With the year 1915 enemy propaganda began in our country, after 1916 it became more and more intensive, till finally, at the beginning of the year 1918, it swelled to a positive flood. Now the results of this seduction could be seen at every step. The army gradually learned to think as the enemy wanted it to.
And the German counteraction was a complete failure.
In the person of the man whose intellect and will made him its leader, the army had the intention and determination to take up the struggle in this field, too, but it lacked the instrument which would have been necessary. And from the psychological point of view, it was wrong to have this enlightenment work carried on by the troops themselves. If it was to be effective, it had to come from home. Only then was there any assurance of success among the men who, after all, had been performing immortal deeds of heroism and privation for nearly four years for this homeland.
But what came out of the home country?
Was this failure stupidity or crime?
In midsummer of 1918, after the evacuation of the southern bank of the Marne, the German press above all conducted itself with such miserable awkwardness, nay, criminal stupidity, that my wrath mounted by the day, and the question arose within me: Is there really no one who can put an end to this spiritual squandering of the army’s heroism?
What happened in France in 1914 when we swept into the country in an unprecedented storm of victory? What did Italy do in the days after her Isonzo front had collapsed? And what again did France do in the spring of 1918 when the attack of the German divisions seemed to lift her positions off their hinges and the farreaching arm of the heavy longrange batteries began to knock at the doors of Paris?
How they whipped the fever heat of national passion into the faces of the hastily retreating regiments in those countries ! What propaganda and ingenious demagogy were used to hammer the faith in final victory back into the hearts of the broken fronts!
Meanwhile, what happened in our country?
Nothing, or worse than nothing.
Rage and indignation often rose up in me when I looked at the latest newspapers, and came face to face with the psychological mass murder that was being committed.
More than once I was tormented by the thought that if Providence had put me in the place of the incapable or criminal incompetents or scoundrels in our propaganda service, our battle with Destiny would have taken a different turn.
In these months I felt for the first time the whole malice of Destiny which kept me at the front in a position where every negro might accidentally shoot me to bits, while elsewhere I would have been able to perform quite different services for the fatherland !
For even then I was rash enough to believe that I would have succeeded in this.
But I was a nameless soldier, one among eight million! And so it was better to hold my tongue and do my duty in the trenches as best I could.
In the summer of 1915, the first enemy leaflets fell into our hands.
Aside from a few changes in the form of presentation, their Content was almost always the same, to wit: that the suffering was growing greater and greater in Germany; that the War was going to last forever while the hope of winning it was gradually vanishing; that the people at home were, therefore, longing for peace, but that ‘militarism’ and the ‘Kaiser’ did not allow it; that the whole worldto whom this was very well known was, therefore, not waging a war on the German people, but exclusively against the sole guilty party, the Kaiser; that, therefore, the War would not be over before this enemy of peaceful humanity should be eliminated; that when the War was ended, the libertarian and democratic nations would take the German people into the league of eternal world peace, which would be assured from the hour when ‘ Prussian militarism ‘ was destroyed.
The better to illustrate these claims, ‘letters from home’ were often reprinted whose contents seemed to confirm these assertions.
On the whole, we only laughed in those days at all these efforts. The leaflets were read, then sent back to the higher staffs, and for the most part forgotten until the wind again sent a load of them sailing down into the trenches; for, as a rule, the leaflets were brought over by airplanes.
In this type of propaganda there was one point which soon inevitably attracted attention: in every sector of the front where Bavarians were stationed, Prussia was attacked with extraordinary consistency, with the assurance that not only was Prussia on the one hand the really guilty and responsible party for the whole war, but that on the other hand there was not the slightest hostility against Bavaria in particular; however, there was no helping Bavaria as long as she served Prussian militarism and helped to pull its chestnuts out of the fire.
