If we are to avail ourselves fully of the benefits of civil aviation, and if we are to use the automobiles we can produce, it will be necessary to construct thousands of airports and to overhaul our entire national highway system.

The provision of a decent home for every family is a national necessity, if this country is to be worthy of its greatness—and that task will itself create great employment opportunities. Most of our cities need extensive rebuilding. Much of our farm plant is in a state of disrepair. To make a frontal attack on the problems of housing and urban reconstruction will require thoroughgoing co-operation between industry and labor, and the Federal, state and local governments.

Social-Security Expansion

An expanded social-security program and adequate health and education programs must play essential roles in a program designed to support individual productivity and mass purchasing power. I shall communicate further with the Congress on these subjects at a later date.

Again We Turned Fate Away

NEW YEAR'S BROADCAST TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE

By ADOLPH HITLER, Fuehrer of Germany

Broadcast by the German Radio and reported by the Federal Communications Commission, December 31, 1944

Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. XI, pp. 201-205.

ONLY the turn of the year causes me to speak to you today, my German men and women. The present time has demanded more than speeches from me. Events of the past twelve months and the happenings of July 20 in particular have forced me to devote my whole attention and working capacity to the only task I have lived for for many years past—the faithful struggle of my people.

Although our enemies have predicted our collapse during every one of the past years, they set special hopes on the year 1944. Never before did victory appear as near to them as during the August days of the past year, when one disaster appeared to tread closely on the other's heels.

But we have once again, as so often before, been successful in turning fate away. Some credit is due—apart from the struggle and work of all my countrymen at home and at the fronts—to my own work and my own devotion.

I have acted in accordance with the conviction I gaveexpression to during the memorable Reichstag session on Sept. 1, when I said that in this struggle Germany would be forced to her knees neither by armed blows nor by rime and that a Nov. 9, 1918, would never be repeated in the German Reich.

Scorns Idea of Collapse

Anyone who only knew Germany in the days of her weakness might have thought this country would be granted neither re-assertion nor strength to maintain itself against the whole world of enemies. Thus the Jewish-international world conspiracy has lived on hopes from the very first day. Every time the people threatened to become suspicious, prophecies were fashioned from hopes and, with a certain propagandistic impudence, represented to the eyes of the masses as being absolutely certain and matters of course.

This propaganda used two methods although, like all lies, they will prove in the end short-lived. On one side, in order to allay the impatience of the masses in Allied countries, dates are fixed by which German collapse is to be expected with certainty; on the other side problems are being tackled, the solution of which be necessary for the Allies after such collapse.

Before the war had even begun, the first English utterance was already at hand to the effect that the joint Anglo-French declaration of war would, after seven to eight days at the latest, lead to internal revolution in Germany and thus to the collapse of the German Reich.

With almost astronomical regularity, this was followed in the spring and autumn, and sometimes also in between, by ever renewed assurances of the unconditional collapse of Germany and thus the surrender—both these things would be, of course, identical—was now just around the corner. As early as autumn, 1939, one such assurance came on the heels of another. Once it was General Mud, then General Hunger, and then again General Winter, that was to defeat us.

The year 1940 particularly was abundantly blessed at its beginning with such Allied proclamations. New prophecies were propounded after the French campaign—namely, that if Germany did not now succeed in ending the war within two months, by September at the latest, the German collapse would irrevocably occur in the spring of 1941.

That spring hardly passed when new dates in the summer and finally in the winter of 1941 were once again given as the time of our certain destruction.

Since then this game has repeated itself year by year. Once it was said the war would be over before the leaves would fall. Then again it was said Germany would be confronted with capitulation before the new winter would have set in.

With the certainty of a sleepwalker, one called August, 1944, the month of unconditional surrender and prophesied shortly afterward a joint meeting of the leading statesmen in Berlin before Christmas. A short while ago the new date was January. Then March, 1945.

Now it is declared more carefully, as these two months are rapidly coming nearer, that it was to be August.

In June, they will surely again talk about the winter of 1946, except that the war will in fact end in the meantime and not by German capitulation—this will never come—but by German victory.

As to the Allies' Plans

Parallel to these prophecies, however, takes place the theoretical setting up of ever new commissions—in order to reinforce psychologically the correctness of the assumptions—to deal with European problems after the war, the foundation of companies for the regulation of food supplies after a German collapse, in other words re-establishment of those racketeer institutions which we know from the World War proclamation of economic agreement, the setting-up of transport regulations and air bases, and the drafting and announcement of laws for the treatment of German people, which are truly idiotic in parts.

