--- title: "2 Balkans Quotes By Peter Maass" description: "2 Balkans quotes by Peter Maass. Plus more from Peter Maass and more Balkans sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bab/peter-maass-73467_balkans_in-this-city-the-victors-had-delusions-o_537739.jpg" --- > [“In this city, the victors had delusions of grandeur. It was visual. Across the street from the hotel stood City Hall, sporting an oversized Serb flag that hung from the roof to the ground, a hundred feet tall, fifty feet…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/peter-maass/in-this-city-the-victors-had-delusions-of-grandeur-it-was-visual/) Peter Maass [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bab/peter-maass-73467_balkans_in-this-city-the-victors-had-delusions-o_537739.jpg) > [“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/peter-maass/the-people-were-divided-into-the-persecuted-and-those-who-persecuted/) Peter Maass [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/30a/peter-maass-73467_acts-of-violence_the-people-were-divided-into-the-persecu_2168962.jpg) ## More by Peter Maass > [“Bosnia's war had its visual hallmarks. Parks that were turned into cemeteries, refugee families piled onto horse-drawn carts, stop-or-die checkpoints with mines across the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/peter-maass/bosnia-s-war-had-its-visual-hallmarks-parks-that-were-turned-into/) Peter Maass > [“I am a lawyer, and for me it is very sad to say that there is now law here. There are weapons rather than…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/peter-maass/i-am-a-lawyer-and-for-me-it-is-very-sad-to-say-that-there-is-now-law/) Peter Maass > [“In this city, the victors had delusions of grandeur. It was visual. Across the street from the hotel stood City Hall, sporting an oversized…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/peter-maass/in-this-city-the-victors-had-delusions-of-grandeur-it-was-visual/) Peter Maass > [“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/peter-maass/the-people-were-divided-into-the-persecuted-and-those-who-persecuted/) Peter Maass ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/balkans/peter-maass/#itemlist", "name": "2 Balkans Quotes By Peter Maass", "numberOfItems": 2, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“In this city, the victors had delusions of grandeur. It was visual. Across the street from the hotel stood City Hall, sporting an oversized Serb flag that hung from the roof to the ground, a hundred feet tall, fifty feet wide, three horizontal stripes of blue, white and red, so large that only a strong breeze could make it flap. The flag, hanging over a building where, fifty years earlier, Kurt Waldheim worked as a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht, was meant as a projection of Serb nationalism, as though size were all that mattered, rather than content. I had never thought of flags as weapons, but in Bosnia, as in the rest of Europe, they were becoming the deadliest weapons of all. p. 80”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Peter Maass" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/peter-maass/in-this-city-the-victors-had-delusions-of-grandeur-it-was-visual/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bab/peter-maass-73467_balkans_in-this-city-the-victors-had-delusions-o_537739.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bab/peter-maass-73467_balkans_in-this-city-the-victors-had-delusions-o_537739.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bab/peter-maass-73467_balkans_in-this-city-the-victors-had-delusions-o_537739.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“In this city, the victors had delusions of grandeur. It was visual. Across the street from the hotel stood…” — Peter Maass", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief…In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented. p. 11”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Peter Maass" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/peter-maass/the-people-were-divided-into-the-persecuted-and-those-who-persecuted/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/30a/peter-maass-73467_acts-of-violence_the-people-were-divided-into-the-persecu_2168962.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/30a/peter-maass-73467_acts-of-violence_the-people-were-divided-into-the-persecu_2168962.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/30a/peter-maass-73467_acts-of-violence_the-people-were-divided-into-the-persecu_2168962.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. 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