409 quotes found
"The Germans, both because of their intense democracy and also because they were as a rule people of limited capital and dependent on their own labor and skill for a livelihood, were not favorable to the institution of slavery."
"Well, the Germans, too, are surrounded by a “great wall.” This wall is not built of masonry, but is spiritual. Anything outside the wall is regarded with contempt. But when such a superior person goes abroad, and finds how much he has been misinformed, he is apt, unless he is a person of very stable temperament, to rush to the opposite extreme, and thence to look down upon all that he has previously venerated. That is why so many Germans who go abroad are lost to Germany. But one who, having gone abroad, remains a good German and wants to enlighten his fellow-countrymen is not understood at home and is despitefully used."
"We Germans have a far greater and more urgent duty towards civilization to perform than the Great Asiatic Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the sword."
"I never doubted that the victory over France must precede the restoration of the German kingdom, and if we did not succeed in bringing it this time to a perfect conclusion, further wars without the preliminary security of our perfect unification were full in view."
"You have given [the Austrians] carte blanche – do you realize what you have done? If the late Prince Bismarck could appear here before you, his first words would be: "How could you do such a thing, how could you transform a Germany that was the rider into a Germany that is now being ridden by Austria?""
"And now it's time for me to meet Europe's "cuddly teddybears"... the Germans. Germany as a country has only been in existence for just over a hundred years. But in that time they've started two world wars, they've had two military coups, they've been brought on the brink of starvation two times, and they've invaded almost all of their neighbours."
"Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland."
"To no class of our population are we more indebted for valuable qualities of head, heart, and hand, than to the German. Say what we will of their lager, their smoke, and their metaphysics, they have brought to us a fresh, vigorous and child-like nature; a boundless facility in the acquisition of knowledge; a subtle and far-reaching intellect, and a fearless love of truth. Though remarkable for patient and laborious thought]], the true German is a joyous child of freedom, fond of manly sports, a lover of music, and a happy man generally."
"Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, Über alles in der Welt!"
"Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue, Deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang Sollen in der Welt behalten Ihren alten schönen Klang, Uns zu edler Tat begeistern Unser ganzes Leben lang."
"Unity and justice and freedom for the German fatherland! Let us all strive for this purpose, brotherly with heart and hand! Unity and justice and freedom are the pledge of happiness. Bloom in the glow of happiness! Bloom, German fatherland!"
"The creation of two German states, an event unforeseen at Tehran, Yalta, or even at Potsdam, was a signal Cold War phenomenon. Foreshadowed by the dual occupation of Korea, Germany’s partition in 1949 combined both real and symbolic elements as a means of stabilizing Central Europe as well as a punishment for the Nazis’ crimes. Four-power occupation had worked in Austria—thanks to the smaller strategic stakes, a moderate socialist government, and the Allies’ Tehran decision to treat this country gently as “Hitler’s first victim”—and the country remained intact. In the more populous, resource-rich Germany, which lacked a central government, the occupiers were able to dominate the revival of local politics. East Germany became the first “workers’ and peasants’ state on German soil,” and West Germany a liberal, robustly capitalist state. Both regimes represented not only a renunciation of the Nazi past but also the revitalization of two opposing political traditions—Marxism and liberalism—each claiming redemptive power over Germany and Europe’s future and each mirroring the Cold War itself."
"The union of the States of Germany into a form of government similar in many respects to that of the American Union is an event that can not fail to touch deeply the sympathies of the people of the United States. This union has been brought about by the long-continued, persistent efforts of the people, with the deliberate approval of the governments and people of twenty-four of the German States, through their regularly constituted representatives."
"The true German seeks God for all of his life."
"The state of Germany at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is difficult to describe except in biblical terms. Syria today might give us some idea. At least a third of the entire population seems to have perished, more in some areas. In 1631, Magdeburg on the Elbe, Otto the Great’s most-favoured city, had over 20,000 inhabitants; by 1649, it was 450, the rest having been mostly slaughtered in the streets. Even today, when German children sing their version of ‘Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home’, it’s not a house that’s on fire, but Pomerania."
"Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht."
"Germany never defends herself, except by a few flaming protests on the part of our parliamentary elite, and the rest of the world has no reason for fighting in our defense."
"If the Providence has so willed that the German people cannot be spared this fight, then I can only be grateful that it entrusted me with the leadership in this historic struggle which, for the next 500 or 1,000 years, will be described as decisive, not only for the history of Germany, but for the whole of Europe and indeed the whole world. The German people and their soldiers are working and fighting today, not only for the present, but for the coming, nay the most distant, generations. A historical revision on a unique scale has been imposed on us by the Creator... The next incursion against this homestead of European culture was carried out from the distant East. A terrible stream of barbarous, uncultured hordes sallied forth from the interior of Asia deep into the hearts of the European Continent, burning, looting, murdering—a true scourge of the Lord... From the time when the Movement I consisted of seven men, until we took over power in January 1933, the path was so miraculous that only Providence itself with its blessing could have made this possible...Our enemies must not deceive themselves—in the 2,000 years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today. The Lord of the Universe has treated us so well in the past years that we bow in gratitude to a providence which has allowed us to be members of such a great nation. We thank Him that we also can be entered with honor into the ever-lasting book of German history!"
"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"
"If the war is lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation. Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed."
"Europe has been at peace since 1945. But it is a restless peace that's shadowed by the threat of violence. Europe is partitioned. An unnatural line runs through the heart of a very great and a very proud nation. History warns us that until this harsh division has been resolved, peace in Europe will never be secure. We must turn to one of the great unfinished tasks of our generation, and that unfinished task is making Europe whole again."
"There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin."
"The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with [German] indifference."
"As long as there is a wall, barbed wire and orders to shoot, there can be no talk of normality in Germany."
"We Germans have learned from history. We are a peace-loving, freedom-loving people. For us, love of our native country, love of freedom, and the spirit of being a good neighbor always belong together."
"Germany is first of all as das Reich der Mitte (the central realm) truly central in a geographical sense; halfway between Paris and Moscow, Rome and Stockholm, London and Bucharest, Madrid and Helsingfors it is basically different from the marginal states in the European framework, as, for instance, Ireland, Portugal, Greece or Norway. The German people, not unlike the Russian, has furthermore the proclivity to think through to the bitter end every accepted thought, coming from within or without, and to deduct every ultimate conclusion from such an ideology."
"Football is a simple game. 22 men chase a ball for ninety minutes and at the end, the Germans win."
"In the valley of the Pegnitz, where, Across broad meadow-lands, Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.Quaint old town of toil and traffic, Quaint old town of art and song, Memories haunt thy pointed gables, Like the rooks that round thee throng."
"Germany, and the Rhine Valley in particular must be one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is perhaps that beauty which has inspired the development of your culture as manifested by the excellence of the Germans in music, literature and philosophy. Germany's post-war rehabilitation and progress is a tribute to the indomitable spirit, ingenuity and enterprise of her people."
