"Hitler's Thirteen Points" - A summarized English translation of Adolf Hitler's speech to the Reichstag on May 21, 1935 - the "Peace Speech" in which he succeeded in misleading the heads of the powers that he had no intention of waging war under any circumstances. Published by Friends of Europe. London, October 1935. English.
Hitlers speech printed here in English was arranged under headings, with the main points of the speech being the deceptive promise that Germany's intentions were for peace. After expressing commitment to rebuilding the German economy, Hitler moved to outline his vision of peace, taking pains to explain various reasons for the losses of war and that Germany was a peace-seeking nation with no intention of war under any scenario. "The blood spilled on the European continent over the past 300 years bears no proportion to the national outcome of events. In the end, France remained France, Germany remained Germany, Poland remained Poland and Italy remained Italy... Achieving political changes through rivers of spilled blood nationally did little more than scrape the surfaces of nations but did not fundamentally alter their basic characteristics...Above all, every war consumes the flower of a nation...National Socialist Germany wants peace...Germany needs peace and wants peace...Germany has nothing to gain from any European war. What we want is freedom and independence. For these goals we would be prepared to conclude non-aggression pacts with all our neighbors". It continued discussing the Treaty of Versailles and further misleading assurances also regarding Austria: "Germany does not intend to interfere in Austria's internal affairs, to annex Austria or incorporate that country...The German government regrets the tensions created by the dispute with Austria" (a promise broken with Germany's invasion of Austria in March 1938), repeating the deceptive declaration that was effectively the core of the speech: "The German government is prepared at any time to take part in a system of collective cooperation to ensure peace in Europe...".
In May 1933 Hitler delivered a similar speech to the Reichstag declaring Germany's intentions were for peace and that the German interest was in peace not war. Throughout the 1930s Hitler employed this deception both against foreign peoples and the leaders of nations who assumed that after Germany's defeat in World War I, it would not embark on war again. These speeches by Hitler reinforced this basic assumption, effectively granting Hitler an advantage of surprise in the invasion of Poland and annexation of Austria through lightning moves that completely surprised the powers.
22 [1] p. Minor stains. Good condition.
