Hermann Karl Hesse (1877 – 1962) – German born writer poet and artist who became a Swiss Citizen in 1923

Portrait of Hermann,
1905

Hermann Karl Hesse was born on 2nd July 1877 in Calw in Württemberg, in the Black Forest area of Germany.   His parents were Johannes Hesse, and his wife, Marie, nee Gundert. The Hesse family moved to Calw in 1873, where  

Johannes worked for the Calwer Verlagsverein, a publishing firm. Marie's father, Hermann Gundert, managed the publishing house until Johannes Hesse took over from him in 1893.

During the First World War, Herman volunteered with the Imperial army, saying that he “could not sit inactively by a warm fireplace while other young authors were dying on the front”.  However, he was found not fit enough to be a front line soldier and was assigned to service in charge of prisoners of war. 

Critical of the conflict, he wrote: "That love is greater than hate, understanding greater than ire, peace nobler than war, this exactly is what this unholy World War should burn into our memories, more so than ever felt before."  Hermann found himself in the middle of a serious political debate.  He was attacked by the German press, received hate mail and was distanced from old friends. However, he did receive support from his friend Theodor Heuss, and the French writer Romain Rolland, who visited Hermann in August 1915. In 1917, Hesse wrote to Rolland, "The attempt ... to apply love to matters political has failed."

Hermann’s father died on 8th May 1916 and his son, Martin, became seriously ill.  In addition, his wife suffered from schizophrenia. He was, therefore, forced to leave his military service and begin receiving psychotherapy. Thus began a preoccupation with psychoanalysis, through which Hermann got to know Carl Jung personally. During September and October 1917, Hermann wrote his novel “Demian” published after the Armistice in 1919 under the pen-name Emil Sinclair.  Hermann was granted Swiss citizenship in 1923.

Among the best-known works of Hermann Hesse are "Demian", "Steppenwolf", "Siddhartha" and "The Glass Bead Game", which explore an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.  

Hermann died on 9th August 1962 and was buried in the cemetery of Sant’Abbondio in Gentilino, where his friend and biographer Hugo Ball and another German personality, the conductor Bruno Walter, are also buried.

Poetry collections by Hermann Hesse:

(1898) "Romantische Lieder" (Romantic Songs)

(1900) "Hinterlassene Schriften und Gedichte von Hermann Lauscher" (The Posthumous Writings and Poems of Hermann Lauscher)—with prose

(1970) "Poems" (21 poems written between 1899 and 1921)

(1975) "Crisis: Pages from a Diary"

(1979) "Hours in the Garden and Other Poems" (written during the same period as The Glass Bead Game)

Here is a WW1 poem by Hermann Hesse:

Denken an den Freund bei Nacht (September 1914)

Früh kommt in diesembösen Jahr der Herbst.

Ich geh bei Nacht im Feld, den kalten Wind am Hut,

Der Regen klirrt. Und du? Und du, mein Freund?

...

Du stehst - vielleicht -und siehst den Sichelmond.

Im kleinen Bogen über Wäldern gehen

Und Biwakfeuer rot im schwarzen Tal.

Du liegst - vielleicht - im Feld auf Stroh und schläfst,

Und über Stirn und Waffenrock fällt leicht der Tau.

Kann sein, du bist zu Pferde diese Nacht,

Vorpfosten, spähend unterwegs, Revolver in der Faust,

Flüsternd und kosend mit dem müden Gaul.

Vielleicht - ich denk’ mir’s so - bist du die Nacht

in einem fremden Schloß und Park zur Nacht

Und schreibst bei Kerzenlicht an einem Brief,

Und tippst am Flügel im Vorübergehn

An klingende Tasten -

- Und vielleicht

bist du schon still und tot. Und deinen lieben

ernsthaften Augen scheint der Tag nicht mehr,

Und deine liebe brauen Hand hängt welk,

Und deine weiße Stirne klafft. - O hätt ich,

hätt ich dir einmal noch am letzten Tage

dir etwas noch gezeigt, gesagt

von meiner Liebe, die zu schüchtern war!

Du kennst mich ja, du weißt ... und lächelnd nickst

du in die Nacht vor deinem fremden Schloß,

und nickst auf deinem Pferd im nassen Wald,

und nickst im Schlaf auf deiner harten Streu,

und denkst an mich und lächelst.

