Hitler in Salzburg

Posted by Bogumil

A rare, early speech by Adolf Hitler, delivered on 7 August 1920 to the 2nd Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany in Salzburg, Austria

Over 7-8 August 1920, representatives from the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), the German Socialist Party (Deutschsozialistische Partei, DSP), and the Czech, Polish, and Austrian branches of the German National Socialist Workers’ Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, DNSAP) gathered together in Salzburg, Austria for the 2nd Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany. Among the various attendees who met in Salzburg to discuss tactical questions and points of theory was a certain delegate of the NSDAP who, at the time, was still largely unknown outside völkisch circles in Munich: a rabble-rousing young orator and propagandist named Adolf Hitler. Hitler’s appearance at the Salzburg Conference would turn out to be an important moment in the history of his career. The speech he delivered to the assembled representatives made a significant impression upon those present, leading to Hitler’s statements being mentioned in the DNSAP party press and also to the DNSAP leadership extending him an eager invitation (which he accepted) to undertake a speaking tour of Austria in support of the party’s upcoming electoral campaign. There is even a story (possibly a piece of hagiographical propaganda) that, upon the speech’s conclusion, Czechoslovakian DNSAP delegate Rudolf Jung turned to his secretary and declared: “One day he will be our greatest.” Regardless of the veracity of Jung’s reaction, the reaction of the broader National Socialist movement was certainly enthusiastic, and following the conference’s conclusion DNSAP branches across Austria clamored for a visit of their own from Hitler, evidence of a growing international recognition of his talents and of an influence which was beginning to extend beyond the confines of Munich’s beer-halls. Hitler’s speech at Salzburg thus arguably marks the first beginnings of the Führer myth, in which Hitler was to be gradually elevated from the movement’s evangelistic ‘drummer’ to the role of overarching Leader – first of the cross-border National Socialist movement, then ultimately of every member of the German Volk wherever they might reside. The speech was considered significant enough that a transcript of it was preserved by attendees and survives to this day within the German Bundesarchiv in Berlin, although unfortunately it is in terrible condition, barely legible in some areas due to faded type. My translation of Hitler’s Salzburg speech – the only complete translation in English, so far as I’m aware – has been made from historian Eberhard Jäckel’s reconstruction of the transcript. Jäckel put a considerable amount of effort into locating National Socialist newspaper articles and historical works which mentioned the Salzburg Conference, using their quotations from Hitler to reconstruct those portions of the text which are virtually unreadable in the original transcript. Some words were unfortunately still indecipherable (these have been marked [illegible] in my translation), but for the most part the speech is otherwise now available in full. Considering the sorry state of the original transcript, Jäckel’s work deserves commendation – I would not have been able to make a translation of the speech without it.

Speech to the 2nd Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany
By Adolf Hitler
Delivered 7 August 1920 in Salzburg, Austria

NS_Swastika

Dear folk-comrades! [Liebe Volksgenossen und Volksgenossinnen!]

