Charles Gray credited as playing...
General von Seidlitz-Gabler
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: [to Morand] I've always felt that even in war, gentlemen, though they may be on opposing sides, still have much in common. It was everyone's misfortune that Hitler was not a gentleman.
- 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.
- [In the years after the war, Inspector Morand can be seen talking with former General von Seidlitz-Gabler]
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: You must have noticed, my daughter and wife are not on good terms. In fact, they haven't spoken to one another since the war.
- Inspector Morand: That's sad.
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: I myself only see my daughter once or twice a year. And very briefly at that. She lives on a farm near Munich. We meet in a railway station with her child. It's the only way I can get to see my grandson.
- Inspector Morand: Your daughter is married?
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: Yes. To a farmer named Luckner. She was never the same after the war. Poor girl. Something happened to her, I don't know what. It's hard to help children, isn't it? Particularly if one's wife... well, it was impossible after Paris. Anyway, that's all I see of her. But why do you wish to see her?
- Inspector Morand: In Paris, many years ago, she knew a young man.
- General Kahlenberge: The Führer has ordered General Tanz to solve the problem of Warsaw.
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: How?
- General Kahlenberge: Meticulously. In three phases.
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: Using the most drastic means, I suppose.
- General Kahlenberge: Drastic? Monstrous.
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: Incompetence? They don't realize that this is a garrison post, that I am given only the dregs of the army, the misfits.
- Eleanore von Seidlitz-Gabler: There was a stain on the jacket. A red stain. But since you obviously didn't cut yourself shaving, it could only have been lipstick. Shall I match the color with the seductive shade Fräulein Neumaier wears?
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: Don't be absurd.
- Eleanore von Seidlitz-Gabler: Anyway, the evidence is destroyed. I've sent everything to be cleaned. Aren't you glad that I am here now to look after you?
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: What were you saying, my dear?
- Eleanore von Seidlitz-Gabler: I don't dare say anything when you've got your book out.
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: It's always disagreeable when the cat gets back to find the mice have been playing. We could, of course, distract the cat by suggesting that he take a few days off to play a little too.
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: I think it best for everybody if I appear neutral and bide my time. Don't force me to break my neck by jumping the fence, when I can stay usefully alive by sitting on it.
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: A 20-year sentence is a bit much for a soldier who simply obeyed orders, like the rest of us, but politically, he was inclined to be rather extreme. If you know what I mean.
- Eleanore von Seidlitz-Gabler: Our generation believed in being happy, didn't we?
- General von Seidlitz-Gabler: Oh, yes, yes. Happy.