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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.

— Wilhelm Keitel

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Source: To Leon Goldensohn, May 17, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004 - Page 166
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Wilhelm Keitel

It is tragic to have to realize that the best I had to give as a soldier, obedience, and loyalty, was exploited for purposes which could not be recognized at the time, and that I did not see that there is a limit set even for a soldier's performance to his duty. That is my fate.

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More quotes by Wilhelm Keitel

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

I am a soldier and I worked for the kaiser, under Ebert, Hindenburg, and Hitler, all the same way, for the past 44 years.

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

Hitler gave us orders - and we believed in him. Then he commits suicide and leaves us to bear the guilt. He should have remained alive to bear his share.

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.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Wilhelm Keitel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.