Hjalmar Schacht Quotes
Colonies are necessary to Germany. We shall get them through negotiation if possible; but if not, we shall take them.
Hjalmar Schacht, 1877–1970, President of the German Reichsbank, Nazi Germany Minister of Economics, Quoted in International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, 1947
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Literally the word means “living room” but was an intellectual doctrine which essentially said that Germany, in order to survive as a major civilized society, was justified in conquering the lands of its neighbors—especially those areas which had traditionally ethnic German populations. This conquest would give the German “master race room to expand.
Gallatin, then an Ambassador, was opposed to administration designs on Florida. In a response Monroe told him that Florida was going to be taken anyway, but in reality it had already been done so.
Two years later, In August 1990, Iraq invaded and conquered Kuwait. This quotation was used in the 1990 Iraq crisis by President George W. Bush in his television speech to the Iraqi people.
The basic treaty sold some of Ethiopia’s colonial territory (Eritrea and Tigray) to Italy in exchange for arms. Italy had tried to conquer the area but lost 500 men in the Battle of Dogali. However, after this peace treaty, Italy maintained that Article 17 of the treaty gave them the right to declare Ethiopia an Italian Protectorate which they did. However, there were two different versions of the treaty that the Italians had drawn up—one in Italian, the other in Aramaic. Britain, Belgium and Germany supported Italy; France, Turkey and Russia supported Ethiopia. Menelik then, to make matters clear, repudiated the treaty in 1893. Italy send an invasion force that was soundly thrashed by the Ethiopians setting the stage for the Italian attack on Ethiopia in World War II years later. Parties to International treaties thereafter have paid close attention to the different language versions.
The culture of Iraq and the Desert tribes made raiding and looting of other villages or travelers or caravans a way of life. The British occupiers were determined to put an end to it and Harris, a young officer, developed the retaliation of bombing the village of the raiders and their warlords. This appears to be the beginning of destroying of houses in the Middle East as a method of retaliation and punishment which would be adopted so well by the Israelis as a humane method and they often quoted Harris saying: “we put them to the maximum amount of inconvenience, without physical hurt, and they soon stopped their raiding and looting.”
There were some anti-war forces in Germany in World War I.
The Germans had been looking for an excuse to send military troops into China to establish German zones of control in China. The Germans were not alone in having areas of control and influence in China. England, France, Italy, Holland, Japan and the United States all were vying to control trade on parts of China. The Germans, under Wilhelm, were just a little more heavy handed and gross than the other powers.
The Germans wanted war with Serbia and used the dispute between Austria and Serbia as an excuse to mobilize and go to war ostensibly to protect their ally, the Austrian Empire, from the Serbs who they knew would be likely supported by Russia which had traditionally supported their fellow Eastern Orthodox against Roman Catholic or Protestant enemies. Russia still tends to protect and support the Serbs. This statement was one of the many that showed that Germany was the major aggressor in the First World War and therefore had to pay reparations to France and others.
1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon. He was advocating British entry into WWI in defense of the Neutrality of Belgium as was their treaty obligation.
1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon. He was advocating British entry into WWI in defense of the Neutrality of Belgium as was their treaty obligation.
The German war plan called for attacking France through Belgium. However, Belgium was intent on remaining neutral. International law prohibited a neutral country from allowing troops of either side to enter and maneuver in its territory. The Kaiser and the German leaders know they were violating International law and rationalized it by stating that after they defeated France, they would treat Belgium well.
Frederick the Great. He and many other Europeans thought that England had been so preoccupied with the American rebellion that she was ignoring Europe and other traditional foreign policy interests of theirs.
Hjalmar Schacht was a German economist, banker, centre-right politician, and co-founder in 1918 of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic. He was a fierce critic of his country's post-World War I reparation obligations.
