"Sunday, October third. 6 p.m. rain... I was ordered to execute seven prisioners. Lined up, blindfolded and chained to a stake in a field. It seemed as if my bullets couldn't reach them. Instead the seven grinned and seven horrible visions of war, one by one, captured my soul..."
2. Lingering In An Imprint Haunting
Kill! Here I walk down this godless trench where the corpses sink forever into shallow marshy grounds. Ican't remember confronting these extreme forms of violence. Knee-deep in mud, where skies weep leaden tears and blood.
It's hard to breathe within this thick cloak of sulphurius mist, conjuring slaughtering soldiers into sickening silhouettes. From this forsaken battlefield no soul can be dismissed. As if the devil is in charge, givin orders from the dephts of the abyss.
Goddamn! It's coming hard. Fire fight and waves of bombardments blowing soil, bone and flesh apart. Running to survive maybe the last private still alive. Suddenly it stops! I turn and see no enemy. There's nothing behind me.
I can't believe my eyes. I can't believe what I see. A timeless, frozen scenery where nature stands still! Except for me!
So strange to see a still image of this infernal reality. Staring at shrapnel and bullets on an incomplete journey. When suicide burdens my mind, I'm startled by a horrible screaming from behind. Luring me to a spot where a friend of my platoon walked into an ambush, he screamed: "Please kill me! Chralie's coming soon!"
My 1911 is too loud, that's why I reach for the knife. Then, again, hesitation! I cannot take his life!
Goddamned fucking gooks! He's captured by the enemy. Dragged away for days of torture, screaming these last words at me: "You son of a whore should be terrified! In this hell I'll wait for you!"
And right before I step on that mine I ask myself: "Did he just speak the truth?"
Briefly I comprehend, all this time I was damned. His grudge keeps me in hell for eternity. Every time I die he waits for me. This is my destiny...
3. Bitte Tötet Mich
Another tale of tragedy. He made the choice to end his life. So it is written, passionately. This soldier's fervent wish for suicide. His soul torn asunder by the horrors of war. One carrying so much death will soon care for life no more.
On the first day the soldier would quietly retreat to shoot himself through the head not far from his infantry.
"I can hear footsteps. Someone's coming near. Fuck! Should I stay? Disappear? Es ist mein bester Freund. Diesem soldat ist immer Für mich da. Quickly I put my Luger away. I thought this was my last day but I failed!"
"Bitte tötet mich! Bitte töte mich!"
On the second day he opened his eyes. Consumed by sadness he thought: "Today is the day I die. I will take my life with the rope, a bullet or maybe the knife"
So depressed. So empty. Wandering hopelessly, searching for death. His soul feels so old and so cold. The only desire left is his yearning for death.
He stumbled across an old farmstead and entered this wooden shack. There he found a rope and the guts to jump and hang with a broken neck. The second he tightened the slipknot, the barn door flew open. This time he was caught by a farmer who grabbed his legs to lift and hold him high. The soldier kicking and screaming: "You bastard! Let me hang and die!"
In this struggle the soldier went mad. When the rope snapped, he pulled a knife and, nine times in the stomach, the farmer was stabbed.
"Bitte töte mich!"
On the third day there was a fire fight. This bloody assault would last until midnight. Another opportunity for our soldier who craves suicide.
With open arms into the line of fire he asked for death. But hen he watched his friend, who is trying to prevent him from killing himself again, die for his own determined suicide.
Here comes the part where he sticks the Luger into his mouth. He was shot twice in the spine from behind, then blows half his face all over the ground. Not dead yet but completely fucking paralyzed, Kept alive in his hell for two long years before he finally dies.
4. The Funerary Dirge Of A Violinist
Listen! Don't you hear these mad symphonies of grievance and fear? Melancholy and despair can be sensed when we draw near. Some hear a violin sound, others hear a man moaning in tears. These fields are haunted by nature's most sombre melodies. Suicidal white noise absorbing the essence from light, mirth and vitality. These grounds are haunted by reflections from World War II...
