Germany Must Live, by FRIEDRICH BUBENDEN
ALBERT LEO SCHLAGETER'S WAR SONG
Though at first we are but few,
You perhaps, we, a couple of others still,
The road is broad -- the aim is clear;
Forward, step by step!
Courage, come along!
Though at first we are but few,
We shall carry it off, nonetheless!
The November day of the year 1918 when Germany fell to pieces was dying, oddly worn out, languid, yellow intermingled with the bitter-sweet fragrance of falling autumn leaves.
Suddenly the stillness of death over a sea of battlefields, the stillness of death over millions of dead bodies.
At the crossroads, on the empty fields, on the cloud-enveloped mountainsides, on the wet shore, on which the waves beat sluggishly, astonished, startled faces of soldiers still hot with battle, there is a catching of breath, the restless shrugging of shoulders, a leaderless forlornness, a deeply alarmed questioning:
"Over?"
"Yes -- over!"
A war comes to an end. A world war ends with a final bang. A smirking skeleton squats and giggles inaudibly over victor and vanquished.
Who is the victor?
In this brief moment, in which the very earth stands still, nobody knows. Even afterward nobody knows.
The primordial, eternal laws governing our planet are again set in motion, and the earth rotates once more. The petrification dissolves. One draws a breath, another draws a breath. Hands, forlornly, rub foreheads. The earth rotates faster and faster, already it spins at the usual speed; by now the clever have understood. The blood again pulsates through their veins.
The smokeless chimneys of the Wendel mines on the Lorraine frontiers point like steel fingers in the air, and a lieutenant, with fluttering red ribbons in his buttonhole, stands smiling in the door of his quarters.
Discarded rifles pile up in the Cologne railroad station. anthem, also discarded, lies an inconvenient dagger, and train after train rolls, rolls, rolls eastward along the bare rails. And now men are flowing into the heart of the homeland from all sections of the front.
A small cluster of heroes remains behind in the forgotten war lands, still deeply rooted, still uncomprehending. They do not yet know that the earth is once more rotating.
Among them stands Albert Leo Schlageter.
The cowardly Soldiers' Council stepped back from their flashing, angry eyes, and even more from their clenched fists, and let them pass.
But in the homeland the Reds are victorious! Frenzy, ardor, greed for life, have replaced paralyzed shock. Liquor glasses clink. And as warehouses and granaries slowly and gradually fill up, it is forgotten that the earth's crust is cracking. Ho! Good times are here again! Business as usual! A spirit that goes arm in arm with everything that promises and pledges peace and quiet.
But one person sits restlessly there. Among students at their books. He is always on the lookout for leadership. It never comes. Shall Germany live or who? Under colorful caps in Freiburg one man moans: it is Albert Leo Schlageter.
Suddenly he disappears. Riga, German Riga calls! The battery sprays flaming lightning on narrow bridges. Riga is delivered. [1] Among those who breathe freely, the happy ones, the rejoicing ones, is Albert Leo Schlageter, the leader of that battery. Schlageter the mercenary. The mercenary?
The waves rise higher in the homeland. Greedy hands reach out for gold, which flutters away in paper form. That's nothing! Just don't listen. Enjoy life. It's peace after all! The peace of Versailles!
Only one listens: Albert Leo Schlageter! He hears the subterranean rumbling of the mountains of the Ruhr. The goaded, wild, misled Red mob rises up! The petit bourgeois only shudders. He doesn't even see the insolent, yellow Muscovite mask. Albert Leo Schlageter again, impetuously firing off his battery, scatters the Red rabble.
The easily adjusting bourgeois smiles: it wasn't so bad after all.
Where is the leadership?
Here! calls Albert Leo Schlageter! Free Corps officer in Silesia!
The Annaberg looks down on German heroes. The Pole grates his teeth, pulls back. German land is saved. But how much German land was lost altogether?
The merchants and usurers call: Away with the Free Corps that has saved us! The war is over! Now let's have some peace and quiet. Become civilians!
In the background the Marxists smile, the Communists smile, the Jews smile, a Reich government smiles contentedly.
But one man does not smile! Doesn't he take a rest then? Does Germany still call? She calls! But only to those who listen! And those who listen must withdraw. They must always be on the move. They must keep hidden. From the police and the burghers. Restlessly they move here and there. Among them again stands -- he! There he hears him call, the unnamed, unknown soldier, whom only a few know at first. He, without being called to leadership, also shouted his "Here!" Under the earth, near the Reich's capital, but nevertheless under the earth, Albert Leo Schlageter dedicated himself to the flag of this man.
