Wilhelm II Quotes

Under the deeply moving impression of France's capitulation I congratulate you and all the German armed forces on the God-given prodigious victory with the words of Kaiser Wilhelm the Great of the year 1870: "What a turn of events through God's dispensation!" All German hearts are filled with the chorale of Leuthen, which the victors of [the Battle of] Leuthen, the soldiers of the Great King sang [in 1757]: Now thank we all our God!

For the first time, I am ashamed to be a German.

I am just now not reading but devouring Captain Mahan's book and am trying to learn it by heart. It is a first-class book and classical on all points.

The Party which dares to attack the foundations of our State, which sets itself against religion and does not stop at attacking the person of the All-Highest Ruler must be rooted out to the very last stump.

I regard every Social Democrat as an enemy of the Empire and Fatherland.

A Jew cannot be a true patriot. He is something different, like a bad insect. He must be kept apart, out of a place where he can do mischief – even by pogroms, if necessary. The Jews are responsible for Bolshevism in Russia, and Germany too. I was far too indulgent with them during my reign, and I bitterly regret the favors I showed the prominent Jewish bankers.

[Peace] is completely impossible between Slavs and Germans...Peace with Russia can only be maintained by fear of us. The Slavs will always hate us and remain our enemies! they are only frightened of a man and they only respect him if he hits them hard! S. [see] Japan! So it will be with us, too! The Entente, if it wants, and if my diplomacy is too stupid, can always do what it likes in Russia - it has driven it into war; but our preponderance in the German area is necessary to keep Russia away from our eastern frontier once and for all; no peace with Russia, however favourable, will give us that!

[The German Legion] which, in conjunction with Blucher and the Prussians at Waterloo, saved the British Army from destruction.

Well, this is a strange reversal of the situation. The English are at loggerheads with the Americans. The Lansdowne Clique has coalesced with the Labour Party to obtain a swift acceptable peace for Germany. It seems that Lloyd George put pressure on him to this end. On the other hand we know that the Paris Senate has said that it will not come to the conference table to sue for peace but pursue the war with every means in its power. After your report I'll read you a confidential letter I have received from an agent in Holland...The agent...points to a possibility of coming to terms with England, which is obviously perturbed by American numerical superiority, and thinks we should have done better not to make peace overtures to America but to England...An agreement with England, to include a treaty with Japan to fling the Americans out of Europe. A European Monroe doctrine therefore to which I outlined to Hintze at Spa as the policy to be followed in future.

The king holds his power by the grace of God, to whom alone he is responsible. He chooses his own path, and only decides his actions from this point of view. It is the Kingship by the grace of God, the Kingship with its heavy duties, its never finished, unending toils and labours, with its dread responsibility to the Creator alone, from which no man, no minister, no House of Deputies, and no people can release the Prince.

Every Catholic ought to know that I honour his religion and that he will never be prevented in his exercise of it if he respects the beliefs of those who profess other faiths.

There will come a day when Berlin will be the most beautiful city in the world.

No words of man have ever been uttered worthy of comparison with the words of Christ.

Germany possesses an army commensurate with her needs, and if Great Britain has a navy corresponding to her requirements, Europe in general cannot fail to regard it as a most important factor for the maintenance of peace.

I do not disguise from myself the fact that I can never make all the members of our nation equally happy and contented. But I have good hope that I shall succeed in bringing about a state of things with which all can be content who have the will to be so.