The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Hate Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

At that time [1941] we did not value the mass of humanity as we value it today, as raw material, as labor. What after all, thinking in terms of generations, is not to be regretted but is now deplorable by reason of the loss of labor, is that the prisoners died in tens and hundreds of thousands of exhaustion and hunger. (5.27.120)

Himmler's referring to the "tens and hundreds of thousands" of Russian prisoners whom the Nazis allowed to die in the early months of their war on the Eastern front. As you can see, he didn't care about the value of those tens and hundreds of thousands of people as human beings, but rather as "raw material, as labor." It was a waste of potential slaves to have killed them.

Quote #11

There were some ten million Jews living in 1939 in the territories occupied by Hitler's forces. By any estimate it is certain that nearly half of them were exterminated by the Germans. This was the final consequence and the shattering cost of the aberration which came over the Nazi dictator in his youthful gutter days in Vienna and which he imparted to—or shared with—so many of his German followers. (5.27.301)

Shirer offers a few different estimates as to the number of Jews who were murdered by the Nazis during the Shoah. Although he hesitates to endorse one number over another, most of the estimates come close to the figure that's generally agreed upon today: six million Jews killed. This was the ultimate result of Hitler's hate, but Shirer again gets in his idea that the German people were complicit.