Cabaret

“The Machines” by Walter Mehring
Walter Mehring, one of the most prominent satirical authors
in Weimar, later banned during the Third Reich wrote the
lyrics to this riling anthem, “The Machines”.
With the last stanza, “The Machines” was a popular hit
amongst Berlin’s Cabarets, without it, it was sung at the first
Nazi mass meeting and helped rile the Third Reich to
power.
(To be sung by a chorus of men and women.)
(As dawn breaks, a perspective of dingy, eroded firewalls
and smokestacks emerges. The sky is striped pink and
mouse-gray. The factories suck in the work force while the
hooters shriek.)
Without sleep, repose, or dreams,
Round the world and through the dark
Where no daylight ever gleams,
Man is hurried, harried, stark!
Where the falling hammers pound,
Iron shrills its hate-filled song—
Ever ringed by deaf’ning sound
The machines keep moving on!
When the final door is sealed,
When the final cheer grows still,
Fearful must the work force yield
To hooters shrieking from the mill.
Pained to earn his daily crust
Man crawls forth diseased and wan:
Through the poverty and dust
The machines keep moving on.
Of a sudden in the night
That gives neither sleep nor balm
As awakened unto life,
Iron stretches out its arm,
From the cannons murders flash,
See! Death’s scythe is clashing yon.
While the human race goes smash,
The machines keep moving on.
Walter Mehring
From the deepest slavery,
Panic stricken, near to drop,
The last mortal shouts a plea,
An order: Everything must stop!
Things stop! Yet even at the last,
When blood fills earth’s greedy yawn,
Still across your graves they pass,
The machines keep moving on!
Round the earth no sleep, no dreams,
Through night’s everlasting reign,
Where no daylight ever gleams,
Brightly blazes human pain!
When the last bombardment booms
And dead iron’s strength is gone:
New-awakened from the tombs
Human life keeps moving on!
(While the last ones march by outside, the song rings out
and the factory hooters answer.)
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