Prayer before Battle

The troops are singing fervently, each for himself: G.o.d, protect me from misfortune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, That no grenades strike me, That the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, our enemies, Do not catch me, do not shoot me, That I don't die like a dog For the dear fatherland.

Look, I would like to go on living, Milk cows, bang girls And beat the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Sepp, Get drunk often Until my blessed death.

Look, I eagerly and gladly recite Seven rosaries daily, If you, G.o.d, in your grace Would kill my friend Huber or Meier, And not me.

But if the worst should come, Let me not be too badly wounded.

Send me a slight leg wound, A small injury to the arm, So that I may return as a hero, With a story to tell.

The Grenade

First a bright, brief drum roll, A bang and explosion into the blue day.

Then a noise, like rockets climbing on Iron rails. Fear and long silence.

Then suddenly in the distance smoke and a fall, A strange hard dark echo.

After Combat

In the sky the howitzers no longer explode, The cannoneers rest next to their guns.

The infantry pitch tents now, And the pale moon slowly rises.

On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze, Ashen pale from death and powder.

Among them German medics squat.

The day becomes grayer, its sun redder.

Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch.

Broken carts stand at roadsides.

Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter At a scorched wooden fence.

And orderlies are already moving From regiment to division.

The Battle at Saarburg

The earth grows moldy in fog.

The evening is as oppressive as lead.

Electric sparks crackle and whimper all around, Breaking everything in two.

Like wretched hobos Cities are smoking on the horizon.

I lie, G.o.d-forsaken, In the rattling front line of defenders.

Many copper enemy birds Buzz around heart and brain.

I stand firm in the grayness And defy death.