The German citizen is a soldier, and the policeman is his officer. The policeman directs him where in the street to walk, and how fast to walk. At the end of each bridge stands a policeman to tell the German how to cross it. Were there no policeman there, he would probably sit down and wait till the river had passed by. At the railway station the policeman locks him up in the waiting-room, where he can do no harm to himself. When the proper time arrives, he fetches him out and hands him over to the guard of the train, who is only a policeman in another uniform. The guard tells him where to sit in the train, and when to get out, and sees that he does get out. In Germany you take no responsibility upon yourself whatever. Everything is done for you, and done well.

The difference between East Germans and North Koreans is day and night.

We Germans have learned from history. We are a peace-loving, freedom-loving people. For us, love of our native country, love of freedom, and the spirit of being a good neighbor always belong together.

Sometimes people close a door because they’re trying to figure out a way to get you to knock.

We're saying that Germany wants to destroy us. And right now in Germany a whole lot of good quiet people like us, no worse than we are, they're getting whipped into a frenzy by the same story. They're being told the others are penning them into a country that's too small, and don't want to let them live. On one side or the other somebody's being sold a bill of goods. Maybe the Germans are wrong. We don't know. All I know is, I don't want to go killing some guy that never did me any harm, and who hasn't the choice but to do what he's told. I've got nothing against that poor guy. Why should I go and stick a bayonet into him? He wants to live, just like I do. He doesn't want to die.

Germans- businessmen who know their business. They have the finesse of experience. Watch out for deception when fighting them. To try the same ruse twice against them is fooling yourself. A possum game they love to play will cause you to underestimate their strength. Their equipment is excellent. Tanks and 88-mm guns are part of a team. When you meet them separately, consider yourself lucky, as a rule, you won't. Forget the words "air superiority" as long as there is one Nazi plane around. It will smack you night and day when you think you're safe. Mines and booby traps are the nastiest type of Nazi specialties.

Ha ha! We are just poking a little friendly fun at Germany, which is famous for enjoying a good joke, or as the Germans say, "Sprechnehaltenzoltenfussenmachschnitzerkalbenrollen." Here is just one hilarious example of what we are talking about: First German: "How many Polish people does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
Second German: "I don't know! How many?"
First German: "Let's invade Poland and find out!"
Millions of Other Germans: "Okay!"

If I tell the Berliners to step forward, they do it. If I tell the Viennese to step forward, they do it, but then they ask why.

Understanding of other nations does not mean a feeling against your own country. That's the whole trouble with Germans. They can see only their own country, the local church steeples only. If only German youth could go abroad, and youth from other countries come to Germany. You always have to have criticism if you wish to become better.

I am not crazy enough to want a war. ... The German people have but one wish—to be happy in their own way and to be left in peace. They do not interfere in other people's business, and others should not interfere in theirs. ... When has the German people ever broken its word?

Serbs are very much attracted by the Western living standards, the standards of people. That’s why they like Germans. Because they bring their factories, they bring their plants to this country. They respect them very much. And the way of living is something that is preferable in the West than in the East, no doubt.

The Germans are great because they possess simple and indispensable virtues such as foresight, patience, and diligence.

A reformation of relations between the Soviet people and the German people is not possible along the lines pursued by the authorities of the Soviet zone of Germany. The Germans in that zone have come to hate and despise those who violate them in so inhuman a manner. And they must be having similar feelings towards those who support that system. The closing of the border is an unprecedented admission of bankruptcy. It shows that the people who are compelled to live in that part of Germany can be prevented only by the use of physical force from leaving that paradise of workers and farmers. There is but one possibility of placing relations between the Soviet and German peoples on a new foundation: the German people must be given back the right, denied to no people on earth, to form, through a free and uninfluenced expression of their will, a government which would then be truly entitled to speak, act and decide on behalf of the whole German nation.

As one of our Swiss friends put it: “Now every German tailor living in Japan, China, or Moscow feels that he has the German navy and all of Germany’s power behind him. This proud consciousness sends him into an insane rapture: the German has finally lived to see the day when he can say with pride, relying on his own state, like an Englishman or an American, ‘I am a German.’ True, when the Englishman or American says ‘I am an Englishman,’ or ‘I am an American,’ he is saying ‘I am a free man.’ The German, however, is saying ‘I am a slave, but my emperor is stronger than all other princes, and the German soldier who is strangling me will strangle all of you.’ “
Will the German people content themselves with this feeling of pride for long? Who can say? They have thirsted so long for the grace of a unified state, a single cudgel, that has now descended upon them that one must assume they will want to enjoy it for quite some time yet. Every nation has its own tastes, and the German nation has a particular taste for a strong cudgel in the form of the state.