Wilhelm II Quotes

Our first and foremost duty is to show ourselves worthy of our ancestors and their achievements. And that we can only do by an undeviating adherence to the paths which they traced out for our guidance.

I, too, like my imperial grandfather, represent the kingship by God's grace. My grandfather believed that the functions of the king were a task given to him by God, a task to which it was his duty to devote his strength up to the last moment of his life. What he thought I also think.

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.

Having succeeded to the throne of my ancestors, I have taken over the government, relying upon the King of Kings, and I have vowed to God that, acting in accordance with the example of my predecessors, I will endeavour to be a just and clement ruler, that I will encourage piety and the fear of God, that I will uphold peace and promote the welfare of the country, and further, that I will strive to be a helper to the poor and oppressed and a faithful guardian of the law.

You English are like mad bulls — you see red everywhere! What on earth has come over you, that you would heap on us such suspicion as is unworthy of a great nation... I regard this misapprehension as a personal insult... You make it uncommonly difficult for a man to remain friendly to England.

Let me assure the Sultan and the three hundred million Moslems... That the German Emperor will ever be their friend.

The fleet is necessary to show that Germany is as well-born as Britain.

The feats of our brave troops are wonderful, God gave them success. — May He continue to help them to peace with honour, & the victory over Juda & Antichrist in British garb.

The hand of God is creating a new World & working miracles...We are becoming the U.S. of Europe under German leadership, a united European Continent, nobody ever hoped to see. The Jews [are] beeing thrust out of their nefarious positions in all countries, whom they have driven to hostility for centuries.

[The war is] a succession of miracles! The old Prussian spirit of Frd. Rex, of Clausewitz, Blücher, York, Gneisenau etc. has again manifested itself, as in 1870-71...The brilliant leading Generals in this war came from My school, they fought under my command in the [First] World War as lieutenants, captains or young majors. Educated by Schlieffen they put the plans he had worked out under me into practice along the same lines as we did in 1914.

[The English ruling classes are] Freemasons thoroughly infected by Juda. The British people must be liberated from the Antichrist Juda. We must drive Juda out of England just as he has been chased out of the Continent...Juda's plan has been smashed to pieces and they themselves swept out of the European Continent! [Europe is] consolidating and closing itself off from British influences after the elimination of the British and the Jews!

I was deeply moved by the incomparable achievements of the German Wehrmacht, leading to such prodigious successes. I followed the development of operations in minute detail with the aid of maps. Under brilliant leadership all sections of the armed forces displayed the greatest courage to achieve deeds that were quite stunning. The ignominy of November 1918 in the forest of Compiègne has been wiped out and the Diktat of Versailles torn up!

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!

There's a man alone, without family, without children, without God ... He [<nowiki/>Hitler] builds legions, but he doesn't build a nation. A nation is created by families, a religion, traditions: it is made up out of the hearts of mothers, the wisdom of fathers, the joy and the exuberance of children ... For a few months I was inclined to believe in National Socialism. I thought of it as a necessary fever. And I was gratified to see that there were, associated with it for a time, some of the wisest and most outstanding Germans. But these, one by one, he has got rid of or even killed ... He has left nothing but a bunch of shirted gangsters! This man could bring home victories to our people each year, without bringing them either glory or danger. But of our Germany, which was a nation of poets and musicians, of artists and soldiers, he has made a nation of hysterics and hermits, engulfed in a mob and led by a thousand liars or fanatics."

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