But the fate of the German earth calls Albert Leo Schlageter to another task. Between the Rhine and the Ruhr the fires are burning again! According to the "Treaty and Agreement," the cowardly enemy [2] may invade and seize, jail, and assault Germany's sons and daughters; he may steal and rob. Silent war in the Ruhr territory.
Albert Leo Schlageter sets out when Germany calls again. He does not know that it is the last time in his life that Germany will call him. The war becomes increasingly more hidden, increasingly more secret. From an open fight in an open battlefield, it turns into a dark, secret, almost powerless defense. But he grits his teeth, and his fiery spirit, dampened into what only seems like powerlessness, fights on.
Muffled explosions and crashes. Railway tracks and iron bars split open! Bridges fly up in the air. Fear sits day and night in the shaking knees of the victor."
But suddenly base treachery stands alongside unfettered heroism.
Incomprehensible, this going under of the holy light in the murkiness of hell! Again and again someone must experience this on this earth, and end with death. Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do!
The cross of Golgotha is raised anew in the lonely pile in the sandpit in Golzheim. A Great One must again -- how often in world history -- sink lifeless to his knees because all the petty ones hate him, must hate him.
A salvo flashes, roars in the pale gray dawn of May 26, 1920.
Albert Leo Schlageter is dead!
Is he dead? Odd! Where he is dead everything now springs to life around him and his heroism.
He had fought on in the battalions of German heroes after the war. Alongside him, with him, before him, behind him, his comrades fought for the same prize: for Germany....
This Albert Leo Schlageter who was restless in life, because he sought Germany, now dead, spread restlessness among ever more and new thousands.
Who was Albert Leo Schlageter?
Anyone who reads these simple letters and thinks about them knows. Certainly no one could have written more simply! Was he a creator of illusions? A gifted talker? A singer of freedom? A herald of the word, a lord of speech? A poet?
This slender little volume of letters says: no!
However, this Albert Leo Schlageter, wasn't he, and isn't he, much, much more? He was nothing else, wanted and could be nothing else but a true son of his Volk and of his homeland, nothing else but a living deed!
He did not preach the deed, he was the deed itself!
But because he was a man of action and not of words, because he accepted the bitter chalice for the sake of his faith in Germany and drank it to its last dregs, standing upright, he was and is -- the German conscience!
This German conscience was threatened by struggle as long as he lived. Today the silent, despairing struggle of the unenlightened among us still goes on against this German conscience!
Again, again, and again will there be this struggle between God and the Devil, between light and darkness. It will come to an end only with the final redemption of the world.
Until then, we who call ourselves German and who feel in our blood that we are Germans must persevere in this struggle, even if it costs us our lives! We must do it, as did Albert Leo Schlageter, for the sake of Germany.
If, however, courage and strength forsake us and if we are in danger of sinking into a non-militant contemplation -- then the testament of these plain letters that have been bequeathed to us shall once more open the path to heroism. Then the German conscience in these pages shall smite us.
From the afterword to Deutschland muss leben: Gesammelte Briefe von Albert Leo Schlageter, edited by Friedrich Bubenden (Berlin: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1931), pp. 70-75, 77-78.
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Notes:
1. Delivered from the Bolshevists' advance. In 1920 they were forced to recognize the independence of Latvia, with Riga as its capital.
2. France and Belgium.
The Difference Between Generations, by HANNS JOHST
AUGUST: You won't believe it, Papa, but that's the way it is. The young people don't pay much attention to these old slogans any mare ... they're dying out ... the class struggle is dying out.
SCHNEIDER: So ... and what do you live on then?
AUGUST: The Volk community!
SCHNEIDER: And that's a slogan ... ?
AUGUST: No, it's an experience!
SCHNEIDER: My God! ... Our class struggle, our strikes, they weren't an experience, eh ...? Socialism, the International, were they fantasies maybe ...?
AUGUST: They were necessary, but they were ... they have been ... with respect to the future, that is, they are historical experiences.
SCHNEIDER: So ... and the future therefore will have your Volk community. Tell me, how do you actually envision it? Poor, rich, healthy, upper, lower, all this ceases with you, eh? A social land of Cockaine, eh ... ?