I am almost ashamed that only today, after so many years, has that same movement which began in German-Austria as early as 1904 begun to gain a foothold in the German Reich.¹ And it is tragic that only the great misfortune which has befallen us was able to demonstrate to our Volk that they must above all forsake personal interests, that the class conflict which differentiates only between proletarians and non-proletarians must come to an end, and that ultimately a distinction must someday be made between folk-comrades who produce honestly, and the drones and scoundrels.² (Applause). The collapse had to come first, and it did not occur because seven, eight, or nine Jews made a revolution for us, it came because we were genuinely morally indolent inside, because we had forgotten and forsaken the numerous principles which a Volk must acknowledge if it wishes to achieve self-determination for itself at all. We have enveloped ourselves in class arrogance on the one hand and in class-conscious proletarian conceit on the other, and we have forgotten that there is no difference between physical and intellectual workers, that together we must [illegible] the state or thereby bring it to ruin. We have also forgotten that such a state must possess moral foundations, and that it is lunacy when in such a state, at the very moment in which thousands of folk-comrades are being forcibly bled to death, others are merely giving money to the state at interest and doing nothing but trading with the [illegible]. We have forgotten that it should have been a social and a moral duty – in a situation where thousands of others were making sacrifices for the highest good; where families at home were enduring hardship, sorrow, and poverty; where unscrupulous, sordid fellows were running rampant among this [illegible] Volk and ignoring the fact that a Volk which is not national ultimately pronounces the death sentence upon itself – to keep clear in our minds that there can be only one goal, to be national, or else to perish in the maelstrom of internationalism. (Applause). And we have forgotten a further truth, that a Volk can and should be led only by its folk-comrades. We have forsaken the fundamental law and fundamental truth of [illegible] that only he who is a [illegible]³ can be a citizen of the state, and that it is madness to introduce foreign races into the [illegible] citizenship rights and eventually to entrust to them the entire [illegible] and to place the leadership of the Volk into their hands. As a result, what had to happen happened – we collapsed. And out of that collapse came disillusionment. Then came the pressure of the Entente, which day by day weighs more and more heavily upon the German Volk, and which increasingly sparks the conviction that the provision of relief through small measures, via minor reforms, is no longer productive. The system of the bourgeoisie and the system of the proletariat have outlived themselves, and that is how our party was born. We should not reproach one another, for the same thinking and the same hardship caused the same movement to arise at all ends of the Reich. Naturally we were independent of one another. Hence nobody in Düsseldorf even realized that things were also the same with us, and Munich did not realize that it was also thus in Kiel; and this road to a solution which we have found is proof that our programmes, although they arose independently from one another, ultimately say the same thing. Continue reading →

The Salzburg Conference and the National Socialist Party of the German Volk

Posted by Bogumil

National Socialism across borders: the programme and proceedings of the 2nd Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany, held in Salzburg, Austria over 7-8 August 1920

In 1904 the German Workers’ Party in Austria (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in Österreich, DAPÖ) was founded in Trautenau, Bohemia, by representatives from Austria-Hungary’s various ethnic-German trade-unions and workers’ associations. In May 1918, as part of a general post-War restructuring, the members of the DAPÖ voted to adopt a new name for their organization: the German National Socialist Workers’ Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, DNSAP). When in November 1918 the Treaty of St. Germain awarded the territories of the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia and Austrian Silesia to Poland, the DNSAP consequently found itself divided into three separate national branches; in an effort to keep the party unified and coordinated under these new circumstances, the first ‘Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany’ was held by the DNSAP in December 1919 in Vienna, with delegates attending from party branches across Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The following year the 2nd Inter-State Congress was held in Salzburg, Austria, over 7-8 August, with this meeting in particular proving to be a significant event in the early history of National Socialism. The DNSAP in 1919 had established contact with two nascent political parties in the German Republic: the German Socialist Party (Deutschsozialistische Partei, DSP), most active in northern Germany, and the Munich-based National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP). Although neither group had attended the first Inter-State Congress, both were acknowledged by the DNSAP as National Socialist “brother-parties” and both dispatched formal delegations to the 2nd Congress in Salzburg, where unity was the central topic of conversation. Delegates at Salzburg voted to establish an ‘Inter-State Chancellery’ in Vienna to act as a liaison organization between them, and it was further agreed that the five brother-parties would unite as constituent parts of a single cross-border association, the National Socialist Party of the German Volk (Nationalsozialistischen Partei des deutschen Volkes, NSPDV), in which they would maintain their own programmes and independence while being subordinated to the broader programme of the NSPDV – the eventual aim being formal unification as a single party in a united Greater Germany. To that end, DSP and NSDAP delegates also agreed to divide Germany into respective ‘spheres of influence’ as a prelude to their own unification at the DSP’s upcoming party conference. Although made with great enthusiasm and pursued vigorously by National Socialists in their relations with one another over the next few years, these decisions ultimately proved ineffective. A young and still largely unknown delegate at Salzburg named Adolf Hitler would, through his eventual ascension to the NSDAP leadership, ultimately be their undoing, jettisoning the concepts of consensus-based leadership and merger-as-equals in favor of subordination to the NSDAP and centralized diktat from Munich. The five documents translated below, consisting of articles and reports by National Socialists describing the discussions at Salzburg and the programme of the NSPDV, provide an insight into this early period of ‘inter-state’ National Socialism, when the movement had a more democratic caste and when its leading figures were labor activists from Austria and the Sudetenland, rather than Hitler and his supporters.

