by Tom Kuhn
Poem in thanks to Mari Hold, on 5 October 1934
[Dankgedicht an Mari Hold zum 5. Oktober 1934]
BFA 14, 217; 1934; P1965; T.K.
Mari Hold was a family servant who married a Dane in 1934 and left the Brechts’ service. She had been with Brecht’s parents from the age of thirteen. The Bleichstrasse was the street in Augsburg where the Brechts lived in his childhood. Otherwise the poem refers to the two flats in Berlin where Brecht lived apart from Helene Weigel and the children (“the barbarian” is Barbara), the house that he bought in Utting on the Ammersee in Bavaria in 1932, and the thatched fisherman’s house in Svendborg where he found refuge after 1933. Slatan Dudow was a long-term collaborator, above all on the film Kuhle Wampe (1932).
The song of the Saar
[Das Saarlied]
BFA 14, 219; 1934; P1934; T.K.
Brecht and Hanns Eisler wrote this song together in the months before the referendum in the Saarland (January 13, 1935). The Saar had been detached from Germany following the Versailles Treaty and governed by the League of Nations. In the event, the vote was 90 percent for rejoining Germany. The first line of Brecht’s song is a quotation from the ‘Deutschlandlied,’ the national anthem.
The Caledonian Market
[Der kaledonische Markt]
BFA 14, 222–23; 1934; P1964; T.K.
The Metropolitan Meat Market or Caledonian Market was just off Caledonian Road in the London Borough of Islington. By the time Brecht visited London in 1934 it had become a bric-a-brac and flea market. (Later it transferred south of the river to become the New Caledonian or Bermondsey Market.) Brecht wrote these three separate poems all with the same title. The third, which makes reference to Kipling (‘The Ballad of East and West’ and ‘The Widow of Windsor’) is most obviously a fragment.
The hell of the disenchanters
[Die Hölle der Enttäuscher]
BFA 14, 223; 1934; P1964; T.K.
Another poem inspired by Brecht’s visit to London in the autumn of 1934, it takes up a motif from Shelley who also described London as “Hell.”
Song of chaos
[Lied vom Chaos]
BFA 14, 225; 1934; P1935 (1949 in this form); T.K.
This derives from an ancient Egyptian poem which was first adapted and quoted by Brecht (from a modern German translation) in an extended form in his essay ‘Five Difficulties in Writing the Truth.’ Brecht came back to it and reworked it for Azdak to sing in The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
Hammer and sickle song
[Hammer- und Sichel-Lied]
BFA 14, 227; 1934; P1935; T.K.
Written for an anti-fascist rally, the poem was first published in a Moscow German-language journal on May 1, 1935. The opening of stanza 2 is a loose quotation from Stalin.
The cattle march
[Der Kälbermarsch]
BFA 14, 228; 1934; P1944; T.K.
After the initial sketches, Brecht returned several times to this song, which exists in different versions. In 1943 he incorporated it into the play Schweyk in the Second World War. The refrain is modeled on the ‘Horst Wessel Song’ which was popular with the Nazis: “Flags aloft! in tightly serried ranks! / The SA march on with firm and steady tread / Our comrades gunned down by reactionaries and reds / March along in spirit in our ranks.” For the play, Hanns Eisler set the song using the ‘Horst Wessel’ tune. The German for swastika is Hakenkreuz (= hook or snag cross) and the third stanza plays on that meaning. Brecht consistently spelled it Hackenkreuz (Hacke = pickaxe or also heel), adding another layer of associations.
I thought your home . . .; You who are so much . . .
[Ich dacht, dein Heim; Du, die sehr viel ist]
BFA 14, 229 and 230; 1934; P1982; T.K.
Two fragmentary poems, probably for Margarete Steffin.
When Comrade Dimitrov stood before the court . . .
[Als der Genosse Dimitroff vor Gericht stand]
BFA 14, 234; 1934; P1965; T.K.
The poem, which is cobbled together from unfinished drafts, refers to the details of the Reichstag Fire trial which took place in Leipzig in September–December 1933.
See also ‘Address to Comrade Dimitrov’ (above).
SONGS FROM
ROUND HEADS AND POINTED HEADS
The song of the sickle
[Das Sichellied]
BFA 14, 202; 1934; P1934; T.K.
