I still can’t forgive the Germans for the way they treated my granddad during the war. Passed over for promotion time and time again. Jimmy Carr, on stage
For the good of the German people we must strive for war every fifteen or twenty years. Adolf Hitler
Gentlemen, since the 30th of January a revolution has taken place in Germany, which one day history will rightly call the National Revolution. It is obvious that such a historical process, like any battle, will be accompanied by some regrettable phenomena. Adolf Hilter, 1st April 1933
A magnificent era is before us. Germany has finally awakened. Adolf Hitler
The German army must be ready for action in four years. Adolf Hitler
If the German nation is no longer strong enough to risk its blood to secure its existence, it should die. Adolf Hitler
We know that Germany lies in front of us. Germany marches within us. And Germany follows behind us! Adolf Hitler
The great time has only begun. Germany has awoken. We have won power in Germany. Now we must win over the German people ... You mustn’t act yourself, you must obey, you must give in, you must submit to this overwhelming need to obey. Adolf Hitler
The fact the you have found me among so many millions is a miracle. And the fact that I have found you is Germany’s good fortune. Adolf Hitler
At this moment I am responsible for the fate of the German nation and thus the supreme judge of the German people. Adolf Hitler
We have German theatre, German films, a German press, a German literature, German art, and German broadcasting. The objection that was often raised against us in the past – it is not feasible to remove Jews from the arts and from cultural life because there were too many of them and that we’d be unable to fill all the vacant positions – all this has been brilliantly proved wrong. Joseph Goebbels
What would the Fatherland be today if the Fuhrer had not united us under National Socialism? Torn apart by parties, permeated by the leaking poison of Judaism. Grand Admiral Karl Donitz
February 27th 1933 at 9.37 p.m. a massive fire erupts inside the Reichstag, Germany’s house of parliament. Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup, 2009
The Versailles settlement insisted that Germany pay reparations. Huge sums were to be paid, to pay off the debts of France and Britain. Repaying money loaned by America. The sums were unimaginably large. Crippling the German economy. World War II: The Complete History: The Stumble to War, Discovery 2000
Hitler presented the German people with one big idea: the destruction of what he called the Slave Treaty of Versailles. And to once more make Germany a force. ibid.
One month after Hitler took office, the German Parliament – the Reichstag – burnt to the ground. It was arson. The attack upon the centre of German democracy is shrouded in conspiracy theory. ibid.
Versailles kept the war alive in the mind of every German. In a Germany resentful of history. In a Germany suffering endless economic crises. A movement and a leader arose giving new voice to those resentments, and promising action. World War II: The Complete History: The End of Illusion
Hitler and the Nazis rose to power through the structures of democracy. And then abolished those same freedoms. ibid.
For several months the Royal Air Force scattered leaflets all over Western Germany, setting out a logical, reasoned case against Nazi expansion into Europe. Their appeared to be no effect on public opinion in the Third Reich. World War II: The Complete History: The War That Wasn’t
The result was a level of destruction and suffering unprecedented in the history of war. Fifty-five million people died in World War II. The Germans took five million Russian prisoners alone; only two million survived. The Nazis: A Warning From History: Helped into Power, BBC 1997
Nazism which was to create the Second World War was born out of the First. ibid.
It would flourish and grow in the south of Germany: in Bavaria. ibid.
In Bavaria by 1921 Hitler had become the leader of the small German Workers Party ... It was still one of many right-wing parties. ibid.
Along with their anti-Semitism went the belief that violence was an indispensable part of the political process. ibid.
In the mid-1920s the Nazi party was small but radical. Their party programme promised that if the Nazis came to power, German Jews would be stripped of German citizenship and could even be expelled from the country. ibid.
The party had its own paramilitary wing – the brown-shirted Stormtroopers. ibid.
The Nazis were a tiny fringe party. Almost a joke. Yet just four years and eight months later Hitler was chancellor of Germany. ibid.
Something sinister was happening to this new democracy; it seemed to be splitting apart as voters rushed to the extremes ... By 1932 the majority of Germans in voting for communists and Nazis were voting for parties openly committed to overthrowing German democracy. ibid.
The five major banks crashed in 1931; more than 20,000 German businesses folded. Now the middle class were suffering. ibid.
On January 30th 1933 the same day Hitler was appointed chancellor the Nazis held a torchlight celebration parade in Berlin. The revolution had begun. ibid.
The Nazis were obsessed with images of order ... But in Germany the Nazis only created an illusion of order. The Nazis: A Warning From History: Chaos and Consent
The first to be imprisoned in this revolution were the Nazis’ political opponents: communists and socialists. ibid.
Thousands of Jews emigrated from Germany during the 1930s realising that there could never be a fair or safe place for them in German society while the Nazis ruled. ibid.
Goebbels asked for Hitler’s permission to let loose the Stormtroopers in an act of vengeance against the innocent Jews of Germany. Hitler agreed. And so began Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass. ibid.
The concentration camps were a tool of oppression – not yet of systematic murder. In 1933 for many Germans they were an acceptable part of the Nazi revolution. ibid.
Staff here on their own selected the children they wanted to kill. ibid.
These armaments were paid for by a series of sophisticated loans which mortgaged Germany’s future. The Nazis: A Warning From History: The Wrong War
What did Hitler want his new army for? At first it seemed the answer might be just to return the worst consequences of Versailles. In 1936 Hitler moved his troops into the demilitarised portion of Germany, the Rheinland. There was little international protest. ibid.
At the Berghof Hitler would indulge himself by planning the great cities he would build in his new Germany. ibid.
Hitler’s popularity soared; to German soldiers he was the military genius who had allowed them to regain all the territory in the east they had lost in World War I. Germany was a world superpower and Hitler was the man to thank. The Nazis: A Warning From History: The Wild East
But it wasn’t just fear of the Russians that kept the Germans fighting. It was fear of other Germans. In the last months of the war Nazi terror and oppression directed against German civilians increased dramatically. The Nazis: A Warning From History: Fighting to the End
Nazism had been destroyed at a terrible cost. There were many reasons the Germans unlike the Italians had fought to the very end. Crucially, an inability to rid themselves of Hitler, and a fear of the approaching Soviet forces, people they had been taught to believe were scarcely human. ibid.
The Opening Ceremony for the summer Games of the 20th Olympiad took place in Munich, Germany, on 26th August 1972: little did the world know what tragedy lay ahead. Black September, 1999
Entering the grounds was easy ... Unchallenged the intruders approached the Israeli team headquarters. ibid.