FROM THE ARCHIVES:
MAY 5th, 1941PRESS CENSORSHIP during the second World War required neutrality in the treatment of the belligerents, leading to extensive reporting of the statements of both the Allies and Axis. The front page of today's newspaper in 1941 carried reports of speeches by Franklin Roosevelt (extolling democracy), Winston Churchill (praising Poland) and the following speech by Adolf Hitler.
Speaking to-day at the session of the Reichstag, Herr Hitler reiterated the story of British war guilt. The moving spirit in this plan to get war at any price, he alleged, was Mr Churchill.
Referring to his peace offer after the fall of France, Herr Hitler said that the European war-mongers succeeded in inducing the populations to continue the struggle and, as once before, they were again ready to sacrifice the blood of nations without a scruple in the interests of their gold.
Referring to Mr Churchill’s recent speech, Herr Hitler declared that it could only be described as symptomatic of a paralytic disease or the ravings of a drunkard.
After an invective against “the great international Jewish interests”, he recalled his statement of October 6, 1939, to the effect that Germany had neither demanded, nor had she intended to demand, anything either from Britain or from France; that it was madness to continue the war and, above all, that the scourge of modern weapons of warfare once they were brought into action would inevitably ravage vast territories.
“I warned them of the fact of the use of heavy long-range guns against civilian areas because I realised that this could only result in the devastation of much territory on either side. I particularly pointed out that the use of the air arm, with its far-reaching effects, would lead to the destruction of everything that had been built up by the arduous efforts of centuries, as well as all the cultural values which had been created in Europe.
“Just as the appeal of September 1st, 1939, proved to be in vain, this renewed appeal also met with almost indignant rejection. The British war-mongers and their Jewish capitalist backers could find no other explanation of this appeal, which I had made on humanitarian grounds, than the assumption of weakness on the part of Germany.
“They assured the peoples of Britain and France that Germany dreaded the clash to be expected in the spring of 1940, and was eager to make peace from fear of the annihilation which would be the inevitable result. They declared, however, that such a peace must in no circumstances be made until the German Reich was broken up and the German people so defeated and reduced to such distress that they would queue up beside the field kitchens of their enemies begging for food.
“After the collapse of France, once again I seized the opportunity of urging the world to make peace. I made it perfectly clear, however, that, in the light of past experience, such hopes could only be small.
“Even my warnings against night bombing of the civilian population, as advocated by Mr. Churchill, were interpreted as a sign of German impotence.
“He . . . actually saw fit to believe that the reserve displayed for months by the German Air Force could only be looked upon as proof of their incapacity to fly by night. So this man for months ordered his paid scribblers to deceive the British people into believing that the R.A.F. alone and none others were in a position to wage war in this way, and that ways and means had thus been found to force the Reich to its knees.”
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