The good comrade

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I had a comrade
publication 1809/1825
Genre (s) Soldier song
text Ludwig Uhland
music Friedrich Silcher
Inscription on the war memorial in Speyer

The text The Good Comrade was composed by Ludwig Uhland in Tübingen in 1809 ; Friedrich Silcher, who also lives in Tübingen , set it to music in 1825 . The resulting song became known under the opening line of the first stanza: I had a comrade .

text

The good comrade , print version 1815

The wording reproduced here corresponds to the original Uhland version. Numerous versions to the contrary exist; however, these are due to the process of crumbling. The comparative wording is adapted to today's usage. This song was sung by soldiers of the Wehrmacht and still today in the German and Austrian armed forces.

Uhland version Wehrmacht, German Federal Armed Forces
and Austrian Federal Armed Forces

I had a comrade,
you won't find a better one.
The drum beat to the quarrel,
He walked by my side
in the same step and step.

A bullet came flying,
is it me or is it you?
It tore him away,
he's lying at my feet,
as if it were a piece of me.

I still want to reach out my hand,
While I'm just waiting.
Can't shake hands with you,
stay in eternal life,
my good comrade!

I had a comrade,
you won't find a better one.
The drum beat to the quarrel,
He walked by my side
in the same step and step.

A bullet flew, is
it for me or is it for you?
She tore him away,
He lies at my feet,
As if it were a piece of me.

I still want to reach out my hand,
While I'm just waiting.
Can't shake hands with you,
stay in eternal life,
my good comrade!

use

The song from the good comrade plays a major role in the funeral ceremony of the German Bundeswehr . It is part of a funeral with military honors and every military memorial service. The tradition of this song has also been adopted by the Austrian Armed Forces and the Austrian police at military and police funerals. At the end of the midday organ play on the Kufsteiner Heldenorgel , which was erected as a war memorial in 1931 , the song of the good comrade is heard in a version for organ.
When playing the song, soldiers have to give the military salute , otherwise only national anthems are entitled to this special honor . It is often played in Germany on Memorial Day at memorials for the fallen , as well as in the German Bundestag during the ceremony.

To a lesser extent, the song is also played at civil funeral services, especially if the deceased was a member of the military , the volunteer fire brigade , the music club, a readiness of the German Red Cross , a historical rifle association or the mountain riflemen , as well as at funerals of Comrades of the Austrian Comradeship Association (where the text to the melody is sometimes spoken), colleagues from brass music and hunters and at the All Saints' Day celebrations of the Austrian fire brigades . It is also often sung at the funerals of members of a student association , occasionally with a different text (so-called singer grave song ).

The song is sung only in exceptional cases, but only indicated by intonation of the well-known melody with a brass band or a single trumpet. Even if the text is not sung anyway, the particularly "warlike" third verse is usually left out today.

English , French , Italian and Spanish translations of the song are also common in non-German-speaking countries and in some countries (for example in Chile and Bulgaria ) it is part of the traditional armed forces' songs.

Story of the song

The song was written in 1809 under the impression of the deployment of Baden troops under French orders against rebellious Tyroleans , with Uhland having relationships on both sides. Although the poem was already set to music, Friedrich Silcher changed a Swiss folk song for it and thus created the version that is still known today.

“The good comrade” was instrumentalized primarily by the political reaction, namely to gloss over and glorify the sacrifice of war and heroic death. However, the interpretations of the poem differ widely. On the one hand, the text certifies that it “brings the status of a hymn-like transfiguration of the martial solidarity feeling in line with the potential for interpreting the death of a soldier in a fight against an enemy”. On the other hand, there is the view that “the poem applies equally to everyone, the enemy is not demonized. It is therefore not suitable for propaganda, for inciting the will to fight, but “only” for mourning those killed. ” Thomas Kühne shows the versatility of the term comradeship in his habilitation thesis. For the entire political spectrum from left to right in the period between the world wars, he describes how a political-agitational camaraderie myth was constructed. The National Socialists were able to build on this. After the Second World War, this construct developed "from good comrade to bad comradeship".

Over time, especially in times of war, corruptions and cabaret arrangements of the song emerged. Was used , the good comrade of supporters of different political directions as Kurt Oesterle points out in his article on the song. During the Spanish Civil War , the song was used by practically all parties (in different translations and in some cases with added verses that underline the political orientation of one or the other party). The best known was the Hans Beimler song based on a text by Ernst Busch . The song is still sometimes used by Germany's former war opponents, for example in France .

Carl Zuckmayer titled his autobiography with the last line of the second stanza “ As if it were a piece of me ”.

Marcel Reich-Ranicki included Uhland's poem in his canon of German literature in 2005 .

Others

" The Good Comrade " was also a 1886 by Wilhelm Spemann justified illustrated boys newspaper that the publisher Wilhelm Spemann appeared in Stuttgart. In the magazine appeared u. a. various stories by Karl May . “ Der Gute Kamerad ” was published without interruption until the 1943/44 year. After the end of the Second World War, there was a new start in 1951. In 1968 the publication was completely stopped.

The Italian group Kirlian Camera released an instrumental version of the piece on their single Le Printemps Des Larmes in 1995 .

A solo part for trumpet with signals, which is played in the second and third verses, is also widespread regionally.

Romuald Karmakar's " The Dead Maker " from 1995 begins with an old and noisy version of the piece. The film, which is otherwise not accompanied by music, starts very gloomy and puts the viewer in a corresponding mood.

Isolde Kurz wrote a Latin version with the text beginning Habebam commilitonem as a student. The soundtrack of the computer game Anno 1800 contains the first half of this text with newly composed music under the title "In the Belly of the Beast".

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Polheim, Karl : To the problem of singing. In: Landesmuseum für Kärnten (Ed.): Song and custom. From the Carinthian folk song work and custom research. Festschrift for Anton Anderluh (= Kärntner Museumschriften, Vol. 8). Klagenfurt : State Museum for Carinthia 1956, pp. 54–66.
  2. ↑ The Good Comrade : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
  3. ↑ Uli Otto, Eginhard König: I had a comrade ... Mainz 1999
  4. ↑ Reviews on "I had a comrade"
  5. ↑ Review of Thomas Kühne's habilitation thesis , Kameradschaft, Göttingen 2006, on literaturkritik.de
  6. ↑ Interpretation: The good comrade
  7. ↑ From good comrade to bad comradeship 1945–1995 , in: Review of Thomas Kühne's habilitation thesis, Kameradschaft, Göttingen 2006, on literaturkritik.de
  8. ↑ Appreciation from the BDZV ( Memento from March 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Text by Hans Beimler Lied ( Memento from November 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ From my youth country , Tübingen 1918, p. 103 ( digitized in the Gutenberg project )