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The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht

Page 55

by Tom Kuhn


  That drives them to burn whole libraries. So

  Fear holds sway not only

  Over those who are ruled, but also

  Over those who rule.

  4

  Why

  Are they so terrified of a free word?

  5

  In view of the great might of the regime

  Its camps and torture cellars

  Its well-fed policemen

  Intimidated or suborned judges

  Its card indexes with their lists of suspects

  Which fill whole buildings to the roof

  One would have thought that it would have nothing to fear

  From the free word of a simple man.

  6

  But their Third Reich recalls

  The work of the Assyrian Tar, that immense citadel

  Which, so the legend tells us, no army could storm, but which

  By a single loud word spoken within

  Crumbled to dust.

  Guns before butter

  1

  The famous saying of General Göring

  That guns should come before butter

  Is correct insofar as the government

  Needs all the more guns, the less butter it has

  For the less butter it has

  The more enemies it has.

  2

  Otherwise, it has to be said

  Guns on an empty stomach

  Are not everyone’s cup of tea.

  Sucking down gas

  Is not known to quench your thirst

  And without woollen underwear

  A soldier will perchance only be brave in summer.

  3

  When the artillery runs out of ammunition

  The officers at the front may well find

  Holes in the backs of their heads

  The young and the Third Reich

  1

  The regime makes claims that the young

  Are already won over to the Third Reich

  Which is to say that in ten or twenty years

  The whole nation will consist

  Only of supporters of the regime.

  What a childish miscalculation!

  2

  Those who don’t yet have to earn their bread

  But have it set before them on the table, say:

  It is easy to come by bread. Does that mean, when

  In ten years’ time, they earn their bread

  And set it down for their own children, they will

  Still persist and say: it’s easy?

  3

  Those whose blood has not yet been sucked, they

  Praise the regime; and are we to suppose that means

  When one day their blood has been sucked, they

  Will still praise the regime?

  4

  Those who have never heard a bullet whistle say:

  It’s fun to shoot. Are we to suppose that means

  When one day they do hear bullets, they

  Will still say: War

  Is fun.

  5

  Oh, if children stayed forever children, then

  One could go on telling fairy stories

  As however they grow up, that

  No longer works

  6

  When the regime speaks, rubbing its hands, of the young

  It resembles a man who

  Looking out on the snow-swept slopes, rubs his hands and says

  It’ll be so nice and cool in the summer with

  So much snow!

  War, they say, is well prepared

  From the best of sources

  We hear it said: that the war

  Is well prepared.

  Immense stockpiles of food

  They say, lie cool in the cellars of a villa

  In Berchtesgaden.

  In the palaces of the Prussian Minister President

  They say, there are so many rags that the Third Reich

  Could wage war for at least ten years. In Spandau

  They say, there’s a forester who, in the event of a big war

  Will put at the disposal of the Reich government

  Ten cigarette cases made of real tin.

  Most importantly however: the Strength through Joy organization

  They say, has received three million applications from workers

  Who would like to take a ride in their pretty tanks, the sooner the better if you please

  To the Somme, the forests of the Argonne and the lakes of Masuria.

  All this

  Is absolutely authenticated. Just between us: the reports

  Come straight from the Ministry for Propaganda.

  Love of the Führer

  The love of the people for the Führer is immense.

  Everywhere he goes

  He is surrounded by people in black uniform

  Who love him so much

  They won’t take their eyes off him.

  When he sits down in a cafe

  Straight away five hulks sit down with him, so he

  Has someone to talk to.

  In particular the SS love him so passionately

  They begrudge him anyone else’s company and just

  Can’t stop pestering him, that’s

  How jealous they are. And once

  When he was on a weekend trip with some generals on a cruiser

  And spent a whole night alone with them

  There was such a racket with the SA that he had to

  Have hundreds of them shot.

  What the Führer does not know

  In the view of many lesser people

  The Führer does not know

  That his Minister for Education is always drunk and

  His Leader of the Workers’ Front never sober

  That his Propaganda Minister lies every time he opens his mouth

  That his Defence Minister is getting ready for war

  That his Minister for Police has evidence against his Aviation Minister

  That he has accepted bribes from his captains of industry, so

  That they can deliver substandard equipment to the state.