AUGUST: Look, Papa ... upper, lower, poor, rich, that always exists. It is only the importance one places on this question that is decisive.
To us life is not chopped up into working hours and furnished with price charts. Rather, we believe in human existence as a whole. None of us regards making money as the most important thing; we want to serve. The individual is a corpuscle in the bloodstream of his people.
SCHNEIDER: That is the romanticism of adolescence! Redemption of the people through minors. Rub your nose in reality first!
World views aside for now.... Let's talk about something concrete: What is the attitude of your corps and your "Volk community" toward passive resistance?
AUGUST: We want to turn it into a putsch, into a national uprising.
SCHNEIDER: Turn it into a putsch ... ?
AUGUST: You, as an old revolutionary, I must say, stress the word "putsch" rather oddly. The government either will march with us or it will vanish!
SCHNEIDER: You are talking to a regional president and he tells you: the government will raise hell with putschists!
AUGUST: I'm talking quite cheerfully and agreeably with my old father.
SCHNEIDER: Your old father is an official of the state, which considers passive resistance right and proper!
AUGUST: And your son is a revolutionary!
SCHNEIDER: My son is a lout who is going to get a box on the ears .... Now obey!
AUGUST [moves back, laughing gaily]: As a regional president you still manage things like an old work master. That's all right for teaching children good manners. But ...
SCHNEIDER: But ... but.... We oldsters are not as stupid as you youngsters imagine. To you, Schlageter and his cronies are national heroes ... to us here, they are just an event.
Schlageter is a dead man if he doesn't obey orders. The governments of Europe are agreed that the last adventurers and fanatics and firebrands and bandits of the world war must be exterminated with fire and sword!
We want peace! That's what I tell you, young man, and I stood four years under fire for Germany, as it is today and as it will remain, so long as I draw breath!
AUGUST: No!!
And I say this to you, that I have no idea of what a battle is in which equipment is decisive, or of barrages, flame-throwers, and tanks.
We young people, who stand by Schlageter, do not stand by him because he is the last soldier of the world war, but because he is the first soldier of the Third Reich!!!
CURTAIN
From Hanns Johst, Schlageter (Munich, 1934), pp. 82-85.
Fritz Todt: Contemporary Hero, by EDUARD SCHONLEBEN
At the very beginning of his work, on the occasion of the opening of the short Autobahn built to bypass the town of Opladen, on September 27, 1933, he said: "The new road of Adolf Hitler, the Autobahn, is in keeping with the essence of our National Socialism. We wish to fix our goal far ahead of us, we want to achieve our aims directly and in a straight line. We build bridges over crossroads; unnecessary connections are alien to us. We do not need switch tracks; we create for ourselves a road that leads only forward, since we need a road which permits us to maintain a speed that suits us.
"Thus do we build our roads in the Third Reich, thus do we educate our people, thus do we erect the whole National Socialist Reich."
The second secret of Dr. Todt's ability to accomplish great things was an unremitting hardness against his own self, which never permitted him to demand from others what he was unwilling to do himself. "He who is privileged to live in the times of Adolf Hitler must subordinate all desire for personal comfort to the sacred obligation of accomplishing any task the Fuhrer assigns to him."
A few sentences, typical of Dr. Todt's artistic views, must be repeated here:
"The master builder who builds in the stone-ocean of a great city must envision his creation amidst the forms and modes of human expression of earlier times. He must express the greatness of our time in relationship to the accomplishments of earlier periods. But the attitude of the master builder who is called upon to create in the wide-open space of the all-German landscape must be altogether different. His building site is the wide room of nature. The attempt to be even more monumental, even greater than nature, will seem arrogant and presumptuous."
From Eduard Schonleben, Fritz Todt: Der Mensch, der Ingenieur, der Nationalsozialist (Oldenburg: Verlag Gerhard Stalling, 1943), pp. 13, 72.