"We do not fear that the operations of time may never bring a united Europe, with a reunited Germany at its centre. We do not know how it will happen, how this unnaturally divided Germany is to become once again. It is obscure to us, and we must take refuge in the belief that history will find ways and means of overcoming the unnatural and restoring the natural: a Germany as a consciously serving member of a Europe united in self-awareness – not as its lord and master... Let us not delude ourselves over the fact that among the difficulties delaying the unification of Europe is a mistrust of the purity of German intentions, a fear by other peoples of Germany and of hegemonic plans that its vital energy may install into it, which in their view it does not conceal very well….It is for the rising German generation, for German youth, to dispel the mistrust, this fear, by rejecting what has long been rejected and clearly and unanimously announcing their desire: not for a German Europe, but for a European Germany."
"In Germany, it's, let's say it's 5:59 and you're heading for the bakery or whatever and it's due to close at 6. The German will walk right up to that door and close it right in your face, they will lock it on the other side of that glass door with a shrug, like 'sorry'."
"Germany was the most dangerous component of the Axis, though German forces, unlike Japanese and Italian, did not fire a shot in anger until the invasion of Poland in September 1939 which launched world war. The source of the German threat was Hitler. Other German nationalists wanted Germany to reassert herself as a major state in the 1930s following years of enforced subservience to the victor states of 1918. Few Germans of any political shade had accepted the Allied demands for reparations and German disarmament, or been reconciled to the loss of territory to Poland and France. But very few Germans wanted to run the risk of war again. Hitler's outlook was quite different. Any account of the origins and course of the Second World War must give Hitler the leading part. Without him a major war in the early 1940s between all the world's great powers was unthinkable."
"The events of the past one and one-half years have gripped the whole German people and affected them deeply. It seems almost like a dream that out of the valley of misery, hopelessness, hate, and fragmentation we have found our way back to a German national community. The horrendous tensions in which we have lived since the August days of 1914 have dissolved, and out of this discord, the German soul has emerged once again, before which the glorious and yet so painful history of our people pass in review, from the sagas of the German heroes to the trenches of Verdun, and even to the street fights of our time."
"And what have we now in Germany? A land of bankers and car-makers. Even our great army has gone soft. Soldiers wear beards and question orders. I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all Germany you can't find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power."
"Many Germans feel guilty about the war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share; that we lost."
"The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolizes an epochal change in the way people live. More important, it liberates the way people think. We see with new clarity that centralized government bureaucracies created in this century are not the wave of the future. Never again will people trust planners and paper shufflers more than they trust themselves."
"Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz. That is their sickness and they desperately want a cure."
"Der Satan der italienischen und englischen Dichter mag poetischer sein; aber der deutsche Satan ist satanischer; und insofern könnte man sagen, der Satan sei eine deutsche Erfindung."
"Germany is to the West what India is to the East, a sort of great forbear. Let us venerate her."
"[I]n Deutschland zwei Millionen Menschen aus der Türkei Arbeit geben."
"The odd thing about modern Europe is that, if you look at the borders, you might think that Germany had won the First World War... The European Union and the old Soviet states are associated with a Europe that feels as if it is run from Berlin. From Scandinavia to Turkey, lorries trundle back and forth with German industrial goods; the euro is mainly German, the Deutsche Bank dominates the eurozone."
"We came here not because we wanted to attack Germany, but because Germany attacked us and invaded our territory all the way to Moscow. Later on, two worlds based on two different ideologies developed. Maybe one proved better and more successful. But we feel that we fulfilled our role here."
"The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."
"Have fired 500 rounds at the Germans, at my command, been shelled, didn't run away thank the Lord and never lost a man."
"I sincerely wish that every member of Congress could visit the displaced person's camp in Germany and Austria and see just what is happening to 500,000 human beings through no fault of their own."
"Deutschland ist eine anatomische Merkwürdigkeit: Es schreibt mit der Linken und tut mit der Rechten."
"Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth."
"Under these 360 semi-independent princelings [of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806] life was easy-going, static, unadventurous. A cultured aristocracy flourished with gentlemanly inefficiency. The economic standards of living were low from our viewpoint, but really high compared with those of the earlier seventeenth century. From this mellow atmosphere, so rich with accumulated tradition, ripened the very finest fruits of German culture. Even the pettiest courts vied at attracting creative intellects. The court of the tiny Duchy of Weimar was simultaneously graced by Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Jean Paul, and Herder. This is more cultural greatness in a feeble state of a few square miles than the whole modern German state and most modern power states can boast."
"Germany would be a desert covered with the skeletons of Catholics, Evangelicals, Reformers and Anabaptists who had massacred each other if the peace of Westphalia had not eventually secured freedom of conscience for its inhabitants."
"Germany became the first team to score five goals in the first 29 minutes of any World Cup game in history. It ended 7-1, but if we can summon just a touch more jingoistic national sentiment, we say fuck it, cheer for the Germans. They scrubbed America off the wrong side of the record book."
"I am convinced that Germany has drawn conclusions and Europe has drawn conclusions as well. And I can say an unpopular thing. If once again Germany should risk destabilizing Europe, then there would be no division of Germany — it would simply be blown off the map of Europe. With the kind of technology that exists, with the kind of experiences we have had, there can be no other way — and the Germans know it."
"If once again Germany destabilizes Europe, then Germany will be not be divided again, but wiped off the map. East and West have the necessary technology in order to enforce this verdict. If Germany begins again, there is no other solution."
"What else is this shameful country known for but the murder of millions and millions of people in World War II?"
"The soldier and the army, not Parliamentary majorities and decisions, have welded the German Empire together."
"I am not a man who believes that we Germans bled and conquered thirty years ago...in order to be pushed to one side when great international decisions call to be made. If that were to happen, the place of Germany as a world power would be gone for ever, and I am not prepared to let that happen. It is my duty and privilege to employ to this end without hesitation the most appropriate and, if need be, the sharper methods."
"In spite of the fact that we have no such fleet as we should have, we have conquered for ourselves a place in the sun. It will now be my task to see to it that this place in the sun shall remain our undisputed possession, in order that the sun's rays may fall fruitfully upon our activity and trade in foreign parts, that our industry and agriculture may develop within the state and our sailing sports upon the water, for our future lies upon the water."
"For the first time, I am ashamed to be a German."
"We have 500,000 reservists in America who would rise in arms against your government if you dare to make a move against Germany."
"Alle wissen guten Rath, Nur nicht, wer ihn nöthig hat."
"Allein ist besser als mit Schlechten im Verein: mit Guten im Verein, ist besser als allein."
"Alles ist seinen Preis wert."
"Alte soll man ehren, Junge soll man lehren."
"Am vielen Lachen erkennt man den Narren."
"An den Früchten erkennt man den Baum."
"Andere Länder, andere Sitten."
"Angebotene Waare stinkt."
"Arzt, hilf dir selber!"
"Außerordentliche Übel erfordern außerordentliche Mittel."
"Auch der kleinste Feind ist nicht zu verachten."
"Auf einen groben Klotz gehört ein grober Keil."
"Aus einem Stein ist schwer Öl pressen."
"Aufgewärmter Kohl war niemals gut."
"Aufschub bringt Gefahr."
"Aus einer Mücke einen Elefanten machen."
"Bald geben, ist doppelt geben."
"Bald reif hält nicht steif."
"Barmherzigkeit fängt en zu Hause an."
"Bedenke das Ende."
