William L. Shirer

Quotes

1. At eleven o'clock that same night Neville Chamberlain got off an urgent message to Hitler: "In view of the increasingly critical situation I propose to come over at once to see you with a view to trying to find a peaceful solution. I propose to come across by air and am ready to start tomorrow.

   "Please indicate earliest time at which you can see me and suggest place of meeting. I should be grateful for a very early reply."

2. 

   Hitler told Albert Speer, the Minister for Armament and War Production:

3. 

   [William Shirer writes in his works Berlin Diary and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich that on the morning on September 22, 1938, prior to Hitler's meeting with Neville Chamberlain over the future of Czechoslovakia] Hitler was in highly nervous state. On the morning of the twenty-second I was having breakfast on the terrace of the Hotel Dressen, where the talks were to take place, when Hitler strode past on his way down to the riverbank to inspect his yacht. He seemed to have a peculiar tic. Every few steps he cocked his right shoulder nervously, his left leg snapping up as he did so. He had ugly, black patches under his eyes. He seemed to be, as I noted in my diary that evening, on the edge of a nervous breakdown. "Teppichfresser!" muttered my German companion, an editor who secretly despised the Nazis. And he explained that Hitler had been in such a maniacal mood over the Czechs the last few days that on more than one occasion he had lost control of himself completely, hurling himself to the floor and chewing the edge of the carpet. Hence the term "carpet eater." The evening before, while talking with some of the party leaders at the Dreesen, I had heard the expression applied to the Fuehrer -- in whispers, of course.

4. 

   [According to Shirer, on August 22, 1939 the day after the Nazi-Soviet Pact was formed between Hitler and Stalin, Hitler had this to say at his military conference in anticipation of the invasion of Poland:] Four days ago I took a special step which brought it about that Russia announced that yesterday that she is ready to sign. The personal contact with Stalin is established. Now Poland is in the position which I wanted her...A beginning has been made for the destruction of England's hegemony. The way is open for the soldier, now that I have made political preparations.

5. 

   The surrender that was to culminate in Munich had begun.

6. 

   If the war is lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis for which the people will need to continue a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation [Russia]. Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have been killed.

7. 

   This "scorched earth" directive was followed the next day, on March 23 by an equally monstrous order by Martin Bormann, the Fuehrer's secretary. Speer described it on the stand at Nuremberg: "The Bormann decree aimed at bringing the population to the center of the Reich from both East and West, and the foreign workers and prisoners of war were to be included. These millions of people were to be sent upon their trek on foot. No provisions for their existence had been made, nor could it be carried out in view of the situation. It would have resulted in an unimaginable hunger catastrophe.

8. 

   The way would be open for the soldiers, that is, if Chamberlain didn't pull another Munich. "I am only afraid that some Schweinehund (dirty dog) will make a proposal for mediation."

9. 

   I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state.

10. 

    In the summer of 1928, Hitler aged 39, was the Nazi party leader, and he fell in love with Geli Raubal, his 20 year old niece, the daughter of his widowed half-sister, Angela Raubal. He took her everywhere, to meetings and conferences, on long walks in the mountains and to the cafés and theaters in Munich. Gossip about the party leader and his beautiful blond niece was inevitable in Munich and throughout Nazi circles in southern Germany. By 1931, some deep rift whose origins and nature have never been fully ascertained grew between them.

11. 

    On September 12, 1938 Hitler gave one of his typical, fanatical speeches at Nuremberg. It was regarding the Czech president's refusal to cede the Sudetenland to Germany. Shirer reports:

That’s all the quotes.

11 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more