Lot 2A
ADOLF HITLER'S 1929 TYPED AND ANNOTATED DEFENSE AGAINST CHARGES OF TREASON
On March 15, 1929 Adolf Hitler delivered a fiery speech in Munich while soliciting membership for his party and potential votes for the 1930 Reichstag election. He declared, in part: '...As long as there are peoples on this earth, there will be nations against nations and they will be forced to protect their vital rights...One is either the hammer or the anvil. We confess that it is our purpose to prepare the German people again for the role of the hammer. We admit freely and openly that if our movement is victorious, we will be concerned day and night with the question of how to produce the armed forces, which are forbidden us by the peace treaty [Treaty of Versailles]...we consider everyone a scoundrel who does not try day and night to figure out a way to violate this treaty, for we have never recognized this treaty...We confess further that we will dash anyone to pieces who should dare hinder us...Our rights will be protected only when the German Reich [country] is again supported by the point of the German dagger...' Hitler was investigated for treason, and may actually have been arrested on that charge, specifically for his threat made to abrogate the Treaty of Versailles and threats of violence against those who would attempt to block him or the Nazi Party in their mission. These threats were repeated in several other Munich speeches given at about the same time. In preparing for his anticipated trial, Hitler drafted a defense as vitriolic and 'treasonous' as his Munich speeches. Offered here is Hitler's personal draft copy of the defense he intended to deliver on the stand in court, every page filled with corrections, additions, underlining, exclamation marks, and other additions and corrections so that the clearly very angered future dictator would be certain that his position and that of the Nazi Party was crystal clear and that his enemies would be warned of the retribution they would soon face. The 36pp. legal folio document [n.p., n.d. but Munich, likely March-April, 1929] essentially spells out in detail Hitler's view of the purpose of the Nazi Party, his thoughts on the future administration of Germany, his disdain for the Weimar Republic, his nationalism, influence upon the military, racial purity, the annexation of Austria, and much more, ending with again a frantic call for the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles and a national movement for taking revenge upon France. His statement reads in very small part: '...Accusation against Adolf Hitler for high treason...If I comment on the alleged high treason in such detail, it is for two reasons: Point 1. The reasons that are supposed to be the cause of this accusation...have been communicated to me in such an imprecise form that I am [unable] to deal with the points that are supposed to contain the substance of high treason in a detailed and thorough manner. 2. Your statements, taken from the context of a speech, cannot be clarified without relating them to the major goals of a movement that is actually supposed to be struck with this accusation. For I am clear that the purpose of this accusation is not to think up or explain any...alleged high treason, but rather to represent one of the countless attempts to hinder the progress of a movement that is feared to be the stage for the high treason of 1918 [the imposition of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles]. The National Socialist movement is supposed to be struck. That is the meaning of this accusation; for the purpose of deriving the highly slanderous character of a movement from quotations. And this is almost inevitable...The law is also unlikely to reflect the views of the other members or even the thoughts of individual states, as they reflect the wishes of the rulers of the current state...I fear that the penitentiaries throughout the Federal Republic would be too small to house all those Germans who are dissatisfied with the existing conditions, who long for internal change at any price...Indeed, in today's German Empire, all power and all law emanates from the people. If, according to the law of democracy, 51 percent of this entire population were convinced that the current state had to be transformed by force, then, according to democratic law, these 51 percent would be the people...The Social Democratic Party, for example, also attaches great importance to being considered a so-called constitutional movement. Nevertheless, there are quite a few political leaders in their ranks who, both through their past actions and their present statements, can clearly see that this constitutional tendency not only does not suit them, but that, on the contrary, they all continue to hope for a great Marxist revolution and are committed to it. I have not yet heard of a public prosecutor pulling out the documents from the bouquet of Marxist rhetoric to substantiate the claim that the Social Democrats are planning high treason...I will submit to the court an incalculable number of quotations from social democratic speakers, from which the high court...will be able to determine just as easily the true nature of the party of our comrade Minister Severing...the attempt to draw conclusions...from the number of frequently reported statements ...is completely unsuitable for assessing the political will of a political party...Attempts by German government officials to determine the political intentions of a party based on randomly selected stories, newspaper articles, slang, etc., have always been viewed as an expression of one's own poor political conscience and as proof of the self-expressed inadequacy of such accusations...When the socialist-democratic party of Minister Severing was once in opposition to the former state, the party officials