by Ludwig Renn
The Trench War 1917/18
I
I had the right to let myself go. However, very soon I couldn’t do it anymore. I read the book, Simplicius Simplicissimus.
Every morning Brand and I went with our blankets to a south-facing slope with soft grass and young fir trees. There we undressed. I wrapped myself in the blanket and lay in the sun. I sweated so that it dripped from off the tip of my nose. Afterward I half dressed and lay in the shadows. After a time I began to feel hale and hearty.
On the other days we lay among the strawberries. There were so many that one had only to pick around oneself without having to get up.
On the day before the company came back from the front we went to pick strawberries for Lamm, Hartenstein, and Funke.
In one week I had regained my health to the point that I longed for something to do. The chief doctor, to whom I told that, shook his head: “Just be patient!”
However, I no longer believed that I was still sick.
II
Brand went back with the company to the front. But Weickert, Jauer, and a number of others came down with a sudden fever and returned to the rear. Also the same thing happened in other companies: suddenly a 104-degree fever.
Then our regiment was pulled out of the front and made a long march far to the rear among undamaged villages in which the villagers sang at night and played the guitar. The march was strenuous for me. Brand, Jauer, and a couple of others were so exhausted that they had to be transported on the machine gun wagon for the last stretch of the march.
In the rear I resumed my duties with the company.
We were exercising in a meadow when a runner came from the battalion.
“Vizefeldwebel Renn is transferred to the storm battalion. He is to report to the battalion orderly room at three o’clock this afternoon ready to march.”
“Duty in the storm battalion will be better for you,” said Lamm, “than being in the trenches.”
That didn’t mean anything to me. Actually, I had no idea what a storm battalion was.
In front of the battalion orderly room I met a young lieutenant and some non-commissioned officers and corporals.
“Vizefeldwebel Renn, third company reporting!”
The lieutenant bowed and said, “Lindner.”
I held my face muscles tight, but maybe I moved them a little. He became slightly red. “I was just commissioned a lieutenant yesterday.”
“Shall I ascertain that everyone is present, Herr Leutnant?” I asked from embarrassment. Lindner couldn’t yet be twenty years old.
We marched into a green valley.
“What is actually a storm battalion, Herr Leutnant?”
“I don’t rightly know myself. I only know that we are to be trained as leaders of patrols and shock troops.”
I thought, how can one be trained for something like that?
Our trainer was a young officer with the Iron Cross First Class. He had a Berlin accent and when off duty was silly and presumptuous, but on duty he forgot it. Then he was boyishly natural and eager.
The sun burned on the flats. We had to drag machine guns and throw hand grenades, lead the way into trenches and creep silently. In the beginning it fatigued me very much. I sweated at every turn and a couple of times the terrain swam before my eyes, but only for a short time. Then each day it became easier for me. The training went from morning until night, with only a midday pause of two or three hours. I had no time to think about things and felt well.
Lindner was always together with me, even off duty.
“I can’t get used to being an officer,” he said to me. “My family is terribly proud about it because no one has ever achieved so much. But I can’t complain about it— in peacetime it would never have happened.”
III
It was already getting on toward fall when I came back to the company. No one asked anymore about my sickness. I myself remembered it only as something completely foreign. I felt completely well and was too.
I reported to Lamm — it was in the company orderly room. He took a sheet of paper and handed it to me.
“Leutnant D. R. Lamm is transferred to the First Battalion staff as supply officer. Oberleutnant Loessberg will take over the leadership of the third company.”
“Who is the new company commander?”
“He comes from the division staff. There is an order which says that all officers from the higher staffs, every now and then, have to serve at the front.”
“Is that any reason to take our leader?”
“Calm down about it. I would have had to become a supply officer anyway.”
The next morning Lamm assembled the company.
“I have been transferred to the battalion staff and will leave you all today. You will understand that it is difficult for me. However, it makes it easier for me because I believe I am leaving a good company for my replacement. Auf Wiedersehen, company!”
We fell out.
“We will never get another one like him,” said Wolf, who was recovered from his wound.
Funke sat in a corner, chewed on a cigar stump, and mumbled something to himself about good people.
That evening the rumor came that the new man had arrived.
“What does he look like?”
“He has a monocle and a riding crop.”
“That smells like the stage.”
I noticed that the entire company rejected him, not for any objective reason, but because he wasn’t Lamm.
The next morning at the formation he was there. The Feldwebel called attention and introduced him.
“As of today I have been given temporary command of the third company. I have had a good report on the company. Therefore I reckon that my company will be the best in the regiment. With God as King and Fatherland has always been our motto and shall remain so. With that I greet you!—At ease! Feldwebel, come with me and introduce the non-commissioned officers to me!”
“Vizefeldwebel Renn.”
“You have on leather knees and puttees. Is that allowed by the regiment, Feldwebel?”
