Gyorgy Ligeti Quotes

I'd put Stalin on the OSS payroll if I thought it would help defeat Hitler.

Remember, we know the end of the story of World War II and the Cold War. But day by day, living in fear of the Nazis and then in fear of the Soviets, the outcome was by no means certain.

We’ll all fight like cats – or die rather than submit to Hitler. U.S. look pretty useless. Well, we must die without them.

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.

The Allied cause [in WWII] was morally compromised by the need to enlist the service of Joseph Stalin’s tyranny in order to defeat the forces of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo.

I was handed a chocolate bar and an M-1 rifle and told to go kill Hitler.

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

If Hitler were to succeed, it would be the end for many besides ourselves of all those things which, as we say, “make life worth living.” We realize that the struggle may cost us everything, but just because the things we are defending are worth any sacrifice, it is a noble privilege to be the defenders of things so precious.

Hunger created Hitler, and paradoxically, Hitler created still greater hunger.

And, gentlemen, they have not yet done so, and it is quite clear that no Americans, no people in the world probably, are going to war with the Soviet Union.

In the event of a victory over Germany by Soviet Russia and England, Bolshevism in Europe would inevitably follow. Under these circumstances I would prefer to see Germany win the war.

I have the feeling that this Moscow Pact will at some time or other exact vengeance upon National Socialism.

Hitler was so modern, in that he was obsessed with being famous. He was caught up with this rush to be have achieved greatness before turning 30.

Spending a weekend with Hitler would have been boring in the extreme, although you would have had a greater certainty in coming back alive.

Hitler's dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law.

The memory of the Second World War hangs over Europe, an inescapable and irresistible point of reference. Historical parallels are usually misleading and dangerous.

There's something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just got to me in the strangest way.

Everybody has forgotten that Russia helped start the Second World War.

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

I was opposed to World War II, and indeed on June 22, 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union I suddenly found myself the lone supporter of peace since everybody else had, because of their communist beliefs, shifted over to become supporters of the war.

After World War II society had to settle back for a moment before it picked up the 20th century.

We became convinced that, regardless of Stalin's awful brutality and his reign of terror, he was a great war leader. Without Stalin, they never would have held.

I was born in Yangzhou, China, two years after World War II ended. I was 5 when my family escaped to Taiwan. Eight years later, we moved to Japan.

After the many rumours that we had heard about Hitler and the published criticisms we had read about him, we were pleasantly impressed. His appearance was neither pretentious nor affected.

The German experience, as you can see, did move me very much. Seeing that terrible destruction and seeing the miserable state of the people, how they had been beaten down by the war through no fault of their own probably.