The Salzburg Conference in Overview
The Deutsche Arbeiter-Presse of 14 August, 1920.

NS_Swastika

The article below first appeared in the Deutsche Arbeiter-Presse, the central party-organ of the Austrian DNSAP, on 14 August 1920. It provides a thorough synopsis of the events of the Salzburg Conference, its various attendees, and the topics discussed and voted upon by the conference’s delegates, and thus serves as an excellent introductory overview of the conference and of its significance to the early National Socialist movement. Although the article is unsigned, it is nonetheless probable that Dr. Walter Riehl, the chairman of the Austrian DNSAP at the time, was responsible for its authorship – Riehl was also the editor of the Deutsche Arbeiter-Presse and so would have been behind many of the newspaper’s editorials and unsigned pieces. Furthermore, the article was translated from Dr. Alexander Schilling’s biography of Dr. Walter Riehl (Dr. Walter Riehl und die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, 1933), which reproduces a significant number of Riehl’s articles from the course of his long political career. (Schilling, incidentally, was also a longstanding National Socialist, and he attended the Salzburg Conference as a delegate for the DNSAP branch in Bielitz, Poland). The article is particularly notable for its mentions of Hitler, probably the first references to the future Führer within the National Socialist press outside Germany. – Bogumil

The Greater German Representatives’ Conference of all National Socialists in Salzburg.

It cannot be denied that we awaited today’s conference, to which völkisch-socialists from across the Reich were invited for the first time, with great trepidation. To our great joy, to the jubilant enthusiasm of the old National Socialists from the German Sudetenland and of we German-Austrians, the conference not only brought us the reconciliation of two larger groups within the German Reich which had previously stood in opposition to one another (the German Socialist Party – headquartered in Hanover; and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party – headquartered in Munich),¹ but also the long-awaited goal, the merger of our groups and of the new Reich-German groups to form the

National Socialist Party of Greater Germany.²

The conference enjoyed excellent attendance, not only from the German-Austrians, who by exercising their full rights of representation sent 180 representatives from all local groups, including almost every member of the party-leadership – party-chairman and Landtag deputy Dr. Riehl;³ the Salzburg Landtag deputies Prodinger⁴ and Wagner;⁵ Ertl, the chairman of the Trade-Union of German Railwaymen;⁶ Gattermayer, chairman of the Trade-Union Council;⁷ Schulz, vice-chairman of the German Postal Workers’ Union;⁸ Legmann, director of the district DHV;⁹ Heiduk, chairman of the Reich Association of German Working Youth and paymaster of the national party-leadership¹⁰ – but also representatives from abroad. This time, the German National Socialists of Czechoslovakia sent not only our revered theoretician, Prague parliamentary deputy Ing. Rudolf Jung,¹¹ as at previous conferences, but also the first chairman of the National Socialists of Czechoslovakia, deputy Hans Knirsch,¹² editor Dr. Schilling,¹³ and the chairman of the German-Bohemian provincial party-leadership, Galle,¹⁴ as well as Bornemann from Znaim,¹⁵ all of whom were sorely missed at the last conference. For the German Socialist Party (headquartered in Hanover), Ing. Brunner (Düsseldorf)¹⁶ and Dr. Runge (Leipzig)¹⁷ appeared, as well as five other representatives of this tendency, which is located chiefly in the north of Germany. Exceptionally numerous were the delegates from the second group, which has sought its adherents primarily in Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden: the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. This was represented by its first chairman, the metalworker Drexler from Munich, and by its outstanding popular Munich agitator, Adolf Hitler. Altogether the Inter-State Conference was attended by 235 authorized representatives. About a hundred external guests turned out, among them a member of the German National Assembly, National Councillor Geisler from Berlin,¹⁸ and a representative of the Greater German Freedom Party in Berlin,¹⁹ as well as representatives from Reich-German newspapers and from German newspapers in the successor states²⁰ and in German-Austria.

