by Tom Kuhn
Carefully I test . . .
[Sorgfältig prüf ich]
BFA 14, 146; c. 1931; P1965; D.C.
And there came our comrade Liebknecht . . .
[Und es kam der Genosse Liebknecht]
BFA 14, 146; c. 1931; P1982; D.C.
Karl Liebknecht was a German socialist and cofounder, with Rosa Luxemburg, of the Spartacist League, out of which the German Communist Party emerged. He was murdered with Luxemburg in the context of the suppression of the Spartacist uprising in 1919.
And I saw how they lied . . .
[Und ich sah, wie sie logen]
BFA 14, 146; c. 1931; P1982; D.C.
Tirelessly the Thinker praises . . .
[Unermüdlich lobt der Denkende]
BFA 14, 147; c. 1931; P1982; D.C.
The poem is unfinished.
What are these people like?
[Was ist mit diesen?]
BFA 14, 147; c. 1931; P1982; D.C.
The poem is unfinished.
What are tanks?
[Was sind Tanks?]
BFA 14, 148; c. 1931; P1982; D.C.
On the poor man’s early labour . . .
[Ach, des Armen Morgenstund]
BFA 14, 149; 1932; P1967; D.C.
Brecht wrote this poem and the two following for Paul Schurek’s play Kamrad Kasper, first performed on April 1, 1932. Eisler set all three to music.
Song of the soldier’s widow
[Lied der Kriegerwitwe]
BFA 14, 149; 1932; P1967; D.C.
Ballad for the finale
[Schlussballade]
BFA 14, 149; 1932; P1993; D.C.
Crossing the frontier of the Soviet Union . . .
[Fahrend über die Grenze der Union]
BFA 14, 150; 1932; P1961; D.C.
Brecht wrote the poem in May 1932 on his way to Moscow to attend the premiere of Kuhle Wampe.
As the Fascists grew ever stronger in Germany . . .
[Als der Faschismus immer stärker wurde in Deutschland]
BFA 14, 150; 1932; P1961; D.C.
The poem is a document of Germany’s increasingly violent politics in the run-up to the elections on July 31, 1932, and of the German Communist Party’s attempts to form an alliance with the Social Democrats (SPD) against Hitler and his National Socialists. The Reichsbanner was an organization founded by conservative Social Democrats in 1924 to defend the Weimar Republic against the radical left and right (mostly the former, in practice). In that same year the Communist Party set up their own defense force, the Rot Front. The SPD pursued a policy of “the lesser of two evils,” which meant keeping Chancellor Brüning in power in order to keep Hitler out. The “Action against Fascism” was the response—intended to be politically inclusive—to Nazi violence against Communist representatives in the Prussian parliament on May 25, 1932. The badge was two red flags (or one red, one black) on a white background within a black circle inscribed: Antifaschistische Aktion.
The Führer tells us . . .
[Der Führer hat gesagt]
BFA 14, 151; 1932; P1933; D.C.
Eisler set the song—with ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ in mind—for a first performance by Ernst Busch with the title ‘Der Marsch ins Dritte Reich’ (‘Marching into the Third Reich’) on December 11, 1932. In that same month it was issued as a record together with the words and music; then seized by the Munich police on March 29, 1933. The matters presented in the song’s six verses were sardonically discussed by the liberal and left-wing press in Germany until the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933.
The Internationale
[Die Internationale]
BFA 14, 153; 1932; P1961; D.C.
Brecht’s source for this poem was pages 109–12 of Egon Erwin Kisch’s Asien gründlich verändert (Berlin, 1932; Changing Asia, New York, 1935). He keeps quite close not just to the substance but also, in places, to the wording of Kisch’s account. He first intended the poem for the collection Geschichten aus der Revolution, to be published in Versuche 15–16 (1933), but removed it at proof stage.
Don’t waste a thought on . . .
[Keinen Gedanken verschwendet]
BFA 14, 154; 1932; P1961; D.C.
Sergei Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin, treating the mutiny of the sailors which initiated the 1905 revolution in Russia, was first shown in 1925. The American naval officer Richard Byrd made the first flight over the South Pole in November 1929.
