"Hitler's Table Talk" Study Hour: Episode 47
Feb. 19, 2015
Peasant spreading manure. Hitler said of the German peasant farmers, "The peasantry is the solid backbone of the nation, for husbandry is the most chancy occupation on earth."
Carolyn Yeager and Ray Goodwin read and comment on the Aug. 3-6, 1942 lunch and dinner table monologues by the German Leader, as taken down in shorthand by aide Heinrich Heim, who has returned. 1h19m. Included in this episode:
- Hitler uses the instinctual behaviors within bee and ant colonies to explain the value of merciless perseverence when its a question of survival;
- American military courts established in Britain - Poor military decision-making influenced by Jews;
- Food and food supply - stories of Prince Arenberg;
- Praise plus criticism for the Italians -more on ruling the Eastern territories;
- Living in open rather than crowded spaces gives one a wider view - St. Petersburg and Moscow must be destroyed - creating markets in the occupied East;
- Mistreatment of the peasant class led to migration of some of the best of Germans - France and Italy both have strong peasantry which stabilizes a nation.
The edition of Hitler's Table Talk being used was translated by Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens, published by Enigma Books, New York, and can be found as a pdf here.
- 2639 reads
Comments
Just some infomation for you.
Dear Carolyn, I thought you should know about this on Amazon;
http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-High-Castle/dp/B00RSI5EHQ
The Man in the High Castle TV-MA CC
Based on Philip K. Dick's award-winning novel, and executive produced by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), The Man in the High Castle explores what it would be like if the Allied Powers had lost WWII, and Japan and Germany ruled the United States. Starring Rufus Sewell (John Adams), Luke Kleintank (Pretty Little Liars) and Alexa Davalos (Mob City).
You can watch episode 1, for free if you have an account with them.
5 star: (7,784), 4 star: (713), 3 star: (129), 2 star: (66), 1 star: (88), what a great number!
In the 1 star ranking I found this lady -
Laura B., could be on your show one day: http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1TC49734A1KDA/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp
All the best Carolyn, Mike ;-)
Leningrad & Moscow
"Hitler determined that Moscow, like Leningrad and Kiev, would be levelled and its 4 million inhabitants killed to destroy it as a potential center of Bolshevist resistance. For this purpose Moscow was to be covered by a large artificial lake which would permanently submerge it, by opening the sluices of the Moscow-Volga canal."
Source : Wikipedia , Reichskommissariat Moscow.
So the "civilized" Germans would bring "civilization" to the "barbarian" Slavs, and this was the way to do it? Keep in mind that St.Petersburg was as much a cultural city as was Dresden for which destruction you shed so many tears.
I'm interested to know how you defend this one.
False Premise & Strawman
Hitler's intention was not to "bring civilization to the Slavs." He never made any such pronouncement, so I have no need to defend him.
His intention was to defeat his enemy - Soviet Russia - and to replace it with an anti-Jewish, German occupation. That could only have been better than what they had.
Remember Dresden WAS destroyed, wasn't it, by the forces YOU think were in the right, AT THE URGING OF STALIN, King of the Slavs at the time. Just who is all messed up here - you or me?
Wrong
I've been to Saint Petesburg, it was almost untouched by the war.
Hitler gave orders not to damage it.
Yes, it's an old European city, stolen from the Swedes by the duchy of Moscow.
Built by european architects, not "slavs".
They have on display an old unexploded shell in a cathedral.
The bolsheviks destroyed more buildings of Saint Petesburg than the Germans.
And it was a key port, so any talk of destroying it is absurd.
Specially given the knowledge and respect Hitler had for history.
This "Hitler was going to destroy all cities, races..." is getting old and boring.
The facts, he even sacrificed his soldiers to save foreign cities from allied destruction, like Rome and Paris.
We have facts, you have hate.
And if you like history, ask for the cementeries to the German and European soldiers to be restored, your soviets destroyed even the graves of the dead.
St. Petersburg has been a
St. Petersburg has been a real curse for us Finns. It was founded on Finnish land, Ingria, and cut the Baltic Finnish tribes in two contiguous parts, and ofcourse, was later used as an excuse to diminish our land further. The destruction of St. Petersburg was a topical question among Finnish activists at the time. At an audience with Alfred Rosenberg in 1941 Erkki Räikkönen, a Finnish National Socialist, was asked whether Finland wanted to annex St. Petersburg. Räikkönen, himself an Ingrian Finn and born Petersburger, replied that he wanted to see the city sink into the morass on which it was founded and that a new city with a population of 300 000 at most should be founded in its place which could then be given to Finland. Former president Svinhufvud, a leading figure for pro-German opinions in the country, was of the same opinion. Unfortunately Mannerheim did not agree in this matter and refused to besiege Leningrad to the malice of the Finnish nationalists.
