29. Juli 1945
GEO & MIL INFO | ||||
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6 and 9 Aug: Atomic bombings 16 Aug[1]: Death of daughter Bärbel |
Field post letters/Red Cross cards | ||||
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10 Aug ✉ to Carola |
29.7.45. Typical for me: While I am dealing with spiritual problems in our discussion groups, realistic comrades are striving to get outside with a work detail to do business and supplement their rations.
I'm trying to take stock of the war in a way.[2] I had volunteered for war service. I went into the war with youthful cluelessness, into the huge, successful offensives of the first years and into the Æsir–Vanir War of the defensive battles in the last years. These were unimaginable tests of physical and mental endurance that repeatedly subjected a person's worth to scrutiny. What motivated me to volunteer at that time was, apart from other feelings, also a sense of duty. And in many situations where courage and toughness were not enough to master a situation, the sense of duty did.
Comrades recount:
In Baranavichi, the Russians embezzled Red Cross packages for prisoners of war and sold them at the bazaar. In Vilnius, the prisoners of war had to pay 150 rubles for a parcel before they got it. When they were then handed over, they were empty. - The Russian garrison wants to celebrate a feast and borrows 50 spoons from the prison camp for this purpose. When they are finally returned after repeated requests, there are far fewer and all bad, exchanged ones. - Wilke recounts: Of his 25 (class?) mates, 10 were in Western custody. They have all been released. There are 15 in Russia, only 3 of them are back, all of them distrophic (malnourished)[8] - Rudi Böhm: 15 dead on the transport from Stalino to Minsk. They were given no drinking water. - A Russian officer's wedding: herring with jacket potatoes. The cake eaten of the palms. Table licked (it was without a blanket anyway) - A German officer was sentenced "because he was responsible for the death of Russian people as a result of his 'perseverance' in battle."(!) - In the hospital, the entire Russian staff eats from the prisoners' kitchen. Sisters bring their dry bread with them, then go to the magazine (rations camp) and smear the fat thickly on their bread. - In a camp with Japanese prisoners, they insisted that their general stay with them. They only listen to him, not to the Russians. They only work as much as they want. They do the work as sport and training. The Russian has put German brigadiers (team leaders) in front of them in the hope that they will make the Japs work harder. The prisoners are entitled to food that corresponds to their home diet. The Japanese were therefore entitled to rice, which they never received. Potatoes, however, were unpalatable to them. So they stopped working and one morning they remained lying on their cots. The Russian guards beat them half to death, but they remained lying on their planks, adamant. Some time later the rice was there!
The German prisoners of war could never be persuaded to take such a united stand, to their own detriment. As Churchill said about the Germans: "Arrogant in victory and without backbone in defeat!"[9] He hit the nail right on the head!
Where diligence and work are necessary, the German has achieved great success. His technical and scientific achievements are undisputed throughout the world. But in the field of politics and diplomacy, he has almost always failed. Even when he has temporarily played a leading political or military role, it never lasted long. Diplomatic skill is not to be found in the German national character. He has produced few great statesmen. Too many unsuitable people are seated in leading positions, and he has often been guided more by the political interests of others than by his own. In the Boxer Rebellion and at Waterloo he took the fall. More recently, he has been the milking cow for the European Economic Community, without making political capital out of his economic power. He also has no national feeling and certainly no national pride, like all the other peoples. Added to this is the proverbial German discord. In the past, the Germanic tribes fought each other, later the German princes did the same, and today we are wasting money and energies through the jealousies of the German states among each other. And all over the world, countless Germans are giving away their skills to their host countries. German cultural fertiliser for other states.
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- ↑ only learned on 17 April 1946
- ↑ on this see also chapter VII; dort auch an additional episode
- ↑ Khomeini appeared from 1963 onwards; this helps to date the beginning of the writing of the typescript.
- ↑ As alarming as these remarks may be, in the eyes of the author they have been valid up to his time. In today's time of asymmetrical wars, however, war only makes the poor poorer and the "peoples who have become immoderately spoiled and overconfident through power and wealth" even more powerful, rich, spoiled and overconfident.
- ↑ The author later admitted that he was perhaps only able to think this way because he survived the war relatively unscathed.
- ↑ adapted from Friedrich Schiller: "The most pious man can't stay in peace if it doesn't please his evil neighbour." (Wilhelm Tell Act IV, sc. iii)
- ↑ From the preface: I cannot necessarily vouch for the truthfulness of the "Comrades recount" sections. With such reports, exaggerations and pomposity on the part of the narrators cannot be ruled out, although I personally do not doubt the truth of these reports in principle from my own knowledge and experience.
- ↑ Today, Dystrophy is no longer understood to mean malnutrition itself, but a clinical picture as a result of malnutrition.
- ↑ Perhaps this refers to Churchill's statement on 19 May 1943 before Congress, with which he probably quoted a saying: "The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet." (Churchill in His Own Words, 62).