[The following is an excerpt from the a message broadcast to the German people at 12:45 on 7 May, from the ‘leading minister’ of Karl Dönitz’s government, Schwerin von Krosigk, at close of the Second World War in Europe.]
We must light the path through the darkness of the future and be guided by three stars which always were the pledge of true German character: unity and law and freedom.
We want to safeguard and rescue one thing from the collapse of the past: the idea of the people’s community that during the years of war found its finest expression in the comradeship out at the front, in the reciprocal readiness to help in all emergencies at home. […] Only if we preserve this unity and do not again break apart into conflicting groups and classes can we survive the difficult time to come.
We must make law the basis of the life of our people. Justice shall be the supreme law and the uppermost guiding principle among our people. We must recognise and respect the law as the basis of relations between peoples out of inner conviction. […]
We will combine pride in the heroic struggle of our people with determination as part of Christian-Western culture to make a contribution in sincere work for peace that corresponds to the best tradition of our people.
May Got not forsake us in misfortune, and bless our difficult undertaking.
Source:
Bessel, Richard. “The Last Days of the Reich.” Germany 1945: From War to Peace. New York, NY, HarperCollins, 2009. 132. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Printed in KTB, vol. iv, pp. 1680-1682. See also Gerhard Paul, “Wir brachten den letzten Wehrmachtsbericht dieses Krieges”. Der “Reichssender Flensburg” im Mai 1945 und die Leitideen der bundesdeutschen Nachkriegsgesellschaft’, in Gerhard Paul, Landunter. Schleswig-Holstein und das Hakenkreuz (Münster, 2001), pp. 312-314.
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