“He just returned two days ago from the storm battalion.”
“That’s good. We will organize a complete assault platoon. By the way, as I see it the whole company looks like weeds and beets all mixed up, old next to young, giants next to dwarves. Has then no one made the effort to change that?”
“No, Herr Oberleutnant. Up to now the former commanders have left everyone together, who are acquainted.”
“That won’t do. That presents absolutely no military picture. We will immediately re-form. You, Renn, come with me and point out the people to be considered for the storm platoon.”
I pointed to Wolf.
“Good.”
I indicated Funke.
“Him? How did the company ever come by such old people?—The next time I see you I want you washed and in a better tunic!”
We put the new platoon together with Unteroffizier Hauffe and Gefreiter Saenger as assault group leaders. We were still short a leader for the third group.
“What is your name, then?” Loessberg asked an eighteen-year-old kid with bright, blue eyes, who I didn’t know yet.
“Haehnel, Herr Oberleutnant!” screamed the boy.
I watched Loessberg from the side.
He appeared pale, bloated, and had lips whose softness did not appeal to me.
IV
By reforming the company by height, Loessberg had sharpened the aversion of the company to him, particularly those who had been together in the spring battles and were now separated. They were the only ones who even had an opinion. Funke was the only one who, in his unbelievable good heartedness, defended him, even though Loessberg virtually treated him with contempt and constantly found fault with his uniform or with his bearing.
On the day after the reorganization we moved into the trenches. During this night we didn’t see Loessberg. He first appeared the next morning to have a look around. I showed him my platoon sector. An older man
was sweeping the trench.
“I notice how dirty your people are. We must hold strictly to standards of cleanliness. This man looks unbelievable!”
“That will not be possible until we have better bunkers. The entrances are so small that one has to crawl out on all fours and thereby becomes completely dirty.”
“Not possible doesn’t exist for me!” he said sharply. “We must push that through, and it will succeed!”
In the next bunker entrance sat a man with bare upper body searching for lice. He stood up, embarrassed, but could not stand at attention because the entrance was too low.
“Make yourself presentable!” Loessberg prevailed upon him.
He climbed out and so blocked the trench.
“What does this man have to do now?” Loessberg asked me.
“Right now the men have a breakfast break, Herr Oberleutnant.”
“For how long?”
“That hasn’t been exactly determined, because now is the time during which they will also sleep.”
“Why now?”
“Because during the night they had to transport train rails and medium mines for the mine throwers behind the Elizabeth heights.”
“How long did that last?”
“From midnight until daybreak.”
“The people must have bumbled along!”
“The mines are very heavy and must be carried with caution.”
I noticed that Loessberg looked for a way to improve the situation, but understood too little about it.
“As the Unteroffizier in charge of trench duty!” reported the tall Saenger.
“Have you washed yourself today?” Saenger’s face did appear very dirty.
“No, Herr Oberleutnant, we don’t have any water in the trench.”
“That is no excuse! Whoever has the will to will find something.—My dear Renn, that won’t do! We are not a hoard of robbers, but a company of his majesty!” This pretty word appeared to please him.
We came to a sentry. It was a red-cheeked young fellow, who reported at attention. Loessberg climbed up on the platform and laid his arm around his neck.
“Now, show me what it is that you have to observe here.”
The sentry explained it to him.
We continued on.
“That’s how all of the people in your platoon should be, so alert and erect!”
“Here is the right border of my platoon sector, Herr Oberleutnant.”
“I will meet with the platoon leaders at eleven o’clock in my bunker!—Good morning!”
I went back together with Saenger.
“He isn’t so hard to handle,” he laughed. “We will soon know when he makes his rounds and we can just place pretty people as sentries.”
At eleven o’clock we platoon leaders assembled in front of his bunker. For nearly two hours he presented his grievances to us and indicated how things should be changed.
Finally, we were released.
“What should one do, Herr Leutnant?” I asked the platoon leader of our first platoon. “This won’t do, and with this system the men will not have time to sleep.”
“One says: Yes, and does what he wants to,” laughed the lieutenant. Trepte laughed also. It wasn’t funny to me. I was worried about my people. Just what should one do? One had to obey, but he also had to look out for the people under him.
V
I had to admit that some of Loessberg’s arrangements were actually good. However, at the same time there was duplicity in everything. Loessberg didn’t want to see that in this way the improvements to the bunkers, which to me were the most important, were set aside and everything was done only for appearances. Wherever we could, we platoon leaders went behind his back, and also the group leaders, especially in the hours when he never showed himself. During the night he never came out of his bunker because he was night blind.
