Hitler's Table Talk
'Table Talks at the Führer's Headquarters') is the title given to a series of World War II monologues delivered by Adolf Hitler, which were transcribed from 1941 to 1944.
[10] The talks dwell on war and foreign affairs but also Hitler's attitudes on religion, culture, philosophy, his aspirations, and feelings towards his enemies and friends.
[2][5][11] Although the table talk monologues are generally considered authentic, contentious issues remain over aspects of the published works.
Mikael Nilsson contends, based on evidence and statements, that the table talks are distorted by Bormann and the men he used to write them down and modify them, and deliberately used them to help him win fights within the Nazi state.
This effort spawned two distinct notebooks, which were translated into multiple languages[9] and covered in some instances non-overlapping time-frames due to ongoing legal and copyright issues.
In the presence of his "superiors by birth and education" Hitler made a sincere effort to "present his thoughts in as impressive manner as possible".
Frau Below, the wife of the new Luftwaffe-Adjutant, found the atmosphere, and Hitler's company, at first exhilarating and was greatly impressed by his knowledge of history and art.
[10] After the war, Speer referred to the table talks as "rambling nonsense", adding: [Hitler] was that classic German type known as Besserwisser, the know-it-all.
[21]Although the table talk monologues are generally considered authentic, contentious issues remain over aspects of the published works.
[29] Ian Kershaw also notes that the English edition is imperfect, with a tendency to miss words, leave out lines, or include phrases not found in the German text.
Nilsson maintains that this information was likely known to Trevor-Roper because it was laid out in the publishing contract that the "translation into English will be made on the basis of the French version by François Genoud".
Nilsson concludes that "the translation process was highly doubtful; the history of the manuscript from conception to publication is mysterious at best, and it is impossible to be sure that the majority of the entries are in fact authentic (that is, actual statements by Hitler as opposed to things he could have said)".
[35] Hitler's Table Talk reveals he continued to wish for a unified Protestant Reich Church of Germany for some time after 1937, which had largely proven unsuccessful.
[36] This was in line with his earlier policy of uniting all the Protestant churches so they would purvey the new racial and nationalist doctrines of the regime and act as a unifying rather than divisive force in Germany.
[38] According to Thomas Childers, after 1938 Hitler began to publicly support a Nazified version of science, particularly social Darwinism, at the core of Nazi ideology in place of a religious one,[39] a development that many historians regard is reflected in his increasingly hostile remarks towards Christianity in the Table Talk.
[40] Historian Richard Weikart characterised Hitler's belief in "evolutionary ethics as the expression of the will of God" who routinely "equated the laws of nature and the will of Providence".
These precepts correspond to irrefragable needs of the human soul; they're inspired by the best religious spirit, and the Churches here support themselves on a solid foundation".
[58] They put forward a new translation of twelve quotations based on Picker and Jochmann's German editions as well as a fragment from the Bormann-Vermerke preserved at the Library of Congress.
[59] Citing Carrier's paper Diethelm Prowe remarked that Trevor-Roper's Table Talk "has been proven to be wholly unreliable as a source almost a decade ago".
Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber reported that after speaking with Hitler in 1936, he "undoubtedly lives in belief in God [...] He recognizes Christianity as the builder of western culture".
[66] A widespread consensus among historians, sustained over a long period of time following the initial work of William Shirer in the 1960s,[67] maintains that Hitler was anti-clerical.
