"The men of the Holy Inquisition did not hate the "heretics" whom they handed
over to the "secular arm" to be burnt at the stake. On the contrary, they loved
them— in their strange, very strange way. They loved their souls, in Christ and in
the holy Church, as it was their duty, and hoped till the end for their conversion,
and prayed for God's grace to enlighten them, while the bodies were burning.
The furious reformers of the French Revolution killed off their opponents by the
thousands, after a rapid trial or no trial at all, without bothering to torture or to
humiliate them, save in a few special cases. They too, did not hate them. They
only wanted to get rid of them.
And we, National Socialists— we whom the whole world accuses of all possible
and impossible crimes, now that we are no longer in power— we never hated
anyone in our grand days. We were ruthless, yes; we had to be. But we never were
cruel, whatever the liars might say. We killed, if we were forced to, but with
detachment, and as quickly and cleanly as possible. We never inflicted pain,
unless it was absolutely necessary, for State reasons. And then we never
considered it a pleasant necessity.
Our persecutors have, countless times, inflicted pain upon us, without it being in
any way a State necessity from their point of view. They have starved us, beaten
us, tortured us and compelled us, at the point of their bayonets, to undergo the
worst possible humiliations, for the sheer delight of knowing that we felt the
hunger, the pain and the insults, and that we suffered— we the strong and the
proud; the hated Nazis— for the sheer delight of feeling that we were now in their
power, and that any ill-treatment could henceforth be meted out to us with
impunity."
