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Our country undergoes periodic episodes of extreme intolerance and fear of foreigners, refugees in particular. Not only were people of Japanese descent placed in internment camps during World War II, but so were some Italians and Germans.
Richard Cohen /
Camps
Descent
Episodes
Foreigners
Internment
Intolerance
World War Ii
Extreme
War Fear World
Germans
Italians
Periodic
Placed
Refugees
World War
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We all need Europe, not just those of us in Europe. And we Germans need Europe more than the others. Germany is the country with the longest border, the most neighbours, and is, by population and economic strength, the number one in Europe.
Helmut Kohl / Former Chancellor Of Germany
Germany
Population
Border
Economic Strength
Germans
Longest
Neighbours
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One thing about Italians is you can't let them in your head. They're inquisitive. The English and Germans are a dog tribe; the Italians are cats. They're very helpful, but it's in their own rhythm, their own way, and it can drive you crazy.
Terence Trent D'arby /
Inquisitive
Rhythm
Cats
Germans
Italians
Tribe
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People in Tel Aviv can not imagine, but in 1990, here in Leipzig or Dresden, whoever wanted to buy a car had to wait 14 years. The East Germans worked like people in the West, but the fruits of their labor were harvested by a criminal regime.
Helmut Kohl / Former Chancellor Of Germany
Labor
Criminal
Fruits
Germans
Regime
Whoever
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In the early hours of 16 December 1944, the Germans launched their last great offensive of the Second World War against weakly held U.S. positions in the Ardennes Forest, the site of their original Blitzkrieg success against the French in 1940.
Saul David /
December
Offensive
Second World War
Site
Success War Great
Forest
Germans
Held
Positions
World War
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John Paul was the first modern pope to grow up in a secular culture: He attended public schools, danced with girls - indeed, as a teenager he had a crush on a beautiful Jewish girl who fled his hometown just ahead of the arrival of the Germans.
Carl Bernstein / Journalist
Girl
Beautiful
Crush
Hometown
John Paul
Pope
Secular
Jewish
Ahead
Arrival
Attended
Danced
Germans
Grow Up
Indeed
Paul
Public Schools
Schools
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For if the Germans do not help defend the West, American and Canadian troops must cross the seas to do the job, and I venture to believe that the troops - if not the statesmen - regard this as an interference at least in their own domestic affairs.
Arthur Hays Sulzberger / Newspaper Publisher
Interference
Regard
Statesmen
Troops
Venture
Affairs
Cross
Defend
Domestic
Germans
Least
Seas
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We British and Americans have never been conquered and occupied by the Germans, or forced to make the choice between defiance and collaboration, or haunted by the choices, evasions and moral ambiguities that only a defeated and occupied country can feel.
Michael Korda / Writer
Ambiguity
Collaboration
Defeated
Defiance
Conquered
Forced
Germans
Haunted
Occupied
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Foreign writers - especially Germans - often feel that Shakespeare is really one of them, that he was somehow accidentally born in the wrong country. In much the same way, leftists sense in their bones that he was a radical, rightists that he was a Tory.
Daniel Hannan / British Politician
Bones
Radical
Accidentally
Country Way Feel
Germans
Shakespeare
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There's a reason that there are oodles of young Aussies, Germans, Japanese, even Chinese backpackers traipsing around the world. They are unencumbered by debilitating student loans. No such luck for the American Theater Arts major with $120,000 in loans.
J. Maarten Troost / Writer
Chinese
Luck
Debilitating
Student
Germans
Japanese
Loans
Student Loans
Unencumbered
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The necessity for rules and strictness is a way of dealing with an enormously powerful impulse: Germans are among the most emotional people on the planet. Maybe it has to do with the fact that, as a nation, they are always drawn back to nature and the forest.
Simon Rattle / Conductor
Impulse
Nature Always People
Nature People Way
Dealing
Drawn
Nature People Always
Forest
Germans
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Notionally a left-wing movement, the Anti-Germans were born after the collapse of the Berlin wall. While most Germans rejoiced at the end of the Cold War, the Anti-Germans feared that a united Germany might lead to a fourth Reich - and a return of anti-Semitism.
Luke Harding / Journalist
Anti Semitism
Berlin
Berlin Wall
Cold
Cold War
Collapse
Fourth
Germany
Left Wing
Return
Wall
Feared
Germans
Reich
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Our chemical and other manufacturing concerns are all too often ready to let the Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American companies can work out an arrangement which will enable them to charge high prices to the consumer inside the United States.
