My disappointment dates almost from the very beginning of the Nazi regime. Hitler’s eviction of the conservative elements from the government, of whi… - Fritz Thyssen

It is, above all, in its anti-Jewish campaign, that the party has officially given free rein to the base instincts which lie at the root of its so-called philosophy. The National Socialist government had the miserable privilege of encouraging and even ordering acts which are considered to be crimes by the whole civilised world. Foreigners who were in Germany at the time were appalled at these scenes of sadism and savagery; they saw the official incendiaries of the synagogues at work. In the capital of the Reich, in the centre of the town and in full view of the embassies, the Storm Troops and the younger Hitlerites, commanded by their chiefs, gutted and plundered dwellings and shops. In tolerating—indeed, actually organising—theft, arson, pillage, and even murder in the concentration camps, the National Socialist regime, especially in that autumn of 1938, revealed itself to the whole world as a government of gangsters.

The persecution of the Christian religion, taking the form of cruel measures against the priests and insults to the Churches, led me to protest in the early days, for instance when the police president of Düsseldorf issued a protest to Marshal Goering. It was in vain.

After the declaration of war several people, who took no trouble to conceal their lack of enthusiasm for the regime, came to see me in Switzerland. They said, ‘how that war is declared, everyone must rally behind Hitler, for he represents Germany.’ To all such attempts to make me reverse my decision I replied, ‘No; for this man will plunge the German people into disaster.’