War Diary.

[Glenn R]

Hello Chaps, I have a diary containing what appears to be poems, stories and similar pieces written in old German. It appears to be written by someone well educated. I'm told that the quality of the writing suggests a well educated man. I don't have a scanner so can't post any pages at the moment but I would love to get it translated.

The titles of the pieces are all I can decipher and are really intriguing me, for example.

Das Eiserne Kreuz!

Das Kleine Gluck.

Das Leid Der Deutschen Frau.

Die Bayrischen Lowen. (only hint I can get of the author's possible origin.)

500m Vor? Fiend. This has a subtitle possibly Reims and the date 29.11.14. This is clearly a poem as the title is repeated at the end of each paragraph.

Der Verwundete Krieger.

There are about 100 pages of this, consisting of several pieces some short some quite long, ending abruptly in 1915 (although one title is Winter 1914/15/16/17.)

The spelling mistakes are probably my cack-handed effort at reading the titles. Does anyone know how I can get these translated. It would be great if it was a lost gem! I've tried the local universities but they tell me that reading the old script is a problem for their language departments.

Thanks Chaps,

Glenn.

[David Gregory]

Glenn,

Sorry if my answer isn't very helpful, but decipering the handwriting is probably the easiest part of having something like this translated.

The stories should be fairly straightforward, but poetry is usually difficult, if not sometimes impossible to translate.

You will be lucky if you find someone that is prepared to try their hand at translating the poetry and who is able to make a good job of it.

Please show us some scans.

David

[Glenn R]

Thanks David. I'll try to get some scans done at a friends.

[Guest Rick Research]

Difficult to read???? Whhhhhhy, Kids Today! That's how Old Ricky LEARNED German.

If it's legible (that would be nice! ) scan a couple up and I can see what it says.

I agree, poetry is something that can be transcribed, but to "translate" is another issue. I have nae tha ability.

[Glenn R]

I dunno Rick, your posts have a certain poetic vibe. Veritable Seamus Heaney when you get dug into the dusty books!

I'll get some scans done in the next few days and get them on here.