FATZER; DEMISE OF THE EGOTIST

1
 by Bertolt Brecht
(Chicago version: Opened 24.3.96, Prop.Thtr.)
arranged and translated by Stefan Brün1987,1995

DOCUMENT 1

CHORUS:
You may still know
that in the second decade of this century
there was a war between all peoples
who entrenched themselves
and sinking
their unsinkable ships
from one ocean to the other
and housing four years under ground
in holes of cement
shot one another with ten thousand tons of steel
ate grass and the flesh of their horses
flew through the air against one another
in newly invented metal machines
and advanced against one another in
vehicles of iron.
This war that lasted four years and
was recognized as a crime,
even in our lifetime,
spewed forth a generation
of scum
that didn't last long and that
in its demise tore down the decrepit world.

(From in the tank)

KOCH:[shouts]Which of you is my friend and will bury me
under the ground? So that nothing can hit me anymore.
But there is no place left for me
to crawl 'cause they shoot thirty
feet under the surface of the earth.

BUESCHING:[also shouting] All this here has got

2
 to go. Wherever there's a city, it's got
to go and no stone should remain.
And in their place, there should be a hole and
we'll be shooting into the sea.

I,1
[dawn, upon a shot up battlefield, out of a bomb-crater comes a
tank, out of it a voice]

VOICE: Hello
[a soldier climbs out]

FATZER: Is there anyone here?

Like after the deluge.

BUESCHINGS VOICE: What's out there?

FATZER: Nothing, come out.

KOCH'S VOICE: What did he say?

FATZER: There's nothing here.

BUESHING: We can't hear well 'cause it was so loud in here.

[three soldiers climb out of the tank]

FATZER: It's quiet here

come on out
there's nobody here.

KAUMANN: Nothing.
Like after the deluge.

BUESHING: No shooting? No metal flying? We drove

the wrong way. It's
the wrong district.

KAUMANN: We've gone to the moon.

KOCH: Let's get in again.

FATZER: Why?

KOCH: They're sure to be shooting this way soon.

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FATZER: Those who were here
are no more and are through
shooting. We've come too late
to use our guns. Here is a
good place to sit down.

[sits under half a tree].

Watch this I'm going to roll

this light and dark stone
whether I'll still make it out of this hell
if white I'll make it out
if black: never more.

[he rolls]

KAUMANN: Black.

[all except Fatzer laugh loudly]

FATZER: Now that I know I'll soon die,

I also want to know if you'll live
you roll too.

BUESCHING: I won't do it Fatzer - a dice

is worse than machine gun fire.

FATZER: Cowards.

KAUMANN: All right, I'll roll.

[he rolls]

Black.

[Fatzer laughs. To Koch:]

What are you waiting for?

[Koch rolls]

Black.

[to Buesching:]

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 Wipe that cold stare off. Maybe
you're immortal.

FATZER: Roll, you dog!

[Buesching rolls but holds his fist closed for a long time]

BUESCHING: Before,
while you were rolling Kaumann,
I breathed into my cupped hands
and sniffed at my breath
It smelled rotten there and
I said to myself: I'll soon be dead.

[shows the others the dice, without looking himself]

FATZER: [laughs loudly] Black.

All black. Now we can
be friends again - give me
your tobacco, Kaumann, I'll smoke
up the last of it since we
are friends again. Because now
it's sure that soon we won't
smoke anymore nor see
a half tree like this.
I'll make
no more war.
I shit
on this world as it is. I am lost.

DOCUMENT 2
Therefore we have to
Stand our ground through this third year of the war
That is lasting longer than projected
And once again divide up the land
And stretch the food rations, with new
And stricter measures
So that they last longer and fulfill the quota,
To one quarter pound of meat per day, per head
The same goes for flour, shoes and clothing so that
We

5
With a fraction of our strength
Can get through the greatest war in the world
Of one people against thirty
So that our people are ahead of all the others at
The end.

For this it is necessary to know

What attitude the lowest people, the masses
Have towards the war
Tenacity and patience as long as
No man leaves the trenches
Which only lasts till the first man leaves
Cold and disease caused by cold
The hunger more biting through cold
Of diseased bodies
They bear it.

I,2
[Morning. Koch falls over]

KOCH: Oh, Fatzer I can't

anymore.

BUESCHING: His legs

are no good anymore.
Stand up, Koch.

FATZER: Why didn't you leave him lying inside?

BUESCHING: So he'd get some air. A

man is no dog. Stand
up, Koch, you dog!

FATZER: Give him the brandy.

BUESCHING: That is against regulations, it's

the emergency ration.

FATZER: Give it to him!

What day is today?

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KOCH: Wednesday.

FATZER: So this is the Wednesday on

which we have had enough.

KOCH: We are lost. We're sure to be

finished off. They'll catch us. Why
were we born now when the
air is full of metal and poison?
Where can one escape to? Everywhere
there are people.

BUESCHING: People are the enemy and must cease.

Get back in the tank.
We're driving on as
long as we still see a
half-standing tree when
all should be empty

FATZER: If you don't shut up

where you're standing will soon be empty.

BUESCHING: Asshole!

FATZER: Everybody has one

And now
hold your heads
in your hands
and listen:
Over four years lying
in the mud of trenches amongst artillery, hopping
through flak barrages always searching
cover - The last two years I reflected
on my situation and usefulness, I searched
a way to show myself what's up with me
but yesterday I remembered
a small drawing I
saw in a book
something similar I want
to construct for you.
This point here signifies
Fatzer.

BUESCHING,KOCH,KAUMANN:We don't want to learn anything.

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FATZER: Who does want to?
You don't want to learn anything, but I tell you,
it is someone else who doesn't want you to
learn - this war
goes against us and the fight against
us is being fought with our hands
and the wrong foe has been chosen
the opposing camps are made up
of the wrong mix:
friend and foe in one camp,
and in the other once more friend and foe.
And all these fight
habitually, dealing according to a plan
they don't know. Those who
operate a meat grinder only want to
think they operate levers,
and so the well ordered mass of human beings
strives for a false goal
and
the new found pleasure
of marching in step together is being usurped.
This point signifies
I am here - and there, against me, is
an unending line. They are
soldiers like me, though my enemy.
But here I suddenly
see another
line which is behind me and is
also against me. What is that? It's
those who sent us here, they are the
businessmen.
Finally after years
I see the enemy.
It is not our interests
that are so bloodily being
negotiated here:
fire and water are fighting
together on one side
and on the other there's also
fire and water.
If they were only to look back
from their bloody embrace, each
would see the enemy standing
behind him and so after
four years of blind raging war,
I just looked behind me

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and suddenly saw everything:
in front of me was him against whom I fought: my brother;
but behind me and behind him: our enemy.
And now under this half tree I'll smoke
up our tobacco.
I'll
make no more war.
It is good that I
have come here to one
place in the world where I
could think about it for three minutes.
Now
we can go.

KAUMANN: You'll be shot, Buesching will shoot you.

FATZER: I don't believe in Büsching anymore.

BUESCHING: I think, Fatzer is right,

we must move out.
The fatherland looks good on the map, but now there
is a hole there through which we can get out.

KAUMANN: And what about the vehicle?

FATZER: It can stay till

new years and say
to the next shell that
shoots by: They
shat into me, and
that should be written on the outside too

[he writes on the tank]

Shit!
and now forward.

KOCH: Which way is forward?

To the right everything's red
and behind us everything is also burning,
ahead it is silent
and that is worst of all.

FATZER: Left you assholes,

follow Fatzer.
And anyone we meet
we mow him down.

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KOCH: Left is the quietest.

BUESCHING: This tank has born

us again.

FATZER: Drink up, empty your bottles

for which we should be shot
so that there be no more, other-
wise you'll go on with this war.

DOCUMENT 3
The best of us, once a new
idea emerges at any point on the
earth, desert their positions
and nothing holds them back; Time splits
itself into old and new; they don't do anything
old anymore. But time rolls still further.

II,1
THE INVASION (IN THE DEPTHS)
a.
[The wife of Kaumann: Therese and two other women]

THERESE: [yells] Where are they?

Today I have decided

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to satisfy
my flesh
three years
is too long
why doesn't he come
lay himself upon me?
My body
has withered, surely
my time has passed.
The cows and the bitches
find satisfaction when in heat
and I require that I
too be satisfied!
That I don't always think about my
womb which is empty but
rather live like you!

THE WOMAN: Go ahead and yell,

when you're through yelling,
it's just
like before.
A real woman, she
needs more than gruel and
such. And when it comes to love
that is for the big shots, but
at night she needs somebody
who does it with her, even the doctor
says so.

THERESE: I have a husband, his name

is on the door

WOMAN: And his name is on the list

of the missing.
You can't go to bed
with a name.

GIRL: But I have a brother who

has no job.