Actually this kind of propaganda began to achieve certain effects in 1915. The feeling against Prussia grew quite visibly among the troopsyet not a single step was taken against it from above. This was more than a mere sin of omission, and sooner or later we were bound to suffer most catastrophically for it; and not just the ‘Prussians,’ but the whole German people, to which Bavaria herself is not the last to belong.
In this direction enemy propaganda began to achieve unquestionable successes from 1916 on.
Likewise the complaining letters direct from home had long been having their effect. It was no longer necessary for the enemy to transmit them to the frontline soldiers by means of leaflets, etc. And against this, aside from a few psychologically idiotic ‘admonitions’ on the part of the ‘government,’ nothing was done. Just as before, the front was flooded with this poison dished up by thoughtless women at home, who, of course, did not suspect that this was the way to raise the enemy’s confidence in victory to the highest pitch, thus consequently to prolong and sharpen the sufferings of their men at the fighting front. In the time that followed, the senseless letters of German women cost hundreds of thousands of men their lives.
Thus, as early as 1916, there appeared various phenomena that would better have been absents The men at the front complained and ‘beefed’; they began to be dissatisfied in many ways and sometimes were even righteously indignant. While they starved and suffered, while their people at home lived in misery, there was abundance and highliving in other circles. Yes, even at the fighting front all was not in order in this respect.
Even then a slight crisis was emergingbut these were still ‘internal’ affairs. The same man, who at first had cursed and grumbled, silently did his duty a few minutes later as though this was a matter of course. The same company, which at first was discontented, clung to the piece of trench it had to defend as though Germany’s fate depended on these few hundred yards of mudholes. It was still the front of the old, glorious army of heroes!
I was to learn the difference between it and the homeland in a glaring contrast.
At the end of September, 1916, my division moved into the Battle of the Somme. For us it was the first of the tremendous battles of materiel which now followed, and the impression was hard to describeit was more like hell than war.
Under a whirlwind of drumfire that lasted for weeks, the German front held fast, sometimes forced back a little, then again pushing forward, but never wavering.
On October 7, 1916, I was wounded.
I was brought safely to the rear, and from there was to return to Germany with a transport.
Two years had now passed since I had seen the homeland under such conditions an almost endless time. I could scarcely imagine how Germans looked who were not in uniform. As I lay in the field hospital at Hermies, I almost collapsed for fright when suddenly the voice of a German woman serving as a nurse addressed a man lying beside me.
For the first time in two years to hear such a sound!
The closer our train which was to bring us home approached the border, the more inwardly restless each of us became. All the towns passed by, through which we had ridden two years previous as young soldiers: Brussels, Louvain, Liege, and at last we thought we recognized the first German house by its high gable and beautiful shutters.
The fatherland!
In October, 1914, we had burned with stormy enthusiasm as we crossed the border; now silence and emotion reigned. Each of us was happy that Fate again permitted him to see what he had had to defend so hard with his life, and each man was wellnigh ashamed to let another look him in the eye.
It was almost on the anniversary of the day when I left for the front that I reached the hospital at Beelitz near Berlin.
What a change! From the mud of the Battle of the Somme into the white beds of this miraculous building! In the beginning we hardly dared to lie in them properly. Only gradually could we reaccustom ourselves to this new world.
Unfortunately, this world was new in another respect as well.
The spirit of the army at the front seemed no longer to be a guest here.l Here for the first time I heard a thing that was still unknown at the front; men bragging about their own cowardice! For the cursing and ‘beefing’ you could hear at the front were never an incitement to shirk duty or a glorification of the coward. No! The coward still passed as a coward and as nothing else; and al he contempt which struck him was still general, just like the admiration that was given to the real hero. But here in the hospital it was partly almost the opposite: the most unscrupulous agitators did the talking and attempted with all the means of their contemptible eloquence to make the conceptions of the decent soldiers ridiculous and hold up the spineless coward as an example. A few wretched scoundrels in particular set the tone. One boasted that he himself had pulled his hand through a barbedwire entanglement in order to be sent to the hospital; in spite of this absurd wound he seemed to have been here for an endless time, and for that matter he had only gotten into the transport to Germany by a swindle. This poisonous fellow went so far in his insolent effrontery as to represent his own cowardice as an emanation 2 Of higher bravery than the hero’s death of an honest soldier. Many listened in silence, others went away, but a few assented.