All this is done in a manner as if the war had already been won and as if it was even now possible to think over at leisure all the measures necessary for the Government of Europe by States which, however, themselves afford sorry examples of how people should not be governed.

This propaganda maneuver can be rehearsed before unintelligent masses in democratic states for an astonishingly long time. Yet one day it will even there become apparent that this is nothing else but one of those frauds which are the regular custom in these countries. If, nevertheless, one or another of the leading men in the Western democracies really should believe what is dished up to the nations, this could only be explained by three causes:

First, that they do not know the German people at all, and particularly that they do not know that the last 300 years of German history were not a true picture of the character of the German people and its ensuing disunity, but that this German people has, since it entered history, been not only one of the most decisive, but the most decisive factor in European history, and thus in the history of the world, and that it is this today, and that it will be this all the more in the future.

Secondly, that they have not the faintest idea about the meaning of the National Socialist State, and that they completely fail to grasp the essence of this national idea. The achievements the National Socialist regime has accomplished under the most difficult conditions have remained unknown to most of the people in countries surrounding us and had remain hidden because information for the public, and hence the formation of public opinion, was there completely in the hands of the Jews and had been carried out in completely distorted and mendacious manner.

Thus it seems as if even now it would be unknown to them that the National Socialist State can neither be replaced by Bolshevism nor by democratic-plutocratic ideology—as far as it is at all possible to speak of such a thing. Both of them have shown themselves by their actions in Germany itself to be completely incapable and, in addition as regards their achievements in their own countries under their rale, merely to represent a deterrent example.

The Generals' Effort at Revolt

Thirdly, that on the other hand in these countries something else has existed, something which, it is true the overwhelming mass of sound German people does not know, namely, a small clique of drawing-room politicians and armchair generals who, in complete ignorance of their intellectual, political and military insignificance, have tried to convince the world that some day they would come to power by a coup d'etat, and would then be easily able to offer capitulation on the lines of those of Italy, Finland, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria.

Just as little knowledge as our enemies therefore had concerning Germany, and smaller their knowledge was concerning the essence of the National Socialist State, all the more gladly did they count upon assurances of these people, completely lacking in any character, believing their fantastic thoughts and fulminations to be the truth, and rewardedthem not only with firm belief, but also with payments in cash.

I should like to state once more, in contrast to all this, now at the termination of a year which, has given us ample opportunity of furnishing proof that this nation, this state and its leading men. are unshakable in their will and unswerving in their fanatical determination to fight this war to a successful conclusion in all circumstances—if it means taking in our stride all reverses which fickle fate may impose upon us—I wish once more to state the conclusions which can be drawn from the past and the present and which must be known by all for the future.

Firstly, we know from the past and the present the aims of our enemies. What the British-American statesmen intend to do with the German Reich, what measures the Bolshevist rulers and finally the international Jews, who are behind everything, intend to apply against the German people is fully known to us.

Their successful application would not only entail the complete tearing asunder of the German Reich, deportation of 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 Germans abroad, the enslavement of the remnants of our German people and the corruption of our German youth, but would particularly result in the complete starvation of millions of people of our nation.

But apart from all this, one can only live either in freedom or die in servitude. If in the past these realizations were decried as mere National Socialist propaganda phrases or were dismissed as such, today they are the openly admitted aims of the leading statesmen and the press and the Jews of these countries and thus represent an official statement of the enemy Governments.

In the second place, in contrast to this we are resolved to go to the extreme. The world must know that this State will, therefore, never capitulate, that the German Reich of today—like all great states of the past—may on its road be exposed to reverses, but that it will never be deflected from this road. The world must know that the present leaders of the State share the sorrow and suffering with its people but will never capitulate on account of suffering and sorrow; that, on the contrary, it is resolved to meet every crisis with still greater effort, to make up by increased working zeal for what has been lost by tardiness.

The world must know these leaders not only express their highest appreciation to every German who does his duty, but also give him assurance that in times to come his individual contribution to the shaping of our nation will not be forgotten, but that, on the other hand, they will annihilate everyone who intends to evade, this contribution, thus degrading himself to be the tool of foreigners.