Frederick the Great: Prussian Hero, by WILHELM IHDE
Anyone who understands what the ancient Greeks, in their wordly wisdom, were trying to represent by the classic figure of Prometheus may also speculate whether Frederick does not occupy in history the position of the Prometheus of the Prussian state. Obviously, in his physical stature Frederick could not compare with the muscular demigod chained to the rock. But, then, it is not always the physically heroic figures who are chosen by Fate to awaken, through their own will, the determination of a Volk. When the exulting rhythm of the Hohenfriedberger March sounded -- when flags waved proudly in the crimson dawn of the Prussian-German morning -- when the people of Berlin bared their heads in silent reverence -- when all of Europe paid more than due respect -- when the Mediterranean corsairs freed Prussian ships-when in faraway China there was awestruck whispering at the sight of the ensigns of Prussian ships-when even a sophisticated posterity must admit its unconditional admiration -- when all this happens, it is not alone due to the King of Prussia, but much more to the man Frederick, whose Prussian will overcame the weaknesses of his body and who in the forty-six years of his reign always did more than just his duty.
What is there to say of this Prussian will of Frederick's, this inflexible will to live? Fortunate is he whose will finds open doors and favor able circumstances among men and things; he may unfold the fullness of his being undisturbed. But flaming sparks are ignited only then, when the genius of a great man is engaged in desperate battle with unyielding Fate, when the harmoniously peaceful purpose of his planning is transformed into the stormy, roaring hurricane of his will. Then the human will shines as a sublime heavenly flame which illuminates true human greatness beyond all time and earthliness. Only when a man's iron will wrestles breast to breast with Fate, when, gnashing his teeth and panting, he tears the disguise from the awesome power and punishes it with the club of his will -- only then does the human spirit tear itself away from all matter and soar to the heights, leaving earth behind and boldly demanding entry into the realm of the Godhead. Only then does the reality of daily drudgery disappear before our eyes and in a flash of sudden awe we understand how man's struggling will can hurl thunderbolts which tear the rainbow-bridged path between earth and the universe and force the Godhead to extend its benediction. His will pushes the Gods from their "golden seats" and forces them to give justice to the human race.
Frederick never experienced good will and luck. From his youth he was forced to stand question and answer, to receive blows and to repay them with even harder blows. From year to year his spirit grew in this never-ending dialogue. Fate raised her own enemy. He was not concerned with the petty joys of life, he hardened his heart early and eventually grew far beyond the everyday world to greatness during the hardest battles of the Seven Years' War.
Four and a half million Prussian subjects defended themselves against a European coalition of 96 million. But Frederick could muster only 150,000 soldiers against many hundred thousands. He marched back and forth across the land, joined battle wherever the enemy could be found, and through cleverly conceived maneuvering kept the multitudinous pack of his enemies before the edge of his sword. His will made up for the lack of troops, his mind for the lack of allies....
Perhaps, then, the great King of Prussia was a philosopher? Many who understood that Frederick could not be explained either as a coldly calculating general, as an unfeeling diplomat, or as a personally ambitious statesman thought it possible to attribute these qualities to him by calling him a philosopher in whom the lives and sufferings of his subjects and the wishes of the surrounding world aroused no sympathy. Nothing could be more wrong than such fabrications! Of course, he was called the Philosopher of Sanssouci, [1] but this philosopher was a human being who was involved in reality with all the fibers of his feelings. He had been forced to look into the weakness and the baseness of the human character. And he had to take them into consideration every day, had no leisure to search for hypotheses alien to reality. There was hardly a man of his time, filled as it was with so-called philosophical speculation, who expressed his scorn and derision for them as strongly as did Frederick. True, in some situations he seemed to be a fatalist, but on the whole he had his feet solidly on the ground and he avoided philosophical speculations which seldom can awaken the interest of active people. In fact, he hated them in his innermost soul. He himself confessed: "A little rest, a little sleep, a little bit of good health -- these constitute my whole philosophy." His whole so-called "philosopher's conceit" was nothing but a splendid humaneness, tempered by suffering and woe, by victory and glory, a heart that was not alien to anything human.
This then is the golden key to Frederick II, King of Prussia; he was nothing but a human being!
He had no less need than others for human joys and happiness; indeed, because of his artistic sensibility he could even have laid a greater claim to them. Who would deny that the bitter disappointments of his youth and his forced marriage made him worthy of a share of some compensating human happiness? A man of Frederick's capacities would have known well what loveliness, what enrapturing felicities and artistic enjoyments, life holds for the connoisseur, and his own capacity for life was equally ready to give and take. The temptations that beset this gracious prince were not small. At the small price of national dignity, the whole of Europe would have been willing to let him lead a life that would have provided the greatest opportunities for his personal inclinations. And in view of the real power relations, posterity would have found little cause to criticize him for it. This Frederick was not forced to be a hero. If he had succumbed to the blandishments of life, it would certainly have been an expression of the will to live on the part of the most charming and intellectual prince in Europe, but we would have searched in vain for the Prussian will to live.
