German politician Hugo Preuss, who was later involved in drafting the constitution, explains his support for Weimar democracy, in an article written November 14th 1918:

“The aims of the present holders of power might he the best and most pure imaginable; yet they cannot escape from the logic of the situation, which is that the attempt to constitute the new State while excluding the bourgeoisie must lead unavoidably, within a short space of time, to Bolshevik terror…

If a democratic political organisation has not been established to secure equal rights for all citizens, then there will be no alternative to violence… Not classes and groups, not parties and estates in hostile isolation, but only the whole German people, represented by a German National Assembly elected by completely democratic elections, can create the German republic. And that must be created quickly if unspeakable misfortune is not to crush completely our poor people.”

The Groener-Ebert pact is explained by Groener, writing in his 1957 autobiography:

“The collapse of the Kaiserreich deprived the officers of the basis of their existence, of their loyalties and sense of direction. They had to be given an aim… a sense of duty had to be awakened in them not only towards a particular political structure but towards Germany as a whole.

The officer corps could, however, only cooperate with a government which took up the fight against radicalism and Bolshevism. Ebert accepted this but was in grave danger of losing control and close to being overrun by the Independents and the Liebknecht group.

In the evening [November 10th] I phoned the Reich Chancellery and told Ebert that the army put itself at the disposal of the government, that in return the Field-Marshal and the officer corps expected the support of the government in the maintenance of order and discipline in the army. The officer corps expected the government to fight against Bolshevism and was ready for the struggle. Ebert accepted my offer of an alliance.

We [the High Command] hoped through our action to gain a share of the power in the new State for the army and the officer corps. If we succeeded, then we would have rescued into the new Germany the best and strongest element of old Prussia, despite the revolution.”

German statesman and foreign minister Gustav Stresemann spoke of the ‘new Germany’ after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in June 1927:

“During the past few years I have led a sometimes hard battle for German foreign policy. I am thus, perhaps, particularly well placed to answer the questions so often raised about Germany’s frame of mind. The attitude abroad concerning our state of mind vacillates among approval, scepticism, criticism, and hostility. Let me identify and discuss with you the leading trends in politics and thought in the new Germany, insofar as they have emerged in the historically short time since the war.

I must begin by saying something about the old Germany. That Germany, too, suffered from superficial judgment, because appearances and reality were not always kept apart in people’s minds. True, it still preserved the spirit of paternalism imparted to it by Frederick William I, but it was a paternalism administered with an iron loyalty and sense of duty to the state and the people. It had officialdom disparaged in other countries as a bureaucracy that knew only one ideal: service to the state. This old Germany was partly defeated in its conflict with the progressive ideas of socialism, for it had given the people nothing that could serve as a successful alternative to socialism.

It was, however, a land of social and political progress far less given to the philosophy of laissez-faire than some other countries with other forms of government. It was a land of barracks, a land of universal military conscription, and a land of strong sympathy for the military; but it was also a land of technology, of chemistry, and in general of the most up-to-date research. The old and the new struggled for control. Whoever writes its history must not merely look at the surface of things but rather look into its depths…

As a result of the World War, this old Germany collapsed. It collapsed in its constitution, in its social order, in its economic structure. Its thinking and feeling changed. No one can say that this transformation is yet complete. It is a process which will continue through generations: But just as haste and restlessness are typical of our present-day life, so change also takes place more rapidly than before. This applies to change in the relationships between nations as it does to change within an individual nation…

Germany’s admission to the League of Nations was not made easy for Germany. The courtesy which most becomes a victor was denied to Germany for a long time. Germany had to assume super-human reparations which the people would never have borne had there not existed an ageless legacy of service to the state. Historians still often see the end of the war as meaning nothing more for Germany than lost territories, lost participation in colonization, and lost assets for the state and individuals. They frequently overlook the most serious loss that Germany suffered. This was, in my view, that the intellectual and professional middle class, which traditionally upheld the idea of service to the state, paid for its total devotion to the state during the war with the total loss of its own wealth, and with its consequent reduction to the level of the proletariat. Its money became worthless when the state, which had issued it, refused to redeem it at face value…

Downtrodden and humiliated, beggars who had once been leaders, these people in their pessimism became the sharpest critics of unjustified attacks from without and of lack of respect for tradition at home. Furthermore, developments after the downfall of the leading class – and here I am speaking not of the nobility or the great landowners, but of the middle classes who saw the fruits of a lifetime of work vanish and who had to start from scratch to earn a bare livelihood – the developments after their downfall led to the convulsion of the whole social structure of the old Germany. Then came a further political shock: the invasion of the Ruhr. Once again the feeling of being pillaged and plundered flared up in intense resistance.

