That’s it

That’s it!

by I. Ehrenburg,

translated by S. Ogneva, 

Impregnable Königsberg did fall. It fell just 12 hours after the Berlin Radio assurance that Russians would never take Königsberg. Chronicles lack the time to  etch the tide of historical events. The Red Army is in the heart of Vienna. The allied forces approached Bremen and Brunswick. Krauts are trapped in Holland and will not get away. Neither will they get away from the Ruhr. The Germans were speculating on “the Elbe line” last week. Just a while ago, Hitler contemplated hiding in Austria, yet now he has put his frightened eyes far on the southern territories. It is not easy to list all the areas he has lost such as the Baltic coast (from Tilsit to Stettin), all the industrial areas (Silesia, Saarland, the Ruhr, granaries of Prussia and Pomerania, the richest City of Frankfurt, the capital of Baden – Karlsruhe), big cities of Kassel, Cologne, Mainz, Münster, Würzburg, Hanover. American tanks went on tour around the scenic Harz. They are going to see the peak of Brocken, which is witches’ abode according to the legend. They are unlikely to be surprised since they have seen almost true witches in German cities. Another American unit approached Schweinfurt – the Bavarian city that pleases my ear with its literal name “Swine Ford” I repeatedly mentioned in my articles. 

There are agonies full of grandeur. Germany is dying miserably with neither any pathos nor dignity. Consider bombastic parades and Berlin Sportpalast that saw Hitler snarling world takeover. Where is he now? What corner did he cower in? He brought Germany to the edge of the abyss and prefers laying low. The only thing his henchmen are preoccupied with is saving their skin. Americans have found German gold stock the fleeing villains abandoned.  Well, German women lose their stolen fur coats and spoons whereas the Third Reich authorities lose tons of gold. Everyone is running, rushing, trampling on their way to Swiss border. “1918 is not to happen again,” Goebbels loftily claimed a few months ago. Nowadays Germans cannot even conceive of another 1918. 1918 will not happen again. At the time, Germany was led by real politicians, albeit dumb, generals, albeit beaten, diplomats, albeit weak. Today, Germany is led by gangsters, a posse of felons. The eminent criminals do not care about the future of surrounding petty thieves. The criminals are not concerned with the fate of Germany but fake passports. They can deal with neither negotiations nor takeovers – they are growing beards and dying their hair. World press has discussed the term “unconditional surrender” for about a year. But it is not about whether Germany wants to surrender or not. There is no one to surrender. There is no Germany, there is a huge crew that scatters when it comes to taking responsibility. Everyone is surrendering: generals and Jerries, mayors and their assistants, regiments and companies, cities, streets, apartments. In other companies, houses and apartments, the criminals are still fighting back hiding behind the name of Germany though. This is how the venture of ignorant and bloodthirsty fascists to conquer the world ended.

Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung assures their readers (if any, because Germans do not feel like reading newspapers now) that German soldiers “are rabidly fighting against both Bolsheviks and Americans”. Our allies can laugh at this statement as one day they captured 40.000 Germans with almost no fight. According to reporters, while moving to the east Americans have no obstacles other than crowds of prisoners that flooded the roads. At seeing Americans, Germans get truly determined to surrender. The prisoners move without any escort. Sentries near the camps are not meant for preventing escapes but for surrendering krauts not to trample each other on their rushing way to the camps. They all at once have forgotten Odin, Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler, also known as Schicklgruber. The übermenschen encourage each other, “Hold on, dude, Americans are getting closer.” 

Foreign readers might ask me why Germans were fiercely trying to hold Küstrin? Why are they furiously fighting in the streets of Vienna hated by the Viennese? Why were Germans desperately defending Königsberg hundred kilometers away from the Oder battleground? To answer the questions, one has to consider Russia’s terrible wounds that many others ignore and want to forget. 

