Hitler's Table Talk

RELIGION IN EASTERN TERRITORIES 671
most versatility. The Swabians? For years on end the only
result of my rallies in Augsburg was ignominious failure; but
once I had won them over, my difficulties were gone for good.
In other districts I had an immediate initial success, only to
find that, a week later, I had to begin all over again. I had to
fight desperately to gain power; but to-day there are only a few
insignificant groups of intellectuals who remain obdurately
against me. They are people bereft of logic, and their opinion
is of no importance. Generally speaking, the people never
question an established régime; they are content to accept
things as they are.
History affords three examples where those who have seized
power have succeeded in winning over the people—the Roman
Empire, the Holy Roman Empire and the British Empire.
In India, the British started by dividing the country; one
portion consisted of Grown Colonies, and the other was made
up of independent princely States, whose rulers became the
vassals of the British Grown.
In the Eastern territories, our policy should be to encourage
the survival of as many religious sects and communities as
possible. If anyone should try to form them into one corporate
entity, I shall have plenty to say to him; I should like each petty
little district to have its own Pope. Once only in my life have I
been stupid enough to try to unite some twenty different sects
under one head; and God, to whom be thanks, endowed my
twenty Protestant Bishops with such stupidity that I was saved
from my own folly. If I had succeeded, I should now have two
Popes on my back! And two blackmailers! I can easily deal
with the seventeen Protestant Bishops who still exist—but it is
only because I have the absolute power that I can do it.
In this respect the Holy Roman Empire had no success; and
yet it survived as a power in the eyes of the world long after it
had ceased, in fact, to exercise any power at all.
A principle which must never be forgotten is that a confederation
of States can be maintained only by a continuation
of the methods used to conquer them and bring them into confederation.
Fundamentally speaking, Belgium, France and Norway are
not our natural enemies. I have no desire to incorporate all