Vergissemeininicnt

Vergissemeinicht is a World War II poem written by a person who seemed to be an ally soldier about a man he probably killed. The describes the battleground, the corpse of his victim, and the picture he carried around with him. This poem expresses the guilt of killing someone, and the result of war.

Keith Douglas tells us a lot about the battle scene, without telling you what happened, and what seemed to had happened is that Keith is a tank driver because he stated "he hit my tank with one like the entry of a demon" The person he killed is also probably a tank driver because he found a picture of his girl in the gunpit of the tank.

The way he described the corpse is very visual because we know he is covered in flies, stretched out in the sun, with his stomach burst open. A burst stomach is probably the result of huge impact, in other words a tank. This probably says that Keith hit him. Yet Keith seems to honestly humble this man and respect him because the poem is being written in grief, not in celebration of this man Steffi's death.

I find this poem extremely impacting because I too can feel the grief of Kieth as he continues his duty. His job is to kill, and to kill is the only way for him to stay alive. The message I took from this was that World War II was extremely useless because it didn't have to happen. One man's hate impacted the whole world and left many dead. And this man is taking part in the process of stopping it, yet he is killing many. He is a lover and a killer.