March 18, 2013
Dear Kantorek,
It would be greatly appreciated if you would stop pressuring your students into enlisting. You, as a schoolmaster, have the power to deeply influence them. However, your pressure is mentally annihilating these poor, innocent admirers. I understand them because as a former student of yours, I have already experienced what they are currently going through. You persuaded me into enlisting in the war, and that led me down a path of despair. You are putting them through the same misery, and most of them don't even realize it yet. Encouraging them to enlist is harmful for them because you create an illusion of war in their minds, you force them to put up with the consequences of war, and despite the fame and praise that comes with fighting for their country, they are being annihilated by the war itself.
These poor believers are being brainwashed by you creating a fantasy of war that they are supposed to believe; this changes their entire perspective of war.
Facsimile of handwritten version of McCrae's "In F...
"In Flanders Fields" memorial on the war site John...
English: John McCrae Memorial "book" close-up. McC...First of all, enlistees are often taught that they are symbolic of their nations. For example, in Rupert Brooke's poem, "The Soldier", he identifies himself as a warrior of England; "If I should die, think only this of me: that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England." Also, according to Catherine Gomez, such beliefs were examples of what people were raised to unquestionably trust, and those beliefs were often the most difficult to change. The "generation of 1914" established these beliefs into the young minds of the enlisted soldiers. In addition, in All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul expresses his anger after he realized that you failed him:
"We often made fun of them [authoritative figures such as yourself] and played jokes on them,