Hitler vs Stalin Quotes

“The German Luftwaffe targeted the evacuees, bombing trains filled with women and children.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“With more than twenty million Soviets already killed in the war, Stalin allowed his soldiers to “celebrate.” Twenty-four-year-old Hildegard Kristoff recalled what that meant . . . The Russians came. We weren’t allowed to lock our doors. Holding machine guns, they herded us into an empty house. Other young women had also been dragged in. The beasts pounced on us again and again, day and night—the whole mob of them. At dawn they disappeared. We crept back to our family—many committed suicide. As many as two million German women were raped.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“Imagine us in house-to-house fighting. We took the third floor, and the Germans took the first and second floors. By midday, both sides get tired and the Germans shout, “Hi, Russians?” “What do you want, Germans?” we’d say. “Can you send us some water?” they’d answer. And we’d shout, “Let’s swap pots filled with water for a pot filled with cigarettes.” And then, one hour later, we’d”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“The townspeople, having survived the bombing, now had first contact with their attackers. For some of them it was a surprise. Boris Stepanov, a young boy at the time, related in later life . . . They had broad shoulders, they walked upright. They didn’t have horns, as we kids thought they would. They were just nice, ordinary lads.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“In the end, Hitler was to learn a bitter lesson . . . Stalingrad wasn’t worth it.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“It is completely wrong to describe Russian women as soldiers in skirts. The Russian woman has long been prepared for combat duties and fill any post of which a woman might be capable. Russian soldiers treat such women with great wariness . . . they were even more fanatical than the men.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“Nobody thought about women as combat troops—nobody, that was, except the Soviet Union.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“The people inside the city were literally starving to death. A diary account by a little girl named Tania, who watched her whole family starve to death, concludes . . . Mummy, 13th May at 7:30 morning, 1942. They are all dead . . . only Tania remains.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“Of course the partisans were crueler—they came at night and to their own kind.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“waiting to see who would try to seize the reins during this time of crisis. Others are of the opinion that he came close to a nervous breakdown. What Stalin faced was not just military defeat, but the collapse of everything he had worked for within Russia.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“It was at this point that Stalin seemed to finally grasp the enormity of the disaster. He raged at his generals, even reducing the stolid Zhukov to tears.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“As a result, Stalin refused to put his armies into a war footing. He told his generals . . . Germany is up to her ears with the war in the West. They will not risk a second front by attacking the Soviet Union. Hitler is not such an idiot.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“Although he was a monarchist through and through, he was a favorite of Hitler, who said of him . . . Nobody in the world but Bock can teach soldiers how to die.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad

“Nadezhda accused her husband of being inconsiderate toward her. He responded by humiliating her in front of their guests. He flicked cigarettes at her and addressed her as “Hey, you.” The following morning, servants found Nadezhda dead of a gunshot wound to the head.”
― Francis Hayes, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad