From the Bookshelf of Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)…

De Menschen hatten alle keine Ahnung von dem, was kam. Am vernüftigsten waren eigentlich die arme und einfachen Leute; sie hielten den Krieg gleich für ein Unglück, während die bessergestellten vor Freude nicht aus noch ein wussten, obschon gerade sie sich über die Folgen viel eher hätten klar werden können.

People simply didn't have the slightest idea of what was coming.

De Menschen hatten alle keine Ahnung von dem, was kam. Am vernüftigsten waren eigentlich die arme und einfachen Leute; sie hielten den Krieg gleich für ein Unglück, während die bessergestellten vor Freude nicht aus noch ein wussten, obschon gerade sie sich über die Folgen viel eher hätten klar werden können.

People simply didn't have the slightest idea of what was coming. As a matter of fact it was the poorest and simplest people who were the most sensible; they saw the war as a disaster right from the start, whereas those who were better off were overjoyed about it, although they of all people should have been in a far better position to see the implications.

Wir hatten uns unsere Aufgabe anders gedacht und fanden, dass wir auf das Heldentum wie Zirkuspferde vorbereitet wurden.

we discovered that we were being trained to be heroes the way they train circus horses.

While they went on writing and making speeches, we saw field hospitals and men dying: while they preached the service of the state as the greatest thing, we already knew that the fear of death is even greater. This didn't make us into rebels or deserters, or turn us into cowards - and they were more than ready to use all of those words - because we loved our country just as much as they did, and so we went bravely into every attack. But now we were able to distinguish things clearly, all at once our eyes had been opened. And we saw that there was nothing left of their world. Suddenly we found ourselves horribly alone - and we had to come to terms with it alone as well.

Dieses Buch soll weder eine Anklage
noch ein Bekenntnis sein.
Es soll nur den Versuch machen,
über eine Generation zu berichten,
die vom Kriege zerstört wurde -
auch wenn sie seinen Granaten entkam.

This book is intended neither as an accusation nor as a confession, but simply as an attempt to give an account of a generation that was destroyed by war - even those of it who survived the shelling.