Adolf Hitler's Table Talk-1941-1944

224 THE END OF

224 THE END OF REPARATIONS vaults!" Then we had the following dialogue: "With what do you propose to pay?" "But we'll have to pay, otherwise they'll make us go bankrupt." "How will they do that? They have nothing to distrain on!" When I demanded three thousand millions for rearmament, I again met this objection of what we owed abroad. I replied : "You want to give this money to foreigners? Let's rather use it in our own country!" I made my point of view clear to the British Ambassador when he presented his credentials. His reply was : "You mean to say that the new Germany does not recognise the obligations of preceding governments?" I replied: "Freely negotiated agreements, yes! But blackmail, no! Everything that comes under the heading of Treaty of Versailles I regard as extortion." "Well, I never!" he said. "I shall immediately inform my Government of that." Never again, from that day on, did England or France think themselves entitled to claim the smallest payment from us. As regards the English, I had no worries. But I feared that the French might take this pretext for occupying Mainz, for example. 113 Night of 18th-1 gth January 1942 The Party programme—The unthinking public—The Russian winter—Rhetoric and common sense—On the Neanderthal man—Our ancestors the Greeks. I'm sometimes asked why I don't modify the Party programme. To which I reply: "And why should I modify it?" This programme belongs to history. It was already ours on the day of the foundation of the Party, on the 24th February 1919. If anything should be changed, it's for life to take the initiative. I haven't got to identify myself with a medical review or a military publication—things which have to present matters under discussion in their latest state. What luck for governments that the peoples they administer don't think! The thinking is done by the man who gives the orders, and then by the man who carries them out. If it were otherwise, the state of society would be impossible.

GÖBBELS LACKED MILITARY EXPERIENCE 225 The difficulty of the situation is not so much the winter in itself, but the fact of having men, and not knowing how to transport them; of disposing abundantly of ammunition, and not knowing how to get it on the move; of possessing all the necessary weapons, and not knowing how to put them in the hands of the combatants. As for the railways, I'm keeping them behind. If they don't do better next time, I'll have a word to say to them! All the same, it's better that it should be I who speaks on the 3Oth, and not Göbbels. When it's a question of raising morale, I know how to preserve the golden mean between reason and rhetoric. In his last appeal, Göbbels exhorted the soldiers at the front to remain tough and calm. I'd not have expressed myself like that. In such a situation, the soldier is not calm, but resolved. One must have been through it to understand these matters. A skull is dug up by chance, and everybody exclaims : "That's what our ancestors were like." Who knows if the so-called Neanderthal man wasn't really an ape? What I can say, in any case, is that it wasn't our ancestors who lived there in prehistoric times. The soil we live on must have been so desolate that our ancestors, if they passed that way, certainly continued their journey. When we are asked about our ancestors, we should always point to the Greeks. 114 19th January 1942, evening Stupidity of duelling—Some duels—Village scuffles— Honour is not a caste privilege. I've always had a lot of trouble in stopping my men from fighting duels. In the end I was forced to forbid duelling. We lost some of our best people in that stupid fashion. Just try to imagine the reasons for some of these duels ! One day we were at the Reichsadler. Hess was there, with his wife and sister-in-law. In comes a half-drunk student, who permits himself to make some impertinent remarks about them. Hess asks him to come out of the inn with him and clarify his i