VICTIMS OF KULTUR.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14145, 24 July 1916, Page 3

VICTIMS OF KULTUR.

*' • letters from ,german f '. ' ,'•''■ ■ soldierb: . i

This letter is printed in the London 'Times" as taviuk been taken from the vockotbook of a soldier named Sebastian Schauer, of the 11th Company of tho 13th Bavarian Reserve Regiment, who recently fell in France: — , "My dear Oaos, —If i fall write tipon itiy tombstone: "He was murdored by the wardens of Tvultur; he ga\e his life for the purses of the groat, to fill their moneybags.' I "un; t neither Kino' nor Fatherland; otherwise I shall tvrn in my grave, for the o;uardians of th^ Fatherland have torn love of the Fatheiland out of my heart."

Another letter, said to have been found on the bodj of a German soldier, read as follows- :—

'•Weilburg, July ISt 7i 3910. Yomlast letter naturally up^et mo. Have you really got to a- point at which'you think of suicide? It is tiue thar it" \cm aro treated in the wry so umyortVu of a man, so cruel and brutal, 1 should .sincerely wi^h that }ou j ip/it .=>con l;o into tho trenches to h** lireicd frcm the hands-of your tom^i.tois. But do not take things f-o much to h^art. That is, of course, cusJcr te <-ny tlion to c!o, but in any case id the officers do what they like, however scandalous it may be, since yon are unable to alter things.. I do not know why they drill you so much.' You don't need ■it in the trenches any more thai; zll those stupid exercises with a'vms. hi. yo'iir place I should show your wounded hands to the officer. He would he. obliged to give you leave until they vrero cured, for those terrible sergeants have not the

right to flay people 'alive

"Wjfrcn I go for iv v.a; I am often .questioned by the.people whom I meet, and we .naturally talk of the war. They then tell me of their trembles. A landlord of showed me, a letter written from Galicia from one of his. sons, and a second frons another son in the Argonne. Thanks to such letters tho turth niters through littlo by > little. You onght to have heard, how that simple n?.an talked, and what.his ideas wore aftout the Avar and

in tho woods

polities. It would havn pleased yon. Of.one.thing lam si;r<\ and that is that not- only, you, who. are- 'ir* the field,-are .becoming Socialists, but that also-tins Germans "who have $ remained in Get-, many are going the same way. If I were only a man, and not a woman, I should not. be ■condsir.cnsd to sit at ■1-iomo i hub-you know that I am much too reasonable and practical not to understand that the enthusiasm for 'the brave fellows in the field gray' is by no means so groat, and that it is nnich the same with the 'incomparable discipline'- which is always boasted about. I know from eye-witnesses that our officers pillaged in Poland like the greatest thieves.

"But, after all, it is hotter that such things should not be known, in. order that the last fragment of cur ideal about -German fidelity and loyalty' should not bo- lost, 'because in our childhood and at school we were always proud of 'them, and we da not want to know that they are completely spoiled now. If you are in the trenches, I beg of you not to- expose yourself needlessly ; keep yourself well-cut of danger, ior others do so."' . '