Tuesday, 17 October 2017

The Code of Honour of the SS - Who May Marry Young?


Source: SS Leitheft, February 1944

When the young SS men in the room got to talking about girls, it was usually not very proper. Today it was different. It was a serious conversation and remained so. That was because an older roommate had been given a book for Christmas, which contained various serious life wisdoms, some of which he passed along to the younger fellows to ponder. It was a book by the 80 year old Lower Saxon author Gustav Frenssen entitled „Vorland“. The author meant the not yet won land in front of the dikes, the „new land“, but beyond that also the racial and moral future of our folk.

Hans, the older comrade, caught the youngsters - who often spoke frivolously about women and love - at a favourable hour. It was Sunday after lunch, the time of the „quite before the storm“ before they went to town. Hans first read this to them:

„The young T. wanted to marry and said to a friend: I have a cousin with 3 000 Marks’. Then he went off and married her, the young B. and his friend saw two girls walking in front of them on the way to the dance. They decided his friend would take the short one for dancing and wine and he would take the tall one, whom he later married. The young S. desired a wife; One day he saw an open window and wound up marrying the girl who had left it open. The young R. initially yearned for the neighbour on the left, but when she ran away from him, he took the one on the right. That which comes together in this manner is called a sacrament by the catholic church - in good German that means a secret of God’s will. The Protestants say: ’What God has put together...’ I think these are simple coincidences - and half of them unfortunate ones - which happen to young people who are not properly taught by parents or teachers or state, and who themselves, although grown up, have not opened their eyes.“

„You all go to the village every Sunday”, Hans turned and said to them, „and if the sergeant-major wasn’t there, you would run off to the women every day, whom who do not even particularly respect, with few exceptions. Just remember the circumstances of how you met, and if by your doing you can extract from the villagers the judgement: The SS men know what they want with girls. They do not just want..., rather they are also selective and have taste and a sense of cleanliness, which is half of character.

- This or that quality, otherwise, ‘Thanks’.“

Hans had cut them down to size. But he had also matured them inwardly at the same time. They then offered criticism based on what they knew of each other. The ones that more or less passed the test enjoyed letting the „caught ones“ have it in a joking manner. The „offenders“ allowed their Sunday hair to be messed up without resistance or to get their cars rubbed even redder than they already were from embarrassment Hans was pleased about the good heart of the youths, which could be influenced by energetic words.

„Now listen to this passage“, he said, and he read another section:

„The young man, even the deeper and more serious one, is between the age of 24 and 28 - when he selects his partner for the rest of his life - in his being still not mature, still unaware of his own essence, and still does not know life and the world. Everyone who knows the entire human life knows that a man of 37 is a totally different one than a man of 27“

„Since it is so, - according to Frenssen - the 27 year old makes the most important decision of his life - most important decision of his life... do you know what that is? - and usually does not recognize the really valuable young women, those who stand there in simple colours, pretty, strong, quit and deep, created by nature and race specially to be the mothers and upbreeders of our race; rather they much more tend, according to their immature nature, toward the ones who colourfully glitter with small talents and tricks, who approach them with small, superficial charms.”

„When these men of the most valuable kind, married, mature in the course of years, they recognize, more clearly from year to year, the kind of women who are valuable, yearn for and desire them, or soon have secret love affairs. And these valuable girls on the other hand, since they experience that they are not selected by the young men, and themselves cannot and do not want to live without love, and are, according to their own valuable nature, attracted to these valuable, mature men, go along with their desire of love. And so, in this manner, do on the one hand these valuable men live in ruined marriages, which greatly hurts their productivity, and on the other hand these valuable women either live without love in constant discontent or remain (most of them) during the entire blossom and fertile period of their life a childless loved one. This condition is full of problems from the human standpoint, and from the folkish one of great harm’’

„Full of problems from the human standpoint, and from the folkish one of great harm“, Hans repeated with emphasis.

After he had finished, it remained quiet for a while. But then one spoke up: „But we cannot wait that long? How old are you, Hans? Late thirties? That’s almost middle age! The Reichsführer SS, however, wishes us to marry young!“

“I expected this objection”, Hans replied. “The author Frenssen did not mean that one should not marry before 37, rather he wants the young man to make every effort, as early as possible, to become conscious of the real human values, which naturally goes hand in hand with you working on yourselves, innerly and outwardly, and with strictly observing yourselves. ‘Man, become essential!’ did an important man once say.

