by Joseph Goebbels
We Germans are not the only ones in the sixth year of war. One may assume that the problems the war’s long duration have given us also affect the other combatant nations. Each warring nation is naturally eager to conceal this from the eyes of the enemy and present a facade that does not accurately reflect the true situation. The war is having the same effects on all participating nations, but one can see those effects faster and more clearly in one’s own country than in the enemy’s. As we always say, the other side is no better than we are. The German people loves the truth, indeed is fanatic about it. It therefore finds it hard to understand that in war everyone must play by the same rules to have a chance at success. Recently the U.S. military leadership admitted the loss of a 20,000 ton troop ship two years ago. That would not be possible with us. The German people would not accept such silence on the part of its leadership. It wants to know exactly how things stand, sometimes forgetting that what is told to it is also told to the enemy. One can argue about which way in the long run is the most successful, but it is clear that our enemy knows how to stay silent better than we do, and that we as a result are inclined to think their situation is better than it in fact is.
As a result we must occasionally consider the war’s broad picture, not forgetting that it is likely that things are concealed from us by the enemy’s greater secretiveness. The fact that the enemy conceals his calamities from us does not mean they do not exist. They exist nonetheless and influence the overall state of the war, even if we do not know it. The extent of total Soviet losses, which can be estimated at about 15 million, certainly has consequences for the Bolshevist military potential. If the Red Army continues to attack nonetheless, it does not mean that Soviet reserves are inexhaustible, but rather that the Kremlin is using everything it has to defeat us as quickly as possible in the hopes that it can carry out its planned extermination of the German people with what remains of its armed strength. That is also true to a certain extent of the Western enemy. The resources of the military leadership grow steadily smaller because of the long duration of this gigantic war, and it is probably true that in the end the last regiment will decide the last battle.
The fact that we are still firmly on our feet and show not the least sign of collapse is sufficient proof that our enemies cannot do what they want, that they suffer from internal problems, and that they make such terrible threats only to keep us from noticing that. It is well known that at the point during the First World War when the German leadership thought the situation was hopeless and prepared the Reich for capitulation, the British military leadership told its government clearly that England’s losses on the Western Front were so great that it was necessary to seek an agreement with Germany to end the war. If the leadership of the Reich had known that, it would have undoubtedly made a different decision than the one it blindly made.
The reasons for its uncertainty and weakness would have been insignificant a few months later, not to mention today. In the end, one cannot deal with a national crisis of this magnitude by reducing the fat and bread rations, important as solving the crisis may seem at the time. The German leadership had not known that a large part of the French army mutinied in 1917, and that a single energetic German blow would have been enough to break through and perhaps force a decision to our advantage. France then saved itself by silence. Who can be sure than England, for example, is not doing the same today? Its government has already admitted that in the course of this war various things have happened that we did not realize at the time. One can therefore draw the conclusion that we learn little about the enemy’s real difficulties during a war, and that one can assume that at any given time things are happening, even if they are not publicly discussed.
We must behave accordingly. We are in the midst of war, one in which we are defending our very existence. Everything we do must take that into account. It is irrelevant whether or not that agrees with the fanaticism for objectivism on the part of some confused minds. The war is a deadly serious matter , not only at the moment, but also in terms of its future consequences. Our enemy is attacking us with all their resources, and we have to use all our resources in defense. The difficulties that may cause us are of secondary importance in comparison to what is at stake. The war is equally hard on all participating nations and people. We cannot postpone its burdens to some other day, even if they sometimes descend upon us with devastating force. The marathon runner cannot stop running at the 35th kilometer because he fears that his lungs will fail and say that he will finish the race the next day. He must either keep running even if he fears his heart will fail, or else give up. The time to make history is short, and he who does not use the opportunity fails. The burdens of such a time certainly may seem unbearable, but those burdens decide which nation is called to victory and which is damned to defeat.
One should never think that our enemies have it better than we do. First, one cannot know that for sure, and second, a range of signs point to exactly the opposite. The Soviet losses, for example, are enormously greater than ours, yet they continue to attack. England has had to sacrifice the wealth it has gained over the centuries, and shows no sign of giving up now. We have no choice but to carry on the war, however bitter it may be, if we do not want to risk having made all our previous sacrifices in vain. And one cannot say that those on top have it good, since they take on all the burdens of the people. Their sons fall at the front as do the other sons of our people, and the leadership carries a responsibility that would break lesser men. It is not true that the war’s burdens are distributed unequally. The life of our whole people is at risk and we must defend it with our entire national strength. This is no war of the army and no war of the party, but rather a holy people’s war.
