[Excerpt] von Salomon, Die Geächteten

Excerpt from Ernst von Salomon's Die Geächteten (Güthersloh: Bertalsmann, 1929).

They were the Landsknechte – but were where the land which they served? They had recognized the greatest swindle of this peace, they did not want to take part in it. They did not want to participate in the wholesome order, which was praised to them in a slimy way. They had remained under arms according to an infallible instinct. [...] The sensed the word, yes, they even spoke it out loud and were ashamed of its washed-out sound; they turned it over, tested it in secret fear, and left it out of the interplay of manifold conversations, and yet it stood over them. The word stood wrapped in deep gloom, weather-beaten, beckoning, full of secrets, beaming magical powers, felt and yet not recognized, loved and not yet bidden to them. And the word was Germany.

Where was Germany? In Weimar? In Berlin? Once it had been on the front line, but the front fell apart. Then it was supposed to be at home, but home deceived. It was sung in song and speech, but the note was false. The spoke of fatherland and motherland, but even the niggers had that. Where was Germany? Was it in the people? But they cried for bread and voted for the fat-bellied ones. Was it in the state? But the state sought its form garrulously and found it in reunciation.

Germany burned darkly in daring brains. Germany was there where it was being fought for, it showed itself where armored hands reached out for its very existence, it beamed dazzingly where those possessed of its spirit dared the final sacrifice for the sake of Germany. Germany was on the border. The articles of the treaty of Versailles told us where Germany was.

p 48-49