"Bedenke, dass du sterben musst."
"Behüte mich Gott vor meinen Freunden, mit den Feinden will ich schon fertig werden."
"Bei offener Kiste mag auch der Fromme ein Schalk werden."
"Berühre nicht alte Wunden."
"Besser allein als in schlechter Gesellschaft."
"Besser arm in Ehren als reich in Schanden"
"Beispiele tun oft mehr als viel Wort' und Lehr'."
"Besser ein Narr mit allen andern, als ein Weiser und allein."
"‘’Beurtheile nicht jeden nach deinem eigen Mass.’’"
"Besser ein Spatz in der Hand, als eine Taube auf dem Dach."
"Blinder Eifer ist Feuer ohne Licht."
"Blödes Herz buhlt keine schöne Frau."
"Timidus se vocat cautum, parcum sordidus."
"Böses mit Gutem vergelten."
"Das Auge sieht weit, der Verstand noch weiter."
"Das Bessere ist der Feind des guten."
"Das Beste kommt selten hernach."
"Das Billige ist immer das Teuerste."
"Das böse Gewissen verrät sich selbst."
"Das Eisen schmieden, solange es heiß ist."
"Das Glück hilft den Kühnen."
"Das Herz lügt nicht."
"Das Pferd stirbt oft, ehe das Gras wächst."
"Das Weib ist des Mannes größtes Glück oder Unglück."
"Das Wort verhallt, die Schrift bleibt."
"Die zeiten änder sich, und wir ändern uns in ihnen."
"Deine Wäsche wasche zu Hause."
"Dem Beichtwater, Arzt unt Advokaten darf man nichts verschweigen."
"Der Amboss erschrickt vor dem (fürchtet den) Hammer nicht."
"Der Antisemitismus ist der Sozialismus der dummen Kerle."
"Der Geizige ist keinem gut, ihm selbst der Ärgste."
"Der Neid frisst seinen eigenen Herrn."
"Der Stärkere hat immer Recht."
"Der Wolf beisst das Schaf um Kleinigkeit."
"Die Arznei ist oft ärger als das Übel."
"Die besten Schwimmer ertrinken."
"Die beste Verteidigung ist der Angriff."
"Die besten Gedanken kommen allzeit hinterdrein."
"You can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow."
"Die Ochsen hinter den Wagen spannen."
"Dem Trinker kommt der Durst."
"‘’Der Arme isst wenn er was hat, der Reiche wenn er will.’’"
"Der Horcher an der Wand hört seine eigene Schand."
"Der Hund bellt und die Karawane geht vorüber."
"Der liebe Gott ist immer mit den stärksten Bataillonen."
"Der gerade Weg ist der beste."
"Der Schuster hat die schlechtesten Schuhe."
"Der muss einen langen Löffel haben, der mit dem Teufel essen will."
"Den Teufel nicht an die Wand malen."
"Der Eider dünket seine Ente ein Falk."
"Die Ersten werden die Letzten sein."
"Die großen Fische fressen die kleinen."
"Draußen hat man hundert Augen, daheim kaum eins."
"Durch Völlerei kommen mehr um denn durchs Schwert"
"Das Kind ins Wasser gefallen."
"Eigenlob stinkt."
"Ein Feind ist zuviel, und hundert Freunde nicht genug."
"Ein gewiß[sic, Gewiss] ist better als zehn Unghewiß[sic, Ungewiss]."
"Ein Hab - ich ist besser als zehn Hätt - ich."
"Ein Heute ist besser als zehn Morgen."
"Ein Kiel treibt den andere aus."
"Er ladet gern Gäste in anderer Leute Häuser."
"Er will den Bock melken."
"Erst denken, dann lenken."
"Erst denken, dann handeln"
"Ein jeder habe das fröhliche, gesunde Misstrauen."
"Ein Scheit allein brennt nicht."
"Einer allein ist nicht einmal gut im Paradies."
"Er war in Rom und hat den Papst nicht gesehen."
"Es ist keiner so blind, wie der, der nicht sehen will."
"Es ist nichts so fein gesponnen, es kommt doch an die Sonnen."
"Eine Schwalbe macht noch keinen Sommer!"
"Eulen nach Athen tragen."
"Erst wägen, dann wagen."
"Es ist übel, Hasen mit Trommeln fangen."
"Faulheit ist der Schlüssel zur Armut."
"Galle im Herzen, Honig im Mund."
"Gelernt ist gelernt."
"Gebranntes Kind scheut das Feuer."
"Geduld bringt rosen."
"Geklagtes Leid ist halbes Leid."
"Geld macht nicht glücklich."
"Geschehene Dinge leiden keinen Rath."
"Geschenk vom Feind ist nicht gut gemeint."
"Geschichte wiederholt sich."
"Gesunder Mann, reicher Mann."
"Gesundheit ist besser als Reichthum."
"Geteilte Freude ist doppelte Freude, geteilter Schmerz ist halber Schmerz."
"Gezwungen liebe und gemachte Farbe dauern nicht."
"Gleiche Gemüter suchen sich."
"Gleiches muß durch Gleiches geheilt werden."
"Gleich sucht sich, Gleich findet sich."
"Glück bringt Neider."
"Golden Gebiss macht das Pferd besser."
"Gott bewahre mich vor jemand, der nur ein Büchlein gelesen hat."
"Gott lässt uns wohl sinken, aber nicht ertrinken."
"Gut verloren, etwas verloren; Ehre verloren, viel verloren; Mut verloren, alles verloren."
"Gute Freunde muss man nicht zu viel überlaufen."
"Guter Willen gilt für die Tat."
"Guter Muth (ist) halber Leib (tägliches Wohlleben)."
"Halt's Maul, so fliegt dir keine Mücke hinein."
"Hast ist meist ohne Vortheil."
"Heute mir, Morgen dir."
"Hoffen und harren macht manchen zum Narren."
"Hurtig zum Imbiß, hurtig zur Arbeit."
"Hütet euch vor den falschen Propheten."
"In der Furt soll man die Pferde nicht wechseln."
"In eigener Sache kann niemand Richter sein."
"Im Becher ersaufen mehr als im Meer."
"Im Hause des Gehenkten rede nicht vom Stricke."
"Im Glück nicht jubeln, im Sturm nicht zagen."
"Im Scherz klopft man oft, und im Ernst wird auf."
"In Zweifelsfalle draußen bleiben"
"Je mehr man die Katze streichelt, desto höher trägt sie den Schwanz."
"Je näher dem Bein, desto süßer das Fleisch."
"Je toller, desto besser."
"Jedem gefällt das Seine."
"Jedem Narren gefällt seine Kappe."
"Jedes Warum hat seinen Darum."
"Jung getollt, alt gezollt."
"Kehre vor Deiner eigenen Tür."
"Kein Kreuzer, kein Schweizer."
"Keiner weiss wo dem Andern der Schuh drückt."
"Kein Buch so schlecht, es steckt was Gutes drin."
"Kein Ding ist so gering, es ist einer Bitte wert."
"Kleine Kessel haben große Ohren."
"Krummes Holz gibt auch gerades Feuer."
"Sich nicht um ungelegte Eier kümmern."
