Speech of the Reichsführer-SS at the SS Group Leader
4- October-1943
Ceremony in Honour of the Fallen
In the months which have past since we last met in June of 1942, many comrades have fallen and given their lives for Germany and for the Führer. Before them, in the forefront — I ask you to stand in their honour, and in the honour of all our dead SS men and dead German soldiers, men and women — in the forefront, from our ranks, our old comrade and friend, SS Obergruppenführer Eicke. (The Group Leaders rise from their seats). I ask you to sit.
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The situation in the fifth year of the war
I have considered it necessary to call you all together, the High Leadership Corps of the SS and Police, now at the beginning of the fifth year of the war, which will be a very difficult year. Hard-headed, as we always were, in a spirit of respect for the truth with regards to ourselves, there are several things which we wish to discuss at this Troop Leadership Conference. Just as I was accustomed to do in long years of peace, I wish to describe the situation as I see it, in as few words as possible, with regard to our responsibilities and that which we have already achieved and accomplished, as well as with regard to that which stands before us to be accomplished in the future.
The Russian leadership
First, the military situation. I will begin with Russia. When — I believe it was in 1937 or 1938 — the great show trials were being held in Moscow, and the ex-Czarist officer and later Bolshevik general Tuchachevski and other generals were shot, we were, at that time, all over Europe, even in the Party and the SS, of the opinion that the Bolshevik system, and therefore Stalin, had made one of its most serious mistakes. We were absolutely mistaken in this judgment of the situation. We can state this, once and for all, in a spirit of full respect for the truth. I believe that Russia could not have withstood the two years of war — it is now in the third year of war — had it retained its ex-Czarist generals. It turned — I’ll discuss this first of all — its political commissars into generals, it sought out those who had grown up through the Red Army as commanders, as generals, so that they could simultaneously act as political commissars. The stubborn bearer of the will of the Bolshevik… doctrine, I should like to call it, not an ideology … is, in Russia, simultaneously a commander and leader.
The Attack of 1941
In 1941, the Führer attacked Russia. That was, as we may well say today, shortly, perhaps a quarter or half year before Stalin’s enveloping movement prior to his great thrust into Central and western Europe. I can sketch out this first year with very brief strokes. The attack was effective. The Russian army was driven together into great pockets, destroyed, taken prisoner. We did not then value the mass man as we do now, as raw material, as manpower. Which is not a shame in the end, if one thinks in terms of generations, but it is regrettable today due to the loss of manpower: the prisoners died by the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands from exhaustion, from hunger.
The winter of 1941-1942
Then came the summer and autumn of 1941, the flush of victory which led us almost to Moscow, the winter of 1941-42. The winter of 1941-42, with its consequences, was, on the one hand, the work of Fate, which hit us hard for the first time; on the other hand, however, it was the work of the political commissars, the politruks, whose severity and relentlessness, whose fanatical, brutal will drove the raw material of the Slavic, Mongolian mass man to the front, and didn’t let him get back out again.
The year 1942
In early 1942 then came our attacks in the Crimea, over the Donetz to the Don and to the Volga. The bow of the German front and its allies was drawn taut. The war could have been brought to a close for Russia in 1942 if all had held out. Since according to all calculations, and in all probability, which must not be left out of consideration in war, with which one must still reckon after all, the Caucasus would have fallen into our hands sooner or later. Russia would have been cut off from its chief sources of petroleum, and hunger would have handled its people even more roughly than is the case today. Then came the collapse of our allies. First came the breakthrough among the Rumanians, then the breakthrough among the Italian Army, which was already of very little value even then, then the breakthrough and retreat of the Hungarian units: the total loss of approximately 500 km of front. This loss required the withdrawal of the German front, in order to be able to close it again at all. This loss made the sacrifice of Stalingrad necessary from the point of view of Fate. It is not our intention to reflect upon every detail here today. I am personally convinced that this sacrifice — that sounds dreadfully harsh when I say so now — was necessary, since, without the link-up of enemy forces around Stalingrad, it would no longer have been possible to close the German front. That will, I am convinced, be the finding of military historical research 10, 15, or 20 years after the war. At the same time, a very late consolation.
Read the full speech here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/posen.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
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