Wilhelm II of Germany

In spite of the fact that we have no such fleet as we should have, we have conquered for ourselves a place in the sun.

Wilhelm II of Germany (27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941), born Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert von Preußen, was the last German Emperor (Kaiser) and the last King (König) of Prussia, ruling from 1888 to 1918. Deposed during the November Revolution.

Quotes

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

• Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German.
  • "Hun Speech": Kaiser Wilhelm II's Address to the German Expeditionary Force Prior to its Departure for China (27 July 1900)

• In spite of the fact that we have no such fleet as we should have, we have conquered for ourselves a place in the sun. It will now be my task to see to it that this place in the sun shall remain our undisputed possession, in order that the sun's rays may fall fruitfully upon our activity and trade in foreign parts, that our industry and agriculture may develop within the state and our sailing sports upon the water, for our future lies upon the water.
  • Speech in Hamburg (18 June 1901)
  • Variant: Germany must have her place in the sun. (is not of Wilhelm himself but of Bernhard von Bülow
    • As quoted in Germanism from Within (1916) by Alexander Duncan Mclaren

• The Tsar is not treacherous but he is weak. Weakness is not treachery, but it fulfils all its functions.
  • On his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, as quoted in Harold Nicolson, Sir Arthur Nicolson, Bart., First Lord Carnock: A Study in the Old Diplomacy, London: Constable & Co., 1930, p. 214.

• You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees.
  • Addressing German soldiers departing for the front in WWI (August 1914), as quoted in The Chanak Affair (1969) by David Walder, p. 21
  • Variant: You men will be home when the leaves fall.

• Ich kenne keine Parteien mehr, ich kenne nur noch Deutsche!
  • I know no parties anymore, only Germans!
  • Speech for the Reichstag (4 August 1914)
    • Quoted in Verhandlungen des Reichstags, Stenographische Berichte, 1914/16, Bd. 306, 1f.

• For the first time, I am ashamed to be a German.
  • In regard to Adolf Hitler's anti-Jewish campaign, after Kristallnacht (November 1938); as quoted in Our German Cousins : Anglo-German Relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1974) by John Mander, p. 219

The Growth of Nationalism (1992)

Quotes from The Growth of Nationalism : Germany and Italy 1815-1939 by Ronald Cameron, Charles Robertson, and Christine Henderson

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

• Let me assure the Sultan and the three hundred million moslems... That the German Emperor will ever be their friend.
  • On the Sultan of Turkey, while on the railway to Baghdad

• 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 missaprehension as a personal insult... You make it uncommonly difficult for a man to remain friendly to England.
  • To the Daily Telegraph on his attitude towards Britain.

External links

• The German emperor's speeches : being a selection from the speeches, edicts, letters, and telegrams of the Emperor William II (1904)
• The German Emperor as shown in his public utterances (1915)
• My Memoirs: 1878-1918 (1922)