Thoughts on war: Finnish soldier Eino Hosia on humanity’s apparent desire for war (Published on 28/10/2025)
(Source: Bähr, Die Stimme des Menschen – Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der ganzen Welt 1939 – 1945 [“Man’s Voice – Letters and Notes from Around the World, 1939 – 1945”] (1961), p. 123 [translation from German language]):
“In war
Humanity learns nothing from anything; everything repeats itself, everything revolves in the same circle. Across thousands upon thousands of crosses, new troops, new men, storm forward while the grenades explode. Once again, the people throw themselves into the flames – some succeed in breaking through, others remain lying there, burning until there is nothing left, or merging with others. Again and again, humanity rises, as if to the cross that looms dark and bloody over the world, descends from there into the depths of the realm of the dead, and then rises again to a new life, not transfigured, but suffering, in the end as weary as a dog licking its wounds.”
Eino Hosia, born 1904 in Vilnius, fallen on 05/07/1942.
(Head picture: Grave stones on the US military cemetery Henri Chapelle/Belgium,
October 2018)
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