Und vielleicht

vielleicht kommst du einmal vom Krieg zurück

und eines Abends trittst du bei mir ein,

man spricht von Lüttich, Longwy, Dammerkirch,

und lächelst ernst, und alles ist wie einst,

und keiner sagt ein Wort von seiner Angst,

von seiner Liebe. Und mit einem Witz

Wirfst du die Angst, den Krieg, die bangen Nächte,

Das Wetterleuchten scheuer Männerfreundschaft

Ins kühle Nichtgewesensein zurück.

Thinking Of A Friend At Night (September 1914)

In this evil year, autumn comes early…

I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters,

The wind on my hat…And you? And you, my friend?

You are standing—maybe—and seeing the sickle moon

Move in a small arc over the forests

And bivouac fire, red in the black valley.

You are lying—maybe—in a straw field and sleeping

And dew falls cold on your forehead and battle jacket.

It's possible tonight you're on horseback,

The farthest outpost, peering along, with a gun in your fist,

Smiling, whispering, to your exhausted horse.

Maybe—I keep imagining—you are spending the night

As a guest in a strange castle with a park

And writing a letter by candlelight, and tapping

On the piano keys by the window,

Groping for a sound…

—And maybe

You are already silent, already dead, and the day

Will shine no longer into your beloved

Serious eyes, and your beloved brown hand hangs wilted,

And your white forehead split open—Oh, if only,

If only, just once, that last day, I had shown you, told you

Something of my love, that was too timid to speak!

But you know me, you know…and, smiling, you nod

Tonight in front of your strange castle,

And you nod to your horse in the drenched forest,

And you nod to your sleep to your harsh clutter of straw,

And think about me, and smile.

And maybe,

Maybe some day you will come back from the war,

and take a walk with me some evening,

And somebody will talk about Longwy, Luttich, Dammerkirch,

And smile gravely, and everything will be as before,

And no one will speak a word of his worry,

Of his worry and tenderness by night in the field,

Of his love. And with a single joke

You will frighten away the worry, the war, the uneasy nights,

The summer lightning of shy human friendship,

Into the cool past that will never come back.

Translated by James Wright

From “Hermann Hesse poems: Selected and translated by James Wright”  (Jonathan Cape, London, 1977 ) – pp 64 – 66.  Original German from “Die Gedichte in Gesammelte Schriften” by Hermann Hesse (Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin, 1953).   With many thanks to writer, historian, translator and poet AC Benus for finding the original collection of that volume of Herman Hesse’s poems:

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Ev5KAAAAMAAJ/page/n7/mode/2up

Sources:

https://www.thivien.net/Hermann-Hesse/Ngh%C4%A9-v%E1%BB%81-b%E1%BA%A1n-trong-%C4%91%C3%AAm/poem-KOuHEO5KJHJKBIgQBENfbw

https://allpoetry.com/Thinking-Of-A-Friend-At-Night

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41907/41907-h/41907-h.htm

The 1905 portrait of Hermann Hesse was painted by Ernst Würtenberger (1868–1934)

Hermann Hesse was also an artist.  For more of his artwork see https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/06/08/hesse-trees/

Cortivallo, 1927
by Hermann Hesse

 

A poem printed on the front page of the Nationalist newspaper, Ireland, 12th February 1916 written by an anonymous poet using the pen-name A Drangan Boy

With thanks to Ciarán Conlan who found this poem for us - it was posted by MaryAnne Maher on the Facebook page 18th Regiment of Foot Royal Irish Regiment(& South Irish Horse)Association™

“AN IRISH SOLDIER ‘NEATH’ SLIEVENAMON”

Slievenamon or Slievenaman Mountain

Old hill! You’ve looked on many scenes of Ireland’s chequered story,

You’ve seen the “wild geese” fly to France and revelled in their glory;

You’ve heard the edict oft proclaimed – “To Hell or Connaught fly” –

And bent your head in sorrow as the victim’s pass’d you by.

But now, my grand old sentinel, another sun appears,

Dispelling past the clouds long cast in gloomy blood and tears.

No more the patriot outlaw seeks the shelter of your side,

To learn the soldier’s gallant trade, no more he needs to hide.

Amongst the rocky caverns, which dot your slopes, old hill,

And steal forth in the gloaming to join the moonlight drill,

For freedom’s sun is gleaming, and as “wild geese” never more

But as the gallant Irish soldiers we seek the Gaullic shore.

