Storm song

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The storm song is a text written by Dietrich Eckart around 1920 , which gained notoriety through National Socialist propaganda . The slogan “Germany, awake!” Comes from the text and is still used in neo-Nazi circles.

Emergence

Dietrich Eckart was a staunch National Socialist who was dedicated by Adolf Hitler in his work Mein Kampf . He composed the song, which - like the Horst Wessel song - became an important anthem for the paramilitary fighting organization of the NSDAP, the Sturmabteilung (SA). The slogan “Germany, awake!” Is inspired by the verse “Auf, German people, awake!” From the final stanza of Theodor Körner's song for the consecration of the Lützow Freikorps on March 28, 1813 in the village church in Rogau ( song for the solemn consecration of the Prussian Freikorps ).

content

The storm song conjures a personified sleeping Germany to wake up, to take revenge and to run storm against the threat, which is called Judas among other things and is metaphorized as hell-serpent. An anti-Semitic prejudice is used here by referring to their wealth, which, according to the propaganda, is typical of Jews . Judas , the traitor of Jesus , is symbolic of evil. Here an alleged opposition between Judaism and Christianity is indicated.

The text describes an idea of ​​the “evil” conditions during the Weimar Republic , which are presented in the text itself as chaos and a threat scenario. This continues the idea of ​​the stab in the back .

The text, which should appear emphatic , works in particular with repetitions and an exaggerated horror scenario, the aim of which was to incite misanthropic acts , in particular to "revenge" on the Jews. The text uses the scapegoat motif in particular , which, in short, assigns the blame for all evils to a person or group.

effect

Before it was set to music by Hans Gansser in 1922, Eckart's text was performed regularly at the end of larger party meetings, including by Eckart himself. The historian Karl Alexander von Müller remembers: “I still think I can see the picture in front of me in the large Hofbräuhaus hall , how. .. the stocky, short-necked Dietrich Eckart with a red-hot head jumped on a table at the podium and with the gestures of a madman screamed his song 'Germany awake' into the crowd. "

The slogan “Germany, awake!” Developed into a slogan of the “National Socialist Revolution” so called by the National Socialists and adorned the party standards.

Photograph by Tucholsky

The writer Kurt Tucholsky took up the expression “Germany, awake!” As the headline in an anti-fascist poem in 1930, in which he draws attention to the fascist danger and states that Germany is already awake.

Tucholsky, however, with his warning "That the Nazi is weaving you a death wreath: Germany, don't you see that?"

Legal evaluation

The storm song is prohibited by Section 86 of the German Criminal Code, which is directed against the dissemination of propaganda material by unconstitutional organizations.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ingo Neumayer: Incitement of the people: ex-secret service employees and AfD politicians reported. In: wdr.de. May 9, 2017, archived from the original on April 1, 2018 ; accessed on December 10, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Häusler : The freedom one alley - with Leyer & sword. In: austria-forum.org. August 22, 2013, accessed December 10, 2018.
  3. ^ Theodor Körner: Song for the solemn consecration of the Prussian Freikorps . In: Christian Gottfried Körner (Ed.): Leyer and sword . 3. Edition. Nicolai, Berlin 1815, p. 26th f . ( Full text in Google Book Search).
  4. ↑ a b c d Jürgen Hillesheim , Elisabeth Michael: Lexicon of National Socialist Poets. Biographies - Analyzes - Bibliographies. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1993, ISBN 3-88479-511-2 , p. 136.
  5. ↑ Margarete Plewnia: On the way to Hitler. The nationalist journalist Dietrich Eckart. Schünemann, Bremen 1970, ISBN 3-7961-3012-7 , p. 88.
  6. ↑ Kurt Tucholsky [Theobald Tiger]: Germany awake! In: Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung . Vol. 9, No. 15, 1930, p. 290 ( online at textlog.de ).
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Benz : The fight against National Socialism before 1933. In: bpb.de. Federal Agency for Civic Education , April 6, 2005, accessed December 10, 2018.