"Lasset die Sonne nicht über eurem Zorne untergehen."
"Laufen ist eine Schande, aber gesund."
"Lebe wie du kannst, nicht wie du willst."
"Leere Ähren stehen aufrecht."
"Leichter gesagt als getan."
"Leicht versprochen, leicht gebrochen."
"Leid oder Freud', in fünfzig Jahren ist's alles eins."
"Lieben und Husten lassen sich nicht verbergen."
"Lieber biegen, als brechen."
"Lieber ein Ende mit Schmerzen als Schmerzen ohne Ende. or Lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken als ein Schrecken ohne Ende."
"Lösche nicht, wo dich's nicht brennt."
"Man findet bald einen Stecken, wenn man einen Hund schlagen will."
"Man kann die Natur nicht ändern."
"Man muß die Dinge nehmen, wie sie kommen."
"Man sieht das Hirn nicht an der Stirn."
"Man sieht am Ende wohl, Wie man es loben soll."
"Man sollte das Fell des Bären nicht verkaufen, bevor man ihn erlegt hat."
"Man soll kein Öl ins Feuer gießen."
"Man wirft keine Perlen vor die Säue."
"Mancher küßt die Hand, die er abbhauen möchte."
"Mit dem, som man ausgibt, mit demselben wird es ausgemessen."
"Mit den Ohren such' dir eine Frau, zieh' mehr die Ohren als die Augen zu Rate."
"Mit Honig fängt man Fliegen."
"Muth ist halber Leib tägliches Wohl leben."
"Narren bedürfen der Schellen nicht."
"Natur geht vor Lehre."
"Nehmt euch vor einem Ochsen vorn: vor einem Eisel hinten und vor einen Mönch auf allen seiten in acht."
"Neidhard ist gestorben, hat aber viele Kinder hinterlassen."
"Neue Besen kehren gut."
"Nicht alle sind Diebe die der Hund anbellt."
"Nichts vertrocknet balder als Ihránen."
"Niemand ist unersetzlich."
"Niemand kann sich über das Meer beklagen, der zum zweiten Male Schiffbruch erlitten hat."
"The night brings counsel."
"Nur tote Fische schwimmen mit dem Strom."
"Öl in Feuer schütten."
"Quatsch keine Opern. (slang, derog, not traditional)"
"Raten ist nicht zwingen."
"Rund is die Welt, drum Brüder laßt uns reisen."
"Schande dem, der schlecht davon denkt."
"Schlimme Sitten, gut Gesetz."
"I think the better day the better deed."
"Schmieds Pferd und Schusters Weiber gehen meistens barfuss."
"Schnell Urteil hat Reue feil."
"Schälke muss man mit Schälken fangen."
"Schön ist, was schön lässt."
"Selbst dem Teufel sein Recht geben."
"Sicher ist sicher."
"Schuster, bleib bei deinen Leisten."
"Selbst ist der Mann."
"Sich aufs hohe Pferde setzen."
"Sieht doch wohl die Katze den Kaiser an."
"Sorge macht vor Zeiten grau."
"Spiele nicht mit Feuer."
"Stehend Wasser wird stinkend."
"Taten statt Worte! or Taten sagen mehr als Wörter. or Lass Wörtern Taten folgen! or Lass Taten sprechen!"
"Teile und herrsche!"
"Tut nach meinen Worten und nicht nach meinen Werken."
"Unter dem blühenden Strauch liegt oft ein giftige Schlange versteckt."
"Verborgener Schatz ist nichts wert."
"Verbotene Frucht schmeckt am besten."
"Von Todten soll man Nichts als Gutes reden."
"Viel Rath ist Unrath."
"Viele Körnlein machen auch einen Haufen."
"Von großen Blöcken haut man große Stücke."
"Verstand kommt mit den Jahren."
"Vertrauen erweckt Vertrauen."
"Viel stroh, wenig Korn."
"Viel Wissen macht Kopfweh."
"Viele Handwerke verderben den Meister."
"Volle Fässer klingen nicht leere desto mehr ."
"Vom Regen in die Traufe."
"Vorbeugen ist besser als heilen."
"Vorrath nimmer schadet."
"Wahrheit gibt kurzen Bescheid, Luege macht viel Redens."
"Was du allein wissen willst, das sage niemand."
"Was Gutes kommt wieder."
"Was man wünscht das glaubt man gern."
"Wem das Ferkel geboten wird, soll den Sack bereit haben."
"Wem der Rock paßt, mag ihn anziehen."
"Wem nicht zu raten ist, dem ist auch nicht zu helfen."
"Wenn alle dir sagen, du seiest betrunken, geh' schlafen."
"Wenn das Haupt krank ist, trauern alle Glieder."
"Wenn der Berg nicht zum Propheten kommt, muß der Prophet zum Berge gehen."
"Wenn der Himmel einfällt bleibt nirgend ein stehen."
"Wenn der Scherz am Besten ist, soll man aufhören."
"Wenn der Teufel alt wird, will er ein Mönch werden."
"Wenn du dich nicht selber kitzelst, ein and'rer wird nicht für dich lachen."
"Wenn ein Freund bittet, so gilt nicht morgen."
"Wenn es not tut, so kann der Teufel die Schrift für sich"
"Wenn jeder Herr ist, wer bringt aus dem Stalle den Mist?"
"Wenn strafen will die Gotteshand, so nimmt sie einem den Verstand."
"Wenn Wünsche hülfen wären wohl Viele reich."
"Wer auf des Andern Schuhe wartet, bis er todt ist, der geht barfuss."
"Wer auf Gott vertraut, hat gut gebaut."
"Wer befehlen will, muß gehorchen lernen."
"Wer den Acker nicht will graben, der wird nicht als Unkraut haben."
"Wer den Kern essen will, muss die Nuss knacken."
"Wer durch Fliehen sich mag retten, kann wieder vor die Luke treten."
"Wer Eier unter den Füßen hat, muss leise auftreten."
"Wer ein Kalb stiehlt, stiehlt eine Kuh."
"Wer einen grossen Sprung thun will, geht vorher zuruck."
"Wer Feuer bedarf, sucht es in der Asche."
"Wer Gott vertraut, Hat wohl gebaut."
"Wer im Glashaus sitzst, darf andere nicht mit Steinen bewerfen."
"Wer will haben gute Ruh, Der höre, sehe und schweige dazu."
"Wer Honig lecken will, darf die Bienen nicht scheuen."
"Who wants to lick honey must not shy away from bees."
"Wer keine Neider hat, hat auch klein Glück."
"Wer mich liebt, der libt auch meinen Hund."
"Wer nicht mit mir ist, der ist wider mich."
"Wer nicht vorwärts kommt, kommt rückwärts."
"Wer sich unter die Kleie mischt, den fressen die Schweine."
"Wer sich zum Lamm macht den fressen die Wölfe."
"Wer Vögel fangen will, muß nicht mit Knutteln dreinwerfen."
"Wer zwei Hasen auf einmal jagt bekommt keinen."
"Wer's allen recht machen will muss früh aufstehen."
"Wie du dein Bett macht, so magst Du darauf schlafen."
"Wie die Mutter, so die Tochter."
"Wie man in den Wald hineinruft, so schallt es heraus."
