Quotes from Hans Hellmut Kirst

The soldier must say Yes when he thinks Yes. But when many say Yes and think No, when they feel forced to say Yes, though they think No, or when they say Yes for the sake of their careers, their own comfort or self-interest while their consciences tell them No, the point has been reached where true soldiering dies out altogether. And not only soldiering. This is death's great triumph. For when conscience dies, mankind dies with it.

Nobody rots with me.

Wesel devoted these months to assembling a Satan's brood of dedicated killers and systematically training them to a supreme pitch of efficiency. … The murderous intensity common to all its members could only have been generated by the interaction of several factors, among them a power-crazed and inflexible determination to destroy at the bidding of a higher authority.

General Tanz was as punctual as Radio Berlin, the State Railways, or death itself.