Bloody Terror and Brüning’s Emergency Decree

Mr. Reich Chancellor, you think Germany’s domestic peace is threatened. We National Socialists have said for many years that such peace must end if a party consciously preaches Marxist class struggle and incites the worst gutter scum to act as Cheka murderers against human society. We have been unable for years to understand why Marxist newspapers carry almost open calls for the murder of others and hardly a state attorney dares to intervene only because their targets are called Fascists — or in other words, National Socialists. Still, these murders and assaults were kept within relatively narrow boundaries. Mr. Reich Chancellor, it is only since you issued emergency decrees to “protect” domestic order from violence and terror did terror unfortunately reach unbearable levels. In practice, your all your emergency decrees have not withstood reality. The most miserable failure is in the “calming of public life.” Instead of letting a movement from our people into the visible flow of politics, one kept it away from the spotlight and driven it into the darkness. That followed the brilliant method of the well-known philosopher Vogel, who assumed what what he did not see no longer existed.

The efforts to restrict or eliminate political movements made in recent years have led to enormous bitterness and an worsening of the situation.

Do you believe, Mr. Reich Chancellor, that by taking away from an adult man the symbols of his political viewpoint you also eliminate that viewpoint? You make him more fanatical, since he feels himself the victim of misused public force. Just as France was unable to hinder the growth of Germany’s national strength, so little, Mr. Reich Chancellor, will you be able through analogous methods to stop the growth of this force within our own national body.

All the restrictions of the so-called uniform ban, the ban on membership badges, etc., only increase the anger against the present System, and from all sides. A quick look at history will persuade you, Mr. Reich Chancellor, that such suppressive measures have always had the opposite effect. And you, Mr. Reich Chancellor, will have a hard time refuting the lesson of history in this matter.

This decree will hardly eliminate the Communist Party from our people — the opposite, in fact. You promote it. And as for the National Socialist movement, I assure you, Mr. Reich Chancellor, that this movement will live and rule Germany long after this decree has been forgotten.