Adolf Hitler became Chancellor less than 2 weeks ago, on Jan. 30.
This evening he gives a major speech at the Berlin Sportspalast stadium, kicking off an election campaign in which the Nazi Party hopes next month to gain a parliamentary majority.
Hitler asserts:
People of Germany, give us four years and then pass judgement upon us! People of Germany, give us four years and I swear to you: just as we, just as I have entered into this office, so will I leave it.
This evening, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels writes in his diary
February 10, 1933. The Führer gave a fantastic speech with a very sharply worded challenge to the Communists. At the end, he drifted into wonderful, truly incredible pathos, concluding his oration with the word 'Amen'. It seemed so natural that everyone was captivated and deeply moved. It was filled with such power and faith, was so novel and courageous and had such power and stature that nothing from the past bears comparison with it.
Before Hitler spoke, Goebbels attacked the press in his introduction:
Before the meeting begins I would just like to take notice of a few articles from the Berlin press which assert that I shouldn't be allowed to broadcast over the German radio, since I'm…. too much of a habitual liar to address the whole world.
This evening you are eyewitnesses to a mass occurrence which in this size in Germany and probably throughout the world has never before taken place....[T}tonight at least 20 million people in Germany and across the German frontier will be listening to the speech of Chancellor Adolf Hitler. In Berlin alone, in addition to this great mass demonstration in the Sportpalast, ten large loudspeakers have been set up in open places, and already a great number of people have gathered in front of these loudspeakers. There is already a throng of five to six hundred thousand people standing before them to hear this speech.
The Berliner Tageblatt has asked with astonishment who would pay for these loudspeakers? I would like to calm the gentlemen of the Berliner Tageblatt by assuring them that we still have enough money, thank heaven, to pay for ten loudspeakers….
When the Jewish press complains how the National Socialist movement is being allowed to speak on all German radio stations because of its chancellor, then we can answer that we're just doing what you have always done in the past….
…. A good government without propaganda can scarcely stand any better than good propaganda without a good regime. They have to complement each other.
And if the Jewish press today believes that it can make veiled threats against the National Socialist movement, and if they believe that they can get around our defensive measures they shouldn't keep lying. For one day our patience will reach its end and the Jews' insolent lying mouths will be shut for them!…..
…..I just wanted to settle with the enemy press and the enemy parties and say to them personally what I want to say over all German radio stations to the other millions of people.
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Elsewhere, today the Dutch military deliberately bombed one of their own armored warships in the Dutch East Indies.
A mutiny broke out on the ship Feb. 15 after the sailors received a pay cut of 15%. The crew seized control while the captain was on shore.
"We do not intend force...We only want to protest against the unjust cutting of wages and the imprisonment of those who have already protested,” they stated.
The Dutch Navy intercepted the ship on February 10 and have them 10 minutes to hoist a white flag of surrender. When the leaders refused, an airstrike was ordered and a bomb was dropped on the ship, killing 22 people on the deck. The ship then surrendered unconditionally.
The sailors may have mutinied on impulse, but they were depicted as heroes by Communists and the episode turned Dutch politics rightward, though only for a time.
This was, among other things, an early demonstration of the vulnerability of surface ships to aerial bombardment. (Wikipedia)
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On a lighter note, prohibition comedy “What! No Beer?” had its premiere showing today, starring Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante..
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This is a series started on impulse, Jan. 30. Not an expert. Additions, corrections, further insights welcomed!
Yesterday; Nazi rebuke sent to Swedish Newspaper