WHAT IS WAR?
Germans being shelled in their trenches during the Battle of the Somme.
From: Walter Smoter Frank (2004), Hitler: the Making of a Fuhrer, Chapter 9.
In the preliminary bombardment that opened the battle, the British and French fired over 40,000 shells every hour in hopes of pulverizing German defenses. As the shells came raining down on the German positions, the land itself seemed to burst open and flash. As far as the eye could see, fountains of mud, iron and stone filled the sky.
Gas moved across the land and filled the valleys and meadows. Talk was impossible for one could not be understood. Men huddled in their shelters as exploding shells cleared away the earth protecting them. Trenches disappeared. Dugouts vanished. Screams were heard between the explosions. Where men had sat only lumps of flesh and bits of uniform remained.
In the deeper shelters, old and battle-hardened troops peered through their masks at one another and shook their heads. The new recruits with big eyes and quivering bodies were watched with apprehension. Some turned green and began vomiting. Some began sobbing. Those with haunted protruding eyes attempted to dig deeper into the earth with their bare hands.
Some snuggled up to their stronger comrades and looked out from behind a kindly shoulder like frightened little children peeking out from behind their mother’s hip. As the shells tore apart the upper layers of concrete and began working their way toward them, many lost control of their bowels.
The smell of putrefaction mixed with the stench of exploding powder. No one condemned them for in war it was a common thing. After a hundred continuous hours of bombardment, even old soldiers experienced wet foreheads, damp eyes, trembling hands and panting breath as spasms of fear fought their way to the surface. Men felt they were already in their graves waiting only to be closed in.
Germans in their trenches at the Third Battle of Ypres, July 1917.
From: Frank, Walter Smoter (2004). Hitler: The Making of a Fuhrer, Chapter 11.
The Germans had been forced, by the water soaked soil in the region, to abandon deep dugouts in favor of small concreted pillboxes which held machine gun crews and twenty to thirty men during heavy shelling. As the men huddled in their shelters the bombardment continued and churned the wet soil.
Between the rounds of exploding shells, the British also began hurling their latest inventions—new deadlier forms of gas and “cylinders of liquid fire.” Although the pillboxes could resist the shells of light artillery, many were engulfed by the early form of napalm or torn to shreds by the heavier shells.
For some of the lucky soldiers, death came quickly. Those in the area of an exploding shell simply vanished. For others, all that was left behind were a few body parts. Most men however, did not die so easily. Men who survived saw friends with half their legs missing running to the next shell hole on splintered stumps. Between bursting shells they saw burning men running in circles. They saw men running with their entails dragging twenty feet behind them.
They saw living men without legs, without arms, without jaws, without faces. They saw opened chests, opened stomachs, opened backs and opened skulls. Clumps of flesh that no longer resembled anything human continued to breath. Mercifully, some men never knew how badly they were hit and died in the middle of a sentence.
Others died slowly as they looked on in shock at a large part of their body laying yards away. Some looked at their deadly wounds in bewilderment and their long faces seemed unable to accept the fact that it had happened to them. Others gasped in horror, looking and longing for help they knew would never come.
DEAD BODIES ON THE BATTLEFIELD, the First World War, September 1916
From: Frank, Walter Smoter (2004). Hitler: The Making of a Fuhrer, Chapter 9.
Because of the speed at which the men were fed to the guns, it often became impossible to bring in the dead for burial. Bodies lay scattered upon the field until the exposed flesh became the same color as their gray-green uniforms. Strange distorted, taut, dead faces, all alike, revealed terror, anguish and suffering.
Gases within swollen dead bellies, hissed, belched and made movements. Bodies and parts of bodies were dumped into shell craters or abandoned trenches where huge gloated rats fattened themselves. Huge shells fell upon the graves and lifted the rotting corpses back onto the earth.
