by Friedrich Christian Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe

"So why are you saying all this only now?", many a reader will probably ask. The answer is, first, because there were many others who had, and have, much more evidence at their disposal, and who, further, held much higher ranks than I did - yet who lacked my personal relationship with Hitler, which was probably unique. The only one to personally describe Hitler accurately did not live in Berlin. He is a great artist, but was never active in politics - Dr. Hans Severus Ziegler, General Director of the Thuringian Theatres. His book tells the truth - and that is the highest praise one can give a book nowadays.

Several of the formerly high-ranking Party or state officials have tried to lend the truth a voice. They have produced many a good book. But the fact that someone dealt with Hitler only in the line of business is a hindrance. There would never have been any National-Socialism without Hitler. Since Hitler did exist, National-Socialism necessarily also had to come about, and because both finally existed after a long, hard struggle, the community of the German people developed. Only someone who can write about Hitler, about the human element, can ever write accurately about that time. I was very fortunate to know him only in those days when he was still completely his true self, free of all those pressures that came from outside once it had become profitable to have a part in the Revolution.

I knew Hitler the revolutionary statesman, who was as yet identical with Hitler the human being. And my second piece of good fortune was that I could feel quite independent of him - I needed him neither for a salary nor for rank, and least of all for social advantages. He knew that, and discussed it with me himself. That is why I dare to say: I knew Hitler. And that is why I feel obliged to write these lines, for in my opinion, having such knowledge also entails the obligation to pass it on to the people and most of all to posterity. Our nation has a right to every single word of the truth that will at long last help it return to a healthy state of self-confidence. And I feel that any German government must agree when I say: only the truth can help us - amongst ourselves as well as outwardly!

"The belief in original sin is what created the true original sin. Christianity has preached the evil of human nature for so long that it has become evil in fact."

Coudenhove-Kalergi, in Held und Heiliger

The German Reich still exists - but only the truth will make it live again, for the power of truth is never more apparent than in the time of greatest need.

The concerns about the future of our Germany are legion. The greatest, however, is that of the decline of our people, as is already shockingly manifest in several respects. The root of this development is the fact that a proud nation has been stripped of its self-confidence. This nation is as yet able to exist, but not to fight for its existence. That such a fact is exploited to the limit by the enemies of this nation, is self-evident.

Where honour has lost its value, there can be no trust. Where trust is a thing of the past, there can be no friendship, and no camaraderie. Man slowly but surely becomes a predatory animal. Whether the state "treats" criminals or punishes them is all the same: their numbers are frighteningly on the increase, even if they are less openly apparent. By the example of several great peoples throughout history we can see that this has ever been the same development that ultimately terminates a life of indulgence and excesses in dreadful self-destruction. In all cases, the destruction of national self-confidence was the start of this process, for anyone who has lost confidence in himself can no longer have confidence in anyone else, and one who can trust no-one is already lost.

As yet we could save our people if we could ignore parties, denominations, class and rank and could simply see ourselves and each other as Germans beginning a new life together by returning to the absolute truth, first within ourselves and then outwardly. We ask our governments to help us in this. The past must remain past - but with honesty, with unconditional and absolute truth! Truth is the prerequisite for honour. Truth plus honour results in loyalty - and these three together combine to form the most essential of all ideals: true love. The eternal ethical legitimacy of nature has decreed it so - and it does not require our agreement or consent.

Truth is one of mankind's greatest ideals. It stands in a relationship of interdependence with the other great ideals: loyalty, love, and justice. All of them are part of the eternal ethical laws of nature. Hence they are inalienable and indivisible. One cannot and must not say: truth, justice - yes! But not for Hitler, because he was an awful criminal, he was to blame for everything.

Today the law puts particular emphasis on considering, treating and judging a criminal as a person. That is a great point of view! It incorporates the complete and total acknowledgement of the eternal ethical laws of nature! The very changeable concepts of "good" and "evil" - "angel" and "devil", "divine" and "satanic" - are based more on Church precepts than on religious principles, and least of all on truly natural fundamentals of order.

It has taken almost two thousand years until now people are gradually beginning to see Christ as a unique individual, not more and not less. Anyone who wants to abolish "devils" must also do away with "angels", and for this reason: for the sake of the "real person", the human being whose soul in particular plays a great, mysterious, essential role and hence has a mission and a profound responsibility as part of the eternal order of this world.

Times when Germans in Germany were called "criminals" while Frenchmen in France or Englishmen in England were celebrated as heroes for exactly the same reasons - such times must never come again. Instead of the extremely variable concepts of "good" and "evil" we must think in terms of "right" and "wrong" - "responsible" versus "irresponsible" human behaviour - within the framework of the eternal order of nature, so that mankind may finally break free of that vicious circle that Diderot described when he wrote: "Evil is whatever brings more detriment than advantage for one's interests - and good is what brings more advantage than detriment."

