19. März 1944
19 Mar 44 And yet - as is so often the case in life - a drop of bitterness falls into the cup of joy. I am in an embarrassing situation. Immediately after my arrival, I had written Carola a letter saying a few things that needed to be said. In her reply, she had announced her visit to talk about it. Today she is coming. Full of inner turmoil and joyful anticipation at the same time, I stand at the corridor window and look down into the park. The ground is still covered with a thin layer of snow, only the sunlit areas reveal the dark ground. Meltwater drips from the roof gutter.
It’s a shame that I have to leave my room today. It is to be converted into a single room for a seriously wounded patient. I move into the next room, where there will be three of us. While the auxiliary nurse is still moving things around, I shuffle along the corridor. At the end of the long corridor is a window with a view of the cemetery. This is where I stand now, lost in my thoughts.
What human fates I have already witnessed. I’m thinking of a lieutenant, for example. He had his weaknesses and faults, just like other people. But he wasn’t bad or even evil. Many of his comrades even liked him. But he wasn’t free of youthful recklessness either, and that brought misfortune upon him one day. Remorse came - as always - too late. And then the Lord God, whom he had previously forgotten, was supposed to help! You dead people down there, you are better off than some living people who are burdened with a heavy sense of guilt.
When I look to my left, my gaze falls on a high hillside with a row of beautiful villas.[1] Then I always make utopian plans for the future and imagine how nice it would be if I could live like that with Carola.[2]
I’m slowly limping back down the long corridor when Carola suddenly turns the corner! Leaning on my stick, I stop and look at the woman I love, who is coming towards me in a red coat and black hat. Then we stand in front of each other and she holds out her hand to me with a smile. As I can’t go back into my old room and the new one hasn’t been prepared yet, we stay outside in the corridor. We first exchange a few trivial sentences and then, hesitantly, the first inevitable questions.
Prior to Carola’s arrival, I had already rented a simple, rustic-style room with chequered bedding and a creaky floor in a neighbouring house. I’d taken it because it was close to the military hospital and also cheap. But Carola doesn’t like it at all. So we go back to the city, where Carola takes a hotel room opposite the towering Martini church. Here, after a long, clarifying conversation, Carola gives me her consent for the second time. It was already late in the evening when I limp back the long, snowy way to the military hospital. From leaning heavily on the stick, I had rubbed a blister on the palm of my hand on the way.
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- ↑ Google Maps 3D (Layers – More – Globe view has to be aktiveted) gives an impression of this view from the east wing of the former district hospital, then military hospital and now county council office to the cemetery and the villas on Neue Bergstraße and Brühfeldweg
- ↑ 10 years later, the utopia of his own house had finally become reality!
- ↑ The postcard was sent on 10 April 1979, which helps dating the typoscript