THE WIFE: Your Reverence, you mustn’t think he doesn’t believe. He always took Communion. To her husband, urgently: Here’s his Reverence thinking you don’t believe. But you do believe, don’t you?
THE DYING MAN: Yes …
Silence.
THE DYING MAN: There’s nothing else then.
THE PASTOR: What are you trying to say by that? There’s nothing else then?
THE DYING MAN: Just: there’s nothing else then. Eh? I mean, suppose there had been anything?
THE PASTOR: But what could there have been?
THE DYING MAN: Anything at all.
THE PASTOR: But you have had your dear wife and your son.
THE WIFE: You had us, didn’t you?
THE DYING MAN: Yes …
Silence.
THE DYING MAN: I mean: if life had added up to anything…
THE PASTOR: I’m not quite sure I understand you. You surely don’t mean that you only believe because your life has been all toil and hardship?
THE DYING MAN looks round until he catches sight of his son: And is it going to be better for them?
THE PASTOR: For youth, you mean? Let us hope so.
THE DYING MAN: If the boat had had a motor …
THE WIFE: You mustn’t worry about that now.
THE PASTOR: It is not a moment to be thinking of such things.
THE DYING MAN: I’ve got to.
THE WIFE: We’ll manage all right.
THE DYING MAN: But suppose there’s a war?
THE WIFE: Don’t speak about that now. To the pastor: These last times he was always talking to the boy about war. They didn’t agree about it.
The pastor looks at the son.
THE SON: He doesn’t believe in our future.
THE DYING MAN: Tell me: up there, does he want war?
THE PASTOR hesitating: It says: Blessed are the peacemakers.
THE DYING MAN: But if there’s a war …
THE SON: The Führer doesn’t want a war!
The dying man makes a wide gesture of the hand, as if shoving that away.
THE DYING MAN: So if there’s a war…
The son wants to say something.
THE WIFE: Keep quiet now.
THE DYING MAN to the pastor, pointing at his son: You tell him that about the peacemakers.
THE PASTOR: We are all in the hand of God, you must not forget.
THE DYING MAN: You telling him?
THE WIFE: But his Reverence can’t do anything to stop war, be reasonable. Better not talk about it nowadays, eh, your Reverence?
THE DYING MAN: You know: they’re a swindling lot. I can’t buy a motor for my boat. Their aeroplanes get motors all right. For war, for killing. And when it’s stormy like this I can’t bring her in because I haven’t a motor. Those swindlers! War’s what they’re after! He sinks back exhausted.
THE WIFE anxiously fetches a cloth and a bowl of water, and wipes away his sweat: You mustn’t listen. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.
THE PASTOR: You should calm yourself, Mr Claasen.
THE DYING MAN: You telling him about the peacemakers?
THE PASTOR after a pause: He can read for himself. It’s in the Sermon on the Mount.
THE DYING MAN: He says it’s all written by a Jew and it doesn’t apply.
THE WIFE: Don’t start on that again! He doesn’t mean it like that. That’s what he hears the others saying.
THE DYING MAN: Yes. To the pastor: Does it apply?
THE WIFE with an anxious glance at her son: Don’t make trouble for his Reverence, Hannes. You shouldn’t ask that.
THE SON: Why shouldn’t he ask that?
THE DYING MAN: Does it apply or not?
THE PASTOR: It is also written: Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.
The dying man sinks back. His wife lays the damp cloth on his forehead.
21
The motto
Their boys learn it’s morally healthy
To lay down one’s life for the wealthy:
It’s a lesson that’s made very clear.
It’s far harder than spelling or figures
But their teachers are terrible floggers
So they’re fearful of showing fear.
Chemnitz, 1937. Meeting room of the Hitler Youth. A squad of boys, mostly with gasmasks slung round their necks. A small group are looking at a boy with no mask who is sitting by himself on a bench and helplessly moving his lips as if learning something.
THE FIRST BOY: He still hasn’t got one.
THE SECOND BOY: His old lady won’t buy him one.
THE FIRST BOY: But she must know he’ll get into trouble.
THE THIRD BOY: If she ain’t got the cash …
THE FIRST BOY: And old Fatty’s got a down on him in any case.
