Background: This one of numerous small booklets given to those who contributed to the Nazi Party’s Winter Relief charity. There was one for each of the years 1933-1939, for various campaigns of the war, for soldiers who had won the Iron Cross, and more that I have not yet seen. The text is taken from Hitler’s speeches in 1933.
The Führer Makes History 1933
30 January 1933: The Seizure of Power
“The task before us is frightening. The tasks we must solve are the heaviest ever faced by German statesmen. But our confidence in ourselves is unlimited for we believe in our people and its immortal values.”
The national government will pursue the following plan with iron determination and tireless persistence:
Within 4 years the German farmer must be freed from his misery.
Within 4 years unemployment must be finally overcome.
Internationally, the national government’s highest mission is to guarantee the life of the people and therefore the restoration of our people’s freedom.
“The Marxist parties and their allies had 14 years to show what they could do. The result is ruin.
German people, give us four years, and then judge us!”
21 March: The Day at Potsdam
“We want to build a true community from the German tribes, classes, occupations, and former classes.
A German people must again grow from farmers, the middle class and workers.
Although victims of war, we want honest and friendly relations with the world that will lead to a peace that will finally heal the wounds from which we all suffer.”
23 March: The Enabling Act in the Reichstag
“There is hardly a revolution of such size that has occurred with so much discipline and so little bloodshed as this uprising of the German people in the past weeks. It is my firm intention that this shall continue. That makes it all the more necessary that the national government be given the authority that such a time requires.”
1 May: The National Holiday
“May has come, as has the awakening of our people. The symbol of class struggle, of eternal strife and discord will now become a symbol of renewal, a symbol of the great unity of our people.”
10 May: First Congress of the DAF [German Worker’s Front]
“Nothing will give me greater pride than if, at the end of my days, I can say: ‘I have won the German Reich for the German worker.’”
26 August: Tannenberg [A major World War I German victory]
“Fate then gave me the joy of fighting for our people’s freedom as a simple soldier with my brothers and comrades. Today I consider it a gracious gift of Providence, General Field Marshall [Hindenburg], to express our deepest thanks to you here on this famous battlefield of the great war”
3 September: The Party Rally of Victory
“Heaven can bear witness that the guilt of our people is abolished, the sacrilege atoned for, the shame removed. The men of November [1918] have fallen and their power is no more. The world should not see in our gathering an expression of the wish to win new laurels on the battlefield...”
3 September: The Party Rally of Victory
“...May this hour be nothing other than a great and festive affirmation to the German community that we want to establish, a community that will never again collapse.”
13 September: The Proclamation of the WHW [The Nazi Party charity]
“This great campaign against hunger and cold is governed by this principle: We have broken the international solidarity of the proletariat. We want to build the living national solidarity of the German people!”
23 September: Work begins on the National Superhighway System
“No thought is more satisfying to me than that we begin here not only the building of the greatest highway system in the world, but that it is also a milestone in building the German people. Before many years have passed this enormous project will be witness to our service, our industry, our ability and our decisiveness.”
German workers, begin work!”
1 October: Thanksgiving
“Liberalism glorified individuality, Marxism glorified humanity, but both ignored the people, National Socialism fanatically affirms the people. The first and deepest representatives of the people is that part that feeds people from the riches of the earth and thus provides for the continuation of the family of the nation.”
14 October: Leaving the League of Nations
“I am convinced that the entire people, as one person, stands behind this decision that comes from a love of our people and a respect for its honor. It comes also from the conviction that the world peace we so greatly need can happen only if the concept of winners and losers is replaced by the concept of equal rights for all.”
15 October: Laying the Cornerstone for the House of German Art
“In seeing the resurrection of our people as our task, we see not only the suffering economy but also our threatened culture, not only the needs of the body, but also those of the soul. We can expect no resurrection of the German people without a revival of German culture, and above all German art.”
9 November: The March to the Feldherrnhalle
“Ten years have passed. Today it gives me the greatest joy that our former hopes have become reality, that the representatives of our army and our people can stand together, that we have again become one, and that this unity will never again fail in Germany.”
27 November: Founding the KdF [Kraft durch Freude]
“The Führer’s orders to Dr. Ley:
Do everything to bring working people relaxation, pleasure and good health in their spare time. If we want reasonable and strong policies, we need a people with sound nerves.”