Hitler's Table Talk

584 HOLIDAY CAMPS OF THE FUTURE
and small, of the simplest, and at the same time most solid, class
of the population.
There is, in State affairs, no finer way of binding the upper
classes to the interests of the country.
265 22nd July 1942, midday
King of England and Duke of Normandy—The Channel
Islands and the Frisian Isles—Those who work and those
who reap.
The inhabitants of the Channel Islands which we occupy
consider themselves as members of the British Empire rather
than as subjects of the King, whom they still regard, not as King,
but as the Duke of Normandy. If our occupation troops play
their cards properly, we shall have no difficulties there.
I do not approve of the suggestion made to me that these
islands should be colonised by people from Friesland and the
Ems regions; for whereas these latter are primarily marshdwellers
and cattle-drovers, the inhabitants of the islands themselves
are first and foremost small farmers.
If the British had continued to hold these islands, fortifying
them and constructing aerodromes on them, they could have
been a veritable thorn in our flesh. As it is, we have now firmly
established ourselves there, and with the fortifications we have
constructed and the permanent garrison of a whole division,
we have ensured against the possibility of the islands ever falling
again into the hands of the British.
After the war they can be handed over to Ley, for, with their
wonderful climate, they constitute a marvellous health resort
for the Strength through Joy organisation. The islands are full
of hotels as it is, so very little construction will be needed to
turn them into ideal rest centres.
The Italians could have got hold of a similar prize, if, on
entering the war, they had occupied Cyprus. Unfortunately,
however, they restricted their military activities to a declaration
that now they regarded themselves as being in a state of war !
And that, if you please, after we had shown them in Norway
how things should be done. The average Italian of to-day is a
mighty trencherman at the table, but a weedy warrior in war.