The Literature of War
Hitler has been able to spread, as an important factor toward his internal policy, the feeling that war is near. The German people find war present. It is possible to force a nation to endure hunger, lack of freedom, arbitrary power, sacrifices of all sorts; to rouse them to superhuman performance by making them believe that they are living in exceptional circumstances; to confiscate their property, and enforce martial law — but only if and when the people are convinced that a state of war exists and that life depends on their will to fight, to conquer, and to die. The Men in Power have been artists, creating this atmosphere in Germany, and convincing the half-grown young, especially, that the battle exists in deadly seriousness.
But where is the enemy? These are people who have come over a rise of ground, in fog, fighting fog.
Where is the enemy?
Never mind. The Führer commands, and they follow.
He is well endowed to be the lord of such an army, in a fantastic war, without a palpable enemy. Hitler, to whom Germany and Austria surrendered without a show of struggle, is an uneducated Wagnerian, a lover of blood-red flags, and of the secret midnight oath. On a certain thirtieth of June — the day he had his best friends murdered — he spent the evening listening to music, which so moved him that he became quite tender at the thought of so much bloodshed. He is the ideal captain for such a non-existent “wish-war.” Two sides meet and act together in him: the romantic, obsessed by a mystic blood fantasy; and the calculating, plotting, wary, possessed of an animal tenacity which locks its teeth in its object. But if ever the dream-war becomes a reality, and Hitler needs to defend himself against the visible enemy, the decisive issue may he which side of him survives, the recluse or the sly, hardheaded man. In the meantime, he bolsters himself for that defense.
Periodicals have been valuable to Hitler. They have helped to harden his State Youth against hunger, forced marches, and the hardships and fiction of the Führer’s war. One of the most important of the youth magazines is H.J. — Battling Organ of the Hitler Youth. “Hitler Youth! You are standing in the midst of battle! Arm yourself by reading the H.J. ” is the canvassing slogan of the magazine, almost all of whose contents — essays, poems, short stories, memoirs — accent the thought of “battle.”
But the State Youth is the official organization of an all-powerful government at peace with itself. What battle is possible within the state? What battles can they praise?
The years of struggle before the Machtergreifung — the Nazi word for Hitler’s seizure of power — are featured in these magazines. Editors must clutch at this straw, the detail of history in which the State Youth of today did actually “battle” for something. There were “battles in halls” when young Nazis broke into pacifist meetings, and “street battles” during which Republican police arrested or warned Hitler toughs for their misdemeanors. But at least there was fighting! Those were great days, when some stood watch while others painted signs or put up illegal placards; the democratic government could be deceived in a hundred ways. The “illegal placarding” haunts almost every issue of the Nazi youth magazines; even the more reticent Hilf ’ Mit! cannot give enough space to this phase of the “Years of Battle.”
A certain Herr Peter Osten, who tells of past experiences, “grave and gay,” is a specialist on this theme. He writes: “We were just a small troop of Hitler boys and helped prepare placards and newspaper propaganda. Angriffe and Signale[Nazi papers] were folded from early morning to late at night. Shortly after one o’clock we had finally completed our task. But since the greater number of us could not very well go home so late, as our parents thought we were out with some harmless bunch of Boy Scouts, we decided just to go on with the propaganda. We wanted to paint placards. It was an excellent time for it. Only one thing was missing: paint and two brushes. Suddenly, somehow, these too appeared. Lulu, one of our best and most active members, had ‘organized’ them from somewhere. Then we explored the neighborhood. The placard-painters followed and behind them, as further protection against the police, a few ‘harmless passers-by.’”
A little earlier in the same text, describing an enrollment expedition in cars which a large number of “Hitler Youths” made throughout the country, he says: “At first everything took its normal course and some of us were a little disappointed that nothing at all new was going to happen. A few communistic day-laborers passed us and defiantly cried their greeting — Red Front — to us. Normally, we would have laughed at them. But since we had decided to have an adventure, they became our victims. The car stopped and a few of us finished the work promptly and neatly.”
That is the “period of struggle,” even when the Nazis tell the story: lying to parents, making fools of officials, stealing tools — and, when they met “some communistic day-laborers” (some workmen, who dared express disapproval of young men who did not work but went out on hoodlum enrollment excursions), since they had decided “to have some adventure,” the workmen “became victims,” and were “finished promptly and neatly.”
Peter Osten, story-teller, tells another bit of the lives of the “illegal placarders.”
