Last Letters From Stalingrad: #17

...In Stalingrad, to put the question of God's existence means to deny it. I must tell you this, Father, and I feel doubly sorry for it. You have raised me, because I had no mother, and always kept God before my eyes and soul. 

And I regret my words doubly, because they will be my last, and I won't be able to speak any other words afterwards which might reconcile you and make up for these. 

You are a pastor, Father, and in one's last letter one says only what is true or what one believes might be true. I have searched for God in every crater, in every destroyed house, on every corner, in every friend, in my fox hole, and in the sky. God did not show Himself, even though my heart cried for Him. The houses were destroyed, the men as brave or as cowardly as myself, on earth there was hunger and murder, from the sky came bombs and fire, only God was not there. No Father, there is no God. Again I write it and know that this is terrible and that I cannot make up for it ever. And if there should be a God, He is only with you in the hymnals and the prayers, in the pious sayings of the priests and pastors, in the ringing of the bells and the fragrance of incense, but not in Stalingrad.

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The key to understanding this ongoing series may be found here, and here. Each letter (39 in all) was written by a different and anonymous German soldier who knew he was going to die. I associate these letters with Christmastime for reasons explained at the links.

Last Letters From Stalingrad: #15

...'If there is a God,' you wrote me in your last letter, 'then He will bring you back to me soon and healthy;' you went on: 'a human being like you, who likes animals and flowers and does no harm to anyone, who loves and adores his wife and child, will always have God's protection.'

I thank you for these words, and I always carry this letter with me in my brustbeutel. But, dearest, if your words are weighed now and you make the existence of God dependent upon them, you will have to make a difficult and great decision. I am a religious man, you always were a believer, but this will have to change now if we accept the consequences of the conviction which we held to now, because something has happened which has overthrown everything in which we believed.  I am searching for words to tell you. Or have you guessed already?  I find a rather strange tone in your last letter of December 8. Now it is the middle of January.

This will be my last letter for a long time, perhaps forever.  It will be taken along by a friend who has to go to the airfield, because it is said that tomorrow the last plane will fly out of the pocket.  The situation has become untenable.  The Russians are within three kilometers of our last airfield, and once this is lost, not a mouse will get out, not to mention me.  Of course, hundreds of thousands won't get out either.  But it is small comfort to have shared your own destruction with others. 

'If there is a God.'  Over there on the other side many ask the same question, perhaps millions in England and France.  I don't believe any longer that God can be good, for then he would not permit such great injustice.  I don't believe in it anymore, for he would have enlightened the minds of those people who began this war and always talked of peace and the Almighty in three languages.  I don't believe in God anymore, because he betrayed us.  I don't believe any more, and you must see how you can come to terms with your faith. 

This letter is read aloud here.