Hitler's Table Talk

130 CRITICISM OF LAWYERS
initiative, to render an account for everything, and to have
themselves covered in all they do by a hierarchical superior.
For Berlin, that's the ideal type of official !
We must use the axe ruthlessly on that sort of thing. We can
easily get rid of two-thirds of them.
Let's regard the jurist as an adviser, and not give him any
authority to give orders. How can a man who has spent his
whole life with his nose buried in files understand anything at
all about live problems? He knows nothing.
I never miss an opportunity of being rude about jurists.
That's because I hope to discourage young people who would
like to rush into such a career. One must decry the profession
to such a point that in future only those who have no other
ideal but red tape will have the wish to devote themselves to it.
What weight have juridical scruples when something is
necessary in the interests of the nation? It's not thanks to the
jurists, but despite them, that the German people is alive.
I'm not the first to regard these people as a cultural medium
for bacilli. Frederick the Great had the same sort of ideas.
70 16th November 1941, evening
SPECIAL GUESTS : REICHSLEITER ROSENBERG AND SS REICHSFUEHRER
HIMMLER
Cast out the outcasts—Customary rights of ancient days—
The abuse of formalism—Clean up the legal profession—A
public Counsel for the Defence—On Treason—The right of
amnesty—Serrano Suner.
It always fills me with nervous irritation to see in what spirit
the magistrates deliver their verdicts. The authors of crimes
against morality are as a rule recidivists—and they usually
crown their career with some filthy misdeed. Why not wipe out
these individuals at once? When I consider the question of
responsibility, I don't regard the fact that a being is abnormal
as an extenuating circumstance—it's an aggravating circumstance.
What harm do you see in it if an abnormal being is
punished as much as a normal being? Society should preserve
itself from such elements. Animals who live in the social state
have their outlaws. They reject them.