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Christianity regarded all earthly existence as transient, while the Nazi thought in terms of rendering life eternal through a sort of biological Great Chain of Being. The individual was nothing, but the racial collective would endure through the aeons.

— Michael Burleigh The Third Reich: A New History (2000)

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More quotes by Michael Burleigh

Many of history’s murderers have staked out the moral high ground, killing for love of confession or country, or in the name of social equality.

The Third Reich: A New History (2000)

The Nazis offered a combination of economic nationalism with unorthodox anti-cyclical measures to stimulate employment.

The Third Reich: A New History (2000)

For, despite its egalitarian rhetoric, Nazi Germany eschewed the doctrine of aggressive class war, whatever revolutionist animosities lingered, against the limp bourgeoisie in general.

The Third Reich: A New History (2000)

Nazi ideology offered redemption from a national ontological crisis, to which it was attracted like a predatory shark to blood.

The Third Reich: A New History (2000)

By 1930, Nazi students had a majority in the unions of nine universities; by 1931 they had seized control of the national Deutsche Studentenschaft

The Third Reich: A New History (2000)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Michael Burleigh (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.