English Translation

Stube 102 I had been transferred and came into a new garrison, a new barracks and in the end into the room 102. When I was sent there by the Stabsscharführer, she was nothing but a number I02. But then she got more and more own life. It was a room, as I had already experienced in three or four barracks before: lockers, beds, tables, stools. Everything was neatly aligned, only I felt alone with my luggage as a troublemaker in all this order. Because I was not yet part of it, had no bed, no locker, was missing on the room list — short, I was a foreign body. A disturbing of the foreign bodies. I took a stool and waited. Which comrades would I meet here?— Once you have come through a few barracks, then you don't think of a transfer, whether you meet a better or worse roommate, because you have had the experience that there is the same warm relationship everywhere within a short time as in the previous garrisons. The door opens. Now they push in, a confusing variety of faces. It's off with symmetry and order. Gas masks, couplings, coats and steel helmets temporarily create a chaos. At the window two men quickly clean the MG., remaining space ammunition is collected. In between two or three short questions for me, the new one. I have a locker and a bed and I'm stuck in the middle of this hustle and bustle. There's no time for idle chatter. The U.V.D. is about to whistle out for lunch. Only then, when they're tired and a little tired around the table, are the new threads starting to tie up. There they sit in colorful sweaters and different kinds of slippers. The all-equal Uniformist therefore vanished. Andnunist,the Stube also no longer a unit of eight men. Here sit eight completely different characters. First two, which almost resemble each other. These are the "old men", who have been soldiers since 1939, have participated in almost all campaigns and listen with amusing serenity to the youngest of the class, who with force expressions like "Piesepampel" and "Nieselpriem" throws around. He just comes from work, is a soldier for a short time and is outraged that he cannot yet go to the front. The smile of the "old ones" is not at all slight, rather benevolent. Next to the youngest sits a broad-schooled boy, who has something of a spring. Dumped and ready to jump. He comes from Bromberg, and the scars from the stabs of the blood Sunday can still be seen clearly in his face. And yet another one sits tall and treacherous, speaks little and looks quietly at a series of photos, on which again and again the image of a woman in foreign regions can be seen. He is on adventurous journey from South America via Japan to Germany, in order to join the flags of the leader. His calm and safe movements stand out from the sloppy and dangerous behaviour of the Dutchman, who, opposite him, with strangely broken German, tells of the practice of the previous afternoon. He is unfamiliar with the hard SOLDATE life and of course a lot of things seem unheard of new. Nevertheless, he is enthusiastic, because he too has volunteered and is convinced of the necessity of his personal commitment in this fight. And this is the decisive factor for these men: so different were their ways of life, they all found their goal - in the voluntary notification to the .weapons-4h. When they returned in the afternoon, everything was personal as well as wiped away. There they stood in line. Almost one would have found the individual no more. They were only still distinguished by the physical size. Soldiers of the leader! 02