  In the view of many lesser people

  The Führer also does not know

  That in his prisons and camps people are tortured and killed

  That children in his organizations report their parents to the police

  That Winter Aid money gets “lost” and some people still live off it in the summer

  That the sons of German mothers are being hawked off to Spain

  That the industrialists are trebling their returns.

  If the Führer knew all these things

  That, in the view of many lesser people, he does not know

  Would he then

  Fetch a couple of honest people

  (Preferably out of one of his concentration camps)

  And ask them to hang a notice around his neck, saying:

  I WAS A FÜHRER INTO PERDITION

  And so, with the notice round his neck, trot round the whole ravaged country

  So that everyone was in the picture?

  Would he do that? What do you think?

  Words that the Führer cannot bear to hear

  In the ministries it is well known that the Führer flinches

  At any word that begins with the syllable PRO

  Words such as “proletarian”, “prose”, “provocation” or “pro and contra”.

  “Prostitution” too and “profit” seem to fill him with unease.

  Whenever such words are mentioned in his presence

  He looks up shyly, with a hounded, guilty expression

  Which the speaker may find hard to explain.

  Another syllable that causes him trouble

  Is the syllable GRAM, such as in the word “gram” itself

  Which is a small unit of mass, and in words like “grammar”. Since the Führer

  Has such an aversion to the mention of these two syllables

  It stands to reason th
at a particular word which contains both

  May never, under any circumstances, be spoken in his presence

  Which is why at Party functions and at the theatre

  The word PROGRAMME has been replaced by the term “order of events”.

  The cares of the Chancellor

  1

  When the Propaganda Minister speaks of the adversity afflicting the people

  He pauses, shaken, and then comes a cry from the heart:

  Our Führer

  His hair is going grey!

  2

  When the Chancellor roars on the radio

  The people say, how he exerts himself!

  They have exerted themselves all day long and

  Could no longer roar like that.

  3

  Everywhere they’re saying: the coming war

  Keeps the Chancellor from his sleep.

  How would it be

  If the Chancellor allowed himself some sleep

  And no war came?

  4

  Neighbouring countries

  Speak only with contempt of our country

  The misgovernment and violence

  Are loudly condemned.

  It is said that the Chancellor, when he reads the foreign newspapers

  Often weeps.

  Then the Propaganda Minister urges the people

  To dry his tears.

  5

  When the Chancellor butchered his friends

  Because his financial backers demanded it

  He is said to have been very serious.

  When the people have nothing to eat

  It is said, his stomach rumbles.

  6

  For sure, when he has plunged our land into war

  He will cry like a baby.

  When your sons and husbands die

  He will sigh. When you are eating grass

  He will look serious.

  Then you will recognize

  What a good Chancellor you have.

  Comfort from the Chancellor

  After heavy blows of fate

  The Chancellor is wont, by way of a grand speech

  To raise his followers up again.

  The reaper too, it is said

  Likes the corn to stand tall.

  The Jew, a misfortune for the Volk

  As the regime’s loudspeakers proclaim

  The Jews are to blame for all our country’s misfortunes.

  The ever-increasing abuses

  Can, since our leaders are so wise

  As they often assure us

  Only come from the ever-decreasing population of Jews.

  The Jews alone are to blame that our people suffer hunger

  Despite the fact that the landowners work themselves to death in the fields

  And despite the fact that the captains of industry eat only the crumbs that fall from the workers’ tables.

  And it is bound to be the Jew to blame

  When there’s no wheat for bread, because

  The army has requisitioned so much land

  For its exercises and barracks that it

  Amounts to an area the size of an entire province. And since

  The Jew is such a misfortune for the people

  It cannot be so hard for the people

  To recognize a Jew. You don’t need

  A birth certificate or any outward signs

  —For such things can be misleading—you need only ask:

  Is this or that person a misfortune for us? Then

  He must be a Jew. You don’t recognize a misfortune

  By its nose, but by the fact that

  You suffer harm on its account. It’s not the noses

  That are the misfortune, but the deeds. No one needs

  A particular sort of nose in order

  To rob the people, he only needs

  To belong to the regime! Everyone knows

  The regime is a misfortune for the people, so if

  All misfortune stems from the Jews, then

  The regime must stem from the Jews. It stands to reason!

