He who laughs last, laughs best
Your enemies stand in the west
And in the east, dear soul,
Within the German boundary posts.
Will it make you cry, will it make you laugh?
Only rubble remains of Aachen,
Which the Yankees now possess.
Aachen can no longer be of use to you.
And so they may get it,
And as they gave Aachen
More will need to be given,
You will know it very soon.
Adolf Hitler will lead you
And you will lose Cologne and Düren
And the Ruhr area,
Or rather the ruins,
For not much of them remained.
And in the east it is no better,
Your former castles in the air,
Your future dreams of eastern lands,
Your vast living spaces
Chimeras of German minds,
They’re gone, you poor souls,
Lost and forgotten
And instead, in East Prussia
You’re faced with the Cossacks
And the Russians hard on your heels
And they fight with method
And they took Ebenrode
And they also took Gumbinnen,
Forty kilometers further on
You must not underestimate that,
Yet you let yourselves be driven further
And the war continues merrily,
And you do not become wiser
And instead of finally stopping,
It seems not to bother you.
German land, scorched earth,
German people, you flock of sheep,
How long will you let yourself be slaughtered
For those who brought you this far?
Post-Editing: Deidre Mattison
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