But the idea of an irreconcilable struggle between the old Germany and the new was confronted by the concept of a synthesis of old and new. Nobody in Germany is fighting for the reestablishment of the past. Its weaknesses and faults are obvious. What many do wish to have recognized in the new Germany is respect for what was great and worthy in the old. All events are linked with personalities that become their symbols. For the German people, this synthesis of old and new is embodied in the person of their president. He came as the successor to the first president of the Reich, who rose from the opposition and with great tact, political wisdom, and patriotism, smoothed the road from chaos to order and from order to reconstruction.

In President von Hindenburg, elected by the people, the nation sees a unity which transcends parties and a personality which commands respect, reverence, and affection. Raised in the traditions of the old monarchy he now fulfils his duties to the young republic during the most difficult and trying times. The President of the Reich personifies the idea of national unity. On the occasion of his eightieth birthday which will soon be here, all will join to show that for the overwhelming majority the concept of Germany itself comes before loyalty to political parties and ideologies…

Germany is often reproached with the fact that hundreds of thousands assemble in organizations which keep alive the memory of the war, the spirit of military life at the front, and the like. But I would like to put a question to everyone: Psychologically, could it be otherwise? I was not at the front during the war; but if I had been, it would have been for me the greatest and most moving experience of my life. The devotion of the individual ego to the idea of the state, the risking of one’s life, the straining of all one’s powers – is there any country in the world where those who have shared such experiences do not talk about them with one another? We have no waters of Lethe which can wash away man’s memories or erase the pictures engraved in the mind’s eye.

We read that in France, just as in Germany, the war veterans meet together. When these old comrades call upon Mr Briand for his opinions, is it not a pleasure for him to speak to them and feel himself one of them? I have read the speech given by Mr Briand before the soldiers who fought in the East, in which he said that one of the three happiest moments of his life came when he received the news that the Germans had failed to take Verdun15. Why then should a German be blamed if he counts as one of his happiest moments the time when he heard that the Battle of Tarmenberg had saved German soil from enemy hands?

So when we discuss Germany’s state of mind, let us not be unjust. All the speeches by French statesmen declare that France stands for peace and that she sees peace as the great ideal of all mankind. And yet this France has her Arc de Triomphe and so honours the memory of Napoleon I in a magnificent monument. Why then do people object when we lay wreaths at the monument of Frederick the Great17 and when we honour the patriotism which has defended house and home, wife and child, on the blood-soaked German soil which, more than any other, has been trampled by war? In every country, the memory of the defeats of her would-be conquerors lives on…

We do not want to deceive ourselves by thinking that the world is a paradise. What we do want is the firm hope that the future brings a new era, built on those ideals which have sprung from the blood of battle. Where should this aspiration be stronger than in Europe, and where else in Europe than in those countries which suffered most from the war?”

In 1919, John Maynard Keynes wrote an analysis of the Treaty of Versailles from an economics standpoint. Here he discusses German reparations and Germany’s capacity to meet them:

“A capacity of £38,000 million or even of £35,000 million is not within the limits of reasonable possibility. It is for those who believe that Germany can make an annual payment amounting to hundreds of millions sterling to say in what specific commodities they intend this payment to be made, and in what markets the goods are to be sold. Until they proceed to some degree of detail and are able to produce some tangible argument in favour of their conclusions, they do not deserve to be believed.

I make three provisos [if Germany is to be able to meet her obligations]:

First: if the Allies were to ‘nurse’ the trade and industry of Germany for a period of five or ten years, supplying her with large loans, and with ample shipping, food, and raw materials during that period, building up markets for her, and deliberately applying all their resources and goodwill to making her the greatest industrial nation in Europe, if not in the world, a substantially larger sum could probably be extracted thereafter; for Germany is capable of very great productivity.

Second: I assume that there will be no revolutionary change in the purchasing power of our unit of value. If the value of gold were to sink to a half or a tenth of its present value, the real burden of a payment fixed in terms of gold would be reduced proportionately. If a gold sovereign comes to be worth what a shilling is worth now, then, of course, Germany can pay a larger sum than I have named, measured in gold sovereigns.

