August 14, 2025 • 13 mins
19 - Christmas in the Trenches. A German Deserter's War Experience by Anonymous.
The author of this 1917 narrative, who escaped from Germany and military service after 14 months of fighting in France, did not wish to have his name made public, fearing reprisals against his relatives. The vivid description of the life of a common German soldier during “The Great War” aroused much interest when it was published in the United States in serial form. Here was a warrior against his will, a hater of militarism for whom there was no romance in war, but only butchery and brutality, grime and vermin, inhuman toil and degradation. His story also contains the first German description of the retreat of the Teutonic armies after the battle of the Marne.
The author of this 1917 narrative, who escaped from Germany and military service after 14 months of fighting in France, did not wish to have his name made public, fearing reprisals against his relatives. The vivid description of the life of a common German soldier during “The Great War” aroused much interest when it was published in the United States in serial form. Here was a warrior against his will, a hater of militarism for whom there was no romance in war, but only butchery and brutality, grime and vermin, inhuman toil and degradation. His story also contains the first German description of the retreat of the Teutonic armies after the battle of the Marne.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nineteen of a German Deserter's War Experience by anonymous.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter nineteen
Christmas in the trenches. Winter had arrived and it was
icy cold. The trenches, all of which had underground water,
had been turned into mere mud holes. The cold at
(00:22):
night was intense, and we had to do forty eight
hours work with twelve hours sleep. Every week. We had
to make an attack, the result of which was in
no proportion to the immense losses. During the entire four
months that I was in the Argonne, we had a
gain of terrain some four hundred yards deep. The following
fact will show the high price that was paid in
(00:43):
human life for that little piece of France. All the regiments,
some of these were the Infantry Regiment's numbers one forty five,
sixty seven, one seventy three and the Hirschberg sharp Shooting
Battalion number five, had their own cemetery. When when we
were relieved in the Argonne, there were more dead in
our cemetery than our regiment counted men. The sixty seventh
(01:07):
Regiment had buried more than two thousand men in its cemetery,
all of whom with the exception of a few sappers
had belonged to Regiment number sixty seven. Not a day
passed without the loss of human lives, and on a
storming day death had an extraordinarily rich harvest. Each day
had its victims, sometimes more, sometimes fewer. It must appear
(01:31):
quite natural that under such conditions the soldiers were not
in the best of moods. The men were all completely stupefied.
Just as they formerly went to work regularly to feed
the wife and children, they now went to the trenches
in just the same regular way. That business of slaughtering
and working had become an every day affair. When they conversed,
(01:53):
it was always the army leaders, the Crown Prince and
Lieutenant General von Mudra, the general in command of the
sixteenth Army Corps, that were most criticized. The troops in
the Argonne belonged to the sixteenth Army Corps, to the
thirty third and thirty fourth Division of Infantry. Neither of
the two leaders, neither the Crown Prince nor von Mudra,
(02:15):
have I ever seen in the trenches. The staff of
the Crown Prince had among its members the old General
Field Marshal Count von Hessler, the former commander of the
sixteenth Army Corps, a man who in times of peace
was already known as a relentless slave driver. The triplets,
as we called the trio, the Crown, Prince von Mudra
(02:37):
and Count von Hessler, were more hated by most of
the soldiers than the Frenchman who was out with his
gun to take our miserable life many miles behind the front.
The scion of the Holland Zolerns found no difficulty to
spout his knock them hard and at the price of
thousands of human lives, to make himself popular with the
(02:58):
patriots at home. Were sitting there behind the snug stove
or at the beer table, complaining that we did not
advance fast enough. For on Mudra got the order, poor lemerites.
They did not think of his soldiers, who had not
seen a bed nor taken off their trousers or boots
for months. These were provided with food and shells, and
(03:20):
were almost being eaten up by vermin. That we were
covered with body lice was not to be wondered at,
for we had scarcely enough water for drinking purposes, and
could not think of having a wash. We had worn
our clothes for months without changing them. The hair on
our heads and our beards had grown to great length.
