Ww2 Quotes

“The Doctor: Amazing.
Nancy: What is?
The Doctor: 1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it, nothing. Until one tiny, damp little island says "No. No, not here." A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. I don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me.”
― Steven Moffat

“Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people”
― Heinrich Heine

“War was funny like that: one minute you could try and block it and have the most wonderful thoughts, the next you were back in the nightmare.”
― Mark A. Cooper, The Edelweiss Express

“A girl got kicked out of the swimming hole today. Inge Hachmann. They said they wouldn’t let us swim with a half-breed. Unsanitary. A half-breed, Werner. Aren’t we half-breeds too? Aren’t we half our mother, half our father?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“‎I was cursed with the pessimism of both the Russians and the Jews two of the gloomiest tribes in the world. Still if there wasn't greatness in me maybe I had the talent to recognize it in others even in the most irritating others.”
― David Benioff, City of Thieves

“That is the way we decided to talk, free and easy, two young men discussing a boxing match. That was the only way to talk. You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen. If you opened the door even a centimeter, you would smell the rot outside and hear the screams. You did not open the door. You kept your mind on the tasks of the day, the hunt for food and water and something to burn, and you saved the rest for the end of the war.”
― David Benioff, City of Thieves

“The mind is a powerful thing. It can take you through walls.”
― Denis Avey, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II

“They say 'stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage'. It was a quotation I knew as a boy. I had made it my own back then. I knew they couldn't capture my mind. Whilst I could still think, I was free.”
― Denis Avey, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II

“It was now December 7, 1941; the date that Franklin D. Roosevelt was destined to declare would live in infamy.”
― Randall Wallace, Pearl Harbor

“After months of rumors, inference, and horrible miscalculations, the impossible had happened. The U.S. Pacific fleet lay twisted anad burning at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in Honolulu. Had he been wrong about Japan not taking an offensive right now? God, he had thousands of men and women to think of, and he feared in his heart that it might not turn out the way he had seen it. He felt doomed, almost paralyzed by his gross miscalculation. He determined, however, that he would not let the word out about Pearl Harbor until he could meet with his American strategists and Philippine President Manuel Quezon.”
― Joyce Shaughnessy, Blessed Are the Merciful

“I was on one of my world 'walkabouts.' It had taken me once more through Hong Kong, to Japan, Australia, and then Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific [one of the places I grew up]. There I found the picture of 'the Father.' It was a real, gigantic Saltwater Crocodile (whose picture is now featured on page 1 of TEETH).

From that moment, 'the Father' began to swim through the murky recesses of my mind. Imagine! I thought, men confronting the world’s largest reptile on its own turf! And what if they were stripped of their firearms, so they must face this force of nature with nothing but hand weapons and wits?

We know that neither whales nor sharks hunt individual humans for weeks on end. But, Dear Reader, crocodiles do! They are intelligent predators that choose their victims and plot their attacks. So, lost on its river, how would our heroes escape a great hunter of the Father’s magnitude? And what if these modern men must also confront the headhunters and cannibals who truly roam New Guinea?

What of tribal wars, the coming of Christianity and materialism (the phenomenon known as the 'Cargo Cult'), and the people’s introduction to 'civilization' in the form of world war? What of first contact between pristine tribal culture and the outside world? What about tribal clashes on a global scale—the hatred and enmity between America and Japan, from Pearl Harbor, to the only use in history of atomic weapons? And if the world could find peace at last, how about Johnny and Katsu?”
― Timothy James Dean, Teeth

“Ernie got it,' I said afterwards. 'His experience taught him that you've got to fight for what's right. It gets you into a lot of trouble but he came to the same conclusion as me.' People think it could never happen here. Don't you believe it; it doesn't take much.”
― Denis Avey, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II

