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Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care ... We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.

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No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not foretell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! Yes, after Dunkirk; after the fall of France; after the horrible episode of Oran; after the threat of invasion, when, apart from the Air and the Navy, we were an almost unarmed people; after the deadly struggle of the U-boat war — the first Battle of the Atlantic, gained by a hand's breadth; after seventeen months of lonely fighting and nineteen months of my responsibility in dire stress, we had won the war. England would live; Britain would live; the Commonwealth of Nations and the Empire would live. How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end, no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care. Once again in our long Island history we should emerge, however mauled or mutiliated, safe and victorious. We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end. We might not even have to die as individuals. Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.

"However this war may end, we have won the war against you; none of you will be left to bear witness, but even if some of you survive, the world would not believe him. There will perhaps be suspicions, discussions, research by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the evidence together with you. And even if some proof should remain and some of you survive, people will say that the events you describe are too monstrous to be believed: they will say they are the exaggerations of Allied propaganda and will believe us, who will deny everything, and not you. We will be the ones to dictate the history of the Lagers." — SS Officer, quoted in The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi

I believe that history has meaning. The misfortunes that have struck us cannot destroy this faith. I am certain that the Führer will find a way out of the dilemma, and that only then will the outwardly lost meaning of this war be renewed. The tests that we have to withstand today are enormous and put the German people through trials it has only seldom faced in its history. Nonetheless we must stand firm, or else everything will be lost. This war will be decided one second before midnight. Should we lay down our weapons before that, things can only go against us. Each of us knows what that would mean. Our enemy has told us that himself often and openly enough so that no one any longer can have the least doubt. If one of us now and again forgets that in the midst of the war’s events and surrenders himself and the nation to common disaster, he must be taught better by friendly reminder or firm warning. It is no time to forgive weakness or faintheartedness. Our focus is entirely and only on our people, which is in the midst of a severe life crisis. Only we can resolve this crisis. If we succeed, we win everything; if we fall, we lose everything.

“Risking One’s Own Life“, Das Reich, 15 April 1945.

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No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory…With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph — -so help us God.

When does the war end?” I asked. “Does it end? That’s the question. Who gets to say that it’s over? A war continues until the victor says it’s over.

Once war is forced upon us, there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory-not prolonged indecision.

This much was certain: Germany had agents at work inside the United States; armed American fascists were being actively supported by the Hitler government; members of Congress were colluding with a German propaganda agent to facilitate an industrial-scale Nazi information operation targeting the American people; critical U.S. munitions plants were blowing up in multiple states.

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