Hitler: A Soliloquy

After the war

There will be such rejoicing!

I love to drive

On our autobahns:

They give me the sense

Of vast open spaces.

Our autobahns

Will abolish all frontiers

In the New Europe.

The Crimea-

For us Germans

That will be our Riviera.

When I meet children

I think of them

As my own;

They all belong to me.

What India was for England,

Russia will be for us!

If only I could make the German people

Understand what this space

Means for our future!

Our colonists will live

On handsome spacious farms

And the governors

Will rule from palaces,

The Slavs are a race of slaves

Who need a master,

And once a year

We shall lead

A troop of Kirghizes

Though the capital of the Reich

To awe them with the majesty

Of our imperial city!

As for the Swiss,

We can use them, at best,

As hotel keepers.

Rome, Florence, Siena, Ravenna,

How I dream of them!

My dearest wish

Would be to be able

To wander about in Italy

As an unknown painter

Free, utterly free!

Men dispossess one another

And it is always the stronger

Who triumphs;

Is that not the law of nature,

The most reasonable order of things?

If we did not respect this law,

If we did not impose our will,

Nature would devour us

Without mercy.

It was with such joy and idealism

That I set out for the front

In 1914,

Then I saw men falling

All around me

In thousands,

And I learnt that life

Is a cruel simple struggle,

Its sole object

To preserve the species.

I would prefer

Not to see any one suffer,

Not to do harm to anyone,

But when I realize the species

Is in danger

Then sentiment yields

To the coldest reason.

This is war

For the possession

Of the great spaces.

What a task awaits us!

We have a hundred years

Of joyful satisfaction before us!

At night in the Berghof

I lie awake for hours,

Contemplating the mountains

Lit up by the moon,

And brightness enters my soul,

My imagination is set free,

I am so far above petty things!

When I hear Wagner

I hear the rhythms of eternity;

One day, surely,

Science will discover

In the music of Wagner

The secret order of the world.

Suddenly

I am a boy again,

Shooting rats

In the backyard

With an airgun.

Mother,

Where are you?

The Jew killed you,

He burned you

With quicklime

And ate your heart.

You were so beautiful in death,

I kissed your face,

A little girl again.