Hitler's Table Talk

NORMAL AND ABNORMAL HABITS 155
another hundred years for these shadows to be effaced. I don't
concern myself with such things, I go my way.
This Streicher affair is a tragedy. At the origin of the conflict
lies the hatred sworn between two women.
In any case, there's just one statement I have to make, that
Streicher is irreplaceable. His name is engraved in the memory
of the people of Nuremberg. There's no question of his coming
back, but I must do him justice. If one day I write my memoirs,
I shall have to recognise that this man fought like a buffalo in
our cause. The conquest of Franconia was his work.
I have a bad conscience when I get the feeling that I've not
been quite fair to somebody. When I go to Nuremberg, it's
always with a feeling of bitterness. I can't help thinking that, in
comparison with so many services, the reasons for Streicher's
dismissal are really very slender.
All that's said about his alleged disease is false. Streicher had
only one disease, and that was nympholepsy.
In one way or another, we shall have to find a solution. I
cannot dream of holding a rally at Nuremberg from which the
man who gave Nuremberg to the Party is banished.
I can install some mediocrity in Streicher's place. He'll
administer the Gau perfectly, as long as circumstances are
normal. If a catastrophe occurs, the mediocrity will disappear.
The best advice I can give my successors is in such a case to
be loyal.
Frau Streicher is outside this business. Frau Liebel is an
ambitious woman.
Probably none of us is entirely "normal". Otherwise we
should spend all our days in the café on the corner. The
Catholics, the bourgeois, everybody has accused me of being
crazy because, in their eyes, a normal man is one who drinks
three glasses of beer every evening. "Why all this fuss? It's
obviously the proof that he's mad." How many men of our
Party were regarded in their families as black sheep !
When I examine the faults for which Streicher is blamed, I
realise that no great man would pass through this sieve.
Richard Wagner was attacked because he wore silk pyjamas :
"Prodigality, insensate luxury, no knowledge of the value of
money. The man's mad !" As regards myself, it's enough that I