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22 Enlightening Quotes From World War II
Life Daily
World War II remains perhaps the single most tumultuous time in human history. However, it wasn’t until after the war’s conclusion that historians began to reassess what was said during that incredibly violent era. As the largest conflict of the 20th century, WWII was a time during which peace was often discussed, yet rarely enacted. These WWII quotes will allow us to step back in time, and understand the conflict from the point of view of the most influential individuals of the day...
1. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
“It must be a peace without victory...Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last.”
2. American General Douglas MacArthur
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“Old soldiers never die, they just fade away. I’ll come back as soon as I can with as much as I can. In the meantime, you’ve got to hold!”
3. The New York Times
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“Germany having seized the prey, Soviet Russia will seize that part of the carcass that Germany cannot use. It will play the noble role of hyena to the German lion.”
4. American General Dwight D. Eisenhower
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“Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely”
5. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
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“I say that the delivery of needed supplies to Britain is imperative. I say that this can be done; it must be done; and it will be done...The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
6. American General George S. Patton
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“Maybe there are 5,000, maybe 10,000 Nazi bastards in their concrete foxholes before the Third Army. Now if Ike stops holding Monty’s hand and gives me some supplies, I’ll go through the Siegfried Line like %*$# through a goose.”
7. American General Joseph Stilwell
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“The Limeys want us in even with our hastily made plans and our half-trained and half-equipped troops. I claim we got a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma and it is as humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, go back and retake it.”
8. American General Bill Slim
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“The Chinese soldier was tough, brave, and experienced. After all he had been fighting on his own without help for years. He was a veteran among the Allies.”
9. German Grand Admiral Doenitz
“Our losses... have reached an intolerable level.”
10. British General Bernard Law Montgomery
“The Germans should have thought of some of these things before they began the war, particularly before attacking the Russians.”
11. German Leader Adolf Hitler
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“I speak in the name of the entire German people when I assure the world that we all share the honest wish to eliminate the enmity that brings far more costs than any possible benefits. It would be a wonderful thing for all of humanity if both peoples would renounce force against each other forever. The German people are ready to make such a pledge.”
12. British Labor Party Opposition Leader Clement Attlee
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“In a life and death struggle, we cannot afford to leave our destinies in the hands of failures.”
13. British Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander
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“The knowledge not only of the enemy’s precise strength and disposition, but also how, when, and where he intends to carry out his operations brought a new dimension to the prosecution of war.”
14. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
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“How horrible, how fantastic, how incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.”
15. King George VI
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“Like so many of our people, we have now had a personal experience of German barbarity which only strengthens the resolution of all of us to fight through to final victory.”
16. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
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“Good night, then – sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly on all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn.”
17. Unknown TIME Magazine Writer
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“The battlefront disappeared, and with it the illusion that there had ever been a battlefront. For this was no war of occupation, but a war of quick penetration and obliteration – Blitzkrieg, Lightning War.”
18. British Air Marshal “Bomber” Harris
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“They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
19. German General Erwin Rommel
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“The battle is going very heavily against us. We’re being crushed by the enemy weight. We are facing very difficult days, perhaps the most difficult that a man can undergo”
20. German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
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“In 1933, a French premier ought to have said – and if I had been the French premier I would have said it: The new Reich chancellor is the man who wrote Mein Kampf, which says this and that. This man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity. Either he disappears or we march! But they didn’t do it.”
21. German Lieutenant-Colonel Hermann Balck
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“Schutzenregiment 1 has, at 22:40, taken high hill just to the north of Cheveuges. Last enemy blockhouse in our hands. A complete breakthrough!”
22. Mathematician Albert Einstein
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“As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.”
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