Mein Kampf
traveling beside its gentle waves on our way westward to protect it, the German stream of streams, from the greed of our old enemy. When the gentle rays of the first sun glinted down upon us through the delicate veil of morning mist from the Niederwald Monument, the old Wacht am Rhein roared from the endless transport train into the morning sky, and my breast was ready to burst.
And then came a cold, wet night in Flanders, through which we marched in silence, and when day began to break through the mist, suddenly an iron greeting hissed over our heads; with a sharp crack it hurled the little pellets among our ranks, splashing up the wet soil. But before the little cloud was gone the first hurrah from two hundred throats went to meet the first messenger of death; then began a crackling and roaring, singing and howling, and with feverish eyes everyone pressed forward, faster and faster, until at last across turnip-fields and hedges the battle began, the battle of man against man. But from the distance the sound of song reached our ears, coming closer and closer, and leaping from company to company; and just as Death was busy in our ranks the song reached us too, and we in turn passed it on: Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt!
Four days later we went back. Even our step was different. Seventeen-year-old boys now looked like men.
The volunteers of the List Regiment had perhaps not really learned to fight, but they did know how to die like old soldiers.
That was the beginning.
Thus it went on year after year; but horror had taken the place of the romance of battle. Enthusiasm gradually cooled, and the wild exultation was smothered in deadly fear. For each man the time came when he had to struggle between the instinct of self-preservation and the admonitions of duty. I was not exempt from this struggle. Whenever Death was giving chase, a vague Something tried to revolt, strove to appear as Reason to the weak body, and still was only Cowardice laying snares in disguise. A great tugging and warning would begin, and only the last remnant of conscience would carry the day. But the harder this
166