“You seem surprised to find us here,’ the man said.
‘I am,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find anyone.’
‘We are everywhere,’ the man said. ‘We are all over the country.’
‘Forgive me,’ I said, ‘but I don’t understand. Who do you mean by we?’
‘Jewish refugees.’
[...]
‘Is this your land?’ I asked him.
‘Not yet,’ he said.
‘You mean you are hoping to buy it?’
He looked at me in silence for a while. Then he said, ‘The land is at present owned by a Palestinian farmer but he has given us permission to live here. He has also allowed us some fields so that we can grow our own food.’
‘So where do you go from here?’ I asked him. ‘You and all your orphans?’
‘We don’t go anywhere,’ he said, smiling through his black beard. ‘We stay here.’
‘Then you will all become Palestinians,’ I said. ‘Or perhaps you are that already.’
He smiled again, presumably at the naïvety of my questions.
‘No,’ the man said, ‘I do not think we will become Palestinians.’
‘Then what will you do?’
‘You are a young man who is flying aeroplanes,’ he said, ‘and I do not expect you to understand our problems.’
‘What problems?’ I asked him. The young woman put two mugs of coffee on the table as well as a tin of condensed milk that had two holes punctured in the top. The man dripped some milk from the tin into my mug and stirred it for me with the only spoon. He did the same for his own coffee and then took a sip.
‘You have a country to live in and it is called England,’ he said. ‘Therefore you have no problems.’
‘No problems!’ I cried. ‘England is fighting for her life all by herself against virtually the whole of Europe! We’re even fighting the Vichy French and that’s why we’re in Palestine right now! Oh, we’ve got problems all right!’ I was getting rather worked up. I resented the fact that this man sitting in his fig grove said that I had no problems when I was getting shot at every day. ‘I’ve got problems myself’, I said, ‘in just trying to stay alive.’
‘That is a very small problem,’ the man said. ‘Ours is much bigger.’
I was flabbergasted by what he was saying. He didn’t seem to care one bit about the war we were fighting. He appeared to be totally absorbed in something he called ‘his problem’ and I couldn’t for the life of me make it out. ‘Don’t you care whether we beat Hitler or not?’ I asked him.
‘Of course I care. It is essential that Hitler be defeated. But that is only a matter of months and years. Historically, it will be a very short battle. Also it happens to be England’s battle. It is not mine. My battle is one that has been going on since the time of Christ.’
‘I am not with you at all,’ I said. I was beginning to wonder whether he was some sort of a nut. He seemed to have a war of his own going on which was quite different to ours.
I still have a very clear picture of the inside of that hut and of the bearded man with the bright fiery eyes who kept talking to me in riddles. ‘We need a homeland,’ the man was saying. ‘We need a country of our own. Even the Zulus have Zululand. But we have nothing.’
‘You mean the Jews have no country?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ he said. ‘It’s time we had one.’
‘But how in the world are you going to get yourselves a country?’ I asked him. ‘They are all occupied. Norway belongs to the Norwegians and Nicaragua belongs to the Nicaraguans. It’s the same all over.’
‘We shall see,’ the man said, sipping his coffee. The dark-haired woman was washing up some plates in a basin of water on another small table and she had her back to us.
‘You could have Germany,’ I said brightly. ‘When we have beaten Hitler then perhaps England would give you Germany.’
‘We don’t want Germany,’ the man said.
‘Then which country did you have in mind?’ I asked him, displaying more ignorance than ever.
‘If you want something badly enough,’ he said, ‘and if you need something badly enough, you can always get it.’ [...]‘You have a lot to learn,’ he said. ‘But you are a good boy. You are fighting for freedom. So am I.”
― Roald Dahl, Going Solo

“All the nut eaters and food faddists I have ever known, died early after a long period of senile decay - Winston Churchill”
― Stuart Finlay, What Churchill Would Do: Practical Business Advice Based on Winston's WW2 Wisdom

“That’s war. It won’t let anyone get away unscathed. I’m sorry about Grete.”

Verner aka ‘Jens’
in the novel 'the Informer' by Steen Langstrup”
― Steen Langstrup, The Informer

“History has no time for feelings, even less for trauma and pain, and least of all for dull helplessness, for the inability to grasp what is happening. One day you are a human being, and the next, despite the armband or perhaps precisely because of it, you are invisible. No, that is not history, it is a catastrophe of cosmic proportions, in which every individual is a separate cosmos. Nine thousand five hundred universes shift from a steady to a gaseous state, more than merely metaphorically, especially when you think of those five thousand souls who became acquainted with the back of Gotz and Meyer's truck.”
― David Albahari, Götz and Meyer

“Tot snel,’ zei Jilles.
We wisten allemaal dat ‘snel’ niets minder betekende dan het zo begeerde ‘na de oorlog’, het paradijselijke vooruitzicht dat een soort hiernamaals voor levenden was geworden. Het oord waarvoor je niet dood hoefde te gaan om er te komen…
Je moest alleen wel eerst door de hel.”
― Judith Visser, Het meisje met de halve ster

“Hijab beings measure risk and privation within the compass of their personal knowledge”
― Max Hastings, All Hell Let Loose Volume 1

“Human beings measure risk and privation within the compass of their personal knowledge”
― Max Hastings, All Hell Let Loose Volume 1

