Hitler's Table Talk

654 BRITISH SELF-ASSURANCE
take in a word of the sense of what she is noting. Fräulein
Stahl, who previously worked in the Ministry of Propaganda,
was very different. The moment one made the slightest slip in
dictation she would stop, sit still and await the correction.
297 22nd August 1942, evening
Hungarian bluff—India the school for Britons—British
policy in India—Methods of colonisation—The artisan at
work—Respect the local customs—Budapest.
The Hungarians have always been poseurs. In war they are
like the British and the Poles; war to them is an affair which
concerns the Government and to which they go like oxen to the
slaughter. They all wear swords, but have none of the earnest
chivalry which the bearing of a sword should imply.
In a book on India which I read recently, it was said that
India educated the British and gave them their feeling of
superiority. The lesson begins in the street itself; anyone who
wastes even a moment's compassion on a beggar is literally torn
to pieces by the beggar hordes; anyone who shows a trace of
human sentiment is damned for ever. From these origins
springs that crushing contempt for everything that is not British
which is a characteristic of the British race. Hence the reason
why the typical Briton marches ahead, superior, disdainful and
oblivious to everything around him. If the British are ever
driven out of India, the repercussions will be swift and terrible.
In the end, the Russians will reap the benefit. However
miserably the inhabitants of India may live under the British
they will certainly be no better off if the British go.
Opium and alcohol bring in twenty-two and a half million
sterling to the British Exchequer every year. Anyone who raises
his voice in protest is regarded as a traitor to the State, and dealt
with accordingly. We Germans, on the contrary, will all go on
smoking our pipes, while at the same time compelling the
natives of our colonies to abandon the horrors of nicotine!
Britain does not wish to see India over-populated ; it is not in
her interest. On the contrary, she would rather see a somewhat
sparse population. If we were to occupy India, the very first
preoccupation of our administrators wpuld be to set up count-