R.G. Waldeck > Quotes

“At the time, when one thought of a book on World War II Romania, it was the British author Olivia Manning’s 1960 work, Balkan Trilogy, which came to mind. But Latham counseled me that while Manning’s treatment of Romania was on the scale of an epic, Waldeck’s Athene Palace was something even better: an obscure and sparkling little jewel that within the confines of one hotel and the streets around it provided an intimate study of Romanian manners.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“Rumania, the German pointed out, a much greater percentage of business was in Jewish hands than in Germany and while in Germany there were ten efficient Germans to every efficient Jew, in Rumania there was hardly one efficient Rumanian to ten efficient Jews.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“When in 1930 Maniu and his friends called Carol back, it was on one condition—that Lupescu stay abroad and that the affair be ended once and for all. Carol solemnly agreed to this condition; then, to the horror of the leaders who had arranged the coup, Lupescu stepped, so to speak, out of Carol’s luggage. This flagrant breach of a solemn promise estranged his most fervent champions and marked the beginning of the ever-growing void which surrounded Carol.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“Lupescu has been a wealthy woman for years, with money safely invested in American banks. Had she been out for money she could have got out long ago. Almost anywhere her life would have been safer than in Bucharest. No matter what her sentiments for Carol in the beginning of their relations, she seemed to have become entirely devoted to him in the course of the years.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“But more terrified of Hungarian domination than the Rumanians themselves were the Transylvanian Germans,”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“When will it be recognized in Europe that peoples have only that degree of liberty in and among themselves which their courage wrests from their cowardice? STENDHAL”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“had always told me that I should not judge the country from the people I met in Bucharest, but that it was the Rumanian peasant who counted. And really the Rumanian peasants were handsome in a lean, clean-cut, sunburnt way, very different from the pasty-faced gents in town. They worked hard and were humbly resigned to poverty; their eyes were kind and trusting, like children’s.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“They overdid everything, especially their greed for money. All three generations of Rumanian Hohenzollerns had a passion for wealth and were incredibly stingy besides, Carol more so than the others.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“The Nazis did not plan so much as muddle through. They might have a very clear idea of what their new order was to be in the end, but they certainly did considerable improvisation on the way. They left whole phases to chance, fumbled and experimented, made decisions on the spur of the moment, retracted decisions and took other tracks.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“The Rumanians possess to the highest degree the capacity of receiving the blows of destiny while relaxed. They fall artfully, soft and loose in every joint and muscle as only those trained in falling can be. The secret of the art of falling is, of course, not to be afraid of falling and the Rumanians are not afraid, as Western people are. Long experience in survival has taught them that each fall may result in unforeseen opportunities and that somehow they always get on their feet again.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace

“the Rumanian officer somehow always succeeded in giving the impression that he had made too much love the night before and was very, very tired.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania

“it was all wrong from the point of revolutionary technique. It was too legal and too slow.”
― R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace: Hitler's "New Order" Comes to Rumania