THERESE: There's just one room here

no place for your brother.

WOMAN: Put on a clean blouse and come along.

GIRL: My brother
has time this evening and no

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roof over his head tonight.

THERESE: This is just one room here

is no place for your brother
You are without shame
and because you're a whore
you can't think any different
but by the time my soup is
on the table, I'm so worn
out that I can't sit anymore
and grateful that there's
no one around who still
wants to lay me.

[the two women get up to leave]

GIRL: Even your cunt is a whore.

[they exit]

DOCUMENT 4

In Muehlheim on the Ruhr, during the morally denuded

time of the first world war, a story among four men
unfolded which ended with the total downfall of all
four in the midst of murder, betrayal, and
decadence that showed the bloody traces of a new
set of morals.
And when it was all over, there was
disorder, and a room in
which all was totally destroyed and within it
four dead men and
one name! and one door on which was written
something that could not be deciphered.
But you now will see the whole thing:
that which happened, we
have set it up
in the exact order of time,
in the exact location and
with the exact words that
were spoken. And whatever you see
you will end up seeing what we saw:
disorder, and a room
which was totally destroyed, and within it
four dead men and
one name. And we built it up so that
you decide

12
what actually happened since
we couldn't agree.
b.
[a call comes from outside]

THERESE: Who's out there? I am not

opening up.

KAUMANN: Open up it's me

THERESE: Where did you come from?

FATZER: Wherever it is we came from,

assume it's from
the shafts of hell! And
however it is that we have come together,
we are now here where we never meant to be.

KAUMANN: These are my friends.

FATZER: And these you must treat well

with a meal and whatever's
around that doesn't watch.

KAUMANN: Yeah, what do you have to eat?

THERESE: Are you on furlough, that you

arrive so suddenly?

FATZER: You could call it a furlough - but

who asks a lot, hears a lot.

KOCH: There's not much room here?

THERESE: Gottfried do you still have

such an appetite?

[they eat]

FATZER: As I sat in the freight cars

I saw
that everyone is unsatisfied
that pleased me.

KOCH: Yes things are going to break loose soon

we only have to wait it out,

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BUESCHING: and hold out.

[they laugh]

FATZER: when they break loose

we have to be together.

KOCH: If they capture us separately

then we are done for. We
should not go further. Here near
the border,
they are most dissatisfied and: where
there are factories.

FATZER: Yes. Here. Then we've agreed

to stay together,
and you won't go on to Passau
Koch

BUESCHING: And I won't go on to Liegnitz.

THERESE: By tomorrow I'll find you each a place.

FATZER: You don't need to do that

we're not leaving tomorrow yet
and for the time being we'll all stay here with
you, you better swallow that and
don't try anything! Its no
use! What time of year is
it now? Late fall! It'll be a while
but I've kept my eyes open
and have seen that
a new time is beginning and
there's something about people
that hasn't been before
one sees groups of them around
one has never seen before. That's
because those, who have been kept down,
are rising up
where there used to be
one person and one more
there is now a mass, a
mass of people and they all remain
together.
They no longer return to their homes
and there is enough for you,
Kaumann - and things will work out

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for you, Koch, because you have such a passion
that things should work out. And that is not
because there is a God, there is
none. But because,
instead, people are beginning
to recognize
that food must come first.
You have my assurance that
you will have food till then and
get through
because now we are standing
at the threshold of the land
that belongs to us.

KOCH: There, that doormat

I'll use it.

THERESE: And where do I sleep?

BUESCHING: Next to your husband, as always.

THERESE: With all of you lying around?

KAUMANN: In the night it's dark.

THERESE: Maybe I want to talk with you

after all these years.

FATZER: Tomorrow.

THERESE: Are all of you going to stay?

How long?

KOCH: A short while.

II,2

KAUMANN: [enters with a package] There, turnips

BUESCHING: Cook 'em! Where is the woman?

KOCH: Working. Cook 'em yourself!

BUESCHING: Gimme!

KAUMANN: Are they fresh enough.

15
BUESCHING: [bites into one] Someone took a bite.
Did you do that?

KAUMANN: They were that way.

BUESCHING: The hell they were. You

took a bite

KAUMANN: If I hunt them up...

KOCH: Does that mean you should eat them up?

It's in your mouth; spit it out

KAUMANN: Come get it.

BUESCHING: [bends Kaumann's head back] Spit it out!

KOCH: It's a matter of principle.

KAUMANN: [spits it into Buesching's face] There you are.

FATZER: [has begun to eat] You two are a pair.

KOCH: Cook them first.

BUESCHING: There, eat too. I'm not waiting either.

KOCH: Then you'll be farting around again.

FATZER: And that's forbidden as a matter

of `principle'.

[they eat]

KOCH: Everything is quiet, wherever

you go ! No indication
of anything! and we're
running out of breath!

FATZER: They're eating their bread without salt

all that will take another thousand years of
brains, being eaten into by hunger,
weakened - therefore weak.
If weak - then bestial
and beasts do not ask: why?
Therefore they have to be suppressed

16
I don't need to eat two days longer
than anyone of you. Whoever can hold out longest,
I can hold out even longer. If you're
subjugated by this animal compulsion
and your stomachs have no brains,
you must do that which I don't need to do
and it's my brains which allow me this.

KOCH: [to Fatzer] I don't need to eat, two days longer

than anyone of you.
Fatzer, you're eating with us?

FATZER: Yes, I'm eating with you.

BUESCHING: [laughs]
This is the new age.
In battle I have seen many
with red faces and some went in
undistinguished like beetles, but
I've never seen
a great man.

FATZER: [laughs]
I am one

[enter Therese Kaumann]

THERESE: Are you all eating? Don't you need another

spoon or two spoons? [to Kaumann] Are you
satisfied? Don't you need anything
more? If you don't say
anything, I will:
If we are never alone I will
say it in front of all of them
gorging themselves, [to Fatzer] and you
I hate the most, because you are the
toughest and could find your own food.

[Fatzer laughs]

So, I'm asking all of you, don't you want to

go and get some air
occasionly or go outside
to the outhouse so that I can get my man
alone. I'll tell you all:
I want him to reach for my legs
fulfilling. It only takes a couple

17
minutes - you'll pardon us that long -
it's my rightful claim.

KAUMANN: Shut your mouth! Have you

no shame?

THERESE: That's exactly what I'm missing. If

I remove your supper
you get angry, but
what am I supposed to do?

KOCH: Get up, bring your

turnips, come eat outside.

KAUMANN: You can all remain inside

When I only eat
grass, take note, I have no desire
for a woman! and
that's the way it is.

FATZER: Unity is important, but

I need four lungs
to breathe.

KAUMANN: I'll murder him.

[Buesching holds Kaumann, Koch Fatzer]

KOCH: I sense yet another sickness

now has come upon us.

BUESCHING: If for two days fate does not tread on us,

then for sure it has
sprained its ankle.

KOCH: No rope holds longer than

its weakest fiber can hold.

FATZER: [toward Kaumann]

If a man hangs his stale moldy green cock
into this fat greasy bog
he stands right up again anxious
about having no space and begins
to talk about himself with beastly seriousness
and
to forget what's what.
I no longer like

18
this world which
I don't like to admit:
because I particularly
despise those who
are unfortunate.

KOCH: Now we must discuss whether we

want to go away, each to his own city
or to remain in this one.

BUESCHING: Let's go.

FATZER: Since now you

have had your fill
of turnips, it is
all the same to you,
but of all our undertakings only one
remains: to live
the most dangerous of undertakings, hardly promising
possible only through crime, but from now on every pound
of fresh meat is a victory.
To build this roof over our head afresh, every hour,
and perhaps never to experience our only triumph:
to still be here,
at the periphery of these times.
I am of all of us
physically and mentally most capable
to go it alone and survive, but I am
for staying together.

KOCH: I also want to tell you why

each of us should not now go to his own city
because then he'd disappear
among the many, hiding and trying
to forget that he is an outlaw
but this way
we stand incorruptible
without names by which
one can call us
completely irreconcilable:
four of a kind (who "think normally")
and live
in the enemy's city
awaiting the downfall of
those who unjustly
occupy it for now but not for
eternity

19
KAUMANN: And where is the food coming from?

FATZER: Tomorrow,
when I go out tomorrow
to get your food.
Since you do want to eat
even if you're not really here
I will have to have a suit
like everyone else, do you have one?

KAUMANN: It must be in the closet.

THERESE: That's it.

FATZER: That I can use, it will make me look like one of them.

DOCUMENT 5

CHORUS: A place in the Ruhr valley:

Impress upon yourself the dim picture of
a space between cranes and iron works
among which Johann Fatzer
moved during his last days
trying to hold up the wheels.