When we had some hours in which to rest, the
(03:42):
lice would not let us sleep. The air in the
shelters was downright pestiferous, and to that foul stench of
perspiration and putrefaction was added the plague of lice. At
times one was sitting up for hours and could not sleep,
though one was dead tired, one could catch lice, and
the more one caught, the worse they got. We were
(04:02):
urgently in want of sleep, but it was impossible to
close the eyes on account of the vermin. We led
a loathsome pitiful life, and at times we said to
one another that nobody at home even suspected the condition
we were in. We often told one another that if
later on we should relate to our families the facts
as they really were, they would not believe them. Many
(04:25):
soldiers tried to put our daily experience in verse. There
were many of such jingles illustrating our barbarous handicraft. It
was in the month of December, and the weather was
extremely cold. At times we often stood in the trenches
with the mud running into our trousers pockets. In those
icy cold nights, we used to sit in the trenches
(04:46):
almost frozen to a lump of ice, and when utter
exhaustion sometimes vanquished us and put us to sleep, we
found our boots frozen to the ground. On waking up.
Quite a number of soldiers suffered from frost bitten limbs.
It was mostly their toes that were frostbitten. They had
to be taken to the hospital. The soldiers on duty
(05:06):
fired incessantly so as to keep their fingers warm. Not
all the soldiers are, as a rule, kept ready to
give battle. If no attack is expected or intended, only
sentries occupy the trench about three yards apart. A man
is posted behind his protective shield of steel. Nevertheless, all
the men are in the trench. The sentries keep their
(05:29):
section under a continual fire, especially when it is cold
and dark. The fingers get warm when one pulls the trigger.
Of course, one cannot aim in the darkness, and the
shots are fired at random. The sentry sweeps his section
so that no hostile patrol can approach, for he is
never safe in that thicket. Thus it happens that the
(05:50):
firing is generally more violent at night. Than at day,
but there is never an interval. The rifles are fired continually.
The bullets keep whistling above our train and patter against
the branches. The mines, too, come flying over at night,
dropping at a high angle. Everybody knows the scarcely audible thud,
and knows at once that it is a mine. Without
(06:12):
seeing anything. He warns the others by calling out mine coming,
And everybody looks in the darkness for the glow worm,
that is the burning fuze of the mine. The glowing
fuze betrays the direction of the mine, and there are
always a few short seconds left to get round some corner.
The same is the case with the hand grenades. They
(06:33):
too betray the line of their flight at night by
their burning fuse. If they do not happen to arrive
in two great numbers, one mostly succeeds in getting out
of their way. In daylight, that is not so hard,
because one can overlook everything. It often happens that one
cannot save one's self in time from the approaching hand grenade.
In that case, there is only one alternative, either to
(06:57):
remain alive or to be torn to atoms. Should a
hand grenade suddenly fall before one's feet, one picks it
up without hesitation, as swiftly as possible, and throws it away,
if possible, back into the enemy's trench. Often, however, the
fuze is of such a length that the grenade does
not even explode after reaching the enemy's trench again, and
(07:18):
the frenchman throws it back again with fabulous celerity. In
order to avoid the danger of having a grenade returned,
the fuse is made as short as possible, and yet
a grenade will come back now and again, in spite
of all. To return a grenade is of course dangerous work.
But a man has no great choice. If he leaves
the grenade where it drops, he is lost, and he
(07:39):
cannot run away, and he knows he will be crushed
to atoms. And thus his only chance is to pick
up the grenade and throw it away, even at the
risk of having the bomb explode in his hand. I
know of hand grenades thrown by the French, that it
flew hither and thither. Several times. One was thrown by
the French and immediately returned. It came back again in
(08:00):
an instant, Then again we threw it over to them.
It did not reach the enemy's trench that time, but
exploded in the air. Though in general the infantry bullets
cannot do much damage while one is in the trench,
it happens daily that men are killed by ricochet bullets.
