People From Berlin

"Since the commercialization and banality of editorial magazine pages have made this work uninteresting, advertising has become an increasingly important part of my work. It is interesting to compare European and American mores in regard to my work. One will notice that most of my European images have a stronger sexual content that those destined for American publication. The term "political correctness" has always appalled me, reminding me of Orwell's "Thought Police" and fascist regimes."

"We have made a solemn vow to each other: When we have conquered the Reich, we will become man and wife. I am very happy."

"Straight after Hitler's death, Mrs. Goebbels came down to the bunker with her children. She started preparing to kill them. She couldn't have done that above ground—there were other people there who would have stopped her. That's why she came downstairs—because no-one else was allowed in the bunker. She came down on purpose to kill them."

"My father and step-mother were left behind in Germany but, two days before the War started, they were asked to come to Gestapo Headquarters and given an exit visa. There is a story in the family which goes back to the First World War when my step-grandparents were asked to give shelter to a young woman who'd been displaced by the war in Belgium. Although she had a Jewish step-father, she eventually married Joseph Goebbels! My stepmother believes she may have acted as a sort of protecting hand and was involved with the exit visa. Certainly, the night before Kristallnacht, they got an anonymous phone call warning my father not to go home that evening but to go somewhere safe. My step-mother swore it was Magda Goebbels."

"We have demanded monstrous things from the German people, treated other nations with pitiless cruelty. For this the victors will exact their full revenge...we can't let them think we are cowards. Everybody else has the right to live. We haven't got this right—we have forfeited it. I make myself responsible. I belonged. I believed in Hitler and for long enough in Joseph Goebbels...Suppose I remain alive, I should immediately be arrested and interrogated about Joseph. If I tell the truth I must reveal what sort of man he was—must describe all that happened behind the scenes. Then any respectable person would turn from me in disgust. It would be equally impossible to do the opposite—that is to defend what he has done, to justify him to his enemies, to speak up for him out of true conviction...That would go against my conscience. So you see, Ello, it would be quite impossible for me to go on living. We will take the children with us, they are too good, too lovely for the world which lies ahead. In the days to come Joseph will be regarded as one of the greatest criminals that Germany has ever produced. His children would hear that said daily, people would torment them, despise and humiliate them. They would have to bear the burden of his sins and vengeance would be wreaked on them... It has all happened before. You know how I told you at the time quite frankly what the Führer said in the Café Anast in Munich when he saw the little Jewish boy, you remember? That he would like to squash him flat like a bug on the wall...I couldn't believe it and thought it was just provocative talk. But he really did it later. It was all so unspeakably gruesome..."

"We will take them with us, because they are too good, too lovely for the world which lies ahead... no, no I must also take the children, I must! ...they will be given a strong sleeping draught. Afterwards, I mean when they are fast asleep, they will be given an injection of Evipan or something sufficient to...to..."

"I would rather have my children die, than live in disgrace, jeered at. My children stand no chance in Germany after the war."

"The Führer wants it thus, and Joseph must obey."

"He no longer listens to voices of reason. Those who tell him what he wants to hear are the only ones he believes."

"Harald! My beloved son! By now we have been in the Führerbunker for six days already—daddy, your six little siblings and I, for the sake of giving our national socialistic lives the only possible honourable end ... You shall know that I stayed here against daddy's will, and that even on last Sunday the Führer wanted to help me to get out. You know your mother—we have the same blood, for me there was no wavering. Our glorious idea is ruined and with it everything beautiful and marvelous that I have known in my life. The world that comes after the Führer and national socialism is not any longer worth living in and therefore I took the children with me, for they are too good for the life that would follow, and a merciful God will understand me when I will give them the salvation ... The children are wonderful ... there never is a word of complaint nor crying. The impacts are shaking the bunker. The elder kids cover the younger ones, their presence is a blessing and they are making the Führer smile once in a while. May God help that I have the strength to perform the last and hardest. We only have one goal left: loyalty to the Führer even in death. Harald, my dear son—I want to give you what I learned in life: be loyal! Loyal to yourself, loyal to the people and loyal to your country ... Be proud of us and try to keep us in dear memory ..."

"My God, what a lot of rubbish."

"Love is meant for husbands, but my love for Hitler is stronger. I would give my life for it."

"Der Glaube an eine bestimmte Idee gibt dem Forscher den Rückhalt für seine Arbeit. Ohne diesen Glauben wäre er verloren in einem Meer von Zweifeln und halbgültigen Beweisen."

"After the war Zuse constructed the Z4 computer, which became the world’s first commercially used computer. Zuse is also credited with writing the first programming language for his computers: Plankalkül, meaning calculus for programs. As an engineer by trade, Zuse was mainly focused on building a working machine that could perform calculations. He was not at all concerned with the theory of computation, which at that time was explored by renowned mathematicians in the academic world like Schönfinkel, Church, Post, Kleene, and Turing. Because of this, Zuse was not an established name in the academic community as a theoretical computer scientist. It is known however, that Turing and Zuse were familiar with each other’s work (Zenil, 2012). Although Zuse has always been more characterized as an engineer than a theorist. This is perhaps one of the reasons why his main work on computation in physics has been relatively unnoticed in the academic community for so long."

"Undecided about whether to pursue art or engineering, he pursued engineering, but with a continued interest in design—for his senior school project, he had designed a city of the future (à la Fritz Lang's Metropolis) based on a hexagonal grid. Like Alan Turing, Zuse was educated in a system that focused on a child's emotional and philosophical life as well as his intellectual life, and at the end of school, like Turing, Zuse found himself to be something of an outsider—to the disappointment of his very conventional parents, he no longer believed in God or religion."

