Walter Model

"My best Field Marshal. (mein bester Feldmarschall)"

"He who leads troops has no right to think about himself."

"Every minute that we lose will cost us great losses later that we will not be able to afford. We must push forward now, otherwise we risk everything. Hurry yourself with the technical aspects, a lot of time has already been lost."

"Mein Führer, who commands The Ninth Army, you or I?"

"We have lost a battle, but I assure to you that we will not lose the war! I cannot say more at the present moment although I know the losses are crowded in your minds. That this happened does not hold importance. What counts is not to lose confidence in the future of Germany. At the same time everyone must understand the gravity of the situation. This moment will be enough to distinguish the true men from the inept ones. Every soldier has the same responsibilities: if the advancing one falls, another must be ready to take his place in order to go on."

"I fully subscribe to those words with my special thanks to all officers, noncommissioned officers and men for the attitude displayed during this fighting."

"My Soldiers are My Children. (Meine Soldaten sind Meine Kinder)"

"The best Kamerad inside the pocket will be the Kamerad outside the pocket. (Der beste K.I.K wird K.A.K)"

"Has everything been done to justify our actions in the light of history? What can there be left for a commander in defeat? In antiquity they took poison."

"I sincerely believe that I have served a criminal. I led my soldiers in good conscience... but for a criminal government."

"Behr, I cannot imagine that I, as a Field Marshal, the one who out of conviction in victory for my country am responsible for the deaths of hundreds of my soldiers, should now emerge from these woods to approach Montgomery, or the Americans, with my hands in the air and say 'Here I am. Field Marshal Model, I Surrender.'"

"It should be prefaced by quotation from Goethe in which a special impression of Model's personality is given, "I love those who yearn for the impossible. (Faust)""

""Where Model is present, nothing can go wrong. (Wo Model ist, geht's nicht schief)" or "Model remodeled very well again. (Das hat Model wieder hingemodelt)" were, at that time, which were often mentioned in the Eastern Front."

"His firm belief in God, his homeliness and an strongly developed love for his family, as well as his heartfelt pleasure in men and nature, consummated the one of the most outstanding soldiers in World War 2. In the most intimate circles it was said of him, "Without fear and fault.""

"Field Marshal Model was a peerless master of the large-scale defensive battle. Always present himself at critical points, he asked a great deal of his troops. Often he was harsh, sometimes ruthless. But he always found the answer to the trickiest of situations, never leaving his men in the lurch."

"Field Marshal Model was a bold, inexhaustible soldier, who knew the front well and who won the confidence of his men by his habitual disregard for his personal safety. He had no time for lazy or incompetent subordinates. He carried out his intentions in a most determined fashion. He was the best possible man to perform the fantastically difficult task of reconstructing a line in centre of the Eastern Front."

"With regard to himself, Field Marshal Model allowed no compromise and was ruthless, but he was indulgent to the men in the front lines who adored him. He demanded nothing for himself."

"Model was a man who spent an incredible amount of time at the front. He didn't lead from behind, looking at maps, but he went wherever he believed his presence would help. In no way was he a politician. He was army through and through and all his thinking was military. In the high positions he later occupied he was criticize for this, with good reason."

"Model stood up to Hitler in a way that hardly anyone else dared and even refused to carry out orders with which he did not agree."

"Did you see that eye? I trust that man to do it, but I wouldn't want to serve under him."

"Im Ruhrkessel hörte ich 1945 von ihm einmal die bezeichnende Antwort: "Der Tag hat vierundzwanzig Stunden. Nehmen Sie dann noch die Nacht dazu, so werden Sie wohl mit Ihrer Arbeit herumkommen!""