5 February 1942, evening

I’ve made innumerable excursions on the mountain, led by the Baroness Abegg. (Without her, I’d probably never have been on the summit of the Jenner. She was indefatigable and could climb like a goat.) All that was arranged by Eckart, who didn’t care for walking and could thus remain in peace at the boarding-house. Dietrich Eckart used to say that she was the most intelligent woman he’d ever known. I’d have been willing to accept the intelligence, if it hadn’t been accompanied by the most spiteful tongue imaginable. The woman was a real scorpion. She was as blonde as flax, with blue eyes and excessively long canine teeth, like an Englishwoman. I admit she was remarkably intelligent. A woman in the class of Frau Bruckmann. She had travelled a lot, all over the world. She was always in one or other of two extreme states. The first kept her at home in a state of almost complete collapse. She would sprawl on her veranda, like a run-down battery, whilst everybody around her was kept busy attending to her. The second state was one of incredible petulance – she’d fly into a rage, sweep out like a whirlwind, climb up somewhere and come rushing torrentially down again.

In my opinion, the most attractive thing about her was the famous bust by Donatello. She valued it at a hundred and fifty thousand marks in gold. In the event of sale, half the money was to go to the Party funds – which would have enabled us to solve all the difficulties caused by the inflation. Unfortunately, nobody believed in the authenticity of this Donatello. When I saw her for the first time, my instinct immediately told me it was a fake. She claimed that the stucco-worker in whose house she’d bought it had no knowledge of its value. At the best, it could only be a bad copy.

The Baroness’s husband had thrown himself into the Königssee. As can well be understood! In his place, I’d have done the same. Of the two faithful admirers whom she was known to have, one died, and the other went mad.

21 February 1942

I’m thinking of the wife of Consul Scharrer. She had hands laden with rings which were so big that she couldn’t move her fingers. She was the sort of Jewess one sees in caricatures. He was a great devotee of the turf. His wife and his horses were his only preoccupations.

One day Werlin showed me Scharrer’s car. Its radiator was plated, not with nickel, but in gold. It furthermore contained a thousand little articles of everyday use, starting with a lavatory, all in gold. I can still see Consul Scharrer when he used to arrive in a top-hat, with his cheeks more puffed out than those of Christian Weber, for the Sunday concert on the avenue.

On their property at Bernried they had white peacocks. Although he received Prussian princes in his house, in the depths of his heart Scharrer was a Bavarian autonomist. A parrot of genius one day made the unforgivable blunder of crying, amidst this brilliant assembly: “Prussian swine!”

Unfortunately for him, Scharrer had a flame. His wife was furious, and threw him out of the house. He died in poverty.

She, the wife, was a daughter of the big brewer, Busch, who had made his fortune in the United States. He must have been some worthy Bavarian, who by chance married a Jewess. As regards Frau Scharrer, she looked like a ball. Nobody ever checked up whether she was wider or taller. When she was sitting in her carriage, her arms necessarily followed the shape of her body, and her hands hung down at the sides. There are Jewesses like that in Tunis. They are shut up in cages until they put on weight. She finally offered herself to a young lover. It’s a painful situation for a husband to be so dependent on a wife rich as Croesus.

27 March 1942, midday

Numerous examples taken from history prove that woman – however intelligent she may be – is not capable of dissociating reason from feeling, in matters of a political nature. And the formidable thing in this field is the hatred of which women are capable. I’ve been told that after the occupation of the province of Shanghai, the Japanese offered Chiang Kai-shek’s Government to withdraw their troops from Chinese territory, on condition: (a) of being able to maintain a garrison in Shanghai’s international concession; (b) of obtaining advantageous terms on the conclusion of a trade treaty. It seems that all the generals approved of this proposal and encouraged Chiang Kai-shek to accept it. But when Mme. Chiang Kai-shek had spoken – urged on by her measureless hatred of Japan – the majority of the generals reversed their decisions, and thus it was that Japan’s offer, although a very obvious one, was rejected.

One might speak likewise of the influence of Lola Montez over Ludwig I of Bavaria. The latter was, by nature, a reasonable and understanding king. But that woman completely drove him from his course.

23 April 1942, at dinner

It is always painful to me, when I meet the Duce in Italy, to see him relegated to the rear rank whenever any of the Court entourage are about. The joy is always taken out of the reception he arranges for me by the fact that I am compelled to submit to contact with the arrogant idlers of the aristocracy. On one occasion these morons tried to ruin my pleasure at the spectacle of a dance given by the most lovely young maids from the Florence Academy, by criticising the dancing in most contemptuous terms. I rounded on them with such fury, however, that I was left to enjoy the rest of the programme in peace!

It was certainly no pleasure to me to find myself continually in the company of the Court hangers-on, particularly as I could not forget all the difficulties which the King’s entourage had put in the Duce’s way from the very beginning. And now they think they are being tremendously cunning in flirting with Britain!

Nothing, to my mind, is more typical of the ineptitude of these aristocratic loafers than the fact that not once did the Crown Princess of Italy succeed in offering me a hot and decently cooked meal! When a German hostess offers me hospitality she makes it a point of honour, however humble she may be, not only to give me an excellent meal but also to see that it is decently hot. These degenerates of the Italian aristocracy give proof of the futility in even the most elementary things in life. What a pleasure it was, in contrast, to talk to an intelligent and charming women like Edda Mussolini! A woman of this kind shows the stuff she is made of by volunteering to be a nurse with the divisions serving on the Eastern front – and that is just what she is doing at the present moment.

5 August 1942, midday

The number of courses served at an official banquet is monstrous! I think there is something rather degrading in laying such store by food. And the most disagreeable feature is that these banquets always last for hours, and one always sits next to someone with whom one has nothing in common. My own particular tragedy is that, as Head of State, I always have the most worthy ladies as my dinner partners! I’d far rather go on board the Robert Ley and pick out some pretty little typist or sales-girl as my partner!