Several parts combine into one character.

The traditional 德 is one of the most architecturally meaningful compound ideographs in CJK: 彳 (the "step" radical, a foot moving on a road) + 直 (straight / upright) + 心 (heart). The composite is a complete moral journey: walking with a heart that stays straight = virtue, ethical conduct, the cumulative trace of right action. Japan dropped one stroke from 直 to produce the simplified shinjitai 徳; Korea and Mainland China retain the traditional 德. Two scripts, one of the most consequential moral concepts in human civilization.

Korean reading "deok." 道德 (dodeok, morality — Korean schools have a 도덕 class as part of the curriculum), 德目 (deokmok, virtue / moral precept — Confucian "list of virtues"), 德性 (deokseong, virtuous nature / character), 美德 (midok, virtue / commendable trait), 恩德 (eundeok, debt of gratitude). 덕 enters Korean as both formal moral vocabulary and casual character description: ("to have virtue / be a good person").

Mandarin dé, 2nd tone. 道德 (dàodé, morality — same compound across CJK), 美德 (měidé, virtue), 品德 (pǐndé, moral character), and the famously transliterated 德国 (Déguó, Germany). The compound for Germany is a phonetic loan — 德 was chosen for the "De-" of Deutschland, not because Germans are virtuous; nonetheless the moral connotation gives the country name an oddly flattering accidental halo. Compare: 美国 (Měiguó, USA — also flattering by accident), 法国 (Fǎguó, France — "law nation"), 英国 (Yīngguó, England — "hero nation"). Mandarin transliteration occasionally produces these morally suggestive country names.

Japanese on-reading トク (toku) — 道徳 (dōtoku, morality), 美徳 (bitoku, virtue). The character is exceptionally common in Japanese personal names and place names: 徳川 (Tokugawa, the surname of the ruling shogunal house of the Edo period 1603-1868 — perhaps the single most historically consequential surname in Japanese history), 徳島 (Tokushima, a prefecture on Shikoku island), 徳川家康 (Tokugawa Ieyasu, the shogunal founder), and given names ending in 徳: 徳子 (Noriko / Tokuko), 徳一 (Tokuichi), 徳行 (Norimichi). 徳 in Japanese names signals the parental hope for the child to embody virtue.

Memory aid: walking (彳) with a straight (直) heart (心) — virtue is the trace of moral journeying.