The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht
Page 55
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 long
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.