Preface

This Appendix contains letters from my father.  

The first letter, below, was written in 1938 and addressed to Gladys and Denis Riley, friends of the Bekennende Kirche (the anti-Nazi underground fraction of the Protestant Church) in England.  It assesses the recently concluded Munich Agreements.  This letter was intercepted by Gestapo censors, and was one of the grounds why Albrecht was arrested by the Gestapo the following year.  The Gestapo considered the letter "nothing more than an infamous slander and insult to every German, and a crime under the Reichs Penal Code §90f."  The story of his imprisonment is in the chapter "Frankfurt 1939" in my mother's memoirs, above.

The following letters were addressed to my mother while my father was stationed on the Ostfront (the Eastern Front) during the spring and early summer of 1941. Typescripts made from the letters were circulated among the members of the underground group at the time.  Albrecht's  last letter is dated July 11, 1941.  He was killed on July 16. His family's reaction to his death is in the chapter "Essen" in my mother's memoirs. --- Martin Nicolaus

Letter to Friends in England, December 1938

I cannot write you my true feelings about the events in Germany, Europe and elsewhere.  But it may be the general opinion in all of Germany, perhaps also in your own country, that the peace gained in September may easily be gone by Spring.  I picture with deep humiliation and sorrow the contribution that my own country has made to the current state of affairs.  On the other hand, I need to mention my growing disappointment with the policy of English and French statesmen, and others.  This is a policy of men who pay attention to preserving the peace while forfeiting their freedom and Independence.  There is something cowardly in the blustering joy of many who feel that the war has been put off for a little while.  Isn't it peculiar that this delay swells the influence of a peculiarly German spirit?  All over the world, people are discovering a new faith in their national "God,' in their might, weapons, race, blood, and soil.  I marvel at the readiness of the world around us to help all kinds of refugees, and I know very well from my own friends how helpless they are in this country, but the same nations are on the road to increasing the number of refugees further through preparations for a coming war.

Letters from the Eastern Front

April 3, 1941.  Now finally you will hear from me again whenever my duties leave me time to write. Everything has turned back into ice-cold reality:  the uniform, the drill, the stand-at-attention-and-shut-up -- in short, yesterday up on a high horse, today ... It's good that we are quartered with private parties, but we're deep in the lonesome woods.  The unit is unfortunately the same old one but under new management.  I have to put up with the fact that my vacation cost me promotion, because people with the same seniority as me are now my superiors.  It would be a great relief if that situation changed.  But that can happen very quickly in Prussia.  Don't think that I'm complaining; I'm just carefully taking a position.  Among the people here you can hear quite different stories about "enthusiasm."  But that's probably the same where you are.  Everyone has the feeling that we're in the final stages of the war, waiting for the end.

I keep thinking about the wonderful last days at home.  As you can imagine, it was one celebration after another.

In all this business the big thing for me is not to lose sight of the goal.  The hardest thing, first off, is the lack of brotherhood.  I started by passing the word that I have a nice warm room and everyone is cordially invited every evening at 6.  But naturally I'm not trampled by a mob.  More important is the time when we clean our rifles and the breaks during the day, generally.  The day before yesterday we had half the company involved in a conversation between me and an SS lieutenant.  But you know yourself:  Struggle is enough, but rest and fellowship are precious.  Nevertheless, I'm content, even cheerful, when I think about the position I've got into, thanks to the grace of our lord Jesus Christ, in the face of all this violence and sin.  The folks that have to get drunk every week are really the desperate ones.

But who knows when we'll see each other again!  In war the gap between two soldiers of different ranks is bigger than the distance from the earth to the moon.  But our time is in His hands!

April 20 1941, from the East.  I have the special pleasure of being able to report how my work is moving forward around me here.  In this battalion there are three theologians; the eldest is the pay master.  He recently had the idea to try to establish services in this almost entirely Catholic area.  The batallion commander went along, and the local Pope had a nunnery chapel de-consecrated, and since then we're cheerfully at work.  On Good Friday I gave communion to about 20 men, including 3 officers.  But today, misfortune struck.  The third one among us, a neutral from Duisburg-Wanheim, gave the sermon, and he turned Peter into a Führer and the Führer into Peter who had the "mission to lead" (after John 21:15 ff).  Of course we're going to ship him out via a resolution in the synod.  Even worse luck had it that his company commander more or less ordered all the Protestants to attend this "presentation" so that about 45 men had to swallow this rot.  -- I have nothing worse to report about myself than this spiritual annoyance.  ... "In misery, but always cheerful."  

