The Antichrist — Der Widerchrist
Claus von Stauffenberg quoted this poem repeatedly to fellow officers through 1943 and 1944 — not at the execution, but while recruiting hesitant men into the conspiracy over the preceding year. It never names Hitler. It describes a type: a false prophet who counterfeits miracles and leads a deceived people into their own destruction. That's what let conspirators arrive at the identification themselves, rather than being told.
This rendering combines two translation passes of George's original — reconciled here for clarity and completeness, not a single published translation.
"There he comes, down from the mountain — there he stands in the grove!
We saw it with our own eyes: he turns water
Into wine, and speaks with the dead."1
Could you hear my laughter in the night:
Now my hour has struck. Now the thread draws tight.
Now the fish swim into my net.
The wisdom of the dead — the people reel in madness,
Uproot the trees, shatter the grain,
Make way for the train of the Risen One.2
There is no work of heaven I cannot counterfeit for you.
Only a hair's breadth is missing — and with your battered senses
You will not notice the deception.
I create for you all that is rare and difficult:
Light, a thing like gold made out of clay,
How fragrant it is, how rich with juice and spice —
And what the great prophet never dared to do:
Art without clearing, sowing, or building —
Only the sucking-out of forces already stored.
The Prince of Vermin spreads his kingdom.3
No treasure is lacking to him, no fortune escapes him.
To the ground with the rest of the rebels!
You rejoice, dazzled by the devilish glow.
You squander what remains of your former harvest
And feel the want only just before the end.
Then your tongue will hang over the dry trough,
You will wander helplessly, like cattle through the burning yard...
And the trumpet will sound, terribly, the last time.4
Notes
- Turns water into wine, speaks with the dead — two counterfeit or inverted powers: stealing Christ's first miracle (at Cana) and committing necromancy, a practice forbidden outright in the Old Testament. ↩
- The Risen One — a false resurrection, directly parodying Christ's own. The "train" is the procession of followers marching for this counterfeit messiah. ↩
- Prince of Vermin — an echo of Beelzebub, "Lord of the Flies," a name for a demon prince. The title demotes an apparently all-powerful ruler to lord of filth and pests. ↩
- The last trumpet — in Revelation and Paul's letters, the last trumpet announces judgment and deliverance for the faithful. Here it sounds over people who followed a false prophet straight into their own ruin. ↩
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