"Nature knows neither good nor evil; human opinion is what made the distinction."

Sextus Empiricus

No doubt one of the greatest dangers to mankind is that craving for status that motivates the international seizure of power, for it is the most devastating violation of the natural law of diversity. All internationality ultimately has a negative effect on the freedom of natural unity. Not only that: it is also the best prerequisite for anonymity in politics. And that is the basis for the greatest crimes, all the more so because so-called technological progress increasingly offers such a development all the means for its further expansion.

It is downright grotesque for an international power, which today is globally active with the assistance of a large-scale computer network, to dare to slander as "dictator" some statesman not bound by the international system, just because he attempts in all honesty to act in a direct relationship with the nation and people entrusted to him, without the interposition of machines without conscience!

But it is exactly these international powers which wage the concentrated war of slander against defeated Germany with ever-increasing intensity. Such a large-scale offensive of lies and deceit, practicable only from out of the dark of anonymity, has only been possible since mankind is ruled by relatively few overlords under the influence of the international powers.

At the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg between 1945 and 1949, people were condemned who certainly wanted only the best for their people, and acted as they did for this reason. They all were part of their nation's great process of reconstruction, and the last thing they wanted was war; yet they perceived themselves to be under attack, and so - albeit much too late - they decided on total war... after their enemies had already launched the same, much earlier.

The entire Nuremberg Trial was a tragedy for both sides, because our opponents were not France, England, Russia, America etc., but rather the sum total of the international power dominating these nations. Countless most sincere conversations with high-ranking officers from such nations have shown me time and again that it was indeed so. None of those nations wanted war with Germany - and the Reich more than any other wanted to coexist in peaceful community with them for as long as possible. Not least of all, Hitler and his work was admired by the people of most nations and even by the most prominent of their politicians, such as Winston Churchill, Pierre Laval, etc.

Who was it who created the first, and to this day the most significant, of all Internationals? The International of the Proletariat? Karl Marx! He was the man who truly wanted to conquer the world, not for one nation and even less for all people, but solely and expressly for the proletariat, at everyone else's expense. He himself wrote that he was prepared, if necessary, to annihilate the entire middle class! And during the great Russian Revolution his followers acted accordingly - they butchered millions! Why have the historians and politicians of virtually every nation on earth refrained from publicly denouncing Karl Marx as dictator? Isn't the International of the Proletariat by far the greatest thrust towards world dictatorship to date?

The great Revolution during the First World War in Russia did not emanate primarily from the Russians any more than the revolts of the Marxists in Germany during the Twenties emanated primarily from the Germans, or those in Austria from the Austrians, those in Hungary from the Hungarians, those in Spain from the Spanish or those in Italy from the Italians - and all of them together cost Europe several million dead. The goal was the same everywhere: the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'! They assumed the role of dictator wherever brute force offered any opportunity, regardless which country served as playground: the likes of Trotsky, Adler, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Radek, etc., and at the vanguard of them all - Karl Marx!

Let us not forget that in 1919, on the orders of the Jew Eisner, some 300 hostages - mostly men who had earned merit in the defense of their country - were slaughtered in the square of the Royal Seat in Munich, without even so much as a court verdict. And let us not forget that Rosa Luxemburg's and Karl Liebknecht's uprisings in Berlin, Hannover and Hamburg, in Saxony, Hesse and the Ruhr region totalled far more than 50,000 dead, or that the Revolt of 1936, instigated by the dictatorship of the proletariat and initially a great danger to Spain's very existence, cost the Spanish more than half a million dead.

Among the participants in the Red International in those days were Togliatti, Hemingway, Willy Brandt and many other leading Marxists from various countries; some of them are politically very active in Germany today. Those who instigated the blood-bath in order to seize the reins of dictatorial power were almost never people native to the country itself, but aliens, legitimized - so to speak - by the "International of the Proletariat" which, according to Karl Marx, intended the annihilation of the entire middle class, if necessary.

Who dares deny that the idea of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" has triggered countless, sometimes most bloody revolutions around the world, and created numerous dictatorships? The total must also include those revolutions which provoked natural counterforces and, accordingly, counter-revolutions.

This is the context within which one must view the two world wars. Both cases were a matter of the triggering of the Marxist World Revolution and the corresponding reactions. It is no wonder that enemy propaganda and slander did not begin only with Hitler and his rise to power, but rather already in the time of Emperor Wilhelm II. We may discern from this that said efforts were directed primarily neither at the Emperor nor at Hitler, but at the German nation and the German people. If this were not so, then the gigantic program of anti-German calumny would be quite incomprehensible, and useless to our enemies, today - 32 years after Hitler's death!

