Doctor Karl Brandts last letter to his son Karl Adolf Brandt for his 13th birthday.
I can not miss to congratulate you on your birthday. I come to you with all my heart and my wishes are more, much more than what you might otherwise understand. Deep from my soul they are coming to you. I knew only kindness and love during my lifetime, for you.
My whole existence found a new sense, when your mother gave birth to you! Oh, how little you were. We held you in our arms and our happiness did not have an end.
You grew up, began to run, only hesitantly. Both of us, Anne and I, took care of you when you were sick for the first time. We breathed again when you smiled again. We wanted to make your childhood full of joy and we only gave you love again and again.
The Berghof, Summer and Winter, everything should help to keep you healthy and strong.
From the very beginning, you made it easy for us to guide you. It was almost unnecessary to pay attention to you. Your whole manner, dear Karl Adolf, urged your whole being, to search for the things that we thought, are the best for you. You should become a good boy who only plays and plays and tries to find with his own senses, the right path.
Then war came and brought difficulty and compulsion. So many things changed, than we, your caring parents, had thought and wished for us. But we still were striving to keep your youth free of terrible things.
Your mother always wanted the best for you and she did everything, everything for you.
What has she sacrificed for you – oh dear Karl Adolf, I know it. And once you are older, you will understand what I mean.
If I think back, I do no think about the work, which was very demanding. I think of us three - yes, and Asso (Asso was the family dog), our faithful black friend…
Then I see you play, in your small room. I see you playing in front of the big window, in the forest. I go to school with you. Peserve yourself, Karl Adolf, as something very beautiful.
You two will often talk about these things and the memories will remain.
I have no serious words. You have felt the seriousness of life yourself. And in your childhood, life has already hit you hard. I know how painful it all is to you, and you know how bitterly sorry I am.
You know, Karl Adolf, there are the words of the priests that stand above all, who apply to every human. Think of loyalty, courage, kindness, love – like I do.
Later, there maybe are people who think that what I have done, was right. Do not worry, dear Karl Adolf, when I’m dead. The earth loses nothing. And when you were very small, you said to me, “All humans must die, so dying can not be so bad.”
The only thing that is bad is, that sometimes you think to have lost each other, because you do not see each other anymore. My son, it is not. I will be around you as a good spirit, and if you keep your heart true and open, you will know that I am there for you. I am writing this letter not to make you sad, I am writing it because I want the best for you. And my wishes are from my heart, for you and your mother, my Annele.
Be happy that you two have each other. And you two should be like one heart and one soul! Help your mother and be her comrade always! No matter how hard life can be.
The future will not be easy. The time is hard, and people are caught up in their own narrow delusions. Wars and cravings for revenge will exist, who will not have any benefits and only miseries. Stay away from these things, Karl Adolf. They pull a human down and make him take away his own freedom.
Remain your own master!
I notice that I talk about topics, which you do not understand now. But understand that I can only still exist in them. Since today everything is certain. I know my fate.
But you live!
My dear, good Karl Adolf! Be aware of the names you are carrying. But I should apologize again! How could I make this allusion. I know that you are my son. And you know it too!
Let me repeat my request again: Take the hands of your mother, hold them and be good to her, be good to the elderly people and be a real man!
Health and happiness!
And when you have found once a good wife – then don’t let her go. And tell your kids that your father always wanted the best for you. Then I will be around you all! But now grow.
Be confident, true and honest with yourself.
The world is yours, if you take it.