III,1
FATZER'S STROLL THROUGH THE CITY OF MUEHLHEIM

FATZER: Above all we need to know

at which point on the map, out of which blood smeared
obscure point of the goddamned
earth-crust we crawled,
what they have to eat here,
what sort of people - how many
are still around;

20
because I have the feeling we're
going to be here for quite some time.
[in front of the city's meat supply house]
[asks a woman]
What's that building?

WOMAN: That's the meat market.

FATZER: You get meat there?

WOMAN: A tenth of a pound, per person, daily.

FATZER: Then they'll have to give me four times that.

WOMAN: Are you equal to four men?

FATZER: Action speaks louder than words

[woman exits laughing]

[soldier and butcher at the meat market]

SOLDIER: The entire train is a supply train.

Like I said, we are missing those five steer on the list
and that's why I've come to you.

BUTCHER: Yeah, well, tomorrow you can have three, day after
tomorrow
on Friday, we butcher again.

SOLDIER: We've gotta have the rest by Friday evening,

at the latest. 'Cause Saturday morning we're off.

BUTCHER: Yeah, then you'll be butchered.

[the people laugh]

SOLDIER: [moving on] Stupid dog!

FATZER: [trotting along behind him]

I've got to follow behind him
the smell of blood from those five steer
will lead me. While I'm at it I want
to look around how my friend the war
is getting along. How the people
are dressed. The people
are dressed badly, I see that.
They've got their little pieces of wool and cotton

21
stockpiled behind bayonettes, distributing
them thread by thread. This war is going
in tattered shoes; so it can't go
on long. Also I think I already see:
poor are poorer and rich richer now and
in between is nothing: that is also good.
Babies who weigh nothing at birth and
are pale lipped and don't gain weight: That is good.
Also good, that it soon will be winter, it
gnaws away at the war, when people freeze.
Already now fifteen are living
in every hole in the wall, since
nothing is being built anymore - and the more
people are crowded together, the more
reasonable they become.
And they chase after their women just
like in the old days, with such a
greedy expression, as though they
had no other problems except
how to mount them, that is not good.
They are not yet weak enough
or - worse yet
they've grown used to these bloody times.
Nothing changes. Sure they're the sort that crawl,
even with crushed knee caps,
up onto those hairy holes - as long
as they still can get those, they
will accept anything - one will have to
plug them up too. The more I see
the more I find that I really have to
follow behind my five good steer.

[a line of young recruits marches by]

They're so young, that should not be necessary.

They can't even eat on their own yet and are already
expected to be killing men. That gnaws at the war.
They should be allowed to
grow up first and then go to war.

[soldier turns and walks on; Fatzer trots behind him]

He has no opinion
and that is what's bad. That's why
the war lasts so long, it could already
be over. But he's got to
fork over some meat

22
I know these guys, he'll
fork it over.

[in front of bakery shop]

FOUR WOMEN: Give us some flour!

FATZER: What are you yelling about?

FOUR WOMEN: We have a ration card

on which it says that we get flour,
but always when we come to the baker
his door is locked and there's
no flour for us.
But we are sure that
behind the door there is some flour

FATZER: So why can't you get any?

THE WOMEN: The big shots eat it;

what the military doesn't eat, is eaten by the big shots;
but we, who have children,
only get the chaff.

FATZER: Why don't you kick the door in?

Kick the door in and get the flour.

THE WOMEN: There's another one of those big mouths.

The likes of you should be shot dead!
Why isn't he out fighting with the others, where he belongs?
Its the British, who deny us our food
and the French are killing off our men
and there's one who's in cahoots with the enemy.
Look at that turncoat - now he's slinking off.

FATZER: [going on behind the soldier]

The people are so stupid! This war will
never end!

[soldier turns and goes on; Fatzer goes trotting on behind him]

As long as you still have a few strands of meat

between your teeth or
between your brothers teeth
you will not stop the butchering
therefore the water will have
to rot in your mouths.

23
you should die off like flies in December
and by January the moths should feed on you.

[two men go by]

ONE: Do you still have any wood in your warehouse?

TWO: A thousand logs.

ONE: Then you shouldn't let anyone at your wood, now;

instead hide it away. Then, when it gets
cold, we can
sell it log by log and they'll
have to pay
whatever we demand.

TWO: Right and we also must

remove the coal from
their sight, bucket by bucket.
This war should never end!

[both exit]

FATZER: I see there's still a supply of coal and wood around and
its good
there are people, stiff jawed enough, to conceal them.
That gnaws away at the war!
Those are good people.
If there were more of those people around, this
war would soon be over.
But there aren't many, and those few
are living too well, and as long as they
can choke down even warmed up grass
and rotted horse meat,
they'll continue squeezing wars from their systems
and that's why we have to take
things in our own hands and provide ourselves with enough
sustenance
for a long period of time.
Careful! or he'll get away from me!
Its becoming clear to me:
it won't do to just get enough
for today's dinner:
This war will last longer.

24
SOLDIER: [turns around]
Hey you! Why are you trotting behind me like a dog
why don't you say anything when
I question you?
See here, we have a
knife for those
who ambush us.

FATZER: I must approach him differently

if I want to get that meat
and I need it for those I led here
I must think of something! I promised, I must throw
myself at his feet and show him my hunger.
Hey there, comrade!

SOLDIER: What's with you?

FATZER: Give me something to eat!

SOLDIER: Get up! I don't have anything.

FATZER: Give me something to eat!

SOLDIER: Man, I don't trust you.

These types who keel over
you give them something to drink, and
they stab you in the back.

FATZER: Yup, that's the way it is everywhere.

SOLDIER: Don't think I didn't notice that you

were following me. If you were honest
you wouldn't have to throw yourself down, because
you are not weak.

FATZER: Believe what you want, but

if I had food to eat
I wouldn't have thrown myself at your feet.

SOLDIER: What's that to me?

FATZER: Nothing I'm sure. I lie here and

starve, and you say:
what's that to me.

SOLDIER: Why not?

25
FATZER: Sure, why not?

SOLDIER: OK, I'll give you nothing.

FATZER:Of course: nothing!

Listen: We are
four and need something
to eat, and if anyone
notices us, we're done for.
But you have five steer and
it was those I ran after, when I
ran after you, and tomorrow
I want to come with my friends
and bring along a wagon.
When it gets dark you will
fork over some of your meat and
flour and a bit of lard from your storage,
meant for the troops; because we're
from the army too. And now help me up.

SOLDIER: I will not help you up, but

if you're really from the army and have
quit this dirty war and are there waiting
tomorrow with a wagon near the butcher's -- but where
many people are milling about -- I will
see what I can do for you.

FATZER: For four, that is, for four.

III,2

[over two consecutive evenings the deserters try to obtain

provisions. Fatzer keeps the attempts from succeeding.]

EVENING 1

KOCH: Here, this is the place.

He must stop by here,
the guy who Fatzer found
to help us. And it's
just about time too.

BUESCHING: If only Fatzer,

who knows him, gets here on time, he is
a damn dog about being on time.

26
KOCH: Fatzer will come.

KAUMANN: When the bugle blows taps

his man has to be back in the barracks.

KOCH: So Fatzer will arrive

before they blow taps
and his man must already be here.

BUESCHING: Yes, he must be among them.

Which one do you think he is?

[a soldier walks by]

KAUMANN: That one there: maybe he's the one.

BUESCHING: It could be him, what do you think? He

looks pleasant.

KOCH: Too pleasant! A hair too pleasant. If he

looked a bit tougher between mouth and nose,
one could say he looks pushy. Isn't there
something greedy about him? His way of walking!
Pleasant, yes but pleasant to whom?
I tell you, the longer I observe him, he's
as soft as a murderer's sweat soaked collar;
no, he can't be the one.

[a civilian goes by]

BUESCHING: And him?

KOCH: That recruit? Well it could be

that he took off his uniform, so as not
to be recognized, but just look at him:
wouldn't he take off his skin, so as not
to be recognized and muscles and joints
to not be recognized?
That slightly protruding ear has something wicked about it
I tell you: he won't stuff four bellies
that (since the earth's surface is mangled by war)
are stretched open underground waiting for meat
no, not him.

BUESCHING: Without Fatzer we won't find him.

KAUMANN: If Fatzer picked out the one

27
who could help us he must be
recognizable, otherwise how
would he have recognized him?

[the soldier of the other evening passes by]

BUESCHING: It couldn't be that one, for example

he looks like an iron tank.
I would never
talk to him.

KAUMANN: Yes, that is

a tough guy, you can see that.

BUESCHING: If Fatzer doesn't turn up now

then we have wasted today.

KOCH: The longer I look, the less

a human being looks like a human being, none of those
passing by look like someone who,
in an emergency, would help us

[taps are heard]

BUESCHING: Now we can go home.

I don't understand why he didn't come.

