Walther Gross - National Socialist racial policy
A Speech to German Women
This is the text of a speech delivered by Dr. Walter Groß, the head of the Nazi Party’s Office of Racial Policy. He was speaking to a women’s meeting at the Gau party rally in Cologne on 13 October 1934. The text was widely distributed. This is an interesting example of Nazi racial policy early on in Hitler’s regime. The picture of Groß is from a 1934 issue of Neues Volk, the Nazi Party’s monthly magazine on racial policy, aimed at a mass audience.
My Dear German Women and Girls!
When Germans come together today to discuss the things that concern us both as individuals and as a nation, it is a solemn occasion, whether we wish it to be or not. During the political struggles of the past, we could speak of party programs or of civilization without any involvement of our soul.
Now we have forgotten how to approach an issue merely with our understanding, merely with our mouth, merely with our heart. We have become whole people once again. When we speak with others, we do so with our full being.
That is what made the movement strong, and great, and powerful from its first days. It is also that which the enemy, on this side of the border and the other, cannot understand, and which it hates with deadly strength. As this great and beautiful people’s movement began, so also began a hard and bitter struggle between enemy and German forces, between an old world that is really long dead and buried, and the new world that is struggling to reach the light through us. This struggle has been going on in people’s hearts and souls for years, and is nowhere near its end. The world finds it difficult to understand that which is at the center of our endeavors :
the value of blood and race.
Walther Gross - Race
Walther Gross - National Socialist racial policy
