Hitler's Table Talk

THE KAISER WAITED TOO LONG 389
appeal to the sword, in case of need. Although a State founded
on such principles can lay no claim to eternity, it might last for
eight to nine centuries. The thousand-year-old organisation of
the Church is a proof of this—and yet this entire organisation
is founded on nonsense. What I have said should a fortiori be
true of an organisation founded on reason.
178 2nd April 1942, midday
In praise of the Tsar Ferdinand—Boris the Fox of Bulgaria
—Political plots—Wisdom of Kemal Ataturk.
In my view, King Boris is a somebody. There's nothing surprising
about that, for he has been to a good school with his
father, the Tsar Ferdinand, the most intelligent monarch I've
known.
If one can reproach the Tsar Ferdinand with having been
more rapacious than a Jew in money-matters, one must nevertheless
acknowledge that he was admirable as regards his
audacity and decisive spirit. If we'd had him on the Imperial
throne of Germany instead of William II, we'd certainly not
have waited until 1914 before unleashing the first World War.
We'd have acted as long ago as 1905. Just as the cunning fox
succeeded, after the collapse in 1918, in preserving the throne
for his son, in the same way I think he'd have found some way
for Germany to save herself from the disaster. Moreover, he
was an extremely cultivated man, very much above the average
in all fields of knowledge. For years on end, for example, he
was seen regularly at the Bayreuth Festival.
Unlike what other monarchs usually do, the Tsar Ferdinand
gave his son Boris a severe education, driving him on at the
study of all that had to do with political and military matters.
Under the rod of the old fox, son Boris himself became a
young fox, who was able to work his way out of the complicated
tangle of Balkan affairs.
In 1919 Boris kept his throne by marching on Sofia at the
head of a division. And it was always by behaving like a true
soldier that he overcame the political crisis of 1934. While
we're on the subject, he himself has told the story of how one
night the lights in the barracks at Sofia, which had been put