Source: SS Leitheft No. 1, 1943
by Hans Klöcker
Each SS booklet is governed by a specific guiding idea. In this we have a clear intention.
Our aim is not only to make the notebooks interesting. Those who seek only entertainment will not find it in the SS Journals. The easy way out, i.e. to win the approval of everyone by writing articles that are easy to digest, would also be much easier and more enjoyable. But there are other books and notebooks for this purpose.
In the SS Notebooks we do not want to disperse and distract the reader, but rather to concentrate his best forces and make him reflect on himself, i.e. on his true substance. Only in this way can we help the comrades to realise themselves and to fulfil their mission within the clan community of the SS and the people. When we see the same sentence appearing again and again in letters in similar formulas: “For me the SS notebooks are a comfort before every new battle”, or when a young artist writes to us: “... This article made me feel for the first time what I still have to find within myself to become an artist”, such examples clearly indicate the path we are following.
This booklet is governed by the guiding principle of ‘Toughness’. The soldier knows how much toughness is needed to hold on in battle and to endure setbacks. And he also feels that it is toughness that makes any job possible.
But it does not occur to him that in order to understand art, one must also cross the threshold of harshness.
Some take as art everything that pleases them at first sight. They think that they have already entered the sanctuary and often refer to the words of the great master: “Serious is life and joyful is art”. They do not know that joyful art was often the result of a difficult struggle, such as that which Mozart gave us.
Others say, “I don’t understand it,” when it comes to art. Before they can learn the enrichment that art could bring to their lives, they close the door to its strengths. Instead, they settle for ersatz, more easily digestible food, insipid and superficial works of no value. They prefer a photograph to a work of art whose depth is not apparent at first glance. They swallow three-penny books by the dozen, while they supposedly have no time to read a valuable book. This cannot be our position.
He who took part in the harsh war in the East also knows that there are times of recollection when, precisely, one seeks simplicity in art and draws hidden forces from it.
Yet many say: “How can we compare our sense of combat and our artistic sense! Combat is work, fatigue, pain and sacrifice. But from art, we expect relaxation and distraction.
You say “relaxation and distraction”? Why are you so modest, you who can demand the greatest from it? Why do you ask so little of art? Why do you not demand from it creative force, eternal life and divine joy? Don’t you know that art can give all this? But perhaps you do not know the true meaning of art. For too long it has lost its rightful place in life. It was, like religion, only a nice accessory for a party night and Sunday. It was a colourful bird, a luxury that could be dispensed with in times of need.
But what is true art? It is the purest embodiment of the apprehension of the world. By the gift of art, God has granted men the ability to represent His law.
An example: Through the observance of the racial laws we can, by the right choice of marriage, bring our race closer to the image that corresponds to the divine will. In sport we can work the body into the proper form for its predestined purpose. In art, however, genius can fashion an ideal human body in accordance with the natural law.
Another example: Originally, landscapes only roughly reflect the imprint of the Creator. Those modelled by pure breeds come close. However, to reflect the image of this landscape in all its splendour, it is to the artist that God has granted this gift, that is to say, to this artist (another does not deserve the name) who, himself, obliges the Creator to manifest himself to him.
The decisive fact is that the artist only manages to feel God by extreme work on himself. He restores His image in the human body or in the landscape he represents. Capturing this image in stone or on canvas is still a difficult task.
It is not possible to judge in the usual way how difficult it is for a creator to accomplish his great mission. Let us read the biographies of a Rembrandt, an Andreas Schlüter, a Tilman Riemenschneider, a Schiller, Mozart, Beethoven. They had to fight against themselves in order to get rid of all obstacles, all external or internal hindrances, in order to free the work, so that only the creative soul remained free to perceive and carry out the divine mission. There is only one comparison that can be made, and that is the toughness of the soldier who consciously risks his life.
In this field, soldier and artist are related in the success achieved through hard work.
In extreme danger, when all weaknesses are overcome, haven’t many of you felt that moment when, suddenly, previously unknown forces are released? It is as if an envelope in which you have always been enclosed is bursting open. You burst out of it and feel like a god or a child. There is no longer any hesitation, reflection, doubt or consideration. One acts freely and justly, and can do whatever, in the moment, must be done. This is the feeling that Schiller spoke of when he wrote: “He who can look death in the face, the soldier alone is the free man”.
A young poet of our time must have felt particularly clearly this creative kinship between the soldier and the artist. He wrote to us recently, in the midst of the fiercest fighting on the Eastern Front: "I cannot say what joy and pride I feel. I would like to tell a legend where a whole people would be born, would live for generations. I know that one day I will be able to express what my heart holds in this warlike hour. I want to become a gold digger in my own heart, to pass on all that I live and enrich all men.
Of course, toughness alone cannot bring knowledge to either the soldier or the artist. Other virtues and gifts are needed. Toughness is, however, a significant factor.
And this is the subject of my article. It is precisely this knowledge of the common character existing between artists and soldiers that must enable you, comrades, to enter into a new relationship with true art, which alone is worthy of you. The path is not easy. But who could achieve it if not you who have overcome the hardest fighting and the superiority of the Bolshevists? Understanding art is of course not what many of you still imagine. But it is not in conflict with the experience you had as soldiers and fighters. On the contrary, it is closely related.
In spite of everything, you got there more easily than the artists themselves. They precede you on the path; they look for the steep slope and point it out to you. But they themselves must follow it. It costs sweat and perseverance.
In return, the divine reward beckons you from the highest peak.
You will certainly find it because it is within you. Some people have already succeeded “by chance”. Having exhausted everything, they have had to resort to reading ‘serious stuff out of desperation, first reluctantly, then enthusiastically. In the end, they realised that you can’t swallow classical poetry like a Kolbenheyer novel, but that a real work of poetry can give you more strength and joie de vivre than a bunch of superficial literature. He who has been aware of this in a moment of clarity must also find the strength to emphasise the higher principles.
He will one day reap the fruitful fruits after having lived through the difficult moments when he was trying to understand great art, which are comparable to the most dangerous moments of combat. He will find treasures which he did not suspect until then and in front of which he passed blindly.
