The End Quotes

“The barbarity of warfare on the eastern front meant, as they well knew, that they could expect no mercy if they fell into Soviet hands.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“First of all, it was plainly not the case, as has sometimes been claimed, that the population backed Hitler and the Nazi regime to the end.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“According to American opinion surveys in October 1945, 20 per cent of those questioned ‘went along with Hitler on his treatment of the Jews’ and a further 19 per cent remained generally in favour but thought he had gone too far.153”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“In the generation that experienced it, this sense of being the victims – exploited, misled, misused – of the uncontrollable tyranny of Hitler and his henchmen that in their name perpetrated terrible crimes (though, it was often averred, less heinous than those of Stalin) has remained, scarcely diluted.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“If only National Socialism hadn’t become so depraved! In itself it was the right thing for the German people,’ the view expressed by a German officer in British captivity just after the capitulation, was not an uncommon one.149 According to Allied opinion surveys in the immediate post-war years, about 50 per cent of Germans still thought National Socialism had been in essence a good idea that had been badly carried out.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“And as news and what was described as ‘mounting enemy propaganda about conditions in German concentration camps’ spread, Dönitz and Jodl were among those who saw the need of a public statement ‘that neither the German Wehrmacht nor the German people had knowledge of these things’.144 The myth of the ‘good’ Wehrmacht, which had such currency for decades in post-war Germany, was being forged.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“Germans in high places and low were meanwhile already laying the foundations of their apologia, attempting to establish distance between themselves and the crimes of Nazism.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“German military losses in the last phase of the war were immense, as high in the last ten months of the war as in the four years to July 1944.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“In the ten months between July 1944 and May 1945 far more German civilians died than in the previous years of the war, mostly through air raids and in the calamitous conditions in the eastern regions after January 1945.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“The war, caused primarily by Germany’s expansionist aims and ultimately spreading to most parts of the globe, had left over 40 million people dead in the European conflict alone (leaving aside those killed in the Far East) – more than four times the mortalities of the First World War, once seen as the war to end all wars.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“The earlier idolization, the personalized attribution to Hitler of praise and adulation for all that had seemed at one time positive and successful in the Third Reich was already being transformed into demonization of the man on whom all blame for what had gone wrong could be focused.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“Most of Hitler’s henchmen thought of little beyond saving their skins. Few of them contemplated leaping into the funeral pyre with their Leader.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“The resignation, apathy, dislocation and sheer fatigue at the attritional suffering – quite apart from the suffocating repression of the regime – meant, however, that the collapsing morale could not be converted into a revolutionary fervour. Reports by observers from neutral countries smuggled out to the western Allies provided graphic descriptions of the depressed mood in Berlin as preparations were made for the defence of the city, the chaotic situation on the railways, panic buying of food in central Germany and the appalling living conditions throughout the country.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“Guderian advocated the use of cunning, deception and fantasy, claiming that Red Indian-style action could be successful in fighting for streets, gardens and houses and that the Karl May stories about cowboys and Indians in the Wild West – much liked by Hitler – had proved useful as training manuals.106”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“Hitler drew the line, however, at Goebbels’ plans to stop the production of beer and sweets.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“Outright victory was no longer attainable. Even Hitler could see that. But negotiating with the enemy from a position of weakness could not be entertained for a second. That left fighting on and hoping something would turn up. And that meant playing for time.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“The racial prejudice that Nazism could so easily exploit was something that few later wanted to admit to. But the old ideas died hard. According to American opinion surveys in October 1945, 20 per cent of those questioned ‘went along with Hitler on his treatment of the Jews’ and a further 19 per cent remained generally in favour but thought he had gone too far.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“They were expendable.”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45

“In Würzburg, Gauleiter Otto Hellmuth, generally seen as one of the more moderate Party bosses, was all set to go ahead with implementing the ‘Nero Order’. It would, indeed, be pointless though, he admitted, if there were no chance of a change in the situation at the last minute. He asked Speer when the decisive ‘miracle weapons’ were going to be deployed. Only when Speer told him bluntly: ‘They’re not coming’, did he agree not to destroy the Schweinfurt ballbearing factories.143”
― Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45