Märkische Heide, Brandenburg sand

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Märkische Heide, Markischer Sand (also known as Märkische Heide , Brandenburghymne or Steige hoch, du red eagle ) is the title of a home-oriented hiking and marching song of the 1920s and 1930s and the unofficial national anthem of the state of Brandenburg .

Emergence

According to Gustav Büchsenschütz (1902-1996) , the song was composed and composed by himself on Ascension Day , May 10, 1923. The idea for the song came to him as a member of the Wandervogel movement during an overnight stay in the youth hostel in Neu-Vehlefanz . Allegedly, he initially withheld his authorship from the young people in order to test how it was received by them. A memorial stone reminds of it today.

Margarete Seidel from Schöneiche near Berlin , who was questioned in an interview, reports that the text was composed jointly by a youth group of the Bismarck League in Berlin-Friedrichshain. Büchsenschütz only contributed the melody to the youth group “ Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz ”. The last refrain sequence resembles the Russian workers' song from 1895: Smelo, towarishchi, w nogu ( brothers, to the sun, to freedom ) .

Use in the national movement

As early as 1930, the song book for the Königin-Luise-Bund , the women's organization of the Frontsoldatenbundes Stahlhelm , contained the song with the different lines of text: “Brandenburg allwege - Be our watchword - Loyalty to the swastika - and true to black-white-red - Heil you too, my Germany - how long do you sleep? - We stand by you in the quarrel - throw off the slave yoke - climb up, you red eagle - and shake your robe - the internal and external enemies - drive out of our German land. "Since the 1920s Büchsenschütz was by its own account völkisch- nationally set, and his own authorship of the changed text would be plausible according to Ch. Jansen (TU-Berlin). The historian Daniel Siemens also estimates that Büchsenschütz was deeply rooted in the “völkisch milieu” as early as 1923. From 1933 the song was sung, partly also in this swastika version, in the Wehrmacht , SS , SA and HJ and printed in folk song books. In 1934 Büchsenschütz referred to the song in the first edition of the Brandenburger Hefte published by the NSDAP Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube as the "song of the National Socialist uprising" and wrote:

"At first, however apolitical its content, it remained a 'Nazi song' and was therefore frowned upon by those who think differently. [...] And what was the "political path" of the song like? From the Bismarck Order it went to the ' Frontbann ' and the SA and took part in the triumphal march of the nationalist movement , so that it is now a much-sung song of the National Socialist uprising. […] Even if there were often hard clashes with political opponents because of this song, the power of the song nonetheless remained unbroken. [...] The Brandenburger Lied was heard at the large NSDAP events in Berlin in the ' Sportpalast ' and in the Lustgarten and always recruited new fighters for the new Germany. "

Hymn in Brandenburg

In the GDR, the song was undesirable because of its importance during the Nazi era, and from 1952 onwards, possibly also because the state of Brandenburg no longer existed since the regional reform with the abolition of the states and the creation of districts .

In the Federal Republic of Germany, the “Märkische Heide”, like many old marching songs, was part of the armed forces' songs. In October 1990 it was sung at the constituent session of the first Brandenburg state parliament . The song can also be heard on official occasions of the Brandenburg state government; so for receptions, but also to honor people.

Attempts by the SPD (1994) and the DVU (2007) to give the song the status of an official national anthem failed in the state parliament.

Sound carrier

During National Socialism there were several record releases with a brass music arrangement by Paul Lincke , performed by bands and choirs of the SA and the Leibstandarte SS "Adolf Hitler" . In several single releases of the Horst Wessel song , the song was pressed on the B-side. This version was also found later in post-war compilations (some of which were banned in Germany).

After 1945, the Märkische Heide was part of Heino's repertoire like many other home songs . Other publications are documented, for example, by the Schöneberg Boys' Choir or the staff music corps of the Bundeswehr.

Controversy

In 2008, parts of the left called again to stop using the song. Thereupon the Brandenburg SPD General Secretary Klaus Ness called the demand “ pulled by the hair”, the Brandenburg CDU parliamentary group leader Thomas Lunacek pointed out that the text was “politically innocuous”. Manfred Stolpe (SPD) and Interior Minister Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) warned against denigrating the Märkische Heide as a “Nazi song”.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Märkische Heide - 80th anniversary of a Heimatlied , in: Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung - Das Ostpreußenblatt , May 10, 2003 (No. 20), p. 7. ( PDF, 2.2 MB )
  2. ↑ a b From Nazi song to national anthem . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 3, 2011.
  3. ^ Brandenburg national anthem: Brown eagle . fr-online , August 12, 2009
  4. ↑ cf. Uwe Rada: Nazi song as a national anthem - climb up, you brown eagle . ( Memento from August 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: taz , August 9, 2009
  5. ↑ Quoted from Martin Klesmann: National anthem under suspicion . In: Berliner Zeitung , May 26, 2008.
  6. ↑ a b Discogs Märkische Heide
  7. ^ Nazi song: Linke wants to abolish unofficial Brandenburg anthem . Welt Online , May 27, 2008.
  8. ↑ cf. Thorsten Metzner: Brown spots on the "Red Eagle" . In: Der Tagesspiegel , May 27, 2008.