Nazi Germany

"If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep."

"As for the Jews, well, I can tell you quite frankly that one way or another we have to put an end to them... In January, there is going to be an important meeting in Berlin to discuss this question...Whatever its outcome, a great Jewish emigration will commence. But what is going to happen to these Jews? Do you imagine there will be settlement villages for them in the Ostland? In Berlin we were told: Why are you making all this trouble for us? There is nothing we can do with them here in the Ostland or in the Reich Commissariat. Liquidate them yourselves!"

"If there is a god, he will have to beg my forgiveness."

"The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people – the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe – was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations. Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland."

"Like it or not, the [Holocaust] must and will dominate future events. Its centrality in the creative endeavors of our contemporaries remains undisputed. Philosophers and social scientists, psychologists and moralists, theologians and artists: all have termed it a watershed in the annals of mankind. What was comprehensible before Treblinka is comprehensible no longer. After Treblinka, man's ability to cope with his condition was shattered; he was pushed to his limits and beyond. Whatever has happened since must therefore be judged in the light of Treblinka. Forgetfulness is no solution."

"Hacker: That (French agricultural protectionism) certainly doesn't apply to the Germans."

"Sir Humphrey: No, no. They went in (the EEC) to cleanse themselves of genocide and apply for readmission to the human race."

"[I]n spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again."

"The Nazi death machine worked economically, scientifically and euphemistically. In a word, it was very, very modern."

"They will never forgive us for the evil they've done us."

"It is our unshakable belief in ourselves, it is our hope for today's valued youth, who courageously are charging forward and will one day be called upon to continue the efforts begun in the stormy years of the 1918 Revolution, an event which has gripped all of Germany and the historical importance of which is already being embodied today by the entire German Reich."

"{Opening Speech}: I am opening this, our Sixth Party Congress, in respectful remembrance of Field Marshal, and President of the Reich, Von Hindenburg, who has passed into eternity. We remember the Field Marshal as the first soldier of the Great War, and, thus, also remember our fallen comrades. I welcome the esteemed representatives of foreign nations who honor the Party by their presence, and the Party, in sincere friendship, welcomes especially the representatives of the military forces, now under the command of the Führer. My Führer, around you are gathered the flags and standards of National Socialism. Only when their cloth will have decayed, will humanity looking back, be able to comprehend what you, my Führer, mean to Germany. You are Germany, when you act, the nation acts, when you judge, the people judge! Our gratitude is the pledge to stand by you, through good days and bad, come whatever may. Thanks to your leadership, Germany will achieve her aim to become the homeland -- the homeland for all Germans in the world. You have been the guarantor of victory, you are for us the guarantor of peace! Adolf Hitler!"

"May the bright flame of enthusiasm never be extinguished. It alone gives light and warmth to the creative art of modern political propaganda. This art rose from the depths of the people and in order to search out its roots and locate its power, it must always return to these depths. It may be alright to possess power based upon guns, it is however better and more gratifying to win and also to champion the hearts of the people."

"As chief of the German justice system, I can only say that since the National Socialist legal system is the foundation of the National Socialist State, for us, our supreme Führer is also supreme judge. And since we know how sacred the principles of justice are to our Führer, we can assure you, fellow citizens, that your life and existence is secure in this National Socialist State of order, freedom, and law!"

"One thought must alone dominate all our work: to make the German worker an upright, upstanding, proud and decent citizen, enjoying equal rights with the rest of the Reich!"

"A people that does not protect its racial purity will perish!"

"Wherever one looks, progress develops, improvements are being made, and new values created. And wherever one looks since last year, there is much industrious activity that will continue in the future."

"Truth is the basis on which the power of the press stands and falls. Our only demand of the foreign press and our own press, is that they report the truth about Germany."

"{Reading an excerpt from Hitler's official proclamation}: No revolution could last forever without leading to total anarchy. Just as the world cannot exist on wars, so they cannot exist on revolutions. Nothing truly great on this earth has ruled for millennia and was forged in decades. The tallest tree has the strongest growth behind it. What must withstand centuries must also need centuries for it to become strong!"

"It is not the State that orders us; but it is we who order the State!"

"All upright Germans will be National Socialists, but only the best National Socialists will be party members!"

