"At present in Vienna, 14 July 1939;

"To the General Field Marshal

"Sir:

"If I may add something about myself, it is the following: I know that I am not of an active fighting nature, unless final decisions are at stake. At this time of pronounced activism" --Aktivismus--"this will certainly be regarded as a fault of my personality. Yet I know that I cling with unconquerable tenacity to the goal in which I believe, that is Greater Germany"--Grossdeutschland--"and the Führer. And if some people are already tired out from the struggle and some have been killed in the fight, I am still around somewhere and ready to go into action. This, after all, was also the development until the year 1938. Until July 1934, I conducted myself as a regular member of the Party. And if I had quietly, in whatever form, paid my membership dues (the first one, according to a receipt, I paid in December 1931) I probably would have been an undisputed, comparatively old fighter and Party member of Austria, but I would not have done any more for the union. I told myself in July 1934 that we must fight this clerical regime on its own ground in order to give the Führer a chance to use whatever method he desired."

"I told myself that this Austria was worth a mass. I have stuck to this attitude with an iron determination because I and my friends had to fight against the whole political church, the Freemasonry, the Jewry, in short, against everything in Austria. The slightest weakness which we might have displayed would undoubtedly have led to our political annihilation; it would have deprived the Führer of the means and tools to carry out his ingenious political solution for Austria, as became evident in the days of March 1938. I have been fully conscious of the fact that I am following a path which is not comprehensible to the masses and also not to my Party comrades. I followed it calmly and would without hesitation follow it again, because I am satisfied that at one point I could serve the Führer as a tool in his work, even though my former attitude even now gives occasion to very worthy and honorable Party comrades to doubt my trustworthiness I have never paid attention to such things because I am satisfied with the opinion which the Führer and the men close to him have of me."