Unlike the days of Sarsfield, ‘tis no rotten Stuart cause,

Which calls is now to battle, and no tyrant alien laws,

Are there to make our King regret our loss to his own Crown,

Forgotten now is Fontenoy, but not our old renown,

Because on many bloody fields as in the days of yore,

The shamrock green in triumph’s seen for freedom evermore.

The savage Hun is weary, but we’re not conquered yet,

His deeds of blood at Ypres we’ll teach him to regret;

He trampled o’er our Irish dames, and there to us displayed,

What he had in store for Ireland if he won the game he played;

He little thought his mad assaults on priests and nuns also,

Would fiercely dart each Irish heart to deal him blow for blow.

The modern Attila now has grown sickly worn and grey,

His well-laid schemes of ruin and crime have sorely “ganged agley”

Our Munster boys and Connaught lands and Dublin Fusiliers,

And our Royal Irish heroes too of him have had no fears;

When we are marching home again lamenting comrades gone,

We’ll dry our tears in welcome cheers beneath old Slievenamon.

By A Drangan Boy

The Nationalist is a newspaper based in Clonmel in County Tipperary, Ireland. Established in 1890, it is a broadsheet newspaper published weekly, covering news, events, and sport in both Clonmel town and south Tipperary. It was formed to represent the views of the Irish nationalist community in County Tipperary, which led to the first editor been jailed under a Coercion Act on charges that he had intimidated a cattle dealer for taking a farm from which tenants had been evicted. It supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which led to the paper being shut down by Séumas Robinson during the Irish Civil War.  The newspaper is currently owned by Iconic Newspapers, which acquired Johnston Press's titles in the Republic of Ireland in 2014.

Slievenamon or Slievenaman (Tr. "mountain of the women") is a mountain with a height of 721 metres (2,365 ft) in County Tipperary, Ireland. It rises from a plain that includes the towns of Fethard, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir. The mountain is steeped in folklore and is associated with Fionn mac Cumhaill. On its summit are the remains of ancient burial cairns, which were seen as portals to the Otherworld. Much of its lower slopes are wooded, and formerly most of the mountain was covered in woodland. A low hill attached to Slievenamon, Carrigmaclear, was the site of a battle during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Patrick Sarsfield, (born, Lucan, County Dublin, Ireland;  died August 1693, Huy, Austrian Netherlands) - a Jacobite soldier who played a leading role in the Irish Roman Catholic resistance (1689–91) to England’s King William III. Sarsfield remains a favourite hero of the Irish national tradition.

Sarsfield

The Battle of Fontenoy was a major engagement of the War of the Austrian Succession, fought on 11 May 1745 near Tournai in modern Belgium. A French army of 50,000 under Marshal Saxe defeated a Pragmatic Army of roughly the same size, led by the Duke of Cumberland.

The Term 'Hun' was a derogatory nickname used primarily by the British and Americans - officers rather than men - during the First World War to describe the German Army, e.g. "the Huns attacked at dawn". The origin of the term dated back to the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1900).  When despatching his troops to China, Kaiser Wilhelm II instructed them in a speech he made to behave like the Huns of old and to wreak vengeance ("let the Germans strike fear into the hearts, so he'll be feared like the Hun").  According to W.A. Tucker in his memoir of his WW1 service “The Lousier War”, ordinary soldiers referred to the German troops as “Fritz”. 

Attila the Hun

Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans and Bulgars, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe. He is also considered one of the most powerful rulers in world history.

Drangan is a village, census town and civil parish in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is in the historical barony of Middlethird.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/official18thregoffootroyalirishregassociation

“The Lousier War” by W.A.Tucker (The New English Library, London, 1974)

Battle of Fontenoy, 1745 by
Pierre L'Enfant (1704 - 1987)

James Norman Hall (1887 – 1951) – American WW1 soldier, airman, writer and poet

 While reading the book "Cricket in the First World War: Play Up! Play the Game" by John Broom (published by Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2022), I came across a poem by James Norman Hall. Mention was also made of his war-time service.

James Norman Hall was born in Colfax, Iowa, USA on 22nd April 1887. His childhood home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Educated locally, James went to study at Grinnell College in Iowa, graduating in 1910. He wrote the song "Sons of Old Grinnell", which is part of the college songbook.

After graduating, James became a social worker in Boston for the Society for Prevention to Cruelty to Children, while he attempted to establish himself as a writer and study for a Master's degree at Harvard University.

