Best 220 quotes in «wwii quotes» category

Throughout the black night, with every step taken, I left my youth further behind; there would be no turning back.

Under alle omstendigheter, og da skyver jeg alle spørsmål om mine egne mangler til side, er jeg ankommet på et tidspunkt da disse folkene i sine hjerter må være grundig syke og kvalme av oss. For et år siden frigjorde vi dem fra fascistmonsteret, og de sitter fortsatt der og gjør sitt beste for å smile høflig til oss - like sultne som alltid og mer plaget av sykdommer enn noensinne, i ruinene av sin vakre by der lov og orden har opphørt å gjelde. Og hva er gevinsten de til slutt kan vinne? Demokratiets gjenfødelse. Den vidunderlige utsikten til en vakker dag å bli i stand til å velge sine egne herskere fra en liste over mektige menn, hvorav de flestes korrupthet er alment kjent og akseptert med trett resignasjon. Benito Mussolinis dager må fremstå som et tapt paradis sammenlignet med dette.

War is a lie

War is a terrible thing which incurs suffering for everyone involved in it. This book is not about taking sides. It is not about passing moral verdicts. Whatever your personal views may be, it’s unquestionable that Erwin Rommel was an important historical figure. This photo collection is significant because it sheds new light on his personality, allows us to view him from a creative standpoint, and adds a groundbreaking dimension to the history of World War II.

We had seen too many horrors already, and we could see and hear more explosions all around us as the war continued, very close to our hiding place; machine gun fire and the sounds of grenades – all very frightening.

Were there atheists in foxholes during World War II? Of course, as can be verified by my dogtags . . . A veteran of Omaha Beach in 1944, I insisted upon including ‘None’ instead of P, C, or J as my religious affiliation.

What are commonly known as the Nuremberg Racial Laws should in actuality be referred to as the Cold Spring Harbor, NY laws.

When he came he first covered me with his revolver', Christine write in her official report, but it was not long before Waem put the gun down on the table between them.

Through this evening of sentences cut short because their completed meaning was always sorrow, of normal life dissolved to tears, the chords of Beethoven sounded serenely.

Tolerance over time breeds resentment. Only through understanding, that comes from the acceptance of one another's differences, shall we find true peace.

War is incidental to ideology, and this was certainly true for the war instigated by Adolf Hitler. Historians have aptly documented that Hitler knew he needed the fog of war and a radicalized population in order to enact the most extreme policies. This was equally true for both Germans and the people of their conquered territories. The war allowed Hitler the cover and justification to radicalize the T4 Euthanasia program against those lives deemed “not worth living” by pointing to the costs of maintaining those “useless eaters” during a time of war. It allowed license for Karl Brandt to “clear hospital beds” in the name of the war effort. The war’s conquered territory also brought conquered populations and increased the number of “unfit” and “undesired” population, including the Jewish population of Eastern Europe. The methods and technology of the T4 Euthanasia program were subsequently transferred from the German hospitals to the extermination camps, doctors, nurses, equipment, and all. This transference and repurposing of resources was all decided in the infamous Wannsee Conference, which we now know was the beginning of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”:“The aim of all this was to cleanse German living space of Jews in a legal manner.” (From the text of the Wannsee Protocol)

Wars are won in the mind before they can be won on the field.

We are living in an artificial world—a world of fantasies and illusions. We've learned beautiful phrases but haven't learned yet how to carry out that little bit that we know. Our brains are stuffed with quotations, while at the same time nine out of ten of these dogmas are incomprehensible, murky, or lies. Which are worthwhile and which are not? Yes, I must stop being false before others and myself. How simple it all seems! But how do I do this? Let just a little time pass, and then we may understand—only the simplest, honorable acts determine the value of a man. Only I myself can and must help myself to become an adult.

We ate, did our homework, got good grades, kissed our parents goodnight and always had the secret door and shared experiences to go to. It was truly remarkable, and doing it as a group made us feel invulnerable. As soon as the drums and amps were set up and Jean and Kathie hit it, I tell you there was nothing more to say. Conversation stopped, and the magic carpet ride took off. I’ve never felt anything more powerful in my life.

We had the air war overhead, which was frightening, but we were, in a way, getting used to it. Now, however, we could hear – and at night, see – the flashes of explosions reflected in the dark sky. We could feel the ground vibrate under our feet. The war was getting closer!

Well, we have to do something. There are all sorts of rumours about soldiers coming up." "These people are full of rumours. They love rumours." Paterson stood watching the bridge. "Their whole life is a rumour.

What does it matter how we look in Germany compared to how we look in heaven?