[Fatzer comes slowly]

FATZER: Are you there?

BUESCHING: Where were you?

FATZER: I got held up.

KOCH: Why did you not come

Fatzer? As we had agreed.

FATZER: I had a bit of business with a couple butchers

who thought they could speak
to me like to some weakling.

BUESCHING: Then its all over, with the provisions for

the next few weeks?

FATZER: Tomorrow is another day. Maybe

28
tomorrow you'll have a different tone
of voice when you talk to me;
when you need me.

KAUMANN: We don't need a different tone of voice, but you

have got to be there when you're needed.

FATZER: Oh, I have to be there.

BUESCHING: And what about tomorrow? You going to be there then?

FATZER: Yeah!

KOCH: And nothing will hold you up?

FATZER: No.

KOCH: Then tomorrow.

III,3 EVENING 2

KOCH: We've got to have that meat

don't start a fight today.
We wouldn't be able to help you
because, as you said yourself,
no one should recognize us.
We shouldn't miss out anymore,
such a free gift of meat
won't come a second time.
[two butchers come by]

FATZER: There they are, those are the ones who

insulted me yesterday
we've got to show them they can't get away with things like that.

BUESCHING: Stay put Fatzer, we've got to

have that meat.

FATZER: I don't really care, I have to go and

talk to them.
[Fatzer attacks one of the butchers. Whereupon more butchers come
out of the store and encircle him]

BUTCHERS: There he is, he's the one we hit

on the head yesterday! He needs
another dose today.

29
FATZER: Yesterday I was alone, but today
there are more of us. Hey Buesching.

A BUTCHER: Lay one across his face

who is that anyway?
[they knock Fatzer down]

KOCH: Stand still! Don't let

them notice, act as if
we don't know him.

A BUTCHER: Hey, you there,

do you belong with him?

KOCH: No.

A BUTCHER: You were standing with him

you must know him.

KOCH: No, we don't know him.

THE BUTCHERS: [going back to the store] So much the better for
you.

BUESCHING: Now we've got to help him up.

KOCH: Hold on. We came here in order

to get meat.

KAUMANN: But we need him for that.

KOCH: He'll have to get up by himself.

[Fatzer gets up, covered with blood, and staggers away]

KOCH: Fatzer!
Come here Fatzer!

KAUMANN: [calling after Fatzer]

Come over here.
[Fatzer goes off as if he hadn't heard anything]

KAUMANN: Where's he going? He really

got it.

KOCH: When he recovers

he'll come back, because we

30
are here and have to
get that meat.

BUESCHING: The signal's about to sound

maybe we
should've helped him; he's the only one who
can get us anything.
As he was lying on the ground
I saw him look this way.[the bugle call]

KOCH: There, let's go,

say no more about this
we must sleep on it, but
I tell you, what I foresee is
not good at all.

DOCUMENT 6

CHORUS: All this is the business of time

he who damns up a stream still sees, if he lives long enough,
either how the damn collapses or
how the stream flows by.

OPPOSING CHORUS: See there, there's enough chaos:

organize it, enough will be left over,
carry water into deserts, enough
sand will remain. Never fear
the end can not be reached.

VOICE WITHIN CHORUS: Weeks have gone by. The hunger of the
population increases. Fatzer no longer takes
part in the procuring of provisions.
It is the fourth winter of the war.

IV,1 DEBATE ABOUT FATZER STAYING AWAY

FATZER: [hears the others speaking about him, from outside]

I'm lamed by tomorrow and
this unobliging today,
sitting thus
between not yet and already no more,

31
not believing what I think
surely it's an error clearly seen
tomorrow - why then talk today?
What use is building boats in dried-out riverbeds?
When I see you
eat, I see the others behind you digesting
you. But I don't see me eating!
I can't hear your voices for the noise of
the many footsteps of those I don't know.
From your rounded dirty mouths, large, four-
cornered words fall, from where do they come?
I seem to be a forerunner
but what's
running behind me?
That you understand me
I forbid.

KOCH: We have to confront Fatzer

about why he
did not show up.

BUESCHING: His not showing up - that really isn't

like him.

FATZER: Right, what humans do really

isn't like them.

BUESCHING: That Fatzer is

our best man, he sticks to
what he says.

KAUMANN: He's smart, he always

finds something to eat
that guy can even pull
a cow out of a sewer-pipe

KOCH: Without Fatzer

we wouldn't be here, he made his
way through barbed wire, even
through people! We need him
to help us make it through.

THERESE: Yeah? don't trust him! I see him

differently! While you are stupid, he
is self serving, I know about him! He will
betray you yet.

32
KAUMANN, KOCH, BUESCHING: He betray us?
[laughing] That's a laugh!

KOCH: He is self serving and that is

good! He is a big self, who is
enough to serve the four of us
and for the four of us
he is self serving! He
can help us.

FATZER: Now they're talking about

me again and I,
listening, will become
what they need
then again, maybe not![he joins them]

KOCH: Fatzer, yesterday you did

not show up where we were supposed
to get our food. Why not?

FATZER: Yes, why not?

Think about it, Koch!
When you talk, behind you
many others are talking
and thus your big-mouthed chatter
is important.
Behind you many come marching
they fall into the same step and thus
your flat-footed steps are
important, you see.
Why
did Fatzer not show up?

KOCH: We don't know Fatzer.

FATZER: Hey, that's too bad.

The day before, for instance,
I was there, remember, I
lay
on the ground before you, I had
my eyes closed and
waited.

BUESCHING: Sure, he means

we should have helped him, and
I wanted to. I said right away, Koch
we've got to help him.

33
KOCH: Do you mean that?

FATZER: Think about it.

KOCH: Now I don't understand you.

We stood there and wanted to
get meat. We agreed:
we should not be recognized. If
one of us is recognized then
the others must pretend
not to know him otherwise
all of us are done for! Then you
start up a fight, although we
decided every fight must
be avoided. We
saw you falling down and wanted
to come running, then I thought of
what we had decided and
cleverly restrained us from moving wasn't that
clever?

FATZER: Very clever, only perhaps

a bit too cleverly
did you stand there holding your muscles in your hands.
Misfortune doesn't come to your type.
Such clever people need no advice
at best one could say you are lacking
- just a little bit -
the affectionate impulse
toward foolish rage.
Perhaps by being out
of control you'd have got yourselves into a mess and
perhaps even made it back out again.
Perhaps through your Fatzer,
moved by so much affection
but perhaps you can also make up for that
even if a small shadow
remains, since one has to rub
your noses in that which
is obvious.
Short and sweet: I invite you
to join me in my fight.
Some unreasonableness, please!

KOCH: And what is supposed to happen now?

34
FATZER: You really want to know?
I am enlisting you now to step
into the fight which
faces me and, at the same
hour this evening, to arrive
at the place where you failed me, so that
we
can once again look each other in the eyes, and
so that I can eliminate those
who eliminated me.

KOCH: That amazes me. To be honest

we thought: you wanted to inform us
how
we could obtain meat.
I presumed: we want to be
getting meat and not be fighting

FATZER: To be honest: I thought we

want to be fighting

KOCH: That's curious. But if you

insist upon that, then we must
have a vote about it. Do you all,
herewith,
want us now to step into this,
our comrades fight, whereby
you must think over, whether its clever, since
no one should recognize us.

FATZER: Or do you want to gorge yourselves?

Please consider
that things don't always go according to plan
in this world. Whatever may be
clever, that which is human
must happen, eating is good
but one has to ask: who's doing
the eating.

KOCH: So, do you want

to have meat or a fight?

KAUMANN: Have meat.

BUESCHING: Meat.

KOCH: So meat comes first, Fatzer, we have voted on it, and so

35
the fight will be broken off.

FATZER: I thought: you didn't need meat.

You need meat?
Seeing you standing there yesterday I thought
that type lives forever -- they
don't need any meat from you --
that was still my thinking while I
was lying there.
I am against your mechanical ways
humans are not levers,
also, I lack the desire merely to do,
of all possible deeds, those that are useful to me. But desire
to bury the good meat and to spit
into the drinkable water
this is not simple.

BUESCHING: To desire
is a good thing. It builds houses
of nothing which are like mountains of iron
and builds canals in a single day that
usually take thirty years and are meant
to last five generations but what is to be done
even where there is no desire
there have to be canals and houses.
After a good day you desire things,
but on a bad day you
still want to eat.
What you do because of your desires
that doesn't count, Fatzer, not for us.

FATZER: Your sickly wish

to be like gear-wheels!
But I don't want that!
Those are the people who
want that all are equal and
yet cannot make it on their own.
But go calculate down to a fraction
what I still have to do and put that in your equation
but I won't do it! Calculate all you want!
Calculate in Fatzer's ten bit endurance
and Fatzer's daily brain wave,
make an estimate of my depth,
assume five for the unforseen,
retain of me only that which
is useful to you
the remainder is Fatzer.