"Only too often the inventor is the idealist who, like Mephisto, tries to improve the world, only to be crushed by harsh realities. If he wants to carry through his ideas, he is forced to do business with the wielders of power, whose sense of reality is sharper and more developed."

"The rattling of the relays of the Z4 was the only interesting thing to be experienced in Zurich's night life!"

"Art is something given, not reproduced... the painter paints what he sees with his innermost senses, the expression of his being.. every other impression becomes, for him, an inner expression."

"Erwin with his psi can do Calculations quite a few. But one thing has not been seen: Just what does psi really mean?"

"What I am and what I know I owe to my father’s library and to my mother’s salon."

"The German Army is tired. The vain effort to defeat Russia's armies has used up its equipment and reduced its morale."

"Soldiers! The great battle in the Vistula sector is finished. The Polish Army is annihilated. The operations against Poland are thus concluded."

"I myself won't do anything, but I won't stop anyone else from acting."

"Hitler is still such a popular man; we are afraid of the Hitler myth. We want to give to the German people and to the world the final proof by means of the Supreme Court-Martial and its verdict."

"Hitler was the fate of Germany and this fate could not be stayed."

"This period is characterized by a diversity of textual transmissions undreamed of two decades ago."

"To be sure, these witnesses provide an excellent illustration of textual dynamics, and they deepen our knowledge of the development of the Bible text in the technical sense."

"This identity is neither coincidental nor self-evident."

"Certain conclusions have forced themselves upon me while studying the sources, and I have not felt constrained to conceal them on account of that over-scrupulousness which is afraid to influence the future users of the edition."

"It may be said, without exaggeration, that there is no other text which is documented by such varied types of sources."

"You can see that there were no strong characters surrounding Hitler. There were only weaklings like Ribbentrop, Funk, and so forth. Hitler wanted a silent audience. Even Goering, who superficially gives the appearance of a strong man, was in reality a childlike, weak character who was known as a dope addict in the inner circles."

"The Jewish question is no question of humanity, and it is no question of religion; it is solely a question of political hygiene."

"The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even moderate resistance."

"Our foreign policy was an improvisation. Like Schacht's financial policy, it lacked foresight. The Nazis kept talking about a thousand-year Reich, but they couldn't think ahead for five minutes!"

"I am naturally anti-Russian just as most Germans are. I admire their achievements in industrial fields. I was in Moscow personally. I would not be in favor of the Russian system in the western nations. I don't condemn the system — I recognize the good results that it has produced in its proper setting. But in order to be Communist, one must be a fanatic. I am very suspicious of all systems requiring fanaticism. I am convinced that the world would be a better place if people were satisfied with enough to eat and a job to keep them occupied."

"I was one of you."

"If today he descended from Heaven, the great warrior who struck the money changers, You would once again shout 'crucify!' And nail him to the cross that he himself carried. But he would gently laugh at your hatred. 'The truth remains even when your bearers are passed. Faith remains, because I give my life...' And the fighter of all the world towers on the cross."

"A socialist and anti-capitalist attitude is the most salient characteristic of the Young National Socialist Germany."

"The body expresses our very being. The striving for beauty is inborn among the Aryan."

"To us Germans everything is religion. What we do we do not merely with our hands and brains, but with our hearts and souls. This has often become a tragic fate for us."

"Faust, the Ninth Symphony, and the will of Adolf Hitler are eternal youth and know neither time nor transience."

"He who serves our Führer, Adolf Hitler, serves Germany, and he who serves Germany, serves God."

"In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God."

"That is the greatest thing about him. That he is not only our leader and a great hero. But himself, upright, firm and simple. In him the roots of our world. And his soul touches the stars. And yet he remains a man like you and me."

"To the Führer. This is the truth which bound me to thee: I looked for thee and found my Fatherland. I was a leaf floating in limitless space. Now thou art my homeland and my tree. How far would I be carried by the wind, wert thou not the strength that flows up from the roots. I believe in thee, for thou art the nation. I believe in Germany. For thou art Germany's son."

"Adolf Hitler, you are our great Führer. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy Third Reich comes, thy will alone is law upon the earth. Let us hear daily thy voice and order us by thy leadership, for we will obey to the end and even with our lives. We praise thee! Heil Hitler!"

"Führer, my Führer given me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You rescued Germany from its deepest need. I thank you for my daily bread. Stay for a long time with me, leave me not. Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light. Hail my Führer."

"They say of us that we are an anti-Christian movement. They even say that I am an outspoken paganist.... I solemnly declare here, before the German public, that I stand on the basis of Christianity, but I declare just as solemnly that I will put down every attempt to introduce confessional matters into our Hitler Youth."

"When I came here in 1940, I told our Führer that I consider my main task to be making this city free of Jews. This evening, I can tell you that in the autumn of this year, 1942, we will experience the celebration of a Vienna purified of Jews [sustained thunderous applause]. Now, as far as the Czechs in this city are concerned... I give my subordinate offices of the state and the party the order after the complete evacuation of the Jews to remove all Czechs [sustained thunderous applause]... just as I will make this city free of Jews, I will also make it free of Czech! [sustained rapturous applause]"

"Jewry attempted with all available means to spoil the healthy youth... Ethos is alien to the Jew... every Jew at large in Europe is a danger to European culture. If one wished to confront me with the accusation that I have deported tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of Jews to the eastern ghetto from this city that was once the metropolis of Jewry, I must answer that I consider it an active contribution to European culture."