Disgust mounted to my throat, but the agitator was calmly tolerated in the institution. What could be done? The management couldn’t help knowing, and actually did know, exactly who and what he was. But nothing was done.
When I could again walk properly, I obtained permission to go to Berlin.
Clearly there was dire misery everywhere. The big city was suffering from hunger. Discontent was great. In various soldiers’ homes the tone was like that in the hospital. It gave you the impression that these scoundrels were intentionally frequenting such places in order to spread their views.
But much, much worse were conditions in Munich itself ! When I was discharged from the hospital as cured and transferred to the replacement battalion, I thought I could no longer recognize the city. Anger, discontent, cursing, wherever you went! In the replacement battalion itself the mood was beneath all criticism. Here a contributing factor was the immeasurably clumsy way in which the field soldiers were treated by old training officers who hadn’t spent a single hour in the field and for this reason alone were only partially able to create a decent relationship with the old soldiers. For it had to be admitted that the latter possessed certain qualities which could be explained by their service at the front, but which remained totally incomprehensible to the leaders of these replacement detachments while the officer who had come from the front was at least able to explain them. The latter, of course, was respected by the men quite differently than the rear commander. But aside from this, the general mood was miserable: to be a slacker passed almost as a sign of higher wisdom, while loyal steadfastness was considered a symptom of inner weakness and narrowmindedness. The offices were filled with Jews. Nearly every clerk was a Jew and nearly every Jew was a clerk. I was amazed at this plethora of warriors of the chosen people and could not help but compare them with their rare representatives at the front.
As regards economic life, things were even worse Here the Jewish people had become really ‘indispensable.’ The spider was slowly beginning to suck the blood out of the people’s pores. Through the war corporations, they had found an instrument with which, little by little, to finish off the national free economy The necessity of an unlimited centralization was emphasized Thus, in the year 191S17 nearly the whole of production was under the control of Jewish finance.
But against whom was the hatred of the people directed? At this time I saw with horror a catastrophe approaching which, unless averted in time, would inevitably lead to collapse.
While the Jew robbed the whole nation and pressed it beneath his domination, an agitation was carried on against the ‘Prussians.’ At home, as at the front, nothing was done against this poisonous propaganda. No one seemed to suspect that the collapse of Prussia would not by a long shot bring with it a resurgence of Bavaria; no, that on the contrary any fall of the one would inevitably carry the other along with it into the abyss.
I felt very badly about this behavior. In it I could only see the craftiest trick of the Jew, calculated to distract the general attention from himself and to others. While the Bavarian and the Prussian fought, he stole the existence of both of them from under their nose; while the Bavarians were cursing the Prussians, the Jew organized the revolution and smashed Prussia and Bavaria at once.
I could not bear this accursed quarrel among German peoples, and was glad to return to the front, for which I reported at once after my arrival in Munich.
At the beginning of March, 1917, I was back with my regiment.
Toward the end of I911, the low point of the army’s dejection seemed to have passed. The whole army took fresh hope and fresh courage after the Russian collapse. The conviction that the War would end with the victory of Germany, after all, began to seize the troops more and more. Again singing could be heard and the Calamity Lanes became rarer. Again people believed in the future of the fatherland.
Especially the Italian collapse of autumn, 1917, had had the most wonderful effect; in this victory we saw a proof of the possibility of breaking through the front, even aside from the Russian theater of war. A glorious faith flowed again into the hearts of the millions, enabling them to await spring, 1918, with relief and confidence. The foe was visibly depressed. In this winter he remained quieter than usual. This was the lull before the storm.
