"Hitler's Table Talk" Study Hour

April 10, 2014

Carolyn Yeager and Ray Goodwin read and comment on the Sept 22 to Sept. 25, 1941 dinner table monologues by the German Führer, as taken down by an adjutant and checked for accuracy by Martin Bormann. In this program:

• The separate worlds of Europe and Asia are not marked by the Ural Mountains, but Asia penetrates into Europe without any sharp break;
• Germany obtains the right to extend into the East by it’s awareness of what it represents – success justifies everything;
• National-Socialism will never ape religion by establishing a form of worship;
• The Russian soldier of the 1st World War was more good-natured than the cruel Bolshevik-led soldier of the current time;
• The Four-Year Plan of 1936-40 with the aim of German self-sufficiency, not dependent on exports;
• Russia as a source of raw materials for Germany and a consumer of simple German-made items such as cotton goods and household utensils.

Image: At the Obersalzberg, Adolf Hitler, accompanied by Reich Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop (right), receives the Prime Minister Zwetkowitsch of Yugoslavia for talks in February 1941 (click to enlarge)

The edition 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.

April 3, 2014

Ray Goodwin and Carolyn Yeager read and comment on the August 19 – Sept 21, 1941 dinner table monologues by the German Führer, as taken down by an adjutant and checked for accuracy by Martin Bormann. In this program:

• Encouraging high level of births is more useful than preventing war – to kill a man before he is born is the worst;
• The people of Europe should not be dependent upon England, but the Ukraine and Volga Basin will be the granaries for us;
• Criminals and anarchists should be dealt with swiftly and harshly, not turned over to lawyers to get them light sentences;
• The “spirit of decision” in deciding on Operation Barbarossa, and the quality of the German soldier as “best in the world”;
• The industrious German nature compared to the indolent Slav nature is pointed out in several instances;
• His dislike of the Habsburg monarchy and his gratitude to Social Democracy for sweeping all royalties away;
• The duty of National-Socialism is to allow the best in the people to develop.

Image: Poster expressing "German thanks giving" for a good harvest. As the 30's wore on, Germany did not have enough agricultural land to feed it's growing population. But even in the 20's, Adolf Hitler saw the fertile land of Ukraine as perfect for Germany's needs. Click to enlarge.

The edition 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.

March 27, 2014

Carolyn Yeager and Ray Goodwin read and comment on the August 1st-10th, 1941 dinner table monologues by the German Führer, as taken down by an adjutant and checked for accuracy by Martin Bormann. Some highlights from the program:

• Even though German functionaries are incorruptible, too much uniformity and fear of initiative is not a good thing;
• Hitler's sympathetic attitude toward workers, and his dislike of the bourgeoisie  and the plutocracy;
• Hydro-electric and gas works - the future will depend on water, wind and natural gas;
• The British method of ruling their empire was not to try to Anglicize the people, but to leave them to live according to their own ways;
• Hitler sees the combined forces of Germany, England, the Nordic countries and Italy as greater than the USA.

Click image to enlarge: German troops march past a church as they move deeper into Russia in 1941.

The edition 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.

March 20, 2014

Ray Goodwin and Carolyn Yeager read and comment on the July 21st-28th, 1941 dinner table monologues by the German Fuehrer, as taken down by an adjutant and checked for accuracy by Martin Bormann. Some highlights from the program:

•  Graditude to the Jesuits for the Counter-Reformation and its Baroque architecture, leaving the Gothic behind;
• Admiration for Mussolini and the glory of Italian art-architecture, superior to the French;
• Martin Luther credited with replacing the many regional dialects with  the great German language;
• English-German industrial competition and their comparison in the arts and culture;
• The merit of the German soldier, the prestige of the SS, and the weakness of the WWI command;
• How to control the Eastern regions with soldier-farmers as colonists;
• Wrong to exterminate the intelligentsia, but a class system is intolerable –cannot despise the man who sweeps the streets.

Image: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini walking in front of saluting military in Venice, as Hitler first arrives in Italy in 1934. (click to enlarge)

The edition 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.

March 13, 2013

Carolyn Yeager and Ray Goodwin read and comment on the Sat. July 5th through July 15th, 1941 dinner table monologues by the German Fuehrer, as taken down by an adjutant and checked for accuracy by Martin Bormann. 59m. Some highlights from the program:

• Russians do not naturally incline toward a Western, Aryan type of organized state;
• Expansion into the East will create new tourist destinations reachable by autobahn;
• Moscow must disappear and Bolshevisim be exterminated;
• The dominion of natural law, no education in atheism, Christianity less tolerant than the ancient world;
• Moral law governs the actions of Germans, making them uniquely capable of a revolution in religion;
• Racial migrations, and “way of eating” a typically racial characteristic;
• Stalin an extraordinary figure in history.

Image: July 1941. A proud time: Hitler with Field Marshal Keitel and Reichsmarschall Goering (far right) in conversation with Knight's Cross winner Werner Mölders (left). [click on image to enlarge]

The edition 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.

March 6, 2014

The edition 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.