Second Wind

This is an excellent insight into the German experience of the First World War and its aftermath, including the author’s difficult escape from Austria after the Anschluss. Carl Zuckmayer (born 27 December 1896) served in the field artillery on the Western Front. In the 1920s after several years of disappointment he became a successful dramatist.

Written in 1940, this autobiography was published in English in 1941. It was an important book of the period, giving readers a personal view into the background to the Second World War.

Zuckmayer went straight from school into the army on the outbreak of the First World War. In that respect he was typical of his class of boys aged 17 or 18:
“Only five of the 21 in our class did not volunteer on the first day of the war; three of them belonged to a Catholic seminary for priests and... had to join the Red Cross... two were physically unfit. These five envied us and wept for chagrin and despair. Of the 16 who went into the war nine fell in battle. Two died from the effects of the war. One, while still at the front, committed suicide. Four lived on. I am one of the four.”

Zuckmayer recalled the youthful enthusiasm for war which he shared with so many of his compatriots as well as his counterparts:
“Like young lovers who do not know the reality of love, its lust for power, its cruelty and magnificence... so were we who rushed into war under the impression that it was an intoxicating and noble adventure. We were wild, exalted, uninhibited, full of appetite and awkwardness. And again, like lovers, we were full of ourselves, hypnotised by conceit.”
He wrote candidly about dealing with fear on the Western Front when recounting a particularly tense battle:
“During that night I may have killed some of the Senegalese. I did not mean to do anything bad. I was afraid. Yet I had been at the front for two years by then. I knew that courage was nothing more than controlled, repressed fear. If you did not know fear, you are not brave but just stupid. And we, at the front, knew that you cannot rid yourself of fear; it always comes back like sweat or digestion and you simply evolve a technique of dealing with it, which means that in spite of terror you continue to function with precision and keep your head. In return for that, your superior technique in handling your fear, you receive medals and laudatory mention in dispatches.”

In the midst of the terror of war, Zuckmayer’s dignity and kindness shone through:
“Once, during the spring offensive in March 1918, I came across a dead Englishman whose lettercase had fallen out of his pocket. I opened it and found a little coloured card with a printed message to which were added two lines in a child's handwriting:
                          CHRISTMAS GREETINGS
         Kindest thoughts and best wishes for a Happy Christmas
                                          To: Bob
                          From: His Sister Dolly, with Love
I looked long into the face of this young 'enemy' and I can still remember it today. I could imagine, from his features, what his little sister Dolly looked like. I mourned for this Bob. I thought to myself, ‘Why is he lying there and not I?’ Those are dangerous thoughts. When you begin that you cannot stand war much longer.”