Gentlemen, you come from the fronts, and some of you were perhaps surprised to see how Berlin looks. I recommend to you, if you still have time today, to drive around in a bus and see Berlin. The center still looks quite nice. But have a look at other districts of Berlin too, or look at Frankfurt or Duesseldorf or whatever all of these places are called, in their present condition; then you will admit to me that the population will not be able to endure this condition permanently; not that there is any danger of a revolution or any such thing as we know it from 1918. But at a certain point a human being just cannot endure any more. It is quite surprising how the population has endured this thing so far or how it always gets on its feet again, when it is led in the proper way by true leaders (Fuehrer) who, thank God, are present among the people through the Party and the rest of the leadership. But you must not forget, Gentlemen, the war of nerves has reached a point which causes us in the leadership group worry. The people cannot endure that forever.
One does not have to see only how the people are working—I have told you that—but also how they live, where they are living today, how they are sleeping today. There are hundreds of thousands of Berliners who have not known any heating for months, who have not been able to take a bath for months, who have not been able to shave with warm water for months, and the like. They are happy if they can still put their warm coffee [Plirsch] in their stomachs in the morning and at noon their soup. And with that they work seventy-two hours. It is a damned difficult affair. Whoever does not understand that and whoever does not say on this occasion: From now on our work will be done quite differently than was the case so far, is a miserable wretch in my opinion. And everyone of us and everyone you appoint has to be trained to accomplish in this sphere what the others have been accomplishing for a long time. We have to do that, we have to increase our production so that we can push the enemy back in the next few weeks and months in the same way as he has advanced to Berlin and farther, step by step.
Please go wherever you are going and knock everybody down who blocks your way! We cover up everything here. We do not ask whether he is allowed to or whether he is not allowed to. For us, there is nothing but this one task. We are fanatics in this sphere. We do not even consider letting anything at all distract us from that task. No order exists which could prevent me from fulfilling this task. Nor shall I ever be given such an order. Now, do not let anything deter you, and get your people to the point that no one deters them. If there is a little hindrance from below, this is not due to ill will but to stupidity. Gentlemen! In the fifth year of war stupidity is a crime!
Gentlemen, I know, not every subordinate can say: For me, the law no longer exists, but he has to have someone who covers up for him, not out of cowardice; but if you act according to the spirit of the old field service regulation, “Abstaining from doing something hurts us more than erring in the choice of the means,” and if, moreover, you keep in touch and immediately clarify difficult points so that something can be done, then we are willing to accept the responsibility, whether this is the law or not. I see only two possibilities for me and for Germany: Either we succeed and thereby save Germany, or we continue these slipshod methods and then get the fate that we deserve. I prefer to fall while I am doing something that is against the rules but that is right and sensible and be called to account for it and, if you like, hanged, rather than be hanged because Papa Stalin is here in Berlin, or the Englishman. I have no desire for that. I would rather die in a different way. But I think we can accomplish this task, too. We are in the fifth year of war. I repeat: The decision will come within the next six weeks!
Heil Hitler!
(End: 12:20 hours)