But, while those at the front were undertaking the last preparations for the final conclusion of the eternal struggle, while endless transports of men and materiel were rolling toward the West Front, and the troops were being trained for the great attack the biggest piece of chicanery in the whole war broke out in Germany.
Germany must not be victorious; in the last hour, with victory already threatening to be with the German banners, a means was chosen which seemed suited to stifle the German spring attack in the germ with one blow, to make victory impossible:
The munitions strike was organized If it succeeded, the German front was bound to collapse, and the Vorwarts’ desire that this time victory should not be with the German banners would inevitably be fulfilled. Owing to the lack of munitions, the front would inevitably be pierced in a few weeks; thus the offensive was thwarted, the Entente saved international capital was made master of Germany, and the inner aim of the Marxist swindle of nations achieved.
To smash the national economy and establish the rule of international capital a goal which actually was achieved, thanks to the stupidity and credulity of the one side and the bottomless cowardice of the other.
To be sure, the munitions strike did not have all the hopedfor success with regard to starving the front of arms; it collapsed too soon for the lack of munitions as suchas the plan had been to doom the army to destruction.
But how much more terrible was the moral damage that had been done!
In the first place: What was the army fighting for if the homeland itself no longer wanted victory? For whom the immense sacrifices and privations? The soldier is expected to fight for victory and the homeland goes on strike against it!
And in the second place: What was the effect on the enemy?
In the winter of 1917 to 1918, dark clouds appeared for the first time in the firmament of the Allied world. For nearly four years they had been assailing the German warrior and had been unable to encompass his downfall; and all this while the German had only his shield arm free for defense, while his sword was obliged to strike, now in the East, now in the South. But now at last the giant’s back was free. Streams of blood had flown before he administered final defeat to one of his foes. Now in the West his shield was going to be joined by his sword; up till then the enemy had been unable to break his defense, and now he himself was facing attack.
The enemy feared him and trembled for their victory.
In London and Paris one deliberation followed another, but at the front sleepy silence prevailed. Suddenly their high mightinesses lost their effrontery. Even enemy propaganda was having a hard time of it; it was no longer so easy to prove the hopelessness of German victory.
But this also applied to the Allied troops at the fronts. A ghastly light began to dawn slowly even on them. Their inner attitude toward the German soldier had changed. Until then he may have seemed to them a fool destined to defeat; but now it was the destroyer of the Russian ally that stood before them. The limitation of the German offensives to the East, though born of necessity, now seemed to them brilliant tactics. For three years these Germans had stormed the Russian front, at first it seemed without the slightest success. The Allies almost laughed over this aimless undertaking; for in the end the Russian giant with his overwhelming number of men was sure to remain the victor while Germany would inevitably collapse from loss of blood. Reality seemed to confirm this hope.
Since the September days of 1914, when for the first time the endless hordes of Russian prisoners from the Battle of Tannenberg began moving into Germany over the roads and railways, this stream was almost without endbut for every defeated and destroyed army a new one arose. Inexhaustibly the gigantic Empire gave the Tsar more and more new soldiers and the War its new victims. How long could Germany keep up this race? Would not the day inevitably come when the Germans would win their last victory and still the Russian armies would not be marching to their last battle? And then what? In all human probability the victory of Russia could be postponed, but it was bound to come.
Now all these hopes were at an end: the ally who had laid the greatest blood sacrifices on the altar of common interests was at the end of his strength, and lay prone at the feet of the inexorable assailant. Fear and horror crept into the hearts of the soldiers who had hitherto believed so blindly. They feared the coming spring. For if up until then they had not succeeded in defeating the
German when he was able to place only part of his forces on the Western Front, how could they count on victory now that the entire power of this incredible heroic state seemed to be concentrating for an attack on the West?
The shadows of the South Tyrolean Mountains lay oppressive on the fantasy; as far as the mists of Flanders, the defeated armies of Cadorna conjured up gloomy faces, and faith in victory ceded to fear of coming defeat.