May 5, 1941:  In the meantime I've moved far to the east into a land where hunger and beatings reign.  There is great loneliness.  Everything that belongs to the normal life of a mid-European is lacking here.  The only warlike thing is the rumors about our mission.

But what you will probably find most interesting is the kingdom of God and its role among the rough and a bit savaged men of the barracks.  We know that for years the spiritual life in Germany has revolved around the church question, and now we look to the future and ask ourselves what role God may allow us to play.  One thing is clear above all:  the past years have been a time of privation and atrophy of genuine nourishment for the soul.  In the few weeks that I've been a soldier again -- oh, it already seems like a long time -- I've had much more opportunity for evangelism than before.  Through various substitutions and personnel changes I've come together with comrades who read the Bible with me.  In general, as far as my faith goes, I live under the shield of the respect that even the most godless man has for an open profession of faith.  One thing that pains me a lot is that I have such a pitifully small understanding of what Finney emphasizes so much:  to speak in simple words about Jesus Christ in the language of those whom I'm trying to reach.  Discourse with the so-called "better classes" is so much easier -- but it's a weakness.  I'm going to work on this.

May 20, 1941.  My duties are notably pleasant.  You might not believe this if you saw us careening through bottomless swampy roads after a drenching thunderstorm, like a motor plow, a giant dirt thrower.  But it's more interesting than marching drills and barracks duty.  

There's rumors now of a shift, supposedly as a result of the new agreement.  But agreements are practically guarantees of imminent declarations of war.  Let's wait and see.

May 23, 1941 (Ascension).  Don't say anything bad about Prussians.  They are closer to the heavenly kingdom than we usually fear, because despite everything they gave us the day off, even though a long set of new orders came down yesterday.  Some people say the officers did the "old man" in yesterday evening, during a birthday party at the expense of a blissfully happy papa, but I believe that the officers' hearts were turned by a brilliantly beautiful morning after a long period of rain and maybe also because of the open air religious service.  The pulpit, made of egg crates decorated with pine boughs, stood in a parking lot.  A whole army of jackdaws screeched overhead.  Green meadows, birch trees in bloom -- it was the perfect spot for "Nature Christians" and for elevated words from Ernst Moritz Arndt. The preacher certainly looked sharp, but he stood far from God's kingdom with his sermon to the 80 men present.  The jackdaws had good reason to be screeching, and the sun, after just a brief look, went into hiding.  Too bad the Ascension didn't inspire him with joy for our lord; not a word about that.  The best thing about it was a few conversations afterwards, critically recognizing this derailment.  My own officer borrowed my little Bible; he said he was very interested in the OT, and could I lend him the book.  That was the Feast of the Ascension here today.  I really miss our singing in the parish back home.  

May 29, 1941.   One thing is important enough that I should mention it.  It's spring here in the countryside, filled with the glory and ripeness of approaching summer, a mercy for this land.  Every blooming branch gives me more joy than the sinking of a certain 10,000 ton vessel.  

June 9, 1941.  Time is standing on its head.  Today we worked through the night, slept in the morning, and then more of the same old.  I rarely had a quiet hour like this morning.  After a refreshing bath I lay down in a beautiful meadow and read Romans 8, and thought again at length about the sermon that I wanted to deliver on Easter about verse 1, and so I found a reason for prayer and gratitude and joy.  It pains me always to reflect on the fate of our prayers. Our brothers are in prison, most of the parishes are wiped out by the draft, and the people are full of fear and trembling for bread and future.  Many women write now that life is harder now than before, and everyone is trying to get set for a third winter of war, full of inner doubts about all the pathetic speeches.  

June 20, 1941. Get ready today for a pretty long letter, which will cost me the rest of my paper, because circumstances are rarely favorable, above all the fact that the beast of war has not broken out yet.  Let's be clear:  it rages so savagely in its cage that nobody wants to take the risk of guarding it.  

I'm reminded now of a Latin template for the placement of "cum"  -- Ceasar cum Rubiconem transissat ...  Ceasar and the Rubicon are close at hand, and so the "cum" hangs like a sword just over our heads.  Maybe you will have read the commentary about it in the newspaper before this letter reaches you.  In recent days, they've arrived at yet another ostentatious peace agreement.  We came, we saw, and now we still have to conquer.  In the meantime, we inherited a role that promises somewhat more bellum gallicum than before the turn of the year.  Without a doubt, the longest voyage remains before us.  I read your little Steppen book with growing interest, sharpened by the best local color -- nous verrons.  

When I look around me now, behold -- all the players have taken their places, the chief playwright Ivan Ivanovich from the Lenin Opera peers through the cracks in the scenery -- the director is coming.  Is the end nearer now?  Us?  Me?  Or is this the beginning of the end?  Can we also beat England on the sea or on the Volga?  -- A deluded strategy, tenable only against the background of a striving for world conquest -- thus spake Roosevelt.

