Death
On 8 May, the same day as the surrender of the Third Reich, Ritter von Greim was captured by American soldiers in Austria. Ritter von Greim was slated to be part of a Soviet-American prisoner exchange program and, fearing torture and execution at the hands of Joseph Stalin's NKVD, committed suicide in Salzburg, Austria, on 24 May. His final words before taking Potassium cyanide were: "I am the head of the Luftwaffe, but I have no Luftwaffe."
Read more about this topic: Robert Ritter Von Greim
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling! And I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity ... of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.”
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
“Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“In the twentieth century, death terrifies men less than the absence of real life. All these dead, mechanized, specialized actions, stealing a little bit of life a thousand times a day until the mind and body are exhausted, until that death which is not the end of life but the final saturation with absence.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)