Reich songs
The song book with the title Reichs-Lieder is a collection of Christian songs from the 19th century revival movement . The first edition was published by Gustav Ihloff Verlag (originally: Vereinbuchhandlung G. Ihloff & Co.) in Neumünster in 1892. Gustav Ihloff, who had also been secretary of the "Verein für Innere Mission in Holstein" founded in 1857 (since 1907 "Community Society in Schleswig-Holstein") since 1882, had the collection of songs Sacred Songs & Solos from Ira D Met Sankey. With the help of other people, he translated many of these songs from English and brought them out under the title Reichs-Lieder as a collection of initially 300 songs.
Originally, the Reichs-Lieder were intended as a hymnbook for the community movement in Schleswig-Holstein, but in the first edition the idea was expressed that the songbook could also be distributed across national borders. This happened sooner than expected. The great need for new sacred songs at this time can easily be seen from the rapid success of the Reichs-Lieder-Buch. The first edition of 10,000 copies quickly sold out, and there were a total of 26 additional editions by 1900. The first edition with sheet music appeared in 1897.
After a thorough revision, the Reichs-Lieder-Buch was published in 1900 as a new edition with 450 songs now. This edition was reprinted 41 times.
Finally, in 1909, the Reichs-Lieder appeared in the form they are still available today as a collection of 654 songs. That was the final breakthrough for the wider distribution of the songbook. The board of the Gnadauer Verband ("German Association for Protestant Community Care and Evangelism") had an advisory role in the new edition , because the Reichs-Lieder became the preferred hymnbook for the entire community movement in Germany. This time the original collection was supplemented by many classical church hymns and other songs from the area of German Pietism. The normal edition was still a pure text collection (lyrics with details of the author and the melody to be used). By 1930 there were 2.4 million copies around the world. However, there was also a sheet music edition with the complete texts and four-part music notation (for choir and keyboard instruments) for all 654 songs.
In 1999 a new edition of the Reichs-Lieder was published in the version from 1909 in a modern font and with a blue plastic cover (also as a leather edition). The sheet music edition came out in 1998 as a reprint in a green plastic cover. The songbook has been reprinted unchanged to this day, with the last edition published in 2007.
A thorough revision of the Reichs-Lieder of 1909 led to the publication of the so-called New Reichs-Lieder in 1930 , a collection of now 616 songs. A large number of the original songs were deleted, but there were more chorales and hymns in the new edition. Overall, the character of the songbook became more “ecclesiastical”. But many users of the songbook apparently lacked many of the deleted songs, so that in 1951 a new edition with an appendix of 105 songs from the old Reichsliederbuch was published. This edition was also reprinted for a long time, most recently in 1976 in a red plastic cover. In 1973, in collaboration with the trumpet choirs of the Evangelical Lutheran Prayer Associations, a special trumpet edition in a green cover was published.
A separate edition of the Reichs-Lieder with 606 songs was published by the Vandsburg communities. In 1930 a “Key to the German Reichsliederbuch” was published with the title: Reichssänger (edited by Dr. Walter Schulz).
Nevertheless, the old Reichs-Lieder-Buch in particular remained a bestseller from 1909 until today, with more than 3.5 million copies sold all over the world. The later new editions could not prevail over the long term. For a long time it was the most widely used Protestant songbook within the German community movement.
In terms of content, many of the songs from the English and American revival movements are characterized by the fact that they preach the gospel of the kingdom of God in a simple and simple way. Often they are very direct and heartfelt texts that ask to accept Jesus as Savior, to live with him and to trust in his support. With the selection of the songs, the editors at that time were apparently very close to the pulse of their time. The Reichs-Lieder offered simple and understandable songs of faith for the people of that time. Countless people found in them the invitation to believe in Jesus (e.g. song no. 149: Come to the Savior, come today ) and were able to express their personal faith by singing the songs.
However, the new songs and the Reichs-Lieder-Buch were not without controversy in the beginning even in the community movement. In some churches and parishes there were serious warnings about the dangerous "English songs". East Prussian pastors warned the people to sing sacred texts in "devil rhythm" (three-four time). Wasn't one “in the world” dancing the waltz to this beat ? After the Second World War and the reign of National Socialism, the name Reichs-Lieder repeatedly raised the question of those who were born later, whether this collection of songs had anything to do with National Socialism and the so-called “Third Reich”. But this is clearly not the case. The name means that the song collection consists of Kingdom of God songs that contain the message of Jesus as the Savior of the world. Interestingly, the Gustav Ihloff Verlag was even banned during the rule of National Socialism in Germany and re-established several times under a new name (Christophorus Verlag, Gerhard Möbius Verlag).
Web links
- Michael Lohrer: Die Reichslieder , http://reichslieder.de/geschichte.php
Individual evidence
- ↑ Reich songs. Old edition from 1909. Möbius, Neumünster 1991 and other , ISBN 3-920654-06-4 .
- ↑ Reich songs. Note edition. Möbius, Neumünster, 1990 a. ö., ISBN 3-920654-09-9 .
- ↑ Reichslieder trumpet edition. For the old and the new edition. Möbius, ISBN 978-3-920654-13-3 .
- ↑ Walter Schulz: Reich singer. Key to the German Reichsliederbuch. Ott, Gotha 1930, OCLC 246434425 .