Heads, torsos, limbs, and grotesque fragments lay everywhere scattered among the scorched, torn and pitted earth, rotting and stinking. A miasma of chloroform and putrefaction rose from the piles and shifted back and forth over the living. Old cemeteries were not spared, and the stained bones and skulls of those who had perished centuries before were heaved back upon the earth and scattered among the fresher dead as though to inquire about the progress of leaders.
For a hundred and fifty miles, from the Somme to Verdun, the land was a giant lunar-scape with dying men, open grave-yards, and rotting corpses. At Verdun the Germans advanced about five miles, while on the Somme the British advanced about the same. For this trade the leaders of the opposing countries sustained over 600,000 casualties at Verdun and over 1,000,000 on the Somme.
THINGS HIDDEN SINCE
THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD
Most of us don’t know what war is. We haven’t experienced its concrete reality—the actuality of battle. For most people, war is an abstraction, a geopolitical fantasy. Many relish the idea of warfare: the struggle to defeat the enemy, destroy evil, protect and defend one’s nation, etc. However, whether one is “for” or “against” war, most of us don’t know what war is.
Even those who advocate or believe war is a necessary enterprise prefer not to contemplate the reality of the warrior’s dead or maimed body. We don’t want to look closely at the results of battle: blood and gore. When soldiers return from battle, we don’t want to hear too much about what they’ve experienced. We stay away from hospitals. We don’t want to see—or think about—their wrecked bodies.
The title of Rene Girard’s Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1987) refers to the “scapegoat” mechanism: a concealed dynamic which, he believes, has worked to maintain civilization from its beginnings. Girard writes about the scapegoat as an outside group selected because it is weak or unable to defend itself. He is not familiar with the concept of insider violence: how soldiers function as victims and unifiers of society.
According to Girard, the sacrificial mechanism must be disguised or hidden in order to be effective. We avert our eyes from the victim. S. Mark Helms states that the working of mythical sacrifice in society requires that people “know not what they do.” Sacrificial scapegoating is “most virulent when it is most invisible.” The effectiveness of the mechanism of sacrificial killing depends on “blindness to its workings.” To “avert one’s eyes from the sight of the victim,” Helms says, is that “characteristically human act” that lies at the heart of scapegoating.
When it comes to warfare, we know and don’t know. We know, but don’t want to know too much. History books produce statistics on “casualties.” But we don’t like to contemplate what occurred. We prefer not to speak or write about the fact that our own nation kills and maims people. The truth hurts.
We don’t want to think about the dead and maimed bodies of our own soldiers. Certainly, we don’t want to see these bodies. We keep them out of sight. We don’t want to see body bags containing the dead. We don’t even want to see coffins that contain the remains of dead soldiers. In the midst of sound and fury, we like to keep war hidden. It’s our secret.
The institution of warfare and denial of reality go hand and in hand—they are two sides of the same coin. What is most deeply denied is the reality of what happens to the bodies of soldiers in battle. Historians like to write about geopolitical issues, political machinations, and battle strategy—anything to avoid looking at reality.
Denial of the reality of the death and maiming of soldiers is nothing new. Douglas Haig was the British Commander-in-Chief responsible for the disastrous Battle of the Somme. In his report of August 22, 1919, Features of the War, Haig states that total British casualties in all theaters of war—killed, wounded, missing and prisoners (including native troops)—was approximately three million (3,076,388). He claims that these casualties were “no larger than to be expected.” Yet Haig’s son reports that the General felt that it was his duty to refrain from visiting the casualty stations because “these visits made him physically ill.” French Commander Joseph Joffre said to his Staff: “I mustn’t be shown any more spectacles. I would no longer have the courage to give the order to attack.”
How strange and bizarre that men so close to the battlefield—responsible for the deaths of millions of young men—refused to look at the results of the orders they gave. Yet each of us inhabits a psychic space that is not radically different from that of the Generals. Although war may fascinate as a geopolitical enterprise, we don’t want to know or think about what happens to soldiers in and after the battle.
