7 Walter Warlimont Quotes on World war ii

Walter Warlimont quotes on world war ii

1. 1. Political officials and leaders are to be liquidated. 2. Insofar as they are captured by the troops, an officer with authority to impose disciplinary punishment decides whether the given individual must be liquidated. For such a decision the fact suffices that he is a political official. 3. Political leaders in the troops (Red Army) are not recognized as prisoners of war and are to be liquidated at the latest in the prisoner-of-war transit camps.

2. If one looks back at the short period of time of the Badoglio government, one must remember that the Italian longing and need for peace was no secret to the German command. Since the German retreat at el Alamein in November 1942 and the collapse of the Italian Army on the eastern front, the Italians had repeatedly stated their weariness of battle and had made certain suggestions. In steadily increasing numbers, measures were being taken by the German military command out of fear for the Axis loyalty of Italy. As the course of events showed, the view on betrayal dominated all other German reflections, nourished by the fall of Mussolini and his style of leadership.

3. This decision is absolutely contrary to my understanding of what the plan was to be in the event of an invasion.

6. Hitler's large-scale demands for the Mediterranean meant that...the plans for...an 'Eastern Wall' were overtaken by the increasingly rapid advance of the Red Army.

7. Had the 20th of July bomb plot against Hitler succeeded there would have been strikes and civil war within Germany... Already there were fanatic National Socialists in the army with ranks of captain and major; in the air force the doctrine was even at the highest levels, and the SS was entirely a party group - a state within a state. There were even divisions among the people who for 12 years had heard the same party line and had been effected either favorably or unfavorably from the NSDAP. Out of all this chaos there was not a single person who could have brought these factions together and achieve a peace and a democratic government.

8. Hitler gave another fateful halt order just when the armoured vanguards of Army Group North had reached the outskirts of Leningrad. Apparently he thereby wanted to avoid the losses of human life and material to be expected from fighting in the streets and squares of this Soviet metropolis against an outraged population, and hoped to gain the same ends by cutting off the city from all lines of supply.

9. Keitel, Jodl and Warlimont had never been in the war....Their lack of fighting experience tended to make them underrate practical difficulties, and encourage Hitler to believe that things could be done that were quite impossible...