3rd January 1942, midday
If there was a country that had particular reasons to avoid war, it was certainly Great Britain. The only way for her to keep her Empire was to have a strong air force and a strong navy. That was all she needed.
Night of 3rd-4th January 1942
Recruitment of the SS—Himmler’s value—Origins of the SS and the SA—Women love males.
The SS shouldn’t extend its recruiting too much. What matters is to keep a very high level. This body must create upon men of the élite the effect of a lover. People must know that troops like the SS have to pay the butcher’s bill more heavily than anyone else—so as to keep away the young fellows who only want to show off. Troops inspired by a fierce will, troops with an unbeatable turn-out—the sense of superiority personified! As soon as peace has returned, the SS will have to be given its independence again—a complete independence. There has always been a rivalry between troops of the line and guards-men.
That’s why it’s a good thing that the SS should constitute, in relation to the others, an absolutely distinct world. In peace-time it’s an élite police, capable of crushing any adversary.
It was necessary that the SS should make war, otherwise its prestige would have been lowered. I am proud when an army commander can tell me that “his force is based essentially on an armoured division and the SS Reich Division”.
Himmler has an extraordinary quality. I don’t believe that anyone else has had like him the obligation to deploy his troops in such constantly difficult conditions. In 1934, “the old gentleman” was still there. Even afterwards, a thousand difficulties arose.
Being convinced that there are always circumstances in which élite troops are called for, in 1922-23 I created the “Adolf Hitler Shock Troops”. They were made up of men who were ready for revolution and knew that one day or another things would come to hard knocks. When I came out of Landsberg, everything was broken up and scattered in sometimes rival bands. I told myself then that I needed a bodyguard, even a very restricted one, but made up of men who would be enlisted without restriction, even to march against their own brothers.
Only twenty men to a city (on condition that one could count on them absolutely) rather than a suspect mass. 
It was Maurice, Schreck and Heyden who formed in Munich the first group of “tough uns”, and were thus the origin of the SS. But it was with Himmler that the SS became that extraordinary body of men, devoted to an idea, loyal unto death. I see in Himmler our Ignatius de Loyola. With intelligence and obstinacy, against wind and tide, he forged this instrument.
The heads of the SA, for their part, didn’t succeed in giving their troops a soul. At the present time we have had it confirmed that every division of the SS is aware of its responsibility. The SS knows that its job is to set an example, to be and not to seem, and that all eyes are upon it.
The men of the Nordic countries have been softened to this point, that their most beautiful women buckle their baggage when they have an opportunity of getting their hooks on a man in our part of the world. That’s what happened to Goring with his Karin. There’s no rebelling against this observation.
It’s a fact that women love real men. It’s their instinct that tells them. In prehistoric times, the women looked for the protection of heroes. When two men fight for the possession of a woman, the latter waits to let her heart speak until she knows which of the two will be victorious. Tarts adore poachers.
6th January 1942, midday
The catastrophe of 1940
—The scapegoat.
This war will have helped to originate one of the world’s great upheavals. It will have consequences that we did not seek—for example, the dismemberment of the British Empire. Who are the guilty parties? The Jews. What happens to England is totally indifferent to them. A Hore-Belisha, who grew up in the ghetto, couldn’t have the same reflexes as an Englishman.
Experience teaches us that after every catastrophe a scapegoat is found. In England, it will probably be the Jew. But let them settle that between themselves. It’s not our mission to settle the Jewish question in other people’s countries!
7th January 1942, evening
The evils of Americanism.
I don’t see much future for the Americans. In my view, it’s a decayed country. And they have their racial problem, and the problem of social inequalities. Those were what caused the downfall of Rome, and yet Rome was a solid edifice that stood for something. Moreover, the Romans were inspired by great ideas. Nothing of the sort in England to-day. As for the Americans, that kind of thing is non-existent. That’s why, in spite of everything, I like an Englishman a thousand times better than an American.
It goes without saying that we have no affinities with the Japanese. They’re too foreign to us, by their way of living, by their culture. But my feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance. I feel myself more akin to any European country, no matter which. Everything about the behaviour of American society reveals that it’s half Judaised, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together—a State where 80 per cent of the revenue is drained away for the public purse—a country where everything is built on the dollar? From this point of view, I consider the British State very much superior.
Night of 8th-9th January 1942
Childhood memories—Religious instruction—The Abbé Schwarz — “Sit down, Hitler!” — The story of Petronella.
In Austria, religious instruction was given by priests. I was the eternal asker of questions. Since I was completely master of the material, I was unassailable. I always had the best marks.
On the other hand, I was less impeccable under the heading of Behaviour. I had a particular liking for the delicate subjects in the Bible, and I took a naughty pleasure in asking embarrassing questions.