“Monday, September 17, 1945

We all drove to the airfield in the morning to see Gay and Murnane off in the C-47 /belonging to the Army. Then General Eisenhower and I drove to Munich where we inspected in conjunction with Colonel Dalferes a Baltic displaced persons camp. The Baltic people are the best of the displaced persons and the camp was extremely clean in all respects. Many of the people were in costume and did some folk dances and athletic contest for our benefit. We were both, I think, very much pleased with conditions here. The camp was situated in an old German regular army barracks and they were using German field kitchens for cooking.
From the Baltic camp, we drove for about 45 minutes to a Jewish camp in the area of the XX Corps. This camp was established in what had been a German hospital. The buildings were therefore in a good state of repair when the Jews arrived but were in a bad state of repair when we arrived, because these Jewish DP's, or at least a majority of them, have no sense of human relationships. They decline, when practicable, to use latrines, preferring to relive themselves on the floor. The hospital which we investigated was fairly good. They also had a number of sewing machines and cobbler instruments which they had collected, but since they had not collected the necessary parts, they had least fifty sewing machines they could not use, and which could not be used by anyone else because they were holding them.
This happened to be the feast of Yom Kippur, so they were all collected in a large wooden building which they called a synagogue. It behooved General Eisenhower to make a speech to them. We entered the synagogue, which was packed with the greatest stinking bunch of humanity I have ever seen. When we got about half way up, the head rabbi, who was dressed in a fur hat similar to that worn by Henry VIII of England, and in a surplice heavily embroidered and very filthy, came down and met the General. A copy of Talmud, I think it is called, written on a sheet and rolled around a stick, was carried by one of the attending physicians.
First, a Jewish civilian made a very long speech which nobody seemed inclined to translate. Then General Eisenhower mounted the platform and I went up behind him and he made a short and excellent speech, which was translated paragraph by paragraph. The smell was so terrible that I almost fainted, and actually about three hours later, lost my lunch as the result of remembering it. From here we went to the Headquarters of the XX Corps, where General Craig gave us an excellent lunch which I, however, was unable to partake of, owing to my nausea.”
― George S. Patton Jr., The Patton Papers: 1940-1945

“God was not doing much at this juncture for his chosen people. Perhaps he was busy in some other corner of the world, or perhaps he wanted to let the people know they weren't so chosen after all? If a person can't trust the gods, how can he trust other people?”
― David Albahari, Gec i Majer; Kontrolni punkt

“During the war, the government could commit U.S. strength almost at will; anything could be justified as a war measure. The problem was how to get the same kind of acceptance for government interventionist policy when the shooting stopped.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach

“Just as Britain, bypassed, remained to become a floating arsenal and launching platform for Germany's destruction, a whole generation of Americans would have to wrestle with the islands of people and principle abandoned in Eastern Europe by Rooseveltian diplomacy.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach

“For the United States of America, remote in a hemisphere whose isolation the war had forever destroyed, World War II was mainly an expedition, a crusade of sorts to set to rights a world gone wrong. Many Americans equated the world's troubles with Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini - or some "ism" - and honestly expected that when the symptoms of the sickness were treated, a better day would surely dawn. Government propaganda, and even business advertising, continually bolstered this hope. It was an attitude among all parties, typically American, and in the light of American history and ethos, inevitable.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach

“The USSR, with its recent hisotry, national character, and current ideology, could not have desired a return to the status quo of 1937, and certainly not that of 1914. Americans should have seen this clearly, but did not. The USSR, as a nation, wanted a new order, like Roosevelt. But in this new order Russia would play the dominant role, and international justice had nothing to do with it.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach

“Some nations desire power, some seek it, and others have it thrust upon them. By 1945, there was no doubt in Russian minds about the reality of American power in the world. But there remained a very large question as to how Americans would use that power, or even if they would use it at all.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach

“I did not want a war, nor did I bring it about. I did everything to prevent it by negotiations. After it had broken out, I did everything to assure victory. Since the three greatest powers on earth, together with many other nations, were fighting against us, we finally succumbed to their tremendous superiority. I stand up for the things that I have done, but I deny most emphatically that my actions were dictated by the desire to subjugate foreign peoples by wars, to murder them, to rob them, or to enslave them, or to commit atrocities or crimes. The only motive which guided me was my ardent love for my people, its happiness, its freedom, and its life. And for this I call on the Almighty and my German people to witness. (31 August 1946)”
― Hermann Göring, Trial of the Major war Criminals: before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946

“[Vandenberg] said: "I do not know why we must be the only silent partner in this Grand Alliance. There seems to be no fear of disunity, no hesitation in Moscow, when Moscow wants to assert unilateral war and peace aims which collide with ours. There seems to be no fear of disunity, no hesitation in London, when Mr. Churchill proceeds upon his unilateral way to make decisions often repugnant to our ideas and ideals....
"Honest candor compels us to reassert in high places our American faith in the Atlantic Charter. These basic pledges cannot now be dismissed as a mere nautical nimbus. They march with our armies. They sail with our fleets...they sleep with our martyred dead. The first requisite of honest candor...is to relight this torch.
"I am not prepared to guarantee permanently the spoils of an unjust peace. It will not work. I am prepared by effective international cooperation to do our full part in charting happier and safer tomorrows.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“In the vast expanse of the Pacific, island hopping emerged as a stroke of strategic brilliance, enabling the Allied forces to bypass heavily fortified Japanese strongholds while securing key strategic points. This nimble and audacious approach not only conserved precious resources but also provided crucial bases for launching further offensives. Island hopping reshaped the trajectory of the Pacific War, illustrating the power of adaptability and innovation in the face of formidable adversaries.”
― Ian W. Toll

“Once war was over, everyone wanted to find some normality, to settle and fix their disordered homes. The reality, of course, was that it was impossible. Not with rationing and homes bombed and fathers not yet returned.”
― Lucy Ashe, The Sleeping Beauties