Hitler's Table Talk

VENIAL BLACK MARKET 529
all the somewhat flighty women out of the cafés, the first people
to suffer in consequence will be the lads on leave from the front.
For goodness' sake, don't let us rush to the police every time
some small peccadillo raises its head. Let us rather stick to
educative measures. Don't forget, after all, that it was not by
using fear inspired by police methods that we National Socialists
won over the people, but rather by trying to show them the light
and to educate them.
The same principle applies to food control. The professional
black marketeer must be pursued and punished with the utmost
rigour, but there is no need to stop trains, hold up motor-cars
and badger people because they have bought a couple of eggs
"off the record". And the peasant who, after having fulfilled
the obligations put on him, helps a friend out with a bit from his
surplus, need not have the police put on his tracks. The only
effect of that would be to make him eat up all his surplus
himself.
Those who took the initiative in causing passengers in trains
and cars to be searched ought to remember the conditions
which obtain in the North, the land of the big properties. They
surely must have forgotten that even in peace-time the humble
peasant woman used to go to the town market to sell a few eggs,
a few pounds of butter—things which she thought too precious
to be eaten at her own table. No—but if one thinks that this
sort of little black-market is assuming too large proportions,
to a point where it may have some influence on prices,
then the State must intervene again, and buy out of hand,
but at prices a little above the official market rates, the entire
surplus.
In this case we must act warily, not forgetting that a peasant
who has fulfilled the obligations put upon him has the right to
dispose of his surplus as he pleases. This encourages him to
work harder, and it also helps in consolidating the value of
money. Actually, while the peasant tends to hoard, the townsman,
on the contrary, tends—particularly in troublesome times
—to transform his money into goods.
Dr. Göbbels said the Fuehrer's idea of making the State step in as a
subsidiary purchaser was a solution after the manner of Columbus and