Death for the fatherland
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Death for the Fatherland is the title of an ode by Friedrich Hölderlin that Christian Ludwig Neuffer published in 1800 with other poems in his paperback for women of education . It consists of six stanzas and has an Alkaean meter.
The verses show the influence of the French Revolution on his thinking and political poetry.
The work had a disastrous impact and, along with the German song, was one of the most cited poems by Holderlin during the Nazi era .
content
The six stanzas are:
You come, oh battle! the youths were already weighing
Down from their hills, down into the valley,
Where the stranglers come up boldly,
Safe of art and arm, but safer
The souls of young men come upon them,
For the righteous beat like magicians
And their homeland songs
Paralyze the knees of the honorless.
O take me, take me with you in the ranks
So that one day I don't die of a mean death!
I don't love to die in vain, but I do
I love to fall on the sacrificial hill
For the fatherland , to bleed the blood of the heart
For the fatherland - and it will soon be done! To you,
Your dear! I come who live me
Taught and die, down to you!
How often in the light do I thirst to see you
You heroes and you poets of old!
Now you greet the little one kindly
Stranger and brotherly it is down here;
And messengers of victory come down: The battle
Is ours! Live above, O fatherland,
And don't count the dead! You are
Dear not one too much liked.
background
In the second half of July 1799, Hölderlin sent the work together with Der Zeitgeist , Die Launischen and Diotima to Neuffer, who included these poems and the idyll of Emilie in his paperback before her wedding day .
Revolutionary hopes form the historical background of the verses, considerations that arose after the French troops marched into southern Germany in 1796 and which received new nourishment during the Reform Landtag .
In order to assess the nationalist interpretation of the work, it is helpful to take a look at his first draft, which was still entitled The Battle :
O battle for the fatherland,
Flaming, bleeding dawn
The German who, like the sun, wakes up
Who now never hesitates, who now
The child is no longer
Because the fathers called themselves to him
They are thieves
The Germans the child
Stolen from the cradle
And deceived the child's pious heart,
Like a tame animal, used for service.
Hölderlin alluded to the princely fathers and took up an enlightening , later revolutionary radicalized criticism of the terminology, an approach that went back to John Locke and developed through Rousseau , Immanuel Kant to Georg Forster . Such expressions were misused for them in order to cover up despotism and to maintain the immaturity of their subjects . This background makes it clear that Hölderlin uses a different concept of fatherland than the one used merely nationally or territorially. He imagined a community determined by human rights , which was to be achieved through the struggle for freedom against tyrants in their own country and which was determined by the values of the French Revolution.
As early as 1792 he had written to his sister that he was "praying for the French, the defenders of human rights." When the often poorly equipped army under General Napoleon was able to win victories against the armies of the princes, he hoped that these values would also be reflected in Swabians would prevail.
The final version of the Ode also shows Hölderlin's hope for a revolutionary liberation struggle: In the first two stanzas he confronts the idealistically-minded youths with strangling the troops of the prince, who, although better equipped, seemed ultimately not motivated, an impulse, which was of great importance to Holderlin. With the "Fatherland Songs" he alluded to the Marseillaise , the effect of which he emphasized in contemporary literature with the words "Paralyze the knees of the dishonorable". The work also shows a pietistic coloring, which is determined by the ideal of the martyr and the idea of sacrifice.
Reception during the Nazi era
In addition to many other poets whose work was ideologically appropriated and misused for propaganda - Joseph von Eichendorff , Detlev von Liliencron and Theodor Storm - the example of Hölderlin shows a reception that is characterized by different aspects and also settled on several cultural levels is.
In addition to the German song, Death for the Fatherland could be interpreted on the one hand as a call for brave probation on the Eastern Front, but also as an appeal to the other Germany in exile. The variety of readings was favored by the death of Norbert von Hellingrath in the Battle of Verdun , the classical philologist and Holderlin discoverer who belonged to the George circle , for whom the poet was again of great importance. The stylization of Holderlin as a seer and the transfiguration and aestheticization of fight and death also contributed to opening up a space for omnipotence fantasies in the last years of the regime.
After the failed Africa campaign and the defeat of Stalingrad , experiences of death and loss could be mythically exaggerated, be it through the pathos of the texts or the figure of the poet-leader, which goes back to Hellingrath. So was Frederick Beißner out a field selection that was sent with a circulation of 100,000 copies to the Eastern Front before Christmas.
literature
- Claudia Albert, National Socialism and Reception of Exile, in: Hölderlin-Handbuch. Life work effect . Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-476-02402-2 , pp. 444-448.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Claudia Albert, National Socialism and Exile Reception, in: Hölderlin-Handbuch. Life work effect . Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2011, p. 444
- ↑ Friedrich Hölderlin, The Death for the Fatherland, in: All poems, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag im Taschenbuch, Volume 4, Frankfurt 2005, pp. 216–217
- ↑ Jochen Schmidt , commentary in: Friedrich Hölderlin, Complete Poems, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag im Taschenbuch, Volume 4, Frankfurt 2005, p. 624
- ↑ Commentary in: Friedrich Hölderlin, Complete Poems, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag im Taschenbuch, Volume 4, Frankfurt 2005, p. 627
- ↑ Jochen Schmidt, commentary in: Friedrich Hölderlin, Complete Poems, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag im Taschenbuch, Volume 4, Frankfurt 2005, p. 625
- ↑ Commentary in: Friedrich Hölderlin, Complete Poems, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag im Taschenbuch, Volume 4, Frankfurt 2005, p. 625
- ↑ Quoted from: Wolf Biermann, Vaterlandsphrasen oder Schwäbische Marseillaise ?, in: 1000 German poems and their interpretations, ed. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Von Friedrich Schiller bis Joseph von Eichendorff, Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1994, p 95
- ↑ Jochen Schmidt, commentary in: Friedrich Hölderlin, Complete Poems, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag im Taschenbuch, Volume 4, Frankfurt 2005, p. 626
- ↑ Claudia Albert, National Socialism and Exile Reception, in: Hölderlin-Handbuch. Life work effect . Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2011, p. 444
- ↑ Claudia Albert, National Socialism and Exile Reception, in: Hölderlin-Handbuch. Life work effect . Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2011, p. 445