described these methods...as political frauds...Only if one acknowledges the fact that I, as its first leader, am solely responsible for the leadership of the National Socialist movement and for determining its actions, can one perhaps conclude from a speech given by me the resulting tendency of the movement. However, if the highest German legal authority acknowledges this view, then I will be pleased to continue to represent before the court, point by point, the orders I issued regarding the nature of the struggle of the National Socialist movement and the implementation of this struggle...The fact is that the present accusation is being brought against me in order to prove the treasonous intent of the National Socialist movement based on the allegedly treasonous character of a speech by me. I therefore begin my remarks with a presentation of the meaning of the National Socialist idea, the goal this idea strives to realize, the instrument it uses to do so, and the path it takes. Since today's state attributes to me the importance of being able to prove the tendency of the entire movement from a speech by me, it will conversely not be able to deny that the orders I have proclaimed for this party...must have at least the same ruling force and thus also validity as is graciously granted to a speech by me...The National Socialist idea as a worldview is based on three fundamental convictions that essentially separate it from the attitude of today: It is anti-international. It sees the deepest values of humanity as determined by blood. It sees in the people that which must be preserved, that which exists, and that which must remain. It sees any development of the people as conditioned by its racial, basic elements. It sees the greatness of a people's future as given by the Racial qualities and the nature and extent of their preservation, improvement, and enhancement. It sees in them alone the foundation of a truly equal equality that can never be achieved through economic processes. It sees in racial quality the only just...for the respective position of a people within the rest of the world...It sees in them, regardless of the vagaries of time or the apparent inadequacy of people...the eternal source of a force that will assert itself again, if not today, then tomorrow, and if not in a particular time...then the day after tomorrow...It sees in racial quality and its superior value the guarantor of the lasting progress of humanity. It sees in internationalism the capitulation of the better to the worse, the degradation of race, and in its wake, the ossification of culture, if not ultimately its destruction. It sees in internationalism the inevitable enemy of human progress...The National Socialist ...places the ability of the individual above the ability of the masses...It rejects the primacy of the masses and therefore replaces it with the primacy of the personality...It rejects, therefore, all those purely constructive forms of our life which, as expressions of mass rule, are at the same time the bearers of low intellectuality, the most limited insight, and the weakest willpower, because a people necessarily requires the leadership of its best minds to survive in this world. But leadership genius and leadership skills are mutually exclusive, at least in the long run. The anti-national socialist idea sees in democracy and its effects the cause of the abolition of all true responsibility, the reason for the absence of any real leadership qualities, the enabling of the rule of the inferior, and thus the beginning of the necessary decline of a people. And the national socialist idea therefore rejects democratic state organization and replaces it with a construction of public life...And the National Socialist idea is anti-nationalist...The National Socialist idea sees in struggle the promoter of all strength, the eliminator of all sick and weak, and thus the purifier of all organisms...It sees in pacifism the expression of a human weakness that is unnatural and, as a consequence, leads not to the satisfaction and happiness of humanity, but rather to its destruction, indeed must lead to it. Humanism, perverted into a rebellion, ultimately leads to the cruel destruction of all...The National Socialist idea teaches that a people of good racial qualities, determined to preserve and represent these in the highest sense, entrusting their leadership, from the smallest to the greatest, to their most capable minds, and relying not on specific philosophical wonders but rather solely on their own strength, cannot be suppressed in the long run. The greatness of the inner quality of a people in its race, in the construction of its public life, as well as in the strength of its instinct for self-preservation, is the key to the greatness of its human life...The National Socialist German Workers' Party serves the practical realization of this world view and the achievement of this goal. It is a political party, based on the world view outlined above, filled with the sole task of bringing about the victory of this world view in our German people...The National Socialist German Workers' Party attempts...to achieve the conquest of political power in Germany. It uses all means, none of which are prohibited by law. It does not use any instrument with the intention or in any way contrary to the law. It demands for itself exclusively the same political rights of enlightenment and propaganda as those which the ruling parties claim and actually exercise...it calls on its supporters to...confront the bloody terror of the supporters of our region's political parties as well as the Communists with courage and to break it with their courage...The National Socialist Party...vigorously combats any political assassination, no matter how small or large. It possesses no armed organization of