Adolf Hitler - speech at the Platterhof

July 4, 1944

entlemen! In this case, the war provides advanced financing for later
accomplishments, later work, later basis for nutrition, and at the same time a
tremendous training for the accomplishing of those tasks, with which we would
have been confronted in the future anyway.

It leads by necessity to a clear separation between, on the one side, the purely military
orderer, and, on the other side, the technical designer in connection with the production
engineer-that is, whoever is charged with mass production will be the one to furnish the best
designs. Weapons are only of use wherever they appear in masses.

It is a matter of course that there must be constant intervention right now so that we do
not miss out on any innovations on the one hand and do not lose our footing in production on
the other so that-should peace break out tomorrow-we will not have oriented and organized
our entire economy with just one goal in mind and therefore not be in a position to take up
peace products like that.

Gentlemen! I do not care about peace today, I only care about victory! If we win this
war, the German economy will receive such gigantic orders that it will be able to continue
mass production in any event.

The steel that will be needed in peacetime for construction alone cannot be provided
solely by our present steelworks! If we lose the war, gentlemen, no readjustment will be
necessary. It will only be necessary that everybody thinks about his own readjustment from
this life into the next, whether he wants to do it himself, whether he wants to let himself be
hanged, whether he wants to get a shot through the base of the skull, whether he wants to
starve or go work in Siberia. Those are the only choices which the individual will then have to
make.

I am not considering any bad compromise! Once our victory has decided this war,
private initiative in the German economy will enter its greatest epoch.

My efforts must always be directed to choose and select the most competent heads. I
keep sniIIing around all the time, and I have 'agents who always watch out: is there talent
here, is there a genius here?

I told the big financier: You know, the German Volk has lived for, let us say, hundreds
of thousands of years. . The German Volk survived the Romans, it survived the invasions by
the Huns, countless wars, the Thirty Years` War, the Seven Years` War, the War oI the
Spanish Succession, the World War. It will survive this, too.

Difficulties are there to be overcome!

We will survive this time. It often seems to me as though we have to go through all the
trials of the Devil, Satan, and Hell, until we finally gain the final victory. This is not the first
time this has happened in German history.
!
954

Whoever does not have a hard time in life cannot really rejoice in what he has
accomplished. The birth certificate of a new empire is always best written in blood, in blood
and misery. We know from experience that this is the most sturdy, the most durable. We will
manage all this.

The German soldier is the best! The restoration of a complete technological balance will
create the conditions for swinging around the wheel of the war.

At the time, when Italy, in spite of its obligations, did not enter the war, we faced a great
crisis! But all of us had the courage at the time not to retreat.

I was fifty years old at the time. I know what tremendous strain on the nerves such
decisions represent. I do not know whether, in the next ten or twenty years, a man stronger
than I am will succeed me!

The war can therefore not be measured in terms of current events. In such a mighty
struggle oI impact on world history, somebody can tell me: 'Yes, you have now lost the tip of
Cherbourg. I can only say |in reply|: they |the Allies| stood at the Rhine once! They say,
they [the Allies] will conquer all of France, and I say, we forced them back there! Let us wait
and see whether they will conquer France. Yes, only get the surprise of their lives! Our spirit
of invention will help us shortly to issue those weapons that are necessary to restore the
technological balance.

We have over a hundred thirty million people within the territory of the Reich. All of
Europe, which must work for us today, amounts to over two hundred fifty million. And we
shall not accomplish anything with that? That`s ridiculous! The American engineers are
mostly of German origin. It is Swabian- Alemannian blood that these people have. And I have
the same crowd oI Alemanni. They work Ior us. It would be sad iI we couldn`t do anything
with that. Superiority of the enemy? You can tell how little they are superior to us!

The tasks which I set are tremendous. But always think of the old saying: the gods love
him who demands the impossible of them. If we accomplish the impossible, then we will
surely receive the approval of Providence.