"Was nicht ist, kann noch werden."
"Wenn das Wörtchen wenn nicht wär, wär mein Vater Millionär."
"Wie der Lohn, so die Arbeit."
"Wie die Alten singen, so zwitschern auch die Jungen."
"Wie man in den Wald hineinruft, so schallt es zurück."
"Wer A sagt, muss auch B sagen. (Plattdeutsche Variante: De A seggt, mut ok B seggen)"
"Wenn der Reiter nichts taugt, ist das Pferd schuld."
"Wo der Wolf wird der Hirt, Da sind die Schafe verirrt."
"Wo der Zaun am niedrigsten is, springt jeder über."
"Wo der liebe Gott eine Kirche baut, da baut der Teufel eine Kapelle daneben."
"Wo keine Versuchung, da ist kein Ehre."
"Worte sind gut, wenn Werke folgen."
"Wächst die Ehre spannenlang wächst die Thorheit ellenlang."
"Wähle von zwei Übeln das Kleinste."
"Wärme bringt Leben, Kälte Tod."
"Zeit heilt alle Wunden."
"Zeit ist das teuerste Kleinod."
"Zu nacht sind alle Katzen grau."
"Zum Dichter muß man geboren sein, Redner kann man werden."
"Zur rechten Zeit ein Nadelstich erspart sicherlich neun."
"The two great conceptual revolutions of twentieth-century science, the overturning of classical physics by Werner Heisenberg and the overturning of the foundations of mathematics by Kurt Gödel, occurred within six years of each other within the narrow boundaries of German-speaking Europe. ...A study of the historical background of German intellectual life in the 1920s reveals strong links between them. Physicists and mathematicians were exposed simultaneously to external influences that pushed them along parallel paths. ...Two people who came early and strongly under the influence of Spengler's philosophy were the mathematician Hermann Weyl and the physicist Erwin Schrödinger. ...Weyle and Schrödinger agreed with Spengler that the coming revolution would sweep away the principle of physical causality. The erstwhile revolutionaries David Hilbert and Albert Einstein found themselves in the unaccustomed role of defenders of the status quo, Hilbert defending the primacy of formal logic in the foundations of mathematics, Einstein defending the primacy of causality in physics. In the short run, Hilbert and Einstein were defeated and the Spenglerian ideology of revolution triumphed, both in physics and in mathematics. Heisenberg discovered the true limits of causality in atomic processes, and Gödel discovered the limits of formal deduction and proof in mathematics. And, as often happens in the history of intellectual revolutions, the achievement of revolutionary goals destroyed the revolutionary ideology that gave them birth. The visions of Spengler, having served their purpose, rapidly became irrelevant."
"A university teaches. What does it teach? It must obviously teach all the languages in which the great literatures which have been preserved were written — Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, German, Scandinavian, and English."
"As a philologist, Victor Klemperer was struck by the way the Nazis delighted in euphemistic neologisms like Volkstumskampf (ethnic conflict) and Flurbereinigung (fundamental cleansing). This daily subversion of the German language, he believed, was far more effective than the more overt kinds of propaganda. Sanitized language also made the cycle of ethnic violence easier to live with."
"Сердцеведением и мудрым познаньем жизни отзовется слово британца; легким щеголем блеснет и разлетится недолговечное слово француза; затейливо придумает свое, не всякому доступное, умно-худощавое слово немец; но нет слова, которое было бы так замашисто, бойко так вырвалось бы из-под самого сердца, так бы кипело и животрепетало, как метко сказанное русское слово."
"During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles I have just mentioned the word 'Germanize' was frivolously played with, though the practice was often well intended. I well remember how in the days of my youth this very term used to give rise to notions which were false to an incredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was a process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned the German language and is willing to speak German for the future, and even to cast his vote for a German political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a process of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all the outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that would produce a process of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization but the annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded by external force in compelling the people whom they subjected to speak the tongue of the conqueror and that after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and that thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered."
"Not only in Austria, however, but also in the Reich, these so-called national circles were, and still are, under the influence of similar erroneous ideas. Unfortunately, a policy towards Poland, whereby the East was to be Germanized, was demanded by many and was based on the same false reasoning. Here again it was believed that the Polish people could be Germanized by being compelled to use the German language. The result would have been fatal. A people of foreign race would have had to use the German language to express modes of thought that were foreign to the German, thus compromising by its own inferiority the dignity and nobility of our nation."
"I am a German nationalist. This means that I proclaim my nationality. My whole thought and action belongs to it. I am a socialist. I see no class and no social estate before me, but that community of the Folk, made up of people who are linked by blood, united by a language, and subject to a same general fate. I love this Folk and hate only its majority of the moment, because I view the latter to be just as little representative of the greatness of my Folk as it is of its happiness."
"The people from Prague and other Czechs should be whipped who speak half Czech and half German (...) And who could enumerate how the Czech language has already been corrupted, so that the true Czech hears they speak, but he does not understand them. And from that arises envy, anger, conflict, strife and Czech humiliation."
"Most commonly, Holocaust survivors respond with habitual panic when exposed to triggers that in some way symbolize the Holocaust. Such Holocaust associated triggers may include any or all of the following: crowded trains, train stations, medical exams, a knock at the door, uniforms, extermination (of insects), yellow color, selections, gas, shower, barbed wire, discarding food (especially bread), fences, cruelty, barking dogs, any major disaster or discrimination, separations, the smell of burned flesh, closed spaces, an oven, standing in line, the freezing cold, music by Wagner, the German language and German products in general. Any of these stimuli may create a violent emotional response in the survivor who at that moment is thrown back to a life-threatening situation during the Holocaust. In addition, happy occasions such as weddings, Jewish holidays and family celebrations may also evoke sudden grief reactions, as they remind survivors of their immense loss and all the people who are absent because they were so brutally killed. As a consequence, there is frequently a contradictory effort both to remember and to forget, both to approach and to avoid the traumatic event in a compulsively repeated fashion. Like a broken record that is spinning around and around, intrusive experienced images and painful memories keep coming back while at the same time there is a conscious effort to avoid them and not to think about them."
"For my own part I have never been able to understand how he [Hitler] was capable, with his unmelodious and raucous voice, with his crude, often un-Germanically constructed sentences, and with a conspicuous rhetoric entirely at odds with the character of the German language, of winning over the masses with his speeches, of holding their attention and subjugating them for such appalling lengths of time."
"For many Germans, self-determination was both persecution and promise. About ten million speakers of the German language, former subjects of the Habsburg monarchy, remained beyond Germany’s borders. Some three million such people inhabited the northwestern rim of Czechoslovakia, right at the border of Czechoslovakia and Germany. There were more Germans in Czechoslovakia than there were Slovaks. Almost the entire population of Austria, resting between Czechoslovakia and Germany, were German speakers. Austria was nevertheless required by the Treaty of St. Germain to exist as a separate state, although much of its population would have preferred accession to Germany. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party established in 1920, was an Austrian and an advocate of an Anschluss: a unification of Austria and Germany. Such goals of national unity, dramatic as they were, actually concealed the full measure of Hitler’s ambitions."
"Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe these examples:"
"This last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from the Appetite-Cure in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight, and broke some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck was found by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to the nearest habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch-roofed farm-houses, with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunning little porch under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright colored flowers and cats; on the ground floor a large and light sitting-room, separated from the milch-cattle apartment by a partition; and in the front yard rose stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, the manure-pile. That sentence is Germanic, and shows that I am acquiring that sort of mastery of the art and spirit of the language which enables a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars."
"Kant himself says that he is drawing the limits of knowledge to make space for religious faith, but it is now pretty clear that the modern world has been unable to fill that space. In the philosophy of J. G. Fichte, F. W. J. Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel, known as 'German Idealism', which begins in the 1790s, the space is often filled with aspects of what Kant proposes which are given a more emphatic status than Kant himself thinks possible. Fichte, for example, will make the activity of the I the source of the world's intelligibility in a way that Kant rejects. Development of some of these thinkers' ideas will be germane to Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche, who, though, reject many of the central philosophical contentions of German Idealism. However, the structures which inform much of what these thinkers say still depend upon what might initially appear to be rather specialized aspects of Kant's philosophy."
"German Idealism seems to have exerted another enduring influence on Weber, discernible in his ethical worldview more than in his epistemological position. This was the strand of Idealist discourse in which a broadly Kantian ethic and its Nietzschean critique figure prominently."
"The story of German idealism is the story of Kant and the aftermath."
"So much the worse for the facts!"
"Das Pferd soll zur Krippe gehen."
"I' muß hålt in án sauern Öpföl beiß n."
"Looking beyond Germany and Europe to the wider world, the Reich Chancellors who came into office after Bismarck saw their country as a second-class nation when compared with Britain and France, both of which had major overseas empires that spanned the globe. A latecomer on the scene, Germany had only been able to pick up the scraps and crumbs left by European colonial powers that had enjoyed a head start on them. Tanganyika, Namibia, Togoland, Cameroon, New Guinea, assorted Pacific islands and the Chinese treaty port of Jiaozhou were virtually all the territories that made up Germany's overseas empire on the eve of the First World War. Bismarck had thought of them of little importance and lent his assent to their acquisition with great reluctance. But his successors came to take a different view. Germany's prestige and standing in the world demanded, as Bernhard von Bülow, Foreign Secretary in the late 1890s, then Reich Chancellor until 1909, put it, a 'place in the sun'. A start was made on the construction of a massive battle fleet, whose long-term aim was to win colonial concessions from the British, lords of the world's largest overseas empire, by threatening, or even carrying out, the crippling or destruction of the main force of the British Navy in a titanic confrontation in the North Sea."
"In Africa, it is true, German forces were able to keep fighting for a surprisingly long time and to inflict real casualties. Total British losses in East Africa were over 100,000 men, the vast majority black troops and porters. But what was the point? The German aim was to tie up colonial soldiers who might otherwise have been deployed in Europe, yet few of those engaged in the African campaigns would have been sent to Europe under any circumstances. In any case, most of the fighting took place in Germany's colonies, particularly in German East Africa (Tanganyika). South-West Africa surrendered to the South Africans as early as July 1915. The others - Togoland and the Cameroons - were in Entente hands long before the end of the war."
"Formerly its condition was one of injustice..but now there is peace everywhere."
"Wherever I went, I heard natives praise the excellent German administration, The frequently made comment about the Germans was that they were very strict, at times harsh, but always just."
"On the basis of its achievement in medicine alone, we are of the opinion that the German presence in Africa seemed more than justified. When Africans strike the balance, they cannot say the German presence did not do them any good."
"In brutally suppressing the Maji Maji War in Tanganyika and in attempting genocide against the of Namibia (South-West Africa), the German ruling class were getting the experience which they later applied against the Jews and against German workers and progressives."
"The Arabs, who may be regarded as the man-hunting gang, are already weakened by the measures adopted. Recent events in the German possessions on the east coast, will both destroy the Arab prestige and increase our influence in ihe interior... The abolition of the abominable trade in human flesh will be accomplished, provided the necessary means are forthcoming."
"The changed strategy emerged entirely independently of any conscious decision for or against a strategy of concerted racial genocide. Trotha, did not intend to bring about a situation in which the Herero would be subject to a slow death through adverse natural conditions."
"Classical trading colony, in which European merchants, protected by a minimal government presence, would trade with indigenous societies or develop extractive industries."
"The oral history of the German occupation, to my initial surprise, indirectly supports the model colony thesis emphasizing what oral historians describe as the "honesty," "order," and "discipline" of the German era. Oral history is shaped by the economic and political realities of its present, and thus, as it transforms over time, is a reflection of the specific era in which it is produced."
"The people of Togo were completely disenchanted with the nature of the administration and found it unbearable."
"In three thousand years, China did not achieve in Qingdao what Germany has done in fifteen years. If every local government in China would send ten people to visit Qingdao and learn about its administrative management, town, streets, wharves, harbours, university, forestation, public works, and government, China would benefit greatly."
"For three or four Chinese coppers, I could ride in a rickshaw from my home, in England, to Italy, Germany, Japan, or Belgium. I walked to France for violin lessons; I had to cross the river to get to Russia, and often did, because the Russians had a beautiful wooded park with a lake in it."
"The French fear of German resurgence which caused France to press for a policy of dismemberment of Germany seemed to be altogether exaggerated. After 1945 Germany lay prostrate - militarily, economically and politically - and in my opinion this condition was a sufficient guarantee that Germany could not again threaten France. In the future United States of Europe I saw great hope for Europe and thus for Germany. We had to try to remind France, Holland, Belgium, and the other European countries that they were - as we were - situated in Western Europe, that they are and will forever remain our neighbours, that any violence they do to us must in the end lead to trouble, and that no lasting peace can be established in Europe if it is founded on force alone."
"If maps were shaded like balance sheets, the bottom part of mainland Europe would be deepest red. Italy, Spain and Portugal are heavily in debt. They are also Catholic countries. Their predominantly Protestant neighbours to the north, including Germany and Scandinavia, are in comparatively good shape financially. Is that simply a coincidence, or is Max Weber's theory about the Protestant ethic being intertwined with the spirit of capitalism still valid, over 100 years on?"
"In 1871 Bismarck consummated both the Prussian victory over the French and the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership by inaugurating the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. It was a fateful achievement. From its moment of birth the new German Empire was of an order of magnitude greater than that of the other states of Europe; and which became greater still during the next forty years. To the modern Europe of the industrial age, Germany was what Spain and France had been in turn to pre-industrial Europe, a giant overtopping its neighbours. From 1871 onwards the salient fact of European politics was German power. By 1914 Germany's population, at 67,000,000, was more than half as much again as either that of France or Great Britain, and was exceeded only by that of Russia among European powers. Moreover, German industry and technology were immensely stronger and more vigorous than those of either her friends or rivals. Her steel production, to give a basic index, amounted to 17,320,000 tons in 1914, as against a French total of only 5,000,000 tons and a British total of 7,000,000 tons (average for 1910–14). Nor could any other European country match the thoroughness of Germany's application of scientific research to industrial development or her system of national or technical education."
