"Soldiers..."
“It was May 1st last year - the government of national unity had called for a public holiday, and the people, the German workers, had come to celebrate this day. Millions gathered throughout the Reich; thousands upon thousands marched in huge columns through the streets of the imperial capital toward their common destination, the Tempelhof Field. There was one thing that was moving to see in these endless processions: the people who were marching there had not all come because they had suddenly become convinced National Socialists overnight, but they had nevertheless turned up—not like the ill-wishers beyond the borders who lied because they had been forced to—but because they were driven by the tremendous power radiating from the event of this revolution of faith, and because they sensed that what was happening was good. They had come because they felt something deep inside—something that seemed long forgotten and yet was nothing other than the pulse of their German blood!
And so they marched, the “proles,” the class warriors of yesterday, the German workers of the brow and the fist. Through streets decorated with flags, through rows of cheering people, they marched on, they whose longing for generations had been that this, this very first day of May, should become the holiday of the working people. Week after week, for endless years, they had gone to their party meetings, had made sacrifice after sacrifice in the belief that one day the day of freedom would dawn for them too, the holiday of the workers, May 1st; year after year they had marched out with red flags to celebrate this day, and time and again they had returned home disappointed, and all too often with bloody heads - May 1st, in the era of liberalism, and especially during the 14 years of the November government, was not a holiday, but a milestone in the tragedy of the German working class.
And now? Was fulfillment finally here? Wasn’t it a joke of fate that what had once been dreamed of in flowery fantasies was now coming true? Was it possible that people were now suddenly marching, free, cheering and... victorious?
Anyone who knew the German worker, who knew his bitter hardship and his great, honest longing, could also sense what was going on in those hundreds of thousands of people on that May 1st of last year. They saw more than waving flags and singing people - they sensed how something that had once been created by poisonous lies was now breaking within them; they felt the almost tentative groping of the German working-class soul, that soul which for decades had been accustomed to nothing but being betrayed and trampled upon, sold off and denied, was now being illuminated by the first glimmer of a new era.
The men walked along pensively; somewhere, far away, music could be heard. The crowd was still marching, but each individual in it was fighting a battle; each individual had to come to terms with what was now happening, forcing himself to conquer the spirit of the past, forcing himself to suppress the “I” in order to see the triumph of the “We” - thus, the “demonstrators” formed a column of German workers’ battalions, and under their marching steps, the doctrine of the individual was crushed.
From here the procession reached the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of historical events in Prussia’s history. A murmur ran through the column - was it the memory that was awakening in them? Did they think about everything this gate had already been through; did the old ones remember that they had once marched between these gray columns in the most violent of all wars; did they ponder how November 1918 had greeted them here with rattling machine guns and cries of “Freedom, beauty, and dignity”? Or did the light of the torches shine in their hearts, under which the brown battalions had marched through this gate weeks earlier in the jubilation of victory?
No one knows what the individual thought, but they all experienced the same thing: like a spark, it suddenly spread through the ranks, jumping from row to row, passing through hundreds of thousands of people. The men fell into step; the sound of marching feet thundered, and a song rang out, once composed by someone in their longing, and now becoming the anthem of fulfillment. It rose up, loud and majestic, sung by German workers: “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt!”
The “We!” has triumphed - thus, on this march to the May Day celebrations, the bonds of a new and better community were forged, for the people now began to understand what had happened: the fighters of the NSDAP had not gone to war simply to rule after victory, but had fought so that their victory would be that of the German workers.
They marched on, their steps light, their songs joyful, for they had found a home, not only in their fatherland, but also in the military community that was their true home. They had made peace with their people; they did not come as remorseful sinners, no, they marched forward as victors, for before them fluttered the symbol of a faith they had conquered their hearts through bitter struggle. When the celebration began, attended by more than a million people, the greatest celebration the world had ever seen, and when the Führer then coined the phrase “soldier-worker” in his speech, it found an echo in these millions, and this echo was a vow of loyal allegiance; the vast field became an altar of the fatherland, and the celebration became the hour of consecration of a new people - a religious service for the German people!
And now a word to you, you officials, you leaders of the German working class! The flame of love, strength, and faith that blazed at that time, and in which a spirit of class hatred and discord was melted down into the consciousness of the soldierly working community, the Führer has called upon you to keep this flame alive - in this flame the last dross of a bygone era shall be burned away. Yes, even more than that! In this blaze we want to forge the great coming of a bright future; just as Baron von Stein once freed the peasants from serfdom, so we National Socialists and Adolf Hitler will free the working German people from servitude to internationalism of any kind; he will enlist them in the nobility of labor, for this nobility is the sign of freedom in a duty called Germany.
On May 1st of this year, you will march again; when the flags wave, comrades, when you raise your arms in salute, let it be in a silent vow that German workers will never again stand by their people and their Führer in any other way than they do today. Fulfill this vow by doing your duty, and the foundation stone laid by German workers on the first national holiday of labor will become the foundation for the fulfillment of our only desire!”
From “Der Schulungsbrief” (The Training Letter), May 1934, article “Soldaten…” by Kurt Jeserich