Friedrich Kellner quotes

Friedrich Kellner was a German civil servant and diarist, known for his detailed critical diary documenting life under the Nazi regime. His observations provided a unique and courageous insight into the oppression and atrocities committed during World War II. He became recognized posthumously for his efforts to preserve the truth and promote democratic values. Here are 23 of his quotes:

The world will rightfully be upset over so much inhumanity, and a hate will burn that can never be extinguished. How long will this reign of terror continue?

Friedrich Kellner

Gutenberg, your printing press has been violated by this evil book, Mein Kampf!

Friedrich Kellner

Terror is trump. Methods of common brutal suppression are considered sanctified laws. "Old Fighters" are saints, and from the district leader upwards there are only Gods!

Friedrich Kellner

We can hold up under everything if only we have the certainty the monster Hitler with his insatiable bloodletting and plundering will have committed soon his last shameful deed.

Friedrich Kellner

Under the category, "Air Force aided by Hitler youth," the children wear military uniforms and become used to handling the artillery. Fifteen- and sixteen-year-old children as warriors! If the war still continues to last for a long time, perhaps infants also will be used. Total war!

Friedrich Kellner

The carnage will eventually come to an end, but the Western powers will carry the historical guilt for not promptly providing the most intensive preventative measures against Germany's incessant attack-politics. Possibilities existed, but no actions were taken.

Friedrich Kellner

The craziest of all political systems, the unique leader state, has found its deserved end. History will note for eternity that the German people were not able on their own initiative to shake off the yoke of the National Socialists. The victory of the Americans, English, and Russians was a necessary occurrence to destroy the National Socialists' delusions and plans for world domination.

Friedrich Kellner

Spineless politics do not change the mind of a tyrant.

Friedrich Kellner

Thank God for youth; there will always be love.

Friedrich Kellner

To trample democracy with one's feet and give power to a single man over almost eighty million people is so terrible that one can really tremble over the things that will come.

Friedrich Kellner

This "Conqueror of Berlin," as he [Joseph Goebbels] has named himself, has completely conquered Germany. And not only that: many Germans living abroad--all too many of them, unfortunately--have fallen for the cunning propaganda.

Friedrich Kellner

When dictators enslave their own people and seek to impose their anti-democratic ideology upon others, when evil seeks power, men and women of good will must set aside their own differences of opinion and stand together and fight – including those who hate war.

Friedrich Kellner

If now, after the collapse, any of these lackeys of Adolf Hitler has the insolence to want to be considered as a harmless onlooker, then one can only wish he immediately feels the scourge of avenging mankind.... Whoever cries about having lost the totalitarian system or wants to resurrect National Socialism is to be treated as an incorrigible lunatic.

Friedrich Kellner

Why only hate? Where does love remain? Or at least a little decency toward other people? We think we can behave against everyone in the exact same rabid way we did against the Jews: to smash, crush--and even exterminate.

Friedrich Kellner

There is no punishment that would be hard enough to be applied to these Nazi beasts. Of course, in the case of retribution the innocent will have to suffer along with them. Ninety-nine percent of the German people, directly or indirectly, carry the guilt for the present situation. Therefore we can only say this: Those who travel together, hang together.

Friedrich Kellner

My main goal after the war was to help rebuild the Social Democratic Party that Hitler had banned, and use it to reunite the people of Germany who had forgotten how a democracy worked – through tolerance, compromise and a dedication to individual freedom.

Friedrich Kellner

The Party uses the lies up to the last moment as a cover-up. Thus it intimidates the political opponents and provides its Party comrades with sedatives. It is so unbelievably simple for the current gang to lie to this German people and to lead these fools around by the nose.

Friedrich Kellner

Even in days of loss and sorry, beauty remains, and I am ever grateful.

Friedrich Kellner

If the Jews, who over the centuries contributed demonstrable achievements in the economy for the total development of the nation, can be made a people without rights, then that is an act unworthy of a cultured nation. The curse of this evil deed will indelibly rest on the entire German people. The authors, the National Socialists, will have disappeared some day; their deeds, however, will live on.

Friedrich Kellner

Hitler knew weapons alone would not be decisive, he focused on molding the people's spirit, breeding something singular in history: bravado, blind obedience, ruthlessness, and brutality. There was contempt for every noble human emotion; contemptible disregard for the thinking of others; destruction of religion and religious establishments -- and there was the extermination of the Jews because they were wiser than the German people.

Friedrich Kellner