Emil Ludwig Quotes

The Germans, who love order more than freedom, and whose ruling passion is obedience, rejoiced in their release from an uncomfortable equality into new ranks of superiors and inferiors. This is the second source of Hitler's success.

[H]e works to create the single great impression that here is a prophet whose heart is bleeding for the fate of his people. ...[H]e is sly enough to use an arrangement on his speaker's desk through which, by pressing a button, the spotlights are switched on to him so that the ecstasies can be properly filmed for the news reels. A similar combination of ecstasy and artifice can be observed in other actors.

They did this on the contemptible pretext, pleaded by all unscrupulous and ambitious placemen, that the country stood in need of their services.

The appointment of ignorant young men by the Party to high places in the German universities and clinics... has caused profound depression in the country... A country which no longer recognizes a written constitution, a country in which the Minister of Justice proclaims as his guiding principle, "Right is what is useful to Germany," a country in which the police force... watches with sympathetic interest any crime which is committed to the Party's advantage—is a country where none can feel safe. Even the free can hardly take much pleasure... where more than 100,000 souls are imprisoned... Any German who has not risen to wealth and position through the Party feels less free... Millions are ashamed because they are no longer citizens of a constitutional State.
Meanwhile their Führer sits in his villa... and here he entertains his friends. ...As he talks ceaselessly and seldom listens... business cannot be settled.

[H]e commanded over a hundred of his armed adherents to make an open attack on the armed police force. The latter met the rebel's attack... Shots were fired. Fourteen men lay dead on the Munich pavement. ...Hitler vanished ...The fourteen heroes of the Nazi movement were later eulogized... by the leader who had abandoned them in danger.

To Eulenburg Bülow owed his whole career—which, when all is said, remains the only statesmanlike one of the William the Second’s reign.

Intrigue is always at the bottom of all political activities.

Only by the universal propaganda of lies were they ever goaded into hate—not for trade-rivalry nor race-antagonism, not material nor moral causes, made this Cabinet War a necessity in any one of the European States. The life-blood of ten millions of her sons was shed by Europe, not under any “tragic necessity,” nor through any “fatal concatenation” of circumstances; the sacrifice was extorted from her only by her wrangling statesman.

The logic of the machine checkmates its constructor and makes him its slave.

All these blunders were, in war as in peace, the outcome of the deceptive selection and presentation of news.

So in this matter also he attributed his own perfidy to others, vindicating thus his own political propensities.

Wealth, as such, impressed him deeply; his unromantic spirit respected this modern form of power—riches, no matter how acquired, were a sufficient attraction.

The State has no higher purpose than the protection of its interests. These, however, for Great Powers, are not necessarily identical with the preservation of peace.

The pyramid familiar to the Germans... in which each individual carries another on his back but makes up for it by standing on somebody else, was set up anew by Hitler.

The responsibility of the Sovereign was supreme, and as a consequence the whole extent of the various failures, or even the final defeat, is primarily attributable to him.