36
KOCH: That you squint about so
while the world is bursting out of its
seams is to blame for my
sitting here and begrudging
you the meat in your mouth!
you
should be shot by night
like a dog who
doesn't care.

FATZER: Look at you, buried already,

barely existing,
indistinguishable from the ground.
You wandering decay with
the powdered lime falling out of your
eye-hollows at every step!
I fished you out of the filth
and like one who fishes out his teeth
has to put them in again
or else he cannot eat.
Now, I,
forgiving your feeblemindedness, will
put an end to the business with those butchers.
So as
to present to you, before your downfall,
one real human being, I summon you to appear this evening
at the time and at the place we had agreed upon
there Johann Fatzer will take his walk
unimpeded and for all to see.

BUESCHING: I tell you Koch, I don't

think well of us, you, me or
anyone, we can all be
purchased for meat, that's not yet
totally contemptible, but if this here
Fatzer betrays us, then he must
be elimenated.

KOCH: The battle did

not kill us but
in the calm air of a quiet room,
we are killing ourselves.

DOCUMENT 7

37
CHORUS: The misfortuned of today
will be fortunate tomorrow so what if today
they are still mortal. You will see
them going under dealing as if they were
rising upward.
To be sure
their future lies
after them. Therefore, you, listen carefully,
since what they say is much more
important for you than it is for them.

IV,2 FATZER TAKES A WALK

[Fatzer on a walk with which he endangers his comrades]

FATZER: The air and the street belong to all people equally
free to move about in the stream of traffic
to hear human voices and to see their faces
that must be allowed me.
After all my life is short and soon over and among those who are
on the move/
I will no longer appear. Even in battle I have to breathe,
eat and drink as always. It may take forever,
namely longer than I last, and then when I'm slaughtered, I'll
have
completely missed living. Besides, in hiding places, the
chest atrophies - and why bother to conceal
a completely ruined man. This all proves that I can go on
however I wish and wherever I please.

THE THREE:[following him]Go no further,Fatzer, you're not going

only for you. We share the same air and
you are shortening our lives.

[as they club him, tie him up, drag him away to the house]

38
So that you may not walk about like anyone else
we are tying you up - because your walking about
is our destruction - you need to be tied,
so that you be clever - therefore it is not a punishment
but help.

FATZER COME

Desert your position

the victories have been attained through battle. The defeats
have been attained through battle:
Now desert your position.

Dip down again into the depths, victor.

The rejoicing pushes its way to where the battle was.
Do not remain there.
Expect the cries of defeat there, where it is loudest:

in the depths.
Desert the old position.

Restrain your voice, speaker

Your name will be wiped off the slate. Your commands

39
will not be carried out. Allow
that new names appear on the slate and
that new commands be followed.

- You, who no longer command

don't call for disobedience -
Desert the old position.

You were not adequate.

You were not finished.
Now you do have the experience and are adequate,
now you can begin:
Desert the position.

You, who control the official documents

fire up your furnace.

You who didn't have the time to eat

make yourself a bowl of soup.
You about whom much has been written,
study the ABC.
Start right away,
occupy a new position.

Those defeated cannot escape

from knowledge:
Hold on tight and descend! Be afraid, yet descend.
At the bottom
learning awaits you.
You, who has been asked too often,
for once partake of the unappreciated
instruction given by the masses:
occupy a new position.
2

The table has been finished, carpenter.

Permit us to take it away.
Don't continue smoothing the rough spots
don't paint anymore
speak of it neither as good nor bad.
Just as it is, we'll take it.
We need it.
Give it to us.

You are finished, Statesman

but the state is not finished.
Allow us to change it

40
according to the conditions under which we live.
Permit us to be the statesmen, Statesman.
Your laws are signed with your name
forget that name.
Observe your laws, lawmaker.
Stand behind your legislation, legislator.
The state no longer needs you,
give it to us.

DOCUMENT 8

CHORUS: We now want to

seat ourselves at the outskirts of our cities and
wait
for them, the good times, which now
must come: Since soon a new animal
will step forward,
born
to replace
the human.

IV,3 FATZER'S FOURTH DEVIATION -- FORNICATION

[Fatzer tied to the frame of the bed]

FATZER: For them I am like a foot

that hangs dead by some sinew
and which they drag behind them without enthusiasm
only not cutting it off for fear of blood loss
but that part of them is numb

41
step on it and they do not
say ow! And although they need me
none of them gives me a hand they look at me
like I am sick.
(Crys into the night)
Hey
Where are you? Here
I am Fatzer I can't
take it anymore is there
no one here to shoot me
I am dirt
that can be
shot into
Hey

CHORUS: And he lay there for three days. And the woman brought
him his meals and he asked of her:

FATZER: How do you live?

CHORUS: And she replied:

THERESE: I live badly; because all of you sit around day and
night, so I can't lie together with my man.
Since he has returned, he has not once touched me.

CHORUS:He forces her to admit that she doesn't get screwed

enough. Then he says, she must blame the circumstances,
since lack of nourishment has weakened Kaumann. Then
he proves to her the circumstances are not her concern.
Then he asks of
her, whether or not she believes in God? Or at least fears him?

THERESE: Not anymore.

FATZER: Why then does she fear that someone, without

taking time to remove his trousers, throws himself upon
her knowing that she is wet.

THERESE: Because that means a lot.

FATZER: It means nothing. Does she then believe that

two people, on an island, of the opposite sex
without being inclined no more than they were yet
without hate as with us or perhaps even living
together with hate for years or for days, let us say
for one night, in a hut like here or on the following

42
day would not lie down together?

THERESE: Maybe they would.

FATZER: Good.
In nature this exchange happens to be urgent.
Man's mind, discipline and the likes of that, manage
to interfere as with us as with a woman, who has a
husband, then it is surely impossible.

THERESE: Of course.

FATZER: Even if
he's not present - although - no it's not possible,
if he were present, but not able - this can
occur

[Therese laughs]

To be sure, such an embrace due to a favorable moment,

an urge, a desire to squeeze one's arm in under the other
one's armpit, that would have little meaning: merely that
one arm lies under the other.

[Therese laughs again]

I see that you're fretting and thinking first that's because your
man rarely looks at you, then also thinking there are other
reasons:
possibly because of working too hard you look somewhat
sickly - a little older than your years, not much; it could
mean nothing. I also see that you're struggling with yourself
and that's commendable. It's most humiliating of all
for a woman to need it, just because someone
touches her - to stop resisting, or wanting to.
And so: how do you live?

THERESE: I live badly.

FATZER: I found
in a book I read
that the strongest and most evil minds have, up to now,
brought humanity furthest forward: again and again,
they have ignited slumbering passions every orderly
society lulls the passions to sleep again and again,
they have roused the sense of comparison, of
contradiction, the pleasure with things that are new, daring,

43
and untried. They forced people to place opinion against
opinion, model against model. Most often by using weapons,
by toppling the border-stones, and through violating piety:
but also through new religions and moral teachings.
This same `evil', to be found in every teacher and
preacher of the NEW, also discredits every conquerer.
That which is new is, under all circumstances, evil
as that which wants to conquer, to topple border stones and
repudiate old pieties. Only the old is good!
The good people of every era are those who plow the
old thoughts under so that they yield fruit,
the farmers of thinking. But this field too is finally exhausted
and always the plowshares of evil must come again.
Untie me.

[Therese unties Fatzer]

FATZER: and he takes hold of her breast, under her blouse,

his rough hand persuading it and assuring that its
standing and becoming hard and he takes hold,
carefully, of her buttocks, rocks her back and forth
joyfully and notices
that her tightly pressed thighs are opening
and her hands pull him close to her, and the ancient game
renews itself, as does the
beloved movement.

[Fornication]

FEAR CORE

KOCH, KAUMANN, BUESCHING: Get up

FATZER: How can I get up, If I

am tied down.

KOCH: You're not tied down

the woman untied you and you
got her pregnant.

FATZER: I did? So
I must be stronger than all of you,
although you had tied me down with rope

CHORUS: And the husband said

KAUMANN: He has to get out!