Father Schwarz, our teacher, was clever at giving me evasive answers. So I kept on insisting until he lost his patience. One day—I’ve forgotten with reference to what—he asked me if I said my prayers in the morning, at midday and at night. “No, sir, I don’t say prayers. Besides, I don’t see how God could be interested in the prayers of a secondary schoolboy.” “Sit down, then!”
Every pupil took to some new occupation. For my part, I used to excite him by waving pencils in the colours of Greater Germany. “Put away those abominable colours at once!” he’d say. The whole class would answer with a long howl of disapproval. Then I would get up and explain to him that it was the symbol of our national ideal. “You should have no other ideal in your heart but that of our beloved country and our beloved house of Hapsburg. Whoever does not love the Imperial family, does not love the Church, and whoever does not love the Church, does not love God. Sit down, Hitler!” If there hadn’t been a few teachers who would intercede for me on occasion, the affair would have ended badly for me.
Before Easter we had lessons to prepare us for confession. It was a tremendous rag. Often I promised myself to moderate my ways, but I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t endure all those hypocrisies. I can still see that Schwarz, with his long nose. I saw red when I looked at him. And I retorted as best I could! One day my mother came to the school, and he took the opportunity to pounce on her and explain that I was a lost soul. “You, unhappy boy…” he apostrophised me.
“But I’m not unhappy, sir.”
“You’ll realise you are, in the Next World.”
“I’ve heard about a scientist who doubts whether there is a Next World.”
“What do you (in German, ‘Du’) mean?”
“I must inform you, sir, that you are addressing me as ‘thou’.”
“You won’t go to Heaven.”
“Not even if I buy an indulgence?”
I was very fond of visiting the cathedral. Without my realising it, this was because I liked architecture. Somebody must have informed Father Schwarz of these visits, and he supposed I went there for some secret reason. The fact was, I was full of respect for the majesty of the place. One day, on leaving, I found myself face to face with the priest. “And there was I thinking you were a lost soul, my son! Now I see you’re nothing of the sort.”
At Steyr we had a Jew as teacher. One day we shut him up in his laboratory. In his class things were like in a Jewish school— everything was anarchy. This teacher had no authority at all. The boys were afraid of him at first, so it seems—because he used to howl like a madman. Unfortunately for him, one day he was caught laughing immediately after being angry. The boys realised that his bouts of anger were mere play-acting, and that was the end of his authority.
I always had the habit of reading during lessons—reading books, of course, that had nothing to do with the aforesaid lessons. One day I was reading a book on diseases caused by microbes, when the teacher pounced on me, tore the book from my hands, and threw it into a corner. “You should take an example from me, and read serious works, if read you must.”
Steyr was an unpleasant town—the opposite of Linz. Linz, full of national spirit. Steyr, black and red—the clergy and Marxism. I lodged with a school-companion in Grünmarkt, No. 9, in a little room overlooking the courtyard.
After the examinations, we organised a great party. It’s the only time in my life I’ve been drunk. I had obtained my certificate, next day I was to leave Steyr and return to my mother. My comrades and I secretly gathered over a quart of local wine. I’ve completely forgotten what happened during that night. I simply remember that I was awoken at dawn, by a milk woman, on the road from Steyr to Karsten. I was in a lamentable state when I got back to the house of my crux. I had a bath and drank a cup of coffee. Then Petronella asked me whether I had obtained my certificate. I wanted to show it to her, I rummaged in my pockets, I turned them inside out.
Not a trace of my certificate! What could I have done with it, and what was I to show my mother? I was already thinking up an explanation: I had unfolded it in the train, in front of an open window, and a gust of wind had carried it off! Petronella did not agree with me, and suggested that it would be better to ask at the school for a duplicate of the document. And, since I had drunk away all my money, she carried her kindness so far as to lend me five gulden.
The director began by keeping me waiting for quite a long time. My certificate had been brought back to the school, but torn into four pieces, and in a somewhat inglorious condition. It appeared that, in the absent-mindedness of intoxication, I had confused the precious parchment with toilet paper. I was overwhelmed.
I cannot tell you what the director said to me, I am still humiliated, even from here. I made a promise to myself that I would never get drunk again, and I’ve kept my promise.
(G. D. asked whether any of Hitler’s teachers had witnessed his rise to power.) Yes, some of them. I was not a model pupil, but none of them has forgotten me. What a proof of my character!
Night of 13th-14th January 1942
The composer Bruckner—Brahms at his height—Wagner and Goring—Great architects—Talent must be encouraged.
After a hearing of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony: This work is based on popular airs of upper Austria. They’re not textually reproduced, but repeatedly I recognise in passing Tyrolean dances of my youth. It’s wonderful what he managed to get out of that folklore. As it happened, it’s a priest to whom we must give the credit for having protected this great master. The Bishop of Linz used to sit in his cathedral for hours at a time, listening to Bruckner play the organ. He was the greatest organist of his day.
