Germany Quotes

“In Germany, for a long time, the purpose of history was to ensure it could never happen again.” —MICHAEL STÜRMER”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“It was in fact the British who first produced Beetles after the end of the Second World War, for their occupation forces.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“if Americans are one nation under God, the Germans are one nation under Goethe.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“At first, movement between the two Germanys was relatively easy. But the relative poverty of East Germany, partly the result of war reparations, led more and more citizens towards Republikflucht (flight from the Republic) to West Germany, where economic opportunities and political freedoms seemed – and were – much greater. After 1952, the GDR monitored the border severely but in spite of the growing risks of arrest and capture, somewhere around 200,000 people still managed to escape every year. By 1961 around 3.5 million East Germans had left, approximately 20 per cent of the entire GDR population, with serious economic consequences.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“over 10 per cent of the population; two thirds of them from the armed forces.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“1945 nearly eight million Germans had been killed or were missing,”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“Altogether one quarter of German territory was lost in 1945, territory which had for many centuries belonged to Germany.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“Fourteen million Germans were expelled and lost their homes, which meant that, at the end of the war, one quarter of all surviving Germans were victims of expulsion.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“The Potsdam Agreement”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“The Three Governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations,”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“then eastern Germany—Prussia, Pomerania—people could be shot on sight by the Nazi authorities for using one of these carts.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“by 1950, between twelve and fourteen million Germans had either fled or been forced from their homes in Central and Eastern Europe.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“where the noble, humane traditions of German civilization—literary and legal, ethical and musical—were brought to nothing.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“Brandenburg Beer War,” fought out in the courts, lasted for ten years—all over a black beer brewed in the former GDR that contained sugar, something forbidden by the Purity Law.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“Astonishingly, at least to a non-German, the issue arose again at the reunification of 1990.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“Bavaria made the adoption of the Beer Purity Law a condition of its joining the new German Empire.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation

“the addition made in 1990: Albert Einstein, the first Jew in Walhalla.”
― Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation