This highly pertinent (and slightly abridged) quote from Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief Herman Goering has been doing the rounds on the Internet recently:

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

According to the snopes.com Urban Legends Reference Pages, this quote was part of a private conversation on 18 April 1946 between Goering and psychologist Gustave Gilbert during a recess in Goering’s trial at Nuremberg. The conversation was recorded in Gilbert’s diary, which was published the following year:

Gilbert, G.M. Nuremberg Diary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947 (pp. 278-279).