Adolf Hitler Speech: April 24 1923

1) Framing: Class labels as a tool of division

Rejects the terms “proletariat” and “bourgeois,” claiming Jews coined them to split manual and intellectual workers and weaponize the masses against the nation-state.

2) “Judaized” economy narrative

Says business was depersonalized/speculative (no longer “Aryan” work), separating master and man.

Claims the same Jewish leaders who fostered class division then led workers against the remaining independent national economy.

3) Blame on the bourgeois elite

Accuses the bourgeoisie of “blindness,” pride, and neglect of workers’ welfare, which allegedly let Jews lead German workers.

Argues the masses wouldn’t have been alienated if elites had shown care.

4) Right vs. Left

Right-wing parties: “no will/courage/energy,” obsessed with office; useless for national liberation.

Left/Communists: possess energy but use it to ruin Germany; substitute party discipline for state discipline, creating a “state within the state” and aiding foreign powers—presented as a result of Marxism.

5) Source of national strength

Strength lies in the great masses (workers’ hand, brain, will), not salon politics.

Calls for a leader to awaken that slumbering energy; liberation “from below,” not from elites.

6) People’s-state ideal: work-based citizenship

Envisions a state that rewards productive activity; “he who refuses honest work” should not be a citizen.

Capital must serve the state, not rule it; the state must avoid dependence on international loan capital.

7) Social promise

If only workers are citizens, they are owed old-age security (“kept free from care and want”)—portrayed as the greatest social achievement.

Justifies making the “highest demands” now to return freedom and international respect later.

8) Rhetorical posture

Denounces bourgeois parties as cowards when “heroes” are needed.

Positions National Socialism as the only movement able to mobilize workers to regain the Reich.