There are still people among us who do not understand how to see the war, which the German people must fight today for their national life, in a larger context. They dramatize the difficulties and burdens connected with it to an extent that no longer allows them to distinguish the essential from the unessential and the day-to-day from what goes far beyond time. Nothing could be further from our minds than to see the harsh facts of war in a rosy light. War is always cruel and imperious. It inflicts painful wounds, and usually according to laws of selection quite different from those of individual justice. Some families are attacked by it so mercilessly that they almost lose their existence over it; others, however, it spares and leaves almost completely unscathed. It is clear that those 'particularly affected by suffering and pain can only understand this with great difficulty, if at all. But even outside of war, life is often unjust. There is only a higher historical justice in it, which the individual is able to understand only in the rarest cases. And that is precisely why it is important today to crystallize it out of the confusion of time and to raise it above it, as it were, as a widely visible sign of consolation for all.
How can a soldier who returns from the Eastern front to a hospital at home, wounded and exhausted after days of travel, muster the readiness to take care of the people at home?
To understand the pale ones in their worries and worries! The things that burden us, the things that we have struggled with at home through the long winter days, are outside only the obvious or the trivial. That there are sometimes no coals and sometimes no potatoes, that you can't take the train when you feel like it, that the means of transportation in the cities are overcrowded, that the newspapers are only four pages long, that you have to stand in line for hours to get a theater or movie ticket, that when you go shopping in the stores you so often get the stereotypical answer, "Oh, dear God, if these were the only worries that moved our front-line soldiers, they would find the life they could lead then to be truly paradisiacal. They fight not only for the fate of the nation, but millions of times for their own naked existence. They look death in the eye so often that they often enough feel their personal existence only as a gift.
Nevertheless, these differences in the nature of the struggle outside and the work at home need not lead to a contradiction in the conceptions of front and homeland. The homeland tries to understand the front, as far as it is at all possible, and the front, of course, does not want to misunderstand the homeland. No one would dream of even remotely comparing the burdens to which the homeland is exposed with the sacrifices of the front. Even if the homeland does not always speak of it, it always thinks of the front, whether consciously or unconsciously. It also has a rough idea of what our soldiers must endure.
Now that winter is over and the spring sun is already smiling down on the gradually warming earth everywhere, we are only becoming fully aware of the trials to which the German Wehrmacht, especially in the East, has been subjected during the past five months. Only stupid people at home can exaggerate their own worries. And after all, it was not the front that fought at unheard-of sacrifices, because it is their profession, and the home that worked, taking on a number of restrictions only because it is their good prerogative. After all, the results of the heroic efforts of the front benefit us as a people as a whole, just as any failure of the front would have plunged us all into the deepest misfortune. The front saved the Reich, and the homeland only helped it in the process.
Those who died at home must never forget this. No matter how difficult the conditions of the civilian war, which are certainly uncomfortable and hard by peacetime standards, may seem to them, they must always be contrasted with the victims of the front in order to arrive at a correct assessment and valuation. One cannot take the position that waging war is only a matter for the soldiers and that the homeland is, so to speak, a spectator. That must embitter the soldier with good reason, and in the long run he would not be able to feel any respect for a homeland that had become accustomed to thinking that way. Moreover, at home it is always the same people who make a profession out of complaining about the difficulties resulting from the prolonged duration of the war and give them a weight they do not deserve. Those who have the least reason to do so usually stand at the wailing wall, while those to whom the war has added a maximum of suffering and pain to the burdens that fall equally on all, at best withdraw into themselves and fall silent in quiet sadness.
We have not yet spoken to a mother who has lost her son or a woman who has lost her husband, who did not at the same time, with the expression of shocking personal pain, also recognize the hard and inevitable fate which the nation must today master by summoning up all its national strength. In the homeland, too, there are very strong shades in the demands that the war makes on the individual, and the old experience is repeated here that those who are only slightly affected complain the loudest, while those who have been wounded in the root of their human happiness usually also muster the strength to see their sacrifice in a larger context and to nourish their spiritual resistance precisely from this. For them, the only thing that matters today is that their painful loss should not be in vain, that it should be justified "without and in a higher life of our people".
In the course of the past few weeks, we have received a large number of letters from the front concerning the collection of woolen and winter clothing organized at the turn of the year. Without exception, these letters breathe a pleasantly warm spirit of solidarity; indeed, they sometimes agree in their formulations to such an extent that one could assume they were written according to a pattern. They come from all parts of the Eastern Front, and the scheme underlying them is the uniformly same sentiment which, without command, prevails everywhere among our soldiers. One sometimes has the impression that the entire front clings with all the fibers of its heart to a cherished idea of the homeland, which it keeps before its eyes in the hard battles outside, and indeed must keep, in order to summon up anew every day the strength to take upon themselves the life-and-death commitment for our people.
We do not always realize what responsibility we thus bear towards our soldiers. This idea simply must not be disappointed, by anyone and ever. We owe it to our honor and the most primitive feeling of gratitude that the homeland justifies this idea of itself in the eyes and memory of the front by its attitude. We, at any rate, would never tolerate even the slightest deviation from this. Our worries and burdens at home in all honor; no one who knows them even thinks of not taking them as seriously as they deserve. But they must never tempt us to regard them as more important than they are, and no one has the right to use them as an excuse for a front-line soldier who, for the first time, sets foot on the soil of his homeland, for which he has longed in silent longing for months, and already sees an orderly street life, people without guns and cannons, moving means of transportation, clean and well-kept streets, the friendly smile of a fair girl's face, the sparrow concert of a flock of children playing, all things we take for granted, for such a new and completely unfamiliar happiness that he would like to touch the road home with his hands to make sure that it is not a dream but reality.
It has always been the noble prerogative of the Germans not to become brutalized in battle, no matter how hard and cruel it may be, but to find in it the way to the deeper secrets of their national heart. It is true that our soldiers speak a rougher language than usual; but behind it they often only try to conceal the sensitivity of their souls. They listen with strained ears to every word we speak, they note the look and gesture of home, they observe keenly and critically their attitudes, which sometimes manifest themselves in trifles and carelessness more than in emphatic demonstrations, and yet in all this they seek only the confirmation of the image of home which they have carried about with them for months outside. It is indeed a glory for the front, if the soldier feels a longing for the outside again after a few days at home, but it is not always a glory for the homeland as well. We could imagine that it always showed itself to our soldiers only in such a way that they felt it as the highest happiness and did not take a trace of bitterness with them when they returned to the front, but only the firm will to keep it in their protection, because it is the source of their strength, the blessing of their life and the kind mother of their longing.
It has always been the noble prerogative of the Germans not to become brutal in battle, no matter how hard and cruel it may be. and cruel, but to find in it the way to the deeper secrets of their national heart. of their national heart. It is true that our soldiers speak a harsher language than usual; but behind it they often only try to hide the sensitivity of their souls. They listen with eager ear to every word we speak, they note the look and gesture of the homeland, they and critically observe their attitude, which sometimes manifests itself in trifles and carelessness than in emphatic demonstrations, and yet in all this they seek only confirmation of the image of home image of home that they have carried around with them outside for months. It is a glory for the front when the soldier returns to days at home, but it is not always a glory for the homeland. the homeland. We could imagine that it only ever showed itself to our soldiers in such a way that they felt it to be as the highest happiness and when they return to the front they do not take a trace of bitterness with them. but only the firm will to keep it in their protection, because it is the source of their strength, the blessing of their strength, the blessing of their lives and the kind mother of their longings.
It may be that for all of us this is more a matter of our hearts than of our lives and our attitude in the war itself. The homeland does willingly and obediently what is asked of it. Every time it was called upon, it was still there. She has never failed to speak up when her national conscience has been appealed to. But she should also speak as she feels. She should not, through carelessness and lack of thought, show herself in a worse light than she deserves according to her performance. She should approach our soldiers in the most natural way, and in any case avoid telling them in the short days of her stay at home about her worries, which are modest in comparison with those at the front, and which she herself has probably already overcome and forgotten to a considerable extent by the time the soldiers, additionally burdened with them, return to the front. This also applies to the letters we send to our soldiers. Only foolish and uncaring people use them as a welcome opportunity to write to the outside world about their little daily worries, most of which have long since slipped from their minds by the time the letter recipient at the front hears about them in this way.
We all have to carry our share in the war. Each of us must make an honest effort and, if possible, avoid burdening the other, especially if he cannot help him, because he has to carry his share, too. In hard and difficult times we have to be more considerate of each other than in normal times. Most people are involved in the war to a significant extent, even with their mental reserves. These are hard tests that we have to pass in this struggle. In them we must assert ourselves and provide ourselves with a universal alibi for a coming great national leadership role. It is not enough to use only strength. We must also call upon prudence, especially the prudence of the heart. We Germans have been strong so often in our history, and yet we have rarely achieved our goal. This was usually due to the fact that in the great trials we remembered our weaknesses more than our virtues.
It is different today, and it must be different. In all dangers and threats we have, if we only want to, a strength to use that will stand its ground in any storm: The great, strong, but also kind and understanding heart of our people.
How can a soldier who returns from the Eastern front to a hospital at home, wounded and exhausted after days of travel, muster the readiness to take care of the people at home?
To understand the pale ones in their worries and worries! The things that burden us, the things that we have struggled with at home through the long winter days, are outside only the obvious or the trivial. That there are sometimes no coals and sometimes no potatoes, that you can't take the train when you feel like it, that the means of transportation in the cities are overcrowded, that the newspapers are only four pages long, that you have to stand in line for hours to get a theater or movie ticket, that when you go shopping in the stores you so often get the stereotypical answer, "Oh, dear God, if these were the only worries that moved our front-line soldiers, they would find the life they could lead then to be truly paradisiacal. They fight not only for the fate of the nation, but millions of times for their own naked existence. They look death in the eye so often that they often enough feel their personal existence only as a gift.
Nevertheless, these differences in the nature of the struggle outside and the work at home need not lead to a contradiction in the conceptions of front and homeland. The homeland tries to understand the front, as far as it is at all possible, and the front, of course, does not want to misunderstand the homeland. No one would dream of even remotely comparing the burdens to which the homeland is exposed with the sacrifices of the front. Even if the homeland does not always speak of it, it always thinks of the front, whether consciously or unconsciously. It also has a rough idea of what our soldiers must endure.
Now that winter is over and the spring sun is already smiling down on the gradually warming earth everywhere, we are only becoming fully aware of the trials to which the German Wehrmacht, especially in the East, has been subjected during the past five months. Only stupid people at home can exaggerate their own worries. And after all, it was not the front that fought at unheard-of sacrifices, because it is their profession, and the home that worked, taking on a number of restrictions only because it is their good prerogative. After all, the results of the heroic efforts of the front benefit us as a people as a whole, just as any failure of the front would have plunged us all into the deepest misfortune. The front saved the Reich, and the homeland only helped it in the process.
Those who died at home must never forget this. No matter how difficult the conditions of the civilian war, which are certainly uncomfortable and hard by peacetime standards, may seem to them, they must always be contrasted with the victims of the front in order to arrive at a correct assessment and valuation. One cannot take the position that waging war is only a matter for the soldiers and that the homeland is, so to speak, a spectator. That must embitter the soldier with good reason, and in the long run he would not be able to feel any respect for a homeland that had become accustomed to thinking that way. Moreover, at home it is always the same people who make a profession out of complaining about the difficulties resulting from the prolonged duration of the war and give them a weight they do not deserve. Those who have the least reason to do so usually stand at the wailing wall, while those to whom the war has added a maximum of suffering and pain to the burdens that fall equally on all, at best withdraw into themselves and fall silent in quiet sadness.
We have not yet spoken to a mother who has lost her son or a woman who has lost her husband, who did not at the same time, with the expression of shocking personal pain, also recognize the hard and inevitable fate which the nation must today master by summoning up all its national strength. In the homeland, too, there are very strong shades in the demands that the war makes on the individual, and the old experience is repeated here that those who are only slightly affected complain the loudest, while those who have been wounded in the root of their human happiness usually also muster the strength to see their sacrifice in a larger context and to nourish their spiritual resistance precisely from this. For them, the only thing that matters today is that their painful loss should not be in vain, that it should be justified "without and in a higher life of our people".
In the course of the past few weeks, we have received a large number of letters from the front concerning the collection of woolen and winter clothing organized at the turn of the year. Without exception, these letters breathe a pleasantly warm spirit of solidarity; indeed, they sometimes agree in their formulations to such an extent that one could assume they were written according to a pattern. They come from all parts of the Eastern Front, and the scheme underlying them is the uniformly same sentiment which, without command, prevails everywhere among our soldiers. One sometimes has the impression that the entire front clings with all the fibers of its heart to a cherished idea of the homeland, which it keeps before its eyes in the hard battles outside, and indeed must keep, in order to summon up anew every day the strength to take upon themselves the life-and-death commitment for our people.