any military character; on the contrary...Minister Severing knows the weapon of the National Socialist movement very well. It is sharper than a dagger and grenade, sharper than any machine gun, more striking than any force, and more reliable than any military formation...The National Socialist movement conquers the German Reich through the power of its irrefutable theses...Hence the attempt at this new indictment...The National Socialist Party is directed at all Germans without exception. Their victory requires the implementation of its ideas by the entire nation. The National Socialist Party is convinced that, in a purely natural way, through the force of the correctness of its ideas, it will one day oblige the nation to follow them...When today's German officials speak of an imminent National Socialist overthrow of the times, then only their own conscience could have served as a fearful warning to them...As National Socialists, we do not fight against the state...The present state is not fought as a form by us, but mostly by those who give it its evil content. The present state could not even be overthrown in practice, since it exists only as a fiction...[The National Socialist Party] has the right to speak of a new state and a new government. For what we all long for from the bottom of our hearts is...a German order that will one day make the inexhaustible sources of our people's eternal values and strengths flow again and allow the world to see before itself the spectacle of the greatest war of all time...The state itself once...expressly granted soldiers political rights in the name of all citizens It was the party to which Minister Severing belongs that...reduced soldiers to politically disenfranchised helots because they were denied active and political voting rights, and that eligibility in the party...was prohibited...Protecting an army from becoming absorbed in party-political activity is the last hope for internally sick states. Healthy states possess no political movements whose activities would have to be rejected from the outset as unhealthy or hostile to the state...Politics is history in its infancy....[The army is] the ultimate bearer of state policy. But if the army is a factor of the highest political significance in terms of state policy, it cannot disregard those forces and phenomena that ultimately determine a nation's political course...The political leadership can and will determine the development of the armies, but the state of the armies determines at least as often the political leadership and its decisions...the actual cause of the present accusation comes from the Reich Defense Ministry...I have clearly emphasized that the National Socialist Movement has not approached any soldier to induce him to disobey or violate any law. We do not demand that he engage in any kind of political activity contrary to the restrictions imposed by the law in this area. We do not call upon anyone to become a member, whether openly or secretly, of one of our organizations...it is important for the entire German people and, in particular, for the German Army, to know what goals the National Socialist Party is pursuing and what ideas it has...the will to restore the greatness of one's people by all means...are words of lasting significance that no Reich Defense authority could strip of their moral content and justification...we are convinced that, with the full commitment of our ideas and our goals, the army will recognize the necessity of our victory and will support us...Thus, the army becomes a part of the people, with the movement only one body that is the mouthpiece of the people...The National Socialist worldview embodies the very essence of resistance through anti-pacifism...Pacifism introduces into the life of a people a ferment of bigotry, the effects of which are horrific. When this old human vice becomes the political creed of an age, it slowly, through persecution and influence, corrupts people in their most natural way of thinking, uproots them, and ultimately turns them into will-less, subservient creatures to whom self-defense is hateful and the yoke of foreigners seems bearable...This mentality...cannot bear to be called by upright natures what it truly is: cowardly stupidity and stupid cowardice...The National Socialist movement, as an idea and expression, mercilessly declares war on this mentality. It will one day free the nation from the rot of pacifist self-abandonment. The National Socialist movement will plant the spirit of disobedience against foreign oppressors in the hearts of the people today, both on a small scale and on a large scale They will develop the sense of self-preservation into a fanatical passion...The National Socialist movement will transform the entire political education of the nation in the spirit of hero worship and hero recognition...and it will place all expressions of the people's spirit in the service of this fighting power. It will consider and treat all matters of public life from the standpoint of their possible utilization in the struggle for the nation's very existence. It will work calmly and tirelessly toward the day that will free our people from the yoke of present slavery. It will restore to the army what the army is; it will once again incorporate an armed German people into the world...The National Socialist movement champions the idea of the value of equality of peoples...It sees blood as the essential value factor of a nation and, secondarily, underestimates the importance of numbers...The National Socialist movement...estimates the significance and thus also the power of a nation according to its basic racial elements...For us anti-Socialists, the army command is merely an administrative authority. Without political knowledge, there is no prepared policy that leads to the proper use of