Of all works
[Von allen Werken]
BFA 14, 156; 1932; P1956; D.C.
Zehr and Patschek. A moral tale
[Zehr und Patschek. Eine Moritat]
BFA 14, 157; 1932; P1965; D.C.
Song of the shoe
[Das Lied vom Schuh]
BFA 14, 159; c. 1932; P1967; D.C.
The first version of the poem, on which very likely Margarete Steffin collaborated, was called ‘Bergmannslied’ (‘Miner’s song’) and consisted of the refrain and four stanzas, the first three being those translated above, and the last reading:
When after all the hunger
I go down the last pit
I’ll know that life is ending
And I’ve had none of it.
After the Nazi seizure of power Brecht deleted this stanza and concluded the poem as it is now. Lines 29–32 served as the motto for the section 1933 in the volume Lieder Gedichte Chöre and appears besides, in slightly altered form, as stanza 3 of ‘The cattle march’ (in Part III) and as stanza 2 of ‘The German march-past,’ the poem that accompanies the scenes of Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.
A brow of brass
[Die eiserne Stirn]
BFA 14, 160; c. 1932; P1993; D.C.
There is no greater crime than leaving . . .
[Es gibt kein grösseres Verbrechen als weggehen]
BFA 14, 161; c. 1932; P1964; D.C.
In one typescript the poem is set out as a prose poem, in another with line breaks. This translation uses the latter version, but without keeping exactly to those line breaks.
Hands off the Soviet Union!
[Hände weg von der Sowjetunion!]
BFA 14, 162; c. 1932; P1993; D.C.
The quatrain takes up a slogan used by German workers against the anti-Soviet policies of the Weimar government.
I have heard you won’t learn . . .
[Ich habe gehört, ihr wollt nichts lernen]
BFA 14, 162; c. 1932; P1965; D.C.
Song of the class enemy
[Das Lied vom Klassenfeind]
BFA 14, 163; 1932/33; P1934; D.C.
The poem is thought to be chiefly the work of Margarete Steffin.
Do not trust your hearing . . .
[Traue nicht deinen Augen]
BFA 14, 163; 1932/33; P1967; D.C.
The top beasts
[Über die Auswahl der Bestien]
BFA 14, 163; 1932/33; P1967; D.C.
The poem belongs with the other prose Stories of Mr Keuner (Geschichten vom Herrn Keuner) that Brecht was preparing for publication in his Versuche in 1932. For the Thinker see ‘When the Thinker had asked the question . . .’ (above).
Part III
Poems of Exile: Svendborg Poems and Other Poems, 1933–1938
UNCOLLECTED POEMS 1933–1934
I searched long for the truth . . .
[Ich habe lange die Wahrheit gesucht]
BFA 14, 192; c. 1933; P1967; T.K.
When Brecht left Germany on February 28, 1933, he left behind the house he had only recently bought in Utting on the Ammersee and his beloved Steyr car.
The ballad of the Reichstag Fire
[Die Ballade vom Reichstagsbrand]
BFA 14, 173; 1933; P1933; T.K.
Brecht wrote this ballad for a German-language cabaret in Paris, to be sung to the melody of the Mackie Messer song from The Threepenny Opera.
The Reichstag Fire, on February 27, 1933, served the Nazis as a pretext to launch a vicious attack on Communists and anti-fascists of all colors. The tr
ial of a young Dutch ex-Communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, who was convicted of the arson, took place from September to December 1933. The process sparked many protests, and the real course of events is still debated. The chair of the German Nationalists in the Reichstag, Ernst Oberfohren, was murdered by the SA for compiling an exposé about the “true arsonists.”
When I was driven into exile
[Als ich ins Exil gejagt wurde]
BFA 14, 185; c. 1933; P1964; T.K.
The reference is to Brecht’s poem ‘Legend of the dead soldier’ of 1923 (in the Domestic Breviary, above), which earned him the opprobrium of the authorities and the hatred of the nationalists.
Foreign policy ballad
[Aussenpolitische Ballade]
BFA 14, 166; 1933; P1982; T.K.
