"We agree to recognise Lithuanian independence on condition that the desire of the Lithuanians for a military convention and a customs, monetary and postal union with Germany, communicated to us some time ago by a Lithuanian delegation, still remains. For to be candid, the idea of full independence for these peripheral countries seems to me to be purely theoretical and impracticable.... The whole development of world politics shows that we have not only great and powerful individual countries like Germany on the one hand and Britain and France on the other, but associations of States fighting against each other.... I do not believe in Wilson's universal League of Nations, I think that after the peace it will burst like a soap bubble. Great and powerful complexes of nations with hundreds of millions of inhabitants, armies of millions of men and exports amounting to thousands of millions, will be confronting each other. In the circumstances such small fractional nationalities will not be able to exist in complete independence, without seeking to lean on one side or the other. Just as there is no independent Belgium in the sense that it gravitates towards one side or the other, so it is not possible to conceive of a completely independent Lithuania, Balticum or Poland without that provisio."

“Great Germany can only be created on a republican basis.”

“When it is a matter of deciding what amount of work might be demanded of the individual, this question concerns not only the people affected, but must be settled for the benefit of the State and on the basis of moral considerations. The admirable thing about the old Germany was that she considered herself as a mediator and held it to be her duty to take into account the interest of the State first of all. The new Germany must have no other task!... We are stripped of power and we must try to regain, little by little and by means of compromises, our rank as a Great Power.”

“Do you think that any member of the Reich Government regards the Young Plan as something ideal? Do you think that anyone in the whole world expects a guarantee from us in relation to it? It was even said among the experts that it was only possible to look ahead for the next decade.”

“We must become so strong and must so ruthlessly weaken our opponents that no enemy will ever dare to attack us again. To achieve this a modification of frontiers in the west as in the east is essential.”

“The renunciation of war indemnities, which has been greatly lauded in some quarters here, does not appear to me only in the shining light of the conciliation it will lead to, but, as a citizen, I also see it in the light of the colossal burdens to which Germany will be exposed if this struggle ends without war indemnities.”

“I must say a few words here concerning the solution of the Polish problem.... Groeber has posed the question: Do I not overestimate the value of the military guarantees? Are not political guarantees in connection with good relations between Poland and Germany far better and more durable than it is possible fo military guarantees to be?... The past conduct of the Polish fraction in the Reichstag and the House of Deputies, and the attempts to have the German Ostmark question discussed as a question of international importance at world peace congresses, do not give my political friends a sufficient guarantee to think that future relations between Poland and Germany can be based solely on a formal paper friendship.”