O Germany in high esteem

O Germany in high honor is a German soldier's song . The text comes from Ludwig Bauer (1832–1910) from 1859. Henry Hugo Pierson wrote the melody. The song was later also part of the songs in schools of the Weimar Republic and the subsequent National Socialist era .

Emergence

The immigrant from England to Germany Composer Henry Hugh Pearson (actually Henry Hugh Pearson ) had in 1858 a tune for the patriotic war song Ye mariners of England by Thomas Campbell wrote. In 1859 he met Ludwig Bauer, who in 1861 married Pierson's stepdaughter Dorothea Lyser, a well-known singer at the time. Pierson asked Bauer to write German words for this melody . Bauer wrote a first draft with the title Hold out in the storm! and the opening stanza

The cloud is coming, the storm threatens in the west The guard lets out the fire call high from the tower. On! Swing to the cloud seat from the nest, you German Aar, Let the lightning of the faithful host shine in your eyes! Hold on ...

The historical background was the widespread fear that French troops might attack Germany in the course of the Sardinian War , and the mobilization of 350,000 men by the German Confederation that has already taken place . Pierson had this version printed by the Würzburg music dealer Röser and performed it here on April 16, 1859 in the academic music hall for the first time with great success. After the immediate threat after the preliminary peace of Villafranca was over, Bauer rewrote the song in the same year and gave it the form later received with the heading Persevering! A German folk anthem . This revised version first appeared in print in Leipzig in 1860 by Schubert & Co. as Pierson's op. 30. Bauer never included it in his own poetry collections.

History and impact

The term “loyalty” was politically sacred in the course of the 19th century. In this context, the song “O Germany in high honor, Du Heil'ges Land der Treu” became one of the most important patriotic songs at the end of the 19th century. In addition to the Deutschlandlied , it was sung by German soldiers during the First World War . It was quickly recognized as "the most popular patriotic soldier's song". In line with its popularity, there was a whole series of sometimes biting parodies, of which O Germany in Honor, You Can't Feed Us was the most widespread.

The title gave rise to a novel of the same name by Dietrich Vinke from the First World War. In 1917 Karl Reisert published a book about the "German Trutzlied".

During the Weimar Republic, the song was part of the songs in schools along with the Deutschlandlied and the Wacht am Rhein . Efforts to remove national songs from teaching as "tasteless and out of date" met with political opposition.

During the Hitler putsch , the song was one of the songs sung during the march on November 9, 1923. The song was rarely used by the SA , however, as it was linked to the conservative nationalism of the pre-war years and could only be used poorly for accompanying marches. The song was also part of the National Socialist musical repertoire in schools. "O Germany in honor" was also the title of a selection of German poems for adolescents , edited by Peter Kolb in 1937 at Diesterweg.

Rabbi Max Abraham , imprisoned in the Lichtenburg concentration camp , later reported that prisoners were "chased through the courtyard for hours at a march-march pace," honoring the songs O Germany , I had a comrade , O Strasbourg , Märkische Heide and Germany, Germany had to sing about everything .

During the Second World War , the melody was regularly used to accompany particularly festive or heroic contributions in the German newsreel .

Modifications of the song have recently also become popular in right-wing rock , for example in a version by the band Schwarzer Orden as "Song of the German Soldier", in which the Christian reference of the song is replaced by Odin .

text

The collections of the late 19th and early 20th centuries contain both three-stanza and two-stanza versions of the song. The three-verse version reads:

1. O Germany in high esteem, Holy land of faithfulness, Your glory will always shine New in East and West! You stand like your mountains Enemy power and deceit, And like the eagle's flight from the nest your spirit goes flying.

Hold out Hold out Raise the banner! Show him, show the enemy That we stand together faithfully That our old strength is tested When the battle cry rages towards us! |: Hold out in the storm! : |

2. Remember your fathers! Remember the great times Because Germany's good knight sword Triumphant in every dispute! Those are the old swords This is the German heart: You will never yoke them They last like ore!

