Tief im Schatten alter Rüstern,
Starren Kreuze hier am düstern
Uferrand.
Aber keine Epitaphe
Sagen uns, wer unten schlafe
Kühl im Sand.
Still ist's in den weiten Auen.
Selbst die Donau ihre blauen
Wogen hemmt.
Denn sie schlafen hier gemeinsam,
Die die Fluten still und einsam
Angeschwemmt.
Alle die sich hier gesellen,
Trieb Verzweiflung in der Wellen
Kalten Schoß.
Drum die Kreuze, die da ragen,
Wie das Kreuz das sie getragen,
"Namenlos".
Albrecht Graf Wickenburg:
No Name
In the dark of elm trees, shaded
crosses stare upon the faded
Danube strand.
But no epitaph is keeping
record of the drowned here sleeping
in the sand.
Quiet are the verdant meadows
and the Danube's rolling shadows
make no sound.
They are sleeping here together,
whom the river's silent tether
brought around.
All, who here are congregating,
drove despair in waves, abating
fate and shame.
Hence their crosses, solitary
like the crosses they did carry,
spell: "No Name".
In case you should ask: Yes, there does exist a "Friedhof der Namenlosen" (a "Cemetery of the Nameless") to which the poem refers. It lies at a quiet bend of the Danube in Albern, near the southern city limits of Vienna, at the "Donauhafen" (Danube Harbor). Close to five hundred drowned people found their last rest there, and many of their crosses said indeed "Namenlos".
However, despite the poem's assertion that all were suidices, it seems likely that some unlucky fisher or boatsmen joined them here, where the quieter waters of the bending river tended to throw out their bodies, together with much other debris.
Also, the original cemetery is now abandoned to river floods and overgrown with trees. The relocated cemetery - kept up only for memories' sake by local authorities - is protected by the Danube dam. The last burial here took place in 1940. Still, this current "Cemetery of the Nameless" still holds 104 victims of drowning, 61 of them "Namenlos".
Viennese, with their (historically quite justified) sense of gloom and doom, and their love of the mysterious, macabre or morbid, adore that poem (or at least they did so when I was young, long before globalization started to drown out culture). Parents, in fact, often recited it to their kids. This is why it appears here.
PS: I should apologize for the third line of the last stanza, where my translations preserves (perhaps) the spirit but certainly not the wording of the original. I just couldn't figure out how to keep rhyme and rhythm intact and still get to the punch line ("No Name"). Sorry about that!