Continue reading →

The Programme of the NSDAP

Posted by Bogumil

Content and context of the 1920 basic programme of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, drafted by Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler

So far, when transcribing or translating material for this blog, my general rule has been to try and focus on texts which aren’t otherwise widely-available or well-known, at least in English. Occasionally, however, there is a need to make exceptions. Over the past couple of years I have been involved in tracking down as many National Socialist political programmes as I can find – it has always interested me that National Socialism was in fact a fairly broad movement, with a number of National Socialist parties actually existing before or alongside the more well-known NSDAP. As a result I’ve made an effort of seeking out and translating the programmes of these various groups, with one of my goals for this blog being that it should serve as a repository for these programmes and manifestos as I come across them. In order for the blog to be as complete a repository as possible, however, this does require that I also host a document which it is otherwise very easy to find online already: the 25-point “basic programme” of the NSDAP. One detriment which I have discovered in the wide availability of the NSDAP party programme, at least, is that many of the available translations seem almost deliberately inaccurate. Point 17 of the programme in particular is frequently translated rather oddly, with the party’s call for the elimination of ground-rent (“Abschaffung des Bodenzinses,” lit. “abolition of land-interest”) often incorrectly rendered as a demand for a ban on “taxes on land.” Anybody who has read Rudolf Jung’s book on NS ideology, which covers the subject of ground-rent fairly extensively, would know that this was not what National Socialists meant when discussing its abolition – they were not calling for an end to taxation on land, but for the elimination of a particular form of unearned income (ground-rent is the rent payable on ‘raw land’ to landholders; National Socialists believed it should devolve to the community, since its value was driven by the community’s “collective work”). My hope is that my translation of the programme, on this point and on others, will at least help clear up some common misunderstandings and inaccuracies. Alongside it, and in order to make this update a little more interesting to those already familiar with the 25 Points, I have included a number of other short, related documents, namely a couple of articles and a letter from the period, as well as two short excerpts from National Socialist publications (one pro-Hitler, one anti-Hitler) from the 1930s, all of which discuss the programme to varying degrees and which should help provide a little historical flavor to how it was received within the movement initially and in retrospect a decade later.

Basic Programme of the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party

The German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP), after its founding on 5 January, 1919, was for many months a party without a programme. A set of ideological Guidelines had been drafted by Anton Drexler and read out at the DAP’s first meeting in the Fürstenfelder Hof, but this short document was regarded by early party members as inadequate, as a simple stopgap outline for the party pending the drafting of a proper, detailed programme. After Adolf Hitler joined the party in October his talents as a propagandist saw him swiftly inducted into the DAP’s leadership committee, and at a party meeting on 16 November the decision was made to set up a commission for drafting a proper programme in which Hitler (alongside Drexler, Karl Harrer, Gottfried Feder, and Dr. Paul Tafel) was to be involved. In actuality the programme which was eventually produced for the party appears to have largely been the work of Hitler and Drexler alone, composed by the two men over several “long nights together in the workers’ canteen at Burghausenerstrasse 6,” as Drexler recalled many years later. Feder is often suggested as a possible co-author, although there appears to be no direct evidence for this beyond the inclusion of some of his theories (of which Hitler and Drexler were already very familiar) within the document’s economic proposals. The new programme was first presented to the public on 24 February, 1920, at a tumultuous meeting of over 2,000 people at the Hofbräuhauskeller tavern in Munich. Hitler’s reading of the programme, point by point, above the yells and heckles of Communists and Social-Democrats dispersed among the crowd, was an event which acquired legendary status within the National Socialist movement over the following years. – Bogumil

The programme of the German Workers’ Party¹ is a programme of its time. Its leaders have no intention, once the aims laid out in the programme have been achieved, of drawing up new ones solely for the purpose of facilitating the continued existence of the party by artificially increasing the discontent of the masses.