“…Hans pulled his cap over his face, pressed the portfolio tightly under his arm, and went off with mighty strides toward the place appointed. A blue coffee-can stuck out of his right pocket, which gave him the appearance of a young worker. With mad haste, Gerhardt rushed to the scene on his bicycle. They greeted each other joyfully, and both agreed that they really had succeded in disguising themselves. They now proceeded on their way together and finally rejoined the others behind a colony of gardens on the outskirts of the city. All of them almost burst into loud laughter. In the center of the group was a girl flirting outrageously with Werner, the trumpeter. ‘Just for practice,’ she said; or rather, he said, for it was no other than Traugott, whose smooth skin fitted him best for the part…. ‘Silence!’ commanded Gerhardt, ‘Now we will first of all take inventory.’ Two large new pots of paint, two brand-new brushes and some glue, made their appearance. ‘You have my talent for organization to thank for the paint and the brushes,’ Werner announced proudly. Soon everything was ready. ‘If one of us really is caught by the police, he is on no account to give any information concerning the others,’ said Gerhardt, leader of the group ( Kameradschaftsführer ), as a last warning. Two boys on bicycles started off, and investigated the neighborhood, so as to save the group any unpleasant surprise. In front of the boys who were to do the actual placarding, a pair of lovers ran to and fro. In their little valise were all the tools…. Now the painters put on gloves… and chose a nice black fence as their first field of activity. The lovers did not stand about inactive, but took hold of one of the paint-pots and began to smear the asphalt shamelessly….”
When the police finally did come, the childish gangsters had no difficulty in heading them off: “And unsuspectingly the police proceeded on their search for the criminals who disturbed the peace of the night. ‘Luck, that time,’ said Hans. ‘Those make-believe lovers were a good idea.’ At daybreak the boys went home, still talking excitedly.”
This noble tale has all the decoration of the “time of battle”: we have the sentinels, the stolen tools, the trick played on the police by Traugott’s masquerade. This last, the story of the boy with the smooth skin, dressed as a girl, flirting “outrageously with Werner,” is a piquant added bit that is not untypical. Captain Roehm was not the only man of his type among the Nazi ranks, and Baldur von Schirach’s organization is still faithful to Roehm’s tradition.
Schirach himself is the editor of the German Girl, a magazine which gives him an opportunity to interest himself, in a brotherly manner and with great sensitivity, in such subjects as “the spiritual position of woman in Germany,” and “her great mission,” as well as in “all specifically feminine aims.” The Hitler Youth, in contrast, “is a corporation emphatically masculine in style of uniform; manly, too, as regards its unconditional point of view: brutality, and harshness of outlook.” The word “brutality” is used here, it will be noted, in a completely laudatory sense, giving all desirability to the quality. There is now a whole group of words which are used with a derogatory meaning everywhere else in the world, but which the Nazis have invested with favorable meanings: words like “fanaticism,” “harshness,” and others, “merciless,” “blind,” and even “barbarous.”
The songs, choruses and playlets of the Nazi youth are barbarous, in the sense of the word outside Germany. Their texts are to be found in the magazines and in any number of special publications recommended, and sometimes distributed by the Reichsjugendleitung and its subdivisions. In one of these booklets, you will find the song “Mögen sie nur kommen” (Let them come!):
Oh Herr, schick uns den Moses wieder,
Auf dass er seine Glaubensbrüder
Heimführe ins gelobte Land.
Lass auch das Meer sich wieder teilen
Wohl in zwei hohe Wassersäulen,
Feststehen wie eine Felsenwand.
Wenn dann das Judenpack darinne
Wohl in der festen Wasserrinne
Dann mach, o Herr, die Klappe zu.
Und alle Völker haben Ruh.
Send Moses to us, Lord, again,
That he may lead his fellow-men
Once more into the Promised Land.
Let the Red Sea on either hand
Be into two great pillars made
Solid as a barricade.
And when the packs of Jews begin
To file between them and run in,
Then, Lord, fill up that gap again:
Peace will descend upon all men.
Another songbook, Trum Trum — Songs for the Jungvolk, is, as its title shows, meant for boys between ten and fourteen. But the songs go like this:
Ihr Sturmsoldaten, jung und alt, nehmt eure Waff en in die Hand,
Denn Juden hausen fürchterlich im deutschen Vaterland.
You Storm-troopers, young and old, take your weapons in your hand,
For the Jews have launched confusion in the German fatherland.
Or else:
Hundertzehn Patronen umgehängt
Scharf geladen das Gewehr,
Und die Handgranaten in der Faust,
Bolschewist, nun komm mal her!
A hundred bullets and ten to our aid,
A loaded rifle does the trick,
And in our fist a hand-grenade —
Come on then, you Bolshevik!
They are all songs of war; these songs, filled with hatred, are taught to the children; they are characterized by that emotional sloppiness by which we recognize Hitler and his followers — a combination of brutality and all the clichés of romanticism.
Du kleiner Tambour, schlage ein!
Nach Moskau wollen wir marschieren!
Nach Moskau wollen wir hinein!
Der Bolschewik soil unsre Kräfte spüren.
Am Wege wilde Rosen blühn,
Wenn Hitlerleut’ nach Russland ziehn!
Little drummer, beat your drum!
Off to Moscow will we march,
Into Moscow will we come!
The Bolsheviks will feel our force
And on the road wild roses bloom
When Hitler’s men to Russia come.
Or
Entrollt die Fahnen blutgetränkt,
Ein Feigling, wer an sich noch denkt…
Und naht dereinst der Rachetag,
Dann führen wir aus Not und Schmach
Das Hakenkreuz von Sieg zu Sieg.