44
FATZER: Assume a woman
had to untie me - how should I pay for that?

THERESE: I demand that they all

go away.
KAUMANN: Get out of my house
so I can live alone
with my wife since she
demands it, and my house is her house.
Whenever you use
my wife
small wonder that the
friendship suffers.
Do you think it
doesn't pain me
not to whack the smoke
out of you

CHORUS: They deliberate at the table late into the night. One of
them stipulates revolutionary principles for a freedom of
sexuality and: What a man needs, he's got to have - but then they
have to depart and outside it's raining, the positions are
withdrawn, but then: Hunger enters the deliberation. (Rain)

BÜSCHING: Now if it didn't rain

there were no frost and no
cold mornings
it could go on like its going

FATZER: Since I did that which you

call my crime, I have a
clearer head and am
stronger. It is as if
in times of oppression those responsible for
offspring were by nature given the talent
to be responsible for them - thus I will offer you
what I have thought up
for our situation.
My plan, which will supply you meals for weeks, namely we need to
set up a cottage industry, that is, dig in for a long occupation
-- also make use of the woman I just have made use of for luring
workers --
partly to let the inhabitants of this building, in which we will
live for quite some time, get used to stranger's
faces they will say we're
going to Kaumann she's turning tricks

45
partly to find out from them how
much dissatisfaction is in the factories
and build up that dissatisfaction upon which
much depends.

KAUMANN: You say that because you've

had enough of her.

BÜSCHING:(steps closer to Fatzer)

What a man needs, he's got to have
but what we need, that
you must provide, Fatzer.

KOCH: We are under too much pressure

cowering under these floorboards
laboriously inhaling the excretions of flesh
such inhumanity cannot last
Everything changes, we though
should not change ourselves?
Above us each stone
shifts itself and in flux
is the house that shelters us

CHORUS: They sit around a table discussing with one

another. It is night time.

VOICE FROM THE CHORUS: [reading]

While they are attacked by hunger, the roof over
their head disappears, their best comrade abandons
them and sex brings them into conflict: anarchy, coarseness,
fluctuating decisions back and forth. A form of
Militia constitutes itself. The lack of unity leads
to a system of majority rule. Resolution against
private ownership of freedom for women. For terror.

KOCH: Too weak to defend ourselves, we switch

over to attack

VOICE OUT OF THE CHORUS:

Under that motto, and in view of the pressure
for revolutionary activity surrounding him,Koch fights
on ever more desperately. So Koch welcomes emerging
difficulties Fatzer's desertion, the house being under
intensive surveillance, hunger, sexual individualism, Kaumann's
property assertion, etc.; and manipulates these consciously (that
is, cynically) for the process of revolutionizing.

46
CHORUS: Stand up Koch and go
through the town and
inspect whether there is
nothing better than your
Fatzer.
Observe everyone you meet and
examine each of them! Listen to their language and
get a feel for the material of
which their clothes and thoughts are made
whether they are full or hungry,
bearing up under hardship, or can
bear still greater hardship in order
to get rid of all hardship.
If there are even only five
in the whole town
who are willing and able
to carry out a coup then
join them immediately.
Drop all you have hung onto
and make the decision:
completely overthrow and renew everything.

FATZER: I don't know if I'd slice out my pound of flesh

like all the world does but I may not.
So I have to take care that I don't stumble onto their
treadmill which grinds
out seedless chaff just
because I may not.
This meat is rotten and no longer
worth it for one man
like me to take over what
is rotten today and unknown tomorrow
However I was born with a fondness for taking
in all the world.
I want to watch out what they do
because
there is method in it they know nothing of.
But I know them.
Tread in their faces with
a boot, they wouldn't notice
They have faces like callused hooves
They won't become
much different. They are nothing
but indestructable. But I
don't want to be that way
I study them as they are
is the future

47
which is terrible.

CHORUS: As Spectres once would rise out of the past,

so now also from the future:
complaining, vowing, crippling - unreachable
Solely made of the substance of spirit
Foremost fear, since always fear
shows what is to come. Directly from eye
to fear runs a wire. This popular spectre
cripples me particularily
It being mechanical
Solely in movements it manifests itself
each limb exchangable even the person
centerless
Not spirit is missing for its completeness
merely substance
This period will last only four years
or four thousand

(Two workers come to Kaumann. One goes with her into the pantry,
the other waits upon a chair. Koch reads the communist manifesto
aloud for those waiting.)

WORKER2: Are you about finished?

WORKER1: Now (comes out of the pantry)

KOCH:(as the worker adjusts his clothes) is everything quiet in

the city?

WORKER1: All is quiet.(worker exits)

FATZER: They are in order but I

am out of order
Yesterday morning bumbling around the canal
I spied the cranes
at work and heard the
voice of a worker talking
with his crane,
what you don't grasp is the mechanics,
Koch, you cannot
take care of yourself and want
to help the whole world.
Your finger with which you
point out the injustice is
already rotten: a doomed finger
and your accusing arm

48
is already dislocated from your shoulder

KOCH: Fatzer our situation is so bad that

anything less than the whole world cannot be of
any help to us.
Therefore, any plan to help us has to
help the whole world.

FATZER: Whatever happens

after us, is
as if it does not happen.

[he exits]

V,1

CHORUS: Soldiers in steel helmets are leading a pale man who is

bound and tied toward the wall.

MAN: If you are now taking me to the authorities,

be aware: I am one of those who
has been in support of you.

SOLDIER: I can tell who our supporters are.

MAN: Wait a moment.

SOLDIER: Are you getting scared now?

MAN: Yes, that too. But that's

not the reason I'm speaking - you know why I
speak - I just want you to wait
a little, so I can tell you how it is
in the world now; because that you do not
know.

SOLDIER: [laughing]
O.K., tell us how it is in the world.

MAN: I want to ask you something:

do you know why we were arrested?
The poor are being exploited: You!

SOLDIER: Yeah, and now we move on.

MAN: Wait! but the exploited in

49
every country are beginning to understand
that they belong together and that war
is against them.

SOLDIER: Is there any place yet where

something is being done?

MAN: Yes, in Russia.

SOLDIER: By criminals?

MAN: No, by poor people.

SOLDIER: You just want us to

let you escape?

MAN: No, you don't understand.

I want you to know that
for you too, the time is coming soon.

SOLDIER: But if what you say is so

and if there are so many of you,
why then, are you being executed?

MAN: 'cause otherwise you'd be executed!

SOLDIER: You, who are so smart,

aren't you the one being executed?

MAN: Yes

SOLDIER: Can we
move on now?

MAN: Yes, now we can move on.

V,2
a.
(a shot)
SOLDIER1: They have a new plan at headquarters now which I heard
is so good, it must succeed, you see they now want to concentrate
all columns in one place and push through and then they will
advance. That is the best plan, it is amazing one human brain
could think it up.

SOLDIER2: But it will do them no good, Joseph:

50
their struggle is futile, because they cannot wipe out
the population, not with any plan in the world.
Because it endures everything, the best plans. Everything. Not
only when they hinder the population's sons and want to tie them
down: blow up these sons and heroes, blast them into the sky, it
is all for naught. Unbudged, the people endure. Even the most
intelligent plan generals make over coffee, they will still
endure because entrails tear more easily than patience, when
obedience is bred.

CHORUS: Destruction of the room

of time
everything since its all impossible
simply throw it away
as experimentation (without reality)
for self reference

b.

CIVILIAN: We are not clever.

SOLDIER1: We have never not been self-sufficient.

CIVILIAN: What you say is too stupid! Those who are self-
sufficient, they should be the first ones shot. Those who hold us
tied down, they are self sufficient. No revolution can succeed
there where a lot of self-sufficient people are you don't
understand that. That is our strength. That we are not self-
sufficient, and those of us acting so wildly who are such self-
posessed thinkers, they must go first if we want to remain pure,
them first. Otherwise the world will not change.

SOLDIER1: You say that now only because you don't understand how
they each slice out their pound of flesh.

CIVILIAN: Our only hope is that these exist who understand

nothing of what those do understand -- so that this remains a
swamp.

CHORUS: Everything which is thought today is

to make what is done today appear good
Everything done today is wrong and so
everything thought today
becomes wrong

51
 VI,1[A German victory is announced, bells toll]

FATZER: [enters] Swing those bells over us till they fall off!
Starve your way to yet another victory, throw your hungry hordes
into a twentieth ravaged land!

KAUMANN: Oh shut up
How should their defeat help us? Unless we survive it
Will we survive? They throw us like hand-grenades
at their enemies -- holding us by the necks till tossed.

FATZER: You won't survive it, I can tell looking at you

You have dents in your brow like I have often seen on
people who collapsed.

KAUMANN: Why don't you shut up

There is nothing on my brow, In ten years,if they continue to be
victorious,
I'll be under the earth laughing at them.

FATZER: Laugh, go ahead and laugh! For me you're already buried

You even stink.

KAUMANN: [standing up] Now I'm going to rip his face off

KOCH: Take it easy, Kaumann.

Those of us who slept restlessly last night because
he was afraid, or got no sleep at all yesterday due
to a new hope
knows today: that it is all over for us. And
at this very hour, when the tolling of the victory bell
rings in our deadly enemies greatest time,
delaying his demise for an unspecified period
Half of mankind survives
only due to the perforated memories of the other half.
Friends, let us face
our new defeat reasonably.

