“Courage”

From Faith and Action (1938) by Helmut Stellrecht for the Hitler Youth:



Courage is the most beautiful and noble trait a man can have. He who has no courage is not a man.

§ The “storming courage” of an attack is wonderful. The feeling of having risked all in service of a high ideal frees one and lets him charge forward with joy. Courage bears a man as if he had wings, and fills his heart.

§ The attack becomes the high point of life. When everything depends on one card, when one can lose everything, when one can win everything, life is at its best. He who has never charged and attacked, filled with courage, has never fully lived.

§ Alongside “stormy courage” is the “indomitable courage” of those facing hard fate. “Fate is great and powerful, but greater still is the person who bears it unshaken.”

§ Life is often harder than death. A coward holds on to it. No one faces a challenge greater than the strength he has been given to face it. Courage overcomes all. When one has done all in his power, good luck comes to show him a new way and help him along. But it is not really good luck. “Resist all powers, never give in, be strong, calls the army of the gods.”

§ Courage is needed not only by the man, by the soldier, a woman too needs courage. For the man battle, the attack is the greatest challenge. For the woman it comes when she gives a new person life. Men who no longer want to wage war cannot face the mothers who give new life at the risk of their own.

§ Courage is the noblest trait of a man or woman. It determines the battle and gives victory. Hardness Life demands hardness. One must strive with burning heart toward the ideal.