Declaration of war Quote by Hans Fallada
““Then he picked up the pen and said softly, but clearly, "The first sentence of our first card will read: Mother! The Führer has murdered my son."…At that instant she grasped that this very first sentence was Otto's absolute and irrevocable declaration of war, and also what that meant: war between, on the one side, the two of them, poor, small, insignificant workers who could be extinguished for just a word or two, and on the other, the Führer, the Party, the whole apparatus in all its power and glory, with three-fourths or even four-fifths of the German people behind it. And the two of them in this little room in Jablonski Strasse.””
About This Quote
Source Novel: Every Man Dies, 1939, by Hans Fallada
A desperate declaration of personal resistance against an oppressive regime, highlighting the power of words and the moral weight of defiance.
In simple terms: A small act of defiance can challenge a huge oppressive system.
Key Takeaway
Speak truth even when dangerous.
Themes
resistance
oppression
morality
power
individualism
Mood
defiant
tense
hopeful
Type
literary
political
historical
When to use this quote
- political protest
- personal diary
- secret meetings
- underground resistance
Key Concepts
totalitarianism
speech act
psychology of fear
Questions to Reflect On
- What risks are you willing to take for truth?
- How does language become a weapon?
A Different Perspective
The act may provoke harsher retaliation from the regime.
![“In fact, it's pretty dramatic when you get to 1975, very revealing, the [Vietnam] war ends. Everybody had to write something about the war, what it meant. You also had polls of public opinion, and they're dramatically different.” quote by Noam Chomsky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/0db/noam-chomsky-42_different_in-fact-it-s-pretty-dramatic-when-you-ge_1935071.jpg)
