VI.
The following thoughts and remarks were originally scattered in various places in the text.[1] I have taken them out and compiled them here. Only a few things were added later.
VI. Sort Of A Balance Of The Captivity
Hunger and inhumane conditions put the prisoners to a severe test of character. Many did not pass it. They stole from and deceived their fellow sufferers and betrayed them to the Russians. The others starved and suffered, but kept their integrity.
Five and a half years of acrimonious war, its unhappy end, four and a half years of often life-threatening Soviet captivity, the long uncertainty about the fate of their relatives or sad news from home tore at their nerves. In addition, having to put up with the annoying quirks of some comrades in a confined space: sweaty feet, a smelly pee can (the neighbour has a weak bladder), another wants more space, the nervous brawlers, the dogs in the manger, the snorers, the early risers. One wants more light, the other can only sleep in the dark. And all this with 45 cm of space on buggy bunk beds. And much, much more. Even if not all of these circumstances occurred at the same time, they caused a lot of friction. You really had to be a bit above it all in order not to let your nerves get frayed in the depths of the everyday grousings. But even the most peaceful philosopher can’t live in peace if he has an unnerved troublemaker as a neighbour.[2]
We humans are individuals, we Europeans are even pronounced individualists. When we are crammed into such a small space, natural reactions occur to protect our personal space. This manifests itself in hostility towards the comrades.
The four and a half years of captivity were not completely wasted time. I tried to utilise a lot of things wherever I could. As a geographer, I learnt a lot of things worth seeing and knowing. I learnt to distinguish between genuine and spurious values in life. I have learnt to gratefully enjoy even the most modest pleasures and comforts of life and to be happy and content despite my undemandingness. I have acquired a great deal of knowledge of human nature. I have had deep religious experiences and perhaps also atoned for some sins.
I have the impression that I have never actually made important decisions in my life by myself, for example after careful consideration or clear, rational insight. Whether it was my enlistment for military service or my decision to get married, whether it were the countless decisions and resolutions in war and in battle situations - it seems to me that I never made them with a sharp mind, but mostly instinctively, intuitively. Sometimes it was a matter of life and death. I firmly believe that I was guided by the Lord God through my guardian angel.
Experiences in Captivity
Some experiences in captivity. These are often old wisdoms. Many are universal. Some may not be useful anymore in the future.[3]
Very advantageous: Knowing the local language!
Having learnt a craft or a musical instrument.
Speech is silver, silence is golden. Watch out! Informers.
Sleep a lot.
Don’t brood and argue with fate. It wears you down and yet changes nothing.
Don’t carry any unnecessary luggage with you.[4]
Don’t put on too good clothes before capture (if there’s time). They will be taken away after all. Especially boots[5] and furs.
Appropriate: Local clothing because it is inconspicuous. Inconspicuousness was often very advantageous.[6]
Good-naturedness is often confused with stupidity. So be companionable, but don’t let yourself be taken advantage of.
Knowledge alone is not enough. You have to have the ability to apply it.
Be peaceful and friendly, but vigorously defend your rights.
If you can offer people advantages, you will always have willing hands (but not necessarily friends).
Command, but objectively, fairly, without arrogance, calmly but confidently.
If you try to fulfil everyone’s wishes or please everyone, you will be shipwrecked.
Business is done objectively, soberly, fairly, without sentimentality.
Discipline is a blessing for everyone.
Innate modesty or obedience should not be unnecessarily increased through education.
It is wrong to starve voluntarily in order to be discharged as a sick person. Health is a precious commodity that should not be squandered unnecessarily.[7]
Despite all modesty, there is no need to hide one’s abilities under a bushel.
Sometimes it is useful to declare illnesses(?) Some hope to be discharged earlier by declaring a - previous - contagious illness. (One man stated “cured syphilis”.)
In the homeland: valuable things may be walled up[8] Burying is pointless (with the Russians). The Russians systematically poked gardens and soil with thin iron rods, even searching under dung heaps.
Beware of neighbours! They give away hiding places!
No booze in the house! Drunken Russians are unpredictable!