In the view of the leading Marxists, the dictatorship of the proletariat - by its very character, and due to the nature of the people, both pro and con - had no greater enemy than the German Reich. The first and foremost concern of this dictatorship of the proletariat, therefore, is to destroy this German empire, to eliminate it once and for all, or at the very least to reduce it to an impotent state construct of third rank at best.

Marxism cannot be considered a democratic nor even a Socialist movement; Marx and its other loyal champions proclaimed it, aptly and significantly enough, as the dictatorship of the proletariat, and it has been repeatedly celebrated as such. However, a revolution that fights exclusively for only a particular sector of the population and seeks to eliminate the other sectors to achieve its end - such a revolution is the worst possible enemy of the people as a whole, ie. of the truly Socialist community. Anyone who calls such a revolution "Socialist" or "democratic" deceives his own people!

It is vital to understand this, for the Marxists have gained their position of power on the strength of this main ideological pillar. By means of their Godesberg Program they even gained additional "middle class" support, specifically from those who still retain a touch of true Socialism - that kind which addresses the natural unity of a people.

If Hitler wanted to save the German people and nation from the desperate situation of the Twenties, he had to find a way that every German could follow. He had to create a party in which all Germans - without any differences, simply as Germans - could feel comfortable. Such a party could not have gained power by means of violence. Bloodshed may win victories, but not social community. Bloodshed may produce fear, but not true comradeship - it may gain an alliance, but never true unity and wholeness. Hitler understood this clearly from the start, and repeatedly stressed it to others.

The logical consequence of this was his self-sacrificial bearing at the Feldherrnhalle, where his Party did not shoot back when the police opened fire. Hitler, Hess, Göring and General Ludendorff strode resolutely and without hesitation into the volley. There were fourteen dead and many injured - the latter included Göring. In a symbolical sense this march became of utmost significance to the Revolution. Hitler's bearing and that of his men during those minutes remained an example to the millions that came later, who must not let themselves be provoked under any circumstances. Not letting oneself be provoked heightens one's self-discipline and faith. The one effects the other. Nothing else creates such a bond of comradeship. Nothing else is quite as impressive to one's adversaries. Many former opponents gave me confirmation of this in the prison camp after the war.

In 1932 I was just a common SA-man. My wife and I were driving through Hangelar near Bonn, when the district head of the KPD [Communist Party of Germany] took a shot at me from his house. The bullet struck the door beside me, just about ten inches from my head. I waived my right at criminal prosecution, and Hitler thanked me for it.

At Christmas, 1933, Dr. Goebbels ordered a gigantic table piled with gifts to be set up in the Reddest part of Greater Berlin, along one of the main streets in the Communist district. National-Socialist and Communist families alike were given Christmas gifts. In the course of this very touching hour, one of the leading Communists arrived. He had just been released from prison, even though he had committed a number of violent crimes. I saw him coming, since he had been driven from the prison right up to the table of gifts, where he met his family and his circle of friends and comrades - as well as his greatest adversary, Dr. Goebbels, and his men. To this day I number these minutes among the most wonderful of my life.

"This Christmas could not have been better", said Dr. Goebbels, and he was right. - Incidentally, it was the Russians who saw to it at the IMT in Nuremberg in 1946 that the SA as a whole was acquitted, and thus was not counted as one of the so-called "criminal organizations".

Where else has there ever been a nation of 70 million souls, on the highest level of civilization and culture, which gave 98% of its election vote to one single man? Nowhere! "For me there are no more opponents among the people," Adolf Hitler said in my presence when he was asked whether he knew the missing 2%.

During the Berlin Olympics of 1936 I heard Hitler say that, no matter how sad it was, we would have to try to stem the flood of medals for the German athletes somewhat - else it would come to be embarrassing towards our foreign guests.

That man was truly no dictator - but the slanderers have always tried to portray him as such. And it is in human nature to believe evil rather than good, falsehood rather than truth - especially if they think that they will profit more by this; a belief which always proves mistaken in the long term, however.

Certainly Adolf Hitler never wanted the war. On the contrary, he had hoped for a very long time of peace. All his real interests could be realized only in peacetime. Among those who slander him and the entire German people to this day, there are and were next to none who really knew him personally, as independent person, as free agent, long enough to be able to judge fairly.

His plans for post-war times were enormous in scale and scope - ranging from the eradication of cancer to the giant power plants he wanted to build in the Sahara, together with the African nations, in order to harness solar energy. "It's not necessary to be allied or bound to everyone - it's much easier to help everyone without international ties"; that was his opinion. Immensely interesting plans were already on the drawing board. All of us wanted peace as soon as possible. Hitler made offers of peace four or five times and received - no answer at all! In light of all this, can one really call him guilty, criminal - a dictator?

You, the reader, can decide for yourself; but you must understand that falsehood is always to everyone's detriment. Of all things, the past in particular ought to be perfectly clear to one who views it, like a precious diamond, and just as natural and immutable.

Was Hitler Really a Dictator?