When agreement with the Russians to jointly devour Poland was secured the next day, his entourage gathered with him late in the evening. Albert Speer describes the scene: standing on the terrace of the Berghof around 3 AM they "marveled at a rare natural spectacle. Northern lights of unusual intensity threw red light on the legend-haunted Untersberg across the valley, while the sky above shimmered in all the colors of the rainbow. The last act of Gotterdammerung could not have been more effectively staged. The same red light bathed our faces and our hands." A pensive mood descended on the group, with Hitler commented to one of them, "Looks like a great deal of blood. This time we won't bring it off without violence."Herbert Dohring has a much more dramatic recollection of the occasion: "Suddenly the sky above Berchtesgaden was in turmoil. It was blood red, green sulphur grey, black as night, a jagged yellow. It was frightening." A Hungarian woman, one of Hitler's guests, approached him to say, "This augurs no good. This means blood, blood and more blood, destruction and terrible suffering." With that, recalled Dohring, Hitler became "completely crazed, his hair was wild, his gaze locked in the distance." At length Hitler responded, "Well, if it has to be, then let it be now," and shortly thereafter went to his room. The invasion of Poland began a week later."
This testimony was also given in William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Snip:
Unfortunately, there’s a grave danger in failing to come clean – and that is, the great crime is likely to be repeated.
Consider what Adolf Hitler wrote in this Aug. 22, 1939, document, which was entered into evidence in the Nuremberg Trials. After you read his absolutely horrendous plans, pay special attention to the last sentence, in which Hitler reveals why he’s so sure he can get away with committing genocide while pulling off what he calls the “redistribution of the world”:
My decision to attack Poland was arrived at last spring. Originally, I feared that the political constellation would compel me to strike simultaneously at England, Russia, France, and Poland. Even this risk would have had to be taken.
Ever since the autumn of 1938, and because I realized that Japan would not join us unconditionally and that Mussolini is threatened by that nit-wit of a king and the treasonable scoundrel of a crown prince, I decided to go with Stalin.
In the last analysis, there are only three great statesmen in the world, Stalin, I, and Mussolini. Mussolini is the weakest, for he has been unable to break the power of either the crown or the church. Stalin and I are the only ones who envisage the future and nothing but the future. Accordingly, I shall in a few weeks stretch out my hand to Stalin at the common German-Russian frontier and undertake the redistribution of the world with him.
Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter – with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It’s a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me.
I have issued the command – and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad – that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness – for the present only in the East – with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?