Perhaps I am not what they call a sanctimonious hypocrite or pious. I am not that. But
deep in my heart, I am a religious man; that is, I believe that the man who, in accordance with
the natural laws created by God, bravely fights and never capitulates in this world-that this
man will not be abandoned by the Lawgiver. Instead, he will in the end receive the blessings
of Providence.

955
Adolf Hitler - radio address to the German Folk


July 20, 1944

German Volksgenossen!

do not know how many times an assassination attempt on me was planned and
carried out. I speak to you today for two reasons:

1. so that you can hear my voice and know that I was not injured and am in good health;
2. so that you learn about the details of this crime, which is without equal in German
history.

A very small clique of ambitious, unscrupulous, and at the same time criminal, stupid
officers hatched a plot in order to eliminate me as well as exterminate the staff of the German
Wehrmacht leadership. The bomb that was placed by Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg went off
two meters to my right. It seriously hurt several coworkers precious to me; one of them died. I
am not injured, with the exception of a few very small bruises and burns. I regard this as
confirmation of my mission by Providence to continue pursuing the goal of my life, as I have
done up to now. Let me solemnly avow before the entire nation that since the day I moved
into Wilhelmstrasse I have had only one thought: to fulfill my duty to the best of my
knowledge and belief. Ever since I realized that this war was unavoidable and could no longer
be delayed, I knew nothing but worries and work and, in countless days and nights that I
stayed up, I lived only for my Volk! In an hour in which the German armies stand in the midst
of a most difficult struggle, a very small group was found in Germany, as in Italy, that
believed it could carry through a stab in the back as in the year 1918. However, it was terribly
mistaken this time. The claim of these usurpers that I am no longer alive is being contradicted
at this moment, as I speak to you, my dear Volksgenossen. This circle made up of these
usurpers is a very small one. It has nothing to do with the German Wehrmacht and, above all,
with the German Army. It is a very small coterie (Klungel) of criminal elements which will be
mercilessly exterminated. I therefore order at this moment the following:

1. That no civilian office is to accept any orders from any office appropriated by the
usurpers.

2. That no military office, no leader of troops, no soldier is to comply with any type of
order by these usurpers. On the contrary, everybody has the duty either to arrest the person
forwarding or issuing such an order immediately or, in the case of resistance, to gun him
down at once.

So as finally to assure order, I have appointed Reich Minister Himmler as commander
of the replacement army. I have asked General Guderian to join the general staff in order to
replace the chief of the general staff, presently unavailable due to an illness, and appointed a
second battle-tested leader from the eastern front as his assistant.

Nothing changes in any other office in the Reich. I am convinced that by crushing this
very small clique of traitors and conspirators, we finally create an atmosphere back in the
homeland of the type which the fighters at the front need. After all, it is impossible that
hundreds of thousands and millions of brave men give everything, while a very small coterie
!
956
of ambitious, pitiful creatures at home constantly tries to undermine this attitude. This time
we will settle accounts in the way we are used to as National Socialists.

I am convinced that every decent officer, every brave soldier will understand this at this
hour.

Germany`s Iate, had this attempt today succeeded, can be imagined by only a very Iew
people. I am grateful to Providence and my Creator not because He preserved my life-my life
is nothing other than care and work for my Volk- but because He gave me the opportunity to
continue bearing these cares and too persevere in my work, as best as I can before my
conscience.

Every German, no matter who he might be, has the duty to oppose these elements
mercilessly, either to arrest them at once or-if they should resist-to gun them down without
further ado. Orders have gone out to all troops. They will execute them in blind faith and in
accordance with the type of obedience which the German Army knows.

I may joyfully greet you once more in particular, my old comrades in arms, since I again
had the privilege to escape a fate that did not mean anything horrible to me, but would have
meant something horrible for the German Volk.

I also regard this as the warning finger of Providence that I must continue my work and,
therefore, I shall continue my work!
957