Hitler's Table Talk

END OF ERA OF PRINCES 121
65 nth November 1941, midday
Antonescu and King Michael—The era of Princes is past
—Claims of the Princely Houses of Thuringia—Wars of bygone
ages.
By the law of nature, the most important person of a nation
should be the best man. If I take the example of Rumania, the
best man is Antonescu. What are we to say of a State where a
man like him is only the second, whilst at the head is a young
man of eighteen? Even an exceptionally gifted man could not
play such a rôle before the age of thirty. And who would be
capable, at thirty, of leading an army? If he were forty, he
would still have things to learn. I should be surprised to learn
that the King of Rumania was devoting as much as two hours
a day to his studies. He ought to be working ten hours a day,
on a very severe schedule.
Monarchy is an out-of-date form. It has a raison d'être only
where the monarch is the personification of the constitution, a
symbol, and where the effective power is exercised by a Prime
Minister or some other responsible chief.
The last support of an inadequate monarch is the Army.
With a monarchy, therefore, there is always a danger that the
Army may be able to imperil the country's interests.
One may draw from the study of history the lesson that the
age of princes is over. The history of the Middle Ages becomes
confused, when all is said, with the history of a family. For two
hundred years we have been watching the decomposition of
this system. The princely houses have retained nothing but
their pretensions. With these they traffic, and by these they
live.
The worst thing of that sort that happened in Germany,
happened in Mecklenburg and in Thuringia. The State of
Thuringia was formed by the joining together of seven principalities.
The seven princely families never stopped making
claims upon the poor State of Thuringia, with lawsuits and
demands for allowances and indemnities. When we took power
in Thuringia, we found ourselves confronted with an enormous
deficit. I at once advised these princes to give up their claims.
They were in the habit of clinging to the shirt-tails of" the old