Nachts weinen die Soldaten [English translation]

A cross in the snow,

The grave of a soldier.

I wonder who you may have been.

Did you boast with your heroic deeds?

Were you in love and who missed you?

Your white cross does not even bear your name.

Someone wrote* 1916 on it.

No god helped you, neither prayer nor Amen.

For a stranger’s bill you paid with blood.

Have you still been young, perhaps already a father?

Did you know it, have you ever seen your child?**

At night the soldiers cry.

Nameless tears in their faces.

At night the soldiers cry.

Only numbers without any weight.

Your white cross is unfortunately not standing alone.

There where it stands today stand million others more.

Only bones are left of the soldiers.

This sea of death is left of the Great War.

Tell me quietly: How did it end?

Did a well-aimed shot hit you in the heart?

At night the soldiers cry.

Nameless tears in their faces.

At night the soldiers cry.

Only numbers without any weight.

Tell me why.

What drove you to the battles?

Wrong faith, the idea of the fatherland?

Were it friends who motivated you?

Tell me, solider, when your hope faded.

At night the soldiers cry.

Nameless tears in their faces.

At night the soldiers cry.

Only numbers without any weight.

So I am standing here, alone with the dead

And I wish the world would have learned.

The spring is sending me its first heralds

But I forgot how to hope.