Best Opportunity to Die (book)

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Book cover of the first edition from 1989.
A page from the typewriter copy

Best opportunity to die. My experiences in the war 1914–1918 is the title of theGerman edition of the autobiographical war memories of the Alsatian sergeant Dominik Richert, published posthumously in1989. In them Richert describes the period from 16 October 1913 when he was drafted into the German military, until the night of 23 to 24 July 1918, when he to the French ran , detail almost five years of war experiences in Western and Ostfronten of the First World War with all its inhumanity and cruelty.

Origin and rediscovery

Richert wrote down his war memories as a legacy to his descendants in the winter months after the war in German. For this he used nine quarto notebooks , which he described in razor-sharp cursive script . After he finished working on his memories, he kept the exercise books in a drawer in the attic of his house.

In 1943 the now 50-year-old Richert was deported to the Palatinate together with his wife for forced labor . In the early 1960s, a young French student, a friend of the family, discovered the writing quality of the manuscript and converted the writing , which was difficult for the inexperienced, into an easy-to-read form with a typewriter . The intended subsequent publication, in which Heinrich Böll was also involved, met with disinterest from established publishers. So the 337-page typescript reached the Federal Archives-Military Archives in Freiburg, where it was discovered by the doctoral student of New History Bernd Ulrich in the mid-1980s . Together with the radio journalist Angelika Tramitz , who researched the author, the origin and the background, the two published the slightly abridged work in 1989 at Knesebeck Verlag for the first time as a book. In 1992 the Bavarian television produced a documentary about the content. In 1994 the French translation was published by La Nuée Bleue in Strasbourg and in 2012 the English translation was published by Pen and Sword in Barnsley .

title

Dominik Richert himself gave his notes, which he probably never understood as a book, with no title, but called them My Experiences in the War of 1914-18 . The title of the German book edition is a quote from his notes. On July 1st, 1915, when he observed the Russian excavation work on the Solota Lypa , a river in western Ukraine , on a hill , he commented on this with the words “There was sure to be something to storm again, the best opportunity to die.” The title was not taken over from the other language editions.

content

Richert found the outbreak of war depressing and he was not encouraged to "sing" either by the euphoria of the masses or by the war propaganda:

“It was absolutely not about singing for me, because I immediately thought that nothing could be as good as shot to death in a war. [...] My patriotism was not so great and the thought of dying the so-called heroic death filled me with horror. [...] I don't think anyone thought of the fatherland or any other patriotic hoax. Concern for one's own life pushed everything else into the background. "

- Dominik Richert

Correspondingly, he describes the atrocities of war, the massive, senseless death, the hunger and the privations in his notes. Richert unmasked the war, which he tried to avoid at every opportunity. The dehumanization of soldiers and their exploitation for the war aim countered humanity Richert. His radical devaluation of the patriotic soldier image, which he described as a hoax, makes his work in stark contrast to the heroic pathos of an Ernst Jünger . He had scruples about shooting at fleeing enemies and called soldiers who stabbed or shot defenseless wounded people as "monsters". This attitude prevented him from developing an image of the enemy that drove him to kill the enemy. He did not regard the opposing soldier as an enemy, but as "[...] the poor, innocent victims of European militarism, torn from their homeland". With that the question of war guilt did not even arise for him . He was to blame for the militaristic leaderships in Europe; the soldier, as a member of the common people, was the victim. During the war, Dominik Richert never actively rebelled against the military leadership in the sense of refusing to obey . So Richert remained connected to his homeland, Alsace, to which both the German and the French element had historically remained familiar and which was therefore never able to adopt the Franco-German hereditary hostility because it had nothing to gain in such a conflict. Therefore, he was also aloof from the entire war event. Richert replied laconically pointed to a superior lieutenant who had reprimanded him in the third year of the war for his indifference to the outcome of the war:

“Lieutenant, the war can end however it wants: When I see the end of the war, I am always with the victors. […] I am Alsatian. If Germany wins, Alsace will remain German and we are among the winners. If the French win, then Alsace becomes French and we are back with the winners! "

- Dominik Richert

Despite his desertion, Richert remained in the regular role of his first regiment under the number 113 in his position in life as a "farm worker".

reception

  • In 1994 the French edition Cahiers d'un survivant was published. Un soldat dans l'Europe en guerre 1914-1918 and 2012 the English under the title The Kaiser's Reluctant Conscript. My experiences in the War 1914-1918 .
  • Richard's recordings were produced in 1992 as a documentary entitled Best Opportunity to Die for the Bavarian Radio , directed by Rudolf Sporrer .
  • In an analysis of the records, Marty Cédric writes that Richert was in a special situation. On the one hand he was a native of Alsace and on the other hand he felt like a German soldier, although he probably didn’t really love Germany. Nonetheless, in his notes he clearly identified the French as enemies and opponents. When Richert decided to join the French in July 1918, his Alsatian ancestry was an advantage. Richert emphasized that he only defected to save his own life. The records give an authentic picture of life at the front. The soldiers suffered from the effects of rain, mud and cold, were attacked by parasites such as lice and also suffered from hunger, thirst and tiredness.
  • In his report Deux fantassins de la Grande Guerre: Louis Barthas et Dominik Richert, Rémy Cazals makes a comparison with Louis Barthas , who served in the French army during the war and who also recorded his experiences.
  • Wolfram Wette supported himself in the research for his 1998 book The Little Man's War. A military story from below is also based on these records and reproduces the words of the Alsatian farmer Dominik Richert as follows:

"The common soldier has nothing more to do than starve, scream hurray, torment himself with lice and let himself be shot to death for the 'beloved fatherland'."