THE SECOND BOY: He’s back to learning it: ‘The Motto’.
THE FOURTH BOY: That’s four weeks he’s been trying to learn it, and it’s just a couple of verses.
THE THIRD BOY: He’s known it off for ages.
THE SECOND BOY: He only gets stuck cause he’s frightened.
THE FOURTH BOY: That’s terribly funny, don’t you think?
THE FIRST BOY: Devastating. He calls: D’you know it, Pschierer?
The fifth boy looks up, distracted, gets the meaning and nods. Then he goes on learning.
THE SECOND BOY: Old Fatty only keeps on at him cause he’s got no gasmask.
THE THIRD BOY: The way he tells it, it’s because he wouldn’t go to the pictures with him.
THE FOURTH BOY: That’s what I heard too. D’you think it’s true?
THE SECOND BOY: Could be, why not? I wouldn’t go to the pictures with Fatty either. But he wouldn’t start anything with me. My old man wouldn’t half kick up a stink.
THE FIRST BOY: Look out, here’s Fatty.
The boys come to attention in two ranks. Enter a somewhat corpulent Scharführer. The Hitler salute.
THE SCHARFÜHRER: From the right, number!
They number.
THE SCHARFÜHRER: Gasmasks – on!
The boys put on their gasmasks. Some of them have not got one. They simply go through the motions of the drill.
THE SCHARFÜHRER: We’ll start with ‘The Motto’. Who’s going to recite it for us? He looks round as if unable to make up his mind, then suddenly: Pschierer! You do it so nicely.
The fifth boy steps forward and stands to attention in front of the others.
THE SCHARFÜHRER: Can you do it, maestro?
THE FIFTH BOY: Yes, sir!
THE SCHARFÜHRER: Right, get cracking! Verse number one!
THE FIFTH BOY:
Thou shalt gaze on death unblinking –
Saith the motto for our age –
Sent into the fray unflinching
Heedless of the battle’s rage.
THE SCHARFÜHRER: Don’t wet your pants now. Carry on! Verse number two!
THE FIFTH BOY:
Victory is ours for gaining.
Beat, stab, shoot …
He has got stuck, and repeats these words. One or two of the boys find it difficult not to burst out laughing.
THE SCHARFÜHRER: So once again you haven’t learnt it?
THE FIFTH BOY: Yes, sir!
THE SCHARFÜHRER: I bet you learn something different at home, don’t you? Shouts: Carry on!
THE FIFTH BOY:
Beat, stab, shoot them so they fall.
Be a German … uncomplaining, uncomplaining
Be a German uncomplaining
Die for this … die for this, and give your all.
THE SCHARFÜHRER: Now what’s so difficult about that?
22
News of the bombardment of Almería gets to the barracks
The soldiers in His armed forces
Get full meat and pudding courses
And can also ask for more.
It helps them to face the firing
And not to think
of enquiring
Who He is fighting for.
Berlin, 1937. Corridor in a barracks. Looking around them nervously, two working-class boys are carrying away something wrapped in brown paper.
THE FIRST BOY: Aren’t half worked up today, are they?
THE SECOND BOY: They say it’s cause war could break out. Over Spain.
THE FIRST BOY: White as a sheet, some of them.
THE SECOND BOY: Cause we bombarded Almería. Last night.
THE FIRST BOY: Where’s that?
THE SECOND BOY: In Spain, silly. Hitler telegraphed for a German warship to bombard Almería right away. As a punishment. Cause they’re reds down there, and reds have got to be scared shitless of the Third Reich. Now it could lead to war.
THE FIRST BOY: And now they’re scared shitless too.
THE SECOND BOY: Right. Scared shitless, that’s them.
THE FIRST BOY: What do they want to go bombarding for if they’re white as a sheet and scared shitless cause it could lead to war?
THE SECOND BOY: They just started bombarding cause Hitler wants it that way.
THE FIRST BOY: Whatever Hitler wants they want too. The whole lot are for Hitler. Cause he’s built up our new armed forces.
THE SECOND BOY: You got it.
Pause.
THE FIRST BOY: Think we can sneak out now?