Nanna’s song
[Nannas Lied]
BFA 14, 334; 1936; P1938; T.K.
This song seems to have originated, as ‘The whore’s song,’ independently of the play and was added for the Copenhagen premiere, with Eisler’s music.
Ballad of the button
[Die Ballade vom Knopfwurf]
BFA 14, 203; 1934; P1938; T.K.
The ballad of the waterwheel
[Die Ballade vom Wasserrad]
BFA 14, 208; 1934; P1934; T.K.
There are many versions of this song. Originally it did not have the optimistic variant in the last refrain, which probably dates only from circa 1950.
Song of the stimulating effect of cash
[Lied von der belebenden Wirkung des Geldes]
BFA 14, 209; 1934; P1936; T.K.
The madam’s song
[Kuppellied]
BFA 14, 333; 1936; P1938; T.K.
The landowners’ roundelay
[Rundgesang der Pachtherren]
BFA 14, 156; 1932; P1938; T.K.
UNCOLLECTED POEMS 1934–1936
The chalk cross
[Das Kreidekreuz]
BFA 14, 236; 1934; P1934; T.K.
This poem sketches the same scenario as one of the scenes of Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.
The doctor
[Der Arzt]
BFA 14, 237; 1934; P1967; T.K.
Again, in this and the next four poems, there are parallels to scenes in Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.
Doomed to die
[Der dem Tod Geweihte]
BFA 14, 237; 1934; P1967; T.K.
The neighbour
[Der Nachbar]
BFA 14, 238; 1934; P1967; T.K.
Who will teach the teacher?
[Wer belehrt den Lehrer?]
BFA 14, 247; 1934; P1967; T.K.
When the incorruptible lawyer . . .
[Als der unbestechliche Anwalt]
BFA 14, 249; c. 1934; P1967; T.K.
The Roman Emperor Nero . . .
[Der römische Kaiser Nero]
BFA 14, 239; 1934; P1967; T.K.
The Emperor Napoleon and my friend the carpenter
[Der Kaiser Napoleon und mein Freund der Zimmermann]
BFA 14, 238; 1934; P1965; D.C.
Medea from Łódź
[Die Medea von Lodz]
BFA 14, 240; 1934; P1965; D.C.
Łódź is a city in central Poland.
The inquiry
[Die Untersuchung]
BFA 14, 242; 1934; P1967; T.K.
Little songs for Steff
[Kleine Lieder für Steff]
BFA 14, 243ff; 1934; P1993; T.K.
In all Brecht wrote fifteen of these rhymes for his son Stefan (b. 1924), alongside several other songs and stories. The genre and playful tone of these has enjoined a certain license in the translation.
Yet a long while we watched him rowing . . .
[Lange sah man ihn noch rudern]
BFA 14, 246; 1934; P1936; T.K.
This is a verse passage which found a place in the play The Horatians and the Curiatians later that year.
Downfall of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
[Untergang der Städte Sodom und Gomorra]
BFA 14, 247; 1934; P1965; T.K.
Now, however, that humanity, in its unending progress . . .
[Als nun aber die immer fortschreitende Menschheit]
BFA 14, 250; c. 1934; P1967; T.K.
Fragment.
The dam
[Der Damm]
BFA 14, 252; c. 1934; P1982; T.K.
Fragment. The source of this story has not been traced.
The march on Berlin
[Der Marsch auf Berlin]
BFA 14, 254; c. 1934; P1982; T.K.
The title of the poem plays on Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922, and the poem itself has echoes of an early baroque hymn.
The apocalyptic horsemen
[Die apokalyptischen Reiter]
BFA 14, 255; c. 1934; P1967; T.K.
This and the next fragment are possibly parts of sketches towards Brecht’s ‘Tui-Epic,’ a satire of modern intellectual life, partly in hexameters. This one is labeled “from the IVth Canto.”
This natural thing, work . . .
[Dieses natürliche, die Arbeit]
BFA 14, 257; c. 1934; P1967; T.K.
See previous note. This is labeled “from the First Canto (5th chapter).”
The emigration of the poets
[Die Auswanderung der Dichter]
BFA 14, 256; c. 1934; P1964; T.K.
The list of poets is similar to that in ‘Visit to the banished poets’ in the Svendborg Poems. Lucretius bore the additional name Carus (Latin = dear, beloved). The last line refers to the cottage in which Brecht and his family lived in Svendborg.
The power of the workers
[Die Macht der Arbeiter]
BFA 14, 256; c. 1934; P1964; T.K.
The poem is Brecht’s response to the Spanish general strike in October 1934.
The Koloman Wallisch Cantata
[Koloman Wallisch Kantate]
BFA 14, 261; c. 1934 and afterwards; P1982; T.K.
This group of poetic texts refers to events in Vienna (especially the Neustadt workers’ suburb) and elsewhere in Austria in February 1934, when a workers’ uprising against the Dollfuss “Austrofascist” regime was violently suppressed. Mussolini, who is also mentioned in the text (the ersatz Caesar), supported the Dollfuss regime. Koloman Wallisch, the mayor of the small industrial town of Bruck an der Mur, led the local socialist paramilitaries against the well-armed Home Guard (under the overall command of Emil Fey), until, heavily outnumbered, they had to flee to the mountains. Their flight took them towards a little place called Frohnleiten; Brecht calls it Frohnleiden and plays on a literal meaning, “feudal suffering.” When he was eventually captured, Wallisch was summarily executed. As well as newspaper articles, Brecht also used as a source a short story about the events by Anna Seghers. Various originally independent poems and sketches found their way into the cantata, including the last two strophes which were written only in 1942. In 1948, on their return to Europe, Brecht and Hanns Eisler appear to have organized the text as a children’s cantata, for which Eisler was to compose the music (although whether he ever did is not known). The text has survived only in a disordered fashion; the sequence and exact contents may never have been definitively determined.
Recently I heard tell . . .
[Neulich hörte ich . . . ]
BFA 14, 272; c. 1934; P1982; T.K.
This poem probably came about in the same context as ‘The Koloman Wallisch Cantata.’
Song of the workers and peasants
[Lied der Arbeiter und Bauern]
BFA 14, 270; c. 1934; P1982; T.K.
Napoleon
[Napoleon]
BFA 14, 271; c. 1934; P1965; T.K.
Report from Germany
[Rapport von Deutschland]
BFA 14, 273; c. 1934; P1935; T.K.
The poem derives from a contemporary rhymed poem in Danish by Otto Gelsted. It is possible they worked on it together, and with Ruth Berlau, to whom the relevant volume of Gelsted’s poems is dedicated. The source was a story by F. C. Weiskopf which was published in 1933.
Walking next to the loathsome, the virtuous . . .
[Und es mischen sich]
BFA 14, 276; c. 1934; P1964; T.K.
What subverts
[Was zersetzt]
BFA 14, 276; c. 1934; P1965; T.K.
[Two questions]
[Wie soll einer; Den Hungernden, der dir]
BFA 14, 277; c. 1934; P1982; T.K.
These two aphorisms appear together on one page of Brecht’s notebook.
We unhappy wretches!
[Wir Unglücklichen!]
BFA 14, 277; c. 1934; P1982; T.K.
The age of my prosperity
[Zeit meines Reichtums]
BFA 14, 278; c. 1934; P1961; T.K.
The poem tells of the house near Munich which Brecht bought in August 1932 with the proceeds from The Threepenny Opera.
Dannebrog
[Dannebrog]
BFA 14, 280; c. 1934/35; P1993; T.K.
The Danish flag (Dannebrog = red cloth) is a white cross on a red ground.
The great guilt of the Jews
[Die grosse Schuld der Juden]
BFA 14, 283; c. 1934/35; P1982; T.K.
On the Jews
[Über die Juden]
BFA 14, 286; c. 1934/35; P1982; T.K.
Amongst the more obvious historical references: the chemist Fritz Haber, who was involved in the development of poison gas in the First World War, was, on account of his Jewish ancestry, driven out of his post as director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin in 1933.
If the Jews did not counsel against it . . .
[Wenn die Juden es ihm nicht abrieten]
BFA 14, 286; c. 1934/35; P1982; T.K.
The hole in Ilyich’s boot
[Das Loch im Stiefel Iljitschs]
BFA 14, 288; 1935; P1964; T.K.
