Prince Harry defends accounts of killings in Afghanistan

In a passage of his autobiography “Spare” (German: “Reserve”), Harry writes about the number of people he has killed in his operations in Afghanistan. “Well, my number: twenty-five. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number I was ashamed of.” Although he would rather not have this number on his military CV, he would also prefer to live “in a world without Taliban and without war”. However, some facts could not be changed.

Many media quoted this passage in the days leading up to the book’s publication, after it was accidentally temporarily available in Spanish bookstores. The passage in which Harry describes the “taught detachment” of soldiers as problematic received less attention.