Heinz Rein - Berlin Finale

Lassehn struggles bitterly for clarity, he desperately resists the nihilistic insinuation that life is neither destiny nor providence, neither predestined by fate nor dependent on the benevolence of the power that he is still minded to call God, instead there was absolute meaninglessness. How did it happen, though, how did he escape? He had often considered the possibility, and rejected it just as often, before it matured into a clear plan and a firm intention, he was waiting for the right moment, he lay in wait for it, and there were many right moments, but they did not coincide with his availability until one day, marching through a field, he stumbled and fell and one of his puttees was untied. He stayed behind to sort it out, and when he stood up again the unit was already twenty metres ahead of him. He watched after the last man and stood where he was, and the twenty metres had turned into thirty, and still he hadn’t moved, and then it was fifty metres, and it was as if he was petrified, and then it was a hundred metres. He wanted to get moving but the last man was just disappearing behind a bend in the road. Then he had drawn his outstretched foot back and pressed it firmly against the moss, he had been suddenly filled with defiance and all at once he knew: this is the chance, he hadn’t been lying in wait for it, it had been waiting for him, and had grabbed him when he heedlessly tried to pass by. He had first walked, then run into the forest, and at last he had thrown himself into the undergrowth, when his lungs had given out. As if in a daze he had peered into the swaying tips of the pine trees until the cold stirred him once more. That was how it was, it was not a brave decision, he had allowed himself to be impelled, and it was necessity that drove him further along the path he had taken.

At first his flight was only a leap from a train dashing headlong to perdition, the saving of his raw, naked life, but he doesn’t feel like someone who has been saved, someone who has solid ground beneath his feet once more, because with every hesitant step that he takes into unknown territory his uncertainty grows. He lacks the robust nonchalance of an inveterate soldier, he feels cornered wherever he happens to be. Again and again the question of the meaning of his action arises, now transformed from mere thought to reality, suddenly separated from forced membership to a national community. He has become autonomous and has no idea what life has in store for him. All that is certain is that he has broken the bridges behind him, and again and again he feels utterly amazed that such a thing could have happened. Often he feels like a dead man walking through the realm of the living, he no longer has a part in anything, neither in joy nor in suffering, but that isn’t even what oppresses him so, for he has usually gone his own way in the past. But he feels empty, burnt out, music is nothing but a memory of beautiful, far-off days, the memory of his wife has faded like an old photograph. Has nothing survived but the fact of vegetating away, the satisfaction of the most primitive needs, hunger, thirst and copulation?

Lassehn lies there like a sick man, closed in on himself, but there is no pain in him, only a dark sense of loss. Pain would have made his blood twitch and burn and erase his thoughts, but this feeling of being lost in the bottomless depths of horror is not pain, it sends his thoughts dashing into the void again and again. He feels as if there could be nothing more in his path, as if nothing more could plunge into his heart. Apart from music there has never been anything there, none of the fiery, dramatic speeches has ever made an impression on him, militaristic ideas always disgusted him, and he always escaped from spiritual and physical violence into music. But all of a sudden he knows that it’s too little, that the music was only a way out, an escape from reality, that in fact he always felt within himself the compulsion to flee.

Lassehn opens his tightly closed eyelids, slings aside his coat and jumps to his feet, runs to the mirror and stares in horror at the dull glass. So this is what’s left of him? Take a good look at yourself, Joachim Lassehn, a good, long look, this is you: hollow-cheeked, with a chiselled, vertical wrinkle above your nose, deep-grey shadows under your eyes, short, bristly hair, thick, dark-blond fluff on lips, chin and cheeks, skin stretched taut over the bones of your temple… Lassehn stares penetratingly into the face in the mirror, pulls down his skin with the jagged knife of self-laceration, frees the flesh from the skull and sees the death’s head with empty eye sockets and bared cheekbones.

Lassehn raises his fist to shatter the vision, but his hand falls weakly down. What is he? A dead man who can’t bear the sight of his own skull, stripped of all living accretions? A dead man (albeit this side of Lethe), who doesn’t dare to give up the last pitiful scrap of life? A dead man who knows he is already beaten, but still tries to avoid the scythe-stroke of death that will finish him off once and for all?

Lassehn slumps onto a chair and hides his face in his hands, his lungs wheeze as if after a violent run.

‘No,’ he says quietly. ‘No, no!’ he cries out to himself and jumps to his feet. ‘No!’ he roars at his reflection, and turns his back to him.

Then his eye falls on the newspapers. What use are newspapers to him? He shrugs. What does it matter what they write in their papers? But he flicks through them briefly, Angriff , Völkischer Beobachter , 12-Uhr Blatt , Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , Berliner Morgenpost , Das Reich , odd that pub landlord Klose seems to think it important for him to stir about in this mishmash of opinions. But was there not a strange smile playing around his lips when he nodded at the newspapers? Lassehn doesn’t even pick the papers up, and only now does he notice that certain articles are marked in red.

I want to see what’s so interesting and important that it attracted your red pen.

There’s the Berliner Morgenpost from 2 March.

Defiant Stronghold of Weapons and Hearts.

An example for the entire German people: the spirit of Königsberg – fights to the last blow of the rifle stock!

Eastern Prussia, 2 March.

The spirit that unifies the soldiers and population of Königsberg may be heard in a proclamation by Kreisleiter Wagner, which says among other things: ‘Just as the defence of the stronghold of Königsberg has been reinforced, the losses of the Soviets and the difficulties they are experiencing with their supplies have increased. With each day we come closer to the hour when our armies will step up and sweep the Bolshevik hordes out of Germany. Until then we will do everything we can to become better trained, tougher and more resilient.

So use every free minute of training in guns and their care! Your gun is your life! Mastering your weapon is your victory! Anyone who abandons his gun or his anti-tank grenade and leaves it in the way of the enemy is a traitor and must die! Use every minute to disassemble and improve positions! Every time the spade cuts deeper into the earth your life is closer to being saved! Dig yourselves in straight away and claw your way into every clump of homeland earth. Sweat spares blood! Fight like Indians, battle like lions!

Every means you use to hold the position and destroy the Bolsheviks is sacred and correct. There is no turning back! Anyone who is unwilling to fight and runs away will perish! Beat all cowards, smart-alecs and pessimists! If a Führer or Unterführer weakens, then let the bravest assume leadership! The crucial things now are not age or official position but courage and resolution. The Bolshevik infantry is a ragbag of trash. When they feel fire on their faces, the battle is almost won. Do not waver at the sight of the tanks! Destroy them with the anti-tank grenades or let them run over you! Infantry reinforcements strike together!