Here is an excerpt:

Odd it was, when I for the first time sensed your nearness, and it was beautiful, when I encountered you a little later.

It was one of those hot summer days in the Champagne, which makes the juices cook inside the yellow grapes. Once. Now there were no longer any grapes. The earth was churned and the sun burned on the white chalk and sucked the last moisture from its hot pours, which could have refreshed us.

And then, the enemy’s guns suddenly began to drum, so that it thundered like a thousand booming kettledrums.

And our young bodies were the drum-skins – and had to persevere.

There was one there, who was broken by fear. He lied and prayed and shouted to an alien god he should shield him, and in thanks he would devote his life to the service of this god.

Our eyes narrowed and our hearts became pitiless in contempt.

And then you went over them and extinguished him, the whining one. You gave us our honor again and we charged.

Your kind image, however, we carried as final certainty in our hearts and it made us invincible.

Those who do not fear death, to them it is friend!

Death…?

No, - transformer are you, comrade Hein!