"When our party had only seven men, it already had two principles. First, it wanted to be a party with a true ideology. And second, it wanted to be the one and only power in Germany."

"Our party remains as firm as this rock and will not be divided by any force in Germany."

"We want this people to be hard, not soft, and you must steel yourselves for it in your youth!"

"It is our will that this state shall endure for a thousand years. We are happy to know that the future is ours entirely!"

"{Screen text after opening credits}"

"{To the audience after Hitler has given the closing speech}:The Party is Hitler! Hitler, however, is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler! Hitler! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!"

"Up until the outbreak of the war the larger part of the German people was blinded; the Nazis did not show themselves in their true aspect. But now, now that we have recognised them for what they are, it must be the sole and first duty, the holiest duty of every German to destroy these beasts."

"It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialist Philosophy, for if there were such an entity, one would have to try by means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it. In actuality, however, we face a totally different situation. At its very inception this movement depended on the deception and betrayal of one's fellow man; even at that time it was inwardly corrupt and could support itself only by constant lies."

"Many, perhaps most, of the readers of these leaflets do not see clearly how they can practice an effective opposition. They do not see any avenues open to them. We want to try to show them that everyone is in a position to contribute to the overthrow of this system."

"Every word that comes from Hitler's mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan. His mouth is the foul-smelling maw of Hell, and his might is at bottom accursed. True, we must conduct a struggle against the National Socialist terrorist state with rational means; but whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war."

"Though we know that National Socialist power must be broken by military means, we are trying to achieve a renewal from within of the severely wounded German spirit. This rebirth must be preceded, however, by the clear recognition of all the guilt with which the German people have burdened themselves, and by an uncompromising battle against Hitler and his all too many minions, party members, Quislings, and the like. With total brutality the chasm that separates the better portion of the nation from everything that is opened wide. For Hitler and his followers there is no punishment on this Earth commensurate with their crimes. But out of love for coming generations we must make an example after the conclusion of the war, so that no one will ever again have the slightest urge to try a similar action."

"Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes — crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure — reach the light of day?"

"Wir schweigen nicht, wir sind Euer böses Gewissen; die Weiße Rose läßt Euch keine Ruhe!"

"Der imperialistische Machtgedanke muß, von welcher Seite er auch kommen möge, für alle Zeit unschädlich gemacht werden."

"Of course, the terrible things I heard from the Nuremberg Trials, about the six million Jews and the people from other races who were killed, were facts that shocked me deeply. But I wasn't able to see the connection with my own past. I was satisfied that I wasn't personally to blame and that I hadn't known about those things. I wasn't aware of the extent. But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me, and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler. And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out."

"Freedom and honour! For ten long years Hitler and his coadjutor have manhandled, squeezed, twisted, and debased these two splendid German words to the point of nausea, as only dilettantes can, casting the highest values of a nation before swine. They have sufficiently demonstrated in the ten years of destruction of all material and intellectual freedom, of all moral substance among the German people, what they understand by freedom and honour. The frightful bloodbath has opened the eyes of even the stupidest German — it is a slaughter which they arranged in the name of "freedom and honour of the German nation" throughout Europe, and which they daily start anew."

"It is possibly the most spectacular moment of resistance that I can think of in the 20th Century... The fact that five little kids, in the mouth of the wolf, where it really counted, had the tremendous courage to do what they did, is spectacular to me. I know that the world is better for them having been there, but I don't know why."

"Shaken and broken, our people behold the loss of the men of Stalingrad. Three hundred and thirty thousand German men have been senselessly and irresponsibly driven to death and destruction by the inspired strategy of our World War I Private First Class. Führer, we thank you!"

"Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did."

"You can't really measure the effect of this kind of resistance in whether or not X number of bridges were blown up or a regime fell... The White Rose really has a more symbolic value, but that's a very important value."

"The tolerant and open atmosphere of their childhood had enabled them to see through Hitler's platitudes at the Nuremberg Rally, when the brother and sister were members of Nazi youth organizations. Nearly all their peers were completely won over by the Führer, whereas Hans and Sophie had other, higher expectations of human nature, not shared by their comrades, against which they could measure Hitler."