Current mood:

cynical about art

[BRIEF NOTE] Les chinois à Brest
On pages 45 and 46 of his 1992 book The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age, John Lukacs wrote the following:

In 1943, Louis-Ferdinand Céline wrote that the German army at the Volga was the last bulwark of Europe; after that the deluge, les Chinois à Brest. He meant not Brest-Litovsk on the Polish-Russian frontier but Brest at the westernmost tip of Brittany, of Europe. He lamented that the Germans lost the battle at Stalingrad and that their retreat westward then began.

I asked if this was at all possible on soc.history.what-if. Not surprisingly, the consensus seemed to be that Céline was cracked, or perhaps on crack. This proves, among other things, that one really should not let extraordinarily creative people become politicians. Bad, stupid things will happen.