THE SECOND BOY: Better wait, or we’ll run into one of those lieutenants. Then he’ll confiscate everything and they’ll be in trouble.
THE FIRST BOY: Decent of them to let us come every day.
THE SECOND BOY: Oh, they ain’t millionaires any more than us, you know. They know how it is. My old lady only gets ten marks a week, and there are three of us. It’s just enough for potatoes.
THE FIRST BOY: Smashing nosh they get here. Meatballs today.
THE SECOND BOY: How much d’they give you this time?
THE FIRST BOY: One dollop, as usual. Why?
THE SECOND BOY: They gave me two this time.
THE FIRST BOY: Let’s see. They only gave one.
The second boy shows him.
THE FIRST BOY: Did you say anything to them?
THE SECOND BOY: No. Just ‘good morning’ as usual.
THE FIRST BOY: I don’t get it. And me too, ‘Heil Hitler’ as usual.
THE SECOND BOY: Funny. They gave me two dollops.
THE FIRST BOY: Why d’they suddenly do that. I don’t get it.
THE SECOND BOY: Nor me. Coast’s clear now.
They quickly run off.
23
Job creation
He sees that jobs are provided.
The poor go where they are guided:
He likes them to be keen.
They’re allowed to serve the nation.
Their blood and perspiration
Can fuel His war machine.
Spandau, 1937. A worker comes home and finds a neighbour there.
THE NEIGHBOUR: Good evening, Mr Fenn. I just came to see if your wife could lend me some bread. She’s popped out for a moment.
THE MAN: That’s all right, Mrs Dietz. What d’you think of the job I got?
THE NEIGHBOUR: Ah, they’re all getting work. At the new factory, aren’t you? You’ll be turning out bombers then?
THE MAN: And how.
THE NEIGHBOUR: They’ll be needed in Spain these days.
THE MAN: Why specially Spain?
THE NEIGHBOUR: You hear such things about the stuff they’re sending. A disgrace, I call it.
THE MAN: Best mind what you say.
THE NEIGHBOUR: You joined them now too?
THE MAN: I’ve not joined nothing. I get on with my work. Where’s Martha gone?
THE NEIGHBOUR: I’d best warn you, I suppose. It could be something nasty. Just as I came in the postman was here, and there was some kind of letter got your wife all worked up. Made me wonder if I shouldn’t ask the Schiermanns to lend me that bread.
THE MAN: Cor. He calls: Martha!
Enter his wife. She is in mourning.
THE MAN: What are you up to? Who’s dead then?
THE WIFE: Franz. We got a letter.
She hands him a letter.
THE NEIGHBOUR: For God’s sake! What happened to him?
THE MAN: It was an accident.
THE NEIGHBOUR mistrustfully: But wasn’t he a pilot?
THE MAN: Yes.
THE NEIGHBOUR: And he had an accident?
THE MAN: At Stettin. In the course of a night exercise with troops, it says here.
THE NEIGHBOUR: He won’t have had no accident. Tell me another.
THE MAN: I’m only telling you what it says here. The letter’s from the commandant.
THE NEIGHBOUR: Did he write to you lately? From Stettin?
THE MAN: Don’t get worked up, Martha. It won’t help.
THE WIFE sobbing: No, I know.
THE NEIGHBOUR: He was such a nice fellow, that brother of yours. Like me to make you a pot of coffee?
THE MAN: Yes, if you would, Mrs Dietz.
THE NEIGHBOUR looking for a pot: That sort of thing’s always a shock.
THE WIFE: Go on, have your wash, Herbert. Mrs Dietz won’t mind.
THE MAN: There’s no hurry.
THE NEIGHBOUR: So he wrote to you from Stettin?
THE MAN: That’s where the letters always came from.
THE NEIGHBOUR gives a look: Really? I suppose he’d gone south with the others?
THE MAN: What do you mean, gone south?
THE NEIGHBOUR: Way south to sunny Spain.
THE MAN as his wife again bursts into sobs: Pull yourself together, Martha. You shouldn’t say that sort of thing, Mrs Dietz.
THE NEIGHBOUR: I just wonder what they’d tell you in Stettin if you went and tried to collect your brother.
THE MAN: I’m not going to Stettin.
