“On Sunday I voted ‘No’ in the plebiscite, and I also wrote ‘No’ on the Reichstag ballot paper. Eva left both slips empty. That was almost a brave deed, because the whole world expects the secrecy of the ballot to be violated. I do not believe that it was really infringed. It was anyway unnecessary for two reasons: (1) It is enough that everyone believed in the violation and was therefore afraid; (2) the correctness of the result as announced was already guaranteed, since the Party dominates everything without opposition. I must also acknowledge that millions were made drunk by the weeks of boundless and boundlessly mendacious ‘propaganda for peace’, which was countered by not a single printed or spoken word.<\/p>\n
For all that: when the triumph was published yesterday: 93 percent vote for Hitler! 40 1\/2 million ‘yes’, 2 million ‘No’– 39 1\/2 million for the Reichstag, 3 1\/2 million ‘invalid’– I as laid low, I almost believed the figures and held them to be the truth. And since then we have been told in every possible key: this ‘election’ is recognized abroad, ‘all of Germany’ is seen to be behind Hitler, [the foreign powers] admire Germany’s unity, will be conciliatory toward it, etc., etc. Now all of it makes me drunk, I too am beginning to believe in the power and permanency of Hitler. It is dreadful.<\/p>\n
— On top of everything else ‘London says’: What especially commanded admiration was that even in the concentration camps most had voted ‘Yes’. But that is undoubtedly either a matter of falsification or compulsion. But what good is the rational ‘undoubtedly’? If I have no choice but to read and hear something everywhere, it is forced upon me. And if I can hardly guard against believing it — how shall millions of naive people guard against it? And if they believe, then they are indeed won by Hitler and the power and the glory are really his.<\/p>\n
Gusti Wieghardt told me recently that an advertising brochure for some electrical goods or other had been sent to her. In the middle of the advertisement text there had been a Communist article … But what good do such pinpricks do? Less than none. Because all Germany prefers Hitler to the Communists. And I see no difference between either of the two movements; both are materialistic and lead to slavery.”<\/p>\n
— November 14, 1933<\/i><\/p>\n