This man Frederick, gifted and blessed for the pursuit of human happiness, made the decision himself. On the day that he, alone in the world and before God, was charged with the future of his people, it was as if a glowing stream of fire went through his heart; he tore himself loose from his personal fate and made this avowal: "It is not necessary for me to live, but that I do my duty." From then On he was Frederick of Prussia, the first servant of his people, and nothing else. Far behind now lay the idyl of Rheinsberg, lost were friends and joys, and before him rose the terror of the battlefield, and for all the future, until the hour of his death, the unfailing clockwork of service. Now, as Fate had declared war on him, he became a hero. In the face of sorrows and hardships he knew nothing of a hero's glory, but when he raised his eyes to his generals -- when his glance swept over his grenadiers -- when from his desk he inspired his ministers -- when he instructed the ambassadors of foreign powers-when he looked like a father upon the least of his Prussians -- then appeared before all of them the hero Frederick.
When finally he fell asleep in the arms of his valet in Sanssouci and wrote finis to seventy-four troublesome years, he left no more personal property than a single threadbare uniform coat of his own guards regiment, an old and tired whippet hound, the old gray charger Conde, and a few snuffboxes. Every general and minister possessed more.
But the great king left behind a Prussia which he had put into the world with will and might, so that it could look forward to its German destiny.
From Kampfer, Kunder, Tatzeugen: Gestalter deutscher Grosse, Vol. I: Kampfer, edited by Ernst Adolf Dreyer and Heinz W. Siska (Munich, Vienna, Leipzig: Zinnen-Verlag, 1942), pp. 182-184, 203- 205.
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Notes:
1. Frederick's palace at Potsdam.
The Diary of an SA Man's Bride, by GUDRUN STREITER
Although I am very tired, I just cannot sleep. The events of the last days have filled me with such a great enthusiasm that despite the late hour I take up my beloved diary in order to write in it what has so deeply stirred me. It was cloudy and overcast when I set out for the Rhine yesterday with my Hitler comrades, men and women. Nevertheless, we paid no attention to the unfavorable weather. Our hearts flamed with a glowing enthusiasm and a great joy. The lutes played and our song-happy lips never rested. Men and women party comrades boarded the train at almost every station and brought even more cheer to the frolicsome group. Time flew by so quickly with all the singing and jingling and jangling and before we were aware of it Germania was already greeting us from the Niederwald. Upon arriving in Bingen, we were still undecided whether we should go by ferry in order to travel up the other side of the Rhine by train or whether we should proceed to our destination by steamboat on the German Rhine. The weather decided for us. An opaque black mass of clouds had formed in the skies. The clouds were riveted together like iron chains. While we were looking up at the skies pondering alternatives, a violent storm began to rage and pound the waves of the Rhine with terrible force. Then we were all seized by a yearning for wild waves, stormy wind and rain. We boarded the steamer and clambered to the upper deck, to let the storm wind blow through us and to lift our heads to the elements. How loudly our hearts pounded and how proudly waved our swastika flags and pennants in the storm wind. Legend-woven castles greeted us boldly and stubbornly from both banks. And our enthusiasm and ecstasy grew even mare. The beautiful trip was concluded much too quickly and soon we could spot the little Rhenish town, Our destination, greeting us. A great stir of life could be seen on the shores of the Rhine. Unnumbered bands of Brownshirts marched with their blood-red flags to assembly on the banks of the Rhine. Roaring shouts of "Heil!" greeted us, echoing back and forth. We were met by a wonderful panorama when we entered the town. The streets were a regular forest of flags. From every house waved the glorious German banners. Garlands and a profusion of flowers decorated the streets. There was liveliness everywhere. SA men hurried past us, carrying out the orders of their leaders. From every side we could hear stirring tunes of Prussian military marches. And then I saw something I had never seen before: women and girls in the brown Hitler uniform. They sold us badges for the solstice celebration. This touched me in a wondrous way, and a desire began to burgeon and to burn within me, to be permitted to help, like these women and girls, in the great work of our leader Adolf Hitler. A torch had been thrown into my heart and continued to flame and blaze. There was no place for any other thought within me.