Hold out Hold out Raise the banner! Show proud, show the world That we stand together faithfully That old German strength is tried, Whether we shine peace, whether war is raging! |: Hold out in the storm! : |

3. Lift up your hands to the Lord: He always shields it The beautiful land, from every enemy. High rise, German Aar! Shield and protection for the expensive land Be ready, German arm! We defy every enemy And don't shy away from a fight.

Hold out Hold out Raise the banner! Let us be faithful and bold Go with the first peoples! That German spirit and strength should be tried When the thunderstorm rages on us! |: Hold out in the storm! : |

In the two-stanza version, which was widely distributed mainly through the songbook for German gymnasts , the official songbook of the German gymnastics movement , the second stanza reads:

2. Lift up your hearts to the Lord, Raise your hand to the Lord! God protect our dear, beloved fatherland. The old swords are still there It is the German heart One never forces oneself into the yoke They last like ore.

Hold out Hold out Raise the banners! Show him, show the enemy That we stand together faithfully That our old strength is tested When the battle cry rages towards us! |: Hold out in the storm! : |

literature

• Karl Reisert: O Germany in high esteem: the German Trutzlied: its poet and composer, its origin and tradition. Stürtz, Würzburg 1917.
• Wolfgang Steinitz : German folk songs of a democratic character from six centuries. Vol. 2, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1962 (and other editions), p. 360 (No. 255).

Web links

• O Germany in high honor : sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
• O Germany with high honor onYouTube

Individual evidence

1. ^ German broadcast archive, Marion Gillum, Jörg Wyrschowy: Political music in the time of National Socialism: a directory of the audio documents (1933-1945) . Volume 30 of publications by the German Broadcasting Archive. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2000, ISBN 3-932981-74-X , p. 113.
2. ^ Nicholas Temperley: Henry Hugo Pierson, 1815–73. The Musical Times, Vol. 114, No. 1570 (Dec. 1973), Musical Times Publications Ltd., pp. 1217-1220 ( online ).
3. ↑ Steinitz (lit.), p. 362
4. ↑ According to Johannes Trüper: About the life and work of the poet of the song: O Germany high in honor. In: Journal for Children's Research: Organ of the Society for Curative Education and the German Association for Care for Young Psychopaths 23 (1918), pp. 95–97 ( digitized version ).
5. ^ Michael Kohlstruck: Hitler's deputy. The mythologization of Rudolf Hess in German right-wing extremism , www.netz-gegen-nazis.de, 2008, accessed on October 31, 2010
6. ↑ Wilhelm Schumacher: Life and soul of our soldiers' song in the world war. Frankfurt a. M. 1928 (Deutsche Forschungen 20), p. 222, cited in Steinitz (Lit.), p. 362.
7. ↑ Steinitz (lit.), p. 361
8. ↑ www.archive.org ( Dietrich Finke - novel from the First World War )
9. ^ Karl Reisert: O Germany in high honor: the German Trutzlied: its poet and composer, its origin and tradition. Stürtz, 1917.
10. ↑ Steffen Rassloff: Escape to the National People's Community: the Erfurt bourgeoisie between the Empire and the Nazi dictatorship (= publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia: Small Series, Volume 8). Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-412-11802-8 , p. 274 ( online ).
11. ↑ Joachim C. Fest: Hitler. See Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, ISBN 0-15-602754-2 , p. 189 ( online ).
12. ^ Günter Hartung: German fascist literature and aesthetics: collected studies . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2001, p. 182.
13. ↑ Emil Preyer: That's how I experienced it . BoD, 2009.
14. ↑ Guido Fackler: The camp's voice . Edition Temmen, Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-86108-759-6 , p. 135.
15. ↑ See e.g. B. Newsreels No. 647 of January 27, 1943, No. 712 of April 26, 1944, No. 741 of November 16, 1944.
16. ↑ Stefan von Hoyningen-Huene : Religiosity in right-wing extremist youth . LIT Verlag, 2003, p. 258.
17. ↑ Quoted from the song book for German gymnasts. 87th edition. Westermann, Braunschweig undated [approx. 1880], p. 69 (No. 96).