  The government as artist

  1

  Much money is lavished on the construction

  Of palaces and stadia. In this

  The government resembles a young artist who

  Is not afraid of hunger when it comes

  To establishing his fame. Mind you

  The hunger that the government does not fear

  Is the hunger of others, namely

  Of the people.

  2

  Like the artist

  The government has at its service all sorts of supernatural powers

  No one has to tell them anything

  They know it all already. What they do

  They haven’t learnt. In fact

  They have never studied anything. Their education

  Is lacking, and yet, magically

  They have their say in everything, prescribe everything

  Even things they don’t understand.

  3

  An artist, as we know, can be oafish and yet

  Still a great artist. In that too

  The government resembles an artist. As they say of Rembrandt

  That he would have painted no differently had he been born with no hands, so

  One can say of the government that it would

  Born with no head, govern no differently.

  4

  What is astonishing in an artist

  Is the gift for invention. If you listen to the government

  And hear their account of things, you would say

  What invention! For the economy

  The artist has only disdain, and in the same way

  It’s well known, the government disdains the economy. Of course

  They have some rich patrons. And like every artist

  They live by

  Cadging money.

  The duration of the Third Reich

  1

  The Führer assures us that the Third Reich

  Will endure for thirty thousand years. Of that there is

  It’s said, no doubt in higher circles. There’s only doubt

  It’s said, in higher circles, about whether the Third Reich

  Will endure beyond next winter.

  2

  The Führer assures us that the coming war

  Will be victorious. Of that there is

  It’s said, no doubt in higher circles. The war will be won

  By whoever has the most raw materials, the most food

  And the most untiring soldiers.

  So if all the soldiers climb into their tanks and

  Just stay in them long enough

  And all their wives and children eat turnips and

  Grandpa Fritz scrapes out his dustbin vigorously for tin

  Then the war, that is coming, must be victorious.

  3

  We will be victorious in the next World War

  If we collect enough rubbish. Of that there is

  It’s said, no doubt in higher circles. There’s only doubt

  Whether for example the electric wires

  That have to be made from aluminum instead of copper

  Will hold for long enough. The Führer assures us they will hold

  For thirty thousand years.

  A prohibition on theatre criticism

  When the Propaganda Minister

  Wanted to prohibit all criticism of the government by the people, he prohibited

  Theatre criticism. The regime

  Loves the theatre very much. Its achievements

  Lie mainly in the theatrical realm.

  It owes no less to the virtuoso deployment

  Of the spotlight than to

  The virtuoso deployment of the rubber truncheon.

  Its gala performances

  Are broadcast to the whole Reich over the radio.

  In three spectacular films

  Of which the most recent is eight thousand metres longr />
  The leading actor played the Führer.

  In order to nurture the people’s feeling for the theatre

  Visits to such productions are compulsory.

  Every year on the first of May

  When the leading actor of the Reich

  Assumes the role of a onetime worker

  The spectators even get paid for spectating: two marks

  Per person. No expense is spared for the festivals

  Which are staged near Bayreuth and called “Party Rallies”.

  The Chancellor himself

  Takes to the stage, an unsullied fool, and sings

  Twice a day his famous aria

  “Naught shall to question move thee”.

  It is clear that such costly productions

  Have to be shielded from all and any criticism.

  Where would we be

  If just anyone could criticize

  The fact that Reich Youth Leader Baldur is too made-up

  Or that the Propaganda Minister strikes all the wrong tone, so that

  One cannot believe anything about him, not even

  His club foot? In short all this theatre requires

  A strict prohibition of outspoken criticism, indeed it is

  Not even permitted to say what is on the programme

  Who has financed the production or

  Who has the leading role.

  VI

  You, sitting there in the bow of the boat

  Watching the hole at the opposite end

  Better not turn away my friend

  Death won’t let you out of his sight.

  On the label emigrant

  I always thought the name they gave us wrong: emigrants.

  That means people who leave. But we

  Did not emigrate, leaving one country of our own free will and

  Choosing another. Nor did we immigrate

  Into some other country in order to stay, possibly forever.

  No, we fled. We are the persecuted, the banished.

 

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