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Tag: Adolf Hitler

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Painting Table talks (commercial translation) Women

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 67

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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.

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Real men Table talks (commercial translation)

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 68

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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.

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Schutzstaffel (SS) Table talks (commercial translation)

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 69

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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.

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Table talks (commercial translation) Vegetarianism

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 70

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22nd January 1942, evening

Meat-eaters and vegetarians—Alcohol and smoking.
 
 

At the time when I ate meat, I used to sweat a lot. I used to drink four pots of beer and six bottles of water during a meeting, and I’d succeed in losing nine pounds! When I became a vegetarian, a mouthful of water from time to time was enough.

When you offer a child the choice of a piece of meat, an apple or a cake, it’s never the meat that he chooses. There’s an ancestral instinct there. In the same way, the child would never begin to drink or smoke if it weren’t to imitate others.

The consumption of meat is reduced the moment the market presents a greater choice of vegetables, and in proportion as each man can afford the luxury of the first fruits. I suppose man became carnivorous because, during the Ice Age, circumstances compelled him. They also prompted him to have his food cooked, a habit which, as one knows to-day, has harmful consequences. Our peasants never eat any food that hasn’t been cooked and re-cooked, and thus deprived of all its virtues. The southern peoples are not acquainted either with a meat diet or with cooking. I lived marvellously in Italy. I don’t know any country that enlivens one more. Roman food, how delicious it is!

When I go into an inn where people are smoking, within an hour I feel I’ve caught a cold. The microbes hurl themselves upon me! They find a favourable climate in the smoke and heat.

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Final solution Table talks (commercial translation)

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 71

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23rd January 1942, midday

Appreciation of the Czechs—The internal policy of the Habsburgs—When the Popes harried the Jews—The “decent” Jews.
 
 
Of all the Slavs, the Czech is the most dangerous, because he’s a worker. He has a sense of discipline, he’s orderly, he’s more a Mongol than a Slav. Beneath the top layer of a certain loyalty, he knows how to hide his plans. Now they’ll work, for they know we’re pitiless and brutal. I don’t despise them, I have no resentment against them. It’s destiny that wishes us to be adversaries. To put it briefly, the Czechs are a foreign body in the midst of the German community. There’s no room both for them and for us. One of us must give way.

As regards the Pole, it’s lucky for us that he’s idle, stupid and vain. It’s the duty of the Party to settle these questions once and for all in the course of the next five hundred years. The Habsburgs broke their teeth on them. They believed they could smooth everything down by kindness. The Czechs didn’t have the feeling that they were being treacherous in acting as they did. In any case, it’s one of the incomprehensible circumstances of history that the ancient Bavarians left those territories and the Czechs settled there. Such a situation is unbearable from the geopolitical point of view. The result has been, we have the Poles close at hand, and, between them and the Czechs, nothing but the narrow Silesian strip.

The Jew must clear out of Europe. Otherwise no understanding will be possible between Europeans. It’s the Jew who prevents everything. When I think about it, I realise that I’m extraordinarily humane. At the time of the rule of the Popes, the Jews were mistreated in Rome.

Until 1830, eight Jews mounted on donkeys were led once a year through the streets of Rome. For my part, I restrict myself to telling them they must go away. If they break their pipes on the journey, I can’t do anything about it. But if they refuse to go voluntarily, I see no other solution but extermination. Why should I look at a Jew through other eyes than if he were a Russian prisoner-of-war?

In the p.o.w. camps, many are dying. It’s not my fault. I didn’t want either the war or the p.o.w. camps. Why did the Jew provoke this war? A good three hundred or four hundred years will go by before the Jews set foot again in Europe. They’ll return first of all as commercial travellers, then gradually they’ll become emboldened to settle here—the better to exploit us. In the next stage, they become philanthropists, they endow foundations.

When a Jew does that, the thing is particularly noticed—for it’s known that they’re dirty dogs. As a rule, it’s the most rascally of them who do that sort of thing. And then you’ll hear these poor Aryan boobies telling you: “You see, there are good Jews!”

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Richard Wagner Table talks (commercial translation)

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 72

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Night of 24th-25th January 1942

Origin of Tristan and Isolda—Cosima Wagner—Wahnfried—The Makart style—Bayreuth—On the Nuremberg Congress.
 
