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1Bormann, Martin, comp. Hitler's Table Talk. 2nd ed. New York City: Enigma Books, 2000. p. 1.
2
3By instinct, the Russian does not incline towards a higher form of society. Certain peoples can live in such a way that with them a collection of family units does not make a whole; and although Russia has set up a social system which, judged by Western standards, qualifies for the designation " State ", it is not, in fact, a system which is either congenial or natural to her.
4
5Ibid., pp. 3-5.
6
7In the eyes of the Russian, the principal support of civilisation is vodka. His ideal consists in never doing anything but the indispensable. Our conception of work (work, and then more of it!) is one that he submits to as if it were a real curse. It is doubtful whether anything at all can be done in Russia without the help of the Orthodox priest. It's the priest who has been able to reconcile the Russian to the fatal necessity of work —by promising him more happiness in another world. The Russian will never make up his mind to work except under compulsion from outside, for he is incapable of organising himself. And if, despite everything, he is apt to have organisation thrust upon him, that is thanks to the drop of Aryan blood in his veins. It's only because of this drop that the Russian people has created something and possesses an organised State. It takes energy to rule Russia. The corollary is that, the tougher a country's régime, the more appropriate it is that equity and justice should be practised there. The horse that is not kept constantly under control forgets in the wink of an eye the rudiments of training that have been inculcated into it. In the same way, with the Russian, there is an instinctive force that invariably leads him back to the state of nature. People sometimes quote the case of the horses that escaped from a ranch in America, and by some ten years later had formed huge herds of wild horses. It is so easy for an animal to go back to its origins ! For the Russian, the return to the state of nature is a return to primitive forms of life. The family exists, the female looks after her children, like the female of the hare, with all the feelings of a mother. But the Russian doesn't want anything more. His reaction against the constraint of the organised State (which is always a constraint, since it limits the liberty of the individual) is brutal and savage, like all feminine reactions. When he collapses and should yield, the Russian bursts into lamentations. This will to return to the state of nature is exhibited in his revolutions. For the Russian, the typical form of revolution is nihilism.
8
9[…]
10
11The beauties of the Crimea, which we shall make accessible by means of an autobahn—for us Germans, that will be our Riviera.
12
13[…]
14
15Better than the railway, which has something impersonal about it, it's the road that will bring peoples together. What progress in the direction of the New Europe! Just as the autobahn has caused the inner frontiers of Germany to disappear, so it will abolish the frontiers of the countries of Europe. To those who ask me whether it will be enough to reach the Urals as a frontier, I reply that for the present it is enough for the frontier to be drawn back as far as that. What matters is that Bolshevism must be exterminated. In case of necessity, we shall renew our advance wherever a new centre of resistance is formed. Moscow, as the centre of the doctrine, must disappear from the earth's surface, as soon as its riches have been brought to shelter. There's no question of our collaborating with the Muscovite proletariat. Anyhow, St. Petersburg, as a city, is incomparably more beautiful than Moscow. Probably the treasures of the Hermitage have not been stored at the Kremlin, as they were during the first World War, but in the country-houses—unless they've been shifted to the cities east of Moscow, or still further by river.
16
17
18Ibid., pp. 15 -16
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20It should be possible for us to control this region to the East with two hundred and fifty thousand men plus a cadre Of good administrators. Let's learn from the English, who, with two hundred and fifty thousand men in all, including fifty thousand soldiers, govern four hundred million Indians. This space in Russia must always be dominated by Germans.
21
22[…]
23
24Nothing would be a worse mistake on our part than to seek to educate the masses there. It is to our interest that the people should know just enough to recognise the signs on the roads. At present they can't read, and they ought to stay like that. But they must be allowed to live decently, of course, and that's also to our interest.
25
26We'll take the southern part of the Ukraine, especially the Crimea, and make it an exclusively German colony. There'll be no harm in pushing out the population that's there now. The German colonist will be the soldier-peasant, and for that I'll take professional soldiers, whatever their line may have been previously.
