Diaries. Volume 09

The second half of 1921 in the Bavarian fortress prison in Niederschönenfeld, which fills this volume, puts Mühsam's belief in the future to the harshest test. Daily, the guards escalate their borderline torture and psychological terror against the completely disenfranchised inmates. Almost all attempts to send cries for help outside are thwarted. Mühsam confronts the fundamental questions of political struggle every day, not just in thought, but with his very being: Is it about the future or merely about resistance? Is it about preserving dignity or just about bare survival? Must he insist on his truth, or must he submit to the decisions of a distant Communist Party central? Especially when this central does everything to silence him? Mühsam knows only one answer, and it drives him into the deepest isolation.