James was on holiday in the United Kingdom in the summer of 1914, when war broke out. Posing as a Canadian, he enlisted in the British Army, serving in the Royal Fusiliers as a machine gunner during the Battle of Loos. He was discharged after his true nationality was discovered, and returned to the United States. His first book, “Kitchener's Mob: The Adventures of an American in the British Army” (published in 1916), tells of his wartime experiences.  The book sold quite well in America and, after a speaking tour to promote the book, James returned to Europe in 1916 on an assignment for “Atlantic Monthly” magazine. 

He was commissioned to write a series of stories about the group of American volunteers serving in the French Air Force’s Lafayette Escadrille but, after spending some time with the American fliers, he got caught up in the adventure and enlisted in the French Air Service. By then the original Escadrille had been expanded to the Lafayette Flying Corps, which trained American volunteers to serve in regular French squadrons.

During his time in French aviation, James was awarded the Croix de Guerre with five palms and the Médaille Militaire. When the United States entered the war in 1917, James was commissioned as a Captain in the Army Air Service. There he met another American pilot, Charles Nordhoff.  After being shot down over enemy lines on 7 May 1918, James spent the last months of the war as a German prisoner of war. After his release he was awarded the French Légion d'Honneur and the American Distinguished Service Cross.

LaFayette Squadron insignia

The La Fayette Squadron (French: Escadrille de La Fayette) was the name of the French Air Force unit escadrille N 124 during the First World War. The squadron was composed largely of American volunteer pilots flying fighters. It was named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American War of Independence. In September 1917, the squadron was transferred to the US Army under the designation 103rd Aero Squadron. In 1921, The French Air Force recreated an N124 unit who claimed lineage from the war-time La Fayette escadrille and is now part of the escadron 2/4 La Fayette.

In 1925, James married Sarah Winchester, known as Lala, who was part-Polynesian. They had two children: the Academy Award winning cinematographer Conrad Hall (1926–2003) and Nancy Hall-Rutgers (born 1930). A prolific author, James died on 5th July 1951 in Tahiti and is buried on the hillside property just above the modest wooden house he and Lala lived in for many years. His grave bears a line of verse he wrote in Iowa at the age of 11: "Look to the Northward stranger / Just over the hillside there / Have you ever in your travels seen / A land more passing fair?"

'The Cricketers of Flanders'  

cover of the book in which
I found reference to the poem

The first to climb the parapet

With “cricket balls” in either hand;

The first to vanish in the smoke

Of God-forsaken No Man’s Land;

First at the wire and soonest through,

First at those red-mouthed hounds of hell,

The Maxims, and the first to fall,—

They do their bit and do it well.

Full sixty yards I’ve seen them throw

With all that nicety of aim

They learned on British cricket-fields,

Ah, bombing is a Briton’s game!

Shell-hole to shell-hole, trench to trench,

“Lobbing them over” with an eye

As true as though it were a game

And friends were having tea close by.

Pull down some art-offending thing

Of carven stone, and in its stead

Let splendid bronze commemorate

These men, the living and the dead.

No figure of heroic size,

Towering skyward like a god;

But just a lad who might have stepped

From any British bombing squad.

His shrapnel helmet set atilt,

His bombing waistcoat sagging low,

His rifle slung across his back:

Poised in the very act to throw.

And let some graven legend tell

Of those weird battles in the West

Wherein he put old skill to use,

And played old games with sterner zest.

Thus should he stand, reminding those

In less-believing days, perchance,

How Britain’s fighting cricketers

Helped bomb the Germans out of France.

And other eyes than ours would see;

And other hearts than ours would thrill;

And others say, as we have said:

“A sportsman and a soldier still!”

By James Norman Hall

Sources:  Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 366. Wikipedia and"A TREASURY OF WAR POETRY:BRITISH AND AMERICAN POEMS OF THE WORLD WAR 1914-1917" (1917)

David Westcott Brown (1893 - 1916) – British soldier poet

With thanks to The Skipper's War website of the Dragon School, Oxford for finding this poet for us

David was born in Durham in 1893.  His parents were Anglican church Minister the Rev. George Gibson Brown and his wife, Nelly Brown, nee Hardman. At the time of David’s death, his Father was Rector of St. Mary's Church, Bedford.

After winning a scholarship to Marlborough, David went up to Oxford University to Balliol College to read ‘Greats’. When war broke out, he joined up and was commissioned into the 6th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment.

