Hitler’s (Surprising) Table-Talk Statements
This essay reviews three “surprising” statements made by Adolf Hitler in his book Table-Talk (original title Tischgespräche), that he wrote between 1941 and 1944.
First statement: “I don’t want to force National Socialism on anybody”. The main reason I find this statement surprising is that – at least on the face of it – the Nazi regime under the National Socialist Workers’ Party has historically been viewed as anything but conciliatory to views, beliefs and creeds other than their own. Germany had become very much a police state in which opposition was crushed. More particularly, Hitler himself was known as a leader who could not be swayed from any of his own ideas and opinions. I cannot agree – either with the idea of forcing National Socialism on anyone, as it’s against freedom of thought principles, etc – or with the belief that Hitler was sincere when he said it.
The second selected statement from the book is: “We don’t want to educate anyone in atheism”. This surprises me because Hitler was known to have no time for the Church, yet by making this statement it could imply that he didn’t want to encourage a culture of atheism. However, later on the same page, he suggests that “National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together”. Thus Hitler is clearly not suggesting embracing religion, but perhaps is merely saying there are no plans to actually teach atheism. In any event, I would support the statement if indeed his meaning was to not discourage religion.
The third and final selected statement is: “Nothing is lovelier than horticulture.” Taken at face value it could be read as indicating that horticulture was Hitler’s passionate interest. However, because he was sometimes thought to have been at least a partial vegetarian, I believe the context in Table-Talk was a reference to his idea to use the by-products of gas generation to heat greenhouses for growing fruit and vegetables, as part of the concept of people eating less meat. Although I am not a vegetarian, I would agree with such proposals to use energy more efficiently for food production.
References
Hitler, Adolf. (Written 1941-1944). (Published 2000). Table-Talk. Enigma Books. New York City.
