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Background: Goebbels gave a speech every year on the eve of Hitler's
birthday. The 1942 speech came at a time when the early victories were
past, but the great defeats were yet to come. Goebbels knew that the war
could now be lost. Good treatments of the development of the Hitler myth
are provided by Bramsted and Kershaw.
The source: "Führergeburtstag 1942," Das eherne
Herz (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1943), pp. 286-294.
Our Hitler
Goebbels' 1942 Speech
on Hitler's Birthday
The film "The Great King" is playing in the movie
theaters of the Reich. It treats the hard trials and historical
challenges that Frederick the Great endured during the critical
phase of the Seven Years War, before he led his army to final
victory over his enemies. The film takes the unique figure of
this great Prussian king off his pedestal and removes the anecdotal
incrustations in order to show us how things really were and
what really happened. The film avoids the usual portrayal of
the attributes of this historical figure, instead giving us a
personal and human picture of a unique statesman and military
genius. As curious as it may sound, today he seems to us even
greater in his defeats than in his victories.
Shallow popular accounts of the great Prussian king sometimes
make it seem as if he dealt easily with the difficulties and
problems of warfare. In this film, however, we see a struggling
titan with a deep heart who endured for seven years an inferno
of sorrow, pain of every conceivable physical and spiritual nature,
the deepest human disappointments and the hardest tests. He was
alone, deserted, almost toothless, the wreck of a man plagued
with gout. Then came the day when Berlin jubilantly received
its returning king. He sat in tears in the Charlottenburg Palace
chapel after an almost inconceivable release from the nameless
miseries and anxieties he had faced as the thundering tones of
Grauns' "Te deum" resounded from the organ.
It is clear that such a portrayal of the life and struggles
of our greatest Prussian-German king is somewhat risky, even
if it is more historically accurate and more educational for
our day. It is more pleasant to present historical persons and
events in a way pleasing to the average person, Nothing is easier
to believe than that the great victories in history were the
result of military and political superiority, that the goddess
of war ever smiles, even to think that presenting an occasional
danger or threat defames the reputation of historical personages.
This film presents history from a different standpoint. It
shows the human side of a true genius as a way of emphasizing
his superhuman attributes. The greatness of this historic figures
grows not from themselves, but rather from the weight of fate they
bear. The physical suffering, the spiritual burdens and the temptations
of the heart allow the character of a great man to stand out
more vividly, they mark his outline more clearly. The film shows
why Frederick II earned the right, uniquely, to bear the name
"Great." Despite the numbing blows of fate that often
drove him to the edge of the abyss, he found the strength to
rise triumphant above the trials and defeats. He set a shining
example of steadfastness in misfortune to his people, his soldiers,
his doubting generals, wavering ministers, conspiring relatives
and protesting civil servants.
This film proves the sound political and historical instincts of our
people. It makes no compromises, presenting unadulterated historical truth.
It is not the usual historical romance. Despite what one might expect,
the broad masses have taken it as a wakeup call, making it into a success
with hardly a precedent in the history of German film. No one fails to
be moved deeply by this film. The parallels to the present, the words
that great king speaks, the spiritual crises that he and his people overcome
through battle and passion, sometimes seem so striking that the makers
of this film felt obliged to remark that it was planned not just before
Christmas for educational purposes, but rather in the early summer of
1940, with no idea of today's duties and challenges. The contemporary
significance of the words and the resemblance of many events to those
of today is not the result of conscious propaganda, but rather of deep
historical laws.
That is the truth. Each century has its historical mission.
They do not repeat themselves, indeed are so bound to their era
that posterity can hardly bring more than historical understanding
for the political problems of past epochs. What remains is the
ways in which history is made, the style and manner of expression
that a statesman or military genius uses, the resistance that
raises him far above his era, above all the superhuman strength
with which he meets the challenge. How can the fact that Frederick
defeated the Austrians be relevant to our day? His value for
the present generation is in the worth of his personality, in
the powerful strength of his historical genius, in his faith
that moved mountains, in his steadfastness in misfortune, in
the completeness with which he fulfilled his secular mission
and in the heroic isolation with which he bore the dark shadows
of his fate. He was the one who said that he who wants to transform
the world cannot at the same time enjoy it.
We are living in a time that is being transformed, one that
therefore cannot be enjoyed. As perhaps never before in history,
the fate of our people is in the hands of a single generation.
Its desire for life, for self-assertion must decide whether we
are at the beginning of new and unprecedented age for our people,
or whether we perhaps stand at the end of our history. Such moments
in the rise and fall of nations always exert a powerful magic
on brave and manly people. They see in the dangers and burdens
a change to prove their mettle, which they know they must do
if they are not to be weighed in the balance of fate and found
wanting. The path to victory leads ever through the depths of
danger and historical testing. A people must withstand many trials
during a war. It must be armed against the tricks of a fickle
fate that likes to subject its favorites to hard and bitter testing,
until it finally wears the wreath of victory on its brow.
A generation blessed with a great personality in such dangerous
times is to be envied. In the course of this war people have
found all sorts of causes that might bring victory. Some thought
of greater economic and military resources, or a higher population,
or a better geographical position, or the famed bravery of soldiers
or tough civilian morale. One pitted system against system and
world view against world view, seeking whose chances of success
were better. We believe, however, that victory will fall to the
side with the better leadership, as it always has. Leadership
is crucial. If it also has the better material resources at its
command, no power in the world can keep victory from it.
