Hitler's Table Talk

438 FAILURE OF BRITISH NAVY
Nothing, to my mind, is more typical of the ineptitude of
these aristocratic loafers than the fact that not once did the
Crown Princess of Italy succeed in offering me a hot and
decently cooked meal! When a German hostess offers me
hospitality she makes it a point of honour, however humble she
may be, not only to give me an excellent meal but also to see
that it is decently hot. These degenerates of the Italian aristocracy
give proof of their futility in even the most elementary
things in life. What a pleasure it was, in contrast, to talk to an
intelligent and charming woman like Edda Mussolini! A
woman of this kind shows the stuff she is made of by volunteering
to be a nurse with the divisions serving on the Eastern front
—and that is just what she is doing at the present moment.
196 24th April 1942, midday
Decisive hours of this war—Importance of the occupation
of Norway—Weakness of German High Command in
1914-18—Lack of popular interest in the Navy—And how
we roused it.
The two decisive events of the war up to the present have
been the Norwegian campaign in 1940 and our defensive
struggle in the East during last winter. I attach this measure
of importance to the occupation of Norway because I cannot
understand, even in retrospect, how it was that the powerful
British Navy did not succeed in defeating, or at least in hindering,
an operation which did not have even the support of the
very modest German naval forces. If the Norwegian campaign
had failed, we should not have been able to create the conditions
which were a pre-requisite for the success of our submarines.
Without the coast of Norway at our disposal, we
should not have been able to launch our attacks against the
ports of the Midlands and Northern Britain, and operations in the
Arctic waters would also have been impracticable. The advantages
which our Norwegian success have given us allow us, by
comparison, to see how unimaginative and unenterprising the
German High Command was during the first World War.
It seems incredible, to our eyes to-day, that the main engagement
of that war should have been the battle of Jutland—that