What he feared most now was his own moral disintegration, the ‘inner decay in place of the external one’. His sole remedy remained ‘love and the secret [of the] family’. It was to be his final letter. As the Germans were slowly driven back, Robert R. was severely wounded on 4 December. His comrades carried him for 7 kilometres, but were unable to save him. They found a fitting spot to bury him near the entrance to a Soviet school. The four school exercise books in which Robert had kept his diary were brought home to his wife Maria by one of his
