Bombasırtı olayı*

Bombasırtı olayı (14 Mayıs 1915) çok önemli ve Dünya savaş tarihinde eşine rastlanması mümkün olmayan bir olaydır. Karşılıklı siperler arası 8 metre, yani ölüm kesin. Birinci siperdekilerin hepsi kurtulmamacasına düşüyor. İkinci siperdekiler yıldırım gibi onların yerlerine gidiyor. Fakat ne kadar imrenilecek bir soğuk kanlılıkla biliyor musunuz? Bomba, şarapnel, kurşun yağmuru altında öleni görüyor, üç dakikaya kadar öleceğini biliyor ve en ufak bir çekinme bile göstermiyor. Sarsılma yok. Okuma bilenler Kur' an-ı Kerim okuyor ve cennete gitmeye hazırlanıyor. Bilmeyenlerse Kelime-i şahadet getiriyor ve ezan okuyarak yürüyorlar. Sıcak cehennem gibi kaynıyor. İşte bu Türk askerindeki ruh kuvvetini gösteren dünyanın hiçbir askerinde bulunmayan tebrike değer bir örnektir. Emin olmalısınız ki Çanakkale savaşlarını kazandıran bu yüksek ruhtur. M.K.A

Hudutlar*

“Malumunuzdur ki Misak-ı Milli’yi en nihayet Ankara’da tespit etmiştim. İtiraf ederim ki ben de Hudud-u Milli’yi biraz Wilson prensiplerinin insani maksatlarına göre ifadeye çalıştım. Hemen belirteyim: O insani prensiplere istinadendir ki Türk süngülerinin müdafaa ve tespit ettiği hudutları müdafaa etmişimdir. Zavallı Wilson anlamadı ki süngü, kuvvet ve şeref ve haysiyetin müdafaa edemediği hudutlar başka hiçbir prensiple müdafaa edilemez.” M. K. Atatürk

Bugün ulaştığımız sonuç*

Bugün ulaştığımız sonuç, yüzyıllardan beri çekilen ulusal yıkımların yarattığı uyanıklığın ve bu sevgili yurdun her köşesini sulayan kanların karşılığıdır. Bu sonucu, Türk gençliğine kutsal bir armağan olarak bırakıyorum. Ey Türk gençliği! Birinci ödevin; Türk bağımsızlığını, Türk Cumhuriyetini, sonsuzluğa değin korumak ve savunmaktır. Gazi Mustafa Kemal (1927)

Dinlenmemek üzere yürümeye karar verenler asla ve asla yorulmazlar*

Bursalı gençler, 75 yıl önce Ankara Halkevi’nde hemşerileri Celal Bayar’ın katılımıyla Uludağ Gecesi düzenledi. Dönemin Tan Gazetesi’nin yazdığı gecede gençler, Ekonomi Bakanı Celal Bayar’dan Atatürk’e saygılarının sunulması için telgraf çekmesini istediler. Celal Bayar da Bursalılar namına Atatürk’e şu satırları gönderdi: “Vatanın yükselişini ve her bucağını tanımak ve tanıtmak zihniyetiyle Ankara Halkevi’nde toplanan biz gençler, Uludağ Gecesi’ni vesile yaparak, yarattığın devrimin çocukları olduğumuzu övünerek haykırıyoruz. Atatürk, yüz asırlık Türk varlığının sende bütünlenen büyük yaratıcılığına olan sevgi ve inancımızla yorulmadan arkandan koşacağız.” O sırada misafirleriyle yemek yiyen Atatürk, telgrafı okuduktan sonra çok etkilendi ve Halkevi’ne gençlerin yanına gitti. Kendisini sevinçle karşılayan gençlerle bir süre sohbet eden Atatürk’ün söylediği sözler tüm Türk halkı için önemli bir mesaj oldu: “Siz, genç arkadaşlar, yorulmadan beni takibe ahdetmişsiniz. İşte ben bilhassa bu sözlerden çok duygulandım. Yorulmadan beni takip edeceğinizi söylüyorsunuz. Fakat, arkadaşlar, yorulmadan ne demek? Yorulmamak olur mu? Elbette yorulacaksınız. Benim sizden istediğim şey, yorulmamak değil, yorulduğunuz zaman dahi durmadan yürümek, yorulduğunuz dakikada da dinlenmeden beni takip etmektir. Yorgunluk her insan için, her mahluk için tabii bir hallettir. Fakat insanda yorgunluğu yenebilecek manevi bir kuvvet vardır ki, işte bu kuvvet yorulanları dinlendirmeden yürütür. “Sizler, yeni Türkiye’nin genç evlatları, yorulsanız dahi beni takip edeceksiniz. Ben bu akşam buraya yalnız bunu size anltmak için gelmiş bulunuyorum. Dinlenmemek üzere yürümeye karar verenler asla ve asla yorulmazlar. Türk gençliği gayeye, bizim yüksek idealimize durmadan, yorulmadan yürüyecektir.” * M.K.Atatürk, 28 Mart 1937