But God has the last word.  Psalm 2:

    He who sits in heaven laughs,

    and the lord holds them in derision --

"them" -- that's us!

    You shall break them with a rod of iron, 

    and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel -- 

"them" -- that's us!  

We lords, we of the master race, and I am a soldier of Adolf Hitler, the Führer of these magnificent ones.  It really would have been easier to bear if nobody had "liberated" me from the Frankfurt Gestapo prison for the Wehrmacht. (I know it was a well intentioned friendly deed.)  Wasn't the Gestapo clerk, this representative of the absolute state, correct when he answered your petition to set me free, because I had been drafted, by screaming in your face, "This pig is unworthy of the front!"  I thank you for the tears, you know I do, that filled your eyes because of this obscenity.

But what kind of soldier am I?  God alone knows how torn up is the heart of a Christian on this side in this war.  But He alone also lets me know with granite certainty that I can only live now and forever by his mercy.  Because I really survive from day to day, from hour to hour, only because and insofar as I am raised out of the death pit of guilt -- the guilt of my and our beloved people, this persecuted, betrayed, people, this people that is disgraced and suffers itself to be disgraced -- into life under his merciful freedom.  If this certainty were not more total for me than the whole totality of our State, which will one day be shattered to pieces like a clay pot, then I would have to commit suicide today, or, if I were a lesser man, I would have to drink myself unconscious.  

Instead, I praise with all brothers in spirit the lord on the cross "who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned man, purchased my freedom from all sins, from death and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his sacred precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death, so that I may be his and that I may live under him in his kingdom and serve him."

That is my salvation from wrongdoing, and if I have a hope for our country, then it is this:  when it is shattered to pieces -- and God does not suffer contempt, he is the true LORD -- that it may know that God himself has done it, by his immeasurably hard grace, in order to wake it up once again, and this time hopefully forever, from its boundless dreams -- dreams that cost too much blood, innocent blood -- and, if it please HIM, to give it a new beginning.  

Private Albrecht Nicolaus, have you gone totally mad?  Well, where am I?  Where?  I stand at the gates of Russia and I am supposed to be fanatically enthusiastic and win, win, win at any cost.  But if the censorship reads this letter, then I will be liquidated tomorrow, a saboteur of victory, a miserable traitor.  Quo vadis, Germania!

June 25, 1941.  Now the ominous Sphinx has unveiled its terrifying visage.  Early Sunday, after a sleepless night, we waited in the trenches for the first shot.  At 3:15 came the first drumbeat, and then it never ceased.  If you were awake early on Sunday morning at 3:15 you would have been in a constant state of worry.  I beg you, don't be concerned.  Now our trial by fire begins anew.  Since 9 in the morning on Sunday we are in Russia.  Even the botany testifies to it: we left fields of corn flowers and came into poppies.

June 30, 1941:  I wrote you about the 'classic' overture of this campaign.  Goethe would have said, "A new epoch in world history begins here and now."  And this time he might have been right.  This Sunday morning is also memorable for me because over the deafening roar of the gun battle I had a really fine conversation with a lieutenant, in which he asked me to lay out for him in clear and sober terms what I believe.  This lieutenant is teacher and propaganda chief, but has an open mind.  Well, since that hour we have been on the move, first straight ahead, then in circles for days, and meantime standing still.  -- Hold on to the golden ring of intercession, because I won't abandon my faith, although I had to let myself be shamed by a prisoner, who got a bowl of food from us, and stood up from the grass first and said a blessing.

More and more it seems to me that I am living in a land filled with faithful witnesses of our Lord.  The Bolsheviks killed the local pastor and his family, and every churchgoer was threatened and watched by agents in front of and inside the church.  Many were taken off to Siberia, so that I might want to say that our noblest aim in this war is the liberation of Siberia, but, but ... Don't we have "Siberia" in our own country?  Madness, madness!

July 11, 1941:  In the course of my day, all personal things are choked off by duty, meetings, distractions and etc.  Certainly I am there, but the Prussians only have my body as booty.  So, you see, there is loneliness but without hopelessness.  Didn't we read Revelations 21 when we parted in the Spessart on Easter?  Isn't that enough for you and me?  And for all time?  Including for our son, whom you are going to have, this dearly beloved one!

I am not going to be able to find the time now to write to other people besides you.  Please send my greetings to the dear parents, to the parish in Werden, and to the friends in Basel, Frankfurt(!), and Berlin.  Thank them for all the hours of work, fellowship, and prayer.