Well, brothers, we are in good spirits

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The Altenberg Madonna (around 1530)

Well, brothers, we are in good spirits is a German song of Mary . It was composed by Georg Thurmair in 1935 and set to music by Adolf Lohmann in 1936 . Because of its initial location in the youth pilgrimages to Altenberg Cathedral , it is also known as the Altenberg pilgrimage song.

Origin of the song

The Altenberg House , which was founded in 1922 as a meeting place by Carl Mosterts , the General Praeses of the Association of Catholic Youth and Young Men’s Associations in Germany, next to Altenberg Cathedral in the Bergisches Land near Cologne, became the center of the Catholic youth movement in Germany under his successor, Prelate Ludwig Wolker, in 1926 .

From 1934 onwards, the Catholic youth organizations had to accept increasing restrictions on their external activities from the Nazi regime . From July 23, 1935, police ordinances prohibited them from practicing any activity except purely religious, initially in Prussia and then throughout the German Reich. It proved necessary to find new and more inward-looking organizational forms of youth work. Religious ceremonies, rallies and pilgrimages with large numbers of participants were now held all over Germany. The Altenberg Cathedral with the double-sided carved " Altenberger Madonna " from 1530 hanging in its center was the destination of nocturnal light processions . This tradition was resumed after the Second World War and lives on today in the form of Altenberger Licht .

Ludwig Wolker, who described himself as the “Rufer von Altenberg” and his work as “Pastorale Altenbergense” ( Altenberger Seelsorge ), declared the Madonna von Altenberg “Queen of the League” and suggested the publication of the hymn book “Hymn . A selection of spiritual songs ”and“ Church prayer for the community service ”, both of which were important for the development of a renewed liturgy in Germany. New hymns were created, many of them composed by the secretary of the Catholic Young Men’s Association, Georg Thurmair, and set to music by Adolf Lohmann, also in 1935: “Well, brothers, we are happy”. Between 1933 and 1938, thousands of young people gathered around Altenberg Cathedral for pilgrimages and processions and learned new and old hymns. The "Altenberg Pilgrimage Song" was sung here for the first time in 1935.

Contemporary understanding

In the song, the protest of the Catholic youth against the regime, which had forbidden youth organizations to appear in public, was expressed in a subtle, coded way. Metaphors like silence or stillness or the contrast between the dark spell outside and your brightness inside express that worship could not be forbidden and that confession was also possible in other ways than through public marches. “It may have sounded like a provocation to the Nazis when young people sang praises to Jesus and his mother, thus expressing their protest against the Nazi regime. Instead of raising their hands in a German greeting, they sang Now spread your hands, then no enemy will harm us. “(Str. 1).

One key to this interpretation is a poem with the same imagery that Georg Thurmair published under the pseudonym "Thomas Klausner" in 1934 in the magazine Die Wacht . In view of the prohibition of external activity - some text passages - faces turned into flags of mute messengers : Roll your flags around the shaft and go like mute messengers or We move into silence and now faces are our flags and bodies are our shaft.

In the song “Well, brothers, we are happy” it says accordingly - Mary is addressed in each case  -: It praises the light and the stone gloriously with silence (verse 2) and we gladly light the candles that they are quiet burn (verse 3). The chiaroscuro metaphor can be found in the lines We come from the time very poor in your light (verse 2), and release this dark spell that we recognize your image (verse 3) and let your lights be bright and well all streets burn! (Verse 4).

At the end of the song Georg Thurmair goes very far in his subtle criticism of the “Führer cult” when he writes:
And guide us in all time with your good hands in
order to complete God's great glory in humility.

Echoes can also be found in the well-known hymn "Wir sind nur Gast auf Erden", which was also composed by Georg Thurmair in 1935 and set to music by Adolf Lohmann, which says, for example: Nobody wants to be with us in these gray streets (verse 2) or And if we are tired once, then turn off a light (verse 5).

In Thurmair's texts - as in the contemporary Bundestag youth - there was a "'heroic', 'male-warlike' behavioral orientation that had many overlaps with the 'soldier virtues' of National Socialism" ( Arno Klönne ). A certain potential for resistance cannot be denied in the songs: "Being different, being Catholic in a totalitarian state, in which the individual is only allowed something to count if he is absorbed in the whole, is a resistance"; Establishing an ecclesiastical “counter-world” in such a state and thereby withdrawing from the totalitarian claim bears resistance. Critics object that the texts promoted the cohesion of the Christian ingroup and an “internal emigration” vis-à-vis the regime without actively offering resistance or actively helping other persecuted people in the country.

Publication and reception

The song was first published in 1935 in the youth magazine "Die Wacht", in whose editorial Georg Thurmair worked. It got widespread use through its inclusion in the song book " Kirchenlied " , published by Josef Diewald , Adolf Lohmann and Georg Thurmair in 1938 by the Verlag Jugendhaus Düsseldorf , with the subtitle "A selection of sacred songs for the youth", a collection of 140 old and new hymns different eras. Thurmair published the song again in 1938 in a collection of poems, The First Poems to Friends , which the Nazi regime banned shortly after it went to press.