The thousands of bullets that cut through the air every
minute all pass above our heads, but some strike a
(08:23):
tree or branch and glance off. If in that case
they hit a man in the trench, they cause terrible
injuries because they do not strike with their heads. But lengthwise,
whenever we heard of dumb dumb bullets, we thought of
those ricochet bullets. Though we did not doubt that there
were dumb dumb bullets in existence. I doubt, however, if
dumb dumb bullets are manufactured in factories, for the following reasons.
(08:46):
First because a dumb dumb bullet can easily damage the
barrel of a rifle and make it useless. Secondly, because
the average soldier would refuse to carry such ammunition. For
if a man is captured and such bullets are found
on him, him the enemy in whose power he is
would punish him by the laws of war. As piteously
as such an inhuman practice deserves to be punished generally
(09:09):
of course, a soldier only executes his orders. However, there
exists dumb dumb bullets. As I mentioned before, they are
manufactured by the soldiers themselves. If the point is filed
or cut off a German infantry bullet, so that the
nickel case is cut through and the lead corps is
laid bare, the bullet explodes when striking or penetrating an object.
(09:31):
Should a man be hit in the upper arm by
such a projectile, the latter, by its explosive force, can
mangle the arm to such an extent that it only
hangs by a piece of skin. Christmas came along, and
we still found ourselves at the same place, without any
hope of a change. We received all kinds of gifts
from our relations at home and other people. We were
(09:53):
at last able to change our underwear, which we had
worn for months. Christmas in the trenches it was cold.
We had procured a pine tree, for there were no
fir trees to be had. We had decorated the tree
with candles and cookies, and had imitated the snow with wadding.
Christmas trees were burning everywhere in the trenches, and at
(10:15):
midnight all the trees were lifted on the parapet with
the burning candles, and along the whole German line, soldiers
began to sing Christmas songs in chorus, Oh Thou blissful,
Oh Thou joyous mercy, bringing Christmas time. Hundreds of men
were singing the song in that fearful wood. Not a
shot was fired. The French had ceased firing along the
(10:37):
whole line. That night. I was with a company that
was only five paces away from the enemy. The Christmas
candles were burning brightly and were renewed again and again.
For the first time, we heard no shots. From everywhere
throughout the forest, one could hear powerful carols come floating
over peace on earth. The French left their trenches and
(10:59):
stood on the parapet without any fear. There they stood,
quite overpowered by emotion, and all of them with cap
in hand. We too, had issued from our trenches. We
exchanged gifts with the French, chocolate, cigarettes, et cetera. They
were all laughing, and so were we. Why we did
not know. Then everybody went back to his trench, and
(11:20):
incessantly the carol resounded, ever more solemnly, ever more longingly,
Oh Thou Blissful. All around silence reigned even the murdered
trees seemed to listen. The charm continued, and one scarcely
dared to speak, Why could it not always be as peaceful?
We thought? And thought we were as dreamers and forgotten
(11:43):
everything about us. Suddenly a shot rang out, Then another
one was fired somewhere. The spell was broken. All rushed
to their rifles, a rolling fire. Our Christmas was over.
We took up again our old existence. A young infantrymen
stood next to me. He tried to get out of
the trench. I told him stay here. The French will
(12:06):
shoot you to pieces. I left a box of cigars
up there and must have it back. Another one told
him to wait till things quieted down somewhat. They won't
hit me. I have been here three months and they
never caught me. Yet, as you wish, go ahead. Scarcely
had he put his head above the parapet. When he
tumbled back, part of his brains was sticking to my belt.
(12:28):
His cap flew high up into the air. His skull
was shattered. He was dead on the spot. His trials
were over. The cigars were later on fetched by another man.
On the following Christmas Day, an army order was read out.
We were forbidden to wear or have in our possession
things of French origin, for every soldier who was found
(12:50):
in possession of such things would be put before a
court martial as a marauder by the French if they
captured him. We were forbidden to use objects captured from
the French, and we were especially forbidden to make use
of woolen blankets, because the French were infected with scabies.
