The Night of the Generals (1967)

Donald Pleasence: General Kahlenberge

Photos 

Quotes 

• General Kahlenberge : You're to stay with him every minute of the day. Twenty-four hour call, do you understand?

  Corporal Hartmann : Yes, sir.

  General Kahlenberge : He may want to go out at night. Do you know anything which might interest General Tanz? Nightclubs or girls, that sort of thing.

  Corporal Hartmann : A few, sir, but, uh... I don't really know what the general's taste is, sir.

  General Kahlenberge : Let us hope that whatever it is, it is not you, Corporal.

  [Hartmann looks at him in shock] 

  General Kahlenberge : However, if it should be, remember that you're serving the fatherland.

  Corporal Hartmann : ...I'll try to remember, sir.

• General Kahlenberge : General Tanz, forgive me, but, uh, just as a matter of curiosity - what do you feel is the exact purpose of this exercise?

  General Tanz : You've read the memorandum.

  General Kahlenberge : Oh yes. Yes, I have indeed...

  General Tanz : And what does the memorandum say?

  General Kahlenberge : That Phase One is intended to intimidate the population, to search houses, to find and arrest resistance.

  General Tanz : Then that is the exact purpose of the exercise.

  General von Seidlitz-Gabler : An excellent plan, by the way - much like my own when I first came here, only I was never given the ultimate authority to implement it.

  General Kahlenberge : But, um... am I to understand that if there is resistance during Phase One, you would then go to Phase Two, and even Phase Three, which would mean the destruction of the entire city?

  General Tanz : You are to understand exactly that.

  General Kahlenberge : Well, uh... isn't that somewhat... excessive?

  General Tanz : Excessive.

  [goes to map] 

  General Tanz : You will be aware that we are thirty miles from Moscow. We are moving ahead on a 5,000 mile front. Every available soldier is needed if we are to conquer Russia. Yet here in Warsaw, three divisions are rotting, because of a few thousand criminal Poles and Jews hiding in slums. It is... excessive to permit this state of affairs.