Almost in a trance, I followed my girl comrades to our quarters. I no longer heard or saw what was happening around me; I just sat on my cot and wondered how I could become a helper in the reconstruction of the Fatherland. I was still lost in thought when one of my girl comrades found me and took me to the open-air concert of the SA. Deep inside I was annoyed that I had been disturbed in my thoughts. But outwardly, of course, I gave no indication and acted as though I were in high spirits. But in spite of the eager talk of the other girls, I was soon lost in my thoughts again, not at all aware of the fact that I was already beginning my work for the Hitler movement. As we approached the square, we heard the last few bars of the Petersburg March, and then there was a pause in the music program. I soon lost my comrades in the press of people. I went along a stretch of the Rhine promenade and suddenly found myself before the statue of our great Blucher. I stood on the spot where, on New Year's night in 1814, the Prussian army led by Blucher had crossed the Rhine. My thoughts rushed back to that memorable night and, fully occupied with meditation on this great deed of the courageous Prussians, I just stood there. I was torn out of my thoughts when I heard a man's voice beside me and I saw an SA man standing in front of me. He said to me: "Pardon me, are you a party comrade?" "Yes, of course," I answered. "Heil and greetings." I looked up and saw before me a weather-browned manly face with a pair of strikingly large and sunny eyes. He looked at me questioningly. "Wouldn't you like to help the movement a bit by selling some cards?" "With pleasure," I responded, and received a stack of cards from his hands. With joy I rushed toward the mass of people that surrounded the band. In only a quarter of an hour I had sold all the relief cards and joyfully delivered the money to the SA man for the movement. He was overjoyed and thanked me by shaking my hand. He told me his name, Wolfgang Jensen. I told him my name in return. We exchanged a few more words and then I hastened to rejoin my comrades to tell them about my card selling.
In the evening, at ten o'clock, there was a great assembly before the Blucher monument. We had bought torches from the SA men and now we took our place in the ranks of the Hitler legions. Countless people stood in formation. SS and SA men, Hitler Youth, National Socialist women and girls' groups, Stahlhelmer, Pfadfinder, Wandervogel, and thousands of others formed the endless ranks of the participants in the solstice festival. In the van stood the standard-bearers with their blood-red swastika flags, and countless pennants waved between the ranks in the evening breeze. We stood like that in rank and file for more than two hours. At twelve-fifteen finally came the great moment. The order came to march off and the torches were lighted. We marched with joyful song, accompanied by lutes, through the streets of the little town. After a short time we were in top marching form. As we entered the market square, there was a roar of "Heil!" There stood Flight Captain Hermann Goring, his hand raised in the Hitler salute, and he reviewed the long line of marchers, while shouts of "Heil!" echoed in the square. After we left the town, the road led us up into the mountains toward the solstice fire. It was a splendid sight. The road led to the mountain in serpentine twists and turns. From the top we could look back on the long marching columns. The brilliant glare of the torches in the night was glorious. It was an overwhelming sight. My words are too poor to portray this experience. For a long time we let this picture enter our thirsty souls to their uttermost depths until our eyes were focused on one mighty flaming fire. It was our solstice celebration. We were received by the tunes of Prussian military marches. Then, with the Dutch Prayer of Thanksgiving, the inspiring festival began. Heads were bared. With folded hands we listened devoutly to the solemn melody: "We come to pray before the righteous God ..."
Toward the end Hermann Goring rose again to deliver a flaming address. In his call to battle for Germany's freedom the rustle of the Rhine sounded like a prayer for redemption from foreign despotism. In the deep darkness of the night, the iron words of Ernst Moritz Arndt [1] sounded forceful and thundering on Hermann Goring's tongue: "The Rhine, Germany's river, but not Germany's border."
