“The trenches wound in meandering lines and white faces peered from dark dugouts – a lot of men were still preparing the positions, and everywhere among them there were graves. Where they sat, beside their dugouts, even between the sandbags, crosses stuck out. Corpses jammed in among them. It sounds like fiction – one man was frying potatoes on a grave next to his dugout. The existence of life here had already become a paradoxical joke.”

— Max Beckmann

a letter to his first wife Minna, from the front, 21 May, 1915; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 213
1900s - 1920s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The trenches wound in meandering lines and white faces peered from dark dugouts – a lot of men were still preparing the…" by Max Beckmann?

Max Beckmann52

German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer 1884–1950

Related quotes

“First base is not for me. I think a man shortens his career there instead of prolonging it. I keep my legs in good shape by running back and forth from the outfield to the dugout.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Sidelight on Sports: Conversation Pieces" by Al Abrams, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Friday, September 29, 1972), p. 18
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

“Herman didn't interfere with me. He gave me that authority. I managed the field. Whatever went on on the field, I did it. I did every... thing. Nowadays, the manager tells everybody what to do, the manager does everything. That's why you see this [pantomiming a catcher repeatedly glancing over at the dugout]. When we played, we just looked on the field. Usually it was an infielder. The Dodgers were run by Pee Wee. Alston just sat in the dugout. Usually it was an infielder, but Herman gave me the authority.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

As quoted in "Say Hey, He's the One Who Called the Shots"

“Out of the total number of the persons designated for the execution, fifteen men were led in each case to the brink of the mass grave where they had to kneel down, their faces turned towards the grave. When the men were ready for the execution one of my leaders who was in charge of this execution squad gave the order to shoot. Since they were kneeling on the brink of the mass grave, the victims fell, as a rule, at once into the mass grave.”

Paul Blobel (1894–1951) German SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator

Quoted in "The Eichmann Kommandos" - Page 157 - by Michael Angelo Musmanno - 1961.

“An old woman wept among the white faces. Two men carrying a body. An old dog crawling on his belly, dragging his hind legs. Several bodies in the corner of the lot, beside a shed, blood-soaked sheets covering them. An ambulance.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

“M.... used to warn me that I had one grave disability: I couldn't suffer fools—and their predominance—gladly. He was right and I realized that in society a fool had one great advantage: he was among his peers.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections
Original: (fr) M... me disait que j'avais un grand malheur: c'était de ne pas me faire à la toute-puissance des sots. Il avait raison, et j'ai vu qu'en entrant dans le monde, un sot avait de grands avantages, celui de se trouver parmi ses pairs. C'est comme frère Lourdis dans le temple de la Sottise.
Original: (fr) Maximes et Pensées, #197

“After each firing order, when the shots were addressed, somebody looked at the victims, because the victims were then put into the grave when they did not fall into the grave themselves, and these tasks were in the field of tasks of the men of the individual Kommandos. The edge of the grave had to be cleaned, for instance. Two men who had spades dealt with this. They had to clean it up and then the next group was led there.”

Paul Blobel (1894–1951) German SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator

Quoted in "The Eichmann Kommandos" - Page 158 - by Michael Angelo Musmanno - 1961.