[Peace-discuss] "All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked...

[Jim Buell]

Interesting. I was all but ready to respond that the quote was, alas, bogus 
(like the similar one purportedly from Julius Caesar) - which is what I'd 
learned when trying to look it up online a few months ago. However, it was 
indeed uttered. The confusion stems from the fact that, while Goering is 
claimed to have said this during the Nuremberg proceedings, it doesn't 
appear in the documentation. But according to the "Urban Legends Reference" 
at www.snopes.com - a _superb_ source regarding the accuracy of information 
on the internet:

>The quote cited above does not appear in transcripts of the Nuremberg 
>trials because although Goering spoke these words during the course of the 
>proceedings, he did not offer them at his trial. His comments were made 
>privately to Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and 
>psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the 
>prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. Gilbert kept a journal of his 
>observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, 
>which he later published in the book Nuremberg Diary. The quote offered 
>above was part of a conversation Gilbert held with a dejected Hermann 
>Goering in his cell on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were 
>halted for a three-day Easter recess:

The full details are at http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

jb

At 07:31 AM 2/20/2003 -0800, Chuck Minne wrote:
>"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a 
>farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is 
>to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't 
>want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in 
>Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the 
>country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag 
>the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or 
>a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people 
>can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you 
>have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the 
>peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It 
>works the same in any country."
>
>Infamous Quote from Hermann Goering
>(1893-1946) Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of the 
>Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia and, as Hitler 's designated 
>successor, the second man in the Third Reich.