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Generals usually know when a war is lost. The German generals had never been absolutely convinced that they could win World War II. They had only hoped to win it mainly because Hitler had promised them that the enemy armies would suffer amoral collapse and that they themselves would not have to fight a two-front war.

— Curt Martin Riess Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941)

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More quotes by Curt Martin Riess

Total war necessitates total espionage. The leadership of a country must be capable of finding out about and calculating the entire force of resistance of in opponents, military and otherwise.

Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941)

One of the principal reasons for the enmity between Himmler and Göring was Himmler’s tireless scheming to infiltrate Gestapo men into the Army Intelligence Service, and thereby to get control of it.

Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941)

Nobody knew better than Goebbels that a Propaganda Ministry was almost a contradiction in terms. Propaganda is the more effective the less people know that they are supposed to be influenced, and vice versa.

Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941)

‘We will never get anywhere,’ Goebbels wrote, perhaps remembering his discussions with Fledges, ‘if we lean on the interests of the cultured and propertied classes. Everything will come to us if we appeal to the hunger and despair of the masses.’

Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941)

Next to Goebbels, Himmler was the foremost connoisseur of Russian methods in the Nazi Party. But while the great propagandist was concerned mainly with the theory, Himmler studied the practice of the Bolshevists.

Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941)

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