Brecht refers to a statue of Lenin that was then being erected in Moscow.
The last request
[Der letzte Wunsch]
BFA 14, 288; 1935; P1964; T.K.
This poem is based on a real event, the execution of the resistance fighter Fiete Schulze in June 1935 in Hamburg. Amongst Brecht’s sources was a poem by Johannes R. Becher.
In the second year of my flight . . .
[Im zweiten Jahre meiner Flucht]
BFA 14, 289; 1935; P1965; T.K.
Brecht was deprived of his German citizenship by a decree of June 8, 1935.
On the often heard sentence, barbarism comes from barbarism
[Über den Satz die Barbarei kommt von der Barbarei, den man oft hört]
BFA 14, 289; 1935; P1964; T.K.
This was written after the First International Writers’ Congress for the Defense of Culture in Paris in June 1935. A subtitle, ‘From the “First Satire” of the Second Book of Satires,’ suggests that Brecht was planning a whole collection of satires directed against inadequate explanations of fascism.
You see world war approaching
[Man sieht auch den Weltkrieg kommen]
BFA 14, 289; 1935; P1993; T.K.
Cantata for the first of May
[Kantate Erster Mai]
BFA 14, 294; 1935; P1964; T.K.
Driven back by the troops of Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese Communist Red Army, under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, retreated on the Long March (1934–35) and regrouped in the province of Shaanxi.
Thoughts of a stripper while she strips
[Gedanken eines Revuemädchens während des Entkleidungsaktes]
BFA 14, 295; 1935; P1964; D.C.
When the sixteen-year-old seamstress Emma Ries . . .
[Als die sechzehnjährige Weissnäherin Emma Ries]
BFA 14, 296; 1935; P1964; T.K.
When years ago . . .
[Als ich vor Jahren]
BFA 14, 296; 1935; P1964; D.C.
The poem recalls Brecht’s work in the mid-twenties on the plays Jae Fleischhacker and Saint Joan of the Stockyards.
The bandit and his knave
[Der Räuber und sein Knecht]
BFA 14, 297; 1935; P1964; T.K.
Written for his eleven-year-old son Steff (translated for my twelve-year-old son Isaac).
Mother Germer’s sons
[Die Söhne der Frau Germer]
BFA 14, 297; 1935; P1964; T.K.
Letter to the workers’ theatre “Theatre Union” in New York concerning the play The Mother
[Brief an das Arbeitertheater “Theatre Union” in New York, das Stück Die Mutter betreffend]
BFA 14, 290; 1935; P1938; T.K.
In 1935 the Theatre Union staged The Mother (originally 1931; premiere Berlin, 1932) in a translation by Paul Peters. Brecht took exception to the naturalistic adaptation and subsequently to the production. He traveled to New York to assist in the rehearsals, and fell out with the team in a big way. This poem was evidently important to him. There are many reworkings, and he took it into the (incomplete) “collected works” that began to come out in London in 1938 and subsequently into Theatre Work (Theaterarbeit) in 1952. His own work on the play and its earlier production he understood as models for the epic theater.
Song of the playwright
[Lied des Stückeschreibers]
BFA 14, 298; 1935; P1956; T.K.
The typescript drafts of this and the next three unfinished poems belong together and have sometimes been conflated. They can be associated with Brecht and Ruth Berlau’s work on the play The Mother, which was produced in both Copenhagen and New York in 1935. The first publication carries the note “fragment.”
And I set the sentences . . .; I always executed . . .
[Und ich stellte die Sätze; Immer vollführte ich]
BFA 14, 300; 1935; P1967; T.K.
And the appearance of the houses and cities . . .
[Und so schnell wechselte zu meiner Zeit]
BFA 14, 300; 1935; P1993; T.K.
Suggestion to merge architecture with lyric poetry
[Vorschlag, die Architektur mit der Lyrik zu verbinden]
BFA 14, 301; 1935; P1964; T.K.
What use is goodness . . .
[Was nützt die Güte]
BFA 14, 302; 1935; P1964; T.K.
As one who comes . . .
[Wie einer, der mit einem wichtigen Brief]
BFA 14, 303; 1935; P1967; T.K.
Old woman outside the church
[Alte Frau auf dem Kirchplatz]