Oskar Schindler Quotes

There's a difference between a Nazi and a German.

We know that we are not collectively guilty, so how can we accuse any other nation, no matter what some of its people have done, of being collectively guilty?

The last man in the world who should have been criticized was the American soldier. They should have criticized me.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.

Today, not a numerous, but an active part of the German people are beginning to realize, not that they have been led astray, not that bad times await them, not that the war may end in defeat, but that what is happening is sin and that they are personally responsible for each terrible deed that has been committed - naturally, not in the earthly sense, but as Christians.

The world has gone back a half a millennium in its conduct of international relations in time of war…. no nation has to bear a greater blame for this than our own ….As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some of us think it was shameful. Are we Christians? We act like pagans.

We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom." It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?

There are a lot of Iraqi people we can never pay back for what we've done.

If the victims are my problem, the killers are yours.

Only individuals have a sense of responsibility.

The fault is as great as hee that is faulty.

Where is my guilt? I can regret. I can regret that I made the party film, 'Triumph of the Will,' in 1934. But I cannot regret that I lived in that time. No anti-Semitic word has ever crossed my lips. I was never anti-Semitic. I did not join the party. So where then is my guilt? You tell me. I have thrown no atomic bombs. I have never betrayed anyone. What am I guilty of?

We tend to think that people are more to blame for their acts than for their omissions.

But when we place God on our side of things, that we are now ridding the world of evil - that's very dangerous, that one nation has this role to rid the world of evil. What about the evil we have committed, that we are complicit in?

England expects that every man will do his duty.

It is a sin not to do what one is capable of doing.

But I felt all the more bound to make this proposal, because it at once turns to a reproach.

I only did my duty to my country when I tried to oppose the criminal folly of Hitler.

We are responsible for actions performed in response to circumstances for which we are not responsible.

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

My country right or wrong; when right, to keep her right; when wrong, to put her right.

Must not I then entertain the saints because I must keep my conscience.

If the Barbarians are destroyed, who will we then be able to blame for the bad things?

It's one thing to say don't commit atrocities on the battlefield. It's another thing to say don't get caught doing atrocities.

To what extent is any given man morally responsible for any given act? We do not know.