Love Story: Paris, Texas

I knew these people. These two people. They were in love with each other. The girl was very young, about 17 or 18, I guess. And the guy was quite a bit older. He was kind of raggedy and wild. And she was very beautiful, you know...And together they turned everything into a kind of adventure. And she liked that. Just an ordinary trip down to the grocery store was full of adventure. They were always laughing at stupid things. He liked to make her laugh, and they didn't much care for anything else because all they wanted to do was be with each other. They were always together...Yes, they were, they were real happy. And he, he loved her more than he ever felt possible. He couldn't stand being away from her during the day when he went to work. So he'd quit, just to be home with her. Then he'd get another job when the money ran out, and then he'd quit again. But pretty soon, she started to worry...Money, I guess. Not having enough. Not knowing when the next check was coming in. So he started to get kind of torn inside...Well, he knew he had to work to support her, but he couldn't stand being away from her either...And the more he was away from her, the crazier he got, except now, he got really crazy. He started imagining all kinds of things. He started thinking that she was seeing other men on the sly. He'd come home from work and accuse her of spending the day with somebody else. He'd yell at her and break things in the trailer...Yes, they lived in a trailer home... Anyway, he started to drink real bad, and he'd stay out late to test her...to see if she'd get jealous. He wanted her to get jealous, but she didn't. She just worried about him but that got him even madder...because he thought if she never got jealous about him, that she didn't really care about him. Jealousy was a sign of her love for him. And then one night, one night, she told him that she was pregnant. She was about three or four months pregnant. And he didn't even know, and then suddenly everything changed. He stopped drinking and got a steady job. He was convinced that she loved him now, because she was carrying his child. And he was going to dedicate himself to making a home for her. But a funny thing started to happen...He didn't even notice it at first. She started to change. From the day the baby was born, she began to get irritated with everything around her. She got mad at everything. Even the baby seemed to be an injustice to her. He kept trying to make everything all right for her. Buy her things. Take her out to dinner once a week. But nothing seemed to satisfy her. For two years, he struggled to pull them back together like they were when they first met, but finally he knew that it was never gonna work out. So he hit the bottle again. But this time it got mean. This time, when he came home late at night, she wasn't worried about him, or jealous, she was just enraged. She accused him of holding her captive by making her have a baby. She told him that she dreamed about escaping. That was all she dreamed about: escape. She saw herself at night running naked down a highway, running across fields, running down riverbeds, always running. And always, just when she was about to get away, he'd be there. He would stop her somehow. He would just appear and stop her. And when she told him these dreams, he believed them. He knew she had to be stopped or she'd leave him forever. So he tied a cow bell to her ankle so he could hear her at night if she tried to get out of bed. But she learned how to muffle the bell by stuffing a sock into it, and inching her way out of the bed and into the night. He caught her one night when the sock fell out and he heard her trying to run to the highway. He caught her and dragged her back to the trailer, and tied her to the stove with his belt. He just left her there and went back to bed and lay there listening to her scream. Then he listened to his son scream, and he was surprised at himself because he didn't feel anything anymore. All he wanted to do was sleep. And for the first time, he wished he were far away. Lost in a deep, vast country where nobody knew him. Somewhere without language, or streets. And he dreamed about this place without knowing its name. And when he woke up, he was on fire. There were blue flames burning the sheets of his bed. He ran through the flames toward the only two people he loved, but they were gone. His arms were burning, and he threw himself outside and rolled on the wet ground. Then he ran. He never looked back at the fire. He just ran. He ran until the sun came up and he couldn't run any further. And when the sun went down, he ran again. For five days he ran like this until every sign of man had disappeared.