In the context of Hitler’s campaign to win Britain’s support for a Nazi Germany, his head of foreign policy, Alfred Rosenberg, undertook a visit to England in May 1933. It ended abruptly when Rosenberg tried to lay a swastika wreath at the Cenotaph and a British war veteran took it and threw it in the Thames.
When I read they were burning the works . . .
[Als ich las, dass sie die Schriften]
BFA 14, 166; 1933; P1967; T.K.
This poem was prompted by the book burnings in May 1933. Stefan George was a writer Brecht had never liked, for him the prototype of the poet as idle mystic. The Nazis did indeed woo him with an offer of the presidency of their newly organized Academy of Writers, but George left Germany in mid-1933 and died in the same year near Locarno in Switzerland.
The houses of misfortune
[Die Häuser des Unglücks]
BFA 14, 167; 1933; P1982; T.K.
A fragment from one of Brecht’s notebooks.
The poor man’s pound
[Armen Mannes Pfund]
BFA 14, 167; 1933; P1934; D.C.
One of the children’s songs Brecht wrote in the first years of exile, it plays on the Parable of the Talents. Luther’s Bible (Luke 19:11–26) provides both ideas and vocabulary. Compare ‘The song of your pound and our pound.’
Many are in favour of order . . .
[Viele sind für die Ordnung]
BFA 14, 168; 1933; P1964; T.K.
It’s not the cancer that’s subdued . . .
[Nicht der Krebs wird unterdrückt]
BFA 14, 169; 1933; P1982; T.K.
Do you fear death? Look on it here!
[Hier liegt der Geschlagene!]
BFA 14, 169; 1933; P1993; T.K.
The title is not clear, but Brecht noted the words we have taken as a title above the poem. In the German edition the poem is known by its first line.
The hopeful!
[Die Hoffenden!]
BFA 14, 170; 1933; P1964; T.K.
The farmer looks after his fields
[Der Bauer kümmert sich um seinen Acker]
BFA 14, 172; 1933; P1967; T.K.
Brecht is commenting on Nazi agrarian policies and the ideology of “blood and soil.”
You who believed you were fleeing . . .
[Der du zu fliehen glaubtest]
BFA 14, 181; 1933; P1961; T.K.
A report
[Ein Bericht]
BFA 14, 181; 1933; P1934; T.K.
The German adjective völkisch (from Volk = people or nation) came, in the early twentieth century, to refer to nationalist sentiments and was wholeheartedly adopted by the Nazis.
We have made a mistake
[Wir haben einen Fehler begangen]
BFA 14, 183; 1933; P1961; T.K.
Address to Comrade Dimitrov, in the fight before the fascist tribunal in Leipzig
[Adresse an den Genossen Dimitroff, als er in Leipzig vor dem faschistischen Gerichtshof kämpfte]
BFA 11, 229; 1933; P1934; T.K.
Georgi Dimitrov was a prominent Bulgarian Communist politician who was arrested in Berlin after the Reichstag Fire and accused of involvement. He undertook his own defense, and the moral courage and clearheaded rhetorical skill with which he stood up to his accusers, notably Göring, brought him international fame. He became an anti-fascist hero. In 1934 he became head of the Comintern, and in 1944 he returned to Bulgaria as leader of the Communist Party and subsequently prime minister. He died in somewhat mysterious circumstances at a sanatorium near Moscow in 1949. See also ‘When Comrade Dimitrov stood before the court . . .’ (below).
New Year of the persecuted
[Das Neujahr der Verfolgten]
BFA 14, 186; c. 1933; P1965; T.K.
Brecht imagines great historical personalities operating in illegality in Nazi Germany. William Pitt the Younger was a long-serving British prime minister who led Britain in the wars against France and Napoleon. Alexander Suvorov was a great Russian general of the eighteenth century, Gebhard von Blücher a Prussian general of the Napoleonic era.
But the lowly grass . . .
[Aber das niedrige Gras . . . ]
BFA 14, 185; c. 1933; P1982; T.K.
But she who remains the same yet ever changes . . .
[Aber die Gleiche und Wandelbare]
BFA 14, 180; 1933; P1967; T.K.
