Military Leaders From Germany

"Mein Führer, who commands The Ninth Army, you or I?"

"I envy you Galland, for going into action. I wish I were a few years younger and less bulky. If I were, I would gladly put myself under your command. It would be marvelous to have nothing to worry about but a good fight, like it was in the old days."

"The best Kamerad inside the pocket will be the Kamerad outside the pocket. (Der beste K.I.K wird K.A.K)"

"To use a fighter as a fighter-bomber when the strength of the fighter arm is inadequate to achieve air superiority is putting the cart before the horse."

"Superior technical achievements — used correctly both strategically and tactically — can beat any quantity numerically many times stronger yet technically inferior."

"Has everything been done to justify our actions in the light of history? What can there be left for a commander in defeat? In antiquity they took poison."

"The fifth act of the great drama in Flanders opened on the 22nd October. Enormous masses of ammunition, such as the human mind had never imagined before the war, were hurled upon the bodies of men who passed a miserable existence scattered about in mud-filled shell-holes. The horror of the shell-hole area of Verdun was surpassed. It was no longer life at all. It was mere unspeakable suffering. And through this world of mud the attackers dragged themselves, slowly, but steadily, and in dense masses. Caught in the advanced zone by our hail of fire they often collapsed, and the lonely man in the shell-hole breathed again. Then the mass came on again. Rifle and machine-gun jammed with the mud. Man fought against man, and only too often the mass was successful."

"We have lost a battle, but I assure to you that we will not lose the war! I cannot say more at the present moment although I know the losses are crowded in your minds. That this happened does not hold importance. What counts is not to lose confidence in the future of Germany. At the same time everyone must understand the gravity of the situation. This moment will be enough to distinguish the true men from the inept ones. Every soldier has the same responsibilities: if the advancing one falls, another must be ready to take his place in order to go on."

"I fully subscribe to those words with my special thanks to all officers, noncommissioned officers and men for the attitude displayed during this fighting."

"Never abandon the possibility of attack. Attack even from a position of inferiority, to disrupt the enemy's plans. This often results in improving one's own position."

"They attracted Hurricanes and Spitfires as honey attracts flies."

"The wave of terror radiated from the suffering city and spread throughout Germany. Appalling details of the great fire were recounted. The glow of the fires could be seen for one hundred twenty miles. A stream of haggard, terrified refugees flowed into the neighbouring provinces. In every large town people said, 'what happened in Hamburg yesterday can happen to us tomorrow.' Berlin was evacuated amid signs of panic. In spite of strict reticence in official communiques, the terror of Hamburg spread rapidly to the remotest villages of the Reich. After Hamburg in the wide circle of the political and the military command could be heard the words: "The war is lost"."

"The fighter must seek battle in the air."

""He who wants to protect everything, protects nothing," is one of the fundamental rules of defense."

"During the Battle of Britain the question "fighter or fighter-bomber?" had been decided once and for all: The fighter can only be used as a bomb carrier with lasting effect when sufficient air superiority has been won."

"A very clever man though perhaps not a very strong character."

"He is at pains to avoid making enemies. He is slow, but very methodical. He displays marked tactical ability, though he is inclined to spend overmuch time on his appreciation."

"What hurts me the most, personally, is that I still promoted him to field marshal. I wanted to give him this final satisfaction... a man like that besmirches the heroism of so many others at the last moment. He could have freed himself from all sorrow and ascended into eternity and national immortality, but he prefers to go to Moscow."

"Surrender is forbidden. Sixth Army will hold their positions to the last man and the last round and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution toward the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western world."

"Hitler might have waged his war against the Soviet Union more intelligently. Again, he might have listened to the experts (Halder and Guderian among them), who advised him to concentrate German efforts on capturing Moscow rather than diverting Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group southwards towards Kiev. In a similar vein, Hitler might not have squandered his 6th Army so profligately at Stalingrad; Alan Brooke's fear was that Paulus might instead conquer the Caucasus, opening the way to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf oilfields."

"Everything you say, Reichenau, is totally unmilitaristic."

"Soldiers were and will remain soldiers. They fight, carrying out their duty, not thinking about the reasons, true to their military oath. And the beginning and the end of war is the business of politicians, to whom the situation at the front dictates these or other decisions."

"The Sixth Army, true to their oath and conscious of the lofty importance of their mission, have held their position to the last man and the last round for Führer and Fatherland unto the end."

"You are talking to dead men here."

