goebbels’s argument on this point, at least.
This article was part of a major anti-Semitic campaign that ran over the spring and summer of 1943. For other material, see:
The source: Joseph Goebbels, “Die motorischen Kräfte,” Das Reich, 6 June 1943. The text is also available in a collection of Goebbels’s essays titled Der steile Aufstieg.
It cannot be ignored that anti-Bolshevism and its related anti-Semitism has significantly increased in all warring nations during the course of this war, particularly over the last six months. That is the result of the length of the war on one hand, but also because of our extraordinarily intensive educational work on the fundamental problems of this global struggle that extends to the whole world. Never were the peoples so open to new views and knowledge as today. The great misery the war has brought makes them interested in a factual explanation of the backgrounds and interconnections of this tragic world event. One looks for the causes and reasons for the terrible catastrophe of the peoples. Although the same superficial phrases come from the capitals of the enemy alliance, the man in the street is looking in his own way for a way out of the dilemma that peoples and continents have fallen into. This process proceeds slowly and is scarcely noticeable, but its progress over the long term cannot be overlooked. One need only compare English and American newspapers from 1941, for example, with those of today to easily see that a revolution in public thinking has occurred that has resulted in the opposite of what our enemies in this war intended.
Humanity must be a very high price for this process of reeducation, but it has substantial benefits. Our enemy is retreating everywhere in the face of our intellectual and worldview attacks. The plutocratic-Bolshevist-Jewish view has not made progress with the world public, but rather our views have. One must give way more and more, the other is advancing. That is why anti-Bolshevism and anti-Semitism are increasing in significance with all peoples, even in enemy countries, although they may not be discussed publicly. The Jews are at risk of losing the game, no matter how hard they try to rescue what can still be rescued. They began playing with fire in a reckless way, and now slowly the affected peoples who were the victims of their insidious wishes and desires have seen through and unmasked them.
As is known, the Jewish race exceeds all others in public deception and concealment and is expert at adjusting itself to prevailing conditions. Jewry everywhere practices mimickry where it is necessary and useful. Experience shows that this method, too, is only a way to keep the peoples in the dark. It would be naive to believe that Jews change their plans as they change their coloring. As flexible and creative as they are in choosing tactics, so consistent and determined are they in working toward their political and economic goals. Since their goal is world domination, their methods must be very flexible and may not conflict with the existing conditions in individual countries. In conservative countries Jews play the role of defending the state just as in revolutionary countries they are the subversive element. Both forms of concealment, however, are only a tool of their racially-determined desire to conquer the world. Both plutocracy and Bolshevism are characteristic expressions of the Jewish nature. In short, what is behind them is always the same, however different they may outwardly seem.
For over twenty years, National Socialist propaganda has seen as its main task explaining the enormous dangers that result, both to its own and other peoples. In this battle, it is the main opponent of the Jewish drive for world domination. Jewry has left no means untried to resist or divert the heavy blows we have given. One can understand that, since it is a matter not only of world domination, but also of its continued racial existence. It has no difficulty shifting its tactics as needed, to toss its current methods of battle and argument overboard when they prove ineffective or do not lead to success, adopting new tactics without hesitation. Given world-famous Jewish talkativeness, that worked only for a short time. They throw their cards on the table whenever they believe they hold enough trumps and think they have already won the game. We, however, stay at their heels, never let them out of sight, and follow their tactical maneuverings with the eye of an expert who has gained wide knowledge through experience. The Jews cannot keep us in the dark. They know that, which explains their infernal hatred of us.
The most recent example of such Jewish practice is as follows:
For months we have conducted comprehensive education both at home and to the world about the nature of Bolshevism, Jewry, and their relations with international plutocracy. It cannot be denied that this propaganda is gradually having an impact in enemy countries, not to mention neutral states. We hear voices from throughout the world revealing increasing concern of the peoples about the Jewish question, as well as on Bolshevism and plutocracy. The great Jewish plot is in danger of losing its mask. The Jews know well enough that nothing could weaken their position more than a man-to-man battle, so they are shifting tactics. The decision was doubtless worked out by the Jews behind Roosevelt and played up by the Jews behind Stalin. The result was the sudden apparent dissolution of the Communist International. One stone was pushed out of the way.
