A. First, because he could not afford to allow any democracy, any free state, to exist in his totalitarian world. In his world there would be only one kind of freedom, the freedom of the German to do as he likes with all other varieties of men. If Hitler is not interfered with and has time to accustom his slaves to slavery, his dynasty of tyrants might last far beyond our lifetime, but not if a single democracy persists to tempt and challenge his slaves to revolt. Witness today how for a long time the subjugated peoples of Europe seemed sunk in abject apathy, but awakened to demonstrate against their despot the moment Russia’s resistance awakened the hope of eventual victory. If Hitler wins over the rest of the world, he must destroy us in order to be safe in his own Empire. As long as a democracy exists on earth it will hold out before the eyes of hundreds of millions of Hitler’s subjects the vision of a place on earth where the body and soul of a man belong to himself and there are no masters and slaves. Especially dangerous to his rule would be a democracy which not only offered this vision but was potentially powerful enough to be a positive threat, as the United States. For this reason alone Hitler could not allow us to continue to exist, a free oasis in his vast helot Reich. Second, Hitler could not afford to give us time to translate our potential into real strength. He professes two opinions of America. One is that we are negligible; the other is that as the last war was decided by America, this one may be. He once told a diplomatic official of his who still occupies a high post in this country: “The United States is a degenerate democracy in the backwash of civilization and too demoralized by pacifism to play any important role in the war to come.” He is truly contemptuous of our democracy, as of all democracies, which he judges on the basis of those he has overthrown or conquered, from the German to the French. He concludes that we must be weak, since our democratic system dispenses justice, as far as humanly possible, to the weak as well as to the strong, and because since the conquest of the continental United States we have shown little or no interest in building an empire. To the Nazi heart justice to the weak is a proof of weakness; and to the Nazi mind only one thing prevents a human being from seizing the property of a neighbor, weakness. So Hitler on the one hand thinks us weak, but on the other hand he recognizes that we could become strong.