Remembrance "There Was No Enthusiasm for War"

By RICHARD VON WEIZSACKER

Now President of West Germany, he was a 19-year-old private with the Ninth Infantry Regiment in Potsdam when war came. In 1949, Von Weizsacker's father was convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg and sentenced to seven years in jail; his sentence was commuted in 1951.

We knew nothing of the secret protocol between Hitler and Stalin that contained provisions for the attack on Poland. German newspapers were full of reports of Polish violence and provocations against the German minority. Who knew whether the reports were correct? Most were believed.

Despite the influence of Hitler's propaganda on German public opinion, there was no enthusiasm for war. Thus the mobilization of the Wehrmacht was conducted as quietly as possible. About Aug. 25, after being hospitalized with appendicitis, I received orders to rejoin my unit at Potsdam immediately. I was told not to talk about it.

That very same day, I later discovered, my father -- a state secretary in the Foreign Ministry -- had taken part in a last-ditch attempt to dissuade Hitler from issuing the invasion order. In his notes my father remarked, "This afternoon is the most depressing of my life. Apart from the unforeseeable consequences for the existence of Germany and of my family, it is appalling that my name should be connected with this event."

Two or three days before Sept. 1, our battalion departed -- but not, as in August 1914, with brass bands and in broad daylight. We set off in pitch darkness, taking side streets to the freightyards. Early on the morning of Sept. 1, we crossed into Poland. We soon saw action. Just a few hundred yards from me, my older brother Heinrich fell. We barely had time to bury him and the other dead before we had to hurry on. The suffering had begun.

We were no better and no worse than our fathers, who 25 years earlier had been drawn into the First World War. And we were no better or worse than our children, who today pass judgment upon us. We, like the soldiers of other countries, were trained to obedience. We had not been brought up free to demonstrate our opposition under the protection of a liberal constitution. We had the same sensitivities that all humans have, but during a time of difficult decisions, we lacked political vision.