“We are already on the threshold of mobilization, and we are already at war. All that is lacking is the actual shooting.”

Hermann Göring’s December 1936 declaration to a gathering of German industrialists—“We are already on the threshold of mobilization, and we are already at war. All that is lacking is the actual shooting.”—turns the language of impending conflict into an admission that war has, in substance, begun. Spoken privately after the 1936 Summer Olympics, it sharply contradicts the reassuring image the Games had presented to the world.

Wording and Context

The declaration came in December, within months of the Games’ closing ceremony. Within days of that ceremony, the Nazis had renewed their persecution of German Jews and others they considered inferior: anti-Semitic signs were rehung, and brutality and terror resumed and intensified. Against that immediate aftermath, Göring’s words describe not a distant possibility but a country already moving toward open warfare.

A Private Admission

Göring made the statement secretly to industrialists in Berlin, in private rather than in public. Its phrasing holds two conditions together: Germany stands on the threshold of mobilization, yet is already at war; only the actual shooting remains. The final clause makes the distinction between preparation and combat sound narrow, while stopping short of claiming that the shooting has begun.

The Olympic Contrast

The larger world knew nothing of this declaration or the renewed persecution. The narrative sets Göring’s private admission against the complete illusion created by the Olympic Games: Joseph Goebbels had persuaded many observers that the Nazis’ presentation of Germany was reasonable and that its critics were biased or misinformed. The statement therefore marks the gap between the image seen by returning visitors and the violence and military intent concealed from them.