Nuremberg
September 21, 1935
Caution: Adolf Hitler was completely wrong about absolutely everything...usually. When Hitler said something that was actually correct, it was merely to set up the next lie. As with all good propagandists—and he certainly was that—he would begin with a few obvious, documented facts, and then proceed to distort them horribly. At any rate, the infamous German Führer’s worm-tongue rhetoric is NOT to be taken seriously, except as a classic example of the sort of masterful demagoguery from which appropriate lessons may hopefully be learned.As always, read with an abundant degree of cautious skepticism.
German Youth!
For the third time you have assembled for this parade, over 50,000 representatives of a community which is growing larger year by year. The importance of those you represent here each year has constantly increased. Not just in terms of numbers; no, we see it here, in terms of value. When I think back to our first parade and to the second and compare today's parade with those, I see the same development which we can see in all other aspects of German national life today. Our People are becoming visibly more disciplined, fit and trim, and our youth is beginning to follow this lead. The ideal of what a man should be has not always been the same even among our People. There were times - they seem to be long ago and we can scarcely understand them - when the ideal young German was the young fellow who could handle his beer and his liquor. Today, I can say with joy that we no longer idealize the young fellow who can handle his beer and liquor but the young man who can face any weather, the tough young man. For what matters is not merely how many glasses of beer he can drink, but how many blows he can withstand, not how many nights he can spend doing the rounds of the bars and pubs but how many kilometers he can march. Today the German People's ideal is no longer your average beer-drinker but the young men and girls who are fit and trim.
What we want of our German youth is different to what was wanted in the past. In our eyes the German youth of the future must be slim and trim, swift as a greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel. We have to educate a new type of person so that our People are not destroyed by the symptoms of the degeneration of our time.
We do not waste words, we act. We have begun to educate our People in a new school, to provide them with an education which begins in youth and is never-ending. In future a young man will be transferred from one school to the next. Schooling will begin with the child and will end with the old veteran of the movement. No one shall say that for him there is a time when he can be left entirely to his own devices. It is the duty of each of us to serve his People, it is the duty of each of us to prepare himself for this service, to toughen his body and to prepare and strengthen his mind.
And the earlier this preparation begins, the better. In future we shall not waste ten or fifteen years in the German education system and then be forced to correct previous unfortunate mistakes. It is our intention and we have the will to inculcate in the hearts of our young the spirit which we in Greater Germany would like to regard, indeed do regard as the only possible one, the one which we want to see survive into the future and which we shall see survive. This is not merely our wish, this is what we shall accomplish. And you are part of this development, much fitter and much tougher than three years ago. And I know that this will continue to improve in the coming years.
A time is coming when the German People will look at its youth with great joy; we will all enter our mature years free of anxiety and with complete confidence, happy because we are profoundly convinced, we know that our lifelong struggle has not been in vain. Behind us others march on. And their spirit is our spirit. They have our resolve, our toughness, they are true representatives of the life of our race.
We will make ourselves tough enough to withstand any storm. But we shall never forget that all our virtues and all our strength can achieve their combined effect only by obedience to a single will and one command. It is not by chance that we are all standing here now. It was not because each individual did what he wanted. You came here because you were summoned by an order from the Supreme Commander (Reichsjugendführer) of your movement and because this command was echoed in a thousand individual commands. And because each one of these commands was obeyed, an organization has formed from millions of individual young Germans and tens of thousands of your fellow members of this organization in Germany have come here today to form this rally, this parade. Nothing can be achieved unless one will commands which others must always obey, from the highest to the very lowest. And this, together with physical education and the toughening process, is our second great task.
We are a body of followers, but as the word implies, to follow means to show allegiance. We must educate our entire People so that if at any time anywhere one person is destined to command, the others recognize that it is their duty to obey, because the very next hour it may be their turn to give orders, and this they can do only if in turn others obey them. It is the expression of a nation state which speaks with the voice of authority, not of a weak and wordy democracy, but an authoritarian state in which everyone is proud to have the privilege of obeying, because he knows: if I have to give orders, I shall be obeyed in precisely the same way. Germany is not a chicken coop where everyone runs around and cackles and crows. We are a People who from an early age learn discipline. If others do not understand us, this need not be our concern. It has never been the worst things in the world that most people did not understand, quite the contrary.
We have not put our hands in our laps and said: "That's something we simply are incapable of doing; nothing more can be done about it." No: something can be done! And we have done it! And you, my boys and my girls, you are the living proof of the success of what we have done. You are the proof that this idea has taken root in the German Reich and you are the proof that this idea has now been realized. Believe me, there will come a time, when German youths will have wonderfully healthy and radiant faces, healthy, open, honest, brave and peace-loving. We are not a bunch of rowdies. If the rest of the world misinterprets our discipline, we cannot help that. This discipline will cause the world less trouble than the parliamentary democratic chaos of our times! We are following our own path and have no desire to cross anyone else's path. Let the others not bother us on our way. That is the only precondition for our love of peace. Do harm to no one and let no one harm us!
If we in this way map out and put in place the path that the German People will follow in life, I believe that there will gradually develop and grow within other nations an understanding of such decency, and this understanding will induce one or the other of them to offer us their hand as brothers. Let us, however, never forget that friendship is deserved only by the strong and granted only by the strong. And so let us make ourselves strong, that is our watchword. And you have a responsibility to me to see that this wish is fulfilled. You are the future of the nation, the future of the German Reich!
Fuehrer Adolf Hitler <—Yeesh! What a wearying, insufferable bore.
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Hitler and Göring were arguing about the Jews, with Göring stating that they were quite clever people and Hitler vehemently denying they were any such thing. Finally Göring told Hitler that they should go shopping in Berlin and Göring would show Hitler it was true. Hitler agreed, so they disguised themselves and went out on the street.
Göring took Hitler into a shop, went up to the counter, and asked the clerk: "Do you have any left-handed teacups?" The clerk stared at Göring for a moment and then said no, mein herr, I do not.
The two left with Hitler complaining that he did not understand what the point of this was and Göring telling him to be patient. They went to another shop and Göring gave the same act: "Do you have any left-handed teacups?" The clerk stared and shrugged his shoulders.
They left with Hitler becoming incensed over this nonsense and Göring begging for patience. Finally they went into a Jewish shop; Göring again asked the clerk: "Do you have any left-handed teacups?"
The clerk smiled graciously, went into the back room and made a show of rummaging around, brought out a saucer and teacup, set down the saucer, and carefully placed the cup with the handle pointed so Göring could pick it with his left hand. "There you are, mein herr!" the clerk said.
Göring bought the teacup, thanked the clerk, and the two men left. Göring turned to Hitler and said: "See, I told you the Jews were very clever people."
"I don't see what was so clever about that," Hitler snapped. "He just happened to have one in stock!"