We do not always realize what responsibility we thus bear towards our soldiers. This idea simply must not be disappointed, by anyone and ever. We owe it to our honor and the most primitive feeling of gratitude that the homeland justifies this idea of itself in the eyes and memory of the front by its attitude. We, at any rate, would never tolerate even the slightest deviation from this. Our worries and burdens at home in all honor; no one who knows them even thinks of not taking them as seriously as they deserve. But they must never tempt us to regard them as more important than they are, and no one has the right to use them as an excuse for a front-line soldier who, for the first time, sets foot on the soil of his homeland, for which he has longed in silent longing for months, and already sees an orderly street life, people without guns and cannons, moving means of transportation, clean and well-kept streets, the friendly smile of a fair girl's face, the sparrow concert of a flock of children playing, all things we take for granted, for such a new and completely unfamiliar happiness that he would like to touch the road home with his hands to make sure that it is not a dream but reality.
It has always been the noble prerogative of the Germans not to become brutalized in battle, no matter how hard and cruel it may be, but to find in it the way to the deeper secrets of their national heart. It is true that our soldiers speak a rougher language than usual; but behind it they often only try to conceal the sensitivity of their souls. They listen with strained ears to every word we speak, they note the look and gesture of home, they observe keenly and critically their attitudes, which sometimes manifest themselves in trifles and carelessness more than in emphatic demonstrations, and yet in all this they seek only the confirmation of the image of home which they have carried about with them for months outside. It is indeed a glory for the front, if the soldier feels a longing for the outside again after a few days at home, but it is not always a glory for the homeland as well. We could imagine that it always showed itself to our soldiers only in such a way that they felt it as the highest happiness and did not take a trace of bitterness with them when they returned to the front, but only the firm will to keep it in their protection, because it is the source of their strength, the blessing of their life and the kind mother of their longing.
It has always been the noble prerogative of the Germans not to become brutal in battle, no matter how hard and cruel it may be. and cruel, but to find in it the way to the deeper secrets of their national heart. of their national heart. It is true that our soldiers speak a harsher language than usual; but behind it they often only try to hide the sensitivity of their souls. They listen with eager ear to every word we speak, they note the look and gesture of the homeland, they and critically observe their attitude, which sometimes manifests itself in trifles and carelessness than in emphatic demonstrations, and yet in all this they seek only confirmation of the image of home image of home that they have carried around with them outside for months. It is a glory for the front when the soldier returns to days at home, but it is not always a glory for the homeland. the homeland. We could imagine that it only ever showed itself to our soldiers in such a way that they felt it to be as the highest happiness and when they return to the front they do not take a trace of bitterness with them. but only the firm will to keep it in their protection, because it is the source of their strength, the blessing of their strength, the blessing of their lives and the kind mother of their longings.
It may be that for all of us this is more a matter of our hearts than of our lives and our attitude in the war itself. The homeland does willingly and obediently what is asked of it. Every time it was called upon, it was still there. She has never failed to speak up when her national conscience has been appealed to. But she should also speak as she feels. She should not, through carelessness and lack of thought, show herself in a worse light than she deserves according to her performance. She should approach our soldiers in the most natural way, and in any case avoid telling them in the short days of her stay at home about her worries, which are modest in comparison with those at the front, and which she herself has probably already overcome and forgotten to a considerable extent by the time the soldiers, additionally burdened with them, return to the front. This also applies to the letters we send to our soldiers. Only foolish and uncaring people use them as a welcome opportunity to write to the outside world about their little daily worries, most of which have long since slipped from their minds by the time the letter recipient at the front hears about them in this way.
We all have to carry our share in the war. Each of us must make an honest effort and, if possible, avoid burdening the other, especially if he cannot help him, because he has to carry his share, too. In hard and difficult times we have to be more considerate of each other than in normal times. Most people are involved in the war to a significant extent, even with their mental reserves. These are hard tests that we have to pass in this struggle. In them we must assert ourselves and provide ourselves with a universal alibi for a coming great national leadership role. It is not enough to use only strength. We must also call upon prudence, especially the prudence of the heart. We Germans have been strong so often in our history, and yet we have rarely achieved our goal. This was usually due to the fact that in the great trials we remembered our weaknesses more than our virtues.
It is different today, and it must be different. In all dangers and threats we have, if we only want to, a strength to use that will stand its ground in any storm: The great, strong, but also kind and understanding heart of our people.