KAUMANN: You say reasonably

you with your reason:
Shit on it. I don't want
to be reasonable anymore, its no use. I might just
as well gnaw on the chair.

FATZER: Kaumann, gnaw on the chair, do me the favour

gnaw on it. I think you are right and Koch
should watch you, that's good for him

52
(he flings the chair at Kaumann)

KAUMANN: You demons! You're to blame. You

are my enemies. Not anyone else. You're the
ones who are killing me!

KOCH: Kaumann, Kaumann, calm down

I, too, have sometimes started doubting reason. The world
is in such confusion, with contradictory things going on all
over, which hardly ever could foresee that to be reasonable
is nearly unreasonable or appears so.
this constant tolling of bells
confuses us, so what we think now doesn't count. The proximity
of such massive lack of reason, makes it difficult to think.
Better
we don't think at all now.

FATZER: In a land where there's no honor

No one is honorable. Do you want to complain,
stuck up to your neck in sludge,
while from above mud drips in your eye
complain that he who passes by
does not tip his hat to you?
Unwanted already -- opposed by your father
in your mother's womb -- protected however
by those, funded by the state,
who will slaughter you --
We have nothing to do with them besides
slitting throats.

CHORUS: The purpose for which a work is created is not identical

with the purpose for which it is put to use
What was learned can be used in another place
than where it was learned.

VI,2[Fatzer enters with some meat wrapped in newspaper]

FATZER: Meat

53
KAUMANN: How did that blood
get on your sleeves, Fatzer?

FATZER: You want to eat meat

and can't bear to see blood.
Here is a newspaper
in which you can read that we have
built many cities
across
the atlantic ocean, twenty
stories high -- made only of
cement and iron! There is
a picture here, I know the
buildings, I thought them up
Here is the picture
a new
city with the name: New York
It was made
by our species or one
that is similar

KOCH: What good did it do? Now

we run around like rats in
this cave. And like rats they will
pull us out. We cannot hold out
against all of them.

BUESCHING: Not like this.

KAUMANN: Have you been butchering, Fatzer?

FATZER: Could be: a butcher.

The red of the sunrise
is very beautiful and a human being
has a heart and it is
daring to have one
and the air of battle
filled with fire and smoke
is not so distinct
from a summers day
as this Fatzer is from that one.
Thus situations are
the mother of mankind.
It all makes no difference
because I feel sick, believe
me: I feel sick.
I can no longer do

54
what is good for me and predestined,
that which makes no difference
to you: that the rain
falls down from above,
that is unbearable
to me. That in the
alphabet B comes after A and nothing
else: That's all right with you,
but for me it is poverty stricken.
Fatzer, you have to
account for
all the wisdom and experience
of your age
that does not balance.

[exits with rope]

BÜSCHING: Recently as we
crossed over the iron bridge
at seven in the evening and
because we didn't know
what to do, stood still
watching the water
we looked, Kaumann and I
over to the bright side
while he
looked to the dark one
and spoke glumly
of the time that will come

KOCH: He only wants

to commit crimes.
[Suddenly] There is one among us
who we don't yet know.
But this is a time when
we must know everyone.
Since no one knows
whether, tomorrow, we'll still exist.
Therefore we want
to put him to the test
and
that's why I ask you: Are you
prepared to lay out everything
we have in order to find out where
he stands?

BUESCHING: What have we still got?

55
You're one of those who
wants to put your head through a wall.
A human is not like a
brick, which never softens
I'm warning you Koch.

KOCH: But you are the kind who just

has to be exploited because
he endures anything! Don't do
that to me, you two, don't say
things that have no meaning.
The truth of the matter is that
I haven't had any sleep since that time
one of us was missing
He said: I'm coming
that can cost him his neck.

BÜSCHING: That's just the way it goes,

Koch. When you have eaten
you shit Nights you get to
sleep around eleven at the latest
What's wrong with you?

KOCH: You just don't understand. But I

tell you: this is a battle in
which we stand and which will not
soon end.

BÜSCHING: When you had a fever

he did not comment and
carried you onto the train.

KOCH: But why?

BUESCHING: Maybe he just does what

he feels like.

KOCH: Then we must scratch

this scab off.

BUESCHING: You're very fast, Koch.

KOCH: Because I am aware of that,

I am the slowest. And
that's why I want us to
give him a chance
to show us: that everything is

56
like in the good old days and he
is as he always was.
Let's give him our papers
and the money we still
have and need to get home.
Then he will see
that we trust him and
he won't break that trust. We
owe him that much.

BUESCHING: I don't see it that way.

It won't mean anything to him.

KOCH: You don't have a plan

but I know how he is.

KAUMANN: If he is a traitor,
then he's got to be elimenated.

KOCH: Give me your things.

[they pull out their chest pouches]
Fatzer,
where are you?

[FATZER hanging on the rope, they cut him down]

KOCH: We don't know what will become of

us because we have nothing
more to eat after
this meat, if nothing
moves in this city
except against us. Here,
we've emptied our chest
pouches and
you should hold on to it all, since
one is more reliable than four
and you were always the
most reliable.

FATZER: Koch you are

a dirty dog - I
know you.

KOCH: So you don't want to take it.

FATZER: Think it over, I'll

57
give you a minute.

BUESCHING: What does that mean, Fatzer?

KAUMANN: Take what we give you.

We have confidence.

FATZER: [takes] So give me what you've got. [laughs]

[Fatzer, on the street, still laughing, throws away the papers

and money of the three]

DOCUMENT 9: THE FOURTH CHAPTER

The fourth chapter is the one about paralyzed faces. The coming
of great changes in the ways of mankind first announces itself in
the form of fear. By way of their own fear and the fear in
others, the leaders recognize the coming of great changes. They
must carry out these changes. To swim against the current is
foolish but wisdom is required to find the current's direction.
The fourth chapter is also that of shattering perceptions through
existing conditions. Many claim there is a difference between
reason and feeling and place reason beneath feeling. Between
genuine reason and genuine feeling there is no difference. (But
he who leads into battle, a leader, places feeling beneath
reason. He has no use for that reason which lacks the stuff of
it's intentions.)

VII,1 THE LAST EXPROPRIATION DEATH CHAPTER 1

[Fatzer and the girl]
GIRL: The devil only knows, why I took
you in with me
and even enjoy seeing you
slurp up my soup
and treat me, in bed,
like someone who smokes while
he's doing it.
For some, the likes of you might be
the last thing they ever see.

FATZER: I've got some people sticking to me like

dirt to a dog. What makes them stick to me
I don't know.

58
If they come,
I am not here.

GIRL: Are you scared of them, sweetheart?

FATZER: Not at all, leave that door closed.

THERESE: [outside] Is there a man named Fatzer living here?

Then give him this letter.

[Girl gets the letter, gives it to Fatzer who tosses it away]

FATZER: For them I'm like a foot

that hangs dead by a strand
and which they drag behind them without enthusiasm
only not cutting it off for fear of blood loss

GIRL: Hear that shooting -

and those bells tolling - something is going on.

FATZER: [gets up] Open up! Shooting? That's what

I said.
That's us shooting!
Give me that.[points to letter, runs out the door and calls out:]
Tell them, everything is all right now, we
will meet soon. They should
go ahead. Therese!

GIRL: She's gone

FATZER: [reading] Dear friend,

Where are you?
Because we need you,
come back and we'll
talk over how things stand between
you and us, so that it's settled.
Your friends.

GIRL: Is that from the ones who stick

to you like dirt to a dog?
and you stand right up?

FATZER: I can see I'm standing up.

GIRL: That is just as if the dirt

were whistling for its dog.

59
FATZER: [hits her] Take that, that's
for talking, when
its a matter between men.
And now, get your suitcase
and put
your clothes into it, as if you were moving out,
as we are going
to an old apartment and we'll live there
for almost an eternity.

GIRL: [packs the suitcase] What am I supposed to do there?

FATZER: What's great, is not

always great, but rather sometimes
something else, but never small.
To be honest: I do not
like to be alone. So I'm going where
they await me,
but even under way
I don't like to walk alone and so
you'll walk with me. Come on!
I don't think they have it in for me
Its against all reason - what use is it to them
they need me - I'm counting on that - besides
I can always slacken the rope
with which I'm holding them.
VII,2: DEATH CHAPTER 2

CHORUS: All is quiet! Peace at hand!

[Shooting and then tolling bells]

KOCH: [bleeding under his coat, a sheet wrapped around him]

All these nights
I do not sleep anymore for fear
something could be lost and forgotten,
when all the while there is someone
who wants just that to be lost
and forgotten.
Because we need him, he thinks
he is more than we are.
Because we cannot live without him, he thinks
he'll live forever.
And wherever a stream is, that really stinks and where
people stand and say: today
once again it is full of stinking oil, or today
it is poison green or now again it's clearer,

60
a better stream should not be flowing there, rather
no stream at all.
This Fatzer also should not be a better or worse Fatzer
but instead, there should
be no Fatzer at all.
So that this too serves as a sign: even
in gloomiest times black was black and white white.