David was reported wounded and missing on 16 July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. He is recorded as having gone out into No Man’s Land with a sergeant to reconnoitre. The sergeant was subsequently found dead but Captain Westcott Brown’s body was not found. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier and Face 2 C and 3 A.

“Two Voices” a poem by Capt. David Westcott Brown (Leicestershire Regiment)

“The roads are all torn” ; “but the sun’s in the sky,”

“The houses are waste” ; “but the day is all fair,”

“There’s death in the air” ; “and the larks are on high,”

“Though we die – ” ; “it is spring-time, what do we care?”

“The gardens are rank” ; “but the grass is still green,”

“The orchards are shot-torn” ; “there’s a bloom on the trees,”

“There’s war all around” ; “yet is nature serene,”

“There’s danger” ; “we’ll bear it, fanned by the breeze.”

“Some are wounded” ; “they rest, and their glory is known,”

“Some are killed” ; “there’s peace for them under the sod,”

“Men’s homes are in peril” ; “their souls are their own,”

“The bullets are near us” ; “not nearer than God.”

Sources:  Find my past, Free BMD and

https://skipperswar.com/2016/07/29/july-29th-1916/

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205023698

The Menin Gate Memorial is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders, which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and built by the Imperial War Graves Commission (since renamed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission), the Menin Gate Memorial was unveiled on 24 July 1927.  It is dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient during World War I whose graves are unknown.

“The Menin Gate at Midnight” by Australian Artist Will Longstaff (1879 – 1953) 

Will Longstaff enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at the outbreak of the First World War and was injured in the Gallipoli campaign. In October 1915 he joined a remount unit and served in France and Egypt before being evacuated to England in 1917. In England, he began drawing again and was trained in the art of camouflage. During his time in Egypt, Longstaff had made images of the ANZAC Mounted Division and the other units. Upon his appointment as an Official War Artist in 1918 he produced numerous works during the final campaigns of the Western Front.

On the night of July 24th 1927, Artist Will Longstaff painted his “Menin Gate at Midnight” in one sitting. He had been so moved by the Memorial’s unveiling ceremony that afterwards during a walk along Menin Road he claimed to have had visions of the soldiers’ spirits rising from the surrounding fields.

Paul Zech (1881 – 1946) – German poet

With thanks to Historian, Writer and Poet AC Benus

for discovering and researching this poet and for translating the poem for us

Paul Zech 1914

Paul Zech was born in Müncheberg (Eastern Brandenburg).  His father was a rope maker.  

It is difficult to be precise about Paul Zech's life as there are several sites with biographies of Zech but it seems he did a variety of different jobs, including a warehouse clerk and confectioner.  He may have done an apprenticeship as a baker.    From around 1904, had poems published in local publications wherever he lived and in 1907 was invited to the annual poetry competition "Kölner Blumenspiele", where he received an "honourable mention".

At the beginning of the First World War, Zech wrote patriotic poems. However, in 1915, his enthusiasm for the war began to wane and gave way to skepticism. He served on the Western Front, notably in the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme. In a letter to the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, he wrote:

" My dear friend,   

"Battle of the Somme" by Richard
Caton Woodville (1856 - 1927)

I would never have believed that there could still be something that surpasses the hell of Verdun. There, I suffered horribly. Now that it's over, I can say it. But that was not enough: now we have been sent to the Somme. And here everything is taken to its extreme point: hatred, dehumanization, horror and blood. (…) I no longer know what can still happen to us, I wanted to greet you once again. Maybe it's the last. "

In August 1933, suspected of embezzlement and theft, Zech left Berlin for Vienna and Trieste and sailed to Montevideo, Buenos Aires, where he died in 1946.

An example of Paul Zech's poetry:

Nächtliche Dörfer in der Woevre 

(Frühsommer 1916)

II.

Das nesse Laub im Mond wird weißer Mohn.

Unruhig feilen Stürme in den Zweigen,

aus daß sie sich wie Flügel niederneigen.

Die Häuserfronten sind entschlafen schon.

Die Wohner aber finden noch nicht Ruh‘;

in Augen, müd zurüchgedreht nach innen,     

WW1  postcard

nistet ein schwarzer Traum, beginnt zu spinnen

und schnürt dem Schrei des Bluts die Kehle zu.

