I confess this:
I have no hope.
The blind talk about an escape.
I see.
When the errors are consumed
The nothing will sit next to us
as our last companion.
Den Nachgeborenen
Ich gestehe es:
Ich habe keine Hoffnung.
Die Blinden reden von einem Ausweg.
Ich sehe.
Wenn die Irrtümer verbraucht sind
Sitzt als letzter Gesellschafter
Uns das Nichts gegenüber.
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I don't have personal knowledge of whether or not this is about the Holocaust but it struck me as being something that a war prisoner might think, especially a Holocaust victim, because of the usage of the word "errors" (as in the people who were being exterminated because of their perceived inferiority).
It also strikes me in a broader,almost Darwinian sense - like it could be referring to the fact that if all errors were "consumed" or "used up", we would stop evolving and nothing would be the end result. (extinction.) In some sense, error is necessary to keep species alive and evolving.
On yet another level, the poem invites us to examine Eastern Religious though. If you achieve perfection, in the spiritual (Buddhist) sense, you achieve a state of nothingness.
I think the poem is quite amazing in its brevity and many layers. If anyone has any deeper knowledge of what Brecht was getting at here, I would be interested in hearing from them.
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