12th August 1942; isolated remarks
Dancing was the first method of artistic expression employed by man. The most beautiful dance in the world is without doubt the waltz, a perfect harmony of movement and music. After it I should place the Schuhplattler dance of Upper Bavaria, which, thanks to its austere and dignified style, never makes a man look ridiculous. But the ballroom dancing of today…! It’s nothing but a series of simian posturings!
16th August 1942, evening
The German nation has survived the period of the great migrations, the wars with the Romans, the onslaughts of the Huns, the Magyars and the Mongols, the Thirty Years’ War, the campaigns of Frederick the Great and Napoleon—and it will no doubt survive even my rule!
20th August 1942, midday
The morale of a people depends to a large extent on the activity of their judges. Every war gives rise to a species of selectivity in reverse; the finest and fittest perish by the thousand. In time, then, there remains only the rascal living in peace and security. If I fail to exterminate the vermin as a counter-balance, a dangerous situation would arise. I am certainly not a brutal man by nature, and consequently it is cold reason that guides my actions.
20th August 1942, evening
A ’plane is a ’plane, and I detest those people who suddenly go all sporting! I hate all that type of bravado; the Duce is very foolish in this respect—he’s not the type for bravado! People sometimes ask me why I play no games? The answer is simple—I’m no good at games, and I refuse to make a fool of myself!
Bismarck, when asked to go swimming, said: “I think I can swim, but from me people would expect something of which I know I am not capable. I’d rather not!” The Duce might well take this to heart. It always makes me nervous when he pilots a ’plane; his job is to steer the Italian ship of State. When I think of the numbers who have lost their lives in this fortuitous fashion…!
1st August 1942, midday
Events have shown that journalism demands a style of its own. Real journalistic jargon came into being, I think, in the Völkischer Beobachter during our electoral campaign in 1932. Rosenberg feared a landslide. I am quite sure that at the time he despaired of humanity, and his contempt for mankind was only increased when he found that the more he lowered the intellectual level of the journal, the more sales increased! He ought really to have called the paper “Münchner Beobachter—Baltic Edition”!
At the beginning, the Völkischer Beobachter sailed on so high an intellectual plane that I myself had difficulty in understanding it, and I certainly know no woman who could make head or tail of it! Rosenberg insisted on this extremely high level.
22nd August 1942, evening
The Mexicans, indeed, indulged in extensive human sacrifice, and, when the spirit moved them, would sacrifice as many as twenty thousand human beings at a time! In comparison, Cortés was a moderate man. There is no need whatever to go rushing round the world making the native more healthy than the white man.
22nd August 1942, evening
Had he been given the time, Stalin would have made of Russia a super-industrialised monster, completely contrary to the interests of the masses, but justified by demagogic pedantry and designed to raise the standard of life for his own particular partisans. His final objective would have been the absorbing of the whole of Europe into the Bolshevik ring. He is a beast, but he’s a beast on the grand scale. He made use of the Jews to eliminate the intelligentsia of the Ukraine, and then exported the Jews by trainloads to Siberia.
26th August 1942, evening
A State like Switzerland, which is nothing but a pimple on the face of Europe, cannot be allowed to continue. It is to be hoped that one day we shall achieve complete hegemony in Europe. As for the Swedish vermin, they must be swept away like the Danish vermin in 1848!
28th August 1942, midday
Budapest and Vienna
—The new capital of the Reich.
The Hungarian aristocracy has predominantly German blood in its veins; all the original aristocracies of Europe belong, fundamentally, to one single international community.
The Reich must get a worthy capital. At the moment Budapest is the most beautiful town in the world, and there is no town in the whole German Reich that can even compare with it. The Houses of Parliament, the Citadel, the Cathedral and the bridges, seen in the shimmer of the setting sun, present a spectacle of beauty unsurpassed in the world. Vienna, too, is impressive, but it is not on a river. And all these beauties have been built by German architects.
It shows one how important the construction of a capital city can be. In olden days, Buda and Pest were both a conglomeration of peasant hovels. In a single century, Budapest rose from a city of forty thousand inhabitants to a great capital with a million and a quarter citizens. With the exception of the Town Hall, all the buildings in Budapest are twice the size of their equivalents in Vienna.
Berlin must follow suit, and I know we shall make a magnificent city of it. Once we have got rid of the hideous expanse of water which defaces the north side of the city, we shall have a magnificent perspective, stretching from the Sudbahnhof to the Triumphal Arch, with the cupola of the People’s Palace in the distance.
_____________________________
Consider obtaining a copy of the complete notes
published by Ostara Publications.
28th August 1942, evening
Some German towns must be protected at all costs—Weimar, Nuremberg, Stuttgart. Factories can always be rebuilt, but works of art are irreplaceable.