Adolf Hitler's Table Talk-1941-1944

668 BUDAPEST, BERLIN,

668 BUDAPEST, BERLIN, MADRID the baroque one finds in the former would be equally appropriate in the latter. Rudolf von Habsburg was a real German Emperor. He had to hold territory in his own right as an indispensable base for the foundation of his power. It is only during the last twenty-five years that Hungary has ceased to form part of the eastern portion of the Austro-Hungarian empire; before that, it was always an integral part of it. The Reich must get a worthy capital. At the moment Budapest is the most beautiful town in the world, and there is no town in the whole German Reich that can even compare with it. The Houses of Parliament, the Citadel, the Cathedral and the bridges, seen in the shimmer of the setting sun, present a spectacle of beauty unsurpassed in the world. Vienna, too, is impressive, but it is not on a river. And all these beauties have been built by German architects. It shows one how important the construction of a capital city can be. In olden days, Buda and Pest were both a conglomeration of peasant hovels. In a single century, Budapest rose from a city of forty thousand inhabitants to a great capital with a million and a quarter citizens. With the exception of the Town Hall, all the buildings in Budapest are twice the size of their equivalents in Vienna. Berlin must follow suit, and I know we shall make a magnificent city of it. Once we have got rid of the hideous expanse of water which defaces the north side of the city, we shall have a magnificent perspective, stretching from the Sudbahnhof to the Triumphal Arch, with the cupola of the People's Palace in the distance. Madrid, too, they tell me, is marvellously situated. 303 a8th August 1942, evening Sky-scrapers—Their vulnerability to air attack—Antiaircraft defence—New artillery weapons—Learning while facing the enemy. Some German towns must be protected at all costs—Weimar, Nuremberg, Stuttgart. Factories can always be rebuilt, but works of art are irreplaceable.

AIR WAR—NAVAL AA GUNNERS 669 Multi-storeyed houses are reasonably safe against a direct hit from a bomb, but not against the subsequent blast. A small breeze is enough to make a sky-scraper sway as much as from forty to eighty centimetres. The depth of the foundations of some sky-scrapers in New York is as much as seventy metres, and the driving of the cement foundation demands a pressure of six or eight thousand hundredweights. An air raid, such as those against London, would have a devastating effect on New York. It would be physically impossible to clear the débris, and it is not possible to build air-raid shelters. In America, the capitalist conception, based on the gold standard, leads to many absurdities. If this war continues for ten years, aircraft will all be flying at a height of forty thousand feet, and ocean-going traffic will all be submarine, and the world at large will be free to lead a pleasant existence. Fights will take place, but they will not be visible; Britain will lie in ruins; in Germany every man and every women will belong to an anti-aircraft crew. With an annual production of six thousand anti-aircraft guns, every little village in Germany will soon have its own battery and its own searchlight section, and the whole Reich will be one single, integrated defence unit. Blinded by the reflection of mirrors, the enemy pilots will be able to see nothing; if a mirror is placed at each corner of a five-hundred-metre square, the desired effect will be obtained. I wonder what people would have thought if I had spoken of figures of this kind before the war ! The Navy has the most efficient anti-aircraft defences. I have seen them, and the shooting was magnificent. Thirteen hits for every hundred shots! This is attributable principally to the fact that the Navy is taught to shoot accurately from continuously moving platforms. As a result, their total of 'planes shot down is colossal. The best A.A. gun is the 8'8. The 10*5 has the disadvantage that it consumes too much ammunition, and the life of the barrel is very short. Reichsmarschall Goring is most anxious to continue producing the 12*8. This doublebarrelled i2'8 has a fantastic appearance. When one examines the 8'8 with the eye of a technician, one realises that it is the most beautiful weapon yet fashioned, with the exception of the 12-8.