“It is interesting but it was tragic. If you receive a military order you must obey. That is where the big difference between a military and a political order comes in. One can sabotage a political order but to disobey a military command is treason.”

To Leon Goldensohn (25 June 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews", Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellatel (2004).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is interesting but it was tragic. If you receive a military order you must obey. That is where the big difference be…" by Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist?

Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist4

German general during World War II 1881–1954

Related quotes

“In the United States… a handful of corporations centralize decisions and responsibilities that are relevant for military and political as well as economic developments of global significance. For nowadays the military and the political cannot be separated from economic considerations of power. We now live not in an economic order or a political order, but in a political economy that is closely linked with military institutions and decisions. This is obvious in the repeated "oil crisis" in the Middle East, or in the relevance of Southeast Asia and African resources for the Western powers…”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

Character & Social Structure (1954).
1950s

“The entire military is loyal to the nation, loyal to the constitution and executes orders in accordance with the law. This must not be questioned.”

Fang Mao-hung (1963)

Source: Fang Mao-hung (2021) cited in " ‘Begonia’ map on military insignia must go: legislator http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201810300006.aspx" on Taipei Times, 14 December 2021.

“We must distinguish between military and political power.
Political power is a psychological relation between those who exercise it and those over whom it is exercised. It gives the former control over certain actions of the latter through the influence which the former exert over the latter's minds. That influence may be exerted through orders, threats, persuasion, or a combination of any of these.”

Hans Morgenthau book Politics Among Nations

Source: Politics Among Nations (1948), p. 27 (1954 edition)

“Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

War is a racket (1935)

“On March 19, 1945 Hitler issued a general order that all military, industrial, transportation and communication installations as well as all stores in Germany must be destroyed in order to prevent them from falling intact into the hands of the enemy. The measures were to be carried out by the military with the help of the Nazi gauleiters and "commissars for defense."”

William L. Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

"All directives opposing this," the order concluded, "are invalid."
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)

“Budget and fiscal transparency are necessary tools to prevent the hijacking of the international order by the international military-industrial complex.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order exploring the adverse impacts of military expenditures on the realization of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx. <br class="br">2015, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

“We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

"The Vietnam Negotiations", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 2 (January 1969), p. 214; also quoted as "A conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerilla army wins if he does not lose."
1960s
Context: We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win. The North Vietnamese used their armed forces the way a bull-fighter uses his cape — to keep us lunging in areas of marginal political importance.

“The main thing for our (military) business it's always to maintain a sense of military-political realism. If you go beyond it, then sooner or later the reality of history will hit you so hard that you'll regret it.”

Mikhail Khodaryonok (1954) Colonel of the Russian Armed Forces

“1. There is Nato intervention politically as well as military.”

Muammar Gaddafi book The Green Book

The Green Book (1975), Letter to Barack Obama

“A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.”

Isaac Asimov book Runaround

"Runaround" in Astounding Science Fiction (March 1942); later published in I, Robot (1950)
The Three Laws of Robotics (1942)

“It is interesting but it was tragic. If you receive a military order you must obey. That is where the big difference between a military and a political order comes in. One can sabotage a political order but to disobey a military command is treason.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist4

Related quotes

Related topics