Scabies is an itching skin disease which it takes at
(13:11):
least a week to cure. But the order had a
contrary effect. If one was the owner of such an
itch blanket, one had a chance of getting into the
hospital for some days, the illness was not of a
serious nature, and one was at least safe from bullets
for a few days. Every day soldiers were sent to
the hospital, and we too were watching for a chance
(13:32):
to grab such a French blanket. What did a man
care if he could only get out of that hell?
End of Chapter nineteen
Chapter nineteen of a German Deserter's War Experience by anonymous.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter nineteen
Christmas in the trenches. Winter had arrived and it was
icy cold. The trenches, all of which had underground water,
had been turned into mere mud holes. The cold at
(00:22):
night was intense, and we had to do forty eight
hours work with twelve hours sleep. Every week. We had
to make an attack, the result of which was in
no proportion to the immense losses. During the entire four
months that I was in the Argonne, we had a
gain of terrain some four hundred yards deep. The following
fact will show the high price that was paid in
(00:43):
human life for that little piece of France. All the regiments,
some of these were the Infantry Regiment's numbers one forty five,
sixty seven, one seventy three and the Hirschberg sharp Shooting
Battalion number five, had their own cemetery. When when we
were relieved in the Argonne, there were more dead in
our cemetery than our regiment counted men. The sixty seventh
(01:07):
Regiment had buried more than two thousand men in its cemetery,
all of whom with the exception of a few sappers
had belonged to Regiment number sixty seven. Not a day
passed without the loss of human lives, and on a
storming day death had an extraordinarily rich harvest. Each day
had its victims, sometimes more, sometimes fewer. It must appear
(01:31):
quite natural that under such conditions the soldiers were not
in the best of moods. The men were all completely stupefied.
Just as they formerly went to work regularly to feed
the wife and children, they now went to the trenches
in just the same regular way. That business of slaughtering
and working had become an every day affair. When they conversed,
(01:53):
it was always the army leaders, the Crown Prince and
Lieutenant General von Mudra, the general in command of the
sixteenth Army Corps, that were most criticized. The troops in
the Argonne belonged to the sixteenth Army Corps, to the
thirty third and thirty fourth Division of Infantry. Neither of
the two leaders, neither the Crown Prince nor von Mudra,
(02:15):
have I ever seen in the trenches. The staff of
the Crown Prince had among its members the old General
Field Marshal Count von Hessler, the former commander of the
sixteenth Army Corps, a man who in times of peace
was already known as a relentless slave driver. The triplets,
as we called the trio, the Crown, Prince von Mudra
(02:37):
and Count von Hessler, were more hated by most of
the soldiers than the Frenchman who was out with his
gun to take our miserable life many miles behind the front.
The scion of the Holland Zolerns found no difficulty to
spout his knock them hard and at the price of
thousands of human lives, to make himself popular with the
(02:58):
patriots at home. Were sitting there behind the snug stove
or at the beer table, complaining that we did not
advance fast enough. For on Mudra got the order, poor lemerites.
They did not think of his soldiers, who had not
seen a bed nor taken off their trousers or boots
for months. These were provided with food and shells, and
(03:20):
were almost being eaten up by vermin. That we were
covered with body lice was not to be wondered at,
for we had scarcely enough water for drinking purposes, and
could not think of having a wash. We had worn
our clothes for months without changing them. The hair on
our heads and our beards had grown to great length.