On April 1, 1944, Germans killed 86 inhabitants of Ascq village in France. The German officer who orchestrated the massacre explained what had made him shoot.  That was because he “executed the order relating to an occupied Soviet area by mistake”. I do not underestimate suffering that France experienced. I love French people and understand their grief. However, let everyone reflect on what the maneaters have said. General de Gaulle has recently visited ruins of the village of Oradour the residents of which were massacred by Germans. In France, there are four villages that suffered the same fate. How many villages like that are there in Belarus?

Let me remind you about the villages of the Leningrad Region where Germans burnt people and their huts. Let me remind you about route Gzhatsk – Wilno, namely Oryol, Smolensk, Vitebsk, Poltava and hundreds more cities German soldiers had been meticulously burning. Those were neither the Gestapo nor even SS men but most ordinary krauts. 

When Germans killed a few English war prisoners, foreign press was right to describe it as unprecedented atrocity. How many Soviet war prisoners have Germans shot, hanged, starved? If the world has any decency, it ought to plunge into mourning bearing in mind the tragedy of Belorussia. One can hardly find a Belorussian whose nearest and dearest avoided German torturers. What about Leningrad? How can we remain unmoved by the Leningrad tragedy? Those who do forget this are not human but men of straw.

One day an abused person tragedy shocked the world conscience. That was the case of the Dreyfus affair: an innocent Jew was sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress. It outraged the world. Émile Zola was indignant, Anatole France, Mirbeau and the best minds of Europe went public. In our country, Hitlerites have not killed one but millions of innocent Jews. In the West, there appear people who complain about “exaggeration” in our emotionless and concise reports though. I would like the foreign appeasers for the rest of their lives to have dreams of half-dead mangled-bodied children in Yars crying for their mothers in their last moments.

The tragedy of our motherland, the tragedy of all orphans, our tragedy, you are always with us now, on the verge of the Victory. You are stoking the fire of intransigence, you are awaking the conscience of unaware people. You are casting a shadow – the shadow of a mutilated Russian birch tree, the shadow of gallows, the shadow of a crying mother – over the spring in the world. I am trying to control myself, I am trying to speak as quietly as possible, as strictly as possible but I am lost for words. I am lost for words to once again remind the world of what Germans have done to my native land. I had better reiterate just these names: Babi Yar, Trostyanets, Kerch, Ponary, Belzec. I had better give some raw figures. There was a survey within a unit of 2103 people. Here is the record of blood and tears:

Relatives killed in battles — 1288. 

Shot and hanged wives, children, relatives — 532. 

People forced to work in Germany — 393. 

Beaten relatives — 222. 

Damaged and destroyed houses — 314. 

Burnt down houses — 502. 

Cows, horses, small livestock taken away — 630. 

Relatives returned disabled — 201. 

Beaten in German-occupied territory — 161. 

Wounded in fighting — 1268.

But if the figures have lost your hearts, ask the four tankers why they are striving for Berlin. Lieutenant Vdovichenko will tell you that in Petrovka settlement Germans found his photo and tortured his sister Anya with hot iron asking, “Where is the Russian officer?”. Then they tied tiny Alla to two young oaks and made her mother see them tearing the child apart in two. Sergeant Tselovalnikov will explain that in Krasnodar Germans strangled his father, mother, sisters. All the relatives of sergeant Shandler were burnt alive by Germans in Velizh. Sergeant-major Smirnov’s family died in the City of Pushkin during its occupation. These are stories of lives of the four tankers who fight side by side. There are millions like them. That is why Germans are so afraid of us. That is why it is easier to take ten cities in Westphalia than a village on the Oder. That is why Hitler sends his last divisions to the East against all reason. 