This poem is addressed to Helene Weigel, for whom, as an actress, exile meant the loss of her profession. In the previous years in Germany she had played Pelagea Vlassova, the title figure in Brecht’s The Mother; Constance in Shakespeare’s King John; the maid in a version of Sophocles’ Oedipus; and the widow Leokadia Begbick in Brecht’s Man Equals Man.
Working with particular gestures
[Das Operieren mit bestimmten Gesten]
BFA 14, 187; c. 1933; P1965; T.K.
Fragment.
Awaiting the second plan
[Erwartung des zweiten Plans]
BFA 14, 189; c. 1933; P1934; T.K.
The poem refers to the second Five-Year Plan of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was promulgated at the 17th Party Congress in January/February 1934. The Party Congress was interpreted as a triumph of Leninism.
Go!
[Geh!]
BFA 14, 190; c. 1933; P1993; T.K.
This was written as a chant for a play which never materialized.
Always one step at a time . . .
[Immer einen Schritt nach dem andern]
BFA 14, 193; c. 1933; P1934; T.K.
The second strophe forms the motto to Chapter VIII of The Threepenny Novel (1934).
In the dark time . . .
[In finsterer Zeit / Blutiger Unterdrückung]
BFA 14, 193; c. 1933; P1982; T.K.
I have no need of a gravestone . . .
[Ich benötige keinen Grabstein]
BFA 14, 191; c. 1933; P1964; T.K.
On the meaning of the ten-line poem in issue 888 of The Torch (October 1933)
[Über die Bedeutung des zehnzeiligen Gedichtes in der 888. Nummer der Fackel (Oktober 1933)]
BFA 14, 195; c. 1933; P1934; T.K.
Brecht was a great fan of Karl Kraus, the celebrated Austrian satirist and essayist, who had his own journal, Die Fackel (The Torch), for which, from 1911, he was also generally the sole author. In 1933 he abandoned publication and fell silent for a while, then published the notably flimsy issue 888 which included the following short poem (‘Man frage nicht . . .’), to which Brecht’s poem is a response.
Don’t ask what I’ve been up to all this while
I’ll hold my tongue;
and never say what’s wrong.
So there’ll be silence, as the earth will crack and croak.
No word that hits its mark;
we speak only in the dark.
And dream on of some sun’s bright smile.
It will, one day, be gone;
And then it’s all as one.
Words fell into a sleep when that world awoke.
In 1934, in response to Kraus’s support for the Austrian chancellor Dollfuss, Brecht felt he had to follow it up with another poem, see the following. In this second poem Brecht commented in detail on Kraus’s defense of clerical
“Austrofascism” (which he hoped might ward off Hitler and German Nazism) and his support for the bloody suppression of the February Uprising in Vienna. Kraus died in 1936.
On the swift fall from grace of the worthy know-nothing
[Über den schnellen Fall des guten Unwissenden]
BFA 14, 216; 1934; P1964; T.K.
See previous poem and note.
War song
[Kriegslied or Und sie zogen hinein . . . ]
BFA 14, 197; c. 1933; P1934; D.C.
Written as the motto to Chapter II of The Threepenny Novel.
Loss of a valuable person
[Verlust eines wertvollen Menschen]
BFA 14, 197; c. 1933; P1964; D.C.
You have gone quiet, comrade . . .
[Du bist verstummt, Kamerad]
BFA 14, 198; c. 1933–34; P1982; D.C.
They opened the door in the night . . .
[Sie öffneten die Tür in der Nacht]
BFA 14, 199; c. 1933/34; P1982; T.K.
Fragment. The Red Front (in full, Roter Frontkämpferbund, or Red League of Fighters at the Front) was the paramilitary wing of the German Communist Party.
What was mountain about you . . .
[Was an dir Berg war . . . ]
BFA 14, 200; c. 1933/34; P1964; T.K.
Shopping
[Die Käuferin]
BFA 14, 202; 1934; P1934; T.K.
Why should we be ashamed of you . . .
[Warum sollten wir uns deiner schämen]
BFA 14, 213; 1934; P1934; T.K.
Brecht writes against the Nazi term Asphaltliteratur, which they used for socialist literature and any other “urban” literature of which they did not approve.