We are living through the greatest crisis of occidental humanity. The crisis has been caused by the Western-democratic-plutocratic world and is carried on today by them despite the fact that they themselves are the prime sufferers of the alarming events. No one can say that the Führer did not make every attempt to find a peaceful way out, because he knew from the beginning the terrible consequences that war would have. The Western camp hindered his efforts, and today is paying a huge cost for its stubbornness. England is already complaining about the loss of all the wealth it built during the Victorian era, and who knows what a devastating position it will be in when this gigantic struggle ends. But what good does this knowledge and these predictions do us when the enemy leadership holds stubbornly to its decision to carry on the war at any price, with the goal of destroying Germany and exterminating the German people. We must therefore fight with all our strength, even if all of Europe has to suffer gravely as a result. It is not our fault, but rather it is the fault of the British who are running amuck. Their only war aim is a sick desire for revenge on Germany. They will never live to see their pathological desires fulfilled , but they will see their Empire destroyed and the British people fall from the proud heights of their former power and prestige. Germany is and will remain the fulcrum of all the world’s conflicts, and how important it is and how far its influence reaches will become suddenly and drastically clear when this war ends. It all hangs on our ability to keep going and not do our enemies the favor of stopping before we have finished.
Especially since the last summer, we see the war in an entirely different light. Until then we saw it only from the military perspective, but we have gotten more and more used to seeing it as a world crisis that today is seen primarily from the military aspect. The war has called into question every part of our life and every aspect of international relations that existed before the war began. This war will leave no one in the same inner or outer condition in which he entered it. One may regret that, but there is nothing one can do about it. Not only the buildings of our cities and the cathedrals and cultural monuments of Europe are falling into ruins, but also a whole world. Some love that world, others think it damned. The world of bourgeois egotism and super-individualism has proven itself sterile and incapable of effectively and fruitfully organizing the life of a people. With its passing bourgeois phraseology also fails, the art of saying little or nothing in many words and of concealing the real problems of the peoples through a series of stupid conferences.
Since 1933, the German nation has attempted to build a new and better world in peaceful ways. Its enemies from the bourgeois-plutocratic world did not want that, and did not shrink at the decisive hour from calling on world Bolshevism for help its attempt to strangle the founding of our people’s new community. One has only to ask two questions. Where would the peoples of Europe be today if they had imitated the German effort to solve the problems of the twentieth century? And what is their situation today, having fought a bloody war against Germany, and what crimes against humanity have they committed? The enemy nations of Europe under diabolic leadership have in fact transformed heaven into hell.
Still, nothing has yet been lost that cannot be restored. The plutocratic leaders can hardly believe that it will be possible to deceive the people about the extent of their sacrifice as they did after the First World War. Unfortunately, Germany has not been able to carry out a peaceful exchange of ideas and goods. Today, it faces the historical necessity of a defensive war. The decision of our enemies to attack us with weapons brought the latent crisis that followed the First World War into the open, and it must now not only be faced, but mastered. The German people has its own historical mission to fulfill. Whether or not the other nations want to admit it does not change the fact that we Germans today are the pathfinders for a new civilization of the nations, and also of a better and nobler humanity. For us, this war will result in a people’s state of the purest nature. It will include all levels and classes, a home for the strong as well as the weak, an object of pride for the whole world. It will rise like a phoenix from the ashes that this war has covered Europe with. One can only smile at the English dreams of teaching the German people after the war. The first attempt would make it clear to them that they had nothing to give, but everything to take. The new and better order has its core in the Reich, and the German people are its bearers and guardians. The flames of our burning cities are torches lighting the way to the goal.
This war is far more to us than a military drama of shattering tragedy. It is a crisis of humanity, and the only nation that will master it is the one sure of its cause, the one that knows exactly what it wants, but also wants exactly what it knows. The war leads therefore like a judgment of God and looks past everything to a higher historical Providence that has called Germany to suffer much in order to become much, to bear much to learn much, and above all to want much in order to be able to do great things.