We have come through a winter whose hardness and length have
no equal in human history. It posed challenges to our leaders,
to the front and to the homeland that we only now realize. Later
generations of historians will write the accounts of this most
moving chapter of the great battle. No one among us can doubt
the almost legendary heroism German soldiers demonstrated. If
ever our people have shown that we are not only able along with
our allies to assume the leading role on our continent, but that
we have a historical right to do so, it was here. The German
people proved its merit this past winter. A nation that survives
such a test is destined for victory.
How often in these last hard weeks and months the German people
looked in spirit to the Führer. Never has the whole nation
felt so bound to him as in these hard times, which have spared
no one. We felt as if we had to see him, be it only in a photograph,
to gain the strength each needs to overcome the difficult daily
tasks we all face. Each of us has felt obligated to him! Each
word that he spoke to the nation was for every man woman and
child, for every solder, worker and farmer an order! All were
with him, without many words and without being told! The whole
nation lived in the unspoken assurance that while we were dealing
with our lesser or greater troubles, he was fighting his gigantic
battle in the East. He planned until late into the night, weighing
and risking, standing watch at his headquarters. From there his
will flowed to the most distant part of the battle field, filling
even the last soldier in the most embattled unit.
The power of his personality is felt nowhere more powerfully than at
the front. A soldier must feel led, else he cannot endure the daily risk
of life. When does he need that more than in those hours when he must
risk his life for that of the nation, far from his commander, following
the leading of duty and conscience. This is where the value of a great
and powerful personality is proven, that which as Goethe says is the highest
blessing among mankind. The confidence that there is one who stand above
all, who knows all and weighs all, who knows the sorrow and pain of his
people even without daily contact, who feels each individual loss that
touches a mother, a women, or children, yet still is able to summon the
strength to advance the greater national life of his people — this
confidence lets one endure all the sacrifices and burdens of the day more
easily.
Nothing is harder than to accept the responsibility for the
future of a great nation. It requires not only courage, the readiness
to risk all, bravery of soul and steadfastness of the heart,
but above all renunciation. From this renunciation grows the
historical personality able to endure the lonely heights at which
the sole duty is to serve the cause.
This is how the German people saw the Führer in the past
winter. Surrounded by his aides, politicians and generals, surrounded
by the love of countless millions of people, and yet in the end
relying on himself, carrying the heavy burden of responsibility
on his shoulders alone, fighting for the life and fate of his
people. No matter how high we may climb, whatever the burdens
we may carry, each of us has at least one who is still above
him, on whom we may rely, whom we may obey, because he leads
and orders, because he takes the heaviest weight from us when
it grows too great for us, who fills us with new strength when
we lose courage, begin to doubt, or tire. He reminds us of the
great lessons of our time, of our world view, and gives us new
life. Whether we have the great fortune who work in his vicinity
or even with him personally, or whether we are called to fight
for him as unknown soldiers, workers or farmers, we all feel
a strength that supports and sustains us. We feel ourselves safe
in the protection of a man who has changed our century. We need
only follow. His task is to show the way. He stands alone, waging
a titanic battle with fate for the life of our people.
On the eve of his 53rd birthday, the whole nation gathers
around the loudspeaker. It is far more than a festive event.
It confirms what all Germans sense and feel, indeed more deeply
and with greater obligation than ever before. In some sense it
is a renewal of our loyalty and faith, proven already a million
fold through deeds, through uncounted sacrifices, at the risk
of body and life, in a multitude of bitter deaths. It does not
need words.
If ever the German people has felt united in thought and will,
then it is in this: to serve him and to obey his commands. The
sounds of heroic and titanic music streaming from every German
heart raises our confession to a solemn and holy height. When
we finish our celebration, the voices of men and the sounds of
instruments will join in the great conclusion to the Ninth Symphony.
As the powerful Ode to Joy sounds and a sense of the greatness
and scope of these times reaches even to the most remote German
hut, as its sounds reach to distant countries where German forces
stand watch, each of us, man or woman, child or soldier, farmer
or worker or civil servant will know both the seriousness of
the hour and the joy of being a witness and a participant in
this great historical epoch of our people.
We call the eternal power that rules over us the Almighty or God or Fate
or the Good Father, he who as the Ninth Symphony says, lives beyond the
stars. We ask the Almighty to preserve the Führer, to give him strength
and blessing, to favor his work, to increase our faith, to make our hearts
steadfast and our souls strong, to give our people victory after its battles
and sacrifices, to bring the times to fulfillment.
There is no greater good fortune on earth than to serve a
brilliant leader, to do his work. May we do that each day. The
difficulty of our day is also its greatness. We would change
places with on one.
In gratitude and loyalty, we send the Führer our greetings.
An unbreakable band unites the front and the homeland. Germans
throughout the world are united in the fervent wish that we bring
each year on the eve of his birthday:
May he remain to us what he was and is:
Our Hitler!
[Page copyright © 1998 by Randall Bytwerk. No unauthorized reproduction. My email address is available on the FAQ page.]
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