Aufruf an alle Deutschen von Hermann Rauschning ehemaliger Senatspräsident von Danzig – Call to All Germans by Hermann Rauschning, Former President of the Senate of Danzig – a double-sided propaganda leaflet by Hermann Rauschning, a German politician who opposed Hitler after previously serving as President of the Senate of the Free City of Danzig. Rauschning addresses Adolf Hitler directly, blaming him for Germany’s deterioration, and also speaks to the German people, urging them to reject Hitler, refuse to continue the war, and rise up against the Nazi regime. The leaflet was boldly published in the midst of World War II and was distributed among the German population through clandestine means.
“Today we speak on behalf of the humiliated, oppressed, and liberated German people, caught in lies and deceit. It no longer matters what party we belonged to until now. Only what we are willing to fight for counts. The past has slipped away from us; only what we do for the future holds weight. Our voice expresses the true spirit of our nation. We must say, in place of our brothers in the Reich: No! We do not want war; we want peace – peace like all nations, like the French, the English, the Poles. It is not we who seek revenge, not we who wish to invade and enslave peaceful peoples. We do not demand dominion over Europe or the world. In the storm of these events, we wish to declare for the future: it is not Germany committing this crime of war, not the German people. We want to live, like all nations, in dignity, justice, freedom, and peace. But why did we have to endure what has happened now? Why do these men endure it – in the factories, on the farms, in the workshops, in the offices? Why do these young men march in battalions for a cause that is not theirs? Are we not to blame for all of this? Are we not complicit in everything that is happening? Who will absolve us? For did we fight to the death against what is happening now? We had wishes, but not the will. ‘We don’t want this anymore! Stop it, once and for all!’ – this is the single, overwhelming feeling of millions of Germans in the face of this criminal assault on Poland. And still they have not yet learned the worst: that France, that England, and perhaps tomorrow the entire world, will rise up against the rule of force and violence; that our people stand before a war whose end will inevitably lead to our downfall… Enough of this – an end to this regime! You are to blame, Mr. Hitler! You and the hundred thousand men around you, who follow you with fanaticism and without conscience, drunk with power and domination.”
With your filthy political methods, you tried to make something good out of something evil in the eyes of the German people. Broken words and torn alliances lie along your path. With a cynicism the world has never seen before, you now deny what you solemnly declared yesterday to be the guiding law of your actions. You placed Bolshevism at the very heart of Germany—the same Bolshevism you pretended to have fought against for two decades. Because you were unwilling to relinquish power, you betrayed Germany to Bolshevism, and that is the reason you resorted to war. “The German Wehrmacht costs ninety billion, ” you boasted in your Reichstag speech… For seven years, you have destroyed the prosperity of the people in order to conduct a war of revenge—one that will end once again in poverty and total exhaustion for our nation. You have torn away the veils that once concealed your true intentions. Today, you can no longer hide anything from our people, or from other nations… Your situation is desperate. That is why you did all of this. You are at the end of your strength, incapable of extricating yourself from the hardships you created. This has nothing to do with Germany, it has nothing to do with our future; it has everything to do with your refusal to give up, your refusal to admit that your policy was wrong and criminal. That is why you are dragging us—and the world—toward our death! Enough, Mr. Hitler! You stand between the German people and a great and peaceful future! You alone! From the tortured souls of our suffering people, now falling into despair after the brief euphoria of victory, one cry rises: to overthrow this regime. Never before has one man enjoyed such great trust. How terribly he has abused it! Never before has a regime had such tremendous opportunities for a peaceful rebirth of our nation. Everything we could have justly demanded was within reach. Never before has there been such great willingness in the world to establish a lasting and just peace with our people. No one can foresee what will happen. A hard fate awaits us all. Discord and despair will arise in Germany. Instead of great victories, hunger and misery will grow. Distrust in everyone will deepen; no brother will trust his brother, no father will trust his son. Internal struggles will erupt. Already now, ancient hatreds, long-buried conflicts are resurfacing. Bavarians will hate Prussians, and Prussians will no longer be safe from Saxons. Germany will fall apart. We will cease to be a great nation. With heavy hearts, we foresee what must come upon us as a result of this unjust assault. We must not look back. We must look forward. Whether socialists, Catholics, conservatives, democrats, or monarchists – we all want only one thing. We pledge to stand firm and stay united. Nothing can divide us now; we have a single, shared goal.
Brothers in the Reich, we turn to you: intervene! Help put an end to this. We call upon you, officers and soldiers: no more gunfire! We call upon you, workers: no more hammer blows, no more raised hands! We call upon you, misled party members who never wanted any of this – recognize where this path leads. A nation that rises and wants no more is invincible. Our dictator may line up thousands against the wall, but he cannot slaughter millions.
Yet we, who must endure this war in exile, remember with gratitude the generous land that hosts us. Out of hardship and the emotional turmoil that may overwhelm us, we rise up to the great and eternal ideals of liberty and justice, human dignity and brotherhood, and from these we draw the strength to fight side by side with nations devoted to justice and truth. With all our might, we are not fighting against Germany, but against this regime of crime, violence, lies, and destruction.”
Hermann Adolf Reinhold Rauschning [1887–1982], German politician and writer. He joined the Nazi Party in 1932, and between 1933 and 1934 served as President of the Senate of the Free City of Danzig. At first, he believed that Hitlerism could serve as a tool to promote conservative nationalism in Germany. However, within a short time—apparently already by 1934—Rauschning began to distance himself from the Nazis, once he grasped the depth of Hitler’s totalitarian and violent ideology. Horrified by the regime’s brutal methods, suppression of personal freedoms, and aggressive intentions toward other nations, he fled Germany.
In exile in France and later in the United States, Rauschning became a fierce opponent of the Nazi regime. He authored the book Gespräche mit Hitler (Conversations with Hitler, 1939), in which he portrayed Hitler as a dangerous tyrant with messianic ambitions of destruction and conquest. Although the reliability of the book’s contents remains disputed in academic research, it gained wide resonance and became an important propaganda tool against Nazism during the war years.
[1] Printed on both sides. 20×10 cm. Very good condition.
