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1950s, Farewell address to Congress (1951)
Context: I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.
“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.”
Statement issued at Nuremberg, 1946. Quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 341 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997
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Wilhelm Keitel 10
German general 1882–1946Related quotes
Ich habe im Krieg nichts anderes getan als hunderttausende Österreicher auch, nämlich meine Pflicht als Soldat erfüllt.
Waldheim Affair http://derstandard.at/2000031874110/Ich-habe-im-Krieg-nichts-anderes-getan-als-meine-Pflicht, 9 March 1986
Audio clip (ogg format)
1950s, Farewell address to Congress (1951)
Last words, 10/16/46. Quoted in "The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II" - Page 564 - by Jon E. Lewis - History - 2002
Major Richard Sharpe, p. 311
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Source: "Pledge during an oath-taking ceremony at the ordination hall of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha after his investiture as Crown Prince" https://www.bangkokpost.com/specials/royal-coronation/royal_speeches.php (28 July 1972)
On his service during World War I
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“Destiny’s Champion,
Fate’s fool.
Eternity’s Soldier,
Time’s Tool.”
Book 3 “Visions and Revelations” Epigram (p. 394)
Phoenix in Obsidian (1970)
To Leon Goldensohn, April 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004