[Roger Slater]

I don't think you can conclude very much, Martin. When a poet translates his own work, the typical questions regarding fidelity to the original author's intentions are not implicated in the same way. Indeed, he is free to take the sorts of liberties that another translator might feel go too far, since he has authoritative access to the original poet's intentions. Also, it's not obvious to me that he would have taken the same approach to translating into English as he would to translating into German. Certainly you can derive clues from looking at multiple versions (e.g., if the original mentions the color of a woman's dress, but the translation omits the color, you can infer that the poet evidently didn't think including the color was an essential detail, and you might feel comfortable leaving it out yourself if you find it convenient to do so), but you're ultimately still translating only the original and not the German translation.