Arise! 1941, '42 The identity of warfare on the East Front is lugubrious. There's one soldier incapable of committing sin. Kept alive by his comrades thanks to his heavenly gift with a violin.
His brilliant music so beautiful and pure... Shining warmth upon every soldier. It helps them to endure. Breath-taking melodies consuming all hate, sorrow and fear. These magnificent tunes are like silk for their ears. And for a moment their pain disappears.
But this moment will not last when they are baffled by another blast. The enemy is near. Rain of bullets killing soldiers there and here. And so the instrument of peace is being silenced by the one of war. It plays the music of the dead; music made of lead. "I've had enough of this sickening war and it's murderous puppets! They don't understand the language of music cannot be spoken in death. I never took a life! Maybe now is the time to take mine. In the name of music; shall I cut my wrists or hang myself high by a violin string? A symphonic suicide is what I shall bring! "
The enemy lies on the other side of the field. He decides to walk straight into the fire fight, playing this dreamlike masterpiece. Every soldier stops, holds his breath. Not a single shot is being heard during an intro for his own death.
And when the violin bow is being lowered at the end, both sides simultaneously open fire. There's the corpse of the violinist lying in mud and barbed wire.
These fields are haunted by the funerary dirge of a violinist. Can't you hear his call of death? Listen! Don't you hear these mad symphonies of grievance and fear? Melancholy and despair can be sensed when we draw near. Some hear a violin sound... Others hear a man moaning in tears.
The funerary dirge of a violinist...
5. Sir John
"Scalpel, Clamps. Pull him to the ground. No innocent hands! Every second counts! Cut! Through his skin thick blood flows. No anaesthesia as I dig in!"
Spleen uncovered, brutally removed. So wasteful, tasteful, eaten from within. "Stitch him back up so he survives. Eating intestines to keep ourselves alive."
"Thirteen days starving to death since they bombed this place. All the roads blocked the forest stocked full of mines. No there is no escape!"
Half the village died, animals fled. Plague lurking like a ticking time bomb. The stench of death.
"I won't regret, doctor! Use your craft! Now amputate my hand so I can eat!"
Forced beyond sanity they kept themselves alive. Lost all their dignity.
"Forceps. Clamps. Pull him to the ground. No innocent hands! Every second counts! Cut through his skin! Thick blood flows. No anaesthesia as I dig in!"
More of them died, putrefied, but the surgeon lived on. Fed on their organs, limbs, a blood hunger never satisfied. Soon he realized his raid of death had come to an end.
No living soul left, for his hunger driven theft. Killed them all!
"But I must eat! Just a little piece of me! Come to daddy! He must eat!"
Twenty days almost starved to death in this forsaken place. Found by soldiers who brought him back. He was safe. Comatose, little did he know what horrors slowly crawled upon him once he (a)rose. "Severe war traumas" he was told.
"Mouth guard. Strap. Pull him to the ground. No innocent hands! Every second counts." He ate his own tongue. Thick blood flows. "We are losing him!" Heart fails.
So wasteful, tasteful, eaten from within. This blood hunger grown to be a part of him. Never satisfied, in his last moment realized, his raid of death had come to an end.
6. Spectral Infantry Battalions
Battle formations, dead but still wandering ahead. A gigantic apparition keeps rising from a field, once colored red from bloodshed.
Where the sounds of war can still be heard and the balance of nature is seriously disturbed.
Spectral infantry battalions marching through a freezing timeless void. Again, ghostly cavalry regiments shall ride the lands they'd once destroyed.
This is the sound of death; (Death) a military haunting! (Death) Battle formations, (Death) still marching ahead! (Death) Battle formations Death Death Death!!!
7. General Nightmare
Staring, screaming "Bring my map!" with clenched fists. "Colonel, Attaquez l'Allemagne!" "Tous nos hommes, sans aucun remords!" This storm of sacrifice will reign!
I have conquered! "Murdered!" I am your leader! "No! You slaughtered us all!" Déserteurs! "We'll infest your nightmares wit