Verschlafen kräht der Hahn und kräht sich wach,

Angstaugen wach zersprungenen Fensterscheiben,

wenn der Haubitzen-Donner Ziegel fegt vom Dach.

Herzruhig nur die fremden Mütter bleiben;

rosige Kinder lächeln noch im Traum —

Nachglanz von Sonne, Bach und Apfelbaum.

Translated by AC Benus 

Nocturnal villages in the Woevre [Woëvre in French – is an area in Lorraine, North-west France]

(early summer 1916)

II.

  Wet leaves in the moonlight turn to white poppies.

Turbulent storms file and march through the branches,

so they bend towards earth like the tip of wings.

The house fronts have all fallen into slumber.

 But dwellers inside can yet find them no rest;

in their eyes, wearily turned back inwardly,

a black dream is nesting, which begins to spin

and lace itself round the throat with screams of blood.

Sleepy crows the cock as crows awake themselves,

angst-eyes opened with the shattered windowpanes

when Howitzers thunder-sweep tiles from the roof.

Only oddly inured mothers remain calm;

their rosy-cheeked children still smiling in dreams —

the afterglow of sun, stream and apple trees.

(p. 93 “Golgotha Eine Beschwörung zwischen zwei Feuern” by Paul Zech (Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, Berlin, 1920)

https://archive.org/details/3361450/page/93/mode/2up

Paul Zech by German
artist Ludwig Meidner (1884 - 1966)

AC Benus explains further -- Important war-related texts by Paul Zech (according to Wiki):

"Vor Cressy an der Marne: Gedichte eines Frontsoldaten" ["Before Cressy on the Marne: Poems of a Front-line Soldier"] (1918), under pen name Michel Michael

"Das Grab der Welt: Eine Passion wider den Krieg" ["The Grave of the World: A Passion Against War"] (1919) -- described as entries from his war diaries

Zech was also represented by 12 poems in an important WW1 anthology "Menschheitsdämmerung" ["Dawn of Humanity" - K. Pinthus, editor] (1920) https://archive.org/details/menschheitsdmm00pintuoft/page/n5/mode/2up

"Die Reise um den Kummerberg" ["The Trip Around the Kummerberg"] (1925) - autobiographical novel, including his war experiences

Additional Sources:

https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Paul_Zech?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

https://www.friedenau-aktuell.de/friedhof-stubenrauchstra%C3%9Fe/paul-zech/

AC Benus is the author of a marvellous book about German WW1 poet Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele : “The Thousandth Regiment: A Translation of and Commentary on Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele’s War Poems” by AC Benus (AC Benus, San Francisco, 2020). Along with Hans's story, the book includes original poems as well as translations.    ISBN: 978-1657220584 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583

AC Benus says: "Paul Zech and Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele were close friends and colleagues, co-founding and co-editing the literary and art journal "Das neue Pathos" before the war. 

It's interesting, Lucy, you cite a letter from Zech to Stefan Zweig, as he was also involved with "Das neue Pathos," writing the essay that launched the premier issue of the magazine. Afterwards, it was much reprinted and regarded as an articulate manifesto on the entire German Expressionist Art Movement.

After Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele was killed in action in July 1915, Zech -- like all of Hans' closest friends and family -- took his passing hard. When Hans' partner, F. W. Murnau, broke his malaise by vowing to publish his beloved's final collection of poems in 1917, which included Hans' war sonnets, "The Thousand Regiment," Murnau called on Zech to write the introduction to the book. Which he did, and which provides great insight to the mind of the young, slain poet.

Zech himself grieved for Hans in print. In the post-war years, he published moving tribute poems to Ehrenbaum-Degele, and his 1920 "Golgatha" contains no less than four! No doubt more wait to be uncovered in Zech's prolific output. (So if you run into any, please let me know!)"

Here is one of the poems written by Paul Zech to the memory of his friend Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele

Du aber stöhnst . . . . . 

(In memoriam Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele.  Gefallen als Leutnant des R. I. R. 90

am 26. [sic] Juli 1915 beim Üebergang über den Narew.)

 

Daß Straßen mit Musik und Gang von Frauen

herznahe wiederkehren unserm Blut;

daß wir, wie Hände weiß und ausgeruht,

uns dehnen werden wieder aufzubauen;

daß ich noch bin — traf Dich das wilde Eisen,

Dich, Jahre mir zur Sehe, Kamerad.

Nie trug ein aufgebrochner Acker solche Saat,

saftseufzend durch Aeonen noch zu kreisen.

