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81f8308
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No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.
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William L. Shirer |
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2b4bc48
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In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on and uninhabited planet.
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war
nuclear-weapons
weaponry
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William L. Shirer |
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b58466c
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Adolf Hitler is probably the last of the great adventurer-conquerors in the tradition of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon, and the Third Reich the last of the empires which set out on the path taken earlier by France, Rome and Macedonia. The curtain was rung down on that phase of history, at least, by the sudden invention of the hydrogen bomb, of the ballistic missile and of rockets that can be aimed to hit the moon.
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war
history
hitler
third-reich
weapons
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William L. Shirer |
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c26d420
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I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though unlike most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, especially those of London, Paris and Zurich, which arrived the day after publication, and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day in combing the German press, checking the G..
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William L. Shirer |
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2149523
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It is difficult to understand the behavior of most German Protestants in the first Nazi years unless one is aware of two things: their history and the influence of Martin Luther.* The great founder of Protestantism was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absolute obedience to political authority. He wanted Germany rid of the Jews and when they were sent away he advised that they be deprived of "all their cash and jewel..
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William L. Shirer |
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cb4604d
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The power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone. The broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech.
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William L. Shirer |
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e077372
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To all the millions of discontented Hitler in a whirlwind campaign offered what seemed to them, in their misery, some measure of hope. He would make Germany strong again, refuse to pay reparations, repudiate the Versailles Treaty, stamp out corruption, bring the money barons to heel (especially if they were Jews) and see to it that every German had a job and bread.
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William L. Shirer |
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8a0d3cc
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Without screaming or weeping these people undressed, stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said farewells and waited for a sign from another S.S. man, who stood near the pit, also with a whip in his hand. During the fifteen minutes that I stood near the pit I heard no complaint or plea for mercy... An old woman with snow-white hair was holding a one-year-old child in her arms and singing to it and tickling it. The child was cooi..
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William L. Shirer |
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d9a24a6
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I suppose every government that has ever gone to war has tried to convince its people of three things: (1) that right is on its side; (2) that it is fighting purely in defence of the nation; (3) that it is sure to win.
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William L. Shirer |
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e12712b
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LONDON, March 16 Ed telephoned from Vienna. He said Major Emil Fey has committed suicide after putting bullets through his wife and nineteen-year-old son. He was a sinister man. Undoubtedly he feared the Nazis would murder him for having double-crossed them in 1934 when Dollfuss was shot. I return to Vienna day after tomorrow. The crisis is over. I think we've found something, though, for radio with these round-ups.
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William L. Shirer |
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d323f75
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The trial, despite the subserviency of the court to the Nazi authorities, cast a great deal of suspicion on Goering and the Nazis, but it came too late to have any practical effect. For Hitler had lost no time in exploiting the Reichstag fire to the limit. On the day following the fire, February 28, he prevailed on President Hindenburg to sign a decree "for the Protection of the People and the State" suspending the seven sections of the c..
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William L. Shirer |
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7a06e30
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Most Germans, so far as I could see, did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their splendid culture was being destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work were being regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation ... On the whole, people did not seem to feel that they were being cowed a..
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nazism
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William L. Shirer |
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61a7de0
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The street gangs," in the words of Alan Bullock, "had seized control of the resources of a great modern State, the gutter had come to power." But--as Hitler never ceased to boast--"legally," by an overwhelming vote of Parliament. The Germans had no one to blame but themselves."
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William L. Shirer |
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56f9c01
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Although millions more had jobs, the share of all German workers in the national income fell from 56.9 per cent in the depression year of 1932 to 53.6 per cent in the boom year of 1938.
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William L. Shirer |
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0275b7c
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In retrospect, it is easy to see that Hitler's successful gamble in the Rhineland brought him a victory more staggering and more fatal in its immense consequences than could be comprehended at the time. At home it fortified his popularity and his power, raising them to heights which no German ruler of the past had ever enjoyed. It assured his ascendancy over his generals, who had hesitated and weakened at a moment of crisis when he had held..
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William L. Shirer |
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36cfecf
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In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.
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William L. Shirer |
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883490f
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One of them was Fritz Thyssen, one of the earliest and biggest contributors to the party. Fleeing the "Nazi regime has ruined German industry." And to all he met abroad he proclaimed, "What a fool ( Dummkopf ) I was!"
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politics
fritz-thyssen
world-war-2
third-reich
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William L. Shirer |
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b82906d
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despite one's inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one's mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime's calculated and incessant propaganda.
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William L. Shirer |
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8b02750
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In his case, what had been hardness became cruelty, while a tendency to bluff became plain dishonesty. He often lied without hesitation and assumed that others lied to him.
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William L. Shirer |
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73b9ac5
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This of course was heresy to Hitler, who accused Otto Strasser of professing the cardinal sins of "democracy and liberalism."
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William L. Shirer |
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cba7619
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Between the Left and the Right, Germany lacked a politically powerful middle class, which in other countries--in France, in England, in the United States--had proved to be the backbone of democracy.
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William L. Shirer |
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1f2fbae
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The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 per cent of the vote. But the 63 per cent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however ..
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William L. Shirer |
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be71490
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Nietzsche put the idea this way: "Man shall be trained for war and woman for the procreation of the warrior. All else is folly." He went further. In Thus Spake Zarathustra he exclaims: "Thou goest to woman? Do not forget thy whip!"--which"
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William L. Shirer |
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0631960
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Hitler's scholastic failure rankled in him in later life, when he heaped ridicule on the academic "gentry," their degrees and diplomas and their pedagogical airs. Even"
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William L. Shirer |
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5633085
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Had the eighty-four-year-old wandering miller not made his unexpected reappearance to recognize the paternity of his thirty-nine-year-old-son nearly thirty years after the death of the mother, Adolf Hitler would have been born Adolf Schicklgruber. There may not be much or anything in the name, but I have heard Germans speculate whether Hitler could have become the master of Germany had he been known to the world as Schicklgruber.
