Führer Speeches

By Carolyn Yeager

WHEN IT CAME TO MY ATTENTION that there were differences between my copy of Himmler's speech and the one that Veronica (Kuzniar) Clark used for her book Hitler and Himler Uncensored, I was fortunate to have the cooperation of the translators on both sides in order to do a proper investigation.

It came about this way:

After I posted Carlos Porter's translation of the speech on 7 Feb. 2016, Wilf Heink saw it and wrote to me on the evening of 9 February, telling me that the image of the front page of Himmler's transcribed speech was different from what he had found back in 2011-12 on a roll of NARA microfilm. He wanted to know why, and he attached a copy of the front page of the speech that he had printed out from the microfilm (shown here - click on images for enlarged view).

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Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler

"Tag der Freiheit" (Freedom Day) speech
Posen, Warthegau, 24 October 1943

Translated by Carlos Whitlock Porter
Translation copyright 2016 Carolyn Yeager 
 

INTRODUCTION by Carolyn Yeager

Reichsgau Wartheland, also called Warthegau, was a National Socialist German administrative district formed in 1939 from what had been Polish territory for the past 20 years, granted by the Versailles Treaty following WW1. The name derived from the main river, Warthe; the capital city was Posen. The Gauleiter (Party leader of a Gau or District) of the Warthegau from '39 to '45 was Arthur Greiser.

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Translated by Shoahbloger

Translation of a secret speech for Gauleiters (district leaders of NSDAP) held 2 weeks after the assassination attempt on Hitler by Stauffenberg. Himmler talks about the treacherous and defeatist attitudes activities in the leadership of the Wehrmacht before and during the War,  about the conspiracy to kill Hitler and take power in Germany, and the consequences of the 20th of July. A copy of this speech was deposited by Martin Bormann in the Central Archive of NSDAP and today it is at the Institut for Zeitgeschichte in Munich. It was published in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte in 1953.

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 Continued from Part 1:

Translated by Carlos Whitlock Porter

The Führer is speaking:

But first, of course, it’s not a pretty picture, I admit it. At first, we had all sorts of difficulties, and you can really get some white hair before you’ve put everything back in order again. But I always counted on one thing: the time will come when that will all have been worth it; then you’ll see that this selection process, which has been made one of the hard principles of the party, is correct. And really, that’s the most basic thing: the most decisive. Since today, when we speak of a national community, you can only do so on the condition of suitable leadership and people. 

There are a lot of training courses being given today for officers, in the so-called Ordenburgen [fortresses built by the Teutonic Knights], not just because they’re suited for it but because that gives them an insight into the way we start out with our youth, building up their education. Of course, gentlemen, nothing is perfect. You ought not to forget: we came to power in 1933. The war began in 1939. So we had barely 6 years. During the war, there’s a limit to what we can do to continue building, but there’s no doubt about it: when our people have had 50 years of peace, then we’ll see something: the whole nation will be completely organized, and the leadership of the nation will consist of the best political leadership corps we’ve ever had, carefully selected from the best we’ve got. There’s no doubt about that. 

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INTRODUCTION by Carolyn Yeager

This unrehearsed talk was taken down by stenographers at the time it was given by Adolf Hitler to his top officers. A single typed copy exists in the archives of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich, Germany. To obtain it, a Munich woman familiar with the Institute had to go there in person and request it, then make a copy on the premises, after which she mailed the copied pages to me for a fee. It consists of 70 typed, double-spaced pages, with some words on every page illegible because of fold marks.

I made 3 sets of copies and mailed them to 3 persons, one of which was Carlos Porter, who agreed to translate it--a really hard job considering the length and the poor quality of the original. I asked Carlos to do the translation in a more or less direct fashion, not concerning himself overmuch with the quality of the prose. I wanted the exact idea of what the Fuehrer said and meant. Since I'm not in the business of selling books for a profit,  the ease of readability for the general public is not my first concern. My first concern is a very clear rendition of the ideas Hitler was expressing to his audience.

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National Socialist German Workers Party

Public meeting in the Great Hall of the Hofbräuhaus

Friday 15 August 1920

 Adolf Hitler

~~Why We Are Antisemites~~

Translation from German by Hasso Castrup (Copenhagen, Denmark), January, 2013, exclusively for Carolyn Yeager.net from the original published in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 16. Jahrg., 4. H. (Oct., 1968), pp. 390-420. http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1968_4.pdf   Edited by Carolyn Yeager. English Translation Copyright 2013 Carolyn Yeager - No republication without written permission.

My dear countrymen and women! We are quite used to being generally referred to as monsters. And we are considered particularly monstrous because, in a question that certain gentlemen in Germany are nervous about, we are marching at the head – namely in the question of the opposition to the Jews.