THE NEIGHBOUR: They always sweep things under the mat. They think it’s heroic of them not to let anything come out. There was a fellow in the boozer bragging about how clever they are at covering up their war. When one of your bombers gets shot down and the blokes inside jump out with parachutes, the other bombers machine-gun them down in midair – their own blokes – so’s they can’t tell the Reds where they’ve come from.
THE WIFE who is feeling sick: Get us some water, will you, Herbert, I’m feeling sick.
THE NEIGHBOUR: I really didn’t mean to upset you, it’s just the way they cover it all up. They know it’s criminal all right and that their war can’t stand being exposed. Same in this case. Had an accident in the course of an exercise! What are they exercising at? A war, that’s what!
THE MAN: Don’t talk so loudly in here, d’you mind? To his wife: How are you feeling?
THE NEIGHBOUR: You’re another of them keeps quiet about it all. There’s your answer, in that letter.
THE MAN: Just shut up, would you?
THE WIFE: Herbert!
THE NEIGHBOUR: So now it’s ‘shut up, would you?’. Because you got a job. Your brother-in-law got one too, didn’t he? Had an ‘accident’ with one of the same things you’re making in that factory.
THE MAN: I don’t like that, Mrs Dietz. Me working on ‘one of the same things’! What are all the rest of them working on? What’s your husband working on? Electric bulbs, isn’t it? I suppose they’re not for war. Just to give light. But what’s the light for? To light tanks, eh? Or a battleship? Or one of those same things? He’s only making light bulbs, though. My God, there’s nothing left that’s not for war. How am I supposed to find a job if I keep telling myself ‘not for war!’? D’you want me to starve?
THE NEIGHBOUR subduedly: I’m not saying you got to starve. Of course you’re right to take the job. I’m just talking about those criminals. A nice kind of job creation, I don’t think.
THE MAN seriously: And better not go around in black like that, Martha. They don’t like it.
THE NEIGHBOUR: The questions it makes people ask: that’s what they don’t like.
THE WIFE calmly: You’d rath
er I took it off?
THE MAN: Yes, if I’m not to lose my job any minute.
THE WIFE: I’m not taking it off.
THE MAN: What d’you mean?
THE WIFE: I’m not taking it off. My brother’s dead. I’m going into mourning.
THE MAN: If you hadn’t got it because Rosa bought it when
Mother died, you wouldn’t be able to go into mourning.
THE WIFE shouting: Don’t anyone tell me I’m not going into mourning! If they can slaughter him I have a right to cry, don’t I? I never heard of such a thing. It’s the most inhuman thing ever happened! They’re criminals of the lowest kind!
THE NEIGHBOUR while the man sits speechless with horror: But Mrs Fenn!
THE MAN hoarsely: If you’re going to talk like that we could do more than lose our job.
THE WIFE: Let them come and get me, then! They’ve concentration camps for women too. Let them just put me in one of those because I dare to mind when they kill my brother! What was he in Spain for?
THE MAN: Shut up about Spain!
THE NEIGHBOUR: That kind of talk could get us into trouble, Mrs Fenn.
THE WIFE: Are we to keep quiet just because they might take your job away? Because we’ll die of starvation if we don’t make bombers for them? And die just the same if we do? Exactly like my Franz? They created a job for him too. Three foot under. He could as well have had that here.
THE MAN holding a hand over her mouth: Shut up, will you? It doesn’t help.
THE WIFE: What does help then? Do something that does!
24
Consulting the people
And as the column passes
We call with urgent voices:
Can none of you say No?
You’ve got to make them heed you.
This war to which they lead you
Will soon be your death-blow.
Berlin. March 13th, 1938. A working-class flat, with two men and a woman. The constricted space is blocked by a flagpole. A great noise of jubilation from the radio, with church bells and the sound of aircraft. A voice is saying ‘And now the Führer is about to enter Vienna.’
THE WOMAN: It’s like the sea.
THE OLDER WORKER: Aye, it’s one victory after another for that fellow.
THE YOUNGER WORKER: And us that gets defeated.
THE WOMAN: That’s right.
THE YOUNGER WORKER: Listen to them shouting. Like they’re being given a present.
Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 4 Page 24