More to come
Hitler speaks briefly about what you're saying in an upcoming session -- maybe next week.
2-21 --- I am going to upstage next weeks program a little and give that paragraph now since it's being discussed, The date is August 7, 1942.
True or false moral
Either you are universally moral or not at all. If you deplore the Allied bombings of German cities like Hamburg and Dresden "for moral reasons", if you would be outraged at the book "Germany Must Perish" by the Jew Kaufman, or the "Morgenthau Plan", then you should also be outraged at Hitler's plan to destroy St.Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev and kill 4 million people in the process. Unless of course you openly confess to be the follower of a Nietzschean style jungle moral. In that case - according to your own "values" - the Allies did nothing wrong - from THEIR perspective.
Re:True or false moral
The Germans didn't possess strategic bombers, so there was no way they could have replicated the Allied bombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo. What makes strategic bombers different from tactical bombers (such as the Stuka) is that the former can only be used on civilian targets, which is what Dresden and Tokyo were.
The besieged Leningrad was a legitimate military target and full of soldiers - like Warsaw in 1939, Stalingrad in 1942 and Caen in 1944 - and surrounded by German and Finnish ground forces. No reason why it couldn't have been bombed.
Presumably the Germans and Finns would have allowed the civilian population of Leningrad to evacuate before destroying it. As Carlos Whitlock Porter writes in 'Not
Guilty in Nuremberg' (1996), Stalin refused to allow the Leningrad population to leave, and so, in the 900 day siege, hundreds of thousands - perhaps a million - died of
starvation and typhus, for which the Germans got the blame, as usual.
Did Hitler and the Germans want to destroy Kiev and Moscow? Stalin's retreating soldiers had already destroyed Kiev and other major industrial centres before the Germans took them in late 1941. Cultural sites, such as churches, were blown up as well as factories, and Ukrainian crops uprooted. Millions of Soviet citizens were deported to the snowy wastes of Siberia, to die a miserable death there or on en route. See Walter Sanning's paper, 'Soviet Scorched-Earth Warfare: Facts And Consequences'.
Perhaps you should focus your moral outrage on one man who did kill millions of Russians, Ukrainians and Soviet Jews people between 1941 and 1945 and did destroy many great Russian and Ukrainian cities - Stalin.
I'm curious, why do you have an axe to grind against Hitler, the National Socialists, the Germans in WWII seventy years later? Are you a liberal or Marxist antifascist, a Jewish person, a Russian or Polish or Czech nationalist or what...
I used to be like you, I used to hate Hitler and the Germans with a passion, and was filled with moral outrage. Then I began to consider the other side of the argument.
If I changed, anyone can.
Hitler's plan to colonize
Hitler's plan to colonize Russia up to the Urals with Germans, for which the local "inferior" Slavs would have partly to be murdered, partly expelled and partly enslaved is morally repulsive. You don't have to be a liberal, Marxist antifascist, Jew or Slav to feel that way.
Typically, Franklin Ryckaert,
you have changed the subject. You had no good response to the Leningrad-Moscow topic so now move on to your usual complaint about colonizing the Russian Soviet Union.
Typical Dutch, unfortunately -- "You don't have to be a liberal, Marxist antifascist, Jew or Slav to feel that way." No you just have to be anti-Hitler, which you are in spades.
Not "typical Dutch"
1) The planned destruction of the big cities of Russia (for whatever "strategic" excuses) was simply part of Hitler's colonization plan, which was meant to be destructive anyway.
2) No not "typical Dutch" or typical for whatever ethnic or ideological background, but typical for people with a conscience, which National Socialists cannot understand because they don't have any.
Nein
1) Nothing Hitler did was "meant to be destructive." But all you know is what you read on Wikipedia.
2) It's funny how "people with a conscience" always more firmly implant the Jews in their midst. That cannot lead to any "good." National Socialists say the Jews don't belong in our midst, and people with your kind of conscience find that immoral.
Hypocrisy
You have utter hypocrisy, blatant lies, visceral self-righteousness and thoughtless dogmatism coming from the Allied nations, however, to be outraged at that just 'for moral reasons'. Their attempts at justifying their crimes while at the same time claiming to be the most humanistic, just and conscientious participants of that war. You could have morality on your side, but you don't have to in this case, and I think you know that, Frank.