Quote of the day II

It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do.

Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.

Mussolini, Benito

 

"The machine gun is a much overrated weapon"

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig
The Somme on July 1, 1916

Ehmm...Tell us more about it, please,sir...

 

"When we depart, let the earth tremble!"

Joseph Göbbels near the end of the WW2 in Europe

 

"There will be only cheerful faces at this conference table."

General Eisenhower 19th December 1944

 

"It will be fun to see those field-grey coats again!"

General Viscount Gort on the prospect of seeing further fighting with Germany in the late 1930´s

 

"I will try!"

Weygand´s answer to Churchill on 22nd May 1940 to the question whether he could make the French Army fight back.

 

'I utterly reject the Navy's proposals [for landing on a narrow front],' exclaimed General Halder. 'I might just as well put the troops through a sausage machine.'

August 1940 debate about the operation Sealion between the German navy and the army.

 

Courage is fear that has said its prayers.

Dorothy Bernard

 

"Do not touch anything unnecessarily. Beware of pretty girls in dance halls and parks who may be spies, as well as bicycles, revolvers, uniforms, arms, dead horses, and men lying on roads -- they are not there accidentally."
Soviet infantry manual, issued in the 1930's

http://www.military-quotes.com/funny-quotes.htm

or...

"The best tank terrain is that without anti-tank weapons."
-Russian military doctrine.

 

We cannot forget that though it takes at least two to make a peace, one can make a war.

Prime Minister Chamberlain Jan 1939

 

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

Bismarck, Otto Von

War is like love, it always finds a way.
Brecht, Bertolt


War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.
Churchill, Winston

 

"Events arising out of the Polish‑German War has revealed the internal insolvency and obvious impotence of the Polish state. Warsaw as the capital of the Polish state no longer exists. No one knows the whereabouts of the Polish Government. The population of Poland have been abandoned by their ill‑starred leaders to their fate. The Polish state and its government have virtually ceased to exist. The Soviet Government deems it its sacred duty to extend the hand of assistance to its brother Ukrainians and brother Byelo­-Russians inhabiting Poland."

Molotov, quoted in Times, Sept. 18, 1939,

 

"For your freedom and ours"
Polish forces WWII

 

"Communism and Germany is like a cow and a saddle!"

the quote was actually " It is easier to saddle a cow than to establish communism in Poland."
Stalin

The following was a joke in 1939 about an RAF pilot scolded by his commander for not untying a bundle of propaganda pamphlets (telling the Germans that they didn't have the means to sustain a long war) before throwing it out of the plane.
"what are you trying to do, kill someone?"

 

"I don´t care if the guy behind that gun is a syphilitic prick who´s a hundred years old-he´s still sitting behind eight feet of concrete and he´s still got enough fingers to press triggers and shoot bullets."

A GI quoted in Yank Magazine on fighting the West Wall Bunkers ( Neil Short Hitler´s Siegfried Line)

[ 22. February 2005, 02:35 PM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

In a tank battle, if you stand you are lost!

Hasso van Manteuffel after Targul Frumos battle

 

"The Slavs are to work for us. In so far as we do not need them, they may die. Slav fertility is not desirable."

Martin Bormann 1942

 

"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music."

Groucho Marx quotes

 

None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.

Goethe

Patriotism ruins history.

Goethe

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

Karl Marx

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

Kurt Vonnegut

Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.

Oscar Wilde

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

Winston Churchill

 

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

"Ike" Eisenhower