From: Baird, J. W. (1992). To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Heinrich Himmler asserted that sacrifice for the German people was not to be feared. “Death holds no sting for us, Himmler said, 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. 

In his last letter to his mother, written before his death on the western front in 1940, Hitler Youth officer Ernst Nielsen prepared 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."