In addition to the melody, Adolf Lohmann wrote a five-part choral setting for the song. It appeared in 1936 under the title Altenberg Pilgrimage Song in the second folder of the Tonsätze zum Singeschiff (Verlag Jugendhaus Düsseldorf ).

The song was not in the 1975 published book of common prayer German dioceses Gotteslob not however the Diocesan notes for the - added, but was found in 16 diocesan annexes to the praise of God Archdiocese of Cologne , one of the Altenberg. It is also not included in the main part of the 2013 new edition of Gotteslob . The origin of the processions to Altenberg Cathedral is easy to see from the first stanza: "We greet you in your house, mother of all graces."

In the tradition of the song there is a new poem from 1977, "Well, friends, begin to sing" by the Rector of Haus Altenberg, Winfried Pilz , which is also sung today based on the melody of Adolf Lohmann.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Today often with a gender-neutral starting line: Now we are all happy , as in the God's praise diocesan annex of the church province of Hamburg No. 902, or Well, friends, we are happy , for example in the Munster Gotteslob diocesan annex from 1996, No. 875.
  2. ↑ Praise to God. Catholic prayer and hymn book. Diocesan annex for the diocese of Aachen. Supplementary booklet. Mönchengladbach, 2nd edition 1986, p. 39 (song No. 034).
  3. ↑ So in: Hymn - A selection of spiritual songs. New edition. 3rd edition, Freiburg 1967, p. 117.
  4. ↑ a b c Maria Margarete Linner: Song and singing in the denominational youth movement of the early 20th century (dissertation, Munich 2008) . Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-59148-2 . P. 43.47
  5. ↑ Willi Bokler: Foreword. In: Carlfried Halbach: The cathedral to Altenberg. With a cycle of poems by Georg Thurmair and a contribution by Hans Peters. Verlag Haus Altenberg. Altenberg and Düsseldorf 1953.
  6. ↑ Thomas Labonté: The collection "Hymn" (1938). Origin, corpus analysis, reception. Francke Verlag, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7720-8251-1 , p. 212, with reference to: Josef Diewald: Ökumenische Pionierarbeit. In: Elisabeth Thurmair (Hrsg.): A guest on earth: Georg Thurmair. Admonisher, shouter, rebel. Eggenfelden, Buxheim 1986, pp. 93-100, here p. 97.
  7. ↑ In: Die Wacht , July 1934, p. 4 f., Printed by: Barbara Schellenberger: Catholic Youth and Third Reich. A history of the Catholic Young Men Association 1933-1939 with special consideration of the Rhine Province. Matthias Grünewald Verlag Mainz 1975, p. 127, note 295;
    see. on the whole, ibid. pp. 126–128, also: Klaus Gotto: The weekly newspaper Junge Front / Michael. Mainz 1970, p. 222: "His (Thurmairs) poem Now faces are our flags became after the ban on public appearances for the Catholic youth to the expression of their new self-image."
  8. ↑ Arno Klönne: Afterword. In: Christel Beilmann : A Catholic Youth in God and the Third Reich. Wuppertal 1989, p. 396, quoted in: Thomas Labonté: Die Sammlung "Kirchenlied" (1938). Origin, corpus analysis, reception. Francke Verlag, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7720-8251-1 , p. 163, note 232.
  9. ↑ Thomas Labonté: Excursus: Was the hymn a book of resistance? In: ders .: The "Hymn Collection" (1938). Origin, corpus analysis, reception. Francke Verlag, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7720-8251-1 , pp. 155–169, here pp. 168f; Quote p. 168.
  10. ↑ Georg Thurmair: My God, how beautiful is your world. The first poems (1933-1943). New edition. Aventinus Verlag Elisabeth Thurmair. Eggenfelden 1979, ISBN 3-88481-001-4 , foreword.
  11. ↑ Aachen (No. 034), Augsburg (No. 972), Bamberg (No. 891), Berlin (No. 926), Erfurt (No. 948), Dresden-Meißen (No. 960), Eichstätt (No. 886 ), Hamburg (No. 910), Hildesheim (No. 880), Limburg (No. 975), Munich-Freising (No. 856), Münster (No. 875), Passau (No. 927), Regensburg (No. 899), Speyer (No. 885), Würzburg (No. 895) - Source: Thomas Labonté: The “ Hymn Collection” (1938). Origin, corpus analysis, reception. Francke Verlag, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7720-8251-1 , pp. 196-209.
  12. ↑ It is contained in the own part of the Archdiocese of Cologne under no.847, regional part east under no.850, own part Austria no.950.
  13. ↑ Archbishop's General Vicariate Cologne, Main Department of Pastoral Care (ed.): Repent and believe - renew the world. Songs and prayers. 6th edition, Cologne 1991, No. 74.