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William L. Shirer |
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f0a7ea3
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Fascinating to watch the reactions of people suddenly seized by fear. Some can't take it. They let themselves go to a point of hysteria, then in panic flee to--God knows where. Most take it, with various degrees of courage and coolness. In the lobby tonight: the newspapermen milling around trying to get telephone calls through the one lone operator. Jews excitedly trying to book on the last plane or train. The wildest rumours coming in with..
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William L. Shirer |
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8208af8
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The republican regime, as well as the Marxists and the Jews, was "the enemy." And in his peroration he had shouted, "To this struggle of ours there are only two possible issues: either the enemy passes over our bodies or we pass over theirs!"
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William L. Shirer |
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6149478
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In the Third Reich every German girl will find a husband!
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William L. Shirer |
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70e10e4
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In this period the Prime Minister had great confidence in the Fuehrer's word, remarking privately a day or two later, "In spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I saw in his face, I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word."46"
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William L. Shirer |
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798afa7
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To some Germans and, no doubt, to most foreigners it appeared that a charlatan had come to power in Berlin. To the majority of Germans Hitler had -- or would shortly assume -- the aura of a truly charismatic leader. They were to follow him blindly, as if he possessed a divine judgment, for the next twelve tempestuous years.
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nazi-germany
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William L. Shirer |
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66b95ae
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Hitler had lost no time in exploiting the Reichstag fire to the limit. On the day following the fire, February 28, he prevailed on President Hindenburg to sign a decree "for the Protection of the People and the State" suspending the seven sections of the constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties. Described as a "defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state," the decree laid down that: Restric..
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William L. Shirer |
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026eb51
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There was some ground for this appropriation of Nietzsche as one of the originators of the Nazi Weltanschauung. Had not the philosopher thundered against democracy and parliaments, preached the will to power, praised war and proclaimed the coming of the master race and the superman--and in the most telling aphorisms?
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William L. Shirer |
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e83b5e9
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Society has never regarded virtue as anything else than as a means to strength, power and order. The State [is] unmorality organized... the will to war, to conquest and revenge... Society is not entitled to exist for its own sake but only as a substructure and scaffolding, by means of which a select race of beings may elevate themselves to their higher duties... There is no such thing as the right to live, the right to work, or the right to..
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William L. Shirer |
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c744262
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Struck by the ugliness of the German women on the streets and in restaurants and cafes. As a race they are certainly the least attractive in Europe. They have no ankles. They walk badly. They dress worse than English women used to. Off to Danzig tonight.
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William L. Shirer |
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2a70b64
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I love books. They connect you with the past and the present, with original minds and noble spirits, with what living has been and meant to others. They instruct, inspire, shake you up, make you laugh and weep, think and dream. But while they do enhance experience, they are not a substitute for it.
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connect
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William L. Shirer |
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faa7092
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The middle classes, grown prosperous by the belated but staggering development of the industrial revolution and dazzled by the success of Bismarck's policy of force and war, had traded for material gain any aspirations for political freedom they may have had.
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William L. Shirer |
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0f2a16d
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On the streets today gangs of Jews, with jeering storm troopers standing over them and taunting crowds around them, on their hands and knees scrubbing the Schuschnigg signs off the sidewalks. Many Jews killing themselves. All sorts of reports of Nazi sadism, and from the Austrians it surprises me. Jewish men and women made to clean latrines. Hundreds of them just picked at random off the streets to clean the toilets of the Nazi boys. The lu..
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William L. Shirer |
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d2254cf
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In Berlin, Stauffenberg and his confederates had at last perfected their plans. They were lumped under the code name "Valkyrie"--an appropriate term, since the Valkyrie were the maidens in Norse-German mythology, beautiful but terrifying, who were supposed to have hovered over the ancient battlefields choosing those who would be slain. In this case, Adolf Hitler was to be slain. Ironically enough, Admiral Canaris, before his fall, had sold ..
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William L. Shirer |
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f67668f
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After December 1, horses, cows, and pigs not residing on regular farms are to get food cards too.
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William L. Shirer |
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d004001
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Many of the books tossed into the flames in Berlin that night by the joyous students under the approving eye of Dr. Goebbels had been written by authors of world reputation.
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William L. Shirer |
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943d8c5
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Hitler delivered petulant speeches that fall warning the outside world and particularly the British to mind their own business and to quit concerning themselves "with the fate of Germans within the frontiers of the Reich."
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William L. Shirer |
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0b9852e
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Deprived of his trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike, the German worker in the Third Reich became an industrial serf, bound to his master, the employer, much as medieval peasants had been bound to the lord of the manor. The so-called Labor Front, which in theory replaced the old trade unions, did not represent the worker.
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William L. Shirer |
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c446a0a
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The skins of concentration camp prisoners, especially executed for this ghoulish purpose, had merely decorative value. They made, it was found, excellent lamp shades, several of which were expressly fitted up for Frau Ilse Koch, the wife of the commandant of Buchenwald and nicknamed by the inmates the "Bitch of Buchenwald."*"
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William L. Shirer |
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3731aaa
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After midnight and no air-raid,
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William L. Shirer |