military weapons. Is that high treason? No!...I actually only have a little to say about the proposed speech of March 15, 1929, on National Socialism and the Wehrmacht...The nature of the party's views on the defense problem is of no concern to anyone other than the movement itself...High treason is not to be derived from the tendency of the speech in question, but from individual quotations torn from the context, such treasonous statements. Using the same method, I would be happy to be able to prove the treasonous tendencies of the countless quotations from the social democrat proceedings in court [Hitler inserts a printed quote from his speech]. Where high treason lies in this statement is beyond me...we rational socialists understand under the term Soul a sum of people who are physically and emotionally equal beings, or who have at least become united over time, so that this can be considered a unified concept in both directions. Then both the state and the armed forces of the state serve only as a means of protecting and preserving the spirit...My position, that a state that no longer has the capacity to maintain a people's existence, that is unable to maintain, strengthen, and beneficially invest its living national forces for the future, can no longer have any idiots, is a matter of incomprehensibility for people of color...Or is it supposed to be treasonous to point out that the Italian army embraced fascism and thus saved Italy? Then that would first of all mean that the Italian army was guilty of treasonous behavior...I repeat here again that the effort to separate the Wehrmacht from politics will only be supported by those powerful parties who want to keep the Wehrmacht an apolitical instrument of their own political economy...If the Freikorps had not been apolitical in 1919, but had consciously pursued national politics, then Germany would not be where it is today...I still stand by the view that the establishment of the German Freikorps in 1918-19 was wrong! I still consider its apolitical position to be disastrous. Until the adoption of the Weimar Constitution by the National Assembly, there was no legal government in Germany that could have invoked anything...the soldiers who shed their blood for Germany back then had no more rights than the deserters and pimps of the revolution. The German people at that time were not embodied by these dregs of the political November Revolution, but by the regiments of the front... the revolution of 1918 was not an uprising of the unified people, but merely an uprising of its shadowy elements...we do know that even in parliamentary decisions, the power of the army is not without significance, and has not been without significance to date...If this movement ceases, we will...strive day and night to create formations whose formation the peace treaty forbids us...We confess falsely that we regard everyone as a scoundrel who does not think day and night how to perforate this treaty. We have never accepted it and will never recognize it...It is downright degrading for a German to have to defend himself against such a sentence for high treason...We will not recognize the Peace Treaty on any account that presents itself to us. However, should fate try to force us to do so again, this agreement will never be legally binding. We will use every opportunity, whether it be through this treaty or through breaking it, with the effect of turning it into the opposite...We will only honor every German if he breaks this trust in order to protect the nation from treason...No schoolbook should be allowed to go into print without fulfilling the urgent task of educating the child to become the future defender of the fatherland. We will tolerate no work that does not continue our education on a large scale...We will do everything we could possibly to prepare our people for the day of reckoning with France, which we will do by breaking all previous treaties and excluding all moral obligations that might appear to arise, because there is one bond that binds us more powerfully than a thousand treaties could ever entail: the duty to restore freedom to our people, to put an end to excessive exploitation and blackmail, so that the German tasks of the German people can once again benefit and the great cultural values of our people can be fulfilled. We too want no war of conquest, no fight for the sake of fighting, no blood and bloodshed. We stand in reverent awe of the horrific misfortune of war, but we know that the greatest misfortune for a people is the loss of its freedom...The Austrian state will one day possess a great vision [the Anschluss], which will be treated with the greatest care and love and with the utmost respect by all...If ardent loyalty to one's own people and the attempt to save them from such destruction could be regarded as high treason in today's republic, then I have certainly been a traitor for many months of my life. I accept that...in the German war today I have only ever been concerned with one thing: the people and the fatherland. This is the reason why I am complaining again today about the people who, in theory and practice, have no fatherland and want to call Germany their home...' Paperclip stain to first page with a small piece of protective brown paper mounted to top corner of verso of last page, last page with some marginal wear but overall in very good condition. Investigations of Hitler's alleged treason would continue for over 20 months until Dec. 24, 1931 when the they were ended without an indictment. By that time, the NSDAP held the second most seats in the Reichstag. Had Hitler indeed been tried, the arrogant defense he prepared for himself here would undoubtedly have backfired, leading to a long jail sentence, or perhaps Hitler's execution.
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