Germany's "Fate" Clear

Because we know the aims of our enemies, because they themselves offer us all the necessary enlightenment, thanks to the propagandists talkativeness of their statesmen and journalists, the entire German nation perceives what fate would be destined for it should it ever lose this war; therefore it will not lose it. It must and will win it.

What our enemies are fighting for—the Jews excepted—they do not know themselves; what we fight for, however, is clear to us all. It is the preservation of the German man and woman. It is our Fatherland. It is our 2,000-year-old civilization. It is the children and the children's children of our people. It is, in fact, all which makes our lives worth living. That, is the reason why this people displays that spirit and that bearing which entitle it to believe in its own future and in its reward by Providence.

That this fight itself is an incredibly hard one is due to the enemy's aims I have mentioned before. For, as they intend to exterminate our people,, they are already trying this out during the war by means hitherto unknown to civilized mankind. When destroying our towns, they do not only hope to kill German women and children but also to eliminate manifestations of our 1,000-year-old civilization, which they cannot in, any way rivals This, also was the meaning of the war of annihilation against Italy's cultural monuments and their intention in continuation of the struggle in France, Belgium in and the Netherlands.

However, like the phoenix from the ashes, so first of all from the ruins of our towns German determination has risen in spite of all. It has taken possession not only of millions of soldiers but also of millions of workers, female workers, of women and even of children. The suffering inflicted on these millions individually is immeasurable, but equally immeasurable is the greatness of their bearing.

When one day this time of trial has come to an end every German will be boundlessly proud to declare himself a member of such a nation. One day the time will come in which the violation of culture practiced by our enemies will continue to burn in our memory and will be felt as a disgrace by themselves.

I know, my Volksgenossen, what this war is demanding of you. There, is hardly a man in. any great country of this world who knows his people and their homes better than I know Germany. To all those German towns, localities and landscapes which are being destroyed today, I have come so infinitely close, speaking from both the historical and the personal viewpoint. For decades I was bound to them not only in historical and cultural-historical and personal (menschlicher) love but I also participated to the utmost in the fate of their future development.

But it is just this which makes it rather easier for me to bear all this sorrow, because I more than anybody else know that the German people with such determination have time and again risen from abject misery and I also know that, once at the end of this period, German towns will again rise from the ruins as new proof of the magnificence of the German towns.

The National Socialist State, with its energy and initiative, will newly erect in a few years all that which is liable to destruction today. Outwardly our towns will be more impressive and more beautiful than ever before. The place of destroyed tenements will be taken by healthier homes for the German people and our social and cultural requirements will find more careful consideration than has been possible before.

Nevertheless, we shall no longer possess many irreplaceable documents of art and culture and no longer be in a position to build them anew. Above all we can never replace the sacrifices of numerous- people dear to us and we shall not be able to replace the loss of their accumulated memories which had grown dear to them in the course of long life. All these great treasures and small memories will in the end find, if not replacement, then at least compensation in the common memories of our people of a time of the hardest battle of destiny that any people has ever had to endure and which they have borne with such heroism common to them all.

1944 Brought Heaviest Strain

The year of 1944 was a year of the heaviest strain m this gigantic struggle. It was also a year in which it was proved once and for all that the bourgeois social order was no longerin a position to defy the storms of the present or the gales of tomorrow's situation.

State after State, which does not find the way to truly social reorientation, will take the road to chaos. The liberal age is a thing of the past. To hold the opinion that this upsurging of people can be met by proletarian-democratic compromises is childish; just as childish as Metternich's when confronted with tendencies toward national unity of the nineteenth century.

The consequences of the absence of any truly new social reorientation of life are lack of moral will to resist not only of the people, but also lack of moral strength of their leaders to resist. We have seen in all countries that the attempt at the renaissance of democracy was a complete failure. The tangled knot of these political amateurs and military politicians of a bygone bourgeois epoch, with their petty feuds, is preparing with a fatal certainty to plunge into chaos and—in Europe at any rate—economic catastrophe on a nationwide scale.

Indeed, here is one factor which has already shown itself to be true: This most densely populated continent on earth either lives under an order which guarantees the greatest consideration for individual abilities and which, with the strongest suppression of all egoistic tendencies, prevents their excesses; or in States such as we see in central and western Europe which are incapable of living, that is to say nations which are doomed to destruction.

