The Thousandth Regiment - 1. "Once we were factory workers or farmers"

Many thanks go to @Lyssafor introducing me to this poet, and helping me prepare the texts for posting. As far as either us us could find, these poems are not posted online in German, let alone English. 

This is heavy ... the sadness hidden in exhaustion. The pictures he paints are amazing ... ossified on a mattress ... the violence of sleep.. frightening scenes. 

This is a wonderful piece and i wait for the next.  Thanks AC.

Too tired for longing, where even sleep is not relief.

Damn.

What a poem. It all seems so hard. I wonder if British or American soldiers at the time felt the same way. It's wonderful, AC, but difficult to imagine how they felt. 

This is vivid poetry of the Great War, yet it speaks to many different generations. I’m struck by the images of the moon stalking through the barracks, the still forms of men, exhausted. And the poet describes the unhappy  knowledge that their sweethearts and homes may be irrevocably changed when - or if - they return home. Thank you for posting this. 

5 hours ago, Mikiesboy said:

This is heavy ... the sadness hidden in exhaustion. The pictures he paints are amazing ... ossified on a mattress ... the violence of sleep.. frightening scenes. 

This is a wonderful piece and i wait for the next.  Thanks AC.

Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts, Tim. Yes, there are some remarkable pictures in this and all of his poems. The tie-in to emotions is very strong too. 

Thanks again for reading these 

I can only say "wow". This poem floored me, and you can see the heartache and tiredness that he wrote about. Thanks for translating it, AC. Your skills amaze me.

Dear @AC Benus, finally I have time to comment. This translation is magnificent. Yes, every emotion Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele transported is reflected perfectly. Your English version makes the reader feel the intentions, the deep exhaustion, despair, grief of the original. This poem is overwhelming.

But more than that, knowing the poem, having studied its stanzas and grammar and word creations for a while, I see how precisely you translated without making it read like a translation. This poem is very difficult from its sentence structure and a lot of words, like for example "überschauern", which has no real fitting English word to translate too. Ehrenbaum-Degele used Metaphors, which are understandable for Germans, but do not translate into English metaphors and you accomplished the miracle to find metaphors, which are fitting and bring forward the exact emotion Ehrenbaum-Degele aimed for. That is excellent and absolute fantastic.

Thank you for your hard work. 🙂

Lyssa

16 hours ago, Wayne Gray said:

Too tired for longing, where even sleep is not relief.

Damn.

Yes, you summarize it well, Wayne. Thank you for reading and commenting. It is appreciated

17 hours ago, MichaelS36 said:

What a poem. It all seems so hard. I wonder if British or American soldiers at the time felt the same way. It's wonderful, AC, but difficult to imagine how they felt. 

That is such a great question, Mike. I'm not versed well enough to know if poems showing the hellish pointlessness of war were allowed to be printed in America, Canada and Britain during the First World War. Censorship was rife. And even later, it seems a bit unlikely. Perhaps the best example is thinking how a book like All Quiet on the Western Front could not have been told or printed from an Alied side POV even in the 1920s.

By the end of WW2, things had changed in America, and books reflecting the hell of war began to appear and be popular. That continues to today. 

As for Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele, one of his early Regiment poems makes it clear what he felt about this elective war he was drawn into, calling the cheering folks back home the "tumbling deluded." 

Thanks for reading and commenting  

16 hours ago, Parker Owens said:

This is vivid poetry of the Great War, yet it speaks to many different generations. I’m struck by the images of the moon stalking through the barracks, the still forms of men, exhausted. And the poet describes the unhappy  knowledge that their sweethearts and homes may be irrevocably changed when - or if - they return home. Thank you for posting this. 

Yes, Parker, thank you. I agree that there are so many strong images and emotional stepping stones in these fourteen lines. I have always been struck by the "wed a stranger" image too. It could mean the men expect not to ever make it home, to be jilted, or even to go back but never again be the man she'd known. Great poetry leaves all these doors open; it depends on the reader and even what sort of mood they are in. Different readings of the same poem at differing times can offer shifting insight. 

Thank you for reading and commenting

3 hours ago, Brayon said:

I can only say "wow". This poem floored me, and you can see the heartache and tiredness that he wrote about. Thanks for translating it, AC. Your skills amaze me.

Thank you, A! I mentioned to @Mikiesboyhow sifting through these poems is like panning for gold, only my pan comes up full of it every time. These are important and devastating poems; I feel honored to work on this project. 

Thank you too for reading and commenting

2 hours ago, Lyssa said:

Dear @AC Benus, finally I have time to comment. This translation is magnificent. Yes, every emotion Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele transported is reflected perfectly. Your English version makes the reader feel the intentions, the deep exhaustion, despair, grief of the original. This poem is overwhelming.

But more than that, knowing the poem, having studied its stanzas and grammar and word creations for a while, I see how precisely you translated without making it read like a translation. This poem is very difficult from its sentence structure and a lot of words, like for example "überschauern", which has no real fitting English word to translate too. Ehrenbaum-Degele used Metaphors, which are understandable for Germans, but do not translate into English metaphors and you accomplished the miracle to find metaphors, which are fitting and bring forward the exact emotion Ehrenbaum-Degele aimed for. That is excellent and absolute fantastic.

Thank you for your hard work. 🙂

Lyssa

Your praise of the translations and support -- both technical and emotional -- means a great deal to me, Lyssa. I try to let the words of the original speak to me, and then think how I'd describe them to a friend. I think for most of my translation work, that's how I approach it. It's great to hear things are not getting lost in the language shift; thank you. 

I look forward to bringing these poems forward, although I know it will be an emotional task. Thanks again 

Wow, AC.. I am struck by the imagery here and can’t say much beyond what those before me have said. Those poor young men plucked off to war, perhaps enamored by it, until the harsh reality and the costs to them, hits home.