After singing the national anthem, we all sat down around the great fire and sang our songs. Goring stepped into the circle and remained standing, proud and upright. It was a glorious picture, the great air hero standing there, surrounded by the light of the solstice fire. But his face remained somewhat in the dark, since the dying flames did not reach that far. I had the luck to sit directly behind him. With a sudden decision I jumped up and held my torch over his shoulder, and now his face, too, radiated a great glow. Then came a great, eventful moment for me. He turned and nodded thankfully to me. Who could have been happier than I? Then we sang Lons's [2] song of the Red hussars. Again, the main speaker addressed us in imperative and flaming words and stepped out of our midst, accompanied by roaring shouts of "Heil!" Our eyes followed him for a long time until he vanished in the dark night. I thought that I would not see him again for a long time. I had not noticed that meanwhile an SA man had stepped to my side. I turned around only after I heard myself addressed by name, and encountered the manly face of SA man Jensen. He shook my hand and asked about my impressions of the solstice celebration. I began to tell him in my stormy and elated state of excitement. He looked at me with joyful and shining eyes, sharing my enthusiasm and joy. After I had expressed all my feelings about the solstice celebration, we both fell silent. I noticed that his facial expression had changed. A deadly seriousness was on his face. He looked at me silently for a long time and then he asked how long I had been a follower of Hitler and what had prompted me to become a National Socialist. He did not turn his eyes from me, but continued to look at me, steadfast and probing. I shall never forget these hours. His eyes plumbed the depth of my soul. His gaze was strong and powerful, but without importunity. I felt his eyes in the deepest corner of my heart and it would have been impossible for me to make a secret of anything that he wanted to know of me. I answered his question and explained clearly and simply when and why I had become a National Socialist. He was silent for a while, turned his head, and looked thoughtfully into the flames of the solstice fire. Slowly he turned his face to me, looked deep into my eyes, and, shaking my hand, said in all seriousness: "You have truly grasped what National Socialism is!" Meanwhile the fire was banking. Some threw their torches into the flames. Wolfgang Jensen and I followed the example of the others and once again the flames shot up. We looked silently and seriously into the fire. Then Wolfgang Jensen said admonishingly, almost solemnly, to me: "Don't ever forget the solstice fire. Let it flame in your heart and let its rays reach out to your racial comrades. Then you will truly help in the great work of Adolf Hitler."
From Gudrun Streiter, Dem Tod so nah ...: Tagebuchblatter einer SA-Mann's Braut (published by the author, n.d.), pp. 8-11.
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Notes:
1. Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769-1860), a patriotic Romantic poet.
2. Hermann Lons (1866-1914), a writer, mostly of peasant and regional novels.
On Festivities in the School, by HERMANN KLAUSS
The German school is not an institution devoted only to the transmission of knowledge; it is not a dead organizational form -- it is a form of life itself. The teacher is not just an instructor and a transmitter of knowledge. He is more than that. He is a soldier, serving on the cultural-political front of National Socialism. True, the battle on this front is of a different nature and is fought with different weapons, but it is no less important, because the struggle is for the soul of the people. It would make no sense whatsoever to win the political but lose the cultural-political battle.
The task of the German educator is to form human souls. The festive hours in the school are charged with the highest mission of leadership -- hours in which the task of forming human souls is most urgent.
Hence the festivity can never be something secondary, something, say, that is off to the side, that merely deflects everyone from their real task.
The daily school work all too easily leads a class to withdraw into its work assignment and to a separation from the school community and the outside world. At a festivity, however, teacher and students stand together, whether the occasion is a simple flag-raising ceremony or a great celebration involving the whole school community.
Nowhere can we discern the spirit that prevails in a community as clearly as in the manner in which its celebrations are conducted. This applies to a ceremony of a single class as well as to a ceremony of the whole school. The old proverb could be changed to read: "Show me how you celebrate, and I will tell you who you are."
Every festive hour is a confession of faith. The school administration has clearly recognized the great importance of school celebrations. This is distinctly shown in the regulations for the curricula of the various types of schools.
The regulations for education and instruction at the grade-school level set forth on page 7:
In school celebrations, the incorporation of the school into the great Volk community is most strikingly expressed. It is the climax of the school's community life and must therefore be organized with special love and care.
The corresponding regulations for education and instruction in the intermediate school read:
The community life of a school finds its loftiest expression in its celebrations. Specific celebrations should be held if they grow organically out of the life of the school and its link with the great Volkish events. Since it is the purpose of these celebrations to serve as climaxes, they should be held only infrequently.
The regulations for education and instruction in the higher schools also explain how the various school subjects can be integrated in the school festivities.
Festivities during the School Year
Individually school celebrations show a great variety, ranging from the simple morning speech and song to the flag raising, the morning celebration, the memorial hour, and the festive drama, to the great celebrations of national holidays in a form suitable for young people.
