Hitler's Reichstag Speech

Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler gave his annual speech in front of the German Reichstag (parliament). Hitler gave this speech at a time of international tension, as he was provoking war with neighboring countries.

Towards the end of his lengthy speech, Hitler addressed the “Jewish Question.” He stated, “I want once again to be a prophet. If the international Finance-Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed in plunging the peoples of the earth once again into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of earth, and thus a Jewish victory, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”

This short quotation references multiple antisemitic conspiracy theories, falsely blaming Jews for both war and communism.

In a speech two years later, on January 30, 1941, Hitler once again explicitly referenced his "prophecy." By this time, German authorities in occupied Poland had imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Jews in ghettos.