Hitler's Table Talk

THIRD DEGREE INTERROGATION 505
the Gestapo. After twelve hours in a super-heated cell without
water, he not only confessed to one hundred and seven more
murders, but also showed the officials the places where all the
bodies were buried. Experience shows that unnatural offenders
generally turn into homicidal maniacs; they must be rendered
harmless, however young they may be. I have therefore always
been in favour of the strongest possible punishment of these
anti-social elements.
227 agth May 1942, midday
Lola Montez and Ludwig I of Bavaria—Hostility of the
Church—Personality of Ludwig I—Respect for racial
characteristics.
On a proposal by Dr. Göbbels to produce a film of LOLA MONTEZ.
I welcome the idea, but you must take care that neither the
fate of this woman nor the personality of King Ludwig I of
Bavaria is in any way distorted.
Lola Montez had nothing in common with the dancers of our
times, strip-tease artists, but was a woman of exceptional
intelligence with wide experience of the world. She was, too, a
woman of character, as is shown by the way she resisted the
Catholic Church and, in spite of enormous pressure, refused to
kow-tow to it.
As regards the personality of Ludwig I, you must be careful,
too, not to portray him as first and foremost a "skirt-chaser"
(Schürzenjäger). He was in every sense a great man, and was
the finest architect of his time in Europe. The idea and execution
of the Valhalla Building alone show him to have been a
monarch whose vision stretched far beyond the confines of his
own petty State and embraced the whole pan-German panorama.
Apart from that, we have to thank him for having given,
in the city of Munich, a magnificent art centre to the German
nation.
That he is nevertheless one of the most controversial figures
among the Kings of Bavaria is attributable to the fact that the
Church never ceased to harry him. The attacks of the latter on
Lola Montez were only a pretext, and it was in reality the strong
liberal tendencies of the King at which the attacks were aimed.