Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax Quotes

Many people are beginning to wonder who they should fear most - the Roosevelt-Churchill combination or the Hitler-Mussolini combination.

Lord, if only I could have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided.

Mussolini?” Leo frowned. “Wasn’t he like BFFs with Hitler?

You know, by 1936, Hitler was already talking very loudly about his desire to expand to the east. Mussolini, in 1935, went and then in the next year, conquered Ethiopia, acquiring himself a colony. So people at the time really saw fascism not just as an evil but as an aggressive evil that seemed to be spreading.

Chamberlain and Halifax were more afraid of the spread of Communism than they were of Hitler or Mussolini.

Hitler has become Chancellor… It’s like a fairy tale come true.

Hitler does not wait for congress.

Churchill didn't dance around the Nazis; he called it fascism.

I would gladly say 'Heil Hitler!' and at once part company with him, realizing what a pitiable insult it is to such a great man to try to flatter him with such an imitation which he has always disdained. His way is for Germany, ours is for Britain; let us tread our paths with mutual respect, which is rarely increased by borrowing.

Obviously the government of [Mussolini's] time, out of fear that German power might lead to complete victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it. The racial laws were the worst fault of Mussolini as a leader, who in so many other ways did well.

...the discovery, that at no time did this man (Hitler) pose or intend a real threat to Britain or the Empire.

After all, we didn't bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first.

In the 1930s, there were so many different conflicts going on between the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Romanians and so on.

We have given most of Europe to Hitler. Let us try to hold on to what we have got left.

I'm not comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler - because George Bush, for one thing, is not as smart as Adolf Hitler.

That sense of what happened in Europe in World War II has shaped a lot of my views.

The time has come for you to decide whether Italians shall die for Mussolini and Hitler, or live for Italy and for civilization.

The people of Birmingham have a specially heavy burden for they have given the world: the curse of the present British Prime Minister [Neville Chamberlain, 1869-1940.]

Towards the end of the Banquet came the news, the great world stirring news, that Neville [Chamberlain], on his own initiative, seeing war coming closer and closer, had telegraphed to Hitler that he wanted to see him, and asked him to name an immediate rendezvous…. Of course a way out will not be found. Neville by his imagination and practical good sense, has saved the world.

The present political situation is almost comic, diabolically comic, if one has enough detachment to see it that way: the whole of Europe waiting with bated breath for the “inspired” utterances of a madman! Everything seems to depend on what Hitler will say … all this flurry and nervous chatter in the international henroosts, -- because of the lunatic whims of a paranoiac little mediocrity of a German housepainter!

The two dictator states [Italy and Germany] are creating a third ; and by recognizing General Franco’s government, they have committed themselves irretrievably to making a success of his venture, thus limiting niceties as to means.

Appeasement is just as bad in 1983 as it was in 1938.

Think of the prelude to World War Two. Think of all the countries that said, well, we don’t have enough evidence. I mean, Mein Kampf had been written. Hitler had indicated what he intended to do. The people who argued for waiting for more evidence have to ask themselves how they are going to feel at that point where another event occurs.

Mussolini is continuing the task of Thomas Jefferson.

In comparison to Hitler we are all pip-squeaks. Anyone who believes he can do better than the Führer is stupid.