Background: This article from Der Angriffwas published just before the first round of the German presidential elections in 1932. Goebbels outlines the case for Adolf Hitler. The article is dated 7 March 1932.
The source: “Wir wählen Adolf Hitler!” Wetterleuchten. Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1939), pp. 269-270.
Hitler, the Great German
Adolf Hitler’s goal is to solve the social and labor questions. His knowledge of social need does not come from hearsay. For many years in Vienna and Munich, he had to earn his meager daily bread as a simple construction worker. There he came to know the people and the working class, sharing in their hard lot and their poverty. He therefore has the right to defend the German working class, wherever it may be.
Hitler, the Führer
Adolf Hitler, the born mass leader, has as his goal to unify the German people and forge from them unprecedented strength. He works toward this goal not by words and empty phrases, but rather by founding the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, which shows the way.
He began in 1919 with six comrades from the front and labor; in 1923, his movement was crushed as it reached for power. Adolf Hitler spent more than a year in prison, founding his old party anew in 1925.
Through hard, exhausting and sacrificial struggle he lead the mocked and scorned little sect to the most impressive mass movement in Europe.
Hitler, the Prophet
In the National Socialist movement, the farmer stands beside the worker, the prince beside the worker, the student next to the front soldier. Millions and millions have joined together under the idea of the German people’s community. They want no differences of occupation or class. They have sworn allegiance to the German people and its historic mission.
Amidst all the desperate babble of the post-war period, a new political faith came to life. It is based in flowing, sacrificial idealism, without thereby falling prey to some romantic idol. The National Socialist movement is firmly rooted on earth, but its goals reach boldly for the stars.
Millions and millions of National Socialists have found in National Socialism new meaning and purpose for their lives. They thank Adolf Hitler and his saving idea that they have not fallen into hopelessness and anarchy,
Hitler, the Fighter
A man who has the strength and gifts to build a movement of millions from a small sect of seven men, a movement that today already encompasses the largest and best part of the whole German people, will also find a way to unify the entire nation, freeing it from the terrible political, worldview and social contradictions that tear apart and wound our people.
The System [the Nazi term for the Weimar Republic] has had 13 years to prove that it does not even recognize the problem, much less solve it. Its policies have divided the people into two classes. The economy is in anarchy, the finances are in a desperate state, and millions and millions of German workers, farmers and the middle class are the victims of this fateful course. Countless people have despaired of the future of the German people and have fallen into hopelessness.
But the greater part of the nation has a new will to resist. It wants the German people to rise from blind resignation to a new ideal.
That is Adolf Hitler’s work! The masses see in him their last hope. For millions, his name has become the bright symbol of the German will for freedom.
We want to put Germany’s future in the hands of this man. He shows us the way. We are ready to follow him. A new German will to life is rising from shame and disgrace, from collapse and anarchy, and we are its bearers!
Hitler, the Reich President
He who wishes that everything should stay as it is in Germany gives himself over to despair. We do not mind if he casts his vote for the representatives of this system. But we want everything in Germany to change.
He who opposes class struggle and fraternal murder, who is looking for the way out of chaos and confusion, this man will vote for Adolf Hitler! He represents an awakening young German idealism, he is the spokesman for national activism, he is the bearer of the coming economic and social renewal. That is why we cry: Give Adolf Hitler power so that the German people once again receive what is its due. For freedom and prosperity!
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