I also suspect your quote would have been taken by most (certainly most foreign) listeners as hyperbole at the time.
Which just goes to show you that civilized listeners can't really hear what their attackers are saying. Their very civilization prevents it.
The Jews didn't believe it could happen to them. Patriotic Americans don't believe that their own leaders intend to sell them out to "Transnational Progressivism" or whatever they're calling Marxism these days.