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History Quotes

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History Quotes

“The Nazis believed in a master race. The militant Islamists believe in a master faith.”

Believe Religion Politics Race History Violence Generations Policy Masters Human Rights Terrorism Ideology Foreign Policy Free Speech Nazi Militant Partisanship Islamists

Author:Benjamin Netanyahu

“Hitler, who founded the Third Reich, who ruled it ruthlessly and often with uncommon shrewdness, who led it to such dizzy heights and such a sorry end, was a person of undoubted, if evil genius. It is true that in the German people, as a mysterious Providence and centuries of experience had molded them up to that time, he found a natural instrument which he was able to shape to his own sinister ends.”

Source: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

“But without Adolf Hitler, who was possessed of a demonic personality, a granite will, uncanny instincts, a cold ruthlessness, a remarkable intellect, a soaring imagination and - until the end, when, drunk with power and success, he overreached himself - an amazing capacity to size up people and situations, there almost certainly would never have been a Third Reich.”

“Some commentators have drawn such a stark and gloomy picture of the Weimar Republic's early difficulties that the Republic seems foredoomed to failure from the outset... The conditions in which Weimar democracy were born were certainly not such as to help it flourish; and as it unfolded, it was clearly saddled with a burden of problems, in a range of areas.”

Helping Problem Seems Born History Democracy Conditions Areas Difficulty Burden Range Republic Nazi Commentators Starks Gloomy Nazi Germany

Book:A History of Germany 1918-2014: The Divided Nation

Source: A History of Germany 1918-2014: The Divided Nation

“For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.”

Men Evil History Paradox Good Man Holocaust Nazi Requirements Flourishing Paradoxical Evil Man

Author:Simon Wiesenthal

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

Mind Truth Principles History Fundamentals Brilliant Technique Propaganda Repeats Yield Nazi Notable Nazism Nazi Germany Fundamental Principles Propagandist Media Propaganda Media Control

Author:Joseph Goebbels

“History is not the story of strangers, aliens from another realm; it is the story of us had we been born a little earlier. History is memory; we have to remember what it is like to be a Roman, or a Jacobite or a Chartist or even - if we dare, and we should dare - a Nazi. History is not abstraction, it is the enemy of abstraction.”

Ifs Should Littles Stories Remember Born Memories Enemy History Dare Stranger Aliens Realms Nazi Abstraction

Author:Stephen Fry

“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”

“The Nazi Party was, in the early 1920s, but one among many nationalist and volkisch radical political groups. It was catapulted to prominence with the onset of economic recession in the late 1920s... The Nazis owed their spectacular to a combination of two discrete sets of factors: first, their distinctive organisation and strategy; and secondly, the wider socio-economic conditions which created climates of opinion and sets of grievances on which the Nazis could prey.”

“Within the Nazi Party, the beginnings of a personality cult around Hitler go back to the year before the [Munich] putsch... Outside these small groups of fanatical Bavarian Nazis, Hitler's image and reputation at this time - so far as the wider German public took any notice of him at all - was little more than that of a vulgar demagogue, capable of drumming up passionate opposition to the government among the Munich mob, but of little else.”

“Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom."”

Ifs Men Self Young Individual Responsibility History Talent Movement Mass Burden Nazi Nazism Ardent Nazi Germany Freedom To Choose Individual Responsibility

Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

“It is sometimes suggested that the [Nazi economic] recovery was a product of a specific fascist economic strategy, which distinguished it from the recovery efforts of other capitalist states. While few would disagree that the Nazi regime had a number of clear ideological preferences when it came to the economy, the policies pursued in 1933 had much in common with those adopted in other countries, and with the policies of the pre-Hitler governments.”

“Though anti-Semitism had been only one of several sources of Nazi voting strength, after 1933 Hitler placed anti-Semitic ideologues, the most important of whom were Joseph Goebbels, Otto Dietrich and Alfred Rosenberg, at the top of the key opinion-shaping institutions. In a dictatorship resting on the 'leadership principle', Hitler's anti-Semitic convictions defined policy.”

Source: The Jewish Enemy

“A 'Hitler myth' was cultivated which built on people's desire for strong leadership, and presented Hitler as an almost God-like figure. Hitler's image was laboured over in a manner not dissimilar to that of pop stars today. What he wore, what he said, what postures he adopted during speeches were all worked out carefully... Many people began to separate Hitler from the Nazi Party, enabling Hitler's popularity to remain high whilst the popularity of the Nazi Party fell.”

People Said Today Desire Strong Stars Party History Figures Speech Built Pops Myth Popularity Nazi Adopted Posture Nazism Enabling Nazi Germany Pop Stars Nazi Party

Author:Alison Kitson

“Eugenics was central to the entire Nazi enterprise, joined with romantic nativist and racist myths of the pure-bred Nordic. The emphasis on 'blood' called for a purifying of the nation's gene pool, so that Germans could regain the nobility and greatness of their genetically pure forebears.”

Nations History Blood Greatness Pure Myth Enterprise Racist Pool Genes Nazi Emphasis Nobility Eugenics Nazism Nazi Germany Purifying Nordic

Author:Alison Thompson