Knight's Cross translation help

[Shawn]

Can anyone please assist? Here's an extract from GL Hermann Hölter's Knight's Cross proposal:

Als Kenner der skandinavischen Länder und Völker sowie der Kriegsführung in Wald- und gebirgigen Tundra-gebieten unter arktischem Klima trug er wesentlich dazu bei, daß die trotz ungewöhnlicher Schwierigkeiten durchgeführte Bewegungsoperation der 20. Gebirgsarmee von Lappland nach Nord-Norwegen gelang.

I played around with it and came up with this, but I'm CLEARLY missing the gist!

As an expert on the Scandinavian land and people as well as combat leadership in forest and mountainous tundra regions under arctic climates, … that in spite of the extraordinarily difficult execution of the movement operation of the 20th Mountain Army of Lapland to northern Norway a success.

Thanks!
Shawn

[Erik k.]

Hello Shaw,

You got it almost right. The German language hase the difficult habbit to put mutliple sentences in one sentence. So you have to peel out the sentence and you end up with three.
This is what i make of it:

As an expert on the Scandinavian land and people as well as combat leadership in forest and mountainous tundra regions under arctic climates,

but in spite of the extraordinarily difficult execution of the movement operation of the 20th Mountain Army of Lapland to northern Norway

he helped making it to a success

Good luck

Erik

[Stefan]

You are right, both of you got the meaning of the sentence. Here is another proposal for the wording:

"As an expert on the scandinavian countries and peoples as well as on warfare in wooded and mountainous Tundra areas in an arctic climate, his contribution was essential for the successful mobile operation of the 20. Gebirgsarmee from Lappland to Northern Norway in spite of the unusual difficulties encountered."

[jpole]

Given all of the groteque amounts of money the US government spent in teaching me German, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, and French, I am proud to endorse Stefan's translation... Which is great, given that Stefan is German!

Seriously, though, the German tendancy to "stuff" (my DLI instructor's characterization) sentences does make it difficult. Even better, one has to wonder how that sentence would have been put together if spoken, rather than written...

Jamie

[joscha]

Ah, the speaking is not all that hard, you just lower or raise your tone a little.

Hey, the above sentences are clear as a bell. You want to go stark raving nuts? Read Thomas Mann. In "The Buddenbrooks" he wrote a paragrapf of seventeen lines - all one sentence.

Try that for a late night of study! Joscha

[Der_Dolmetscher]

Ah, the speaking is not all that hard, you just lower or raise your tone a little.

Hey, the above sentences are clear as a bell. You want to go stark raving nuts? Read Thomas Mann. In "The Buddenbrooks" he wrote a paragrapf of seventeen lines - all one sentence.

Try that for a late night of study! Joscha

Stefans translation ist ja fast Perfekt. I say almost perfect, because translations are never 100% the same as the original. The important thiong to notice is that Stefan can obviously speak both languages enough to know that he understands what they both say in english and in german and that the feeling of both passages is the same in the english and the german version. This is why translations done by machines or by websites.......well, they suck. If you want a steak and get a Mcdonald's 29 cent cheeseburger, well you might not be all that hungry anymore, but you still didn't fill your belly with the steak. You got something, but not exactly what you wanted.
To use Franz Kafka as an example of terribly long sentences is to present not a problem, but an incredible example of how great the german LAnguage can be. Take the word, Donaudampfschiffkapitänsmütze, which i am told is the longest german word, or at leat an example thereof. Words like Oberbrieftaubenmeister are also good.
Tod den Translationwebsites

[Peters66]

Als Kenner der skandinavischen Länder und Völker sowie der Kriegsführung in Wald- und gebirgigen Tundra-gebieten unter arktischem Klima trug er wesentlich dazu bei, daß die trotz ungewöhnlicher Schwierigkeiten durchgeführte Bewegungsoperation der 20. Gebirgsarmee von Lappland nach Nord-Norwegen gelang.

Familiar with the skandinavian countries and peoples, as well as battle tactics in forest and mountainous Tundra- areas in arctic climates, he managed to contribute to the successful execution of mobile operations of the 20th Mountain Army from Lapland to Northern Norway.

The verb: gelingen, in this case, means to "manage along." As you know, it also means "to succeed" and takes the dative case, as in "Es gelang mir, das Buch mit nach Hause zu bringen" - I was successful in bringing the book home.