Stauffenberg (tall officer standing at attention, far left) and Hitler at the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) in East Prussia in 1944
Then gone; I am learning to live in history.
What is history? What you cannot touch.
—Lowell
"I never knew what to do with so many fingers when I still had them all!"—Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, who had lost all but three fingers in combat and so had difficulty arming the bomb with which he almost succeeded in killing Hitler in 1944.
Think not too much of that which no one knows!
“White blackness” takes the measure of free rhyme.
Denk nicht zufiel von dem was keiner weiss!*
Wrote Stefan George, who spoke for their language in his time.
He seems to have favored loaded dice.
You don’t know German? Nor do I.
Ours in that case scarce to reason why!
Think not too much of that which no one knows!
Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg in 1944
*Denk nicht zufiel von dem was keiner weiss!" published in 1914 by Stefan George (1868-1933), whose poetry is reported to have inspired Stauffenberg:
Denk nicht zuviel von dem was keiner weiss!
Unhebbar ist der lebenbilder sinn:
Der wildschwan den du schossest den im hof
Du kurz noch hieltest mit zerbrochnem flügel
Er mahnte—sagtest du—an fernes wesen
Verwandtes dir das du in ihm vernichtet.
Er siechte ohne dank für deine pflege
Und ohne groll . . doch als sein ende kam
Schalt dich sein brechend auge dass du ihn
Um-triebst in einen neuen Kreis der dinge.
Translated by DeepL (with a little help from PRD):
Think not too much of that which no one knows! / The meaning of life's image cannot be unraveled: / The wild swan that you shot, / Which you kept a while in the courtyard with a broken wing, / Recalled—you said—a distant related something you destroyed in him. / He died without thanks for your care / And without resentment . . . but when his end came / His sinking eye rebuked you for having / hustled him into a new circle of things.
December 28, 2024