"I leave undecided the question whether complete mutual freedom of international commerce, such as is contemplated by the theory of Free Trade, would not serve the interests of Germany. But as long as most of the countries with which our trade is carried on surround themselves with customs barriers...it does not seem to me justifiable, or to the economic interest of the nation, that we should allow ourselves to be restricted in the satisfaction of our financial wants by the apprehension that German products will thereby be slightly preferred to foreign ones. ... The minority of the population, which does not produce at all, but exclusively consumes, will apparently be injured by a customs system favouring the entire national production. Yet if by means of such a system the aggregate sum of the values produced in the country increase, and thus the national wealth be on the whole enhanced, the non-producing parts of the population...will eventually be benefited."
"Many measures which we have adopted to the great blessing of the country are Socialistic, and the State will have to accustom itself to a little more Socialism yet. ... I am glad that this Socialism was adopted, for we have as a consequence secured a free and very well-to-do peasantry, and I hope that we shall in time do something of the sort for the labouring classes. ... The establishment of the freedom of the peasantry was Socialistic; Socialistic, too, is every expropriation in favour of railways; Socialistic to the utmost extent is the aggregation of estates—the law exists in many provinces—taking from one and giving to another, simply because this other can cultivate the land more conveniently; Socialistic is expropriation under the Water Legislation, on account of irrigation, etc., where a man's land is taken away from him because another can farm it better; Socialistic is our entire poor relief, compulsory school attendance, compulsory construction of roads, so that I am bound to maintain a road upon my lands for travellers. That is all Socialistic, and I could extend the register further; but if you believe that you can frighten any one or call up spectres with the word “Socialism,” you take a standpoint which I abandoned long ago, and the abandonment of which is absolutely necessary for our entire imperial legislation."
"Despite continuing certain Weimar-era social welfare programs, the Nazis proceeded to restrict their availability to "racially worthy" (non-Jewish) beneficiaries. In terms of labor, worker strikes were outlawed. Trade unions were replaced by the party-controlled German Labor Front, primarily tasked with increasing productivity, not protecting workers. In lieu of the socialist ideal of an egalitarian, worker-run state, the National Socialists erected a party-run police state whose governing structure was anti-democratic, rigidly hierarchical, and militaristic in nature. As to the redistribution of wealth, the socialist ideal "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was rejected in favor of a credo more on the order of "Take everything that belongs to non-Aryans and keep it for the master race." Above all, the Nazis were German white nationalists. What they stood for was the ascendancy of the "Aryan" race and the German nation, by any means necessary. Despite co-opting the name, some of the rhetoric, and even some of the precepts of socialism, Hitler and party did so with utter cynicism, and with vastly different goals. The claim that the Nazis actually were leftists or socialists in any generally accepted sense of those terms flies in the face of historical reality."
"The destruction of representative government and private capitalism of the old school was complete when Hitler came to power. He had contributed mightily to the final result by his ceaseless labors to create chaos. But when he stepped into the chancellery all the ingredients of national socialist dictatorship were there ready to his hand…The aim in which Bismarck had failed was accomplished almost at a stroke in the Weimar Constitution – the subordination of the individual states to the federal state. The old imperial state had to depend on the constituent states to provide it with a part of its funds. Now this was altered, and the central government of the republic became the great imposer and collector of taxes, paying to the states each a share. Slowly the central government absorbed the powers of the states. The problems of business groups and social groups were all brought to Berlin. The republican Reichstag, unlike its imperial predecessor, was now charged with the vast duty of managing almost every energy of the social and economic life of the republic. German states were always filled with bureaus, so that long before World War I travelers referred to the ‘bureaucratic tyrannies’ of the empire. But now the bureaus became great centralized organisms of the federal government dealing with the multitude of problems which the Reichstag as completely incapable of handling. Quickly, the actual function of governing leaked out of the parliament into the hands of the bureaucrats. The German republic became a paradise of bureaucracy on a scale which the old imperial government never knew. The state, with its powers enhanced by the acquisition of immense economic powers and those powers brought to the center of government and lodged in the executive, was slowly becoming, notwithstanding its republican appearance, a totalitarian state that was almost unlimited in its powers."
"The rise of socialism in the East inspired socialist movements in the West (most famously in Germany, which came to the brink of a socialist revolution during the and of 1919–20). These revolutionary movements posed a real threat to capitalism in the core. Capitalism survived in part by crushing these movements—quite often violently, but also by making concessions to working-class demands, including wage improvements and some public services, although never conceding to the core demands for decommodification and economic democracy. Thus, the rise of the social democratic welfare state. Capital accumulation requires cheap labor, however, and these concessions would have brought capitalism in the core to its knees were it not for the fact that capitalists were able to obtain cheap labor instead in the periphery, through colonial and neocolonial forms of appropriation, which continue to this day."
"Liberalism was failing. If I'd been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist. I could see how they'd become passionate about saving the nation. It was a time when you didn't believe there was a future unless the world was fundamentally transformed."
"As President Biden explained, the current U.S.-orchestrated military escalation (“Prodding the Bear”) is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S. troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S. suppliers.... So the most pressing U.S. strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices, above all to the detriment of Germany. In addition to creating profits and stock-market gains for U.S. oil companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy. Thus looms the third time in a century that the United States will have defeated Germany – each time increasing its control over a German economy increasingly dependent on the United States for imports and policy leadership, with NATO being the effective check against any domestic nationalist resistance."
"The reaction to the sabotage of three of the four Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in four places on Monday, September 26,[2022] has focused on speculations about who did it and whether NATO will make a serious attempt to discover the answer. Yet instead of panic, there has been a great sigh of diplomatic relief, even calm. ... Disabling these pipelines ends the uncertainty and worries on the part of US/NATO diplomats that nearly reached a crisis proportion the previous week, when large demonstrations took place in Germany calling for the sanctions to end and to commission Nord Stream 2 to resolve the energy shortage... The German public was coming to understand what it will mean if their steel companies, fertilizer companies, glass companies and toilet-paper companies were shutting down. These companies were forecasting that they would have to go out of business entirely – or shift operations to the United States – if Germany did not withdraw from the trade and currency sanctions against Russia and permit Russian gas and oil imports to resume, and presumably to fall back from their astronomical eight to tenfold price increase... If policymakers were to put German business interests and living standards first, NATO’s common sanctions and New Cold War front would be broken. Italy and France might follow suit. That prospect made it urgent to take the anti-Russian sanctions out of the hands of democratic politics."
"[The effect of the Suez Crisis on the French was quite different.] We turned across the Atlantic. They turned across the Rhine, and Europe was built without us. There is room for argument about the causes of what followed. There is no doubt about what happened. Over the first 13 years of the [[European Economic Community|[European] Community]]'s life national income per head increased by 72 per cent in the Six and by 35 per cent in Britain. The result was that from being almost the richest country in Western Europe we became one of the poorest. France for the first time since the industrial revolution surpassed us in economic strength. The German economy achieved nearly twice our weight."
"The left's pessimism about the possibility of implementing social reform at home without the help of the EU fused with a progressive vision of internationalism and unity, one that had emerged from the rubble of fascism and genocidal war. It is perhaps this feelgood halo that has been extinguished by a country the EU has driven into an economic collapse unseen since America’s great depression. It was German and French banks who recklessly lent to Greece that have benefited from bailouts, not the Greek economy. The destruction of Greece’s national sovereignty was achieved by economic strangulation, [...] this was all about crushing a rebellion."
