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I had repeatedly made written requests to the Fuehrer that I might be allowed to join the Wehrmacht as an ordinary soldier. He refused to give me this permission.

By the fulfillment of my legal and moral duty I think I have earned punishment just as little as the tens of thousands of dutiful German officials who have now been imprisoned only because they carried out their duties.

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

When I became a soldier, I was drafted in 1937, and instead of being released two years later, I had to stay on because the war had started in the meantime. I was a soldier for more than eight years, as long a time as I was Chancellor.

I grew up in the time of Germany after the war.

I've never been a soldier. In Denmark, at 18, as a male, you go in a draw, and if they pick you, you go and serve for a year. I didn't.

Freedom from militarism will give the German people the opportunity, if they will but seize it, to apply their great energies and abilities to the works of peace.

I was a soldier in WWII. The last couple of months of the war I was actually in combat.

I want to be a soldier as my father was.

Looking back, I'm almost happy I lost that fight. Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal. After the war I might have been considered a war criminal.