White Rose - the sixth leaflet

Fellow Fighters in the Resistance!

Shaken and broken, our people behold the loss of the men of Stalingrad. Three hundred and thirty thousand German men have been senselessly and irresponsibly driven to death and destruction by the inspired strategy of our World War I Private First Class. Fuhrer, we thank you!

The German people are in ferment. Will we continue to entrust the fate of our armies to a dilettante? Do we want to sacrifice the rest of German youth to the base ambitions of a Party clique? No, never! The day of reckoning has come - the reckoning of German youth with the most abominable tyrant our people have ever been forced to endure. In the name of German youth we demand restitution by Adolf Hitler's state of our personal freedom, the most precious treasure we have, out of which he has swindled us in the most miserable way.

We grew up in a state in which all free expression of opinion is unscrupulously suppressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA, the SS have tried to drug us, to revolutionize us, to regiment us in the most promising young years of our lives. "Philosophical training" is the name given to the despicable method by which our budding intellectual development is muffled in a fog of empty phrases. A system of selection of leaders at once unimaginably devilish and narrow-minded trains up its future party bigwigs in the "Castles of the Knightly Order" to become Godless, impudent, and conscienceless exploiters and executioners - blind, stupid hangers-on of the Fuhrer. We "Intellectual Workers" are the ones who should put obstacles in the path of this caste of overlords. Soldiers at the front are regimented like schoolboys by student leaders and trainees for the post of Gauleiter, and the lewd jokes of the Gauleiters insult the honor of the women students. German women students at the university in Munich have given a dignified reply to the besmirching of their honor, and German students have defended the women in the universities and have stood firm.... That is a beginning of the struggle for our free self-determination - without which intellectual and spiritual values cannot be created. We thank the brave comrades, both men and women, who have set us brilliant examples.

For us there is but one slogan: fight against the party! Get out of the party organization, which are used to keep our mouths sealed and hold us in political bondage! Get out of the lecture rooms of the SS corporals and sergeants and the party bootlickers! We want genuine learning and real freedom of opinion. No threat can terrorize us, not even the shutting down of the institutions of higher learning. This is the struggle of each and every one of us for our future, our freedom, and our honor under a regime conscious of its moral responsibility.

Freedom and honor! For ten long years Hitler and his coadjutor have manhandled, squeezed, twisted, and debased these two splendid German words to the point of nausea, as only dilettantes can, casting the highest values of a nation before swine. They have sufficiently demonstrated in the ten years of destruction of all material and intellectual freedom, of all moral substance among the German people, what they understand by freedom and honor. The frightful bloodbath has opened the eyes of even the stupidest German - it is a slaughter which they arranged in the name of "freedom and honor of the German nation" throughout Europe, and which they daily start anew. The name of Germany is dishonored for all time if German youth does not finally rise, take revenge, and atone, smash its tormentors, and set up a new Europe of the spirit. Students! The German people look to us. As in 1813 the people expected us to shake off the Napoleonic yoke, so in 1943 they look to us to break the National Socialist terror through the power of the spirit. Beresina and Stalingrad are burning in the East. The dead of Stalingrad implore us to take action. "Up, up, my people, let smoke and flame be our sign!"

Our people stand ready to rebel against the Nationals Socialist enslavement of Europe in a fervent new breakthrough of freedom and honor.

White Rose - the fifth leaflet

A Call to All Germans!