"Europe’s once formidable industrial base has eroded in large part due to the ever rising burden of regulation. Germany’s economy, the most powerful economy in the EU, is barely the size of that of California."
"Let us...take the most concrete example of state capitalism...It is Germany. Here we have the 'last word' in modern, large-scale capitalist engineering and planned organization, subordinated to Junker-bourgeois imperialism. Cross out the words in italics and [substitute] a Soviet state, that is, a proletarian state, and you will have the sum total of the conditions necessary for socialism."
"The sharp down-turn in the European economy in the 1870s had produced in most advanced economies save Britain a 'return to protection', marked especially by Bismarck's split with the Liberals, his imposition of protective tariffs in 1879, and the development in the Second Reich of a political economy of cartelization married to harrying the trade unions and suppressing the S.P.D. For those who wished an alternative to the British liberal state, here was one, with all its implications and consequences. Few, of course, advocated out-and-out Germanization, but increasingly Germany was coming to be regarded as the alternative model, the seed-bed for the future."
"Freedom is the very essence of our economy and society. Without freedom the human mind is prevented from unleashing its creative force. But what is also clear is that this freedom does not stand alone. It is freedom in responsibility and freedom to exercise responsibility."
"The ‘totalitarian’ label is part of in another way as well – in so far as it covers both Communist and Fascist regimes, and is thereby intended to suggest that they are very similar systems. More specifically, the suggestion is that Communism and Nazism are more or less identical. This may be good propaganda but it is very poor political analysis. There were similarities between Stalinism and Nazism in the use of mass terror and . But there were also enormous differences between them. Stalinism was a ‘revolution from above’, which was intended to modernise Russia from top to bottom, on the basis of the of the means of production (most of those ‘means of production’ being themselves produced as part of the ‘revolution from above’); and Russia was indeed transformed, at immense cost. Nazism, on the other hand, was, for all its transformative rhetoric, a movement and regime, which consolidated capitalist ownership and the economic and s which Hitler had inherited from Weimar. As has often been observed, twelve years of absolute Nazi rule did not fundamentally change, and never sought to change fundamentally, the social system which had existed when Hitler came to power. To assimilate Nazism and Stalinism, and equate them as similarly ‘totalitarian’ movements and regimes of the extreme right and the is to render impossible a proper understanding of their nature, content and purpose."
"We are bound together, too, by the economic factors that two great and productive peoples have produced in our two countries. And we know that a strong and productive German economy is essential for a strong free world economy, just as is a strong economy in the United States."
"Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes. Internally, Germany has a good deal in common with a Socialist state. Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and—this is the important point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathise with Fascism—generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything. It controls investment, raw materials, rates of interest, working hours, wages. The factory owner still owns his factory, but he is for practical purposes reduced to the status of a manager. Everyone is in effect a State employee, though the salaries vary very greatly. The mere efficiency of such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious. In seven years it has built up the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen."
"National Socialism is a form of Socialism, is emphatically revolutionary, does crush the property owner as surely as it crushes the worker. The two regimes, having started from opposite ends, are rapidly evolving towards the same system—a form of oligarchical collectivism. . . . It is Germany that is moving towards Russia, rather than the other way about. It is therefore nonsense to talk about Germany ‘going Bolshevik’ if Hitler falls. Germany is going Bolshevik because of Hitler and not in spite of him."
"In the long run the [Nazi] movement was moving to a position in which the economic New Order would be controlled by the Party through a bureaucratic apparatus staffed by technical experts and dominated by political interests, not unlike the system that had already been built up in the Soviet Union."
"During the Third Reich state ownership expanded into the productive sectors, based on the strategic industries, aviation, aluminium, synthetic oil and rubber, chemicals, iron and steel, and army equipment. Government finances for state-owned enterprises rose from RM 4,000m in 1933 to RM 16,000m 10 years later; the capital assets of state-owned industry doubled during the same period; the number of state-owned firms topped 500."
"The composition of Unilever should serve as a warning that colonialism was not simply a matter of ties between a given colony and its mother country, but between colonies on the one hand and metropoles on the other. The German capital in Unilever joined the British in exploiting Africa and the Dutch in exploiting the East Indies. The rewards spread through the capitalist system in such a way that even those capitalist nations who were not colonial powers were also beneficiaries of the spoils. Unilever factories established in Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S.A. were participants in the expropriation of Africa’s surplus and in using that surplus for their own development."
"We are putting all our weapons on the table to show that we (Germany) are strong enough to overcome any economic challenge that this (COVID-19) problem might pose."
"[if Beijing] tightens international production chains' dependence on China, [Berlin will] dismantle one-sided dependencies [where needed. German manufacturers are already sourcing] important raw materials, some rare earths or certain cutting-edge technologies [from other partners]."
"Buried under mountains of red tape, directed by the State as to what they could produce, how much and at what price, burdened by increasing taxation and milked by steep and never ending 'special contributions' to the party, the businessmen, who had to welcome Hitler's regime so enthusiastically because they expected it to destroy organized labor and allow an entrepreneur to practice untrammeled free enterprise, became greatly disillusioned... Fritz Thyssen, one of the earliest and biggest contributors to the party,... recognized that the 'Nazi regime has ruined German industry.'"
"In 1933, the Soviet and Nazi governments shared the appearance of a capacity to respond to the world economic collapse. Both radiated dynamism at a time when liberal democracy seemed unable to rescue people from poverty. Most governments in Europe, including the German government before 1933, had believed that they had few means at their disposal to address the economic collapse. The predominant view was that budgets should be balanced and money supplies tightened. This, as we know today, only made matters worse. The Great Depression seemed to discredit the political response to the end of the First World War: free markets, parliaments, nation-states. The market had brought disaster, no parliament had an answer, and nation-states seemingly lacked the instruments to protect their citizens from immiseration. The Nazis and Soviets both had a powerful story about who was to blame for the Great Depression (Jewish capitalists or just capitalists) and authentically radical approaches to political economy. The Nazis and Soviets not only rejected the legal and political form of the postwar order but also questioned its economic and social basis. They reached back to the economic and social roots of postwar Europe, and reconsidered the lives and roles of the men and women who worked the land. In the Europe of the 1930s, peasants were still the majority in most countries, and arable soil was a precious natural resource, bringing energy for economies still powered by animals and humans. Calories were counted, but for rather different reasons than they are counted now: economic planners had to make sure that populations could be kept fed, alive, and productive. Most of the states of Europe had no prospect of social transformation, and thus little ability to rival or counter the Nazis and the Soviets. Poland and other new east European states had tried land reform in the 1920s, but their efforts had proven insufficient. Landlords lobbied to keep their property, and banks and states were miserly with credit to peasants. The end of democracy across the region (except in Czechoslovakia) at first brought little new thinking on economic matters. Authoritarian regimes in Poland, Hungary, and Romania had less hesitation about jailing opponents and better recourse to fine phrases about the nation. But none seemed to have much to offer in the way of a new economic policy during the Great Depression."