Quote of the day II

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.
--Charles De Gaulle

 

"I need a few thousand dead!"

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini exclaims this to his army chief after jealously watching Hitler’s string of conquests in the summer of 1940.

 

I know this quote. But did Mussolini talk about a few thousand dead Frenchmen or Italians?

 

I guess the quote has two meanings, as I think Mussolini wanted some war martyrs as well to show for Italian bravery in war.

The whole quote seems to go:

"I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought."

BTW,

In October 1940, Italy invaded Greece. After 3 weeks, the Italian force was repulsed. In London, a popular song went:


"What a surprise for the Duce, the Duce"
"He can't put it over the Greeks!"
"What a surprise for the Duce, they do say"
"He's had no spaghetti for weeks!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_military_history_of_World_War_II

 

"I joined the party because I was a revolutionary,
not because of any ideological nonsense."

Hermann Göring

 

"Herr Führer, we throw this call right back in the face in your dirty teeth."

Friday 19 July 1940. In front of the German Reichstag Adolf Hitler gives a speech in honour of the big victory over France and the there-upon following capitulation. He appeals to Great Britain.That very same day the answer is given on the BBC by Sefton Delmer, a just appointed speaker of the English national broadcasting, the BBC. Churchill was not informed about this by Delmer delivered text, but did have to laugh about it very much and did as prime-minister agree completely although he did find the manner in which it was said very rude.

http://www.documentatiegroep40-45.nl/english/terugblik/artikel/radio2.html

 

"I don't see how we can win the war without Winston, but on the other hand, I don't see how we can win it with him."

Major General Sir John Kennedy, Chief of Operations for the General Staff ( 1941 )

http://www.rickard.karoo.net/battlesmain15.html

 

'You see this flaming building,if this Communist spirit got hold of Europe for but two months it would be all aflame like this building.'

Hitler when he inspected the Reichstag Fire 1933...

 

"Never in my wildest dreams in West Point days, did I ever think that someday I, an American General, would command a Force from the British Fortress of Gibraltar"

At his first press conference General Eisenhower in 1942

 

This quote is one of my favorites but takes some setting up, so bear with me..( LUCKY is LUCKY FORWARD, General George Smith Patton, Jr's Third Army Headquarters CP )

"While the bulk of the German forces concentrated against Third Army,Montgomery regrouped and refitted with his usual deliberation.Under him he had four armies: British Second, Canadian First,and Ninth and First US armies. The first three, untouched by the German offensive, were up to strength, rested, and in excellent fighting condition.

But throughout this critical phase, all sat on their haunches doing nothing -- except to grind out bales of Reports, Summaries, Estimates, Appreciations, and other effusions, alibiing and arguing the enemy's breakthrough and dispositions.

While Third Army slugged it out desperately with the enemy's main forces concentrated in a small area, the only roar of battle in the north was the ceaseless clatter of mimeographing machines.

Practically every day the troops in the flaming lines, from St. Hubert to Echternach,identified new German units in contact. Units that had shifted from the inactive northern and western shoulders. and every day LUCKY was deluged with another wave of mimeographed dissertations and essays.

One item in the flood that was followed with much curiosity, was an Estimate issued issued each morning by G-2 of First Army. It was a very discursive document. It didn't shed much light on the enemy, but it did, quite a bit, on First Army.

Particularly one issue, in which the G-2 made the revealing comment that so long as Third Army continued to attack, First Army had nothing to worry about.

A LUCKY G-2, irately reading the Estimate was asked by a topside liason officer what he thought about it.

< here is the specific quote >

'Well, at least he's frank, ' was the reply. 'He admits we are the ONLY Army that's fighting. That's quite a concession coming from them, but you can tell them this. If First Army will stay put, we'll run the krauts up their ass. And then if Monty will stay put for a few days, we'll run the krauts AND First Army up HIS ass, trains first.'

Several days later, word reached LUCKY that the comment had come to Montgomery's attention and that he had 'not been amused' "

Pgs 193-4 - Patton's Third U.S. Army --Lucky Forward --Col R. S. Allen --

[ 25. November 2003, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: Texas Fred ]

 

"What use is fusion with a corpse!"

Marshal Petain in June 1940 ( knwoing France was about to surrender ) as Charles de Gaulle brought Marshal Petain an offer from Winston Churchill of "union" between their nations to resist the Nazi onslaught.

http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=2676

 

I hope the Vichy people will fling them into the sea! You dont´get France by burglary!

Charles De Gaulle after hearing about the Torch landings

http://www.usswashington.com/dl08no42b.htm

 

"Have some victories...and you will have us with you!"

Count Ciano to French Ambassador on 2nd June 1940.

( According to Julian Jackson: The fall of France 2003 )

 

"The sun is shining."

Eisenhower at noon on 6th June 1944

 

"There is my regiment!"

SS-Brigadeführer Otto Kumm

What Otto Kumm is supposed to have said to Field Marshall Walter Model after Model inquired about reviewing Kumm's troops after a particuarly tought battle against the Soviets. Kumm was pointing a group of 35 Waffen-SS troops lined up at attention outside in the cold, the only survivors of a regiment of 4,000.

 

"...I once spent an hour and a half trying to explain a situation to Sepp Dietrich with the aid of a map. It was quite useless. He understood nothing at all."

SS-Obergruppenführer Willi Bittrich

 

"It's all an enormous bluff..."

RFSS Himmler
to Heer General Guderian, late fall 1944, on the possibility of a Soviet winter offensive. On Jan 12, 1945, the Soviet Union mounted a 3-million man offensive, smashing their way onto German soil.


"Berlin will be most practical as our headquarters! We will soon be able to take the streetcar from the Eastern to the Western Front."
SS Col. Otto Günsche, a member of Hitler's personal staff

 

"Either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in our people, or we destroy that blood."

Himmler on racial politics in the east

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-02/tgmwc-02-20-07.shtml

 

"war is hell but actual combat's a son of a bitch"

-unknown

 

"NUTS!"

-BG McAuliffe

101st! those are my boys!