D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944 Quotes

“My loader was moved by this, and he shook his head, saying that the Americans should not sacrifice their men in this way.   You”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“Having said that, many of the local French people emerged from their houses and looked through the railings of the square at us, and made insulting remarks; but of course, these were the same people we had been bartering and trading”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“One last thread which strikes me is the role that luck plays in a soldier’s survival or death. Those of us who have never been in action surely cannot imagine the stress which comes from knowing that the path of a bullet or shell, falling almost at random, might immediately kill you, or might pass you by. Such stress must surely be common to all combatants, whatever their motivation or uniform.   ***”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“Of course, I found later in June, July and August 1944 that even such a beautiful place as Normandy could be turned into an absolute nightmare by battles between men.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“One thing in particular struck many of us as amazing: all along the beach, there were no horses!   This was a surprise for you?   Yes, we found it astonishing. This huge army had brought with it not one single horse or pack-mule! All their transport was mechanised.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“Regarding the Americans, I think that most of us soldiers made a distinction in our minds between the American government, which we believed was a pawn of international finance, and the Americans as individuals.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“As for the American state, we perceived that as controlled by the forces of international finance and banking, who wished to abolish national governments and have the world run by banks and corporations.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“After the initial burst of energy and determination that I felt when the attack started, I began to feel pity for these troops, because they kept arriving in landing craft. The craft would deposit them in the shallows, and they would walk towards us through the water in the same way as the first set of troops. We fired at them in the same way, causing the same deaths and injuries. My loader was moved by this, and he shook his head, saying that the Americans should not sacrifice their men in this way.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“How was it to be a prisoner of the Americans?   Well, even those of us who believed that the Allies could be thrown out of France fell silent when we saw the way the Americans were organised, and the resources they had to work with. Their planes were constantly in the sky. Everything was mechanised, all supplies were carried by truck or train, with seemingly no concern over the amount of fuel used. If a jeep or a truck broke down, it was neglected rather than repaired, and a fresh one was used, still shiny from the factory. Instead of using local food, they ate from tins and cans of food that were made in America. We found this fascinating, and we formed an impression of an unstoppable power that would simply roll over any obstacle. And this is what eventually happened, as we now know, both in France and in Germany.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“We saw the British as an outdated Imperial force, organised by freemasons, who sought to turn the clock back one hundred years to the days when their word was the law around the world. Why should they be entitled to install their freemason puppet, De Gaulle, in France, to rule as a proxy? The Vichy government had three consistent points in its propaganda regarding the threats to the French people: these were De Gaulle, freemasonry and communism. As for the American state, we perceived that as controlled by the forces of international finance and banking, who wished to abolish national governments and have the world run by banks and corporations.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“It is overlooked, perhaps forgotten, by almost everyone today that we were there to defend Europe against the multiple threats represented by the Allies. We saw the British as an outdated Imperial force, organised by freemasons, who sought to turn the clock back one hundred years to the days when their word was the law around the world. Why should they be entitled to install their freemason puppet, De Gaulle, in France, to rule as a proxy? The Vichy government had three consistent points in its propaganda regarding the threats to the French people: these were De Gaulle, freemasonry and communism. As for the American state, we perceived that as controlled by the forces of international finance and banking, who wished to abolish national governments and have the world run by banks and corporations.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“D DAY – Through German Eyes’ has fascinated readers around the world with its insight into the German experience of June 6th 1944. Now, Book 2 contains a completely different set of astonishing German testimonies from the same archive.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“Their faces were set rigid, in an expression of absolute hatred. Sheer hatred. This worried me. Why would men, who were the same race as us, who were physically similar to us, why would they hate us in this way? Why would they want to burn us alive, when we were protecting Europe? What was the origin of this hatred? I had no answer to such questions.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“The concept of the Allies actually invading Germany seemed unimaginable at the time, it must be said.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“processes as the invasion unfolded, and the way they sought to fight back against the Allies in the violent and chaotic hours after the initial landings. The interviewees did not, of course, think”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“German perspective of D Day was simple: shortly before the Normandy landings, he had visited several locations on the Atlantic Wall and interviewed a number of the troops there with a view to writing a feature for ‘Die Wehrmacht’ magazine. He”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“This book was not created by me, but by my grandfather, Dieter Eckhertz. In 1944, he held the prestigious role of a military journalist, writing articles and features for German military publications including the”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“This book was not created by me, but by my grandfather, Dieter Eckhertz. In 1944, he held the prestigious role of a military journalist, writing”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“troops whose units he had visited. He encouraged these men to discuss with him their personal memories of the Atlantic Wall, their frame of mind at the time of the invasion, and their actions during the historic day of June 6th. His intention was to compile these recollections into a complete book, but the project was still”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“including the magazines ‘Signal’ and ‘Die Wehrmacht,’ which were widely read by German troops. Dieter Eckhertz left journalism after the war, but he continued to work on one final project, which was a series of interviews with German”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“in many cases inexperienced or unfit. Much later, on the tenth anniversary of D”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“Herr Leutnant.’ He brought the information that a large formation of ships was sighted off the coast and was advancing on our beach. He had no specific details about numbers or strength, but this appeared to be a very large attacking force. I ordered him to go up and return with any more information that was available. In the meantime, the shelling paused, which felt”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“preparations being made to defend the Atlantic coast against an invasion launched from England,”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“included highly controversial material concerning German forces and French civilians, which I have decided not to include. What comes out of this mix is a highly revealing series of factual accounts by German soldiers who experienced the full might”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“of D Day in 1954, when many Germans preferred to draw a veil over the events of the war, my grandfather made enormous efforts to track down some of the troops whose units he had visited. He encouraged these men to discuss with him their personal”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“their frame of mind at the time of the invasion, and their actions during the historic day of June 6th. His intention was to compile these recollections into a complete book, but the project was still in progress at the time of his death in 1955, and was never completed.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“tenth anniversary of D Day in 1954, when many Germans preferred to draw a veil over the events of the war, my grandfather made enormous efforts to track down some of the troops whose units he had visited. He encouraged these men to discuss with him their personal memories of the Atlantic Wall, their frame of mind at the time of the invasion, and their actions during the historic day of June 6th. His intention”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“of the troops there with a view to writing a feature for ‘Die Wehrmacht’ magazine. He was fascinated by the enormous preparations being made to defend the Atlantic coast against an invasion launched from”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“After the initial burst of energy and determination that I felt when the attack started, I began to feel pity for these troops, because they kept arriving in landing craft. The craft would deposit them in the shallows, and they would walk towards us through the water in the same way as the first set of troops. We fired at them in the same way, causing the same deaths and injuries.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

“One of our men took a Thompson gun and spare ammunition magazines from the bodies. I would not have done this; I knew from Italy that if a soldier (whether German or Allied) was captured with enemy ‘souvenirs’ on him, then his treatment as a prisoner would be violent or even lethal; on the Eastern Front, it was an immediate death sentence, apparently. But the Thompson guns were superb items, being famous as the ‘gangster guns’ from the 1930s, and they were hard to resist.”
― Holger Eckhertz, D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944