I joined the Party definitely in 1923 after having already been in sympathy with it before.

I became Gauleiter in 1927.

One day I heard a speech of Hitler. In this speech he said that the German factory worker and the German labourer must make common cause with the German intellectual worker.

Only Communists and Social Democrats who acted against the state were incarcerated. Most of the Communists and Social Democrats I had known became Nazis later. Only those who were doing anything against the state were thrown in concentration camps.

I could not have the honour of being a German soldier because of my imprisonment in the First World War. And in this world war the Fuehrer refuses to allow me to serve as a soldier.

In my Gau, as far as I know, only Communists who had actually worked against the State were arrested.

It so happened that I was on a German sailing vessel on the way to Australia when the ship was captured, and on the high seas I was made prisoner by the French.