Following the example of royal Italy, Finland, Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary collapsed during this year. This collapse was, in the first place, due to cowardice and lack of determination of their leaders. They themselves and their actions can be understood only in relation to the corrupt and socially immoral atmosphere of the bourgeois world. The hatred expressed by many statesmen, particularly of these countries, toward the Germany of today is nothing but the voice of an uneasy conscience; the expression of an inferiority complex vis-a-vis our organization of a human community which frightens them because it successfully represents aims which do not correspond to their economically confined egotism and the political shortsightedness that goes with it.

His Idea of German Nation

For us, however, my German Volksgenossen, it merely means a fresh obligation to realize with increasing clarity that the existence or non-existence of the German future depends on the consistent development of our people's State and also that all the immeasurable sacrifices which our people have made are thinkable only if an order of society is presupposed which does away with all privileges and thus makes the whole people not only the bearer of equal duties but also of equal vital rights—a society, moreover, that makes war without mercy on social illusions of a time that has outlived itself, and which sets in their place the most valuable reality there is—namely, a nation in which the mass of human beings is joined together by the same blood, the same character and experience of long history, whose origin as substance we do not owe to the arbitrariness of mortals but to the unfathomable will of the Almighty.

The knowledge of the moral value of this, our conviction, and the resulting aims of our struggle for existence, give to us, and above all to me, strength to continue the struggle in the gravest hours with the strongest faith and an unshakable confidence. The people, also and in particular, are bound to their leaders by this conviction in such hours. It has secured that unprecedented response to the appeal which I had to address to the German people this year with particular emphasis.

Millions of Germans of all callings and all classes, men, women, boys and girls, even to children, took up spade and shovel. Thousands of Volkssturm battalions sprang up and are still coming into existence; division after division has been newly raised. The people's artillery corps, anti-aircraft and assault gun brigades, as well as armored formations, were brought into being overnight; fighter formations were replenished and equipped with new machines.

Above all, German factories, through German workers, men and women, have reached unprecedented achievements. They are more and more being joined—I may say this today—by those thinking people of other nationalities who, as workers in Germany, perceive the essence of our social community.

Thus, whatever our enemies smashed was rebuilt with superhuman industry and unparalleled heroism and this will continue until one day our enemy's undertaking comes to an end. The German spirit and German determination will enforce this. This, my Volksgenossen, will one day go down in history as the miracle of the twentieth century,

The nation that reaches such immeasurable achievements on the front and at home, that submits to and bears such terror, can therefore never be destroyed. On the contrary it will emerge from the fiery furnace of trial stronger and firmer than ever before in its history. The power, however, to which we owe all this, the Jewish-international enemy of the world, will not only be foiled in its attempt to destroy Europe and exterminate its peoples but will bring about its own destruction.

His Thanks to German People

At the end of this year, I wish to thank from my heart, filled to overflowing, uncounted millions of my Volksgenossen, as spokesmen of the nation and at this moment also as leader of their fate, for all they have suffered, submitted to, done and achieved. I wish to thank them all, men and women, right down to our children in the Hitler Youth, in cities and townships, in villages and in country.

I want to ask them not to falter in the future either, but to have faith in the leaders of the movement and to fight to the end with extreme fanaticism in this difficult struggle for the future of our people.

What I personally can do to aid our success will be done in the future as it was in the past. I am at present speaking less frequently, not because I do not want to speak or because I cannot speak, but because my work leaves little time for speeches and because I believe it is my duty today to think and toil every hour in order to increase the strength of resistance of our armies, introduce better weapons, set up new formations and form out of my nation all the forces which can be mobilized. My enemies may already have gathered that I have not been sleeping all this time.

For the rest, I want today to assure you again, my Volksgenossen, just as during the long years of our struggle for power, that my faith in the future of our people is unshakable. He who has been given such a difficult test by Providence is called to achieve the greatest results. It is therefore my only care to lead my people through this time of peril and thus to open to the people the gates to that future in which we all believe and for which we fight and work.

I cannot conclude this address without thanking the Almighty for the support which he has given time and again to the leaders and the nation and for the strength which

He gave us and which made us stronger than peril and danger. If at the same time I thank Him for my own escape, I am doing it only because I am happy to be able to continue to serve my people with my life. I want, therefore, in this hour, as spokesman of Greater Germany to promise solemnly to the Almighty that we shall fulfill our duty faithfully and unshakably in the new year too, in the firm belief that the hour will strike when victory will ultimately come to him who is most worthy of it, the Greater German Reich.