Recently, our class was lucky enough to have an amazing guest speaker, Helmut Lemke. Helmut fought for the Germans towards the end of WWII and shared his stories with us. Helmut really provided a different perspective of WWII for me, as he fought for the Germans. I had heard stories from the allied side of the war, but never from someone who fought for the Germans.
During Helmut’s presentation, many interesting concepts arose, concepts that applied not only to Helmut’s story, but to the war, and to life in general. A few main concepts reoccurred throughout the presentation. In order to gain a better grasp of these topics, I discussed them with three of my classmates, Tom, Jackson, and Teva:
One concept that I found particularly intriguing was the concept of enemies. Helmut had a fait bit to say about enemies, and I found his opinion fascinating. When asked what he thought of the enemy soldiers, Helmut responded that they were not enemies, rather they were normal people, people like him.
He said that when he looked across the battlefield, he didn’t see enemies, he saw teachers, lawyers, and doctors. Helmut’s opinion made me rethink my idea of war. If the opposing soldiers are not your enemy, then who is? Refining my inquiry, I shaped an inquiry question: In a time of war, who is a soldier’s greatest enemy?
I figured a good start would be to get an “official” definition of enemy. An enemy is “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone, or something”. However, this definition did not seem accurate to me, because it did not align with what Helmut had said about the opposing soldiers. I kept searching and found what I felt to be a more accurate definition. An enemy is “a thing that harms or weakens someone else”.
Now that I had a better idea of what I was looking for, I started thinking about what harms most soldiers. Aside from the obvious answer that they are harmed by other soldiers, I thought a bit deeper. A soldier couldn’t be harmed if he wasn’t sent to war in the first place. And this wouldn’t matter if there wasn’t a war to begin with. It seemed to me that most soldiers would hate the people who sent them to war more than the people they are fighting against.
Next I thought about what starts most wars, and who sends soldiers off to fight. Surprisingly, most wars are usually started by a few people. Usually a leader of a country is involved. So maybe that’s a soldier’s greatest enemy. But this didn’t seem right since soldiers might love their leader. I wasn’t there yet but I was definitely on the right path.
So what would make a soldier hate someone is government? Maybe it was a person who does not feel empathy towards the soldiers, who just views them as objects.
After a bit more research, I felt like I had arrived at a logical answer: In war, a soldier’s greatest enemy is a person who thinks of them as a dispensable object.
Well, there you have it, my opinion on the concept of enemies. I definitely wouldn’t have thought about enemies like this without Helmut’s opinion, so our class was lucky to have Helmut come speak to us, as he provided great insight into World War II.