Third, I assume that there will be revolutionary change in the yield of nature and material to man’s labour. It is not impossible that the progress of science should bring within our reach methods and devices by which the whole standard of life would be raised immeasurably, and a given volume of products would represent but a portion of the human effort which it represents now. In this case, all standards of ‘capacity’ would be changed everywhere…

In 1870 no man could have predicted Germany’s capacity in 1910. We cannot expect to legislate for a generation or more. The secular changes in man’s economic condition and the liability of human forecast to error are as likely to lead to a mistake in one direction as in another. We cannot as reasonable men do better than base our policy on the evidence we have and adapt it to the five or ten years over which we may suppose ourselves to have some measure of prevision…

The fact that we have no adequate knowledge of Germany’s capacity to pay over a long period of years is no justification (as I have heard some people claim that it is) for the statement that she can pay ten thousand million pounds…

The vast expenditures of the war, the inflation of prices, and the depreciation of currency, leading up to a complete instability of the unit of value, have made us lose all sense of number and magnitude in matters of finance. What we believed to be the limits of possibility have been so enormously exceeded, and those who founded their expectations on the past have been so often wrong, that the man in the street is now prepared to believe anything which is told him with some show of authority, and the larger the figure the more readily he swallows it.”

In this 1938 article, Bruno Heilig, an Austrian journalist, explains his views about how Hitler came to power in Germany:

“Articles and books have been published on the subject of Hitler’s career and Germany’s turning to barbarism. They describe in minute detail the comings and goings of the actors of that tragedy; they reveal secrets about political and diplomatic interviews, about intrigues and conspiracies too. They give you a more or less reliable picture of the characters of the leading persons and entertain you, perhaps, with spicy stories about their private lives.

You get splendidly informed, yet you are not satisfied. The more you have learned about the events the more you are puzzled. There was a country with a fine democratic constitution built on the ideas of liberty and self-government. Its people had been glad to get rid of the Kaiser after the Great War, and had elected in the Weimar National Assembly men whose records and programs offered the best guarantee for a radical extirpation of the hated old Prussian ideas.

Then some crooks, fools and weaklings appeared on the stage of history, and liberty was thrown away, and democracy became rubbish. Hitler attained power under observance of a democratic constitution, the fundamental principle of which was self-government and self-determination of the people. He became Chancellor just in the same way as any of his predecessors: by regular appointment. There was no reason why the people should submit to tyranny against their will. They followed the tyrant voluntarily, many of them jubilant.

How did it happen, how could it happen? Germany was in a state of intoxication. Modernize, modernize at all costs, was the only idea that people could entertain. In 1930 the first signs of a crisis became manifest. Workers stood off by machines met with difficulties when looking for other employment. Industrialists and merchants complained of difficulties in selling their merchandise. The position deteriorated month by month, week by week.

In 1931 the crisis was in full swing. The breakdown of the German banks in the summer of 1931 further proved the truth of the theory of the invariable costs. The industrialists and the merchants were unable to meet debts and interest and therefore the banks bad to stop payment. The government rushed in to help the banks, which got accommodation at the expense of billions of marks drawn from the people’s taxes. Seven million men and women (one-third of the wage-earning people) unemployed, the middle class swept away: that was the position about one year after the climax of prosperity. Progress, conditioned as it was, had rapidly produced the most dreadful poverty.

In the first year of the crisis, the number of Nazi deputies to the Reichstag rose from 8 to 107. A year later this figure was doubled. In the same time, the Communists captured half of the votes of the German Social Democratic Party and the representation of the middle class practically speaking disappeared. In January 1933 Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler (chancellor). He attained power, as I said before, quite legally. All the forms of democracy were observed. It sounds paradoxical but it was in fact absolutely logical.

The inevitable effect of poverty on political developments under popular government is stated in this quotation: “To put political power in the hands of men embittered and degraded by poverty is to tie firebrands to foxes and turn them loose amid the standing corn; it is to put out the eyes of a Samson and to twine his arms around the pillars of national life.” I do not believe that the Germans would have followed Hitler in his hates and revenges if the people had been living under reasonably good social conditions instead of being under the lash of so much unemployment and privation.

