The Germans’ Mercenaries by György Faludy

 translated from the Hungarian & edited by Thomas Ország-Land (February 2014)

The historical setting of this poem – published anonymously in 1937 in protest against Hungary‘s alliance with Nazi Germany – was intended to deflect the wrath of the authorities. György Faludy (1910-2006) is a towering figure of Europoean literature described throughout his long and prolific writing career as the reigning king of Hungarian poetry. He spent much of his life in exile. During World War Two, he served as honourary sectetary of the Free Hungary Movement in America and fought with the US Air Force in the Far East. He returned to Hungary afterwards to be imprisoned and tortured by the Communists. He remains an enduring source of controversay in his homeland where his work is adored by a doggedly loyal public and loathed by the ultra-Conservative government and its servile literary/cultural establishment. This translation will appear in Survivors: Hungarian Jewish Poets of the Holocaust translated by Thomas Land, to be published by Smokesatack Books, England, in June.

 

Hey-ho!… we are that shabby lot,

the Germans’ infamous mercenaries,

who do not care if the officers march us

over the mountains or down the plain

to slaughter peasants or lords or priests 

for fun or gain or the hangman’s rope.

We have campaigned on all terrains,

laid waste to land and lives and churches,

and torched the city of Breda and chased 

its terrified children fleeing the flames

because we are that shabby lot,

the Germans’ infamous mercenaries.

 

 

Have you seen an innocent child

raided by marauding soldiers?

That is how we were pressed into service

and fitted out with flags and armour

and trained by the whip that made us fit

for our shameless trade, hey-ho! –

tormenting you when you’re defenceless,

smashing your infant’s head on your wall,

invading your bed, abusing you in it,

avoiding a fight when we cannot win it,

because we are that shabby lot,

the Germans’ infamous mercenaries.

 

We’ve devastated seven counties

and climbed the seven hills of Rome

and taken a blood bath in the heat

and taken a mud bath in the autumn

and waded across vast snowbound fields

and quenched our thirst by filthy snow,

and we baked to the south of the River Po

and swam like rats across the Meuse

and fed on locusts and fallen horses

and heard and uttered horrible curses

because we are that shabby lot,

the Germans’ infamous mercenaries.

 

We recognize no father, mother,

we cut down every apple tree

and poison every well we find

and serve any master who pays us well.

Without a word, or thought or even

hatred, we guzzle up your wine

and seize and cart away your chattels,

and kidnap, rape and sell your child…

and you must thank us before we go

or we shall brain you by your gate

because we are that shabby lot,

the Germans’ infamous mercenaries.

 

 

The years march on like mercenaries…

Dismissed from service mercilessly,

one day we’ll doze, old fools, on benches,

too frail to bear old Frundsberg’s blade.*

We’ll drag our ailing hulks in pain

on weary feet beset by gout,

from fort to court and meekly seek

your charity: just a crust of bread

and just a scrap of love to last us

until the final port where the devil

wonders: Where is that useless lot,

the Germans’ infamous mercenaries?

 

Hey-ho!… we are that shabby lot,

the Germans’ infamous mercenaries,

who do not care (…Reprise)

 

 

 

 

 

 

György Faludy

======================================

* Georg von Frundsberg (1473-1528): German warrior, his name adopted by a panzer division of the Waffen SS, the multi-ethnic fighting force of the German Nazi Party.

________________________

 

THOMAS ORSZÁG-LAND is a poet and award-winning foreign correspondent who writes from London and his native Budapest. His next book: The Survivors (Smokestack/England, 2014).

 

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