Hitler's Table Talk

34O
THREE MONTHS' HOLIDAY AFTER WAR
Now, when I send something to the southern sector, I know
that it will reach its destination. We have nothing more to fear
from climatic mishaps.
Now that January and February are past, our enemies can
give up the hope of our suffering the fate of Napoleon. They've
lost nothing by waiting. Now we're about to switch over to
squaring the account. What a relief!
I've noticed, on the occasion of such events, that when everybody
loses his nerves, I'm the only one who keeps calm.
It was the same thing at the time of the struggle for power,
but at that time I had the luck to be only thirty, whilst my
opponents were twenty or thirty years older.
Here in the Wolfschanze, I feel like a prisoner in these dugouts,
and my spirit can't escape. In .my youth I dreamed
constantly of vast spaces, and life has enabled me to give the
dream reality. Ah, if we were at least in Berlin !
Space lends wings to my imagination. Often I go at night to
the card-room, and there I pace to and fro. In that way I get
ideas.
My finest headquarters, when all is said, was Felsennest. At
the Wolfschlucht, the place wasn't very safe, and I had constant
eye-ache because of the caustic emanations given off by the fireproofed
wood of which the barracks had been built. The third
of our headquarters was quite simple, but very agreeable. Unfortunately,
it was so damp there that we'd all have ended by
falling sick if we'd stayed there. The fourth, which was intended
to be our genuine headquarters, I saw only in a photograph.
They made exactly what I didn't want, a castle—and
that's the main reason why I refused to settle there.
When peace has returned, I'll begin by spending three
months without doing anything. Our soldiers themselves
should have a holiday. I'll immediately resign the command
of the Wehrmacht. I'll at once send for Speer again. All our
war-time administrative services will be reduced to their
simplest terms. Even the Four Year Plan will be reduced to a
more modest scope of activity. I'll pass it over to the Ministry
of Economics, by the way. What counts is to organise the work