Hitler's Table Talk

FORGETTING DEFEATS 577
All measures of this nature should be examined in peacetime
with an eye to their probable effects in time of war. For
war is a life-and-death struggle, which has its own rules and
ignores the normalities of peace. A people which is prepared to
accept compulsory military service of three or four years as a
preparation for a possible war will not mind the slight inconvenience
of a change over from wireless to wired-wireless.
260 17th July 1942, at dinner
Self-satisfaction of the Italians.
The Italians have a remarkable aptitude for arrogating to
themselves all sorts of virtues, without in reality ever having
accomplished any of the exploits which would result from
them.
This is particularly noticeable in the manner in which, in their
History of Fascism, they describe the last phases of the first
World War. According to it, the Allied victory in 1918 was due
to the virile action of the Italians. The same idea crops up as
regards our campaign in 1940, during which, they claim, their
attitude of "non-belligerency" tied down at least sixty
French Divisions ! Now that French official sources disclose that
not sixty, but seven French Divisions were holding the Italian
frontier during the western campaign, and that, even of these
seven, three were withdrawn without any particular difficulty,
the Italians are feeling proportionately shamefaced. But they
will quickly get over it. They can take hiding after hiding for
three unbroken years in succession, and then, if one day they
suddenly achieve some minor success, all the buffets are forgotten
and the whole peninsula bursts into songs of triumph!
201 18th July 1942, at dinner
Motor roads going East—The autobahn and the cinema—
The autobahn and the shortening of space—Railways and
national unity—The economics of the autobahn—Lloyd
George, a man of method.
Once we have secured our grip on the Eastern territories by
means of the construction of a network of autobahnen, the
problems of distance, which worry us a little to-day, will cease
y