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.”
“There was no point in waiting for someone who hadn't asked, and there was no point in wishing for something that would never happen.”
“People know their feelings much sooner than they consciously accept them.”
“I feel him brush the grape over my lips again. Instinctively, sensually, I open my mouth and let him feed it to me, breathing hard. By the time I swallow, his smile is gone.”
“...I bet that Judy Garland would 'ave snapped out of it if she'd 'ad me in 'er ear and not all those poofs telling 'er she was a tragic 'eroine.”
“Even then she wore the look of certain fanatics who think of themselves as leaders without once having gained the respect of a single human being.”
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