Diplomacy Quote
Raoul Nordling: You'd rather not look reality in the eye?
GÚnÚral von Choltitz: Whose reality, yours or mine?
Raoul Nordling: The reality that destroying Paris is absurd.
GÚnÚral von Choltitz: Yours then.
Raoul Nordling: Not mine alone. The world is watching you. In the end, you, General Dietrich von Choltitz, will be held responsible. And for what? To delay the Allied attack on Germany for a few weeks? It makes no sense. I understand that you have orders and must obey them. But surely, at some point obedience ceases to be a duty. In your whole career, have you never had a doubt or even a hesitation over the legality of an order?
GÚnÚral von Choltitz: Even if that were the case, I have no right to incite uncertainty among my men through my own insubordination. A general at the front must be a model for his troops.
GÚnÚral von Choltitz: Whose reality, yours or mine?
Raoul Nordling: The reality that destroying Paris is absurd.
GÚnÚral von Choltitz: Yours then.
Raoul Nordling: Not mine alone. The world is watching you. In the end, you, General Dietrich von Choltitz, will be held responsible. And for what? To delay the Allied attack on Germany for a few weeks? It makes no sense. I understand that you have orders and must obey them. But surely, at some point obedience ceases to be a duty. In your whole career, have you never had a doubt or even a hesitation over the legality of an order?
GÚnÚral von Choltitz: Even if that were the case, I have no right to incite uncertainty among my men through my own insubordination. A general at the front must be a model for his troops.
Movie: Diplomacy
