Nik wrote in
:

One Hundred and Seven

by Joseph Goebbels



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That is a nice, round, impressive and weighty number. Some of us recall the
time when we wrote that number on a membership book and thereby documented
that the number of party members was entering its second hundred. It hardly
seems possible that we now have that many members in the Reichstag, that we
are the second largest party, and the largest of the non-Marxist parties.
We will have to adjust to our new role. Overnight we have changed from a
small and despised group to a leading mass party, and our victory on 14
September is unprecedented in political history. In the past a party that
doubled its vote celebrated the achievement as a triumph. The Social
Democrats fought for decades to get their first twenty seats. In the last
two years our party has grown by a factor of ten. It has conquered bastion
after bastion and fortress after fortress throughout the nation, regardless
of lies, slanders and bans. It has built a strong organization, begun fifty
newspapers and developed a battalion of the best political speakers. It had
produced a flood of plans and ideas and many organizers and thinkers. This
cannot be explained by ordinary means. It is a political mystery, something
of a miracle.

Our duty is to transform the miracle of this political mystery into
reality. The broad masses who have expressed themselves in our movement
have given a clear and unmistakable statement against the Germany of today
and for the Germany of tomorrow. They want a radical break with the
domestic, foreign, economic and cultural policies of the past government.
No more threatening assault on the System can be imagined. It is clear that
the will to rid Germany of the old parties and their ideas is no longer
that of a small party, but of an entire awakened nation. Our propaganda has
unleashed this popular will. Now we must transform words into deeds.

Those in the Center know our goals: the National Socialist movement has no
desire to join the bourgeois party bosses. We have no intention of ducking
responsibility. We are not purveyors of pathos, as the newspapers like to
say about us. We will accept responsibility only when we can justify it to
the people and the nation. We do not think holy what the Republic thinks
untouchable. The National Socialist movement wants a transformation of
things as they are. We have not come to prop up that which is collapsing,
but to topple it.

The conditions under which we would be willing to use the power we have are
clear. They are clear, proper and precise to anyone who knows us. We are
interested not in the good of our party, but in the good of the German
people. The millions who have voted for us want National Socialism to
determine the fate of the Reich. They have no interest in parliamentary
horse trading, even less that we use our strength to support a collapsing
system. Anyone who wants to govern with us must accept the fact that the
time when one could ignore the interests of the working people is over. We
also refuse absolutely to dicker for party advantage. We will take care of
our party by ourselves. The government should consider only the interests
of the people.

We have recovered from last week's surprising and completely unexpected
triumph. Our hearts are once more hot and our minds cool. Not the other way
around. We view our sudden strength with good sense, ready to use it at a
moment's notice. We can govern, or we can be in the opposition. But we will
do either in the spirit of National Socialism. We can sit as comfortably in
the ministerial seats as in the parliamentary benches. We are at home
anywhere in German politics. But wherever we are, we will untiringly serve
the German people and its welfare. That is the oath we make in this happy
hour that fate has blessed us with after so much sacrifice, effort and
bloodshed.

We stand by the people and we fight for Germany! We want nothing for
ourselves, everything for the nation! We will give our full efforts for the
good of the community, striving to win back honor and prosperity for the
Fatherland. We will stand or fall according to Germany's fate.

Raise the banner high!