One need only look briefly at this well-rehearsed theatrical production between the Jews in Moscow and those in London and Washington to know what the game is. The Jews in Moscow impudently falsified the date of the decision to dissolve the Comintern, setting it before the arrival of Roosevelt’s letter to Stalin. The Jews in London and Washington mimicked astonishment and displayed the previously arranged public enthusiasm. The game they played was so impudent that it was almost insulting. The Jews do not think very much of so-called public opinion, and experience shows they are not entirely wrong. In any event, they tried to persuade the whole world that this blatant trick removed any threat to make the world Bolshevist. They presented our propaganda as a bogeyman. The powers in the Kremlin were honorable people who brushed a small fly out of the way in order that nothing would stand in the way of perfect harmony between the Bolshevist and plutocratic worlds.
As we said, there always a few Jewish idiots who under the rush of apparent success betray their true goals through less than useful chatter. Here, as well. They openly boasted that they had beaten our propaganda, the effect of which they had always previously denied, thereby proving that it had had influenced the world and that the goal of the supposed dissolution of the Comintern was to reduce that effect. One hardly need say that the Kremlin will find ways to promote the world Bolshevist revolution without the official existence of the Comintern. We think the communist parties in various countries, particularly in England, are much more dangerous, since they present themselves as national and can infect public life unhindered, instead of being seen as Stalin’s foreign legion. They will now surely seek to infiltrate the labor and union movements, since the old argument that they received their orders from outside the country can no longer be made without raising doubts about the promises made by their Soviet allies.
One can see that this move by the Jewish Kremlin was carefully thought out and is the best evidence of Bolshevist-Jewish deceptive measures. The world public would undoubtedly believe it were it not for us. The Jews in the plutocratic states who work so well with those in Moscow are eagerly trying to persuade American public opinion that the last barrier between full intellectual and philosophical understanding between Bolshevism and plutocracy has been eliminated. And since democracy will always lose to radicalism, one must assume that England and the USA are at a dead end as a result of the Moscow decision that their newspapers so eagerly welcomed.
The Kremlin’s future tactics are not hard to predict. We know how the communists in the Reich followed Moscow’s orders before the takeover of power. If they were banned in one German province, they retreated to the Red Aid or some other ready organization prepared for such an eventuality. The provincial governments that did not find the courage to root out communism were soon happy to allow their official organization once again so that they at least had them under control and could make their leadership responsible for criminal policies, while the covert organizations were entirely uncontrolled and were a grave public danger. We assume that this condition will soon prevail in England and the United States, and we will not fail to regularly remind the affected peoples of this extraordinarily dangerous development. It is silly for the Jews in London and Washington to try to persuade their nations that Moscow’s fakery has ruined the entire structure of National Socialist propaganda. We are not surprised by the Soviet decision, but rather see in it only a confirmation of our old suspicions. We will not be the ones harmed, but rather those peoples that fall victim to it, choosing their own knife to be slaughtered by, as the old German proverb has it.
The whole deception is classic proof that the enemy side has fallen into the greatest possible spiritual crisis. The signs are unmistakable. If Bolshevism puts on the sheep’s pelt, it usually has immediate plans to be the wolf. That will be the case here. The Jews are playing their last cards. Our attack is hitting so hard that they must either fight or invent ever-new means of diversion. The festering wound of modern humanity has been bandaged over, but it naturally continues to fester. It will eat its way into the body, since the way outward is blocked. England and the United States will have an unpleasant experience. He who is fed by the Jews dies.
It is a great satisfaction for the Axis peoples to be the only ones with a firm worldview in the midst of this spiritually unstable and shattered world. In general, ideas are not valued highly in war. However, they are the driving forces of military and political developments. The war has not smashed our views, but rather affirmed them. He who at the beginning did not know what we were fighting for and what we were defending has become entirely clear about it as the war has progressed. No one knows better than us the pain and misery that the war brings for our people. If we constantly urge people to bear up under its torments, it is because we know that true hell awaits us if we collapse. Our people has no alternative than to do its duty every day. No matter how hard it is, it is still easier than what would happen should we fail. In Jewry and its subject peoples we face the most infernal enemy of our national life and our race. The battle is one of life or death, We must win it, else everything would be lost.
This war develops step by step. The enemy makes his move, we make ours. The greatest possible effort is called for. We must go to work with our last reserves of physical and spiritual strength, our strength of nerve and intelligence. He whose breath fails first has lost. Never forget that in the midst of the storms and pains of the age, especially not when our moral strength is attacked, aiming to wear us down, for that is the single weapon with which we can defend ourselves.
Last edited 3 July 2024
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