 
Whatever one says, Tristan is Wagner’s masterpiece, and we owe Tristan to the love Mathilde Wesendonck inspired in him. She was a gentle, loving woman, but far from having the qualities of Cosima. Nobody like Wagner has had the luck to be entirely understood by a woman. Those are things that life does not owe a man, but it’s magnificent when it happens.

Neither Mozart nor Beethoven, neither Schiller nor Goethe, have had a share of such happiness. In addition to all Wagner’s gifts, Cosima was femininity personified, and her charm had its effect on all who visited Wahnfried. After Wagner’s death, the atmosphere at Wahnfried remained what it had been during his lifetime. Cosima was inconsolable, and never ceased to wear mourning. She had wanted her own ashes to be scattered over her husband’s tomb, but she was refused this satisfaction.

Nevertheless, her ashes were collected in an urn, and this urn was placed on the tomb. Thus death has not separated these two beings, whom destiny had wished to live side by side! Wagner’s lifetime was also that of a man like Meyerbeer! Wagner is responsible for the fact that the art of opera is what it is to-day. The great singers who’ve left names behind became celebrated as interpreters of Wagner. Moreover, it’s since him that there have been great orchestra-leaders. Wagner was typically a prince. His house, Wahnfried, for example! It’s been said that the interior, in Makart style, was over-loaded.

But should a house be mistaken for a gallery of works of art? Isn’t it, above all, a dwelling, the framework for a private life, with its extensions and its radiance? If I possess a gallery of ancestors, should I discard it on the pretext that not all the pictures in it are masterpieces?

At the beginning of this century there were people called Wagnerians. Other people had no special name. What joy each of Wagner’s works has given me! And I remember my emotion the first time I entered Wahnfried. To say I was moved is an understatement! At my worst moments, they’ve never ceased to sustain me, even Siegfried Wagner. (Houston Stewart Chamberlain wrote to me so nicely when I was in prison.) I was on Christian-name terms with them. I love them all, and I also love Wahnfried.

So I felt it to be a special happiness to have been able to keep Bayreuth going at the moment of its discomfiture. The war gave me the opportunity to fulfil a desire dear to Wagner’s heart: that men chosen amongst the people—workers and soldiers—should be able to attend his Festival free of charge. The ten days of the Bayreuth season were always one of the blessed seasons of my existence.

Festspielhaus_Bayreuth_Innen

And I already rejoice at the idea that one day I shall be able to resume the pilgrimage! The tradition of the Olympic Games endured for nearly a thousand years. That results, it seems to me, from a mystery similar to that which lies at the origin of Bayreuth. The human being feels the need to relax, to get out of himself, to take communion in an idea that transcends him. The Party Congress answers the same need, and that’s why for hundreds of years men will come from the whole world over to steep themselves anew, once a year, in the marvellous atmosphere of Nuremberg. They’ll come, and they’ll see side by side the proofs we shall have left of our greatness, and at the same time the memories of old Nuremberg.

On the day following the end of the Bayreuth Festival, and on the Tuesday that marks the end of the Nuremberg Congress, I’m gripped by a great sadness—as when one strips the Christmas tree of its ornaments.

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Aryan beauty Marriage Table talks (commercial translation)

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 73

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Night of 25th-26th January 1942

On marriage—Some beautiful women.
 

 

It’s lucky I’m not married. For me, marriage would have been a disaster.

It’s only after maternity that the woman discovers that other realities exist in life for her. The man, on the other hand, is a slave to his thoughts. The idea of his duties rules him. He necessarily has moments when he wants to throw the whole thing overboard, wife and children too. When I think of it, I realise that during the year 1932, if I’d been married, I’d scarcely have spent a few days in my own home.

The bad side of marriage is that it creates rights. In that case, it’s far better to have a mistress. The burden is lightened, and everything is placed on the level of a gift.

The Fuehrer noticed two guests who looked somewhat crestfallen, J.W. and Chr. Sehr. He turned towards Sehr, and explained: What I’ve said applies only to men of a higher type, of course!

Relieved, Sehr, exclaimed: “That’s just what I was thinking, my Fuehrer.”

