(Change of scene.)
Scene 39
Optimist and Grumbler in conversation.
OPTIMIST What’s on your mind? Some linguistic problem?
GRUMBLER Yes, indeed. I read today that the Germans have taken the enemy’s advanced positions. It just occurred to me that the most advanced intellectual positions have also been taken over and made untenable. The damage is as great as that on the battlefield.
OPTIMIST How do you mean? In a physical sense or figuratively?
GRUMBLER Both the one and the other, so — figuratively. I’m sure Schopenhauer would have redefined The World as Will to Power as a premature German advance.
OPTIMIST Yes, but what about Nietzsche?
GRUMBLER Would have regretfully abandoned The Will to Power as an untenable position.
(Change of scene.)
Scene 40
The German spa Gross-Salze. In the foreground a children’s playground. View along a tree-lined walk, at its entrance on the right, a sign “Free up soldiers!”, on the left a sign “No admittance to the wounded.”
On the left, Villa Wahnschaffe, a building adorned with parapets, embrasures, and turrets, with flags fluttering on the gable end — one black-red-yellow and one black-white-red. Below the gable, in a niche, a bust of Wilhelm II. Above the entrance, the inscription “Whole-hearted and ever at hand for God, Kaiser, and Fatherland!” A modest front garden with figurines of deer and gnomes, in the middle an ancient suit of armour. In front of the entrance, right and left, two dummy mortar shells, one bearing the inscription “Let ’em Have It!”, the other “See It Through!” Medieval bull’s-eye panes in Gothic arched windows on façade.
Commercial Counsellor Ottomar Wilhelm Wahnschaffe emerges from the villa and sings the following vaudeville song; the last line of every verse is accompanied by an unseen choir, representing laughter at its reception abroad.
They’re surely villains who don’t care
for war at sea or in the air.
But since I’m used to durance vile,
and front-line service ain’t my style,
I’ll use my wits, as is my wont,
and fight right here on the home front.
To see it through, I’ll slog away,
whatever all those villains say.
So let’em have it! For I’m a German!
While peace, for me, was really slavery,
I now can call it wartime bravery,
working my fingers to the bone,
now war sustains me, war alone.
Prewar I had to bear the brunt,
so now I’m grateful for the front.
A drudge’s life’s the life for me,
employed in heavy industry.
Heil Krupp! Hail war! Yes, I’m a German!
The work can never be too tough,
the days are never long enough.
I’ll just keep at it, rain or shine,
to back the Watch kept on the Rhine.
My prewar fervour every day
led to the war, now we’re OK
to boldly face the coalition
and see off any competition.
Unto the death! For I’m a German!
One thing we never should ignore:
it’s vital that we export more.
A place in the sun is ours by right,
that’s why we’re in the trenches and fight.
Though life in a trench is not so grand,
it’s there we’ll win the right to expand.
But, for the moment, let’s be stoic,
New Germans are nothing if not heroic.
The New Germans are true Germans!
War means weapons, as I’ve explained,
nothing ventured, nothing gained.
We used to make a cult of food,
so what we now eat may seem crude.
Prayers with profits, that’s our device,
art in the service of merchandise.
The Faerie World’s beyond recall,
Valhalla’s turned into a shopping mall.
Yes, the Germans live for their ideals!
A vegetable salad is healthy eating,
if a bit of a drag from constant repeating.
When that has gone too, the pickings are thin,
well, life may go on, but you eat from a tin.
Such hand-to-mouth eating, with nothing between,
that won’t see us through — so change the routine.
We shut our mouth and take a hand
in defence, to the death, of the Fatherland!
The Germans live from their ideals!
This principle rules, it’s a good one at that,
no matter how gory our new habitat
on a planet that’s bleeding, humanity’s pain
the result of exchange rates and trading for gain.
Give gold up for iron, take poison for bread,
to the god of the Germans we bow down our head!
Blood-money, so long as we hold our nerves,
Is the best way to boost our financial reserves!
So the Germans hope to profit!
If things are going only so-so,
the truth comes through the Wolff Bureau.
But “what is truth?”—the age-old question!
Home truths give us indigestion.
A foreign word like “surrogate”
we’re told we must eradicate—
but we’ve a substitute, and that’s
the good old German word ersatz.
To put it plainly: I’m a German!
Since we possess the will to power,
their plan to starve us is bizarre.
And that is why we just pooh-pooh it,
our U-boats captains smirk: let’s do it!
Just a nod, to save time, and we’re down and away—
navigational skills we learned on the Spree.
And are we afraid of enemy ops?
We’re not, for we’ll eat any old slops.
The German’s not worn down by war!
Each devilish banner against us unfurled
will raise our esteem in the eyes of the world,
we’ll disregard the barbs of their malice
and triumph with Deutschland über alles!
It’s because we’re so very resolute
that the whole world’s envy is so acute.
God knows alone how great is our bravery,
we hope he punishes England’s knavery.
By the god of the Germans, I’m a German!
And so to God our praises rise,
raised (like our prices) to the skies.
Our God is just, to him we hearken,
and fight those who this world would darken.
A life of constant sunshine would
lead to sloth and lassitude.
Shooting is the only cure,
so gaudeamus igitur.
A merry fellow is your German!
Of one thing only I am sure,
we Germans have the best kultur.
Endowed with gifts — to generalize—
kultur (with a “k”) still wins first prize.
We may admire the military,
but adulate philosophy.
We’re proud of Schiller, make quite a fuss,
and Goethe, too, was one of us.
Kultur embellishes each German home!
In every German heart and mind:
God, Krupp, and Fatherland entwined!
While Hindenburg fends off our foes,
my inner resolution grows.
We Germans have had too much luck,
so modestly let’s pass the buck,
pull back in triumph from time to time,
back to our very own Siegfried Line.
Sieg heil! is then the German’s cry!
Our proud boast is that, with each foe,
our honour, if not our rations, grow.
We’ve got no butter for our bread,