1. We demand the union of all Germans, on the basis of the self-determination of peoples, within a Greater Germany.

2. We demand equal rights for the German Volk vis-à-vis other nations, and the revocation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.

3. We demand land and soil (colonies) in order to feed our people and to settle our surplus population.

4. Only he who is a folk-comrade can be a citizen of the state. Only those who are of German blood, regardless of creed, can be a folk-comrade. Accordingly, no Jew can be a folk-comrade.

5. Whoever is not a citizen shall only be able to live in Germany as a guest, and must be subject to legislation relating to foreigners.

6. The right to determine the leadership and laws of the state shall belong to citizens of the state alone. We demand therefore that every public office, no matter of what type, whether in Reich, province, or municipality, may only be held by citizens.

We oppose the corrupting parliamentary custom of filling posts solely according to party considerations and without consideration for character or ability. Continue reading →

Miss Mitford Makes the Case for Hitler

Posted by Bogumil

Unity Mitford argues the case for Anglo-German fellowship and for Hitler – a 1939 article published in London tabloid ‘The Daily Mirror’

Unity_Mitford

The article below, written by famous socialite and Peer’s daughter Unity Valkyrie Mitford, was first published in London tabloid The Daily Mirror in early 1939, only six months before the onset of the Second World War. War-clouds had been growing over Europe for some time when the article was first put into print, which is why Unity wrote it in the first place. An ardent Germanophile and fanatical Hitlerite, there was nothing the young woman dreaded more than the possibility of war between two countries she loved, which is doubtless why she felt compelled to put her feelings into print and to make the case for Hitler and for Anglo-German fellowship in the British tabloids. Admittedly, Unity’s argument is not particularly remarkable. It is essentially a repetition of German foreign policy orthodoxy, and although presented from a supportive, British perspective, there are others who have done the same with a little more panache (William Joyce, aka ‘Lord Haw Haw’, being an obvious example). What makes this piece important, in my opinion, is that it gives us some insight into a person whose voice is not often heard or taken seriously in works on the period. Unity’s typical depiction in popular history or in biographies on the ‘Mitford Sisters’ is as some combination of foppish nitwit and hysterical goosestepping villain. In reality she was beautiful, as quick-witted and funny as any of her siblings, and so naturally charming that she remained the favorite of her communist sister Jessica despite their divergent destinies pulling them into enemy camps. She was also undoubtedly eccentric, loved to shock and offend, and could at times be cruel or unfeeling in her monomaniacal, obsessive loyalty to Hitler and to the Reich government. Unity was, in essence, human, and did not fit the ‘airhead-aristocrat Mata Hari’ caricature which has been draped around her since. The tone and quality of her writing is evidence of this, and serves as something of a contrast to the editorial commentary the Mirror chose to insert alongside it, which I have reproduced in bold along with the full article.

What Miss Mitford Would Like To See
-Unity Mitford

First published in The Daily Mirror, 18 March 1939

WE don’t agree with her. And the Editor asks what you think!

The Daily Mirror opens this page to-day to Unity Mitford. Miss Mitford is a daughter of Lord Redesdale and a personal friend of Hitler. She has been strongly criticised for her pro-German activities and views. Last year she was attacked by a mob in Hyde Park. The “Daily Mirror” has given her a free hand to express her views to-day. Would she get the same freedom for unpopular views in Germany? We say NO!

In 1935 the Naval Pact between Germany and England was signed, limiting Germany’s naval power to 35 per cent, of that of Great Britain.

The pact was an outward and visible sign that Germany never wished to go to war with England again.

And yet, ever since, a ceaseless flood of propaganda has tried to persuade English people that Nazi Germany intends to attack England. What is the truth about Germany’s intentions towards England?

***

Hitler has often been called a dreamer. He was called a dreamer by his enemies in Germany before he came to power, who laughed at him and said that his dreams could never come true.

What they did not realise was that, as well as being a dreamer, Hitler was a realist, and that he only dreamed dreams whose fulfilment he knew to be possible, taking into account his genius for achieving the apparently impossible. Continue reading →