Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,–
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of the boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

“Facts are mere accessories to the truth, and we do not invite to our hearth the guest who can only remind us that on such a day we suffered calamity. Still less welcome is he who would make a Roman holiday of our misfortunes. Exaggeration of what was monstrous is quickly recognised as a sign of egotism, and that contrarious symptom of the same disease which pretends that what is accepted as monstrous was really little more than normal is equally unwelcome.”
Max Plowman from Subaltern on the Somme

Ernst Friedrich, the founder of the Anti-War Museum in Berlin, was born on February 25th 1894 in Breslau. Already in his early years he was engaged in the proletarian youth movement. In 1911, after breaking off an apprenticeship as a printer, he became a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In 1916 he joined the anti-militaristic workers youth and was sentenced to prison after an act of sabotage in a company of military importance.

As a leading figure of »youth anarchism« he fought against militarism and war, against arbitrary action by police and justice. In 1919 he took over the youth centre of the »Free Socialist Youth« (FSJ) in Berlin and turned it into a meeting place of anti-authoritarian youth and revolutionary artists.

Besides organising exhibitions he travelled Germany and gave public lectures reading anti-militaristic and liberal authors like Erich Mühsam, Maxim Gorki, Fjodor Dostojewski and Leo Tolstoi.

In the Twenties the pacifist Ernst Friedrich was already well-known in Berlin for his book »War against War!« when he opened his Anti-War Museum at 29, Parochial Street. The museum became a centre of cultural and pacifist activities until it was destroyed by the Nazis in March 1933 and its founder got arrested.

Friedrich’s book »War against War!« (1924) is a shocking picture-book documenting the horrors of the First World War. It made him a well-known figure in and outside Germany. Owing to a donation he was able to buy an old building in Berlin where he established the »First International Anti-War Museum«.

After having been in prison already before Friedrich was financially ruined when he was convicted again in 1930. Nevertheless he managed to bring his precious archive abroad.

In March 1933 Nazi storm troopers, the so-called SA, destroyed the Anti-War Museum and Friedrich was arrested until the end of that year. Thereafter he and his family emigrated to Belgium, where he opened the »II. Anti-War Museum«. When the German army marched in he joined the French Resistance. After the liberation of France he became French citizen and member of the Socialist Party.

With the compensation payment he got from Germany Friedrich was able to buy a piece of land near Paris, where he established the so-called »Ile de la Paix«, a centre for peace and international understanding where German and French youth groups could meet. In 1967 Ernst Friedrich died at Le Perreux sur Marne.

Today’s Anti-War Museum recalls Ernst Friedrich and the story of his museum with charts, slides and films.

From up high where I was, you could shout anything you liked at them. I tried. They made me sick, the whole lot of them. I hadn’t the nerve to tell them so in the daytime, to their face, but up there it was safe. “Help! Help!” I shouted, just to see if it would have any effect on them. None whatsoever. Those people were pushing life and night and day in front of them. Life hides everything from people. Their own noise prevents them from hearing anything else. They couldn’t care less. The bigger and taller the city, the less they care. Take it from me. I’ve tried. It’s a waste of time.
–from Journey to the End of the Night

Louis Céline, originally named Louis Ferdinand Destouches, b. May 27, 1894, d. July 1, 1961, was a French writer and doctor whose novels Journey to the End of the Night (1932; Eng. trans., 1943) and Death on the Installment Plan (1936; Eng. trans., 1938) are innovative, chaotic, and antiheroic visions of human suffering. Pessimism pervades Céline’s fiction as his characters sense failure, anxiety, nihilism, and inertia. Céline was unable to communicate with others, and during his life sank more deeply into a hate-filled world of madness and rage. A progressive disintegration of personality is visible in the stylistic incoherence of Guignol’s Band (1944; Eng. trans., 1954), Castle to Castle (1957; Eng. trans., 1968), and North (1960; Eng. trans., 1972). His novels are verbal frescoes peopled with horrendous giants, paraplegics, and gnomes, and are filled with scenes of dismemberment and murder.
Accused of collaboration, Céline fled (1944) France to live in Germany at Sigmaringen and then moved (1945) to Denmark. Condemned by default (1950) in France to one year of imprisonment and declared a national disgrace, Céline returned to France after his pardon in 1951.