Neville Chamberlain
Illustration, not an archive object
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1937 to 1940 · United Kingdom
3 quotes, oldest first. Filter with other speakers.
“We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.”
Chamberlain read aloud the paper he and Hitler had signed that morning, to a crowd on the airfield on his return from Munich, the day after the Munich Agreement was signed.
Remarks on landing at Heston Aerodrome on return from Munich, 30 September 1938, reading the Anglo-German Declaration; Reuters newsreel transcribed in German History in Documents and Images, "Peace for our Time" (1938) Source
“I believe it is peace for our time.”
Said to a crowd outside the Prime Minister's residence on the evening of his return from Munich. It follows the sentence "My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour."
Remarks from a window of 10 Downing Street, evening of 30 September 1938; text reprinted in Speakola, Wikipedia and German History in Documents and Images (which notes it is "often misstated as 'Peace in our time'"); Wikipedia cites Faber, Munich Source
“His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.”
Broadcast to the nation after the German government had not replied to the British ultimatum over the invasion of Poland, announcing that Britain was at war with Germany.
Radio broadcast, 3 September 1939, as printed by the Avalon Project (Yale Law School), "Radio Address by Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister, September 3, 1939" Source