BUESCHING: So we want to kill him just so those

who come after us have a warning?

KOCH: After us comes nothing. But

so long as we are here things
will be done right.
It should be to no-one's advantage
that I slay him out of disgust
and the wish to see him exit
and there where his face was
the dirt off my boot.

CHORUS: [breaks in] But also he, after all,

is human just like you:
unsure of his expression
prematurely hardened, and
trying many things, he
says many things.
Don't hold him to
what he says:
It'll often change.
You saw nothing final and every-
thing changes before it perishes.
Why do you take him at his word
he who you take at his word is
the one who disappoints you.

OPPOSING CHORUS: So easily one says: all that

is not serious, is without substance, is mortal
in its weakness. But
you should not say that, rather take it
as being serious:
one is one
black black and loud not soft.

KOCH: Since yesterday, I've been thinking: wierd

how that changes which seems so steadfast
and ever unchanged remains what
we were taught would blow over.

61
I was always used to thinking: the earth
could open up any time, fire
we have seen in our air but
great Fatzer, who carried Koch from the flames
in the noonday sun, turns unreasonable as
a child, sloppy as mud and so weak
sobbing Koch holds up before him,
like a dog, the stick over which
he no longer can jump and quizzes him
on the iron laws thus thoroughly
confusing him. So
he, who in another time
need have been no worse
than some, we want to kill
just so those who come
after us
have a warning!

BUESCHING: Why are you screaming?

Because you are his friend?

KOCH: I know that.

Buesching you can count on me, but he's
better than you
and he must be elimenated.

KAUMANN: We remain unknown,

but he shall
be known.

BUESCHING: We want to kill him

but to leave his name
for that's all
he should be from now on.

KOCH: And at this time, when we have lost all hope

and never will emerge again from under ground,
let us put our
lost cause in order,
so that it is unscrambled, tidied, finished and
laid aside. Because
what we all want
is only natural and
unique shall be:

ALL THREE: He who departed in disgrace.

62
 VII,3: DEATH CHAPTER 3

[Fatzer walks in, Kaumann writes on the wall: ONE DEAD BODY: 170
LBS. OF COLD MEAT, 4 BUCKETS OF WATER, ONE PACKET OF SALT.]

FATZER: Here I am
came of my own free will - no one forced me.

BUESCHING: Sit down, Fatzer.

KAUMANN: To begin with: those who

are going to exterminate us are getting close.
That they found the place where we are
was unavoidable.

BUESCHING: Unavoidable. And unavoidable

is what's now to come.

FATZER: Nevertheless, I have come and

to tell you the truth
it makes me angry. But I wanted to
come to be with you
at this difficult time.
Just imagine: I am
simply
used to you, that also
seems unavoidable.
It also seems that
this need not have happened
to me.
It's our bad luck,
what has happened because of me.
I don't like it.

BUESCHING: Your suggestion?

FATZER: That we go.

Whatever happened here,
we leave together.
BUESCHING: Fatzer we cannot
accept your suggestion.

FATZER: Can't you.

If it were only possible, just once,
to clear something up

63
with
a single stroke.
If someone were to see something
clearly and no matter what,
would speak against it,
would leave every bill unpaid and
perceiving what's up, would go away:
that would be news.

BUESCHING: Nothing that's new will come

which is not news.
The bill will be paid,
clearing up in one stroke
without perceiving, without going away,
but continuing to deal with that which
has to be dealt with. Therefore, Fatzer
you have to change yourself
right now and right here,
and for once do what we
tell you and that just because
there's more of us, namely
two maybe three. Will you do
that?

FATZER: Is that what's written on the wall?

I know what that change would be:
it would be something with a rope
that would turn a living man into
170 pounds of cold meat
and that I won't do.

BUESCHING: Well, you should change yourself

at least to the extent
that you no longer exist.

FATZER: You dogs! You want

to kill me: But I'll
show you. [he goes to the window]
Come in here! Here they are!

BUESCHING: Grab him.

FATZER: You treacherous deceitful dogs

trash, mangy filth
because you are two and I
am only one.
[he gets tied to the bed]

64
CHORUS: Injustice is human
more human still
the fight against injustice.
Restrain yourself then when it comes
to human beings; leave him
unharmed. You can't teach
the dead anymore.

BUESCHING: Whereas the end is coming for us

Fatzer, your end is here and now.
Don't look to the left or
to the right. Nothing will save
you now. You were a good
man, wherever you were,
now you've got to go.
Because you've become
sick and bad,
Therefore you will be executed
- according to the decision
of two people and one
dead one - with no delay.
Say you understand.

FATZER: Bueshing, what are you saying;

They're coming to butcher
all of us, now. Did we not
lie together in the trenches for
three years and then some.

BUESCHING: We did.
What of it? [at the window, yells out]
Yeah, we are in here
but wait a little while.
We'll shoot
unless one thing here is finally
settled which must be finished.

KAUMANN: We would not even make the

last mangy dog sit
in one of your filthy courts
in your filthy state.

[the shooting starts]

CHORUS: Those who were born, do not want to die

That's good

65
They eat and are impossible to fill
And eat again
That's good
When their time comes they die and fall into holes
And never return, and
The earth, into which they've been tossed
Grows over
That's good
And in their place
Others come, sleep in their sheets and
Eat from their plates in comfort
That's good
What happens, has to happen, why
Else would it happen
Don't make such a fuss
About one human being, he
Was born and must
Depart and doesn't last long
And don't get out
Of breath, for you too
Must soon depart

FATZER: I don't know who will

be victorious in this battle
but whoever is victorious -- Fatzer is
lost.
When you doubted me
I was lost.
And from now on and for a long time to come
there will be no more victors
in this your world but only
victims.

OPPOSING CHORUS: Do make a fuss about one human being

Shall he depart
That's not good
What happens, need not happen
Change it
Don't give away your plate
Oh, what for
That's not good
Nothing is good, unless somebody
Makes it good

CHORUS: Injustice is around

Just like water
Misfortunes

66
Come up like the sun
And one human being tears the other apart
Like one fish devours the other
That's how it is, and
It's good that way

OPPOSING CHORUS: Injustice has already

Become as common to us as water
That's not good
Our misfortunes will come up
As surely as the sun does
That's not good
One human being tears the other apart
Not good, not good, not good, that's not good!

BUESCHING: Go on shoot, Kaumann

FATZER: I don't want that!

Untie me Buesching!
I don't care if
I show fear I
don't want to die
Not yet and not
this way:
I am Fatzer.

[stands up, carrying the bed, Kaumann shoots, then they are both
mowed down. Immediately thereafter: a destroyed room]

67
 VARIANT FRAGMENT 1

THE PERFORMER PLAYING FATZER:

After a statement has been spoken it should be

preserved till
its speaker is dead. And after ten years
his name should be named together with others and if
it has been forgotten, one shall say:"forgotten". If
however, it has not been forgotten, one should speak
the statement over and over again, continuing until it has
been forgotten.
The statement shall run as follows:
I will not command
nor speak an untruth
nor deal without reflection
nor serve any human being
nor be useless.
But what I actually did
can have been: to command
but what I actually said
can have been: untrue
but how I actually dealt
can have been: without reflection.
may I therefore be forgotten.

68
 FATZER; DEMISE OF THE EGOTIST

By Bertolt Brecht

Arranged and translated by Stefan Brün

from:

Bertolt Brecht -- Archiv

Mappen 109-112;520;1014;1933(Mappe Berlau);2069

and

"Untergang des Egoisten Fatzer"

Fassung von Heiner Müller
Henschelverlag; Berlin,1985

and

Spielfassung der Berliner Ensemble, 1987

Mit: Ekkehard Schall - Fatzer
Arno Wysniewski - Koch
Hans-Peter Reinecke - Kaumann
Martin Seifert - Büsching
Kirsten Block - Therese
Regie: Manfred Wekwerth und Joachim Tenschert
Premiere: 21. Juni, 1987.

Indispensible assistance from:

Barbara Brecht-Schall, Ekkehard Schall, Holger Teschke,
Arun Chandra, M.L.Pease, Scott Vehill, Carmen Waldorf,
Marianne Brün

and

The Prop. Thtr. Version, 1996

With: Robert Maffia - Fatzer
Guy Massey - Koch
Jonathan Lavan - Kaumann
G.Riley Mills - Büsching
Sharon Göpfert - Therese
Dominic Conti
Karen Foley
Kevin Hackett
Arch Harmon
Tanera Marshall
Maureen Michael

69
Maria Muller
David Pease
Andrew Sten
Rick Uecker
Eva Usa

70