Die Meise schüchtern auf zerschundenem Baum,

verwaiste Jugend, Mütter schwarz im Schmerzgeschmeide

umfriedet schon ein Hauch von Heimat-Traum.

Du aber stöhnst, da neuer Lenz beginnt,

dumpf durch den hohlen Silbermund der Weide

Dein frierendes Allein Gestirn und taubem Wind.

Translation by AC Benus 

You yet breathe . . . . . 

(In memoriam Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele.Killed in action as Lieutenant of the R[eserves],

90th I[nfantry] R[everses], on the [27th] of July,1915, crossing over the Narew.)

Those streets with music and the sway of women

Kept close to our hearts will have blood return;

so that to us, hands porcelain and relaxed 

will stretch to guide as we start to rebuild; 

or I yet have life — though wild iron mowed you down,

You, after years of being close to me, friend.

Never have tilled-under fields carried such seed,

a sighing force to circle beneath eons. 

The chicks are frightened on the shattered trees,

the orphaned young, mothers blackened in pain  

encased now in a wisp of heavenly dreams.

But you will breathe again as a new spring comes,

muffled through the willow’s hollow silver mouth  

with your bright star alone above the wind.

NOTE: The Narew is a 499-kilometre (310 miles) river that rises in north-east Poland - it is also a tributary of the River Vistula. The Narew is one of Europe's few 'braided' rivers, the term relating to the twisted channels resembling braided hair. Around 57 kilometres (35 miles) of the river flows through western Belarus.

 Robert Palmer (1888 – 1916) – British soldier poet

The Honorable Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer, called Bobby by his family, was born on 26th September 1888 at 20 Arlington Street, London, UK.  He was the second son of William Waldegrave James Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne, KG, GCMG and Warden of Winchester College, and his wife, Maud Beatrice, the Countess of Selborne, nee Cecil, of Blackmoor, Liss, Hants. Robert was educated at Winchester College and University College, Oxford University.

Robert joined the 6th Battalion Hampshire Regiment - his county Territorial battalion - and went with them to India in October 1914. The following August he left Agra with a draft to reinforce the 4th Battalion of the Hampshires and took part with them in an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the garrison at Kut-el-Amara.   By then a Captain, Robert was wounded during the Battle of Umm-El-Hannal, Mesopotamia on 21st January 1916 and died in a Turkish Prisoner of War camp. He is remembered on the Basra Memorial, reference:

Panel 21 and 63.  Robert is also commemorated at Winchester College by the altar piece in Chapel, erected in his memory and the memory of Lieutenant Wilmot Babington Parker-Smith, who died of wounds on 12 September 1915. Palmer's parents paid for the "Mother" figure, which was dedicated in 1923 by HRH The Prince of Wales.

His parents had Robert’s war letters and poems privately published in 1916 as “Letters from Mesopotamia: from Robert Palmer”.

This poem by Robert Palmer was published in 5 WW1 anthologies.

 

How long, O Lord, how long, before the flood

Of crimson-welling carnage shall abate?

From sodden plains in West and East the blood

Of kindly men streams up in mists of hate

Polluting Thy clear air: and nations great

In reputation of the arts that bind

The world with hopes of Heaven, sink to the state

Of brute barbarians, whose ferocious mind

Gloats o'er the bloody havoc of their kind,

Not knowing love or mercy. Lord, how long

Shall Satan in high places lead the blind

To battle for the passions of the strong?

Oh, touch thy children's hearts, that they may know

Hate their most hateful, pride their deadliest foe.

Sources:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17584/17584-h/17584-h.htm  p. 44

Catherine Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A  Bibliogrpahy” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) pp. 248 – 249

https://www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/RollofHonour.aspx?RecID=374&TableName=ta_wwifactfile

Poets killed on the first day of the Battle of Arras - Easter Monday, 9th April 1917

The poets Edward Thomas, R.E. Vernède, William Maunsell Scanlan, MC, MM and Walter Lightowler Wilkinson were killed on the first day of the Battle of Arras, which was Easter Monday, 9th April 1917.  My Great Uncle was also killed on that day during that battle.  The poet William Henry Littlejohn was mortally wounded on 9th April 1917 and died the following day.

With thanks to Paul Johnson for finding the image entitled "Zero, 9 April 1917" by Major C.J.B. Way, RAMC, which is taken from the book "The Golden Horseshoe".