The war is approaching its destined end. As in the year 1918, the German government is trying to focus attention exclusively on the growing threat of submarine warfare, while in the East the armies are constantly in retreat and invasion in imminent in the West. Mobiliation in the United States has not yet reached its climax, but already it exceeds anything that the world has ever seen. It has become a mathematical certainty that Hitler is leading the German people into the abyss. Hitler cannot win the war; he can only prolong it. The guilt of Hitler and his minions goes beyond all measure. Retribution comes closer and closer.

But what are the German people doing? They will not see and will not listen. Blindly they follow their seducers into ruin. Victory at any price! is inscribed on their banner. "I will fight to the last man," says Hitler-but in the meantime the war has already been lost.

Germans! Do you and your children want to suffer the same fate that befell the Jews? Do you want to be judged by the same standards are your traducers? Are we to be forever a nation which is hated and rejected by all mankind? No. Dissociate yourselves from National Socialist gangsterism. Prove by your deeds that you think otherwise. A new war of liberation is about to begin. The better part of the nation will fight on our side. Cast off the cloak of indifference you have wrapped around you. Make the decision before it is too late. Do not believe the National Socialist propoganda which has driven the fear of Bolshevism into your bones. Do not believe that Germany's welfare is linked to the victory of national Socialism for good or ill. A criminal regime cannot achieve a German victory. Separate yourselves in time from everything connected with National Socialism. In the aftermath a terrible but just judgment will be meted out to those who stayed in hiding, who were cowardly and hesitant.

What can we learn from the outcome of this war-this war that never was a national war?

The imperialist ideology of force, from whatever side it comes, must be shattered for all time. A one sided Prussian militarism must never again be allowed to assume power. Only in large-scale cooperation among the nations of Europe can the ground be prepared for reconstruction. Centralized hegemony, such as the Prussian state has tried to excercise in Germany and in Europe, must be cut down at its inception. The Germany of the future must be a federal state. At this juncture only a sound federal system can inbue a weakened Europe with a new life. The workers must be liberated from their condition of down trodden slavery under National Socialism. The illusory structure of autonomous national industry must disappear. Every nation and each man have a right to the goods of the whole world!

Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of individual citizens from the abritrary will of criminal regimes of violence-these will be the bases of the New Europe.

Support the resistance. Distribute the leaflets!

White Rose - the fourth leaflet

There is an ancient maxim that we repeat to our children: "He who won't listen will have to feel." But a wise child will not burn his fingers the second time on a hot stove. In the past weeks Hitler has chalked up successes in Africa and in Russia. In consequence, optimism on the one hand and distress and pessimism on the other have grown within the German people with a rapidity quite inconsistent with traditional German apathy. On all sides, one hears among Hitler's opponents - the better segments of the population - exclamations of despair, words of disappointment and discouragement, often ending with the question: "Will Hitler now, after all...?"

Meanwhile, the German offensive against Egypt has ground to a halt. Rommel has to bide his time in a dangerously exposed position. But the push into the East proceeds. This apparent success has been purchased at the most horrible expense of human life, and so it can no longer be counted an advantage. Therefore we must warn against all optimism.

Neither Hitler nor Goebbels can have counted the dead. In Russia, thousands are lost daily. It is the time of the harvest, and the reaper cuts into the ripe grain with wide strokes. Mourning takes up her abode in the country cottages, and there is no one to dry the tears of the mothers. Yet Hitler feeds with lies those people whose most precious belongings he has stolen and whom he has driven to a meaningless death.

Every word that comes from Hitler's mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan. His mouth is the foul-smelling maw of Hell, and his might is at bottom accursed. True, we must consider the struggle against the National Socialist state with rational means; but whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war. Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all objective, logical considerations, we find the irrational element: the struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist. Everywhere and at all times demons have been lurking in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in the order of Creation as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and, after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate. Everywhere and at all times of greatest trial men have appeared, prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the One God and who with His help brought the people to a reversal of their downward course. Man is free, to be sure, but without the true God he is defenseless against the principle of evil. He is like a rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm, an infant without his mother, a cloud dissolving into thin air.