Dann ziehen wir beim Morgenrot, ja rot,
Fur Hitlers Fahne in den Tod.
Unfurl the banners steeped in blood,
Cowards think of their own good…
And when the day of vengeance comes
We’ll lead the swastika from need
To victory on victory.
Follow, in morning’s red, red, red,
The flag of Hitler, till we’re dead.
The wild roses and the morning’s red are old images in Germany’s war songs. But not in its children’s songs. And then there was the flag of the Fatherland, in all the songs; not Hitler’s flag, for whose glory the march on Russia will be made.
These song-books are, row on row, identical; even their covers are alike, with, their Hitler-boys, their flags, drums, swastikas. The songs for girls are similar, as similar as this:
Feinde ringsum, greife zur Wehr, greife zur Wehr ,
Steh fest im Westen und Osten
Lass Deinen Ernst sie kosten,
Viel Feind, viel Ehr’!
Braun Heer voran! Heil Hitler Dir!
Treu willst den Frieden Du halten
Gegen der Feinde Gewalten
Folgen wir Dir!
Foes all around us, get your gun, get your gun,
Stand fast in the west and east,
Let them feel your zeal increased,
Many foes, much glory!
Brown Army, march! Hitler, to Thee!
You will keep peace faithfully
Against the hated enemy
We follow thee!
They are all like that: songs, recitations, almanacs, and “children’s games.” If you ask how evenings are spent at home, any little boy will tell you what good times he has (with his face drawn down dutifully), how he has just been in a play called, say, The Freemason Circus; he won’t know what a Freemason is, but he’ll tell about the unpleasant magician, and the fearful Jew, Amschel Rothschild, the circus director. There is a “black brother” too; very wicked, very funny, dressed in clerical clothes; a “red bear” with a Russian accent and a meek fool with “English’* traits. “I played a good part myself,” the little boy says, “in costume. I was made up as Marianne — they sprinkled perfume all over me. I was supposed to be France, you know: it was a political play.”
Oh, a political play! Well, what happens?
“You know perfectly well what happens!” he says in a mocking voice, laughing uncertainly and not believing that the question was honest. He speaks his punch line, timing it slowly, like a good actor reaching his climax: “The German, Michel, licks them all.”
Of course he does….
“Want to see how it goes?” he is asking. “We rehearsed for ages before we gave the real performance at the Gau meeting. I know every part by heart, backward and forward.”
All right, then, what does Marianne say to the red bear?
He takes his place as Marianne, giving her the loose loping walk and rotating hips of a street-walker, and doing it well, too. For the bear, he keeps his paw up in threat. “O, you lovely creature,” he says, deep in his throat, “O, sweet red bear!” he chirps in answer, falsetto, swinging his hips; and then, with his fist up too (a duet, he explains), “Let’s have a marriage pact.”
“Against Michel, a strong contract,” Marianne puts in calculatingly; but the bear knows what he’s after, and goes on roughly and covetously: “You’re my object, my delight, I’ll eat you up, love, in one bite!”
But that’s charming, and the little boy is so obliging, and such a good actor! And what does Michel say to this?
He frowns, pulls himself up tall, and begins to speak in a hoarse, monotonous, and familiar voice, barking: “On Lake Geneva stands a house, and many men go in and out, and talk and talk and talk!”
“Ow!” he interrupts himself. “Ow! Disarmament’s got me in the stomach. I’ll have to leave the room. Clean up your own mess!” He makes a face, shakes his head in disgust and rage, sticks his tongue out, and spits. The play’s over; he steps back, out of character. He has acted gracefully and rather well, but without the slightest emotion or real concern. “That’s what they’re like,” he says, offhandedly, “all of them.”
He knows other plays, too, and where to find them. That one was published in Spiele der Deutschen Jugend, which the Department of Culture of the Reich Youth Führung publishes, and there is a pamphlet called Camp Circus, which has games and charades — questions and answers. “Do you know this one?” he asks. “What’s this?” He opens his mouth as far as possible, holding his head with its soft blond shock of hair far back. “Give up? That’s French lockjaw, that they got when they noticed that the Rhineland was occupied again.”
Not bad at all! Any more?
He pulls out one of the fair hairs, and dangles it before you. “See that? That’s the hair the League of Nations hangs by!” Then, in the game, another boy comes up and says, “Thinking about the League will give you a toothache. We’ll fix that; we’ll pull it out.”
The tooth? you ask.
“I don’t know — the tooth or the League,” he says indifferently. “It’s all the same to me….”
It’s the only opinion he has given, and he has gone through the routines with complete lack of emotion. He does not care about the games. They are what he is compelled to play, and have become a habit to which indifference is the best reaction.
But he has to go now. He has an examination tomorrow.
Of course, go home now, you tell him, and get to work at your books….
“Books!” he repeats, in his young, hard-boiled way, surprise in his face. “I don’t have to crack a book. This is an exam in defense — Wehrsport — but it’s a big one, this time; I just can’t flunk it. It’s the most important one of the whole twenty-two. Gotta go,” he says, “and I hurt all over as it is. I’ve got another hour of training… Heil Hitler!”