Quote: smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jun 21 05:31:35 UTC 2012


Have you looked for a translation of Der Sieg des Glaubens, also known as
Triumph of the Will?
DanG


On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 1:05 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Quote: smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our
> new
>              movement
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Only one thing could have stopped our movement - if our adversaries
> had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the
> utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement.
>
> I have been asked about the quotation above which is ascribed to Adolf
> Hitler. Instances appear in various online political forums: mostly
> anarchist and leftist it seems. An instance apparently was used in a
> 1976 drama by the British playwright David Edgar called "Destiny". The
> play has multiple versions and I haven't verified the text on paper.
>
> So the quote has moved into the English language war literature.
> Hence, it is not completely off-topic. Maybe Jonathan Lighter has seen
> it during his major project.
>
> The best lead I have found is a 1973 cite given below that points to a
> "speech to the Nuremberg Congress, September 3, 1933" by Hitler. But I
> do not know how to verify this information. Any suggestions? A
> friendly WWII scholar who speaks German and English would be helpful.
>
> The 1973 book was translated from French. So the original German
> quotation (if it exists) was translated to French and then to English
> before it appeared in the book.
>
> Cite: 1973, Fascism and Big Business by Daniel Guerin, [Translated
> from French to English by Frances and Mason Merrill; Revisions in the
> 1965 French Edition translated by Dan Stewart and Francoise Collet],
> Chapter 5, Quote Page 111-112, Footnote Page 296, A Monad Press Book
> distributed by Pathfinder Press, New York. (Verified on paper)
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Hitler confessed in retrospect: "Only one thing could have broken our
> movement - if the adversary had understood its principle and from the
> first day had smashed, with the most extreme brutality, the nucleus of
> our new movement." 31 And Goebbels: "If the enemy had known how weak
> we were, it would probably have reduced us to jelly. . . . It would
> have crushed in blood the very beginning of our work." 32
> [End excerpt]
>
> [Begin excerpt in footnote section]
> 31.  Hitler, speech to the Nuremberg Congress, September 3, 1933.
> 32.  Goebbels,  op. cit.
> [End excerpt]
>
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