27
28[…]
29
30The soil costs us nothing, we have only the house to build. The peasant's son will already have paid for it by his twelve years' service. During the last two years he will already be equipping himself for agriculture. One single condition will be imposed upon him: that he may not marry a townswoman, but a countrywoman who, as far as possible, will not have begun to live in a town with him. These soldier-peasants will be given arms, so that at the slightest danger they can be at their posts when we summon them. That's how the ancient Austria used to keep its Eastern peoples under control. By the same token, the soldier-peasant will make a perfect schoolteacher.
31
32Ibid., p. 24
33
34The sense of duty, as we understand it, is not known amongst the Russians. Why should we try to inculcate this notion into them?
35
36The German colonist ought to live on handsome, spacious farms. The German services will be lodged in marvellous buildings, the governors in palaces.
37
38[…]
39
40Around the city, to a depth of thirty to forty kilometres, we shall have a belt of handsome villages connected by the best roads. What exists beyond that will be another world, in which we mean to let the Russians live as they like. It is merely necessary that we should rule them. In the event of a revolution, we shall only have to drop a few bombs on their cities, and the affair will be liquidated. Once a year we shall lead a troop of Kirghizes through the capital of the Reich, in order to strike their imaginations with the size of our monuments. What India was for England, the territories of Russia will be for us. If only I could make the German people understand what this space means for our future! Colonies are a precarious possession, but this ground is safely ours. Europe is not a geographic entity, it's a racial entity.
41
42Ibid., p. 30
43
44Nearly two thousand people in Germany disappear every year without trace—victims, for the most part, of maniacs or sadists. It's known that these latter are generally recidivists—but the lawyers take great care to inflict only very light penalties on them. And yet these subhuman creatures are the ferment that undermines the State! I make no distinction between them and the brutes who populate our Russian p.o.w. camps.
45
46Ibid., p. 32
47
48The struggle for the hegemony of the world will be decided in favour of Europe by the possession of the Russian space. Thus Europe will be an impregnable fortress, safe from all threat of blockade. All this opens up economic vistas which, one may think, will incline the most liberal of the Western democrats towards the New Order.
49
50Ibid., pp. 33 -34
51
52When one contemplates this primitive world, one is convinced that nothing will drag it out of its indolence unless one compels the people to work. The Slavs are a mass of born slaves, who feel the need of a master. As far as we are concerned, we may think that the Bolsheviks did us a great service. They began by distributing the land to the peasants, and we know what a frightful famine resulted. So they were obliged, of course, to re-establish a sort of feudal régime, to the benefit of the State. But there was this difference, that, whereas the old-style landlord knew something about farming, the political commissar, on the other hand, was entirely ignorant of such matters. So the Russians were just beginning to give their commissars appropriate instruction.
53
54If the English were to be driven out of India, India would perish. Our role in Russia will be analogous to that of England in India.
55
56Even in Hungary, National Socialism could not be exported. In the mass, the Hungarian is as lazy as the Russian. He's by nature a man of the steppe. From this point of view, Horthy is right in thinking that if he abandoned the system of great estates, production would rapidly decline.
57
58It's the same in Spain. If the great domains disappeared there, famine would prevail.
59
60The German peasant is moved by a liking for progress. He thinks of his children. The Ukrainian peasant has no notion of duty.
61
62There is a peasantry comparable to ours in Holland, and also in Italy, where every inch of ground is zealously exploited—also, to a certain extent, in France.
63
64The Russian space is our India. Like the English, we shall rule this empire with a handful of men.
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66It would be a mistake to claim to educate the native. All that we could give him would be a half-knowledge—just what's needed to conduct a revolution!
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68It's not a mere chance that the inventor of anarchism was a Russian. Unless other peoples, beginning with the Vikings, had imported some rudiments of organisation into Russian humanity, the Russians would still be living like rabbits. One cannot change rabbits into bees or ants. These insects have the faculty of living in a state of society—but rabbits haven't.
