Erich Kaesner, Last German Great War Veteran

It was believed the last German Great War veteran died aged 107 years on 25th January 2008 in a nursing home in Cologne , Germany. His name was Erich Kaestner. The Bundeswehr had no comment. Erich Kaesner marched off to war With his friends probably not knowing the score And there was mud blood bullets and guns As each day merged together as one He lost mates to the war machine As it ground down with deaths so obscene And his army rode their ups and downs Until finally losing the Great War when an Armistice was bound So he marched home to Germany Seeing his country ripped apart so terribly His sacrifice in the war came to nothing in the end With the surrender becoming more difficult to defend He saw the fall of the Weimar Republic And the rise of Hitler and his rhetoric Hitler refuted the Great War defeat Blaming the stab in the back at home not a battlefield feat He endured the Second World War And defeat was again at his door So he had to be part of the rebuild for Germany again With Germany split apart to East and West in the end There was no recognition when Erich died in 2008 As there were no records left to confirm his fate And so he passed into history nearly unknown A defeated warrior whose nation didn’t care leaving him alone. © Paul Warren Poetry