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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Alfred Neumann: Four thousand miles of fratricidal murder
Alfred Neumann: Twilight of a conqueror
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Alfred Neumann
From Six of Them (1945)
Translated by Anatol Murad
“You wish to know why I am not a soldier, Herr Professor?”
“Yes.”
“Because I don’t want to be!”
“Millions have to be, whether they want to or nor, Saur.”
“They must take their detour. I am already there where they will be when they croak or come hobbling home.”
“Where are you?”
“So to speak between night and day – to use nothing but an image.”
“For those who ‘croak’ out there, Christopher, we must turn the image around and say: between day and night.”
“Oh, no, Herr Professor, for they die benighted, benighted by hate, the black hatred against that for which they die. And then death is brighter than dying, just a little brighter, as if tinged with the gray of dawn. And I have not the slightest fear of dying, I am a good Catholic, Herr Professor, perhaps everything is due to this, that I have a sacred recalcitrance in my blood, the recalcitrance of the saints at the stake. But I do not want to die benighted. If I must die, let it be between night and day, no sooner, to stay with my image.”
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