The great celebrations of the school community should be few; they should represent climaxes in the life of the school. If these celebrations follow each other too frequently, they lose their effectiveness. But celebrations are also held in small groups in order to prepare the youth for the experience of the great national holidays.
School celebrations can be grouped as follows:
Celebrations under the Flag
Brief flag raising or massing of colors on the first and last day of a semester or on special occasions.
Celebrations under the flag.
The School's "Own" Celebrations
Upon entering the school -- the road into school.
Upon graduation from school -- the road into life.
National Holidays
The Day of the Reich -- January 30.
The Day of the Fuhrer -- April 20.
The Day of Labor -- May 1.
The Day of the Farmer -- Thanksgiving Day.
Heroes' Memorial -- The Day of Langemarck [1] and Heroes' Memorial Day.
November 9.
Celebrations during the School Year
The Day of the German Mother.
The Day of German Volkdom.
Pre-Christmas Festive Hour -- the Light Celebration.
General Morning Celebrations
The Weekly Festive Hour.
Festive Hours On Special Occasions
Historical memorial days.
Current events.
Concerning the Organization of a Festive Hour
Action, speech, and music are the pillars upon which the great national celebrations rest.
Music serves to prepare the celebrants. Speech opens bridges to their hearts. Action creates meaningful customs....
The Flag Orders Our Day
The law of the flag rules over our lives. It also stands above our school work.
We begin each section of the school year with a general flag-raising ceremony. We close it with a general flag lowering. The first great experience of a new student is the ceremonial flag raising. The school year ends with the flag lowering on the last day of school. On the holidays of the school and the Volk community the school hoists the flags of the Reich and its youth.
Flag raising is honor, elevation, admonition, and avowal of faith. The external expression -- assembly, speech, song, greetings, and retreat -- is an unfailing indication of the spirit which prevails in the community.
Generally, the flag-raising ceremony is quite brief and is limited to a recitation and song. In some cases it will be enlarged to include an appeal, reflection, and avowal of loyalty in recitation, song, and address. Such would be the case on the occasion of the flag raising at the beginning of a new school year, on the first day in the country boarding school, on national holidays, and on other similar occasions.
The flag song is always a "We" song, a song of the community. A large selection of such songs is readily available in all collections, so that it is not necessary to list them here....
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The following suggestions for celebrations -- "The Flag Is Our Faith" ... -- are so conceived that they could take place before the flag raising with the song of the nation. It is, of course, also possible to have the flag raising precede these ceremonies. In that case the first song could be dispensed with.
The narrator of the words of the Fuhrer stands before the ranks of the assembled teachers; the narrators of the avowal of faith and loyalty stand in the front rank of the pupils.
"The Flag Is Our Faith
We sing together:
"Under the Flag We March."
A student speaks:
The flag is our faith
In God and Volk and Land.
Whoever wants to rob us of it
Must take our life and hand.
A teacher speaks:
Thus the Fuhrer admonishes us:
"Everything that we demand of Germany in the future, that, boys and girls, we also demand of you.
"This must you practice and this must you then pass on to the future, because whatever we create today and whatever we do, we will have to pass on. But in you Germany will live on, and when there is nothing left of us, it will be up to you to hold in your fists the flag which we once raised out of nothingness.
"Therefore you must stand solidly on the ground of your soil, and you must be hard so that this flag does not slip from you, then may you be followed by generation after generation from whom you can make the same demand that they be as you were. And then Germany will look upon you with pride."
***
Or a brief address:
Main idea: The flag is a symbol and an obligation.
A student recites:
We boys carry the flag for the assault of youth.
It shall stand and rise and glow like fire in the skies!
We are sworn to the flag
For always and ever.
Forever cursed be he
Who besmirches the flag.
The flag is our faith
In God and Volk and Land.
Whoever wants to rob us of it
Must take our life and hand.
For our flag we will care
As we do for our own mother,
For the flag is our tomorrow
And our honor and courage!
We sing together:
"We Youngsters Carry the Flag."
From Hermann Klauss, Feierstunden der deutschen Schule (Stuttgart: Franck'sche Verlagshandlung, 1941), pp. 7 ff.
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Notes:
1. A battle in World War I (1914), fought by youthful volunteers, most of whom perished.