War; the men who fought it knew its death, its humour, its beauty, its terror. In 'Here the Fields Bleed', voices from the past speak to the present, those who knew speak to those who should know. Extraordinary, unheeded, prophetic words from 1915, for example:
"If our heroes have bled here and gone to their graves without the nation being rejuvenated, glorified, spiritually renewed... then woe betide the entire world. Then we will hear a new storm... From the nations in this storm, tears will fall, and drops of blood, like streaming rain."
The Great War meant fighting and sudden, screaming death, but it also meant trying to stay alive. In and behind the German trenches, no one wanted to throw his life away, life was there to be enjoyed for as long as it could be.
"Our soldiers sat around these little trees, unwrapped their presents, read their letters, drank and were happy."
For life could be short, even for the young boys.
"His friend Schesdokat stood at his grave with us, and the tears flowed down his cheeks."
War's mercilessness descended behind the front lines, too.
"A 94-year-old man walks past, blind, holding tightly onto a wheelbarrow with one hand. I think about my 80-year-old mother and the Russian invasion of Eastern Prussia, and my thoughts accompany the blind refugee into his misery.
Night spreads its darkness over the earth and hides the misery of so many people from our eyes. They walk along and cry..."
These are the letters of life and death from one man and his merciless war.
