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.Unfavourable rumours were constantly coming from the Navy, which was said to be in a state of ferment.Butthis seemed to be a fanciful creation of a few isolated young people.It is true that at the hospital they were alltalking abut the end of the war and hoping that this was not far off, but nobody thought that the decisionwould come immediately.I was not able to read the newspapers.In November the general tension increased.Then one day disaster broke in upon us suddenly and withoutwarning.Sailors came in motor-lorries and called on us to rise in revolt.A few Jew-boys were the leaders inthat combat for the Liberty, Beauty, and Dignity of our National Being.Not one of them had seen activeservice at the front.Through the medium of a hospital for venereal diseases these three Orientals had beensent back home.Now their red rags were being hoisted here.During the last few days I had begun to feel somewhat better.The burning pain in the eye-sockets hadbecome less severe.Gradually I was able to distinguish the general outlines of my immediate surroundings.And it was permissible to hope that at least I would recover my sight sufficiently to be able to take up someprofession later on.That I would ever be able to draw or design once again was naturally out of the question.Thus I was on the way to recovery when the frightful hour came.My first thought was that this outbreak of high treason was only a local affair.I tried to enforce this beliefamong my comrades.My Bavarian hospital mates, in particular, were readily responsive.Their inclinationswere anything but revolutionary.I could not imagine this madness breaking out in Munich; for it seemed tome that loyalty to the House of Wittelsbach was, after all, stronger than the will of a few Jews.And so I couldnot help believing that this was merely a revolt in the Navy and that it would be suppressed within the nextfew days.With the next few days came the most astounding information of my life.The rumours grew more and morepersistent.I was told that what I had considered to be a local affair was in reality a general revolution.Inaddition to this, from the front came the shameful news that they wished to capitulate! What! Was such athing possible?On November 10th the local pastor visited the hospital for the purpose of delivering a short address.And thatwas how we came to know the whole story.113 Mein KampfI was in a fever of excitement as I listened to the address.The reverend old gentleman seemed to be tremblingwhen he informed us that the House of Hohen-zollern should no longer wear the Imperial Crown, that theFatherland had become a Republic , that we should pray to the Almighty not to withhold His blessing fromthe new order of things and not to abandon our people in the days to come.In delivering this message hecould not do more than briefly express appreciation of the Royal House, its services to Pomerania, to Prussia,indeed, to the whole of the German Fatherland, and here he began to weep.A feeling of profound dismayfell on the people in that assembly, and I do not think there was a single eye that withheld its tears.As formyself, I broke down completely when the old gentleman tried to resume his story by informing us that wemust now end this long war, because the war was lost, he said, and we were at the mercy of the victor.TheFatherland would have to bear heavy burdens in the future.We were to accept the terms of the Armistice andtrust to the magnanimity of our former enemies.It was impossible for me to stay and listen any longer.Darkness surrounded me as I staggered and stumbled back to my ward and buried my aching head betweenthe blankets and pillow.I had not cried since the day that I stood beside my mother s grave.Whenever Fate dealt cruelly with me inmy young days the spirit of determination within me grew stronger and stronger.During all those long yearsof war, when Death claimed many a true friend and comrade from our ranks, to me it would have appearedsinful to have uttered a word of complaint.Did they not die for Germany? And, finally, almost in the last fewdays of that titanic struggle, when the waves of poison gas enveloped me and began to penetrate my eyes, thethought of becoming permanently blind unnerved me; but the voice of conscience cried out immediately:Poor miserable fellow, will you start howling when there are thousands of others whose lot is a hundred timesworse than yours? And so I accepted my misfortune in silence, realizing that this was the only thing to bedone and that personal suffering was nothing when compared with the misfortune of one s country.So all had been in vain.In vain all the sacrifices and privations, in vain the hunger and thirst for endlessmonths, in vain those hours that we stuck to our posts though the fear of death gripped our souls, and in vainthe deaths of two millions who fell in discharging this duty.Think of those hundreds of thousands who setout with hearts full of faith in their fatherland, and never returned; ought not their graves to open, so that thespirits of those heroes bespattered with mud and blood should come home and take vengeance on those whohad so despicably betrayed the greatest sacrifice which a human being can make for his country? Was it forthis that the soldiers died in August and September 1914, for this that the volunteer regiments followed theold comrades in the autumn of the same year? Was it for this that those boys of seventeen years of age weremingled with the earth of Flanders? Was this meant to be the fruits of the sacrifice which German mothersmade for their Fatherland when, with heavy hearts, they said good-bye to their sons who never returned? Hasall this been done in order to enable a gang of despicable criminals to lay hands on the Fatherland?Was this then what the German soldier struggled for through sweltering heat and blinding snowstorm,enduring hunger and thirst and cold, fatigued from sleepless nights and endless marches? Was it for this thathe lived through an inferno of artillery bombardments, lay gasping and choking during gas attacks, neitherflinching nor faltering, but remaining staunch to the thought of defending the Fatherland against the enemy?Certainly these heroes also deserved the epitaph: Traveller, when you come to Germany, tell the Homelandthat we lie here, true to the Fatherland and faithful to our duty.And at Home? But was this the only sacrifice that we had to consider? Was the Germany of the past acountry of little worth? Did she not owe a certain duty to her own history? Were we still worthy to partake inthe glory of the past? How could we justify this act to future generations?What a gang of despicable and depraved criminals!The more I tried then to glean some definite information of the terrible events that had happened the more myhead became afire with rage and shame.What was all the pain I suffered in my eyes compared with thistragedy?The following days were terrible to bear, and the nights still worse.To depend on the mercy of the enemy114 Mein Kampfwas a precept which only fools or criminal liars could recommend
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