This remarkable statement by Hitler was penned in an official capacity. Hitler had joined the Information Bureau as a propaganda writer and informant. Through this role his skills as an orator were noted which led to his appointment in August 1919 as a lecturer on an Educational course. In early September of 1919 one of the course participants, Adolf Gemlish, wrote to Karl Mayr who was the head of the Information Bureau. The letter requested a precise statement on the Reich’s position on the Jewish Question. Mayr asked Adolf Hitler to write the reply. The following in an excerpt from the letter Hitler wrote in reply. The full letter can be found here.
Hitler’s First Major Statement on Anti-Semitism: Reply to Adolf Gemlich (September 16, 1919)
And this has the following result: Antisemitism stemming from purely emotive reasons will always find its expression in the form of pogroms [sic]. But antisemitism based on reason must lead to the systematic legal combating and removal of the rights of the Jew, which he alone of the foreigners living among us possesses (legislation to make them aliens). Its final aim, however, must be the uncompromising removal of the Jews altogether. Both are possible only under a government of national strength, never under a government of national impotence.
The Republic in Germany owes its birth not to the united national will of our people but to the cunning exploitation of a series of circumstances which combined to produce a deep general discontent. But these circumstances were independent of the form of the State, and are still active today; more active, indeed, today than before. And a large section of our people is aware that no mere change in the form of the State as such can alter or improve our position, but only the rebirth of the moral and spiritual energies of the nation.
This rebirth will be set in motion not by the political leadership of irresponsible majorities under the influence of party dogmas or of an irresponsible press, nor by catchwords and slogans of international coinage, but only through the ruthless action of personalities with a capacity for national leadership and an inner sense of responsibility.
Related Links
Source Material for Classroom Use – see all of our Source Banks here – Germany 1919-39 Source Material
Sources: The Weimar Republic 1918–29 – Sources: Hitler’s rise to power, 1919–33 – Sources: Nazi control and dictatorship, 1933–39 – Sources: Life in Nazi Germany, 1933–39
[products tag=”germany 1919-39″]
Weimar and Nazi Germany – Rise of the Nazi Party – Appeasement: Source Material – Source Analysis Lesson: Nazi Methods of Control – Revision Guide, Weimar and Nazi Germany