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Extract from Germany Look East! – The Collected Speeches of Rudolf Hess, selected and edited by Prof. Albrecht Haushofer, University of Berlin Press, 1952; part of Hess’s speech at Leipziger Triumphsportplatz to Hitlerjugend [Hitler Youth], May 1939, con­cerning the then Deputy Führer’s wish for peaceful co-existence with Britain and its Empire:

‘[For those of us who squatted in our dug-outs with our faces in the mud, for those who listened with stilled breath while the bullets of the English enemy sang through the air above our heads, for those who suffocated in our gas-masks, for those who lay in shell craters through the freezing nights, the Great War brought one passionate con­viction. I carry that belief close to my heart even now. It is carried also by the Leader, who fought valiantly for the Fatherland in the same war. That conviction is this.

‘[War against the English race must not be fought by German people. Our argument is not with another Nordic race! Our argu­ment is elsewhere!

‘[We saw, in that most terrible war, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of young German men and boys. Each of them loved the Fatherland, as you and I love the Fatherland. Yet they died! They did not shirk their duty. They did not hide. They did not even ask why they had to make the ultimate sacrifice.

‘[It falls to us, this new generation of German national patriots, to give them the answer. England is not our enemy!

‘[We seek space to live. We wish the development of the German race. If the English give us the free hand we need, we will have no dispute with them. If war is to come, it will be their choice, not ours. We who survived the landmines and the shells and the gas of the Great War say again and again: we will spare the world another war.

‘[But only if England allows it!

‘[Heil Hitler!]’