Hitler's Table Talk

658 SMOKING IN REICH CHANCELLERY
opposed to the policy, and thus Scheidemann's hand was
forced.
We have only ourselves to thank that the British quickly
realised in the first World War that war is a day-and-night nonstop
affair; we ourselves taught them that. Left to themselves,
they would have ordered that all firing should cease punctually
at five o'clock. Then, to their indignation, our bloody batteries
went on firing! And what batteries we had ! One fine day they
even succeeded in making the Briton forsake his beloved tea to
retaliate, and then, gradually, the evening peace began to be a
thing of the past! Then we had other batteries that fired all
night, and again they were forced to do likewise, and in this
way war soon became a rotten sort of game, and of course it was
all our fault !
If five hundred thousand cigarette ends are thrown away in
Berlin on a Sunday, one of them will start a fire somewhere.
We dropped incendiaries galore on the Westerplatte, and there
was not a single fire. In the Reich Chancellery I find the marks
of the smoker everywhere on all the carpets and all the furniture.
I wonder why the British have suddenly stopped using incendiaries?
299 25th August 1942
SPECIAL GUEST: GAULEITER LAUTERBACHER
The work of Schacht—Failure of the British blockade—
Misers and monsters.
Putting our export trade on a sound footing again was the
most valuable service that Schacht has rendered us. When it is
a question of a bit of sharp practice, Schacht is a pearl beyond
all price. But if he were ever called upon to show strength of
character, he always failed. In these sort of deals one Freemason
will swindle another. When I dissolved Freemasonry
in Germany, Schacht immediately turned obstructionist.
Thanks to the way in which our soldiers send home the things
they amass in the occupied territories, the Wehrmacht has
become a wonderful distributing agency.
If we succeed in raising the ration in October, the British can