WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A GERMAN ?
EMPATHY IS RARE IN WAR, ONCE THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE GETS WORKING.
What is it like to be a German ?
What can it be like to be like that ?
To have a daft name like Fritz or Herman
And to wear a great spike on your 'at
What is it like to be dressed like a Kraut
In flowery braces and short leider-hosen
And to spend all your time marching about
Shouting and strutting and posing
What might it be like to be a Boche ?
Bayoneting babies in Belgium ?
That might not be true - a load of old tosh
But I've heard they've been raping old ladies...
In our vicar's sermons
He says that the Germans
Are all wicked smelly and fat !
But I can't be sure
Because he's preached before
That God loves us all, even blacks.
So-
What is it like to be a Hun
With their gabbling guttural talk
How would I feel it I was one
Would I feel that the war was my fault ?
Would I hate and detest every last Englishman ?
Could I stomach my race being also-rans ?
Or would I know in my heart that every one
Was, just like me, some mother's son?
Would I lay the blame on a Serbian's gun
Or an Austrian Emperor's pride ?
Or would I know that this war
That's touching us all
Was nobody's fault
At all.
But then our king has a cousin
Once removed
Who happens to be the Kaiser,
Which just goes to prove
That they've nothing to lose
And how false their warmongering lies are.
But that shouldn't matter
If they'd just have a natter
King George and the Kaiser
Could sort it all out
But they won't.
© nigel hallworth 2014