„Do you think that the Reichsführer wanted you to marry young so you could marry dumb? And so that you open your eyes afterward? Do you think the Reichsführer gave you a license for frivolity? You would be deceiving yourselves. It is a letter of trust! The Reichsführer thinks that you as SS men are worthy and mature enough to fight for Germany, and if necessary to die. But if that can be demanded of you, then you can also be trusted to give Germany new life. The Reichsführer does not mean to endorse each primitive love affair. He thinks, when he wishes you early marriage, about Germany, about children, but he also thinks above all about the worth of these children! If we today have hundreds of Oak Leave recipients, thousands of Knights Cross recipients and hundreds of thousands of other decorated soldiers - in addition to the crude material, which we also have - then just ponder where all that comes from! You are today as your parents created you, and that means as your parents were. The future boys and girls, men and women, will be as you breed them, that means as you are and as your girls are, too.

And since the time of a soldier in war does not allow waste, so must you not throw away your time. - Can you talk with your girls seriously about such things, like I now speak with you? If not, if they are too dumb or soft for it, that gladly let them go. - But if they become serious and quiet when you tell them this, and if they look into your eyes, then something is there. But never stop testing them and hence yourselves again and again.”

One of the young fellows said: “I find it very difficult to properly solve this most important life decision of the right choice of wife. And so I find Frenssens’ idea of only marrying late really good.“ Then the passes were brought into the room.

„Get ready, boys“, Hans exclaimed, „We have the same path for a ways, so we can finish our conversation.”

They walked out of the barracks into the open air. Fresh snow had fallen and the land smelled very pure. They walked together down a hill on which their quarters were located, in front of it a richly integrated landscape whose undying life lie protected under a crystal snow blanket.

“There is no doubt that precisely the Nordic man matures later than the man of the east or of the south, especially if by maturity one also means maturity of character, spirit and solidness. Body and soul are, according to our belief, in essence one and hence belong together. In and of itself a later marriage is natural for the valuable Nordic man. But I do not need to tell you that we today stand in the most difficult struggle for our racial existence since the beginning of the history of our folk. Our parents and grandparents generally had too few children, hostile folks on the other hand four or five times as many! And now within half a century a second war already takes sacrifice from our blood stream. So, we must shorten the time span between generations. We have no choice and no otherwise so understandable considerations should prevent this. We must, on the contrary, aim for the young man, already early, to know and take his duty seriously. And we accomplish it through mutual help in this task. Those of like character among the old and the young must stand by one another with advice and with action. The first is, of course, of the most passionate interest to you yourselves, namely the recognition that the task of wife selection is the one thing that is really important, so that everything else goes right by itself. The foundation of wife selection, however, is equality of birth, that means belonging to the same breed, and within the breed or race also compatibility in the most important traits of character and of spirit.“

„Youth today at 20, but also because of time-determined reasons; is so unclear and undecided in questions of love and marriage“, Hans continued. „But how can that be different as long as the media has been swamped for so long with so many frivolous notions about these things in order to satisfy the curiosity and lust of the thoughtless masses? Can it be different if our girls paint themselves and give themselves airs after the example of film starlets? Can it be different as long as the German boy thinks his girl must look just like this or that movie starlet, and vice versa, if the German girl selects her ‘type’ from the movie stars? Can youth understand what Nordic feeling between boy and girl, between man and woman, is, if all day long it only babbles and whistles stupid hit songs, hums and slouches instead of singing German love songs, dancing German and nurturing a lively, German social life? Only when we once again have a common, natural folk culture and a natural community life - cleansed of the foreign - in the clans, villages and towns, when everything works together to promote and to watch over the proper love of the youth of the folk, when marriage celebrations again become meaningful folk celebrations, then will even the youths at 20 probably pretty much know what they should love and what they should avoid, and they will also know what responsibility toward ancestors, equality of birth and upbreeding are. And they will find the same ideas among their relatives and acquaintances, just like it was with our ancestors millennia ago. Read in the sagas, there you have the ‘images of better times’ of which our loyalty song sings! You are called upon to again awaken these sunken images to new life in that you produce children of SUCH worth, with whom alone the emergence of such a Nordic-formed culture can be achieved. And do not forget, for that you need mothers who can succeed in raising the children in the spirit of such a culture and in preserving the living folklore that belongs with it.“

Hans was finished with his Sunday sermon. He stopped and the group did so with him. They looked into the distance, and then they discovered the snow nearby. Their warm hands grabbed in, and soon the snowballs were flying.

After an intense snowball fight they said good-bye and went their various ways. One of the young fellows remained with Hans, and both of them probably touched on many more questions.

- J. Mayerhofer

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