Henry A. Wallace / Former Vice President Of The United States
Latin
Latin American
Manufacturing
Ready
United States
Work Out
American Companies
Arrangement
Charge
Chemical
Companies
Concerns
Consumer
Enable
Germans
Prices
Provided
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'Il faut vivre' might almost be the French national motto from 1940 to June 1944, but who is to say ours would have been any different if the Germans had paraded victoriously through London and Generalfeldmarschall Von Runstedt made his headquarters at Claridge's?
Michael Korda / Writer
Headquarters
June
Motto
Germans
Ours
Von
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Germany, because of the fact and the perception of a special relationship with Russia, is the only one who can influence Russian debate. Russians also believe that Germans understand them best because they've been through a big war and know what humiliation means.
Ivan Krastev / Author
Debate
Germany
Humiliation
Influence
Perception
Russia
Special
Germans
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My first time in Germany. We started off in Heidelberg, which is this quaint, nice town. The Germans, they shoot just like the Americans, except for, if it's a 10-hour day, they're leaving at 5. You don't go to 5:30, 6, 7. No. And then we had a fest for everything.
Craig Robinson /
Germany
Quaint
Time Day First Time
Germans
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The fantastic thing about the memorial to the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel is that it's one of the rare examples where they've preserved a battlefield more or less as it was. You can see all the trenches, where the British were, where the Germans lined up.
Michael Winter /
British
Memorial
Trenches
Battlefield
Rare
Examples
Germans
Lined
More Or Less
Preserved
Regiment
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With millions of family wage manufacturing jobs lost since 2001, we need an energy bill that takes bold action to tap into American ingenuity in order to lead the world in new clean energy technology, rather than playing catch-up to the Japanese, Danish, and Germans.
Jay Inslee / Governor Of Washington
Jobs
Technology
Action
Clean
Clean Energy
Danish
Ingenuity
Lost
Manufacturing
Millions
Order
Bill
Bold
Tap
Energy Bill
Lead
Germans
Japanese
Manufacturing Jobs
Wage
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Poland is a wildly dramatic and tragic story. It's just unbelievable what went on with those people. How they survive, I don't really know. The Germans had a particular hatred for the Poles; they really considered them subhuman Slavs, and they were very brutal to them.
Alan Furst / Author
Brutal
Dramatic
Particular
Poland
Tragic
Unbelievable
Considered
People Know Story
Germans
Survive
Wildly
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In 1939, Fitzroy Maclean, a gangly Highland aristocrat in his early 30s, was serving as a British diplomat in the U.S.S.R. Disgusted by the Soviet show trials, he quit the Foreign Service and would go on to serve with Tito's partisans fighting the Germans in Yugoslavia.
Alistair Horne /
British
Disgusted
Fighting
Foreign Service
Soviet
Trials
Yugoslavia
Aristocrat
Diplomat
Gangly
Germans
Quit
Serve
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As a young man, every bone in my body wanted to pick up a machine gun and kill Germans. And yet I had absolutely no reason to do so. Certainly nobody invited me to do the job. But that's what I felt that I was trained to do. Now no part of my upbringing was militaristic.
Pete Townshend / Musician
Jobs
Men
Gun
Invited
Machines
No Reason
Upbringing
Young Man
Bone
Germans
Machine Gun
Pick
Trained
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In 1942, the Germans were running out of fuel. They were advancing so fast across the grasslands, the hot grasslands of south Russia, and the Russians were running out of tanks. And so both of them turned to cavalry, and there were great cavalry battles on the grasslands.
Simon Sebag-Montefiore / Journalist
Running
Advancing
Cavalry
Fuel
Russia
Tanks
Across
Battles
Fast
Germans
Turned
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The Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers - just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians - by right of birth. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery.
Jules Verne / Novelist
Audacious
Birth
Engineers
Ingenuity
Perceive
Yankees
Applying
Germans
Italians
Musicians
Therefore
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During a few days' halt near Vesontio for the provision of corn and other supplies, a panic arose from inquiries made by our troops and remarks uttered by Gauls and traders, who affirmed that the Germans were men of a mighty frame and an incredible valour and skill at arms.
Julius Caesar / Roman Dictator
Arms
Corn
Halt
Panic
Provision
Remarks
Supplies
Troops
Valour
Frame
Germans
Mighty
Near
Skill
Uttered
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At the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century in Austria, there was a lot of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism in Austria was much more pervasive than in Germany. And Austrians took to Nazi ideas and anti-Semitism much more readily than Germans did, really.
