Quote by John Keegan

“Indeed, after the war, German commanders being debriefed confirmed that they had been ordered to stop about eight miles outside Dunkirk. “My tanks were…

— Thomas E Ricks

“From the German point of view the military misery came from Louis being someone who, like many unattractive people, spends too much time staring…

— Simon Winder

“Of the two classes of Prussian officer, the bull-necked and the wasp-waisted, he belonged to the second. Monocled and effete in appearance, cold and…

— Barbara Tuchman

“The undeniable tactical skills and successes of the twentieth-century German military often obscure a greater truth: in wars the Germans always met defeat.”

— Geoffrey Jensen

“The biggest mistake made by German commanders was to have underestimated ‘Ivan’, the ordinary Red Army soldier. They quickly found that surrounded or outnumbered…

— Antony Beevor

“As the army arrived in the region, the otherwise obedient West Prussian citizens stoned the troops, denouncing the men in spiked helmets as a…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“German resistance continued to present a hodgepodge of fanaticism amid disorder. A British patrol entering a deserted village east of Valenciennes in the northern…

— Joseph E. Persico

“General Jacques de Bollardière, a distinguished soldier who had fought in Norway, at El Alamein, with the maquis in the Ardennes as well as…

— Alistair Horne

“the millions of shells, rather than destroying German defenses, had churned the ground between the attackers and the defenders into a boot-sucking bog.”

— Joseph E. Persico

“His order [Hitler's] to stand firm not only created clarity about what the army was doing but also had some effect in improving morale.…

— Richard J. Evans

“Germany’s highest commander succumbed to a disease common among senior soldiers of many nationalities and eras: he wished to demonstrate to his government and…

— Max Hastings

“He had believed the life of an officer was easy, full of undeserved privilege and comfort. He had not seen the responsibility that the…

— Paul Fraser Collard