“If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.”

Simone Weil

Simone Weil - “If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his...” 1

Similar quotes

“if Germany won it would change the course of our civilization and make the United States a military nation [and] it would check his policy for a better international ethical code”

Woodrow Wilson
Read more

“There is no such thing as "the right to enslave".A nation can do it , just as a man can become a criminal - but neither can do it by right. It doesn't matter in this context, whether a nation was enslaved by force (like soviet Russia), or by vote (like Nazi Germany).”

Ayn Rand
Read more

“Europe, it is true, is a geographical and, within certain limits, an historical cultural conception. But the idea of Europe as an economic unit contradicts capitalist development in two ways. First of all there exist within Europe among the capitalist States – and will so long as these exist – the most violent struggles of competition and antagonisms, and secondly the European States can no longer get along economically without the non-European countries. ... At the present stage of development of the world market and of world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain. ...And if the idea of a European union in the economic sense has long been outstripped, this is no less the case in the political sense.....Only were one suddenly to lose sight of all these happenings and manoeuvres, and to transfer oneself back to the blissful times of the European concert of powers, could one say, for instance, that for forty years we have had uninterrupted peace. This conception, which considers only events on the European continent, does not notice that the very reason why we have had no war in Europe for decades is the fact that international antagonisms have grown infinitely beyond the narrow confines of the European continent, and that European problems and interests are now fought out on the world seas and in the by-corners of Europe.”

Rosa Luxemburg
Read more

“Germans adored Hitler; they invested their own egos in him and, after the war, they were unable to acknowledge the inhumanity of his ideals or their horrifying consequences. They understand the defence against remembering the criminal and horrific events as a self-protective repudiation of a melancholia that would have set in absolutely inevitably if Germans had truly confronted their bond with Hitler and their burden of guilt.Through the omnipotently manifesting narcissism and National Socialist ideals, fellow humanity and the capacity for empathy with the victims were expelled from the self and destroyed.”

Alexander Mitscherlich
Read more

“An age of expansion really did begin, but the phenomenon was of an expanding world, not, as some historians say, of European expansion. The world did not simply wait passively for European outreach to transform it as if touched by a magic wand. Other societies were already working magic of their own, turning states into empires and cultures into civilizations. Some of the most dynamic and rapidly expanding societies of the fifteenth century were in the Americas, southwest and northern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.”

Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Read more