Brecht at night

[Skybird]

This night, very early in the morning, I was called on telephone by a former colleague and lose friend with whom I shared some trips when I travelled the world. We have drifted apart since then, and he has become very political meanwhile. It turned into a little upheated discussion about the usual poltical issues we know in the forum as well, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan. When he understood my position on war in general (=very hesitent to start one, and extremely careful about motives, but if accedpting it, fighting with all fire from hell), he thought he could counter me with this old quote by Brecht:

"Imagine there's a war and no one shows up."

What he did not know is that this quote - is completely ripped out of context. Most people do not know the quote in full. If they would, they would realise that Brecht said exactly the opposite of what his misquote is being abused for so very often.

He was quite angry after I gave him the full quote. His wonder weapon had failed. At the phone I needed to do my own translation from German to English after I searched and found it in a book, always balancing a book, a coffee and a telephone with just two hands. But I have searched for it in the web meanwhile, and found it's "official" translation. the complete quote goes like this:

Imagine there's a war and no one shows up
— then war will come to you.
Whoever stays home when the battle begins
and lets others fight for his cause
ought to watch out:
because whoever has not shared in the fight
will share in defeat.
He who wants to avoid fighting
will not once avoid the fight:
because he will fight for the cause of the enemy
who hasn't fought for his own.

Stell Dir vor, es ist Krieg und keiner geht hin - dann kommt der Krieg zu Euch! Wer zu Hause bleibt, wenn der Kampf beginnt, und läßt andere kämpfen für seine Sache, der muß sich vorsehen: Denn wer den Kampf nicht geteilt hat, der wird teilen die Niederlage. Nicht einmal Kampf vermeidet, wer den Kampf vermeiden will, denn er wird kämpfen für die Sache des Feindes, wer für seine eigene Sache nicht gekämpft hat.

Tja. So much for Brecht.

[Skybird]

P.S. The german quote I have in form of a very old Tagesspiegel snippet (print) from 1992. Now having done reasearch on a translation, I stumbled for the first time ever over readers exporessing doubts that the full quote is by brecht indeed, so they querstion it's originality and say it is not by Brecht, but is qttributed to him to give it more authority.

Does anyone know for sure? It would be a special irony if my thread torpedoes itself in case the full quote I gave is NOT by Brecht... the old Tagesspiegel excerpt of mine does not doubt Brecht to be the author.

[AntEater]

The poem is by an american poet named Carl Sandburg, didn't know him before.
He wrote it in 1936, so I suppose it alludes to Hitler.
So the US version is actually the original and the german version a translation.


Brecht had nothing to do with neither the quote nor the full poem.
But the mistake of attributing it to Brecht dates back at least to 1968.

Google can be your friend sometimes

I think the quote "what is robbing a bank against founding one?" is more fitting to the current situation

*nods* just found out the same.

It does not make that quote any less accurate, though.

[Skybird]

Ah. An urban myth I fell for. I need to send somebody a clearification, then.

[joea]

Interesting learnt something from this thread. Gotta read more Brecht and Sandberg.

[Sailor Steve]

Same here. I only knew the single line as a '60s paraphrase/misquote from John Lennon.

[NeonSamurai]

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/287.html

Some of Sandburgs poems if your interested