--- title: World War II Adolf Hitler October 6 1939 Speech: Phony Peace Plea description: How TIME covered the "bare-faced lies" of the Oct. 6, 1939, speech canonical: https://time.com/3461961/hitler-peace-speech/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-06T15:00:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:34:53.274Z article:section: History og:title: 75 Years Ago: Hitler's Phony Plea for Peace og:description: How TIME covered the "bare-faced lies" of the Oct. 6, 1939, speech og:url: https://time.com/3461961/hitler-peace-speech/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7f826b1caa41285/6986a70636176017ca90e3cc/peace-speech.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: peace speech og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 75 Years Ago: Hitler's Phony Plea for Peace twitter:description: How TIME covered the "bare-faced lies" of the Oct. 6, 1939, speech twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7f826b1caa41285/6986a70636176017ca90e3cc/peace-speech.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 75 Years Ago: Hitler's Phony Plea for Peace  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 6, 2014 3:00 PM UTC  From the Oct. 16, 1939, issue of TIME From the Oct. 16, 1939, issue of TIMETIME  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 6, 2014 3:00 PM UTC On Oct. 6, 1939, Adolf Hitler returned from touring the trampled city of Warsaw to address the Reichstag. He was ready to do something surprising: ask the world for peace. Except that his peace speech — delivered 75 years ago on Monday — was far from peaceful. As TIME noted in its coverage of the event, Hitler spent about 60 of the 80 minutes speaking about other things. And, when he finally moved on to the subject, the oratory was, unsurprisingly, full of untruths. Here’s what TIME reported in the Oct. 16 issue: --- > “” --- If TIME readers flipped to page 45, as suggested by the parenthetical about “restricted aerial warfare,” they would find a tale of the slaughter of Polish civilians. The speech continued, this magazine reported, with a discussion of good relations with Britain and France, and Hitler’s hope that the nations of Europe could settle on a peace — but only a peace in which German demands would be met. And, despite the ostensibly peaceful nature of the speech, Hitler couldn’t resist ending on an ultimatum: “If, however, the opinions of Messrs. Churchill and his followers should prevail,” TIME reported him saying, “this statement will have been my last.” **_Read the full report on Hitler’s Oct. 6, 1939, speech here, in_** **TIME** **_‘s archives:_** [The Last Statement](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,762041,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3461961/hitler-peace-speech/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3461961/hitler-peace-speech/"},"headline":"75 Years Ago: Hitler's Phony Plea for Peace","datePublished":"2014-10-06T15:00:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:34:53.274Z","description":"How TIME covered the \"bare-faced lies\" of the Oct. 6, 1939, speech","url":"https://time.com/3461961/hitler-peace-speech/","keywords":["conflict","World War II","Nazi","Hitler","anniversary"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7f826b1caa41285/6986a70636176017ca90e3cc/peace-speech.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7f826b1caa41285/6986a70636176017ca90e3cc/peace-speech.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"peace speech","caption":"Peace Speech","creditText":"TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/conflict/","name":"conflict"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3461961/hitler-peace-speech/","name":"75 Years Ago: Hitler's Phony Plea for Peace"}}]}] ```