The Creators of the World’s Misfortunes
by Joseph Goebbels
One could not understand this war if one did not always keep in mind the fact that International Jewry stands behind all the unnatural forces that our united enemies use to attempt to deceive the world and keep humanity in the dark. It is, so to speak, the mortar that holds the enemy coalition firmly together, despite its differences of class, ideology, and interests. Capitalism and Bolshevism have the same Jewish roots, two branches of the same tree that in the end bear the same fruit. International Jewry uses both in its own way to suppress the nations and keep them in its service. How deep its influence on public opinion is in all the enemy countries and many neutral nations is plain to see that it may never be mentioned in newspapers, speeches, and radio broadcasts. There is a law in the Soviet Union that punishes anti-Semitism — or in plain English, public education about the Jewish Question — by death. The expert in these matters is in no way surprised that a leading spokesman for the Kremlin said over the New Year that the Soviet Union would not rest until this law was valid throughout the world. In other words, the enemy clearly says that its goal in this war is to put the total domination of Jewry over the nations of the earth under legal protection, and to threaten even a discussion of this shameful attempt with the death penalty.
It is little different in the plutocratic nations. There the struggle against the impudent usurpation of the Jewish race is not punished by the executioner, but rather by death through economic and social boycott and by intellectual terror. This has the same effect in the end. Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt were made by Jewry. They enjoy its full support and reward it with their full protection. They present themselves in their speeches as upright men of civil courage, yet one never hears even a word against the Jews, even though there is growing hatred among their people as a result of this war, a hatred that is fully justified. Jewry is a taboo theme in the enemy countries. It stands outside every legal boundary and thus becomes the tyrant of its host peoples. While enemy soldiers fight, bleed, and die at the front, the Jews make money from their sacrifice on the stock exchanges and black markets. If a brave man dares to step forward and accuse the Jews of their crimes, he will be mocked and spat on by their press, chased from his job or otherwise impoverished, and be brought into public contempt. Even that is apparently not enough for the Jews. They want to bring Soviet conditions to the whole world, giving Jewry absolute power and freedom from prosecution. He who objects or even debates the matter gets a bullet in the back of his head or an axe through his neck. There is no worse tyranny than this. This is the epitome of the public and secret disgrace that Jewry inflicts on the nations that deserve freedom.
That is all long behind us. Yet it still threatens us in the distance. We have, it is true, entirely broken the power of the Jews in the Reich, but they have not given up. They did not rest until they had mobilized the whole world against us. Since they could no longer conquer Germany from within, they want to try it from without. Every Russian, English, and American soldier is a mercenary of this world conspiracy of a parasitic race. Given the current state of the war, who could still believe that they are fighting and dying at the front for the national interests of their countries! The nations want a decent peace, but the Jews are against it. They know that the end of the war would mean the dawning humanity’s knowledge of the unhealthy role that International Jewry played in preparing for and carrying out this war. They fear being unmasked, which has in fact become unavoidable and must inevitably come, just as the day follows the night. That explains their raging bursts of hatred against us, which are only the result of their fear and their feelings of inferiority. They are too eager, and that makes them suspicious. International Jewry will not succeed in turning this war to its advantage. Things are already too far along. The hour will come in which all the peoples of the earth will awake, and the Jews will be the victims. Here, too, things can only go so far.
It is an old, often-used method of International Jewry to discredit education and knowledge about its corrupting nature and drives, thereby depending on the weaknesses of those people who easily confuse cause with effect. The Jews are also masters at manipulating public opinion, which they dominate through their network of news agencies and press concerns that reaches throughout the world. The pitiful illusion of a free press is one of the methods they use to stupefy the publics of enemy lands. If the enemy press is as free as it pretends to be, let it take an open position, for or against, on the Jewish Question. It will not do that because it cannot and may not do so. The Jews love to mock and criticize everything except themselves, although everyone knows that they are most in need of public criticism. This is where the so-called freedom of the press in enemy countries ends. Newspapers, parliaments, statesmen, and church leaders must be silent here. Crimes and vices, filth and corruption are covered by the blanket of love. The Jews have total control of public opinion in enemy countries, and he who has that is also master of all of public life. Only the nations that have to accept such a condition are to be pitied. The Jews mislead them into believing that the German nation is backward. Our alleged backwardness is actually proof of our progress. We have recognized the Jews as a national and international danger, and from this knowledge have drawn compelling conclusions. This German knowledge will become the knowledge of the world at the end of this war. We think it our primary duty to do everything in our power to make that happen.