Unity is strength![9]
Remarks on the Russian Mentality
The character of the Russians is like the climate of the country: Everything tends towards the extreme, the excessive, the gigantic. It is unbalanced and contradictory. On the one hand kind-hearted, on the other cruel and brutal. ({{w|Edwin Dwinger]] says: “I have never been kissed and beaten as much as in Russia.”)
And such a turnaround from one extreme to the other often happens in seconds (own experiences[10] and Klaus Mehnert: A hermit beats his family).
The Russian is immoderate in good and evil. A Russian says: “Our people have all the abilities to be saints and criminals.”
The Russian has a deep faith (formerly in God, today in Lenin).
Sometimes he is childishly naive.
He is of great indifference (nitchevo!) up to passivity (with effects on his fighting behaviour: His great strength is the defence).
The Russian has time (continuity and long-term political planning).
He possesses an astonishing capacity for suffering when enduring mental and physical hardships. (According to Dostoyevsky, he almost feels a kind of pleasure in doing so).
The Russian is a master of camouflage and deception. It is certainly no coincidence that the typical catchphrase for this skill comes from Russia: Potemkin villages. This also includes his cunning (Asian heritage). Applies to his fighting style and his diplomacy.
Asian influences from the 300 years of Mongol rule on the Russian character are unmistakable, also in the use of language (Russian curses: Lyoob twoyoo maatch[11], Hooiya[12]). The typical Russian mistrust, his cruelty and his lack of chivalry can certainly also be explained by Asian influences.
The monotony of the Russian landscape (steppes!) does not give rise to a sense of form. This explains the gingerbread style of Russian buildings.[13] Except for his gigantomania, which developed through the awareness of his position as a world power.
The gulf between Germans and Russians is huge: different race, different culture, different mentality, different customs and habits, different values. Russians think, feel, act and react completely differently from us.
- The individualistic German - the community-loving Russian
- The trusting German - the suspicious Russian
- Conscientious, hard-working Germans - the indifferent, passive Russian
- German organisation - Russian improvisation
Effects on the way of life:
- Western democracy - Eastern forms of collectivism and despotism.
While knighthood flourished in Europe and chivalrous virtues were cultivated, the Russians suffered under the brutal Mongol rule. This rule lasted for 300 years, during which time all contact with Europe was cut off. The Russians had no part in the era of European knighthood, and therefore chivalry is alien to them. They are often touchingly good-natured, which is one aspect of their character. But chivalry - e.g. towards a defeated enemy - is unknown to them. In addition, centuries of Mongol rule had a considerable impact on the Russian soul. Asian traits are unmistakable in the Russian character: mistrust, slyness, cruelty.[14]
Other or missing characteristics can also be explained by the Russian history: The lack of a sense of honour. A people who have been subjected to the arbitrariness and whims of the powerful for centuries, who have had to put up with every kind of physical and mental abuse, who have been insulted, beaten and tortured, cannot imagine that there is such a thing as honour. The lack of a sense of honour and respect for the honour of others became a characteristic of Russian people (Waldegg[15]). It was not only under the despotism of the Mongols that lawlessness, immorality and cruelty were the order of the day. They were also unimaginable and boundless under the rule of their own tsars - despite existing laws (e.g. Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine II and others). The tsars whipped, tortured and murdered princes and peasants indiscriminately, the lords their serfs, the men their wives. And to this day, the Russian state power threatens, oppresses and rapes the neighbouring peoples (massacre of the uprisings in Poland (1956, 1970), Hungary, Czechoslovakia (1948, 1968), Berlin, Invasion of Afghanistan, Shooting down of Korean passenger plane etc., the treatment of Boris Pasternak, Sakharov, the Gulag Archipelago et al. m.)[16]
The differentness of the Russians is also evident - before the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 - in their cultural and religious life. It was not orientated towards (western) Rome, but towards Byzantium.
Thus, in the course of history, Asian and Byzantine influences helped to shape the Russian national character for centuries.
To place the border between Europe and Asia at the Urals is superficial. It is not even geographically fully valid. The cultural border between Europe and Asia does not lie at the Urals, but at the Polish-Russian border.[17]
Of course, such differences in character are not always visible when dealing with Russians. You can live with Russians for months without any differences becoming apparent. But already in discussions about fundamental questions of life and especially in decisive moments, and above all in critical situations, in disputes or political decisions, the abysmal differences become apparent.
