In his last letter to his mother written before his death on the Western front in 1940 (J. W. Baird, 1990), 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 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.”
 

In this poem, the terms “Germany” and “offering a sacrifice” are equated. There is no separation between the idea of “the German nation,” on the one hand, and the idea of “offering a sacrifice,” on the other. Germany means offering a sacrifice. Indeed, Germany arises—comes into being only by virtue of the death of German human beings.
 

Sacrificial death—the flowing of blood—creates the nation. Blood sacrifice gives rise to belief. As long as people are “dying for a country,” the country continues to exist. We are unable to “imagine there’s no country.” It is impossible to conceive that the endless flow of blood—the history of civilization—could have occurred in the name of no thing.