page_title: Hitler's prophecy
section_title: 1943
hierarchical_section_title: Hitler's prophecy / Allusions / 1943
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Das deutsche Volk fordert den grossen Krafteinsatz zur Erzwingung des Sieges. Am Donnerstagabend fand im Berliner Sportpalast eine Grosskundgebung der Bevölkerung Berlins statt, in der Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels mit schonungsloser Offenheit die Gefahr aufzeigte, in der Europa schwebt. Die von dem alten nationalsozialistischen Kampfgeist getragene Veranstaltung brachte das einmütige und leidenschaftliche Bekenntnis der Teilnehmer, der Männer und Frauen, der Ritterkreuzträger und Rüstungsarbeiter, der Verwundeten und zahllosen Männer aus allen Schaffens- und Wissensgebieten, den Krieg rücksichtslos und in seiner radikalsten Totalität zu führen und den Sieg über den Bolschewismus zu erzwingen. UBz: Uebersicht über den Sportpalast während der Kundgebung. Fot. Schwahn 18.2.1943 J 5235
context_page_description: During a speech at the Reichstag on 30 January 1939, Adolf Hitler predicted "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" in the event of another world war. These words, which were similar to comments that Hitler had previously made to foreign politicians in private meetings, came towards the end of a long speech that dealt with several topics. They were made in the context of Nazi attempts to increase Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany, before the outbreak of World War II.
  Allusions to Hitler's prophecy by Nazi leaders and in Nazi propaganda were common from 30 January 1941, when Hitler mentioned it again in a speech. The prophecy took on new meaning with the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the German declaration of war against the United States that December, accelerating the systematic mass murder of Jews and leading to the globalization of World War II. In late 1941, Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels stated that the prophecy was being fulfilled while justifying the mass deportation of Jews from Germany.
context_section_description: On 18 February 1943, Goebbels delivered the total war speech at the Sportpalast. According to Herf, the enthusiastic audience reception to Goebbels' calls for total war against the Jewish–Bolshevik enemy indicated that "Hitler’s prophecy was still popular with the Nazi faithful".
  On 8 May 1943, Goebbels wrote an article titled "The War and the Jews": "None of the Führer’s prophetic words has come so inevitably true as his prediction that if Jewry succeeded in provoking a second world war, the result would be not the destruction of the Aryan race, rather the wiping out of the Jewish race. This process is of vast importance, and will have unforeseeable consequences that will take time. But it cannot be halted."  The article reached thousands of readers and millions of radio listeners. According to Herf, the piece "repeated and elaborated on the essential projection mechanism of Nazi propaganda"—that Jews were plotting the extermination of Germans.
  In this and other texts, Goebbels combined the big lie or lies—that is, that there was something called international Jewry which was directing a war against Germany; that Germany had not started the war; and that the Allies were lackeys of an unseen but all-powerful international conspiracy—with the truthful assertion that Nazi Germany was at that time murdering the Jews of Europe.
  Goebbels wrote that he was satisfied with the reception of the article and planned to increase the use of antisemitism as a propaganda tactic, as he found it second only to Bolshevism in effectiveness. On 18 May, the propaganda ministry delivered copies of "Twilight for the Jews All over the World!" to Nazi officials. The article cited Goebbels' repetition of Hitler's prophecy, adding that antisemitism was rising throughout the world because people had begun to understand that "all the suffering, privations, and deprivation of this war are exclusively due to the Jews, that the war itself is the work of Juda."
caption: Nazi rally on 18 February 1943 at the Berlin Sportpalast; the sign says "Total War – Shortest War".
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