German Soldiers Quotes

• He recalls what that first German soldier said to his major: No God-not yours or mine-approves of what you're doing.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Soldier, Firsts, Said

  Chris Bohjalian (2012). “The Sandcastle Girls”, p.132, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe German soldiers are good and decent, and if they did anything wrong it was because of military necessity.

  Wilhelm Keitel

  Military, Believe, Soldier

  "The Nuremberg Interviews". Book by Leon Goldensohn, 2004.

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every German soldier must be made to feel that he is living under the muzzle of a Russian gun.

  Vasily Chuikov

  Gun, Soldier, Muzzle

  "199 Days: The Battle for Stalingrad". Book by Edwin Palmer Hoyt, p. 142, 1999.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I follow now my sons - all for Germany.

  Wilhelm Keitel

  Son, Two, People

  Last words, quoted in "The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II" by Jon E. Lewis, 2002.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• On September 17, 1914, Erzberger, the well-known German statesman, an eminent member of the Catholic Party, wrote to the Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, "We must not worry about committing an offence against the rights of nations nor about violating the laws of humanity. Such feelings today are of secondary importance"? A month later, on October 21, 1914, he wrote in Der Tag, "If a way was found of entirely wiping out the whole of London it would be more humane to employ it than to allow the blood of A SINGLE GERMAN SOLDIER to be shed on the battlefield!"

  Georges Clemenceau

  War, Party, Rights

  "Grandeur and Misery of Victory". Book by Georges Clemenceau, trans. F. M. Atkinson, p. 279 (quoting Matthias Erzberger), 1930.

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• When German soldiers used to come to my studio and look at my pictures of Guernica, they'd ask 'Did you do this?'. And I'd say, 'No, you did.'

  Pablo Picasso

  Soldier, Looks, Guernica

  91 Copy quote

• Very little changed fundamentally, except that the proud German soldier had turned into a defeated bundle of misery and the great German army had disintegrated.

  George Grosz

  Army, Soldier, Proud

  George Grosz (1982). “The autobiography of George Grosz: a small yes and a big no”

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• After 15 years of work I have achieved, as a common German soldier and merely with my fanatical willpower, the unity of the German nation, and have freed it from the death sentence of Versailles.

  Adolf Hitler

  Years, Soldier, Unity

  Proclamation, 21 Dec. 1941

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• The German soldier has impressed the world, however the Italian Bersagliere soldier has impressed the German soldier.

  Erwin Rommel

  Italian, Soldier, World

  438 Copy quote

• As a minister, I would rather be criticized for thoroughly weighing the options, and sometimes even voicing my doubts, than to be reproached for recklessly sending German soldiers into combat.

  Guido Westerwelle

  Soldier, Doubt, Sometimes

  Source: www.spiegel.de

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town ... a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.

  Gerald Kaufman

  Home, Grandmother, Government

  "Commons debate on Gaza - live" by Andrew Sparrow, www.theguardian.com. January 15, 2009.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• But the idea of using the Apache resistance, one, it works effective to actually get German soldiers to think of Jews that way. You know, and they're not just any Jews. They're the American Jews. They're Jews with entitlement.

  Quentin Tarantino

  Thinking, Ideas, Soldier

  "Pulp And Circumstance: Tarantino Rewrites History". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. August 27, 2009.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• When Hitler declared war on the United States, he was betting that German soldiers, raised up in the Hitler Youth, would always out fight American soldiers, brought up in the Boy Scouts. He lost that bet. The Boy Scouts had been taught how to figure their way out of their own problems.

  Stephen Ambrose

  War, Fighting, Boys

  15 Copy quote

• I think it's absolutely fascinating that in Berlin the parliament can discuss actively the role of their soldiers in Afghanistan because is it still possible, literally, for a German soldier to take up arms.

  Stephen Daldry

  Thinking, Soldier, Roles

  "Exclusive: Director Stephen Daldry Interview THE READER". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. December 11, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the first World War British propaganda had to invent the stories of German soldiers bayoneting Belgian babies, because there were too few real atrocities to feed the hatred against the enemy.

  Erich Fromm

  Baby, Real, War

  Erich Fromm (2013). “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”, p.56, Open Road Media

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers!

  Winston Churchill

  Rain, Army, Thinking

  "Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963" by Robert Rhodes James, Vol. 6, p. 6150, 1974.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I could not have the honour of being a German soldier because of my imprisonment in the First World War. And in this world war the Fuehrer refuses to allow me to serve as a soldier.

  Fritz Sauckel

  War, Soldier, World

  52 Copy quote

• He told me that once, in the war, he’d come upon a German soldier in the grass with his insides falling out; he was just lying there in agony. The soldier had looked up at Sergeant Leonard, and even though they didn’t speak the same language, they understood each other with just a look. The German lying on the ground; the American standing over him. He put a bullet in the soldier’s head. He didn’t do it with anger, as an enemy, but as a fellow man, one soldier helping another.

  Libba Bray

  War, Lying, Fall

  4 Copy quote

• I always thought it was a B.S. thing that they didn't show it [scalping] in other Westerns, but especially if you're going to really go with the idea that we're desecrating the bodies, and the idea is to strike fear in the hearts of other German soldiers, then we had to see what they're talking about.

  Quentin Tarantino

  Heart, Talking, Ideas

  4 Copy quote