I ask you, you as a Christian wrestling for the preservation of your greatest treasure, whether you hesitate, whether you incline toward intrigue, calculation, or procrastination in the hope that someone else will raise his arm in your defense? Has God not given you the strength, the will to fight? We must attack evil where it is strongest, and it is strongest in the power of Hitler.

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors was power; but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive - ECCLESASTES 4

True anarchy is the generative element of religion. Out of the annihilation of every positive element she lifts her gloriously radiant countenance as the founder of a new world... If Europe were about to awaken again, if a state of states, a teaching of political science were at hand! Should hierarchy then... be the principle of the union of states?

Blood will stream over Europe until the nations become aware of the frightful madness which drives them in circles. And then, struck by celestial music and made gentle, they approach their former alters all together, hear about the works of peace, and hold a great celebration of peace with fervent tears before the smoking alters. Only religion can reawaken Europe, establish the rights of the peoples, and install Christianity in new splendor visibly on earth in its office as guarantor of peace. - NOVALIS

We wish expressly to point out that the White Rose is not in the pay of any foreign power. Though we know that National Socialist power must be broken by military means, we are trying to achieve a renewal from within of the severely wounded German spirit. This rebirth must be preceeded, however, by the clear recognition of all the guilt with which the German people have burdened themselves, and by an uncompromising battle against Hitler and his all too many minions, party members, Quislings, and the like. With total brutality the chasm that separates the better portion of the nation from everything that is identified with National Socialism must be opened wide. For Hitler and his followers there is no punishment on this earth commensurate with their crimes. But out of love for coming generations we must make an example after the conclusion of the war, so that no one will ever again have the slightest urge to try a similar action. And do not forget the petty scoundrels in this regime; note their names, so that none will go free! They should not find it possible, having had their part in these abominable crimes, at the last minute to rally to another flag and then act as if nothing has happened!

To set you at rest, we add that the addresses of the readers of the White Rose are not recorded in writing. They were picked at random from directories.

We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!

Letters from China #2

Canım sevgililer gününü kutluyorum; her ne kadar en yakınların, en sevdiğin insanlar kilometrelerce uzağında olsa da o insanların sevgisini yüreğinde en yakınında taşıdığını biliyorum..Onun için içim rahat, sana orada da yeni tanıştığın, içinin ısındığı ve hayatı paylaştığın arkadaşlarınla güsel bir sevgililer günü geçirmeni dilerim.Bugünün benim için önemi sevdiğim insanlarla paylaşımda bulunmak..Dün yolladığın çikolataları sevdiğim arkadaşım yaseminle paylaştım.Seve seve yedik Çok teşekkür ederim.ben de sana kucak dolusu sevgilerimi yolluyor ve öpüyorum.

Letters from China #1

Iyi bir is bulup nihayetinde hak ettigin yerlere gelmene olanak saglayacak adimlar atmaya baslaman cok sevindirici bir haber. Benim deneyimimde soyle oldu. Istediklerimi elde etmeye basladikca hirslarimin azalip bana ellerinde olmadan istediklerini veremeyen insanlara karsi onyargilarimin ve suclamalarimin azaldigini gordum. Bu aslinda benim dunyayla barismam gibi bir surec. Hala daha kendim basta olmak uzere dunyayla tam barismis degilim. Daha iyisine ulasmak icin cabalayacagimi vê tamam diyecegim yere gelene kadar elestirel kalacagimi biliyorum. Ama cevremdekilerin boyle olmamda bir suclari olmadigini anlamam vê idealist olmamayi secen insanlarin tercihlerine saygi duymam gerekiyor. Bu yuzden babamla, omrunun geri kalan bolumunde, onun bende biraktigi guzel anilar gibi onda guzel anilar birakarak yasamak istiyorum. Cunku pismanliklar yapmadigimiz seyler olunca daha fazla aci veriyor. Kaldi ki her insanin her gun yatarken kendine verdigi bir muhasebe var; onu hesaplari ve hataylariyla basbasa birakmak bile yeterince agir olur.