"Winning depended to a large extent on the determination of the troops and the officers. The certainty that we were going to win kept up everyone's spirits, from privates to generals."

"The longer the battle lasts the more force we'll have to use!"

"If you feel that the Chief of the General Staff talks only rubbish, my place is not here. Better to give me a command at the front where I can be of better use!"

"There's no smoke without fire."

"The mere existence of atomic weapons implies the possibility of their use."

"There are things in Russia which are not as they seem."

"And now German generals find it hard to explain away their retreat."

"If they [the Germans] attack, we will defend. If they do not attack until winter comes, then we will and will tear them to shreds!"

"The West German revanchists and militarists are using the peace-loving position of the USSR and the member-states of the Warsaw Pact on the resolution of German question, so as to inflict harm on the German Democratic Republic through subversive activity and the illegal recruitment of citizens of the German Democratic Republic. For this, they primarily use the open border in Berlin. In the interests of the peaceful work and construction by the citizens of the German Democratic Republic and of the member-states of the Warsaw Pact, it is necessary to stop the illegal recruitment and other hostile measures. Therefore, we propose that the member-states of the Warsaw Pact agree, in the interests of the cessation of the subversive activity, to implement control along the borders of the German Democratic Republic, including the borders in Berlin, comparable to the control along the state borders of the Western powers."

"The scale of the movement was impressive, with over 120 committees established nationwide. [...] The fact that so many committees adopted similar names and policies poses the question of whether there was a centralised organisation at work. Communists were prominent in nearly every Antifa despite the opposition of Moscow. Walter Ulbricht, the KPD leader, criticised the 'spontaneous creation of KPD bureaus, people's committees, and Free Germany committees', but he could do little as the KPD central apparatus had no communication link with the rank and file. Once communications were restored he could report: 'We have shut these [Antifas] down and told the comrades that all activities must be channelled through the state apparatus.'"

"The authorities in the German Democratic Republic kept an even more rigid control over their people than was achieved by Hoxha in Albania, whose mountainous terrain and village traditions made things difficult for the central state authorities. Walter Ulbricht aimed to turn his state into a model of contemporary communism. It was his constant pestering that pushed the Soviet Presidium into sanctioning the building of the Berlin Wall. Competition was joined with West Germany to raise the quality of material and social life, and Ulbricht constantly claimed that the German Democratic Republic was winning. In 1963 he introduced a New Economic System which provided enterprises and their managers with somewhat wider powers outside central planning control. Output rose but never as quickly as in West Germany. Although people were better off than previously, Ulbricht’s unpopularity deepened. His ideological rigidity made even Brezhnev appear flexible. No one could forget that he bore responsibility for stopping people from meeting their relatives in the West. He was fired in May 1971, utterly convinced of the correctness of his policies to the very end. His successor Erich Honecker was only marginally less gloomy. Political presentation was made somewhat livelier but the basic policies remained the same. Far from being a workers’ paradise, the German Democratic Republic was eastern Europe’s most efficient police state."

"With the creation of a separate West German state, with the conclusion of the Paris Agreements and with the inclusion of West Germany in NATO, the Western powers finally unilaterally broke the Potsdam Agreement, this sole valid document in international law for Germany in the postwar period. It is not coincidental that in connection with this a special occupation status of the three powers was established in West Berlin. By this three-sided occupation status, the Western powers themselves confirmed that they violated the international-legal basis of their occupation regime in West Berlin and that this regime was based only on undisguised military force."

"Es muss demokratisch aussehen, aber wir müssen alles in der Hand haben."