Lower Saxony song
The Lower Saxony song , or the song of Lower Saxony , is often viewed as the unofficial anthem of the state of Lower Saxony . It was probably written and composed by Hermann Grote around 1926 .
text
|
1. From the Weser to the Elbe , |
3.
Thousands of thousands of men once died on blooming red heather
For loyalty to Lower Saxony
they were under the spell of Franconia .
Many thousand brothers fell
from the executioner's hand.
Many thousands of brothers
for their Lower Saxony region. That was the Lower Saxony, storm-proof and overgrown, Heil Duke Widukind's tribe! That was the Lower Saxony, storm-proof and overgrown, Heil Duke Widukind's tribe!
4. From the blood and wounds of the fathers
grows the heroism of the sons.
Lower Saxony should proclaim it:
Good and blood for freedom.
As solid as our oaks,
we always stand firm,
When storms roar
over the German fatherland. We are the Lower Saxony, storm festival and overgrown, Heil Herzog Widukinds tribe! We are the Lower Saxony, storm festival and overgrown, Heil Herzog Widukinds tribe! |
Function of the song
The Lower Saxony song has no official function. It was intended to serve as an anthem for the inhabitants of the Lower Saxony area delimited in the song, which is not congruent with today's federal state , and to lead to a "Lower Saxony awareness" by describing the history of the state and its inhabitants. The state of Lower Saxony that exists today was created through the unification of the states of Hanover , Braunschweig , Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe .
Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf ( SPD ), the first Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, used the song as an anthem : Kopf traveled to his new country, talked to the people in High and Low German, drank with them and occasionally picked up Skat paper. He sang the Lower Saxony song with them and practiced with those who couldn't until they could.
As an unofficial regional song, the Lower Saxony song does not enjoy the protection of § 90a StGB with regard to the denigration of the state and its symbols .
Singing situations and quotes
The Lower Saxony song is used by members and fans of Lower Saxony sports clubs , in particular shooting clubs , by the student associations at the universities of Lower Saxony, in particular the Landsmannschaft Lower Saxony Hanover at the opening of the shooting festival, by members of the volunteer fire brigades , at political events, at state party conferences, by the associations of CDU and the Junge Union, sung at the state congresses of the Junge Liberalen Niedersachsen (Junge Liberale), the NPD and the crew members of the frigate Niedersachsen. Internationally in July 2010, the then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, David McAllister (CDU), and the then Lord Mayor of Hanover, Stephan Weil (SPD), sang the Lower Saxony song together in Shanghai . Many artists interpreted the song (in the original text) very differently, from folk music singer Heino to groups such as Jazzkantine and performers from very different styles such as techno and pop to a punk version. In 2006 the song version by Heino made it to number 35 of the annual hit parade "The Yellow from the Egg" of the Lower Saxony radio station ffn, and in 2017 to number 264.
The saying: "We are the Lower Saxony ..." is on the sculpture of the red elephant at the Lower Saxony State Representation in Berlin.
Meaning of the word "Lower Saxony" in the Lower Saxony song
The word "Lower Saxony" refers both to the area described in the song and to its inhabitants.
Grote's version contains two explicit delimitations and one implicit delimitation, namely the one between Romans and Teutons , the one between Saxony and Franconia and, implicitly, the one between Lower Saxony and Westphalia .
The second stanza of Grotes Lied deals with the conflict that led to the Varus Battle : Under the leadership of the Cheruscan Arminius , tribes that were called “Germanic peoples” by the Romans, the “ Welschen Brut”, were defeated by Publius Quinctilius at the turn of the century Varus- led legions of the Romans. According to Grote, this victory was already achieved by "Lower Saxony".
Grote describes a second conflict in the third stanza, namely that between Saxony and Franconia, in which Widukind , from which the Lower Saxony singing the song descends, according to the text, plays a central role.
A third delimitation is made implicitly by Grote ending “Lower Saxony” in the west on the Weser . At least in the south of the area west of the Weser, it is actually not Lower Saxony (i.e. residents of the state of Lower Saxony) that live today, but Westphalia (i.e. residents of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia), and for Grote, too, Westphalia are apparently despite their descent from Widukind, whom the Franks " one of the greats of Westphalia ”, not“ Lower Saxony ”.
The grotesque image of Lower Saxony is evidently shaped by welfare . His description of the borders of Lower Saxony roughly corresponds to the common external border of the states of Hanover and Braunschweig before the Congress of Vienna (1814/1815). The areas west of the Hunte River that belonged to the Kingdom of Hanover had only been added to the Kingdom in 1815. Most of the southwest of what is now Lower Saxony belonged to the Osnabrück or Münster diocese before the secularization of all principal dioceses in Germany . The inhabitants of these areas had developed a distinct Westphalian identity by 1800, especially since they had been assigned to the Westphalian Empire in the early modern period . It was not until 1815 that the new Hanoverians were “de-westfalized” east and west of the Ems.
