Hitler's Table Talk

BORMANN AS TABLE TALK EDITOR 469
being invited to go to a country where they will not find their
bed nicely made for them, but will be compelled, on the contrary,
to create from the beginning—and we must make them
understand that we expect them to build up something truly
magnificent. One attraction which will certainly appeal to the
young is that by emigrating in this fashion they will find
opportunities for promotion infinitely more rapid than those of
their less enterprising comrades who remain quietly at home,
content to follow the beaten track.
My long-term policy aims at having eventually a hundred
million Germans settled in these territories. It is therefore
essential to set up machinery which will ensure constant progression,
and will see to it that million by million German
penetration expands. In ten years' time we must be in a position
to announce that twenty million Germans have been settled in
the territories already incorporated in the Reich and in those
which our troops are at present occupying.
Of what can be done for the inhabitants of these regions in the
way of civilised amenities we can get some idea from the Poles,
who themselves have succeeded in laying out in the heart of the
town of Gotenhafen (Gdynia) a series of broad and beautiful
arterial roads.
Gauleiter Forster intervened. Even in war-time, he claimed, there
were certain cultural aspects which should not be neglected. Turning to
the example of Gotenhafen, he remarked that the town possessed three
small cinemas but not one large one. The result was that, when warships
came into the port to rest, the sailors—whose delight it is to go ashore—
were unable toßnd those distractions they eagerly desired. The materials
necessary for the construction of a large entertainment hall, which could
later be equipped as a cinema, were certainly available on the spot. The
construction could not be undertaken, because the necessary labour, which
could easily be furnished by sixty Russian prisoners of war, had been
refused. The Fuehrer continued 1 :
In a case like this we must use common sense; and an undertaking
which is so obviously desirable, must not be allowed to
1 Note by Martin Bormann: ' These pages contain many inaccuracies. In the
notes taken of a conversation of considerable length, Dr. Picker fails to
indicate precisely who were the speakers and who uttered the various
opinions expressed.