What is the meaning of this “Germany” that compelled Hitler to embrace—refuse to abandon—war? What is the meaning of a “nation” for any human being? Why do we feel that it would be a “sin to complain” about our country, even though we know it has generated death and destruction? Please leave your reflections and insights below.
HITLER AND WAR
Adolf Hitler—unlike most of us—experienced the reality of battle. He’d been there, witnessing and experiencing the horror: death, maiming and the decaying bodies of young men. In the face of Hitler’s experience of the First World War, it’s reasonable to ask: why did he not become a pacifist? That Hitler did not become a pacifist lies at the heart of this inquiry, raising a broader question: Given our knowledge of the massive destruction that war has caused, why do so many continue to embrace and advocate warfare?
Despite the fact that he was still holding Austrian citizenship, Hitler asked for—and was granted permission—to join the Bavarian Army in August 1914 (at age 25). He was present at a number of major battles, including the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Third Battle of Ypres (The Battle of Passchendaele).
Hitler was a dispatch runner, taking messages back and forth from the command staff in the rear to the fighting units near the battlefield. Based on what we know, Hitler was a highly competent, dedicated and passionate soldier. On December 14, 1914, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, in 1915 was promoted to Lance Corporal, and on August 18, 1918, he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class for service since 1914 as a messenger.
Hitler joined the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment (known as the List Regiment). After its first engagement near Ypres, 2500 of the 3600 men in Hitler’s regiment were killed, wounded or missing. According to Walter Smoter Frank, the chances that a 1914 volunteer of the List Regiment would be killed or maimed was almost guaranteed. Because of replacements, Hitler’s Regiment suffered 3754 killed before the war ended. For most of the war, Hitler led a charmed life. He was nearly killed on numerous occasions. It was miraculous that he survived. However, during the Battle of the Somme on October 7, 1916, he was seriously wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners’ dugout. He spent two months in a hospital, was sent to Munich after being discharged, then returned to his regiment on March 5, 1917.
Hitler was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack on October 15, 1918, and also lost his voice. He was hospitalized in Pasewalk, and learned of the Armistice (November 11, 1918) marking Germany’s defeat in the First World War. Hitler reacted with bitterness and profound sadness.
What was the psychological meaning of “Germany” for Hitler? Why was this word—the simple evocation of “Germany”—so powerful that it prevented Hitler from complaining about the deaths of thousands of his comrades? What is the nature of our attachment to nations that makes it impossible for us to complain? Please leave your reflections and insights below.
THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was one of the largest battles of the First World War. Fought between July 1 and November 1, 1916 near the Somme River in France, it was also one of the bloodiest military battles in history. On the first day alone, the British suffered more than 57,000 casualties, and by the end of the campaign the Allies and Central Powers would lose more than 1.5 million men.
The British planned to attack the German trenches on a 15-mile front on July 1, 1916. To ensure a rapid advance, Allied artillery pounded German lines for a week before the attack. According to Robert Whalen (1984), between June 24 and 29, 1916, some 50,000 French and English gunners (a force the same size as Wellington’s entire army at Waterloo) fired 1,500,000 rounds into German positions near the Somme.
The passages to the right present Walter Smoter Frank’s descriptions of the German experience of trench bombardment, and of a First World War battlefield (1916). It is likely that Adolf Hitler witnessed much of what Frank describes.
A fair amount has been written documenting Hitler’s experience of the First World War. Among the best accounts is an online publication by Walter Smoter Frank, who reconstructs the experience of German troops on the receiving end of a massive artillery barrage—as they waited for the British attack in late June 1916. Hitler was at the Battle of the Somme and experienced first-hand many of the things that Frank describes. Hitler later stated, “I saw men falling around me in thousands. Thus I learned that life is a cruel struggle.”
What is the meaning of this “Germany” that compelled Hitler to embrace—refuse to abandon—war? What is the meaning of a “nation” for any human being? Why do we feel that it would be a “sin to complain” about our country, even though we know it has generated death and destruction? Please leave your reflections and insights below.