WHO WAS J.F. LEHMANN? This book postulates that Adolf Hitler made a subtle, but all-important shift from proselytizing the myth of Germans as the oppressed victims of an “international Jewish conspiracy” to that of the superior race and oppressor because of J.F. Lehmann. It is not until after J.F. Lehmann brought Hitler the infamous Baur-Fischer-Lenz book on eugenics that Hitler’s speeches shifted from the stab-in-the-back myth, or the “Dolchstoßlegende,” with Germans as the oppressed victims of betrayal, to the eugenic propaganda of Germans as the pinnacle of white-supremacy. Weakness and superiority are incompatible attributes, and J.F. Lehmann is responsible for the shift away from the weakness inherent in victimhood to a racial superiority. Thus, it begs to question, who was this pivotal figure in Adolf Hitler's life, and why is his name and history not part of the commonly accepted history of The Holocaust? Nothing of The Holocaust or World War II can be understood without documenting who was Julius Friedrich Lehmann. Yet, J.F. Lehmann barely makes it onto the radar of even the most thorough books on the subject, and then only to name him as the person who delivered the Baur-Fischer-Lenz book to Adolf Hitler at Landsberg prison.

What is it about me that gets them all crying? It’s not the end of the world.

Why does The Holocaust persist in haunting our conscience? Why does it dominate the introspection of philosophers and historians alike? By the numbers alone, the murders were not unprecedented. At that juncture of 20th Century history, Stalin and Lenin had already brutally murdered tens of millions. The Holocaust fascinates not because of its numbers, but because of the means employed. At no point in time had an entire society dedicated its full might to the perpetual elimination of those unwanted elements of the population. Every aspect of Hitler’s National Socialism was geared towards cleansing and improving the breeding stock of Germania. Hitler’s National Socialist government was focused on the breeding, education, and training of a “master race.” The social, cultural, legislative, and industrial mechanisms of Hitler’s National Socialism were designed to perpetually “select” its populace. The central planners of National Socialism would “select” those that would live, those that would die, and those that would be sterilized slave labor. National Socialism was intended to have the “total” control to decide who would be allowed to procreate, and as a result, those that would be allowed to contribute to Hitler’s ideal society.

With our collective shock, what we saw seemed to be frozen into a state of suspended animation. Indelibly etched into our memories in terror, forever! My life was in slow motion, it was as if I was no longer in my body and this was a rather bad dream! It is almost impossible to describe with words what I saw, but I will try. This very experience is the one that has continued to shake me awake during the dense night of my lifetime.

Winston Churchill was an early proponent of eugenic legislation decades before Hitler came to power.

Within minutes we had left the station and were entering a cutting with trees on both sides, so the horror of the massacre was now out of sight. The train left the wooded cutting, and we saw Strausberg on fire. There were Russian tanks in the streets and soldiers on foot entering buildings. People were being dragged out, and shot.

Wonderful?" wrote J.O. Young in his diary. "To stand cheering, crying, waving your hat and acting like a damn fool in general. No one who has spent all but 16 days of the this war as a Nip prisoner can really know what it means to see 'Old Sammy' buzzing around over camp.

Yesterday the paper had a "short" summary of the places where Jews are not allowed! I can better mention where they are still aloud: "in their houses and in the streets!" God, punish those who are persecuting the people you chose and to whom Jesus also belonged. -From the diary of Diet Eman

WITH THE EMBERS STILL BURNING: The scientific community has done a pronounced amount of hand-wringing about its involvement in the atomic bomb’s creation, and a disproportionately absent amount of the soul-searching with respects to its creation of the science of eugenics. The 450,000 deaths due to the bomb are relatively small in the shadow of the many millions dead as a result of National Socialism’s eugenic campaign. The casualties of The Holocaust are the casualties of the science of eugenics, which so many scientists had actively campaigned for leading up to World War II. Yet, the scientific community has confronted its complicity with collective silence and sometimes outright censorship.

You are not alone, she thought. Don't be afraid. You are beloved.

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

You cannot write an accurate history of The Holocaust without accounting for the Harvard students and professors that help make the science an acceptable world-wide movement.

You hide a Jew. You pay. Somehow or other, you must.

At this point in time the war [ WWII] is close enough to still feel hotly personal to a writer, yet far enough away so that jingoism and heroics are no longer required.

Britain didn't win WWII by panicking. Let´s be bold, determined and stick to the best of values.

When I went into the Army, I made up my mind that I was putting myself at the Army's disposal. I believe in the war. That doesn't mean I believe in the Army. I don't believe in any army. You don't expect justice out of an army, if you're a sensible, grown-up human being, you only expect victory. And if it comes to that, our Army is probably the most just one that ever existed. . . . I expected the Army to be corrupt, inefficient, cruel, wasteful, and it turned out to be all those things, just like all armies, only much less so than I thought before I got into it. It is much less corrupt, for example, than the German Army. Good for us. The victory we win will not be as good as it might be, if it were a different kind of army, but it will be the best kind of victory we can expect in this day and age, and I'm thankful for it.

