"In the future if we want to control China, we must first crush the United States just as in the past we had to fight in the Russo-Japanese War. But in order to conquer China we must first conquer Manchuria and Mongolia. In order to conquer the world, we must first conquer China. If we succeed in conquering China the rest of the Asiatic countries and the South Sea countries will fear us and surrender to us. Then the world will realize that Eastern Asia is ours and will not dare to violate our rights. This is the plan left to us by Emperor Meiji, the success of which is essential to our national existence."

"There are two kinds of mines; one is the personnel mine and the other is the vehicular mine. When we come to a mine field our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there. The losses we get from personnel mines we consider only equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend that particular area with strong bodies of troops instead of with mine fields. The attacking infantry does not set off the vehicular mines, so after they have penetrated to the far side of the field they form a bridgehead, after which the engineers come up and dig out channels through which our vehicles can go."

"Two break-throughs, Comrade Stalin, two break-throughs."

"The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses ... Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure."

"What place does the possibility of a second front occupy in the Soviet estimates of the current situation? A most important place; one might say a place of first-rate importance."

"Ни шагу назад! / Ni shagu nazad!"

"Regarding the conduct of troops towards the Bolshevistic system, vague ideas are still prevalent in many cases. The most essential aim of war against the Jewish-Bolshevistic system is a complete destruction of their means of power and the elimination of Asiatic influence from the European culture. In this connection the troops are facing tasks that exceed the one-sided routine of soldiering. The soldier in the Eastern territories is not merely a fighter according to the rules of the art of war but also a bearer of ruthless national ideology and the avenger of bestialities which have been inflicted upon German and racially related nations. Therefore, the soldier must have full understanding for the necessity of a severe but just revenge on subhuman Jewry. The Army has to aim at another purpose, i.e., the annihilation of revolts in the hinterland, which, as experience proves, have always been caused by Jews."

"Comrades, Red Army and Red Navy men, commanders and political instructors, men and women guerrillas! The whole world is looking to you as a force capable of destroying the brigand hordes of German invaders. The enslaved peoples of Europe under the yoke of the German invaders are looking to you as their liberators. A great mission of liberation has fallen to your lot. Be worthy of this mission! The war you are waging is a war of liberation, a just war."

"There is no doubt that the absence of a second front in Europe considerably relieves the position of the German Army, nor can there be any doubt that the appearance of a second front on the Continent of Europe—and undoubtedly this will appear in the near future—will essentially relieve the position of our armies to the detriment of the German Army."

"We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."

"Some of us remember the Blitz and the burning, The black-faced force in the red and the blue, St Paul's in peril and the Hun returning, The tanks all dry and the night half through."

"When I warned them [the French] that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken." Some chicken! Some neck!"

"Joint declaration of the President of United States and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty’s government in the United Kingdom.... First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other. Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned. Third, they respect the rights of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live. Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment of all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world. Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field.... Sixth, after the final destruction of Nazi Germany, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries.... Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance. Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force.... They believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential.”"

"I know I will be severely criticized by the interventionists in America when I say we should not enter a war unless we have a reasonable chance of winning.... We are no better prepared today than France was when the interventionists persuaded her to attack the Siegfried Line.... It is not only our right but it is our obligation as American citizens to look at this war objectively and to weigh our chances for success if we should enter it. I have attempted to do this, especially from the standpoint of aviation; and I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England, regardless of how much assistance we extend."

"The Lend-Lease policy, translated into legislative form, stunned a Congress and a nation wholly sympathetic to Great Britain. The Kaiser’s blank check to Austria-Hungary in the First World War was a piker compared to the Roosevelt blank check of World War II. It warranted my worst fears for the future of America, and it definitely stamps the president as war-minded.... Never before have the American people been asked or compelled to give... so completely of their tax dollars to any foreign nation. Never before has the Congress of the United States been asked by any President to violate international law. Never before has this nation resorted to duplicity in the conduct of its foreign affairs. Never before has the United States given to one man the power to strip this nation of its defenses.... Approval of this legislation means war, open and complete warfare. I, therefore, ask the American people before they supinely accept it — Was the last World War worthwhile? If it were, then we should lend and lease war materials. If it were, then we should lend and lease American boys. President Roosevelt has said we would be repaid by England. We will be.... Our boys will be returned — returned in caskets, maybe; returned with bodies maimed; returned with minds warped and twisted by sights of horrors and the scream and shriek of high-powered shells."

