Danzig--Speech of September 19, 1939.

09/19/1939

My District Leader, My Dear Danzigers:

Not only you experience this moment with deepest emotion; nay, the entire German nation experiences it with you, and I, too, am aware of the greatness of the hour when I, for the first time, tread on the soil which German settlers occupied five centuries ago and which for five centuries was German, and which - thereof you may rest assured - will remain German.

The fact that a province was torn from the German Reich and that other German territories were given to the Polish State was explained on the grounds of national necessity. Later, plebiscites everywhere showed that no one wished to become a part of the Polish State - that Polish State which arose out of the blood of countless German regiments. It then expanded at the expense of old settlement areas and above all at the expense of intelligence and economic possibility.

One thing has been clearly proved in the last twenty years; the Poles who had not founded that culture also were not able to maintain it. It has been shown again that only he who is himself culturally creative can permanently maintain real cultural performance.

Thirty years would have been sufficient to reduce again to barbarism those territories which the Germans, painstakingly and with industry and thrift, had saved from barbarism. Everywhere traces of this retrogression and decay were visible.

Poland itself was a 'nationalities State.' That very thing had been created here which had been held against the old Austrian State. At the same time Poland was never a democracy. One very thin anemic upper class here ruled not only foreign nationalities but also its so-called own people.

It was a State built on force and governed by the truncheons of the police and the military. The fate of Germans in this State was horrible. There is a difference whether people of lower cultural value has the misfortune to be governed by a culturally significant people or whether a people of high cultural significance has forced upon it the tragic fate of being oppressed by an inferior.

In this inferior people all its inferiority complexes will be compensated upon a higher culture-bearing people. This people will be horribly and barbarically mistreated and Germans have been evidence of this fate for twenty years.

It was, as already emphasized, tragic and painful. Nevertheless, as everywhere else, I tried to find a solution here which might have led to a fair adjustment. I have tried in the West and then later in the South to maintain final frontier delineations in order thus to deliver region upon region from uncertainty and assure peace and justice for the future. I made the greatest efforts to attain the same thing here also. . .

The world, which immediately sheds tears when Germany expels a Polish Jew who only a few decades ago came to Germany, remained dumb and deaf toward the misery of those who, numbering not thousands but millions, were forced to leave their home country on account of Versailles - that is, if these unfortunates were Germans. What was for us and also for me most depressing was the fact that we had to suffer all this from a State which was far inferior to us; for, after all, Germany is a Great Power, even though madmen believed the vital rights of a great nation could be wiped out by a crazy treaty or by dictation.

Germany was a big power and had to look on while a far inferior people of a far inferior State maltreated these Germans. There were two especially unbearable conditions: First, this city whose German character nobody could deny was not only prevented from returning to the Reich but in addition an attempt was made to Polonize it by all kinds of devices; second, the province [East Prussia] severed from the German Reich had no direct contact with the Reich, but traffic with this province was dependent upon all kinds of chicanery or upon the good will of this Polish State.

No power on earth would have borne this condition as long as Germany. I do not know what England would have said about a similar peace solution at its expense or how America or France would have accepted it. I attempted to find a solution - a tolerable solution - even for this problem. I submitted this attempt to the Polish rulers in the form of verbal proposals. You know these proposals. They were more than moderate.

I do not know what mental condition the Polish Government was in when it refused these proposals. I know, however, that millions of Germans sighed with relief, since they felt I had gone too far. As an answer, Poland gave the order for the first mobilization. Thereupon wild terror was initiated, and my request to the Polish Foreign Minister to visit me in Berlin once more to discuss these questions was refused. Instead of going to Berlin, he went to London. For the next weeks and months there were heightened threats, threats which were hardly bearable for a small State but which were impossible for a Great Power to bear for any length of time.

We could read in Polish publications that the issue at stake was not Danzig but the problem of East Prussia, which Poland was to incorporate in a short time. That increased. Other Polish newspapers stated that East Prussia would not solve the problem, but that Pomerania must, under all circumstances, come to Poland.

Finally it became questionable in Poland whether the Oder would be enough as a boundary or whether Poland's natural boundary was not the Oder but the Elbe. It was debated whether our armies would be smashed before or behind Berlin. The Polish Marshal, who miserably deserted his armies, said that he would hack the German Army to pieces. And martyrdom began for our German nationals. Tens of thousands were dragged off, mistreated, and murdered in the vilest fashion. Sadistic beasts gave vent to their perverse instincts, and this pious democratic world watched without blinking an eye.

I have often asked myself: Who can have so blinded Poland? Does anyone really believe that the German nation will permanently stand that from such a ridiculous State? Does anyone seriously believe that? It must have been believed because certain quarters described it as possible to the Poles, certain quarters which general warmongers have occupied decades long, yes, hundreds of years long and which they occupy even today.

These quarters declared that Germany was not even to be considered as a Power. The Poles were told that they would easily be able to resist Germany, and, going a step further, assurance was given that if their own resistance was not enough they could depend on the resistance and assistance of others. The guarantee was given which put it into the hands of a small State to begin a war, or again perhaps not to do so.

For these men Poland, too, was only a means to an end. Because today it is being declared quite calmly that Poland was not the primary thing, but that the German regime is. I always warned against these men. You will recall my Saarbruecken and Wilhelmshaven speeches. In both these speeches I pointed out the danger that in a certain country such men could rise and unmolested preach the necessity of war - Herren Churchill, Eden, Duff-Cooper, etc.

I pointed out how dangerous this is, especially in a country where one does not know whether these men may not be the Government in a short time. I was then told that that would never happen. In my opinion they are now the Government. It happened exactly as I then foresaw. I then decided for the first time to warn the German nation against them. But I also have left no doubt that Germany, under no circumstances, will capitulate to the threats or coercion of these people.

On account of this answer I have been strongly attacked: because certain practices have gradually been developed in democracies: namely, in democracies war may be advocated. There foreign regimes and statesmen may be attacked, calumniated, insulted, sullied because there reign freedom of speech and the press. In authoritarian States, on the other hand, one may not defend one's self because there reigns discipline.

You know, of course, of those August days. I believe it would have been possible in those last August days, without the British guarantee and without agitation by these warmongers, to have reached an understanding. At a certain moment England herself offered to bring us into direct discussion with Poland. I was ready. Of course it was the Poles who did not come.

I came to Berlin with my Government and for two days waited and waited. Meanwhile, I had worked out a new pro- posal. You know it. I had the British Ambassador informed of it on the evening of the first day. It was read to him sentence by sentence and the Reich Foreign Minister gave him a supplementary explanation. Then came the next day and nothing occurred except for Polish general mobilization, renewed acts of terror, and finally attacks against Reich territory.…