Hitler's Table Talk

686 UKRAINIAN SOIL
use of this correspondence to her own advantage. She had taken
photostat copies of all the letters, and sought permission of the
court to publish them. The judge—and this shows that, in
spite of everything, judges are decent people—said that he had
read all the letters, which reflected great credit on both correspondents
concerned, but that he could not see that this was a
good reason for their publication.
310 3rd September 1942, midday
Ownership of the soil and its products—Fools to the top of
the tree—The press and parliamentary immunity.
The soil belongs to the nation, and the individual has only
the rights to the loan and the fruits of it. It is therefore the duty
of everyone to extract the maximum value from the good earth.
When Professor Hoffmann asserts that his property is the most
productive in his district, then that, I think, is a good justification
for his possession of it. The more he puts into the earth, the
more he will get out of it.
I have just read in the Hoheitsträger the assertion that the
soil of the Ukraine is no more fertile than that of Germany. All I
can say is that the article must have been written by someone
who knows nothing of agriculture. If the same amount of endeavour
were exerted here in the Ukraine as is exerted by the
farmer in Upper Bavaria, the rich black soil of the former would
offer a far greater yield. The office theorists are invariably men
who have had no practical success in life. Herr Wagener, proud
holder of honorary degrees, is appointed Agricultural Adviser
to the Party—and later we find that he has made a mess of
every single thing he ever undertook! It is the same in every
branch of the State machine, but particularly in the agricultural
branch, that the blockheads are put in authority over
the experts. Whenever anyone writes anonymously, I immediately
think: judging from its stupidity, this is probably
another article by Kranz !
Every article should bear the signature of the author. During
the struggle period, all the newspapers had a permanent editor,
either a man who was soft in the head—in which case he stoutly
spent as much time in prison as out of it—or a Member of the