“IT WOULD BE A SIN TO COMPLAIN”
In Mein Kampf. Hitler relates how he learned about and reacted to Germany’s defeat in the First World War. On November 10, 1918, a pastor came to the hospital in Pasewalk (where Hitler was recovering from his poison gas attack). This “old gentleman,” Hitler reports, told him and his comrades that “we must now end the long war”; that the war had been lost and that Germany was now “throwing ourselves upon the mercy of the victors.”
“Again,” Hitler says, “everything went blank before my eyes. I tottered and groped my way back to the dormitory, threw myself on my bunk, and dug my burning head into my blanket and pillow.” Since “the day when I had stood before my mother’s grave,” Hitler says, “I had not wept.” Hitler’s experience at the end of First World War metamorphosed into a trauma from which he never recovered.
I want to focus here, however, on another aspect of Hitler’s response. Upon learning of Germany’s defeat, Hitler says, “I nearly lost heart for a moment.” He has a flicker of doubt and ambivalence, seems tempted to abandon hope. Hitler bolsters himself, however, remembering his earlier struggles on the battlefield and how he developed “merciless hardness and defiance,” then declares:
“When in the long war years Death snatched so many a dear comrade and friend from our ranks, it would have seemed to me almost a sin to complain—after all, were they not dying for Germany?”
In spite of having witnessed the death and maiming of thousands of his comrades during his four years of fighting, Hitler refuses to complain, indeed declares that it would be a “sin” to do so. It is a sin to complain about the death of his dear comrades and friends because they were “dying for Germany.” Hitler’s attachment to his nation transcends everything that he experienced as a soldier.
WE DON’T KNOW WHAT “COUNTRIES” ARE
I’ve suggested that human beings don’t know what war is. More significantly, we don’t know what “nations” are and why they impact upon us so profoundly. “Countries” are in the background of most historical accounts of war. We don’t often analyze the meaning of nations because we take them for granted. They are always there. We identify so deeply. We possess countries, and countries possess us. We barely conceive of who we are apart from our attachment to our nation with its “national life.”
Hitler is unable to abandon warfare—to become a peace activist—because of his attachment to the nation with which he identifies. Actually, there is no separation between Hitler’s attachment to Germany and his attachment to warfare. Because he refuses to consider abandoning Germany, he refuses to consider abandoning war—despite the massive suffering that he witnessed and experienced.
What was the psychological meaning of “Germany” for Hitler? Why was this word—the simple evocation of “Germany”—so powerful that it prevented Hitler from complaining about the deaths of thousands of his comrades? What is the nature of our attachment to nations that makes it impossible for us to complain? Please leave your reflections and insights below.
In light of previous LSS Newsletter issues, one might suggest that Hitler doesn’t complain about the death of comrades and friends because he is committed to an ideology of national sacrifice. We’ve noted that Hitler believes civilization could not exist if human beings were unwilling to die for their countries. Still, why does he imagine that nations require sacrifices?
Explaining this requires that we ascertain what “Germany” meant to Hitler. Indeed, to understand the meaning of warfare we need to know what “countries” mean for anyone. We conceive of nations as real entities existing outside our minds. Of course, countries exist as political and social structures. The question, however, is: What do nations mean to us, psychologically? Why do they play such a powerful role in our psyches—to the extent that we are willing to kill and die in their name, and to forgive them for all the suffering they cause.
It is difficult to think of “nations” and not to think of actual entities possessing objective existence. However, whatever reality nations possess, they function as mental representations. Nations exist within our minds and play a profound role in the psychic economy of each and every one of us.
What is the meaning of this “Germany” that compelled Hitler to embrace—refuse to abandon—war? What is the meaning of a “nation” for any human being? Why do we feel that it would be a “sin to complain” about our country, even though we know it has generated death and destruction? Please leave your reflections and insights below.
