In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter 50 A final word Tears as you have now cried them, A people has ne'er cried; In such wretched chains of death, A people was ne'er tied. —ERNST VON WILDENBRUCH1 The grounds for my arrest are given as follows on the red warrant I have in my hands: "According to the results of the findings of the state police, she endangers, through her conduct, the stability and security of the people and the state, in that she does egregious harm to the interests ofthe Reich through her subversive activities and collaboration with one of the most critical and harsh opponents of the National Socialist state. Signed by Heydrich." This document also belongs in this book, as simple proof of the monstrous irresponsibility with which the Gestapo works. I explained at the beginning of my remarks why I was arrested and what alone led to my arrest. The Gestapo's grounds, which do not at all correspond to the facts, are a completely made-up indictment against me, who remained loyal to a human being and emigrant even across the boundaries of Germany. Loyalty and silence were my only crimes. Why am I now publishing this book, which is trulywritten with my lifeblood? I mean to portray the life demanded of an inmate of the Geheime Staatspolizei and the SS during theThird Reich in prisons and concentration 1. Ernst von Wildenbruch (1845-1909) was a German popular author, known particularly for his plays and poetry, which were often marked by a nationalistic spirit, characteristic of the period around German unification during which he wrote. 244 The Blessed Abyss camps so objectively and in a manner true to life that the reader can gain a clear picture of this life in hell. But I have a second and more essential goal in mind with the publication of these remarks: the entire German people is now being held responsible by many parties for the horrible and abominable things that occurred in the concentration camps. This is not right. I don't want to pass judgment here or bring anyone to justice; but it would be good if everyone who has read this book would look inside himself and seriously search his conscience. Those who do not have blood on their hands might use whatever strength is still available to them to work alongwith us, who have experienced and suffered this horror on our own bodies and in our own souls, so that our Germany may be revived with honor, and we may finally take shelter and be at home there again, so that a fatherland may exist for us again, for us who have wandered around for the last twelve years, homeless and constantly persecuted and spied upon in our own fatherland. And we will try to make amends for the horror and depravity, for the murder and atrocious injustice committed by Germans unto Germans and unto hundreds of thousands of innocent foreigners. We, the survivors, have this holy obligation, as well as the obligation to atone before God and the world. One thing remains true, and the world will also learn to understand it after our time of atonement: the German people may not and cannot be simply equated with these Nazi criminals. I would like to close this book with this excerpt from an article by Ernst Wiechert,2 which appeared in the Hannoverschen Kurier on October 2,1945: Now we stand before the deserted house and see the eternal stars shining over the wreckage of the earth or hear the rain rush down on the graves of the dead and on the grave of an era. More alone than any people has ever been alone on this earth, and more stigmatized than any people has ever been stigmatized. Remember the bird in the fairy tale, who comes once every thousand years to break a granule from the diamond mine. Remember what stands before you and that, in the history of the world, there has never been a greater task than your task to revive the blood of a people, and to wipe away the shame from the face of an entire people. Do not believe in the 2. Ernst Wiechert (1887-1950) was a German author who advocated resistance to National Socialism in his writings and lectures. For this he spent a briefperiod in a concentration camp in 1938, an experience he later recorded in his well-known book Der Totenwald (The forest of the dead) (Zurich...

Share