When we had some hours in which to rest, the
(03:42):
lice would not let us sleep. The air in the
shelters was downright pestiferous, and to that foul stench of
perspiration and putrefaction was added the plague of lice. At
times one was sitting up for hours and could not sleep,
though one was dead tired, one could catch lice, and
the more one caught, the worse they got. We were
(04:02):
urgently in want of sleep, but it was impossible to
close the eyes on account of the vermin. We led
a loathsome pitiful life, and at times we said to
one another that nobody at home even suspected the condition
we were in. We often told one another that if
later on we should relate to our families the facts
as they really were, they would not believe them. Many
(04:25):
soldiers tried to put our daily experience in verse. There
were many of such jingles illustrating our barbarous handicraft. It
was in the month of December, and the weather was
extremely cold. At times we often stood in the trenches
with the mud running into our trousers pockets. In those
icy cold nights, we used to sit in the trenches
(04:46):
almost frozen to a lump of ice, and when utter
exhaustion sometimes vanquished us and put us to sleep, we
found our boots frozen to the ground. On waking up.
Quite a number of soldiers suffered from frost bitten limbs.
It was mostly their toes that were frostbitten. They had
to be taken to the hospital. The soldiers on duty
(05:06):
fired incessantly so as to keep their fingers warm. Not
all the soldiers are, as a rule, kept ready to
give battle. If no attack is expected or intended, only
sentries occupy the trench about three yards apart. A man
is posted behind his protective shield of steel. Nevertheless, all
the men are in the trench. The sentries keep their
(05:29):
section under a continual fire, especially when it is cold
and dark. The fingers get warm when one pulls the trigger.
Of course, one cannot aim in the darkness, and the
shots are fired at random. The sentry sweeps his section
so that no hostile patrol can approach, for he is
never safe in that thicket. Thus it happens that the
(05:50):
firing is generally more violent at night. Than at day,
but there is never an interval. The rifles are fired continually.
The bullets keep whistling above our train and patter against
the branches. The mines, too, come flying over at night,
dropping at a high angle. Everybody knows the scarcely audible thud,
and knows at once that it is a mine. Without
(06:12):
seeing anything. He warns the others by calling out mine coming,
And everybody looks in the darkness for the glow worm,
that is the burning fuze of the mine. The glowing
fuze betrays the direction of the mine, and there are
always a few short seconds left to get round some corner.
The same is the case with the hand grenades. They
(06:33):
too betray the line of their flight at night by
their burning fuse. If they do not happen to arrive
in two great numbers, one mostly succeeds in getting out
of their way. In daylight, that is not so hard,
because one can overlook everything. It often happens that one
cannot save one's self in time from the approaching hand grenade.
In that case, there is only one alternative, either to
(06:57):
remain alive or to be torn to atoms. Should a
hand grenade suddenly fall before one's feet, one picks it
up without hesitation, as swiftly as possible, and throws it away,
if possible, back into the enemy's trench. Often, however, the
fuze is of such a length that the grenade does
not even explode after reaching the enemy's trench again, and
(07:18):
the frenchman throws it back again with fabulous celerity. In
order to avoid the danger of having a grenade returned,
the fuse is made as short as possible, and yet
a grenade will come back now and again, in spite
of all. To return a grenade is of course dangerous work.
But a man has no great choice. If he leaves
the grenade where it drops, he is lost, and he
(07:39):
cannot run away, and he knows he will be crushed
to atoms. And thus his only chance is to pick
up the grenade and throw it away, even at the
risk of having the bomb explode in his hand. I
know of hand grenades thrown by the French, that it
flew hither and thither. Several times. One was thrown by
the French and immediately returned. It came back again in
(08:00):
an instant, Then again we threw it over to them.
It did not reach the enemy's trench that time, but
exploded in the air. Though in general the infantry bullets
cannot do much damage while one is in the trench,
it happens daily that men are killed by ricochet bullets.
The thousands of bullets that cut through the air every
minute all pass above our heads, but some strike a
(08:23):
tree or branch and glance off. If in that case
they hit a man in the trench, they cause terrible
injuries because they do not strike with their heads. But lengthwise,
whenever we heard of dumb dumb bullets, we thought of
those ricochet bullets. Though we did not doubt that there
were dumb dumb bullets in existence. I doubt, however, if
dumb dumb bullets are manufactured in factories, for the following reasons.