He was aware of it too, and attempted to win some support from the teams. Hauffe, Hartenstein, and Saenger were completely unreceptive to amiable and grand words. Also young Haehnel handled himself in a very cool manner toward him, whereas he earlier had been friendly. He could also become very coarse when something didn’t suit him. There was something in his large, bright blue eyes which made everyone love him and want to protect him if it had been necessary. He wasn’t in the least pretty, but no one could escape the charm of his flashing eyes. So it was with Loessberg, who soon made him a Gefreiter and a short time thereafter promoted him to Unteroffizier. Haehnel was happy about it but didn’t in the least feel any personal thankfulness toward Loessberg, which Loessberg couldn’t understand.
Not all were so standoffish. Loessberg undertook to find new coats for those he liked and of these, most of them believed his fine words. However, there wasn’t one really good man among his favorites. Furthermore, he slept very little and was busy from morning until long after midnight. He held conferences—he loved to hear himself and became intoxicated with admiring his own organization—he wrote grand reports to his superiors, which he apparently discussed with his runners or whoever else was present— in order to show how good he was at doing that, created training plans, and busied himself with all matters of concern.
I observed it all without admiration, only with cool astonishment that anyone could bring it about to work so hard from naked, cold ambition.
VI
Winter came.
Preacher Schlechte was no longer there. A young assistant preacher came in his place. He was a Vizefeldwebel in our regiment and he also preached in that uniform. He didn’t torment us with the question why did God allow the war to happen, but instead related very simply and with great freshness from the Bible. And thereby he had success, in that it was discussed further in the barracks.
This Vizefeldwebel, however, was badly wounded and another one came to replace him, who had never been at the front. That was a strange man.
“The Kaiser should not have begun the war,” he said in a sermon. And shortly afterward: “The Kaiser did not start the war.”
This man’s sermons did not irritate me. I found amusement in trying to discover how he had come by his realizations. Once he said: “For you it is a joy to die for King and Fatherland!”
Did the preacher know nothing of our sentiments about the war? And did he also see the war as something good? For what reason did he raise the sore point of the war from the pulpit?
On the day after this sermon an officer I did not know held an educational discourse about why we were making war and why we needed Belgium.—What? We want to keep this cursed Belgium? Because of some superficial advantage we want to burden ourselves with this people?—Do our leaders think that they will make the war more tasteful for us if they push their concerns onto us?
I began brooding. What is then the Fatherland? Nothing? An outdated expression? But it is something. And maybe I love it too.
VII
It was said that there would be a big German offensive in March. I had to admit that Loessberg had trained the company well. Maybe it really was the best in the regiment. It was better prepared than we had been when we were mobilized in 1914.
Suddenly, the word was that the Oberleutnant was going back to a higher headquarters. He had bored his way to the rear. Because of that he was to go on leave. However, before his departure he wanted to undertake a large patrol action in order to take prisoners. And then the regiment would be pulled out of the front for the offensive.
Loessberg had a training site built in the rear by the forest depot that copied the enemy trenches according to aerial photographs. The chosen teams were to practice here.
Hauffe came to me. “I will not take part in this venture.”
I was astounded. He was the best patrol leader in the company.
“Why is that, then?”
“The Oberleutnant showed me the plans and I told him I don’t trust this business. There are too many people involved.” He laughed.
“Do you know who else is involved?”
“He
borrowed Leutnant Lindner as the leader. Otherwise Haehnel’s and Saenger’s shock troops and some from the other platoons will be participating. There are also supposed to be engineers involved to blow up the French obstacles, and an enormous number of artillery, mine throwers, and machine guns are supposed to fire.”
I will not participate either, I thought coolly.
The night of the patrol arrived. A flare rose up and the shooting began.—That’s a bad mistake, I thought, to signal for the firing from the point where they are supposed to attack. A shrewd opponent will immediately know everything.
It stamped and barked from the rear.
Chunk—chunk—chunk—shish! The heavy mines came tumbling from high in the air and detonated with a flat roar. Machine guns rattled from the rear so that I involuntarily ducked my head although I knew that they were shooting too high and only wanted to confuse. And that was already going on for some minutes.—Too much! Much too much! That cannot succeed!—I saw the shock troops climb out of the trench. In the meantime the firing continued without pause.
There was a crash not far away. Was that the blowing up of the obstacles or a French artillery round?
Wham! Wham! Wham! The French barrage had begun and it was very heavy.
I was trembling from the excitement. Haehnel, Saenger and the greater part of my platoon were out front.
Someone came springing into the trench with others behind him.
“Just what is going on?” screamed Saenger.
“For what reasons were we supposed to come back?” asked Haehnel.
“Why didn’t you attack?” screamed Loessberg.
“Herr Leutnant Lindner screamed from the front, Go back!”
“Go back!” said Haehnel.
Lindner sprang into the trench. There was heavy firing around us.
“I did not call ‘Go back.’ Instead it was the engineers because the obstacle had not yet been blown up.”
“So now go forward!” screamed Loessberg excitedly.
“Are the shock troops ready?” asked Lindner.