In the Weimar Republic the process of gaining a “Lower Saxony identity” for the people in the northwest was so advanced that in 1920 a constituency association of Lower Saxony was formed, which in terms of its borders roughly corresponds to today's state of Lower Saxony. Despite the official language usage at the time the song was written, Grote excludes the Weser-Ems constituency in his song.
In a lecture on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Lower Saxony, the chairman of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen, Thomas Vogtherr , assumes Hermann Grote's intention: "Grote meant when he wrote this way [ie when he began his" Lower Saxony "on the Weser let], just a part of today's Lower Saxony, essentially the former Old Welfish areas of today's eastern part of the country. ”Many Lower Saxony tried“ to cure this mistake ”by starting the song with the words:“ From the Ems to the Elbe ".
criticism
Subjective construction of a tribe of the "Lower Saxony"
In his song, Grote constructs a "Lower Saxony" that never existed as he describes it. Thus, Carl-Hans Hauptmeyer , history professor at the University of Hanover , solid:
“There are - if - the Frisians and the old Saxons who once colonized what is now Lower Saxony. But that goes back a long way, 1500 years ago. THE Lower Saxony cannot exist because the old Saxons were already divided into different tribal areas with different cultures. And the Lower Saxony cannot exist after 1945, because after the end of the war there was simply nothing that could have been linked from the pre-Nazi era. No common history, no single identity. Lower Saxony simply did not exist before. Today's federal state - by the way, the only one with both a sea coast, on the North Sea, and a low mountain range, the Harz, it is an art product; created by the former occupying power in northern Germany, the British. "
With this, Hauptmeyer explicitly contradicts a claim that the then Prime Minister Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf had made before the Lower Saxony state parliament on December 9, 1946:
"The country is not an artificial structure, but rather an organically grown coherent whole due to the tribal type of its inhabitants, due to its similar structure, tradition and economic cohesion."
Between 1806 (the end of the Holy Roman Empire ) and 1946, the year the state of Lower Saxony was founded , there was no existing political entity called "Lower Saxony", apart from the Lower Saxony constituency association of the Weimar Republic, which, however, covered the area of the city of Bremen a castle. The later state of Lower Saxony cannot have meant Grote, since the first stanza delimits the area west of the Weser. "Duke Widukinds tribe" also refers to Old Saxony , which also included the Westphalia of the historic Westphalian Empire , which around 1500 also included the Frisians on what is now the Lower Saxony coast. Holstein and Mecklenburg , which lie northeast of the Elbe, outside of the area described in verse 1, were also included in the " Lower Saxony Reichskreis " before 1806 . To the west of the Elbe are large parts of Saxony-Anhalt that does not belong to the state of Lower Saxony.
The construction of a Lower Saxon tribe, as it is made in the Lower Saxony song, excludes the inhabitants who have made Lower Saxony at home since the state was founded in 1946. The beginning of Lower Saxony's history as a country is marked by the arrival and integration of refugees and displaced persons, who made up over 30% of the population in the last correspondingly itemized census. Today, the proportion of residents who have family roots outside of Lower Saxony is likely to be much higher.
Also because Ostfriesen , Oldenburg , Emslander , Grafschafter and Osnabrücker are implicitly excluded and the enclave of Bremen is not part of it anyway, it seems questionable that the Lower Saxony song is suitable for creating a "Lower Saxony consciousness", which also the western one includes Lower Saxony living on the Weser. Their feeling of not being optimally governed from "distant Hanover" is confirmed by the song. In a referendum on January 19, 1975, 31 percent of those entitled to vote in the former state of Oldenburg voted for the restoration of this state.
The Duchy of Saxony around 1000
Imperial circles at the beginning of the 16th century. The Lower Rhine-Westphalian Imperial Circle in light brown
Imperial circles at the beginning of the 16th century. In red the Lower Saxony Reichskreis
19th century: Kingdom of Hanover (1815–1866), Duchy of Braunschweig , Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe
Today's state of Lower Saxony - its districts and independent cities as well as the Hanover region
Politically incorrect text
The sound of the Lower Saxony song is sometimes perceived as martial, the historical perspective as outdated. The original version is therefore criticized, and various politically correct versions of the text have been created (→ see above), but these are seldom listed and are not accepted by the majority of the population of Lower Saxony.
Some interpreters are of the opinion that the phrase: "A strong castle and weir" (verse 1, verse 4) an allusion to Martin Luther's song " A strong castle is our God " shows that Grotes Lied contains an anti- Catholic tendency . This would possibly also be an explanation for the exclusion of the Catholic "New Welfs " in the Hanoverian region since 1815 and the Prussian region of Osnabrück since 1866 .
During her time as Funkhaus director of the NDR -Landesfunkhaus in Hanover (1991–1997), the German television journalist and publicist Lea Rosh had enforced that the Lower Saxony song was only played without the text she perceived as fascistoid .
