The workers of Vienna

The song Die Arbeiter von Wien was probably written in 1927 when 89 demonstrators were shot dead in the crowd during the so-called July Revolution in Vienna . The text is by Fritz Brügel (1897–1955), a Viennese poet and essayist. The melody was adopted by the Soviet March White Army, Black Baron (" Белая армия, чёрный барон ", 1920) by Samuel Pokrass (1897-1939).

The song was first performed in 1929 at the 2nd International Workers' Youth Day in Vienna. The song was more widely used in 1934 during and after the February fights between exponents of the Austrian labor movement and the corporate state dictatorship and its organizations. In Vienna, Styria and Upper Austria in particular, workers rose up against Austrofascism spontaneously and without central leadership . Their struggle was bloodily suppressed, but the song Die Arbeiter von Wien found its way into the international anti-fascist song repertoire.

The text of the first stanza is as follows:

We are the builders of the world to come.

We are the sower, the seed, and the field.

We are the reapers of the coming mowing.

We are the future and we are the deed.

So fly, you flaming, you red flag,

ahead of the path we are drawing.

We are fighters loyal to the future.

We are the workers of Vienna.

melody

literature

• Karl Adamek : songs, pictures, reading book. Elefanten Press, Berlin 1981. ISBN 3-88520-049-X

Web links

• Lyrics of the song. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)