Viggo Mortensen / Actor
Anti Semitism
Austria
Century
Germany
Half
Ideas
Germans
Pervasive
Readily
Took
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When I was very young, I remember my mother telling me about a friend of hers in Germany, a pianist who played a symphony that wasn't permitted, and the Germans came up on stage and broke every finger on her hands. I grew up with stories of Nazis breaking the fingers of Jews.
Steven Spielberg / Film Director
Broke
Germany
Hands
Mother
Pianist
Symphony
Mother Me Remember
Breaking
Finger
Germans
Hers
Jews
Permitted
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The former West Germany was a semi-sovereign political pygmy, protected by America's military might and with barely any foreign policy of its own. As a result, the country has no machinery or tradition of strategic thinking, and most Germans are loth to see their government take the lead.
Zanny Minton Beddoes /
Foreign Policy
Germany
Machinery
Protected
Strategic
Tradition
Barely
Germans
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Conservatives, in general, are anti-immigrant for the same reasons they have always been anti-immigrant - a proud tradition in our nation of immigrants going back to the days of the Founders, when Ben Franklin thought we were going to be overrun by Germans. But Business likes illegal workers.
Molly Ivins / Columnist
Founders
Illegal
Immigrants
Likes
Tradition
Workers
Ben
Conservatives
Germans
Overrun
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After World War II it was decided that, in order to prevent the Germans and the French from having another war, it would be better to tie them together into one economic pact so they would invest in each other and have mutual stakes. Until now, that has worked to prevent warfare between the two.
Frans De Waal / Primatologist
War
Mutual
Order
Pact
Stakes
Two
Warfare
World War Ii
War Together World
Invest
French
Germans
Prevent
Tie
World War
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My mother and I were part of a deal in the mid-'60s between Romania and Israel. Israel bought freedom for Romanian Jews for $2,000 a head. Ceausescu made a bundle in hard currency. He also 'sold' ethnic Germans to West Germany. Instead of going to Israel, my mother and I came to the United States.
Andrei Codrescu / Poet
Currency
Germany
Israel
Romania
Bought
Bundle
Ethnic
Germans
Jews
Sold
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The Security Council represents the situation from 1945 - you had the Allies who won the war who occupied that. The defeated guys - the Germans and Japan - were out. The occupied countries had no voice. That was fine in '45, but today, Germany rules Europe, frankly. They are driving Europe but have no voice.
Mo Ibrahim / Entrepreneur
Allies
Council
Defeated
Fine
Germany
Japan
Security
Security Council
Rules
Won
Frankly
Germans
Occupied
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David Beckham is a patriot, and I am sure he will help in any way he can. Beckham needs to be part of any future plans to remould the England set-up. Beckham and players like him need to be integrated into the set-up in the same way that the Germans take on board former players from Beckenbauer to Rummenigge.
Gordon Taylor / Footballer
Beckham
Former
Integrated
Patriot
Plans
Future I Am Will
Future I Am Way
David
Board
Germans
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In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.
Noam Chomsky / Linguist
Respect
Ants
Crushed
Evil
Hysteria
Imaginary
Mere
Propaganda
Self
Teenager
Treated
Vermin
Appalled
Blond
Early
Germans
Japanese
Self-Image
Types
Utterly
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At the outset of the creation of the euro in 1999, it was expected that the southern eurozone economies would behave like those in the north; the Italians would behave like Germans. They didn't. Instead, northern Europe fell into subsidizing southern Europe's excess consumption, that is, its current account deficits.
Alan Greenspan / Economist
Behave
Consumption
Creation
Euro
Eurozone
Excess
Expected
Account
Current
Deficits
Economies
Germans
Italians
Northern
Outset
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Here in Russia,, in many cities, people are irritated by Caucasian intrusion. Caucasians come from foreign countries; they are ubiquitous: in markets, shops, hotels, restaurants. They misbehave, and in this sense we have feelings similar to those that the Germans have toward the Turks and the French toward Algerians.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky / Russian Politician
Caucasian
Cities
Foreign Countries
Intrusion
Irritated
Restaurants
Russia
Shops
French
Countries
Germans
Hotels
Misbehave
Similar
Toward
Turks
Ubiquitous
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I don't know about Mario Balotelli saying, 'Why always me?' - England should be saying as a nation, 'Why always us?' You can go back to 1970, when Gordon Banks got food poisoning and we lost to West Germany. Then there was 1986 and Maradona's hand. And last time, Frank Lampard not getting his goal against the Germans.
