Ludwig Beck was chief of the general staff of the German army. In his memoranda of 1937 and 1938 he wrote a sentence about the army’s generals that is still quoted: Ihr soldatischer Gehorsam hat dort eine Grenze, wo ihr Wissen, ihr Gewissen und ihre Verantwortung die Ausführung eines Befehles verbietet. Their soldierly obedience has a limit where their knowledge, their conscience and their responsibility forbid carrying out an order. Sources differ on the exact memorandum and date. In the summer of 1938 Beck called on the generals to resign together. They did not. Shortly afterward he gave up his post for reasons of conscience. In 2014 General Klaus Naumann quoted the sentence in a speech published by the Bundeswehr.