624 pages
Rating: (1.1K votes)
“When General George Patton tried to convince Eisenhower to make a push to conquer the city first, Eisenhower blithely asked, 'Well, who would want it?”
“Enjoy the war,' read the graffiti left on Berlin's walls. 'The peace will be terrible.”
“Eventually, a Soviet general sat down in the empty seat next to Howley. Rank-conscious, the Russian visibly shuddered when he realized he was sitting next to someone of much lower position. 'I see you're a colonel,' he said through an interpreter. Howley looked up from his plate and grumbled, 'I see you're a general. Here, have some salami.”
“World War II ended in a battle for a single buildng, Germany's Reichstag...7,000 German troops defending the building...Nearly 5,000 men died in a battle for the building.”
“Ad they entered Berlin, while still killing off the last of its German defenders, The Russians indulged in an orgy of rape and rage beyond the bounds of human Imagination. Over the course of ten days, about 130,000 women were raped---”
“The Russians would lose 305,000 troops in the last 42 miles approaching Berlin---about the number of American army soldiers who died in all of World War II. Of the 125,000 of Berlin's civilians who died in the Russian attack, 6,400 were suicides;”
“Five thousand boys and girls under the age of sixteen were estimated to have fought in the defense of Berlin. Five hundred survived.”
“The president didn't ask me any questions. But I'm glad he didn't, because I was so shocked watching him that I don't think I could have made a sesible reply.' He turned to look Byrnes squarely in the eye. 'We've been talking to a dying man.”
“The agreement,' the colonel announced, 'says thirty-seven officers, fifty vehicles, and one hundred seventy five men.'
'What agreement?'
'The Berlin Agreement,”
“As the concert goers left the hall, the music of the end of the world still ringing in their ears, they filed out past children dressed in their Hitler Youth uniforms who had been assigned to helpfully hold out baskets filled with cyanide capsules for the crowd.”
“Doctors in 1945 would report that one of Berlin's children's favorite games was 'rape.' When they saw a man in uniform--even a Salvation Army uniform--they would start screaming hysterically.”
“Of babies born alive and in hospitals during that month of July 1945, 92 percent would die within then days.”
“Did I hurt your feelings again? Sorry. When this is all over I'll send some flowers to your inner child.”
“For now. But if I ever decide you're useless, you are a dead man."
To be killed by you is to be desired more than a life excluded from your service."
Bravo." Her Imperial Viciousness laughed with genuine feeling. "Bra-vo!”
“If you think of someone’s good qualities as the umeboshi in an onigiri it’s as if their qualities are stuck to their back! People around the world are like onigiri. Everyone has an umeboshi with a different shape and color and flavor. But because it’s stuck on their back they might not be able to see their umeboshi. “There’s nothing special about me. I’m just white rice.” That’s not true. There is an umeboshi on your back. Maybe the reason people get jealous of each other is because they can see so clearly the umeboshi on other people’s backs…even now someone might be envying another for something they don’t see in themselves. They might be longing for a quality they already possess. When I think of it that way even just a little I realize that I need to do my best with the qualities I have, even if I can’t always see what they are.”
“Have you seen The Yellow Sign?”
“I'd never imagined the world I chose would be far worse than the one I had left.”
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