Bitte beachten Sie, dass die Einträge in umgekehrter Reihenfolge geschrieben sind, der erste Eintrag befindet sich unten auf der Seite. Um Dieters ersten Eintrag zu lesen, beginnen Sie bitte hier!
Please note that the entries on each page are in reverse order, first entry at the bottom of the page. To read Dieter´s first entry, please start from here! 
Veuillez noter que les inscriptions au journal figurant à chaque page sont reprises dans l'ordre inverse, la plus ancienne étant en bas de page. Pour voir la toute première inscription de Dieter, commencez ici!
Si noti che le date di inserimento nel diario sono in ordine inverso, si parte da quella a fondo pagina. Per andare al primo giorno del diario di Dieter clicca qui!
Sonntag. Es schneit fortgesetzt. Nachmittags lese ich den Kameraden ein Kapitel aus dem Buch „Dat letzt Jaar“ vor. Es wird viel vom Sennelager gesprochen.
Sunday. Constant snow. In the afternoon I read a chapter aloud to my fellow-soldiers from the book "last year". There is a lot of talk about Sennelager.
FRA
IT
Sunday. Constant snow. In the afternoon I read a chapter aloud to my fellow-soldiers from the book "last year". There is a lot of talk about Sennelager.
AntwortenLöschen(Dat letzt Jahr - written in 1939 in what I assume was Dieter's own dialect of German, "Low German" or "Plattdeutsch", spoken in different variations right across Northern Germany. The author was a teacher and noted researcher in local history.)
My two pence on this one.....
AntwortenLöschenThere is not much information available on the net about the book, although it is frequently on sale as an antiquity. The author Max Steen was a teacher, born in 1897 who was drafted to the frist world war in the late years and who got seriously wounded in 1918. The book was released in 1939.
I could imagine that someone who was no born soldier but a teacher and got badly wounded was not too much fond of making war. Additionally, the book was released in 1939, when the danger of war threatened Europe. To me, Max Steen wanted to warn people of another war, by depicting what had happened in the previous one. This is a guess, but also taking the front cover into account this seems reasonable to me.
So if the book was a critical one, why does Dieter read it to the comrades? I could imagine that there were a lot of youngsters, coming right from school who had no idea about war, and who had no contact with war from what we saw so far. Maybe they were just curious, maybe with a little portion of fright to learn what might lay ahead of them. They must have accepted Dieter as a veteran, experienced in war as well as in life, as he was already beyond 40 years of age at that time.
Maybe Dieter wanted to tell them the truth about the dangers, maybe he wanted to protect them; preventing them from having the idea to be a hero and risk their lives unnecessarily.
Then, last thought, if this book was war critical and if he read this to the comrades with a certain intention, wasn't that dangerous for him? I could imagine, that in 1944 or later, he could easily be shot just for owning the book then.
What an amazing little diary entry......
Sunday. Continuous snow. In the afternoon I read my comrades a chapter aloud from the book "Last year"* There is a lot of talk about Sennelager.
AntwortenLöschen*A book by a local history researcher, and written in a variety of a major version of German called Niederdeutsch or Plattdeutsch, whose use stretches right across the North of Germany and which was presumably Dieter's own dialect, or at least familiar to him.