True, Adolf Hitler may be the particular German specimen of what Henry George calls the most blatant demagogue. But do you consent to Mussolini, the Latin-speaking tyrant? And what about Norwegian, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian fascists? Similar conditions will be of the same effect everywhere. What happened in Germany will inevitably happen anywhere that similar conditions prevail. In some Continental countries, it has happened already.

The Nazi regime is not Hitler’s lone achievement. Nazidom has grown organically out of a rotten democracy, and the rottenness of that democracy is the natural consequence of unequal economic conditions. Therefore every country is potentially a Fascist country. Germany is but the type of a development which no country can escape except by the establishment of the equal right to the occupation and use of land. Therefore also there can be no lasting peace even after the defeat of Nazism if the present economic structure of the civilized countries remains.”

In June 1932, chancellor Franz von Papen gave a speech where he outlined his views on the German economic crisis:

“The German situation is characterised by the following:

1. A high level of interest, which crushes agriculture and also industry.

2. The burden of taxation, which is so oppressive that it cannot be increased, but has nevertheless been increased, to assure the very existence of the State.

3. External or foreign debt, the service of which becomes ever more difficult by reason of the progressive decline in exports.

4. Unemployment, which is relatively more widespread than in any other country… What is particularly fatal is that an ever-growing number of young people have no possibility and no hope of finding employment and earning their livelihood. Despair and the political radicalization of the youthful section of the population are the consequences of this state of things…

The former reserves of the Reichsbank are exhausted. The reserves in gold and foreign currency of which the Reichsbank can freely dispose are no more than 390 million marks… If in the next few weeks, we are to fulfil our obligations, this will become even more insufficient… The foreign trade of Germany closed in 1931 with a surplus of some 3 billion marks… This favourable balance has led in all countries to protective measures against German imports, with the consequence that the excess of exports rapidly diminished in 1932…

Germany could not by herself arrest this development. No international decision has been taken up to now to arrest this development. The very wise initiative of President Hoover in June 1931 was inspired by the idea of giving the world a respite destined to produce a solution of the most urgent economic problems. This goal, nevertheless, has not been reached. Sufficient account has not been taken of economic reality.”

Hitler’s political agenda, as outlined in a speech to the Reichstag, given in March 1933:

“With this political purification of our public life, the Government of the Reich will undertake a thorough moral purging of the body corporate of the nation. The entire educational system, the theatre, the cinema, literature, the Press, and the wireless – all these will be used as means to this end and valued accordingly. They must all serve for the maintenance of the eternal values present in the essential character of our people. Art will always remain the expression and the reflection of the longings and the realities of an era… It is the task of art to be the expression of this determining spirit of the age. Blood and race will once more become the source of artistic intuition…

Great are the tasks of the national Government in the sphere of economic life. Here all action must be governed by one law: the people do not live for business, and business does not exist for capital. But capital serves business, and business serves the people. In principle, the Government will not protect the economic interests of the German people by the circuitous method of an economic bureaucracy to be organized by the State, but by the utmost furtherance of private initiative and by the recognition of the rights of property…

The salvation of the German farmer must be achieved at all costs… We are aware that the geographic position of Germany, with her lack of raw materials, does not fully allow economic self-sufficiency for the Reich. It cannot be too often emphasized that nothing is further from the thoughts of the government of the Reich than hostility to exporting. We are fully aware that we have need of the connection with the outside world, and that the marketing of German commodities in the world provides a livelihood for many millions of our fellow-countrymen.

Protection of the frontiers of the Reich and thereby of the lives of our people and the existence of our business is now in the hands of the Reichswehr which, in accordance with the terms imposed upon us by the Treaty of Versailles, is to be regarded as the only really disarmed army in the world. In spite of its enforced smallness and entirely insufficient armament, the German people may regard their Reichswehr with proud satisfaction. This little instrument of our national self-defence has come into being under the most difficult conditions. The spirit imbuing it is that of our best military traditions.

The German nation wishes to live in peace with the rest of the world. But it is for this very reason that the Government of the Reich will employ every means to obtain the final removal of the division of the nations of the world into two categories. The keeping open of this wound leads to distrust on the one side and hatred on the other, and thus to a general feeling of insecurity…

The Government of the Reich, which regards Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attaches the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See [the Vatican] and is endeavouring to develop them.

We feel sympathy for our brother nation in Austria in its trouble and distress. In all their doings the Government of the Reich is conscious of the connection between the destiny of all German races. Their attitude toward the other foreign Powers may be gathered from what has already been said. But even in cases where our mutual relations are encumbered with difficulties, we shall endeavour to arrive at a settlement. But in any case, the basis for an understanding can never be the distinction between victor and vanquished.”

