End of a Berlin Diary Quotes

“There was so much that was true that did not make sense: the monumental apathy of the German people and their deep regret, not that they had started the war, but merely that they had lost it; their whining complaints at the lack of food and fuel and their total lack of sympathy or even interest in the worse plight of the occupied peoples, for which they bore so much responsibility; their boredom at the very mention of the Nuremberg trial, which they were convinced was only an Allied propaganda stunt; their striking unreadiness for, or interest in, democracy, which we, with typical Anglo-Saxon fervor and blindness, were trying to shove down their throats.”
― William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary

“The great issues of peace and war will never be decided by majority vote, or any vote. We Americans have got to get that through our heads. That, and the fact that Russia, Great Britain and the United States, after due discussion, will largely determine the kind of world organization we are going to have.”
― William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary

“will credit the President, too, with a mastery of strategy in this global war that his fellow countrymen even today but dimly perceive. His was the decision—which so many Americans didn’t like or understand—to concentrate on Germany first, to weaken it before it could destroy Russia and join up with Japan. For had Germany conquered Russia, it is scarcely conceivable that our enemies ever could have been defeated. It was largely his perseverance and skill that built up the Grand Alliance not only into a military force which brought victory but which, before the war was ended, began to shape a decent and hopeful peace.”
― William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary

“A vital race -- the English. Ed [Murrow] and I were struck by it as we walked down Oxford Street yesterday. Something in their walk; determination. They are tired after six years of war, the bombings, and short rations. But you can sense in the people in the streets a magnificent staying power.
[LONDON, Tuesday, October 9, 1945]”
― William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary

“San Francisco, Monday, April 23 The newspapers, particularly the Hearst and Roy Howard press, are kicking up an unholy fuss over the deadlock on Poland. Anything for a headline. And strife makes headlines. And attacks on Russia make headlines. The question is: which Polish delegation shall be seated, the London government-in-exile or the “provisional government” in Poland? We and the British recognize the first; Russia the second. The sensation-mongers are predicting the conference may break up over Poland, but I do not believe it. The delegates are here to draw up plans for a world organization, not to deal with the numerous headaches arising from the present state of the war and the world. But an irresponsible press could wreck this meeting.”
― William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary

“These three things seem so logical, almost so simple to us now. But history will record—even if we forget—the great fight the President had to make to achieve them. It will record how our growing army was saved from dissolution by one single vote in Congress. It will note by what a narrow margin Lend-Lease, which kept Britain and Russia in the fight until they could regain their strength to hit back, passed the Congress.”
― William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary

“Our earth is but a small star in the great universe. Yet, of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color or theory. Grant us that courage and foreseeing to begin this task today that our children and our children’s children may be proud of the name of Man…. Grant us the wisdom and the vision to comprehend the greatness of man’s spirit, that suffers and endures so hugely for a goal beyond his own brief span. “Grant us patience with the deluded and pity for the betrayed. And grant us the skill and valor that shall cleanse the world of oppression and the old base doctrine that the strong must eat the weak because they are strong. “Yet most of all grant us brotherhood, not only for this day but for all our years—a brotherhood not of words but of acts and deeds. We are all of us children of earth—grant us that simple knowledge. If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed. If they hunger, we hunger. If their freedom is taken away, our freedom is not secure. “Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace—that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best, not only in our own lands but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march toward the clean world our hands can make. AMEN.” The phone rang. It was the local radio station, a CBS affiliate. New York wanted me to go on the air in an hour. Dave rushed me down to the station in his car.”
― William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary

“Most moving of all was Raymond Massey’s voice, the voice that portrayed Lincoln in Bob Sherwood’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois, reading Stephen Vincent Benét’s Prayer for United Nations,2 which the President himself had once recited on Flag Day: “God of the Free, we pledge our lives and hearts today to the cause of all free mankind…. Grant us brotherhood in hope and union, not only for the space of this bitter war, but for the days to come which shall and must unite all the children of earth.”
― William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary