Hitler's Table Talk

BELIEF IN REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 313
sneaking spy. Now, that was just what Roatta was. He sabotaged
the plan of attack by Italian troops along the valley of the
Rhine, in June 1940.
Until the Duce succeeds in getting rid of this aristocratic
Maffia, he won't be able to appoint a genuine élite to the highest
posts. This Maffia is every bit as base as the German underworld.
It's composed of cretins, who, however, are not so
cretinous as not to have a sense of what gives other people their
superiority. Their activities, although purely negative, are
nonetheless effective, for these are the people who prevent the
best men from gaining access to the highest posts. And this
conspiracy is what paralyses the Duce's efforts.
Things won't improve in Italy until the Duce has sacrificed
the monarchy and taken effective control of an authoritarian
State. This form of government can last for centuries. The
Republic of Venice lasted for nine hundred and sixty years. It
ruled the eastern Mediterranean throughout that period, and
that thanks to the authority conferred upon the Doge. Under
the monarchic form, that would not have been possible. Venice
couldn't have claimed more—but whatever she coveted, and
whatever lay within the scope of her ambition, she got. The
example of the Hanseatic cities likewise proves the quality of
this system. All that they lacked was the Imperial power.
It's not possible that six thousand families can have, on the
one hand, maintained perpetual dominion over three hundred
and forty thousand Helots, and, on the other hand, reigned
over Asia Minor and Sicily. The fact that they succeeded in
doing so for several centuries is a proof of the greatness of this
race.
The sensational event of the ancient world was the mobilisation
of the underworld against the established order. This
enterprise of Christianity had no more to do with religion than
Marxist socialism has to do with the solution of the social
problem. The notions represented by Jewish Christianity were
strictly unthinkable to Roman brains. The ancient world had a
liking for clarity. Scientific research was encouraged there.
The gods, for the Romans, were familiar images. It is some-