At Brunswick, a young girl rushed towards my car to offer me a bouquet. She was blonde, dashing, wonderful. Everyone around me was amazed, but not one of these idiots had the idea of asking the girl for her address, so that I could send her a word of thanks. I’ve always reproached myself most bitterly.

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Ancient Greece Architecture Beauty Music Table talks (commercial translation)

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 74

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Night of 25th-26th January 1942

Beauty and the ancient Greeks
—Human genius and politics.
 
 
If we consider the ancient Greeks (who were Germanics), we find in them a beauty much superior to the beauty such as is widespread to-day—and I mean also beauty in the realm of thought as much as in the realm of forms. To realise this, it’s enough to compare a head of Zeus or of Pallas Athene with that of a crusader or a saint!

The period stretching between the middle of the third and the middle of the seventeenth century is certainly the worst humanity has ever known: blood-lust, ignominy, lies.

I don’t consider that what has been should necessarily exist for the simple reason that it has been. Providence has endowed man with intelligence precisely to enable him to act with discernment. My discernment tells me that an end must be put to the reign of lies. It likewise tells me that the moment is not opportune.

When the war’s over, and I have the sense of having accomplished my duties, I shall retire. Then I would like to devote five or ten years to clarifying my thought and setting it down on paper. Wars pass by. The only things that exist are the works of human genius.

This is the explanation of my love of art. Music and architecture—is it not in these disciplines that we find recorded the path of humanity’s ascent?

If somebody else had one day been found to accomplish the work to which I’ve devoted myself, I would never have entered on the path of politics. I’d have chosen the arts or philosophy. The care I feel for the existence of the German people compelled me to this activity. It’s only when the conditions for living are assured that culture can blossom.

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Table talks (commercial translation) Women

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 75

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26th January 1942, evening

Women in politics.
 
 

I detest women who dabble in politics. And if their dabbling extends to military matters, it becomes utterly unendurable.

In no local section of the Party has a woman ever had the right to hold even the smallest post. It has therefore often been said that we were a party of misogynists, who regarded a woman only as a machine for making children, or else as a plaything.

That’s far from being the case. I attached a lot of importance to women in the field of the training of youth, and that of good works. In 1924 we had a sudden upsurge of women who were attracted by politics: Frau von Treuenfels and Matilde von Kemnitz. They wanted to join the Reichstag, in order to raise the moral level of that body, so they said. I told them that 90 per cent of the matters dealt with by parliament were masculine affairs, on which they could not have opinions of any value.

Everything that entails combat is exclusively men’s business. There are so many other fields in which one must rely upon women. Organising a house, for example. Few men have Frau Troost’s talent in matters concerning interior decoration. There were four women whom I give star rôles: Frau Troost, Frau Wagner, Frau Scholtz-Klink and Leni Riefenstahl.

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Ancient Rome Constantine Emperor Julian Huns Table talks (commercial translation)

Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 76

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27th January 1942, midday

The blood of others—History but for the advent of Christianity—Constantine the Great and Julian the Apostate.
 

The soldiers whom England used for her wars were for the most part men of German blood. The first great outpouring of blood that could properly be described as English took place in the First World War.

A people cannot lay claim to mastery of the world unless it’s ready to pay with its blood. The Roman Empire had recourse to mercenaries only when its own blood was exhausted. In fact, it was only after the Third Punic War that Rome had legions of mercenaries.

But for the coming of Christianity, who knows how the history of Europe would have developed? Rome would have conquered all Europe, and the onrush of the Huns would have been broken on the legions. It was Christianity that brought about the fall of Rome—not the Germans or the Huns.

What Bolshevism is achieving to-day on the materialist and technical level, Christianity had achieved on the metaphysical level. When the Crown sees the throne totter, it needs the support of the masses.

It would be better to speak of Constantine the Traitor and Julian the Loyal than of Constantine the Great and Julian the Apostate. What the Christians wrote against the Emperor Julian is approximately of the same calibre as what the Jews have written against us. The writings of the Emperor Julian, on the other hand, are products of the highest wisdom. If humanity took the trouble to study and understand history, the resulting consequences would have incalculable implications.