- Dominik Richert

expenditure

In the German edition, some passages of the manuscript have been omitted and entire chapters are missing (for example: The offensive against the Bolshevik occupation of the Baltic provinces of Livonia and Estonia ). The book ends when Richert defected to the French on the night of July 23rd to 24th, 1918. But that does not end with Richard's original notes, which continued until November 1918. Indirect reports are only sporadically reported in the afterword of the German edition. Why these passages are not reproduced remains unanswered. However, it is suggested in the afterword that, after Richert has branded European militarism, one or the other bad judgment is made about the French conditions. The French edition is similar. Only the English edition reproduces Dominik Richerts memories of the war in full.

  • Best opportunity to die. My experiences in the war 1914–1918. Edited by Bernd Ulrich and Angelika Tramitz, Knesebeck Munich 1989, ISBN 3-926901-15-2 .
  • Cahiers d'un survivant. Un soldier in l'Europe en guerre 1914–1918. Translated from the German by Marc Schublin, la Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 1994, ISBN 2-7165-0302-8 .
  • The Kaiser's Reluctant Conscript. My experiences in the War 1914-1918. Translated from German by David Carrick Sutherland, Pen & Sword, Barnsley, South Yorkshire 2012, ISBN 978-1-78159-033-1 .

literature

  • Fritz Taubert: Best opportunity to die. My experiences in the war, 1914–1918. - French review. in: Le Mouvement social. 158. (January-March 1992, pp. 151-153). ISSN  0027-2671 , ( online )
  • Wolfram Wette : The unheroic war memories of the Alsatian farmer Dominik Richert. in: Wolfram Wette: The Little Man's War. A military story from below. Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-11420-2 .
  • Hilda Inderwildi: Naissance et constitution d'une conscience pacifiste dans les rangs des paysans alsaciens au moment de la Première Guerre mondiale. L'exemple de Dominik Richert (1893–1977). In: Jean-Paul Cahn, Françoise Knopper, Anne-Marie Saint-Gille (eds.): De la guerre juste à la paix juste. Aspects confessionnels de la construction de la paix dans l'espace franco-allemand (XVIe – XXe) siècle. (= Histoire et civilizations. ) Presses universitaires du Septentrion, Villeneuve d'Ascq 2008, ISBN 978-2-757-40038-8 , pp. 199-210.
  • Christian Koller : Alsacien, deserter! The war experience of the Alsatian farmer Dominik Richert as reflected in his memoirs. In: BIOS - Journal for Biography Research and Oral History. 13. L + B, Leverkusen 2000, ISSN  0933-5315 pp. 225-239
  • Fac-similé du numéro Meilleure opportunité de mourir. Mes expériences pendant la guerre 1914-1918. ISBN 978-2-9565862-0-3
  • Nouvelle édition intégrale sous le titre: Les livres de guerre de Dominik Richert, agriculteur, originaire de St Ulrich / Alsace 1914-1918 , Lulu.com 2018, ISBN 9782956586227 (broché), ISBN 9782956586234 (livre électronique)

Web links

Commons : War memories by Dominik Richert  - Missing pages in the German edition

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus-Michael Schmidt: Best opportunities. About the futility of war. in: Berliner Sonntagsblatt. dated July 16, 1989.
  2. ↑ Wolfram Wette: Ackerer, Alsacien, Deserter, Writer. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. dated January 3, 1991.
  3. ↑ Reinhard Olt: War experiences of an Alsatian. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine. dated August 11, 1989, p. 6.
  4. ↑ Volker Ullrich: A monument for deserters. In: Die Zeit of October 27, 1989.
  5. ↑ Dominik Richert: Best opportunity to die. P. 147.
  6. ^ Günter Hartung: Authentic memories of war. in: Work analyzes and criticism. Leipziger Univ.-Verlag, Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-865-83135-4 , p. 297ff. ( online )
  7. ↑ Dominik Richert: Best opportunity to die. Pp. 15-25.
  8. ↑ Dominik Richert: Best opportunity to die. P. 38.
  9. ↑ Dominik Richert: Best opportunity to die. P. 138.
  10. ↑ Dominik Richert: Best opportunity to die. P. 337.
  11. ↑ Dominik Richert: Best opportunity to die. P. 385.
  12. ↑ Credits to Best Opportunity to Die on youtube.com, at 1:12:50, accessed on February 5, 2014.
  13. ↑ Richert, Dominique (1893–1977) on crid1418.org, accessed February 5, 2014.
  14. ^ Rémy Cazals: Deux fantassins de la Grande Guerre: Louis Barthas and Dominik Richert. In: Jules Maurin, Jean-Charles Jauffret (eds.): La Grande Guerre 1914–1918, 80 ans d'historiographie et de représentations. ESID, Montpellier 2002 , OCLC 695237845 .
  15. ↑ Perpetrators and victims in: Der Spiegel. dated July 27, 1992, accessed February 5, 2014.
  16. ↑ Dominik Richert: Best opportunity to die. P. 153.