"The next day, the last of Lord Halifax's visit, Goebbels came to tea. He was really the cleverest of the Nazis and the only leading member of the party with whom conversation was amusing. But there was a bitter streak in his character. He once told me that he often looked back with nostalgia on the early days of the party when there was something to attack. The task of making public speeches was now dreary. He merely wrote on a sheet of paper: Hitler's services to Germany, 5 minutes; the Jews, 10 minutes; Winter Help, 5 minutes, and so on. When he came to each item he merely spouted the old story. He did not, however, tell me that Nazi plans for aggression would soon bring new zest to life and that instead of a domestic enemy, there would be a host of foreigners to attack. But all this must have been in his mind, for 1939 found his Ministry as much prepared as any other instrument of German aggression."