“He who dedicates himself to a profession, which demands staking one’s life in a common cause, he who takes on at the same time the responsibility to send others on orders to their deaths, must maintain for himself a moral conviction and direction, which cannot be measured by ordinary standards.”

William I (1797 to 1888)

William I, German in full Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig, German emperor from 1871, as well as king of Prussia from 1861, a sovereign whose conscientiousness and self-restraint fitted him for collaboration with stronger statesmen in raising his monarchy and the house of Hohenzollern to predominance in Germany.