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70If left to himself, the Slav would never have emerged from the narrowest of family communities.
71
72The Germanic race created the notion of the State. It incarnated this notion in reality, by compelling the individual to be a part of a whole. It's our duty continually to arouse the forces that slumber in our people's blood.
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74The Slav peoples are not destined to live a cleanly life. They know it, and we would be wrong to persuade them of the contrary. It was we who, in 1918, created the Baltic countries and the Ukraine. But nowadays we have no interest in maintaining Baltic States, any more than in creating an independent Ukraine. We must likewise prevent them from returning to Christianity. That would be a grave fault, for it would be giving them a form of organisation.
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76I am not a partisan, either, of a university at Kiev. It's better not to teach them to read. They won't love us for tormenting them with schools. Even to give them a locomotive to drive would be a mistake. And what stupidity it would be on our part to proceed to a distribution of land ! In spite of that, we'll see to it that the natives live better than they've lived hitherto. We'll find amongst them the human material that's indispensable for tilling the soil.
77
78Ibid., p. 35
79
80The Czechs are the people who will be most upset by the decline of Bolshevism, for it's they who have always looked with secret hope towards Mother Russia. When we learnt of the fall of Port Arthur, the little Czechs in my class at school wept—while the rest of us exulted ! It was then that my feeling for Japan was born.
81
82Ibid., p. 38
83
84It's inconceivable that a higher people should painfully exist on a soil too narrow for it, whilst amorphous masses, which contribute nothing to civilisation, occupy infinite tracts of a soil that is one of the richest in the world. We painfully wrest a few metres from the sea, we torment ourselves cultivating marshes—and in the Ukraine an inexhaustibly fertile soil, with a thickness, in places, often metres of humus, lies waiting for us. We must create conditions for our people that favour its multiplication, and we must at the same time build a dike against the Russian flood. If this war had not taken place, the Reich would scarcely have increased its population during the next ten years, but the Russian population would have grown vigorously.
85
86Ibid., p. 40
87
88On the other hand, the offensive spirit that inspires the Russian, when he is advancing, does not surprise us. It was the same during the first World War, and the explanation for it is their bottomless stupidity. We've forgotten the bitter tenacity with which the Russians fought us during the first World War. In the same way, coming generations will see in the campaign now in progress only the magnificent operation that it will have been, without giving any more thought to the numerous crises that we had to overcome by reason of this tenacity.
89
90[…]
91
92Asia,, what a disquieting reservoir of men ! The safety of Europe will not be assured until we have driven Asia back behind the Urals. No organised Russian State must be allowed to exist west of that line. They are brutes, and neither Bolshevism nor Tsarism makes any difference—they are brutes in a state of nature. The danger would be still greater if this space were to be Mongolised. Suddenly a wave comes foaming down from Asia and surprises a Europe benumbed by civilisation and deceived by the illusion of collective security! Since there is no natural protection against such a flood, we must meet it with a living wall. A permanent state of war on the Eastern front will help to form a sound race of men, and will prevent us from relapsing into the softness of a Europe thrown back upon itself.
93
94Ibid., pp. 43 -44
95
96All deliveries of machines, even if they're made abroad, will have to pass through a German middleman, in such a way that Russia will be supplied with no means of production whatsoever, except of absolute necessities.
97
98…
99
100The Russian finds his place in human society only in its collectivist form—that is to say, he is tied to work by a horrible compulsion. The spirit of society, mutual consideration, etc., are to him things unknown.
101
102Ibid., p. 52
103
104The countries we invite to participate in our economic system should have their share in the natural riches of the Russian regions, and they should find an outlet there for their industrial production.
