War Primer. Bertolt Brecht
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Название: War Primer
Автор: Bertolt Brecht
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9781784782092
isbn:
There’s never been such order in Roubaix.
Now order reigns. Its reign is absolute.
May he die like a dog. That’s my last wish.
He was the archenemy. Believe me, I speak true.
And I am free to speak: where I am now
Only the Loire and one lone cricket know.
Spring has come to Paris. Here we see one of its most typical signs – fishing along the quays of the Seine has begun in earnest. This year there are more fishermen than ever – a direct sign of the food shortage.
Here in the heart of Paris you can see us
Trying to outwit a sneaky little fish
From which we hope to make a meagre dish –
Victims of Hitler and of our own leaders.
The Germans were ‘kind’ to this Frenchman. They blindfolded him before he was shot.
And so we put him up against a wall:
A mother’s son, a man like we had been
And shot him dead. And then to show you all
What came of him, we photographed the scene.
Lion Feuchtwanger (facing camera) behind the barbed wire in the brickyard concentration camp. This hitherto unpublished picture was smuggled out of France by Mr. Feuchtwanger.
It’s true he was their enemy’s enemy
Yet one thing they could not forgive: that he
Was enemy to his own government.
Lock up the rebel. Throw away the key.
The people hate them more than a foreign foe.
Shitting themselves, they balance on the fence
And fear Germany less than they fear the French.
Be ruled by Germans? Yes. Ruled by the people? No.
Gang law is something I can understand.
With man-eaters I’ve excellent relations.
I’ve had the killers feeding from my hand.
I am the man to save civilization.
It’s we who fly above your city, woman
Now trembling for your children. From up here
We’ve fixed our sights on you and them as targets.
If you ask why, the answer is: from fear.
The City TodayDuring the blitz the City of London was reduced to a ruin. This view was taken from St Paul’s.
Here’s how I look. Some men betrayed their duty
And flew a course that differed from the map.
Hoping to act as fence, I was the booty.
Let’s call my fate a technical mishap.
Liverpool harbour, England’s second biggest, is well known to be the target of many German aerial bombardments and took many direct hits. This photograph gives a clear picture of the harbour – the smoke at the top shows that it has just been visited by German bombers.
I am a city still, but soon I shan’t be –
Where generations used to live and die
Before those deadly birds flew in to haunt me:
One thousand years to build. A fortnight to destroy.
The ‘flying sharks’: that was the name we boasted.
Along the crowded coastlines we went flying
With sharks’ teeth painted on our fighter-bombers
All of us sure for once that we weren’t lying.
‘Bombs Away!’ shouts the observer as he celebrates a successful drop.
You’re looking at a bastard, and a poor one!
‘I laugh at news of other men’s distress.
A corset salesman formerly, from Nürnberg
A dealer now in death and wretchedness.’
There was a time of underneath and over
When mankind was master of the air. And so
While some were flying high, the rest took cover
Which didn’t stop them dying down below.
New Source of Income
Thanks to the bombing, London’s poor have found a new source of income. Children gather round the exits of underground stations which serve as air-raid shelters. They have reserved places in the shelters and hire them out, with bedding, when there is an alert. Our picture shows a group of youngsters with mattresses and blankets carried in prams.
Far older than their bombers is the hunger
That they’ve unleashed on us. And to survive
We have to earn the cash to buy provisions
So, for survival, gamble with our lives.