The psychological situation of younger officers is graphically expressed in a letter that Richard Schering, one of the two condemned Ulm Reichswehr officers, addressed from his cell to the Völkischer Beobachter:
'Nothing is known of the tragedy of those five words "twelve years in the second Rank" ... The old should keep quiet. Their lives are behind them, ours are just beginning now ... Because, of this we have the right to fight with every means for our own and our children's freedom' (Völkischer Beobachter, 6th September 1930).
See also the letter written by Lieutenant-Colonel Stieff to his wife on 7th October 1930, published by Thilo Vogelsang, Reichswehr, Staat und NSDAP (Stuttgart, 1962), Document 8; also Dorothea Groener-Geyer, General Groener, Soldat und Staatsmann (Frankfurt am Main, 1955).