Below is the article as published in the "Red Star".
"Here are excerpts from three letters found on dead Germans. Inspector Reinhardt wrote to Lieutenant Otto Schirach: "[...] I have found six Russians in the area. They last far longer than Frenchmen. Only one of them has died. [...] Their upkeep costs nothing and we must not tolerate that these animals, whose children are possibly killing our children right now, get to eat German bread. Yesterday I whipped lightly two Russian beasts who secretly drunk up skim milk meant for pigs [...]" A certain Otto Essmann wrote to Lieutenant Helmut Wiegand: "We now have some Russian prisoners of war. These fellows feed on worms by the airstrip and throw themselves at buckets of dirty water. I have seen them eating weeds. It is hard to believe that these are human beings..." Slavers - they would like to enslave our people. They take some Russians home, mistreat them, make them lose their wits by hunger, to the point that they eat grass and worms, and then a repulsive German with a stinking cigar can philosophise: "Are these perhaps human beings?" We know everything. We remember everything. We have understood: Germans are not human beings. Henceforth the word German means to us the most terrible curse. From now on the word German will trigger your rifle. We shall not speak any more. We shall not get excited. We shall kill. If you have not killed at least one German a day, you have wasted that day. If you think that instead of you, the man next to you will kill him, you have not understood the threat. If you do not kill the German, he will kill you. If you cannot kill your German with a bullet, kill him with your bayonet. If there is calm on your part of the front, if you are waiting for the fighting, kill a German before combat. If you leave a German alive, the German will hang a Russian and rape a Russian woman. If you kill one German, kill another - there is nothing more amusing for us than a heap of German corpses. Do not count days; do not count miles. Count only the number of Germans you have killed. Kill the German - this is your old mother's prayer. Kill the German - this is what your children beseech you to do. Kill the German - this is the cry of your Russian earth. Do not waver. Do not let up. Kill."
A little earlier, on 18 July 1942 the "Red Star" published a poem by Konstantin Simonov titled "Kill him", which possibly, inspired Ehrenburg to come up with his subsequent article. Here is the Simonov poem being recited by Mikhail Tsariov, a folk artist
The text of the Simonov poem......
If your house means a thing to you
Where you first dreamed your Russian dreams
In your swinging cradle, afloat
Beneath the log ceiling beams.
If your house means a thing to you
With its stove, corners, walls and floors
Worn smooth by the footsteps of three
Generations of ancestors.
If your small garden means a thing:
With its May blooms and bees humming low,
With its table your grandfather built
Neath the linden - a century ago.
If you don't want a German to tread
The floor in your house and chance
To sit in your ancestors' place
And destroy your yard's trees and plants
If your mother is dear to you
And the breast that gave you suck
Which hasn't had milk for years
But is now where you put your cheek;
If you cannot stand the thought
Of a German's doing her harm.
Beating her furrowed face
With her braids wound round his arm.
And those hands which carried you
To your cradle washing instead
A German's dirty clothes
Or making him his bed .
[If you haven't forgotten your father
Who tossed you and teased your toes,
Who was a good soldier, who vanished
In the high Carpathian snows,
Who died for your motherland's fate,
For each Don and each Volga wave,
If you don't want him in his sleeping
To turn over in his grave,
When a German tears his soldier picture
With crosses from its place
And before your own mother's eyes
Stamps hobnailed boots on his face.]
If you don't want to give away
Her you walked with and didn't touch,
Her you didn't dare even to kiss
For a long time - you loved her so much,
And the Germans cornering her
And taking her alive by force,
Crucifying her - three of them
Naked, on the floor; with coarse
Moans, hate, and blood, -
Those dogs taking advantage of
All you sacredly preserved
With your strong, male love.
If you don't want to give away
To a German with his black gun
Your house, your mother, your wife
All that's yours as a native son
No: No one will save your land
If you don't save it from the worst.
No: No one will kill this foe,
If you don't kill him first.
And until you have killed him, don't
Talk about your love - and
Call the house where you lived your home
Or the land where you grew up your land.
If your brother killed a German,
If your neighbor killed one too,
It's your brother's and neighbor's vengeance,
And it's no revenge for you.
You can't sit behind another
Letting him fire your shot.
If your brother kills a German,
Hes a soldier; you are not.
So kill that German so he
Will lie on the ground's backbone,
So the funeral wailing will be
In his house, not in your own.
He wanted it so It's his guilt
Let his house burn up, and his life.
Let his woman become a widow;
Don't let it be your wife.
Don't let your mother tire from tears;
Let the one who bore him bear the pain.
Don't let it be yours, but his
Family who will wait in vain.
So kill at least one of them
And as soon as you can. Still
Each one you chance to see!
Kill him! Kill him! Kill!
The "Kill The Germans" campaign took many forms. It appeared on billboards and as posters.
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| Here is a poster in Leningrad in 1943 at the height of the siege |
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