It will again take centuries for these characteristics to be mitigated or changed by worldwide contact with other cultures. The global interweaving of the economy, traffic and the information system will also compel the Russians to abandon their distrustful isolation from the rest of the world, which they still maintain.
Nevertheless, the Russian character will remain largely alien and incomprehensible to us.
In principle, hardly anything has changed to this day in the Russian conditions of old. Today’s red tsars, the Bolshevik strongmen, rule just as despotically as their predecessors, only the methods have become more modern and more subtle. Torture is no longer carried out by wheeling and quartering, but with psycho-drugs. Exile still exists as it always has. Today they are just called labour camps or penal camps in Siberia, and people hardly talk about them. There is no freedom of opinion in the Soviet Union, no real freedom of religion, no freedom to demonstrate, no right to strike, no freedom of movement, no travelling abroad for normal citizens. Even comrades true to party principles only travelled abroad under supervision. The Soviet spy system at home and abroad is perfect, the secret police omnipresent. It is quite impossible to list all the restrictions to which Soviet citizens are subjected.[18]
There are several reasons why the population bears these conditions calmly and relatively contentedly.
1. they have been used to this oppression since time immemorial. Habit makes many things bearable. For them, such conditions are almost normal.
2. they hardly realise the inhumane conditions under which they live because they have no means of comparison with other systems of rule, as they are not allowed out of their country. The red tsars already know why they do not allow their fellow citizens to travel abroad and why they are also reluctant to let foreigners into their country. Foreign tourists are only allowed to travel through Russia under strict control and only on certain, strictly limited routes. Taking photographs is hardly permitted.
3. The Russians’ capacity for suffering, lack of demands and adaptability - partly a consequence of constant oppression - is enormous.
Russians have an almost mystical love of their homeland (Mother Russia, Great Fatherland War).
They have a strong sense of mission (liberation of the oppressed peoples).
He has strong inferiority complexes (s [19]
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- ↑ For the section on the Russian mentality in particular, examples and reflections can be found in the context of personal experiences using the Index, including in particular 17 Sep 1941 und 29 July 1945 (when he seems to have started writing this chapter)
- ↑ see footnote 29.7.45
- ↑ The underlying typescript was written down in the 1960s (see footnote 3 of 29.7.45) to 1980s (see footnote 16 on this page about shooting down the Korean passenger plane).
- ↑ A mistake that the author himself made at the beginning and at the end of his captivity.
- ↑ His riding boots were taken from the author immediately after capture
- ↑ It was already wrong to stand when everyone was lying down.
- ↑ The author refers here to his ultimately abandoned “Gandhi resolution”.
- ↑ as was done with the imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire and the royal Pussian crown
- ↑ The author missed this very often, see keyword index entry “Gefangenschaft: Deutsche nicht solidarisch”
- ↑ e.g. here
- ↑ see footnote 13 of 17.9.41
- ↑ Хуй, one of the main words of Russian swearing, literally: “tail”, as a curse something like: “shit on it”
- ↑ Wikipedia disagrees, pointing out the personal influence of Stalin who came from a not remotely monotonous country, and the incorporation of various international styles.
- ↑ see also 17 Sep 1941
- ↑ Richard Waldegg (pseudonym of Richard Wunderer): Moskau. Knute, Blut und Liebeslaster (Moscow. Knout, Blood and Love Vices). Weltspiegel-Verlag, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt 1967
- ↑ The editor added dates because it is not always clear which ones the author meant. The shooting down of the Korean plane (1 September 1983) dates the writing of this section of the typescript to 1983 or later.
- ↑ A discussion of this complex demarcation can be found in Wikipedia
- ↑ These observations are confirmed by the fact that some of them still apply in the post-Soviet era; for example, Putin is described as the new tsar.
- ↑ This text, labelled by the editor as “last addendum”, inserted here in its factual context, was written on different paper and pasted into the original typescript in the middle of the appendices. The author added the last three lines by hand. The text breaks off abruptly after the last word “s...”. We don’t know why; we also don’t know what was to follow. Let’s leave it at that.