A memo outlining Adolf Hitler’s political goals, taken during a meeting on February 3rd 1933 when Hitler met with Reichswehr generals and commanders:

“Goal of all policies: Regaining political power. The whole state must be directed toward this goal (all ministries!)

Domestic policy. Complete reversal of the present domestic political situation in Germany. Refusal to tolerate any attitude contrary to this aim (pacifism!). Those who cannot be converted must be broken. Extermination of Marxism root and branch. Conversion of youth and of the whole people to the idea that only struggle can save us and that everything else must be subordinated to this idea. (Achieved in the millions of the Nazi movement. It will grow.) Training of youth and strengthening of the will to fight by all means. Death penalty for high treason. Tightest authoritarian state leadership. Elimination of the cancer of democracy!

Foreign policy. Struggle against Versailles. Equality of rights in Geneva but useless if people do not have the will to fight. Concern for allies.

The economy! The farmer must be saved! Settlement policy! Further increase of exports useless. The capacity of the world is limited, and there is over-production everywhere. Settlement offers the only possibility of again employing part of the army of unemployed. But time is needed, and radical improvement [is] not to be expected since living space too small for German people.

Building up the armed forces is the most important prerequisite for achieving the goal of regaining political power. Universal military service must be reintroduced. But beforehand the state leadership must ensure that the men subject to military service are not, even before their entry, poisoned by pacifism, Marxism, Bolshevism, or fall victim to this poison after their service.

How should political power be used when it has been gained? Impossible to say at this point. Perhaps fighting for new export possibilities, perhaps – and probably better – the conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanisation. Certain that only through political power and struggle the present economic conditions can be changed. The only things that can take place now – settlement – [are] stopgap measures. Armed forces most important and most socialist institution of the state. They must stay unpolitical and non-partisan. The internal struggle not their affair but that of the Nazi organisations. Differently than in Italy, no fusion of army and SA intended. Most dangerous time is during the reconstruction of the army. It will show whether or not France has statesmen; if so, they will not leave us time but will attack us.”

The following extracts are from the diary of NSDAP propaganda chief, Dr Joseph Goebbels. Here he talks about the NSDAP’s poor showing in the November 1932 Reichstag elections, where it lost rather than gained seats:

December 4th 1932

“General Schleicher has completed his cabinet. Not a single outstanding mind is among them. I give this cabinet at most two months. I speak before the party office holders in Karlshorst. They are again in excellent spirits. The Fuhrer has returned to Berlin. We visit him in the Kaiserhof in the afternoon. He had a consultation with Dr Schacht; he is as always on our side. In Thuringia we again had losses. Nor did we throw ourselves into this operation with full zeal. Strasser, for instance, didn’t speak at all. This defeat comes at a very inopportune time. There must be no more elections in the future in which we lose even a single vote.”

December 5th 1932

“In the Kaiserhof, we have an extensive conference with the Fuhrer. We confer about our attitude toward the Schleicher cabinet. Strasser takes the position that Schleicher has to be tolerated. The Führer has fierce clashes with him. Strasser as always in recent times portrays the situation of the Party in the blackest colours. But even if that were the case, one must not surrender to the resignation of the masses. By accident we learn of the true reason for Strasser’s policy of sabotage: Saturday evening he had a conference with General Schleicher in the course of which the General offered him the post of vice-chancellor. Strasser not only did not rule out this offer but made known his decision to set up his own list of candidates if there are new elections. This is, therefore, a perfidious betrayal of the Führer and the Party. This is not unexpected… Finally, he delivers to the Führer Schleicher’s threat: If we don’t tolerate his cabinet, he would again dissolve the Reichstag…

Meeting of our parliamentary fraction: The Führer speaks very sharply on the spreading addiction to compromise. There can be no question of giving in. It is not about his person, but about the honour and prestige of the Party. Whoever now acts treacherously only proves thereby that he hasn’t understood the greatness of our movement… Only for the time being the dissolution of the Reichstag is to be avoided, if possible, as we do not now have good prospects [in another election].”

On February 1st 1933, the newly appointed Hitler cabinet made the following proclamation to the German people:

“More than fourteen years have passed since that ill-fated day when deluded by promises at home and abroad, the German Volk forgot the most treasured values of our past, the Reich, its honour and its freedom, and thus lost everything.