In the West, Germans say, “Bags!” - as if they get out of the game. They have not reached America after all. That is right, it was three years ago that I heard a cocky kraut saying to my American friend Leland Stowe, “We will come to America as well although it is far”. However, intentions neither set fire to any cities nor kill children. Brash Germans present themselves as some kind of a neutral power when dealing with Americans. English and American correspondents give me a number of spectacular examples. I would like to highlight an eminent specimen - von Galen, the Bishop of Münster. He is sure to be aware of Brüning – Fuhrer of German Catholics – which lives in the US surrounded by utmost care. The bishop hastens to assure, “I am against Nazi too.” After that, the bishop outlines the programme: a) Germans are against foreigners; b) the allies must repair the damage to German cities caused by bombing; c) the Soviet Union is an enemy of Germany, Russians should not be allowed into Germany; d) if the previous steps are taken, “in 65 years or so, peace will come to Europe”.  I should mention that American and English Catholic newspapers are quite satisfied with creative programme by the enemy bishop eating people. Let us have a look at laymen, which are no better.

The Daily Herald correspondent describes an incident. Residents of a town asked the allies to “help them capture escaped Russian prisoners of war”. All English newspapers have reported that in Osnabrück the allies let a Hitlerite policeman remain on watch and so he set fire to the house with Russian women inside. The Daily Telegraph correspondent writes that a German farmer insisted, “Russian workers must stay here or else I will not be able to begin my spring fieldwork.” Moreover, the English journalist is quick to point out that he is quite agree with the slaveholder’s reasoning. He is not alone – military authorities printed leaflets in five languages to ask liberated slaves go back to their slaveholders to “complete spring fieldwork” on the farms.

Why are Germans on the Oder and those on the Weser not alike? That is why no one can imagine the following: in a city controlled by the Red Army, a Hitlerite policeman on watch burns Americans. Or Germans ask the Red Army soldiers to help them find escaped English prisoners of war. Or Germans request Russians to hold French slaves for them for a month or two. Or Ilya Ehrenburg writes that “it is necessary to make Dutch workers stay on German farms so as not to undermine farming in Pomerania”. No, eaters do not seek from us any coupons for human flesh, slaveholders have no hope for getting slaves from us, fascists cannot find any patrons in the East.  That is why we did not take Königsberg via the phone. That is why we are not taking Vienna via cameras. 

These days the allies have informed that their tanks are approaching Saxony border. The Red Army is along the eastern border of Saxony. We realise that we will have to break through German defence, yet the criminals will fight off. However, the Red Army is used to speak with Germans through weapons -–we will finish our conversation this way. We do not insist on our role because of our ambition but because we have too much blood on our laurels. We insist on our role because the day of the last judgement is coming. Blood of our heroes, conscience of Soviet Russia is crying out to cover the unabashed nakedness of the Bishop of Münster! Hitlerite policemen must be locked up before they commit new atrocities! Reason with Germans who “capture Russians” until it is too late, until Russians start capturing them! Send slaveholders to work for them to bust their brazen humps! Seek genuine peace now, not in 65 years. Moreover, it should not be in the Munich-or-Münster way but just and human.

We are united in our indignation with all the nations experienced the boot of German invaders – Poles and Yougoslavs, Czechoslovaks and the French, Belgians and Norwegians. The one suffered more than the others but all of us did suffer and everyone wants the same that is to subdue Germany. American and British soldiers are with us. They currently see violence and vileness of the Hitlerites. The Associated Press correspondent has written that, at seeing Germans torture Russian prisoners of war and Jewish girls, soldiers of the 2^nd armoured division said, “The worst we can do with Germans will be too good for them.” In another German concentration camp, an American colonel brought Germans together in front of human corpses of all nations and said, “We will hate you for these for the rest of our lives.”

The day we meet our friends is approaching. We will be proud and happy at the meeting. We will wring hands of an American soldier, an English soldier, a French soldier. We will tell everyone it is enough. Germans call themselves werewolves, yet the hunt will be true.  Do not put yourselves out, friends of bishop von Galen, lady Gibb, Dorothy Thompson and other patrons of murderers. There will be no werewolves. We are not in 1918 any more, that’s it! This time, they will neither turn into anyone nor return.

9 April 1945