(08:46):
First because a dumb dumb bullet can easily damage the
barrel of a rifle and make it useless. Secondly, because
the average soldier would refuse to carry such ammunition. For
if a man is captured and such bullets are found
on him, him the enemy in whose power he is
would punish him by the laws of war. As piteously
as such an inhuman practice deserves to be punished generally
(09:09):
of course, a soldier only executes his orders. However, there
exists dumb dumb bullets. As I mentioned before, they are
manufactured by the soldiers themselves. If the point is filed
or cut off a German infantry bullet, so that the
nickel case is cut through and the lead corps is
laid bare, the bullet explodes when striking or penetrating an object.
(09:31):
Should a man be hit in the upper arm by
such a projectile, the latter, by its explosive force, can
mangle the arm to such an extent that it only
hangs by a piece of skin. Christmas came along, and
we still found ourselves at the same place, without any
hope of a change. We received all kinds of gifts
from our relations at home and other people. We were
(09:53):
at last able to change our underwear, which we had
worn for months. Christmas in the trenches it was cold.
We had procured a pine tree, for there were no
fir trees to be had. We had decorated the tree
with candles and cookies, and had imitated the snow with wadding.
Christmas trees were burning everywhere in the trenches, and at
(10:15):
midnight all the trees were lifted on the parapet with
the burning candles, and along the whole German line, soldiers
began to sing Christmas songs in chorus, Oh Thou blissful,
Oh Thou joyous mercy, bringing Christmas time. Hundreds of men
were singing the song in that fearful wood. Not a
shot was fired. The French had ceased firing along the
(10:37):
whole line. That night. I was with a company that
was only five paces away from the enemy. The Christmas
candles were burning brightly and were renewed again and again.
For the first time, we heard no shots. From everywhere
throughout the forest, one could hear powerful carols come floating
over peace on earth. The French left their trenches and
(10:59):
stood on the parapet without any fear. There they stood,
quite overpowered by emotion, and all of them with cap
in hand. We too, had issued from our trenches. We
exchanged gifts with the French, chocolate, cigarettes, et cetera. They
were all laughing, and so were we. Why we did
not know. Then everybody went back to his trench, and
(11:20):
incessantly the carol resounded, ever more solemnly, ever more longingly,
Oh Thou Blissful. All around silence reigned even the murdered
trees seemed to listen. The charm continued, and one scarcely
dared to speak, Why could it not always be as peaceful?
We thought? And thought we were as dreamers and forgotten
(11:43):
everything about us. Suddenly a shot rang out, Then another
one was fired somewhere. The spell was broken. All rushed
to their rifles, a rolling fire. Our Christmas was over.
We took up again our old existence. A young infantrymen
stood next to me. He tried to get out of
the trench. I told him stay here. The French will
(12:06):
shoot you to pieces. I left a box of cigars
up there and must have it back. Another one told
him to wait till things quieted down somewhat. They won't
hit me. I have been here three months and they
never caught me. Yet, as you wish, go ahead. Scarcely
had he put his head above the parapet. When he
tumbled back, part of his brains was sticking to my belt.
(12:28):
His cap flew high up into the air. His skull
was shattered. He was dead on the spot. His trials
were over. The cigars were later on fetched by another man.
On the following Christmas Day, an army order was read out.
We were forbidden to wear or have in our possession
things of French origin, for every soldier who was found
(12:50):
in possession of such things would be put before a
court martial as a marauder by the French if they
captured him. We were forbidden to use objects captured from
the French, and we were especially forbidden to make use
of woolen blankets, because the French were infected with scabies.
Scabies is an itching skin disease which it takes at
(13:11):
least a week to cure. But the order had a
contrary effect. If one was the owner of such an
itch blanket, one had a chance of getting into the
hospital for some days, the illness was not of a
serious nature, and one was at least safe from bullets
for a few days. Every day soldiers were sent to
the hospital, and we too were watching for a chance
(13:32):
to grab such a French blanket. What did a man
care if he could only get out of that hell?
End of Chapter nineteen
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