You can do anything you put your mind to doing.

A chap wouldn’t hole up in Occupied France just to get away from his wife, Vesta.

A demonic horde. Upended sacks of beans. A hundred broken rosaries. There are a thousand metaphors and all of them are inadequate: forty bombs per aircraft, four hundred and eighty altogether, seventy-two thousand pounds of explosives.

A day came when I should have died, and after than nothing seemed very important, so I stayed as I am, without regret separated from the normal human condition.

All the nut eaters and food faddists I have ever known, died early after a long period of senile decay - Winston Churchill

After the Christmas and New Year of 1944 my mother and I returned to Strausberg, but the area was full of people evacuated from Berlin due to mass bombings on the capital by the RAF. These had started, in a small way, on 25 August, 1940, and had continued through 1941 and 1942. However, by November, 1943, these air attacks were major, involving mass bomber streams of more than 800 aircraft. I used to stand outside the front of our house and look at the sky, watching the silver bombers turning over Strausberg and heading in the direction of Berlin. Many were shot down, some near us in the fields around Strausberg.

After the prayer they executed an armed robbery. That sounds very strange this many years later: prayer and then armed robbery.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States entered into World War II to protect our way of life and to help liberate those who had fallen under the Axis occupation. The country rallied to produce one of the largest war efforts in history. Young men volunteered to join the Armed Forces, while others were drafted. Women went to work in factories and took military jobs. Everyone collected their used cooking grease and metals to be used for munitions. They rationed gas and groceries. Factories now were producing airplanes, weapons, and military vehicles. They all wanted to do their part. And they did, turning America into a war machine. The nation was in full support to help our boys win the war and come home quickly. Grandpa wanted to do his part too.

American newspapers frequently offered praise for eugenics just prior to WWII and The Holocaust .... that is, until Hitler revealed what eugenics really looked like. They avoided the subject for decades thereafter.

A loud explosion followed the ricochets off the ships, and the beach was now invisible, due to the black smoke. Loud screams enhanced the terror, and Frankie almost fell over one of the bodies. Faster and faster, he waded, until he began to run towards the beach, the smoke now clearing.

And now to that Victim whose Sign rose above the world two thousand years ago, to be menaced now by that other sign now rising, I say a prayer of contrition. I, whom you have seen as irreverent and irreligious, now pray in the name of Chuckler and Hoosier and Runner, in the name of Smoothface, Gentlemen, Amish, and Oakstump, Ivy-League and Big-Picture, in the name of all those who suffered in the jungles and on the beaches, from Anzio to Normandy--and in the name of the immolated: of Texan, Rutherford, Chicken, Loudmouth, of the Artist and White-Man, Souvenirs and Racehorse, Dreadnought and Commando--of all these and the others, dear Father, forgive us for that awful cloud.

And she felt the beauty in the music now, drank it in with tears streaming down her face. Never had she been so naked in worship before her Creator, allowing the adoration to bleed out her very fingertips onto the strings, playing her heart's cry for every single lost soul, for the loss of innocence every generation to come would possess as a result of what happened at the killing fields of Auschwitz.

And a ton came down on a coloured road, And a ton came down on a gaol, And a ton came down on a freckled girl, And a ton on the black canal, And a ton came down on a hospital, And a ton on a manuscript, And a ton shot up through the dome of a church, And a ton roared down to the crypt. And a ton danced over the Thames and filled A thousand panes with stars, And the splinters leapt on the Surrey shore To the tune of a thousand scars.

Although Higgins's men had finally received some badly needed supplies, some of his wounded were becoming critical, and the overall health of his troops continued to ebb. Meanwhile, the price among the 442nd's battalions paid to reach Higgins's men had reached gut-wrenching levels. And for General Dahlquist, panic would supplant his anger and frustration.

And you wanted to escape,' a man near me whispered to another man. 'You wanted to run off into the woods and fight. But do you see? Do you see what the rest of them think about us? These people would sell you back to the Nazis for a sack of potatoes and then toast you at their dinner table.

Are you murdering more eggs for breakfast?” Japhet raised his head as the sound of boiling water filled the small apartment. “Don't insult my eggs, Buchanan.” “You insulted my roasted chicken, Kappel, so I can insult your eggs all I want.

As he journeyed alone toward the monster that is death, we could do nothing to help him, nor the others still alive; all the words of strength on our lips melted away, our love not great enough to bind them to life, and our hope not enough to will them to live.