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

[Jonathan Lighter]

Garson, I'm quite unfamiliar with this quotation, but that means little.

It sounds like an odd thing for a politician to tell an audience at the
height of his success.

JL

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 2:48 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Quote: smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of
> our
>              new movement
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> >
> > Have you looked for a translation of Der Sieg des Glaubens, also known as
> > Triumph of the Will?
>
> Thanks for your response Dan. That is a excellent idea.
>
> According to Wikipedia "Triumph of the Will" was filmed during the
> 1934 Nuremberg rally, and the quotation was reportedly spoken during
> the 1933 rally.
>
> Wikipedia also claims that Riefenstahl filmed the 1933 Nuremberg
> Rally. The result was called Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith).
> Almost all of the copies were destroyed but at least one survived.
>
> The Internet Archive has a captioned version of The Sieg Des Glaubens
> (Victory of Faith). I have not watched it. Maybe there is a text file
> containing the captions somewhere.
>
> http://archive.org/details/TheVictoryOfFaithsiegDesGlaubens
>
>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> 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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> >>
> >
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