Military Service
Like his mentor Heimpel, the young Schlesinger was initially supportive of the National Socialist movement (actually he had become a member of the NSDAP as soon as 1929). Over the course of his tour of duty, however, he came to realize the folly of Germany's war and when a letter he wrote containing criticisms of Hitler's regime was intercepted by censors, he was punished by being assigned to a high-risk battalion fighting anti-Nazi insurgents in the Balkans. Schlesinger was critically wounded in action and subsequently discharged.
Read more about this topic: Walter Schlesinger
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or service:
“Who are we? And for what are we going to fight? Are we the titled slaves of George the Third? The military conscripts of Napoleon the Great? Or the frozen peasants of the Russian Czar? No—we are the free born sons of America; the citizens of the only republic now existing in the world; and the only people on earth who possess rights, liberties, and property which they dare call their own.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)