In fact, the song was sung for the inauguration of the Sachsenhain in Verden (Aller) in 1935. As early as 1934, on the occasion of the Lower Saxony Day in Verden , Georg Schnath had written a text for the magazine "Lower Saxony", through which Grote's message was adapted to the ideology of National Socialism :
- We feel in this lion [= in the statue dedicated to Heinrich the lion in Braunschweig] that power which has become a basic power of the Third Reich and which, especially in our country, repeatedly took shape, as in Armin and Widukint: the power of the defiant Rebellion against alien powers and unshakable loyalty to the native Germanness. [...] Armin the Cheruscan fell from the hands of his own kin, Widukint slackened in the struggle against the superior Frankish power, Henry the Lion's work was buried for centuries. But the forces they served have risen again with the power of eternal renewal. That they finally come together again in the construction of a Third Reich is for us Lower Saxony, viewed from our history, the greatest and most happy experience of our days.
After fans of Hanover 96 raised their right arm in the Hitler salute several times while the Lower Saxony song was being played while the final verse was singing ("Heil Herzog Widukinds Stamm!") , The football club decided not to play the song.
See also
literature
- Joachim Kuropka : Lower Saxony - not overgrown. Oldenburg between Lower Saxony construction and Westphalia. In: Joachim Kuropka (Ed.): Regionale Geschichtskultur. Phenomena - projects - problems . LIT-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10790-9 , pp. 13–34 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- Ole Zimmermann: "Sturmfest und erderwachsen" - the Lower Saxony song in: Babette Ludowici (Ed.): Saxones , Theiss, Darmstadt 2019, pp. 16-17
Web links
- Toddi: Heino - Das Niedersachsenlied on YouTube , November 23, 2007, accessed on February 14, 2019.
- Niedersachsenlied.de (text, notes ...)
Notes and sources
- ^ Garzmann, Schuegraf, Pingel: Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon - supplementary volume. Braunschweig 1996.
- ↑ Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon. 19th and 20th centuries. Hanover 1996.
- ↑ Hans Rösner: The Lower Saxony song: Our hymn - history and text . City sheet for the Rehburg-Loccum area . February 5, 2010.
- ↑ This is Charlemagne
- ^ Waldemar R. Röhrbein: 1946 - restoration of the state of Hanover and establishment of the state of Lower Saxony. For the 60th anniversary of our federal state . Heimatbund Lower Saxony (ed.). 2006, p. 7 ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 159 kB).
- ^ Extra3 with Olivia Jones: Report on the election campaign of the NPD Lower Saxony
- ↑ Gunnar Menkens: Because: “Neo-Nazis are uninvited guests” . Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung . June 16, 2009
- ↑ Monika Wendel: A Minister President on the move - Expo flair and feelings of home . Hamburger Abendblatt . July 9, 2010
- ↑ ffn: The Yellow of the Egg 2006
- ↑ ffn: The Yellow of the Egg 2017
- ↑ Heinrich Schmidt: The historical development of the state of Oldenburg ( Memento of the original from October 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 784 kB), p. 4 (45)
- ↑ On the change in the meaning of the word field "Westphalia / Westphalian" see Karl Ditt: The Westphalia area in the historiography of the 20th century.
- ^ Thomas Vogtherr: Lecture on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Lower Saxony on November 1st, 2006 in Hanover (as download PDF) . Retrieved December 14, 2017.
- ↑ Frank Politz: Storm-proof and earth-grown. History of Lower Saxony . Germany radio . January 21, 2005 ( Memento from January 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Waldemar R. Röhrbein: 1946 - restoration of the state of Hanover and establishment of the state of Lower Saxony. For the 60th anniversary of our federal state . Heimatbund Lower Saxony (ed.). 2006, p. 7. ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 159 kB)
- ↑ Joachim Kuropka: What remains after 900 years? Reflections on the political culture of Oldenburg on the occasion of the 900th anniversary of the city of Oldenburg. In: Heimatbund für das Oldenburger Münsterland (Hrsg.): Yearbook for the Oldenburger Münsterland 2010 . Vechta. 2009, p. 95.
- ↑ Reinhard Staats: On the political impact of Luther's song "A solid castle"
- ^ Wolfgang Brandes, City Archives Bad Fallingbostel: Lower Saxony places of remembrance. on H-Soz-Kult-Zentralredaktion
- ↑ Gerhard Kaldewei: Where German peasant fists lead the plow through the mother earth . In: Oldenburg Yearbook . Volume 103. 2003, pp. 116f.
- ↑ Sven Achilles, Gunter A. Pilz: Measures to deal with right-wing tendencies in the football fan environment of Hanover 96. (PDF, 134 kB) Report on the results of the interdisciplinary working group to combat right-wing activities in the football sector (idAG BrUF). (No longer available online.) 2002, pp. 7f , archived from the original on March 13, 2016 ; accessed on February 14, 2019 .
