Sunday, January 29, 2012

Arbeit Macht Frei

Our next war will be fought for the highest interests of our country and of mankind. This will invest it with importance in the world's history. "World power or downfall", will be our rallying cry.
Friedrich von Bernhardi, Germany and the Next War
Just for a word, "neutrality", a word which in wartime had so often been disregarded - just for a scrap of paper, Great Britain is going to make war on a kindred nation who desires nothing better than to be friends with her.
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweo, German Foreign Minister, to Sir Edward Goschen, British Ambassador, 4 Aug. 1914
Let us put Germany, so to speak, in the saddle! You will see that she can ride.
Bismarck, 11 March, 1867
http://0.tqn.com/d/history1900s/1/0/L/5/arbeitmachtfrei.jpg
Berlin: Germany marked the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp Friday facing serious doubt about how well its institutions are dealing with right-wing extremism. Polls published this week suggest up to one in five Germans aged 18 - 30 do not know what happened at Auschwitz, while 20% of all Germans harboured anti-Semitic sentiments. "That is precisely 20% too many for Germany", Norbert Lammert, speaker of the Bundestag, told a ceremony where Marcel Reich-Ranicki, 91, an eminent literary critic, told how he survived the Warsaw Ghetto. Half a million Polish Jews were rounded up in the ghetto by the Nazis and most were later deported to Auschwitz, where up to 1.4 million people died. Reuters
Aerial picture of Auschwitz I, the main camp.

(Picture from the National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

If a man were drowning today he would have to shout for help in German.
Sir Oswald Mosley, 1931

Germans are honest men.
Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor

Ah, a German and a genius! a prodigy! Admit him.
Swift, his last words, referring to Handel.

Germany, the diseased world's bathhouse.
Mark Twain, Autobiography

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