"Our spirit of enjoyment was stronger than our spirit of sacrifice. We wanted to have more than we wanted to give. We tried to spare effort, and met disaster."

"Give us the tools, and we will finish the job."

"I am American bred, I have seen much to hate here—much to forgive, But in a world where England is finished and dead, I do not wish to live."

"The butchering may continue as it will, it shall remain the historical guilt of the Western powers that they did not promptly provide the sharpest preventative measures against the continued attack-politics Germany undertook. Possibilities existed for this, but no measures were seized upon."

"I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again: your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."

"On this tenth day of June 1940, the hand that held the dagger, has struck it into the back of its neighbor."

"First they were too cowardly to take part. Now they are in a hurry so they can share the spoils."

"We must be the great arsenal of democracy."

"All aid to the Allies short of war."

"Hitler is striking with all the terrible force at his command. His is a desperate gamble, and the stakes are nothing less than domination of the whole human race. If Hitler wins in Europe — the strength of the British and French armies and navies is forever broken — the United States will find itself alone in a barbaric world — a world ruled by Nazis, with ‘spheres of influence’ assigned to their totalitarian allies. However different the dictatorships may be, racially, they all agree on one primary objective: ‘Democracy must be wiped from the face of the earth.’... There is nothing shameful in our desire to stay out of war, to save our youth from the dive bombers and the flame throwing tanks in the unutterable hell of modern warfare. But is there not an evidence of suicidal insanity in our failure to help those who now stand between us and the creators of this hell?"

"I followed the German Army into Paris that June... and on June 19 got wind of where Hitler was going to lay down his terms for the armistice.... It was to be on the same spot where the German Empire had capitulated to France and her allies on November 11, 1918: in the little clearing in the woods of Compiègne. There the Nazi warlord would get his revenge.... Late on the afternoon of June 19 I drove out there and found German Army engineers... pulling the [railroad] car [where the war ended in 1918] out to the tracks in the center of the clearing on the exact spot, they said, where it had stood at 5 A.M. on November, 1918, when at the dictation of [[Ferdinand Foch|[French Marshal Ferdinand] Foch]] the German emissaries put their signatures to the armistice. And so was that on the afternoon of June 21 I stood by the edge of the forest at Compiègne to observe the latest and greatest of Hitler’s triumphs.... I look at the expression in Hitler’s face. I am but fifty yards from him and see him through my glasses as though he were directly in front of me. I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph."

"I don't see much future for the Americans ... it's a decayed country. And they have their racial problem, and the problem of social inequalities ... my feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance ... everything about the behaviour of American society reveals that it's half Judaised, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?"

"Both America and Britain...have aggravated the disturbances in East Asia...These two powers, inducing other countries to follow suit, increased military preparations on all sides of our Empire...They have obstructed by every means Our peaceful commerce, and finally resorted to a direct severance of economic relations... Patiently We waited and long have We endured, in hope that Our Government might retrieve the situation in peace. But Our adversaries, showing not the least spirit of conciliation, have unduly delayed a settlement...Our Empire for its existence and self-defense has no other recourse but to appeal to arms and to crush every obstacle in its path."

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost.... As commander in chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. Always we will remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it my take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.... With confidence in our armed forces — with the unbounded determination of our people — we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."

"Tora! Tora! Tora!"

"The Empire will...crush America, British, and Dutch strongholds in East Asia and the Western Pacific...and secure major resource areas and lines of communication in order to prepare a posture of long term self-sufficiency. All available methods will be exerted to lure out the main elements of the US fleet at an appropriate time to attack and destroy them."

"John W. Flannagan Jr., of Virginia, remarks in the U.S. House of Representatives (December 16, 1941); Congressional Record, vol. 87, pt. 14, app. (October 9, 1941 – January 2, 1942), p. A5609"

"[The attack on Pearl Harbor showed] the seriousness of the challenge confronting us and our very souls became so inflamed with righteous wrath, so fired with patriotism, that our differences and divisions and hates melted into a unity never before witnessed in this country."

"After World War II and the surrender of Japan, an attempt was made to dismantle the zaibatsu. American economic advisers to presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman were highly suspicious of monopolies and restrictive business practices, which they felt to be both inefficient and a form of corporatism. During the occupation only 16 zaibatsu were targeted for complete dissolution, and 26 more for reorganization. In 1946, the controlling zaibatsu families' assets were seized. holding companies were eliminated, and interlocking directorships. necessary to the old system of intercompany coordination, were outlawed. Neveretheless, complete termination of the zaibatsu was never achieved, mostly because the U.S. government reversed course in an effort to reindustrialize Japan, as a bulwark against Communism from other parts of Asia. The zaibatsu were in this case considered to be beneficial to the Japanese economy and government. The opinions of the Japanese public, however, ranged from indifferent to disapproving."

"From the late 1900s onward, the zaibatsu were instrumental in economic and industrial activity within Japan. Zaibatsu groups were made up of a central holding company, owned by a controlling family, which held the stocks of major affiliates. While this style of pyramid control was common in the West, what made the zaibatsu unique was that they held a minority interest in affiliated members and controlled them through other techniques. Dependence on banking, shipping, and trading facilities of the combine was one of these techniques, but more important was the personal loyalty of the executives to all the firms of the group. The four largest Zaibatsu had direct control over more than 30 percent of Japan's mining, chemical, and metals industries; almost 50 percent control over the machinery and equipment market; 60 percent of the commercial stock exchange; as well as a significant portion of the export merchant fleet."

"The Monuments Men had a similar mission as their German counterparts in the Kunstschutz with the addition of repatriation of looted materials. Monuments Men duties included increased awareness and native population cooperation policies like those exhibited by the Kunstshutz, but their four main concentrations were (1) repairing damaged monuments in Allied possession, (2) protecting monuments from damage or misuse at the hands of Allied soldiers, (3) protecting monuments in territories occupied by enemy forces from unnecessary damage and (4) recording theft by enemy forces and collecting available evidence to facilitate recovery. They earned their name from their primary role as protectors of statues, historic buildings and cultural landmarks. This was a huge task encompassing 3,415 monuments listed within a 560,000 square mile area of the European continent. This large geographic challenge required cooperation from a dutifully informed Allied chain of command. The Monuments Men increased awareness by creating several publications to disseminate among officers and U.S. Army leadership. Monuments Men provided Army Air Corps and infantry artillery units with lists of art treasures that must be spared damage when possible to avoid bombing and shelling historic structures during saturation attacks. Each entry was rated with an easily understood star system according to age, preservation condition and reputation among the local or international community. Three out of three stars was the highest ranking available."

"The Monuments Men were incorporated as a section of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) commanded by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower recognized that the advance of Allied troops would threaten shared cultural heritage that belonged to all humanity. He addressed soldiers advancing on Rome, saying "Today we are fighting in a country which was contributed a great deal to our cultural inheritance, a country rich in monuments which...illustrate the growth of the civilization which is ours. We are bound to respect those monuments so far as war allows." As Supreme Allied Commander, Eisenhower increased support for the mission of the Monuments Men following the destruction of the Italian cultural site as Monte Cassino in February 1944 and added protection of European patrimony to the list of war aims. The Monuments Men arrived in Europe following the 15 August 1944 Allied landings on the southern coast of France. They followed U.S. Army units into liberated towns where they scoured hiding places for stolen artworks that they prepared for future repatriation and stored them in protected locations. Additionally, Monuments Men carried lists of treasures compiled by Western art experts. If a listed building or monument was damaged, they recorded the damage, supervised repair work and prevented further damage to the object of cultural property. The Monuments Men continued operations in Europe following the end of hostilities until the MFA&A was dissolved in June 1946."

"American academic institutions consulted with the United States federal government about vulnerable cultural sites before Americans joined the land war in Europe during World War II. Representatives of the Archaeological Institute of America, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fogg Museum of Fine Arts of Harbard University and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. met as a single group with the U.S. State Department in the fall of 1942. A committee of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) further discussed the issue in January 1943. These concerned scholars approached the federal government well before American soldiers landed in Sicily during July 1943 and Normandy during June 1944 as part of European theatre operations. These individuals realized that artworks and cultural heritage sites in occupied nations were subject to damage during the inevitable invasion of Hitler's "fortress Europe." This outreach from America's major art museums, galleries and intellectual societies gained the attention of President Franklin Roosevelt who authorized the cooperation of academic institutions with the Joint Chiefs of Staff - a composition of senior Army, Navy and Army Air Corps leaders who advised federal departments on military matters. Roosevelt also authorized the creation of the Roberts Commission (officially titled the "American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas") in August 1942. In response to Roosevelt's authorization of the Roberts Commission,the U.S. military created its own organization called the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Service, (MFA&A). The famed Monuments Men emerged from this parent organization."

"The specialized knowledge needed for delicate military operations concerning cultural heritage objects is most readily available from academic institutions. Scholars, professors and museum specialists are the front-line experts to consult when protecting objects of cultural heritage. These individuals can identify threatened works and know the appropriate responses for their care and preservation. Many have honed their specialized skills during long careers with their associated institutions and are valuable contacts for military planners to keep on hand. Academic institutions for this paper include colleges or universities, museums, art galleries and non-profit learned societies. During World War II the militaries of Germany and the United States selected individuals from this community of higher learning to staff their art protection agencies. German and American army commanders sought professionals with extensive knowledge on cultural property, how to identify it and how to handle it. Individuals with qualifications that met the demands of cultural protection were selected for service under parent army organizations. Some were assigned officer ranks in their respective militaries to further their leadership capabilities and strengthen the influence of cultural heritage protection policies in military procedure."

"The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must be achieved by processes which enable the liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of Nazism and Fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice."

"Before this year is out, it will be made known to the world — in actions rather than in words — that the Casablanca Conference produced plenty of news; and it will be bad news for the Germans and Italians — and the Japanese. ... In an attempt to ward off the inevitable disaster, the Axis propagandists are trying all of their old tricks in order to divide the United Nations. They seek to create the idea that if we win this war, Russia, England, China, and the United States, are going to get into a cat-and-dog fight. ... To these panicky attempts to escape the consequences to their crimes we say — all the United Nations say — that the only terms on which we shall deal with any Axis government or any Axis factions are the terms proclaimed at Casablanca: ‘Unconditional Surrender.’ In our uncompromising policy we mean no harm to the common people of the Axis nations. But we do mean to impose punishment and retribution in full upon their guilty, barbaric leaders."

"America must choose one of three courses after this war: narrow nationalism, which inevitably means the ultimate loss of our own liberty; international imperialism, which means the sacrifice of some other nation’s liberty; or the creation of a world in which there shall be an equality of opportunity for every race and every nation. I am convinced the American people will choose, by overwhelming majority, the last of these courses. To make this choice effective, we must win not only the war but also the peace, and we must start winning it now. To win this peace three things seem to me necessary — first, we must plan now for peace on a worldwide basis; second, the world must be free, politically and economically, for nations and for men, that peace may exist in it; third, America must play an active, constructive part in freeing it and keeping its peace. ... This cannot be accomplished by mere declarations of our leaders, as in an Atlantic Charter. Its accomplishment depends primarily upon acceptance by the peoples of the world. ... The Four Freedoms will not be accomplished by those momentarily in power. They will become real only if the people of the world forge them into actuality."

"Behind much of the current fascination with World War II lies the feeling, certainly on the Allied side, that it was the last morally unambiguous good war. German Nazis, Italian Fascists, and Japanese militarists were so clearly bad people who had to be defeated. (The fact that we were allied with one of the greatest tyrants of the twentieth century in Joseph Stalin is something to be overlooked.) The wars since have not been as clear-cut. The Korean War, true, was necessary to defeat Soviet expansionism, but General MacArthur’s attempt to turn it into a crusade against Chinese Communism divided Americans among themselves and against their allies. Vietnam was a catastrophe for the United States, and now the occupation of Iraq is looking like another."

"Well, it's all over. I wonder what I'm going to do tomorrow."

"In the Second World War every bond between man and man was to perish. Crimes were committed by the Germans under the Hitlerite domination to which they allowed themselves to be subjugated find no equal in scale and wickedness with any that have darkened the human record. The wholesale massacre of by systematised processes of six or seven millions of men, women, and children in the German execution camps exceeds in horror the rough-and-ready butcheries of Genghis Khan, and in scale reduces them to pygmy proportions. Deliberate extermination of whole populations was contemplated and pursued by both Germany and Russia in the Eastern war. The hideous process of bombarding open cities from the air, once started by the Germans, was repaid twenty-fold by the ever-mounting power of the Allies, and found its culmination in the use of atomic bombs which obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We have at length emerged from a scene of material ruin and moral havoc the like of which had never darkened the imagination of former centuries. After all that we suffered and achieved we find ourselves still confronted with problems not less but far more formidable than those which we have so narrowly made our way."