"Troops without ammunition or food. Effective command no longer possible. 18,000 wounded without any supplies or dressings or drugs. Further defence senseless. Collapse inevitable. Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops."

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

"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."

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

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

"My Führer, if it's not possible for you to give me a date for the wonder weapons, we Germans must approach the Anglo-Americans and seek peace."

"My Führer, I know, it is obvious from interrogations for one thing and from evidence I have from my particular field, that there are naturally differences among these unnatural Allies, but please do not be offended if I say that I do not believe the alliance will split up of itself without our own active intervention. Before that happens we shall be dead or beaten to the ground, and that must not happen — we must do something first."

"If you repeat to the Führer the story of the radio message from your agent, I won't go to the gallows alone. You and the Reichsführer will hang beside me."

"We found a round figure of three million Jews in Poland, and then immediately after that came the Russian campaign and we found another five million Jews in Russia. How on Earth could we manage to emigrate this eight million by using long and tiresome official methods if we could not, as was planned somehow or other after the war organise a general and mass-protected and organised emigration to Madagascar? We had conquered France, after all, and we could have compensated France adequately from our other colonial possessions so we could have used Madagascar — the island was big enough to accommodate such a number of Jews — but in the war we were cut off. We had no other choice."

"I was understandably deeply disappointed that the highest National Socialist leaders did not stand up and answer for the deeds they had done in the past and left those of us who could not be made personally responsible in the lurch."

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

"There is only one certainty in life... A strong man stands above and conquers all!"

"After 19 days of interrogation, they put me in a cell. They would carry by the bodies of tortured people. With the point of a boot, Barbie would turn their heads to look at their faces, and if he saw someone he believed to be a Jew, he would crush it with his heel."

"In 1943, when the Germans began to crack down on saboteurs in grim earnest, the Alliance network was a chief target. Scores of agents were arrested in successive waves. Among them were women tortured by Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," who burned their breasts with cigarettes."

"I admire you, but in the end everybody talks."

"When I stand before the throne of God, I shall be judged innocent."

"...Had the eyes of a monster. He was savage. My God, he was savage! It was unimaginable. He broke my teeth, he pulled my hair back. He put a bottle in my mouth and pushed it until the lips split from the pressure."

"Don't worry. Your friends are dead and you are going to join them."

"...pale eyes, extraordinarily mobile, like those of an animal in a cage."

"Perhaps you think that any fool could become a member of the SS. Do you really know what an SS soldier is? He is a superman. He is a professional chosen personally by Hitler. A soldier whose antecedents are analyzed for four generations back before he is given the honor of being allowed to join this elite organization."

"If there were mistakes, there were mistakes. But a man has to have a line of work, no?"

"If I think of all those homosexuals in Germany today, I think I'd hand my German passport back, if I had one."

"The limitations of our strength compelled us to concentrate on two objectives - the points which seemed the most essential to the success of the invasion. The main effort, under my own control, was directed against the bridges at Rotterdam, Dordrecht and Moerdijk by which the main route from the south was carried across the mouths of the Rhine. Our task was to capture the bridges before the Dutch could blow them up, and keep them open until the arrival of our mobile ground forces. My force comprised four parachute battalions and one air-transported regiment (of three battalions). We achieved complete success, at a cost of only 180 casualties. We dared not fail, for if we did the whole invasion would have failed. The secondary attack was made against The Hague. Its aim was to get a hold upon the Dutch capital, and in particular to capture the Government offices and the Service headquarters. The force employed here was commanded by General Graf Sponcck; it consisted of one parachute battalion and two air-transported regiments. This attack did not succeed. Several hundred men were killed and wounded, while as many were taken prisoner."

"I have never seen such a defiance of death."

"Kurt Student was a German professional soldier, typical of the best of his kind, totally devoted to his calling and to his country, though by no means in full sympathy with Nazi leadership."

"Hitler was very upset by the heavy losses suffered by the parachute units, and came to the conclusion that their surprise value had passed. After that he often said to me: "The day of parachute troops is over." He would not believe reports that the British and Americans were developing airborne forces. The fact that none were used in the St. Nazaire and Dieppe raids confirmed his opinion. He said to me: 'There, you see! They are not raising such forces. I was right.' He only changed his mind after the Allied conquest of Sicily in 1943. Impressed by the way the Allies had used them there, he ordered an expansion of our own airborne forces. But that change of mind came too late - because by then you had command of the air, and airborne troops could not be effectively used in face of a superior air force."