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Sacrifice for the German people was not to be feared. “Death holds no sting for us,” Himmler affirmed, because individuals die, while the Volk lives on.” Because the men of the Germanic SS were more concerned about the future of the Volk than about their individual destinies, members would “willingly and bravely seek death, wherever that is necessary.”
"Life was embraced in death, death in life. The warrior’s affirmation of heroic death carried with it the obligation to procreate new life, to ensure that the eternal chain would go unbroken.
In his last letter to his mother, written before his death on the western front in 1940, Hitler Youth officer Ernst Nielsen tried to prepare her for the loss of her son. When the news arrived, he warned, she was not to grieve; rather, she was to affirm the nobility of the cause:
If I die, mother, you must bear it,
and your pride will conquer your pain,
because you have the privilege of offering a sacrifice
that is what we mean, when we say Germany.
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