22 Quotes by Wilhelm Keitel

If I had known it I would have told my son, I'd rather shoot you than let you join the SS. But I didn't know.

This war no longer has anything to do with knightly conduct or with the agreements of the Geneva Convention.

Consideration of any kind are a crime against the German people and the soldier at the front.

If this war is not fought with the greatest brutality against the bands both in the East and in the Balkans then in the foreseeable future the strength at our disposal will not be sufficient to be able to master this plague.

The troops are therefore empowered and are in duty bound in this war to use without mitigation even against women and children any means that will lead to success.

It isn't right to be obedient only when things go well; it is much harder to be a good, obedient soldier when things go badly and times are hard. Obedience and faith at such time is a virtue.

Death by hanging. That, at least, I thought I would be spared.

A field marshal who issued orders to the armed forces but had no idea of the results they would have in practice.

Hitler had charm, loved children, charmed women. But in political respects he would stop at nothing. In other respects he had soft and touching emotions. Just as he could be terribly brutal in following up political ideas, so he could be humanely sensitive for the feelings of individuals, for the individual human life.