Two Brothers

My darling Mum, my darling Dagmar,

It is minus 40 degrees and we are halted before Moscow. Ivan has finally stopped us in our tracks and now the German Army struggles for its very existence.

We are told that if we can only hold our ground then Germany will survive to fight again next year. That may be so. But I must tell you both that I will not.

You know of course that my plan has been these last two years to be a good soldier of Hitler that I might best be in a position to help you both.

Now I find that I must change my plan. The evil that I have witnessed during these six months of campaigning on the Russian front leaves me no choice. The Devil and the Devil alone could have conceived of what is being done here in Germany’s name.

It is in fact a comfort to be on the front line, dying by inches in a dug-out. For although this is a place of abject terror and quite bottomless misery, it is still preferable to being forced to witness the terrible truth of what is happening in the places we have conquered.

My darlings, this is a depravity beyond imagination. To say that we have laid waste to what we have occupied does not begin to describe the slaughter, the devastation and the endless cruelty.

And yet even now that is not enough to feed the beast that Germany has become. I do not exaggerate when I say that the principal concern of the SS Einsatzgruppen is that they cannot kill people fast enough. They are seeking to industrialize the process.

Language is inadequate. Goethe himself could not find words with which to communicate this unique and perverted slaughter.

Therefore, to come to the point, I have decided that I can no longer fight in this army. Even the love I bear for you cannot excuse me continuing to be a part of the most evil horde that ever made war.

On the pitiful and the defenceless. On the old and the weak. On babies and young children. On humanity itself.

My plan has changed. I will go to my commanding officer and volunteer to make a reconnaissance of the Soviet positions. Such a mission is often fatal.

I intend to make sure that in my case it is.

Thus in the eyes of Germany I will die an honourable, even heroic death, and as such Silke will be accorded the rights, respect and pension of a war widow. I hope in this way that the apartment in Moabit will continue to provide shelter for Dagmar, the only woman I have ever loved, and that also when the time comes Mum will hide there too.

I close by saying that despite this terrible darkness in which we all live, I die happy. Happy that I have been a good son to my mother and father, and that in some small way I have been worthy of Dagmar’s love.

That love is the towering achievement of my life.

Goodbye, Mum. From your son.

Goodbye, Dagmar. From your devoted and loving husband.