Since those days of betrayal, the Almighty has withheld his blessing from our Volk. Dissension and hatred broke out among us. Millions of the best German men and women from all walks of life watched in profound distress as the unity of the nation disintegrated and dissolved in a tangle of egotistical political opinions, economic interests and ideological differences.

As so often in our history, the portrait of Germany has been one of heartbreaking disunity since this day of revolution. We did not receive the equality and fraternity promised to us, but we did lose our liberty. For the disintegration of the unity of spirit and will of our Volk internally was followed by the decline of its political standing in the world…

The insane notion of victor and vanquished has destroyed the trust between nations and thereby also the world economy. But the misery of our Volk is dreadful! The misery of millions of unemployed, starving proletarians in industry is being followed by the impoverishment of the entire Mittelstand [middle class] and artisan vocations. If this disintegration also engulfs the German peasants, we will be confronted by a catastrophe of incalculable dimensions. For not only will this mean the end of a Reich, but also of a two-thousand-year-old inheritance of the highest and loftiest values of human culture and civilization.

The signs of disintegration are all around us. With unprecedented will and violence, Communists attempt with insane methods to poison and demoralize the shaken and uprooted Volk… Fourteen years of Marxism have ruined Germany. One year of Bolshevism would destroy Germany. The richest and most beautiful cultural areas of the world would be turned into chaos and a heap of ruins. Even the suffering of the last decade and a half would not compare with the misery of a Europe in whose heart the red flag of destruction had been raised. May the thousands of wounded and countless dead that this internal war has already cost serve as a warning signal against the coming storm…

The situation we have inherited is a terrible one. The task we must fulfil is the most difficult one posed to German statesmen within living memory. But our confidence is unbounded, for we believe in our people and their imperishable values. Peasants, workers, and the middle classes must all join together to provide the building blocks for the new Reich. The national government regards as its first and foremost task to restore the unity of spirit and will of our Volk. It will preserve and defend the foundation upon which the strength of our nation rests. It will extend its firm protection to Christianity as the basis of our moral system, and to the family as the nucleus of our Volk and state.

It will restore to our Volk, beyond the divisions of rank and class, its consciousness of national and political unity and the duties this entails. It will make reverence for our great past and pride in our ancient traditions the foundation for the education of German youth. In this way it will declare a merciless war against spiritual, political, and cultural nihilism. Germany must not and will not sink into anarchistic communism.

In place of turbulent instincts it will again raise national discipline to the guiding principle of our life. In doing so, the government will devote careful attention to those institutions that constitute the true guarantors of the power and strength of our nation…

If Germany is to experience this political and economic revival and conscientiously fulfil its obligations towards other nations, one decisive step is required: overcoming the Communist subversion of Germany. We, the men of this government, feel ourselves responsible to German history for the reconstruction of an orderly body-politic and thus for finally overcoming the insanity of class and class conflict. It is not a single class that we envision, but rather the German Volk, its millions of peasants, bourgeois, and workers, who will either together overcome the problems of these times or succumb to them together. Full of resolve and true to our oath, we are determined – in view of the present Reichstag’s inability to support this work – to entrust this task, to which we are committed, to the German Volk itself.

Reich President Field Marshal von Hindenburg has summoned us with the order to give our nation the opportunity to regain its strength through unity. We therefore now appeal to the German people to take part in this act of reconciliation. The government of the national resurgence wants to work, and it will work. It was not responsible for leading the German nation into ruin for fourteen years, but it wants to lead the nation back to the top. It is determined to make good in four years the damage done in fourteen years. But it cannot make the work of reconstruction dependent upon the approval of those who are to blame for the collapse. The Marxist parties and their fellow travellers have had fourteen years to prove their ability. The result is a heap of rubble.

Now, German people, give us four years, and then pass judgment on us! True to the order of the Field Marshal, let us begin. May almighty God look mercifully upon our work, lead our will on the right path, bless us with insight, and reward us with the trust of our people. For we are not fighting for ourselves, but for Germany!”

Signed, Adolf Hitler, Franz von Papen, Baron von Neurath, Dr. Frick, Count von Krosigk, Dr. Hugenberg, Seldte, Dr. Gürtner, Werner von Blomberg, Eltz von Rübenach, Hermann Goering, Dr. Gereke.