Glenn Hoddle / Soccer Player
England
Frank
Germany
Last Time
Lost
Mario
Poisoning
West
Time Food Always
Time Food Me
Banks
Nation
Germans
Gordon
Hand
Last
Saying
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The spring of 1942 was given over to a very impassioned, strategic debate about where we should first attack in counterpunching against the Germans and Italians. The British argued very persuasively on the part of Winston Churchill, prime minister, that this was a very green American Army, green soldiers, green commanders.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Army
Debate
Green
Impassioned
Prime Minister
Soldier
Spring
Strategic
Argued
Attack
Churchill
Germans
Italians
Minister
Soldiers
Winston
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One has to explain to people that the EU in this form is the answer both to 1945 and to the 21st century, in a dramatically altered world with new heavyweights, and that Germany benefits from the continued integration of Europe in political, economic and societal ways. And, of course, that means the Germans will have to pay.
Peer Steinbruck / Former Federal Ministry Of Finance (Germany)
Altered
Benefits
Germany
Integration
World Political People
Political World People
Dramatically
Eu
Explain
Heavyweight
Germans
Societal
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The Russians as a people had no point of conflict with the Germans; the conflict came from their respective imperialistic policies. When the Russian people learned that imperialism was historically wrong, they set up a revolution in 1917 and overthrew imperialism at home. They then negotiated for peace separately with Germany.
Sun Yat-Sen / Politician
Conflict
Germany
No Point
Revolution
Germans
Historically
Imperialistic
Policies
Respective
Russian People
Separately
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I had an uncle who was a postal official at the Polish post office in Gdansk. He was one of the defenders of the Polish postal service and, after it capitulated, was shot by the Germans under the provisions of martial law. Suddenly he was no longer a member of the family, and we were no longer allowed to play with his children.
Gunter Grass / Novelist
Family
Uncles
Children
Defenders
Law
Office
Play
Polish
Post Office
After
Allowed
Shot
Germans
Longer
Martial
Member
Post
Provisions
Service
Suddenly
Uncle
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Germany's hierarchical reverence for seniority may have something to do with the fact that everything here happens relatively late. Germans start school at six, graduate in their late 20s, and get their first proper jobs in their 30s. Adolescence can go on a long time. It is rare for anyone to achieve responsibility before their 50s.
Luke Harding / Journalist
Jobs
Achieve
Adolescence
Germany
Late
Long Time
Responsibility
Reverence
School
Seniority
Six
Anyone
Before
Rare
Time Long Start
Time Responsibility Long
Fact
Germans
Graduate
Hierarchical
Relatively
Proper
Start
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Nationalism in Norway was very strong in 1905, that we must be free of Sweden. But I must say, I'm not 100 percent sure that was a wise decision. We had the war; we were occupied by Germans from 1940 to '45. And if there had been one Scandinavian country, then it would not have been so very easy probably to go ahead with the occupation.
Olav Thon /
Wise
Nationalism
Norway
Occupation
Sweden
Germans
Scandinavian
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Would I have voted to leave the European Union? Yes, I would. My theory there is that Britain was fed up having won two World Wars against the Germans and had reached the boiling and breaking point of being told where to live and what to do by a bunch of bureaucrats in Belgium. It was out of that frustration that the vote to leave was made.
Robin Leach / Actor
Belgium
Boiling
Bureaucrats
European Union
Fed Up
Frustration
Voted
Breaking
Fed
Germans
Reached
World Wars
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When the U.S. team went on its historic run to the World Cup quarter-finals in 2002, I was thirteen years old. Each game in that run - the astonishing victory against Portugal, the resilient win over Mexico, even the gutsy but unlucky effort against the Germans - propelled me to push my other athletic interests aside and focus only on soccer.
Clint Smith /
Astonishing
Effort
Focus
Historic
Mexico
Portugal
Resilient
Soccer
Thirteen
Unlucky
World Cup
Aside
Cup
Germans
Interests
Push
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I felt like the Germans were being mean to me at training, but they were actually just trying to help. I learned really quick - which made me a better player. I'm appreciative of the way they treated me. It's just the language and, of course, as an American, I had to learn that. No offense to them; I love them to death, and I love my teammates.
Ali Krieger / Soccer Player
Appreciative
Being Mean
Offense
Love Death Me
Teammates
Better Player
Germans
Quick
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