Fear of Its Record

The present System does not dare to release to the public its declarations and promises from its founding days, since they consist wholly of illusions. You are welcome, however, to publish my speeches from these years, and my later ones as well. They would provide support and justification for me today, just as they supported my attacks on your party and its Marxist allies back then.

It was an illusion to give up our naval fleet in the hopes it would be returned to us,

an illusion to give up our merchant fleet in the hopes of getting it back,

an illusion to disarm in the belief that France would do the same.

It was an illusion to expect help from the conscience of the world, from the League of Nations, or from some other conference.

It was an illusion to sign the Peace Treaty, thinking it was nothing but a formal document, not the intentional destruction of the German people and its economy by France — something already evident back then.

It was an illusion to believe that by signing the war guilt lie, one would be treated leniently, even be “forgiven,” when in reality throughout world history every unprincipled act carries within it its own reward.

It was an illusion, Mr. Reich Chancellor, which your party comrade Matthias Erzberger proposed to the Allies a reparations payment of a hundred million gold marks, and the German government actually believed that it could fulfill that, then morally stoned anyone who called this nonsense nonsense.

It was further an illusion during the Ruhr battle to believe that one could intimidate an occupying army by a subsidized general strike, and an even greater illusion to think that one would be able to negotiate more effectively in the future without building an active front in the hinterland.