Germany's Shame: 0050.0895

GERMANY’S SHAME AND HYPOCRISY.

            The Kaiser has been anxious to have it understood abroad that his heart was torn by the loss of the Lusitania with its cargo of helpless men, women and little children.

            The captain of the murderous submarine has been represented as weeping as he obeyed his awful orders, dictated by a dreadful necessity.  And an impression was sought to be conveyed of German sympathy with those who had embarked on the British owned vessel.

            How far all such hypocrisy was from the truth is shown by a music hall ditty, popular all over Germany, of which the following carefully bade translation is published in the Pall Mall Gazette:

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE LUSITANIA

A Marching Song.  (Tune: Upidee, Up –ida).  By Rudolf Kuhn.

            I.

            Carrying shameful contraband,

            From New York to the English land,

            Bearing thousands, on she came:

            But the U Boat sniffed its game.

 

            II.

            Sailed the Lusitania gay

            Farther on her felon way;

            Off Ireland’s coast the U Boat peers

            See the course her quarry steers.

 

            III.

            Passengers from every shore –

            English, Greek and Dutch galore,

            Americans and sons of France

            Sail along to death’s fell dance.

 

            IV.

            Ah!  The U Boat’s aim was good;

            Who doesn’t choke, drowns in the flood,

            Vanderbilt was there that day,

            The only one we missed was Grey.

 

            V.

            Each one gives his nose a wrench

            At the gases’ awful stench.

            “They’re our shells, our very own,”

            Cries the Yankee Mr. Kohn.

 

            VI.

            The old water-nymphs below

            Straight begin to curse and blow;

            “What chuck ye then so carelessly

            On the bottom of the sea?”

 

            VII.

            There lay the dead in Neptune’s jaws,

            Most of them with scalded paws –

            Sons of England with their wives;

            Ne’er so still in all their lives!

 

            VIII.

            Chant we now the funeral chant

            More U Boats is what we want.

            To a chill grave with the enemy!

            Till he stop bothering Germany.

0050.0895: Germany's Shame

Translated music hall ditty in Germany after the sinking of the Lusitania, showing the true feelings Germans had of the disaster, not the Kaisers statements.

Medium:  Newspaper - Text
Date:  September 1, 1915
Pages:  4
Publisher:  Family Herald and Weekly Star
Collection:  Columbia Basin Institute (0050)

Keywords:

hypocrisy captain submarine sympathy vessel music hall ditty translation destruction lusitania contraband u boat passengers funeral chant

Subjects:

Military arrow Wars arrow World War Iarrow
Transportation arrow Boats arrow SS Lusitaniaarrow

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