Todesfuge
However critics typically regard it as being in four sections, each of which begins with the image Schwarze Milch der Frühe which can be translated as "Black milk of dawn.
The "we" of the poem describes drinking the black milk of dawn at evening, noon, daybreak and night, and shovelling "a grave in the skies".
"He" is now associated with the phrase "Death is a master from Germany", and in his orders to play music threatens "you'll rise to the sky like smoke, you'll have a grave in the clouds".
"It was clear to every reader from the start that ['Todesfuge'] was concerned with camps and the Endlösung der Judenfrage (The Final Solution to the Jewish Question), made doubly poignant by the circumstance that the author was known to be a Jew from Eastern Europe.
Written in the early 1940s (the exact date is unknown), "ER" includes lines about "Gretchen's golden hair", "digging graves in the air", "playing with snakes", and "Death, the German Master", all of which occur in "Todesfuge".
[17] The original German version appeared in the 1948 Der Sand aus den Urnen, Celan's first collection of poems; but the print run was small, and the edition was withdrawn because of its many misprints.
[20] These are brought out in the poet's own reading of the work, which also varies speed, becoming faster at moments of tension and slowing dramatically for the final lines.
[21] While the events which emerge for the poem strongly evoke aspects of life (and death) in the concentration camps, other references are more indirect.
[22] There is extensive evidence of Nazi concentration camp orchestras being created from amongst the prisoners and forced to provide entertainment for their SS gaolers.
[30] The German composer Hans-Jürgen von Bose has written a version for mixed choir, organ and baritone solo.
The poem is used in a song by German punk band Slime, "Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland".
[32] Rüdiger Safranski titled his biography of Martin Heidegger, who was involved with the Nazi party, Ein Meister aus Deutschland.