Humanity would sink into eternal darkness, it would fall into a dull and primitive state, were the Jews to win this war. They are the incarnation of that destructive force that in these terrible years has guided the enemy war leadership in a fight against all that we see as noble, beautiful, and worth keeping. For that reason alone the Jews hate us. They despise our culture and learning, which they perceive as towering over their nomadic worldview. They fear our economic and social standards, which leave no room for their parasitic drives. They are the enemy of our domestic order, which has excluded their anarchistic tendencies. Germany is the first nation in the world that is entirely free of the Jews. That is the prime cause of its political and economic balance. Since their expulsion from the German national body has made it impossible for them to shake this balance from within, they lead the nations they have deceived in battle against us from without. It is fine with them, in fact it is part of their plan, that Europe in the process will lose a large part of its cultural values. The Jews had no part in their creation. They do not understand them. A deep racial instinct tells them that since these heights of human creative activity are forever beyond their reach, they must attack them today with hatred. The day is not distant when the nations of Europe, yes, even those of the whole world, will shout: The Jews are guilty for all our misfortunes! They must be called to account, and soon and thoroughly!
International Jewry is ready with its alibi. Just as during the great reckoning in Germany, they will attempt to look innocent and say that one needs a scapegoat, and they are it. But that will no longer help them, just as it did not help them during the National Socialist revolution, The proof of their historical guilt, in details large and small, is so plain that it can no longer be denied even with the most clever lies and hypocrisy.
Who is it that drives the Russians, the English, and the Americans into battle and sacrifices huge numbers of human lives in a hopeless struggle against the German people? The Jews! Their newspapers and radio broadcasts spread the songs of war while the nations they have deceived are led to the slaughter. Who is it that invents new plans of hatred and destruction against us every day, making this war into a dreadful case of self-mutilation and self-destruction of European life and its economy, education and culture? The Jews! Who devised the unnatural marriage between England and the USA on one side and Bolshevism on the other, building it up and jealously ensuring its continuance? Who covers the most perverse political situations with cynical hypocrisy from a trembling fear that a new way could lead the nations to realize the true causes of this terrible human catastrophe? The Jews, only the Jews! They are named Morgenthau and Lehmann and stand behind Roosevelt as a so-called brain trust. They are named Mechett and Sasoon and serve as Churchill’s moneybags and order givers. They are named Kaganovitsch and Ehrenburg and are Stalin’s pacesetters and intellectual spokesmen. Wherever you look, you see Jews. They march as political commissars behind the Red army and organize murder and terror in the areas conquered by the Soviets. They sit behind the lines in Paris and Brussels, Rome and Athens, and fashion their reins from the skin of the unhappy nations that have fallen under their power.
That is the truth. It can no longer be denied, particularly since in their drunken joy of power and victory the Jews have forgotten their ordinarily so carefully maintained reserve and now stand in the spotlight of public opinion. They no longer bother, apparently believing that it is no longer necessary, that their hour has come. And this is their mistake, which they always make when think themselves near their great goal of anonymous world domination. Throughout the history of the nations, whenever this tragic situation developed, a good providence saw to it that the Jews themselves became the gravediggers of their own hopes. They did not destroy the healthy peoples, but rather the sting of their parasitic effects brought the realization of the looming danger to the forefront and led to the greatest sacrifices to overcome it. At a certain point, they become that power that always wants evil but creates good. It will be that way this time, too.
The fact that the German nation was the first on earth to recognize this danger and expel it from its organism is proof of its healthy instincts. It therefore became the leader of a world struggle whose results will determine the fate and the future of International Jewry. We view with complete calm the wild Old Testament tirades of hatred and revenge of Jews throughout the world against us. They are only proof that we are on the right path. They cannot unsettle us. We gaze on them with sovereign contempt and remember that these outbursts of hate and revenge were everyday events for us in Germany until that fateful day for International Jewry, 30 January 1933, when the world revolution against the Jews that threatened them not only Germany, but all the other nations, began.
It will not cease before it has reached its goal. The truth cannot be stopped by lies or force. It will get through. The Jews will meet their Cannae at the end of this war. Not Europe, but rather they will lose. They may laugh at this prophecy today, but they have laughed so often in the past, and almost as often they stopped laughing sooner or later. Not only do we know precisely what we want, we also know precisely what we do not want. The deceived nations of the Earth may still lack the knowledge they need, but we will bring it to them. How will the Jews stop that in the long run? They believe their power rests on sure foundations, but it stands on feet of clay. One hard blow and it will collapse, burying the creators of the misfortunes of the world in its ruins.
Background: Here Goebbels takes on the role of prophet, imaging the world two generations after German victory. The war was nearing its end, but Goebbels seeks to persuade his fellow citizens that victory is still possible.Goebbels uses the phrase “an iron curtain” to describe the results of the Soviet Union’s advance into Europe, a phrase later made famous by Winston Churchill. Goebbels was not the first to use the phrase, but his use brought it to prominence.
The source: “Das Jahr 2000,” Das Reich, 25 February 1945, pp. 1-2.