105
106Ibid., p. 69
107
108This Russian desert, we shall populate it. The immense spaces of the Eastern Front will have been the field of the greatest battles in history. We'll give this country a past. We'll take away its character of an Asiatic steppe, we'll Europeanise it. With this object, we have undertaken the construction of roads that will lead to the southernmost point of the Crimea and to the Caucasus. These roads will be studded along their whole length with German towns, and around these towns our colonists will settle. As for the two or three million men whom we need to accomplish this task, we'll find them quicker than we think. They'll come from Germany, Scandinavia, the Western countries and America. I shall no longer be here to see all that, but in twenty years the Ukraine will already be a home for twenty million inhabitants besides the natives. In three hundred years, the country will be one of the loveliest gardens in the world.
109
110…
111
112We shan't settle in the Russian towns, and we'll let them fall to pieces without intervening. And, above all, no remorse on this subject! We're not going to play at children's nurses; we're absolutely without obligations as far as these people are concerned. To struggle against the hovels, chase away the fleas, provide German teachers, bring out newspapers—very little of that for us! We'll confine ourselves, perhaps, to setting up a radio transmitter, under our control. For the rest, let them know just enough to understand our highway signs, so that they won't get themselves run over by our vehicles!
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114For them the word "liberty" means the right to wash on feastdays. If we arrive bringing soft soap, we'll obtain no sympathy. These are views that will have to be completely readjusted. There's only one duty: to Germanise this country by the immigration of Germans, and to look upon the natives as Redskins. If these people had defeated us, Heaven have mercy! But we don't hate them. That sentiment is unknown to us. We are guided only by reason. They, on the other hand, have an inferiority complex. They have a real hatred towards a conqueror whose crushing superiority they can feel. The intelligentsia? We have too many of them at home.
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116All those who have the feeling for Europe can join in our work. In this business I shall go straight ahead, cold-bloodedly. What they may think about me, at this juncture, is to me a matter of complete indifference. I don't see why a German who eats a piece of bread should torment himself with the idea that the soil that produces this bread has been won by the sword. When we eat wheat from Canada, we don't think about the
117despoiled Indians.
118
119[…]
120
121In a hundred years, our language will be the language of Europe. The countries east, north and west will learn German to communicate with us. A condition for that is that the so-called Gothic characters should definitely give place to what we used to call Latin characters, and now call the normal ones. We can see how right we were to make that decision last autumn. For a man who wanted to learn Russian (and we shan't make the mistake of doing that), it was already a terrible complication to adapt himself to an alphabet different from ours. I don't believe, by the way, that we're sacrificing any treasure of our patrimony in abandoning Gothic characters. The Nordic runes were written in what were more like Greek characters. Why should these baroque embellishments be a necessary part of the German genius?
122
123In old times Europe was confined to the southern part of the Greek peninsula. Then Europe became confused with the borders of the Roman Empire. If Russia goes under in this war, Europe will stretch eastwards to the limits of Germanic colonisation.
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125In the Eastern territories I shall replace the Slav geographical titles by German names. The Crimea, for example, might be
126called Gothenland.
127
128Ibid., p. 126
129
130The Bolshevik domination in European Russia was, when all is said, merely a preparation (which lasted twenty years) for the German domination.
131
132Ibid., p. 158
133
134The main problem to-day is a problem of labour. Then comes the problem of the basic raw materials: ooal and iron. With men, coal and iron one can solve the transport problem. At this stage, all the conditions are fulfilled for the functioning of a gigantic economy. How can we manage to increase the production of coal and ores? If we employ Russian labour, that will allow us to use our nationals for other tasks. It's better worth while to take the trouble of knocking the Russians into shape than to fetch Italians from the South, who will say good-bye after six weeks ! A Russian is not so stupid, after all, that he can't work in a mine. In any case, we're completely geared for standardisation. What's more, we'll do less and less turning. Presses will henceforward take the place of lathes. With the help of this colossal human material—I estimate the employable Russian labour at two and a half millions—we'll succeed in producing the machine-tools we need.