21st-22nd October 1941, night
SPECIAL GUEST: REICHSFUEHRER SS HIMMLER
The need for decorum—The face of new Berlin—Monuments that will last a thousand years.
We need an impressive décor, and we ought to create one. More and more we should give our festive occasions a style that will remain in the memory. In England, the traditional forms, which from a distance seem baroque, have retained their full youth. They remain vital because they represent customs that have been observed for a long time and without the slightest interruption.
I regard it as a necessity that our ceremonial should be developed during my lifetime. Otherwise one of my successors, if he has simple tastes, could quote me as his authority. Don’t speak to me of Prussian simplicity! We must remember how Frederick the Great took care of his State’s finances.
Berlin has the monuments of the days of Frederick the Great. Once upon a time it was the sand-pit of the Empire. Nowadays, Berlin is the capital of the Reich. Berlin’s misfortune is that it’s a city of very mixed population; which doesn’t make it ideal for the development of culture. In that respect, our last great monarch was Frederick-William IV. William I had no taste. Bismarck was blind in matters of art. William II had taste, but of the worst description.
What is ugly in Berlin, we shall suppress. Nothing will be too good for the beautification of Berlin. When one enters the Reich Chancellery, one should have the feeling that one is visiting the master of the world. One will arrive there along wide avenues containing the Triumphal Arch, the Pantheon of the Army, the Square of the People—things to take your breath away! It’s only thus that we shall succeed in eclipsing our only rival in the world, Rome. Let it be built on such a scale that St. Peter’s and its Square will seem like toys in comparison!
For material, we’ll use granite. The vestiges of the German past, which are found on the plains to the North, are scarcely time-worn. Granite will ensure that our monuments last for ever. In ten thousand years they’ll be still standing, just as they are, unless meanwhile the sea has again covered our plains.
If I try to gauge my work, I must consider, first of all, that I’ve contributed, in a world that had forgotten the notion, to the triumph of the idea of the primacy of race. Secondly, I’ve given German supremacy a solid cultural foundation. In fact, the power we to-day enjoy cannot be justified, in my eyes, except by the establishment and expansion of a mighty culture.
Berlin will one day be the capital of the world.