General Halder:

Some interestign quotes I've used before but always find timely:

Some notes from German Chief of the General Staff Franz Halder on Hitler before he was fired during the Russian campaign:

"The continual underestimation of enemy possibilities takes on grotesque forms and is becoming dangerous. Serious work has become impossible here. Pathelogical reactions to momentary impressions and a complete lack of capacity to assess the situation and its possibilities give this so-called 'leadership' a most particular character.

Hilter's decisions had ceased to have anything in common with the priciples of strategy and operations as they have been recognized for generations past. There were the product of a violent nature following momentary impulses, which recognized no limits to possibility and made its wishdreams the father of its acts. . . "

When Hitler fired Halder he told him, "We need National Socialist ardor now, not professional ability. I cannot expect this of an offcier of the old-school such as you."

"So spoke," Halder wrote, "not a responsible warlord but a political fanatic."