Explore popular quotes and sayings by a German author Franz Halder.
Last updated on November 5, 2024.
Franz Halder was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and implementation of Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Halder became instrumental in the radicalisation of warfare on the Eastern Front. He had his staff draft both the Commissar Order and the Barbarossa Decree that allowed German soldiers to execute Soviet citizens for any reason without fear of later prosecution, leading to numerous war crimes and atrocities during the campaign. After the war, he had a decisive role in the development of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.
The finishing off of the encircled enemy army is to be left to the Luftwaffe.
The war against Russia is an important chapter in the German nation's struggle for existence. [...] The objective of this battle must be the demolition of present-day Russia and must therefore be conducted with unprecedented severity. Every military action must be guided in planning and execution by an iron resolution to exterminate the enemy remorselessly and totally. In particular, no adherents of the contemporary Russian Bolshevik system are to be spared.
Whenever I go and see the Führer, I've got a loaded pistol in my pocket.
Bad weather has grounded the Luftwaffe and now we must stand by and watch countless thousands of the enemy getting away to England under our noses.
... the reason is that a military defeat of Britain will bring about the disintegration of the British Empire. This would not be of any benefit to Germany.
The left-wing, which consists of armoured and motorized forces and has no enemy in front of it, will be stopped dead in its tracks upon direct order from the Fuhrer.
The Führer confirms my impressions of yesterday. He would like an understanding with Great Britain. He knows that war with the British will be hard and bloody, and knows also that people everywhere today are averse to bloodshed.