Hitler's Table Talk

ART OF HANDLING SOLDIERS 49
shown that its behaviour has been miserable. Any army can
sometimes have a moment of weakness. It can happen that
the troops in the line become subject to fleeting impressions of
which the Command takes no account in its appreciation of
the facts. But in such cases one must know how to be harsh.
A unit that has fought badly must be sent back under fire as
soon as possible. One can triumph over death only through
death : "If you retreat, you'll be shot! If you advance, you may
save your skin!"
It's only after the unit has redeemed itself that one can wipe
the slate.
Of course, a Command has no right to act recklessly by
sending men to death without purpose. It is not enough to try
to obtain, by the employment of masses, what one couldn't
obtain by more modest methods. One would simply be running
the risk of increasing the number of victims without gaining
anything. There are cases in which it's important first of
all to reflect, in order to discover the cause of the reverse. One
must know how to have recourse to other methods, or else to
change one's tactics. When all is said, one can likewise ask
oneself whether one would not be doing better to give up a
position that's difficult to hold, and consider a completely
différent operation.
A few weeks ago Antonescu, in a communiqué, accused one
of his units of being a disgrace to the nation. Antonescu is of
Germanic origin, not Rumanian; he's a born soldier. His misfortune
is to have Rumanians under his command. But let's
not forget that only a year ago these people were wildly fleeing
from the Bolsheviks. It's wonderful how, in so short a time,
Antonescu has been able to get what he has got out of his troops.
Doubtless he will also succeed, with time, in obtaining
administrators who aren't rotten with corruption.
Our own people hasn't always been as impeccable as it is
nowadays. Remember the sabre-blows that Frederick William I
used to administer to the Berliners with his own hand. Moral
cleanliness is the result of a long education, ceaselessly directed
towards discipline.