One can imagine this obscure peasant’s arrival in Vienna, amidst an effete society. One of Bruckner’s opinions of Brahms was published in a newspaper recently, and further increased the sympathy I felt for him: “Brahms’s music is very beautiful, but I prefer my own.” There you have the self-awareness, full both of humility and of pride, such as a peasant can feel, in all simplicity, when he is inspired by a true conviction. The critic Hanslick depicted Bruckner’s life in Vienna as a real hell for him. When the moment came when it was no longer possible to ignore his work, he was covered with decorations and overwhelmed with honours. What did all that mean to him? Wouldn’t it have been better not to have misunderstood him so long?
Jewry had raised Brahms to the pinnacle. He was lionised in the salons and was a pianist of theatrical gestures. He exploited effects of the hands, effects of the beard and hair. Compared with him, Bruckner was a man put out of countenance, an abashed man.
Wagner also had the feeling for gesture, but with him it was innate. Wagner was a man of the Renaissance—like Goring in a certain aspect (and it would be silly to blame him).
There is nothing crueller than to live in a milieu that has no understanding for a work already achieved or in process of gestation. When I think of a man like Schiller or Mozart! Mozart who was flung, nobody knows where, into a communal grave… What ignominy!
If I hadn’t been there to prevent it, I believe the same thing would have happened to Troost. That man revolutionised the art of building. Perhaps it would have taken a few years—and he’d have died without anyone having the slightest idea of his genius. When I got to know him, he was depressed, embittered, disgusted with life. It often happens that architects are hyper-sensitive people. Think merely of Hansen, who was the most richly gifted of the architects of Vienna. And Hasenauer? The critics had attacked him so savagely that he committed suicide before his great work was finished—and yet the Vienna opera-house, so marvellously beautiful, puts the Paris Opera into the shade. To know that one is capable of doing things that nobody else can do—and to have no possibility of giving proof of it!
It seems that people should make sacrifices for their great men as a matter of course. A nation’s only true fortune is its great men. A great man is worth a lot more than a thousand million in the State’s coffers. A man who’s privileged to be the Head of a country couldn’t make a better use of his power than to put it at the service of talent. If only the Party will regard it as its main duty to discover and encourage the talents! It’s the great men who express a nation’s soul.
Night of 13th-
14th January 1942
Deranged altruism.
I read to-day that India at present numbers three hundred and eighty-eight million inhabitants, which means an increase of fifty-five millions during the last ten years. It’s alarming. We are witnessing the same phenomenon in Russia. The women there have a child every year.
The chief reason for this increase is the reduction in mortality due to the progress made by the health services. What are our doctors thinking of? Isn’t it enough to vaccinate the whites?
Night of 15th-16th January 1942
A woman of genius
—The Arts must be protected.
It’s claimed that women have no creative genius. But there’s one extraordinary woman, and it irritates me that men don’t do her justice. Angelica Kauffmann was a very great painter. The most illustrious of her own contemporaries admired her.
For Linz Museum I can think of only one motto: “To the German people, that which belongs to it.”
The Munich Pinakothek is one of the most magnificent achievements in the world. It’s the work of one man. What Munich owes to Ludwig I is beyond computing. And what the whole German people owes to him ! The palace of the Uffizi at Florence does honour not to Florence alone, but to all Italy.
Night of 16th-17th January 1942
The first of the Faithful.
One of my first escapades after my emergence from prison, in 1925, consisted in a visit to Berchtesgaden. I told the Büchners that I had work to do and needed absolute quiet. I accordingly installed myself in the small annexe.
Our newspaper-sellers were often boycotted and beaten up. One of our most faithful supporters, since 1920, was old Jegg. My happiest memories are of this time. The attachment I then felt to the people has never left me. There are such bonds joining me to them that I can share in their troubles and joys. I put myself spontaneously in their place. For years I lived on Tyrolean apples, and so did Hess. It’s crazy what economies we had to make.
Every mark saved was for the Party. Another loyal supporter was little Neuner, Ludendorff’s valet. There were also noblemen: Stransky, Scheubner-Richter, von der Pfordten. I realised the similarity of opposites. My comrades at the beginning already came from all parts of Germany. Nothing in the groundwork of the Party has changed. I still rely on the same forces.
It’s a great time, when an entirely unknown man can set out to conquer a nation, and when after fifteen years of struggle he can become, in effect, the head of his people. I had the luck to number some strong personalities among my supporters.
22nd January 1942, midday
The gift of command comes naturally to everyone in Lower Saxony. Wasn’t it from there that Great Britain got its ruling class?
Thanks to its method of recruiting, the SS will be a nursery of rulers. In a hundred years’ time from now, we’ll control this whole empire without having to rack our brains to know where to find the proper men. The essential thing is to leave behind the pettinesses of the parochial spirit. That’s why I’m so glad we’re installed in Norway and all over the place.