When we step side by side

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When we walk Since 'an Seit' is a song of the labor movement that was composed in 1914 by Hermann Claudius (Hamburg) and set to music in 1915 by the lawyer Michael Englert .

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The song is to be seen against the background of the youth movement , which gained influence at the end of the 19th century. She turned against the negative side effects of industrialization and opposed them by turning to nature and traditional cultural elements. Formations of these ideas were hiking trips with overnight stays in tents and the common singing of folk songs.

The song takes up the situation of a hiking trip (“walk from side to side and sing the old songs and the woods echo”) and places it in the larger framework of a social development (“we feel it must succeed New time"). The second stanza refers to the group's proletarian background (“one week hammering, one week building blocks”) - in contrast to the mostly bourgeois background of other groups and migrant movements - and the willingness to change (“but nobody dares to quarrel”). The following stanzas illuminate the striving for a new relationship to nature (third stanza: "As if with a pleading gesture, the old mother earth holds out her hands to him that man should become her own.") And between man and woman (fourth stanza : “Man and woman and woman and man are no longer water and fire”), while the last stanza closes the arc again at the beginning.

History of origin

The text of the song was first printed in 1914 in the June issue of “Arbeitende Jugend”, the youth supplement to the social democratic newspaper “ Hamburger Echo ”. This refutes the year 1916, which is often mentioned for the origin of the song, as well as Claudius' own statement that he was inspired to this song by a singing youth group on his home leave at Pentecost 1916.

The first melody of the song was composed before 1916; Michael Englert wrote it in the spring of 1915 in four-four time. In the course of appropriating the song, it changed in bars 9 ("With us"), 11 ("new") and 13 ("With us") to two-four time. Another new melody was written by Armin Knab around 1930 , which was not widely used, but was sung by National Socialist associations such as the Hitler Youth and BDM . The communist Heinz Hentschke wrote an additional stanza in the concentration camp in 1938 , in which he referred to the situation of the prisoners in the moor camps .

distribution

The Hamburg SPD dissolved its youth organization, the Hamburger Jugendbund, in March 1916. (The dissolution was preceded by substantive differences: while the youth union spoke out clearly against the war in 1914, the party leadership had discussed the possibility of pre-military training for the young people with the relevant army command.) Only 14 days later, on March 17, 1916, the Founding meeting of the Free Youth Organization of Hamburg-Altona and the surrounding area , where the song was sung for the first time by the Hamburg workers' youth choir .

The Hamburg youth group performed it at the first nationwide workers' youth day from August 28th to 30th, 1920, where it became the hymn of the youth day ("... But the song" When we step from 'to side' "rose again and again over our ranks , victorious, powerful. The people of Hamburg brought it with them, sang it at the welcome ceremony on Saturday morning. ”) and then spread throughout the German Reich as a“ Weimar song ” .

As is not uncommon with songs with assurance of salvation - and made easier by the politically unspecified text - other groups picked it up and sometimes sang it in a modified form: “All ideological directions could put their convictions, future hopes or their ideological concoctions into the empty vessel of the 'new Time 'pour'.

Catholic associations changed the refrain to "Christ, Lord of the New Age", the KPD and associated organizations sang "With us Karl Liebknecht's spirit" or "... Ernst Thälmann's spirit", National Socialist organizations used the refrain "With us the Third Reich" and the melody by Armin Knab. The SA included the song in its songbooks in 1933 under the heading "Own songs", with which the song had traced the path of its poet, who in 1933 signed the pledge of the German poets to be the most loyal to Adolf Hitler and in 1940 composed a hymn to them.

After the Second World War , the song got a permanent place in the repertoire of numerous youth and workers' choirs in the GDR , including in the songbook of the Free German Youth . It was also part of school music lessons (the fourth stanza “Man and woman and woman and man ...” was omitted from the textbooks.) At the beginning of the 1950s, the three GDR radio stations played the first four bars of the refrain (“With us draws the new time ”) as a pause . The record label Eterna published a sound carrier under the title When we walk from 'an Seit' (Eterna No. 810 022), the song was also published by Eterna as part of two compilations of workers' songs.

In the Federal Republic of Germany it has been the final song at party conventions of the SPD since the 1960s . To this day it is considered to be the party anthem of the SPD, like brothers, to the sun, to freedom . In addition to the SPD, organizations close to it count or count the piece as part of their songs, u. a. the SPD youth organization Jusos , the Arbeiterwohlfahrt and IG Metall . Because of the use of the song in National Socialism and the role of the creator Claudius in National Socialism, the Jusos have been demanding since 2018 that the song no longer be played at SPD events.

On November 23, 2005, the song was played at the Great Zapfenstreich on the occasion of the departure of Peter Struck (SPD) from the office of the Federal Defense Minister at his request.

Sound carrier

  • When do we walk side by side. Hymns & battle songs of the labor movement. Phonica (The Ear), 2004

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ hermann-claudius.de ( Memento from March 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Vera Rosigkeit: A song went out into the world “When we walk from side to side”. Vorwaerts.de, February 28, 2007, archived from the original on June 28, 2009 ; Retrieved June 6, 2009 .
  3. ↑ The Weimar Republic. An attempt at democracy between economic crisis and combatant culture. (pdf; 725 kB) p. 15 , archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved June 6, 2009 . See also print version Wolfgang Hubrich, Helga Kutz-Brauer, Rüdiger Wenzel: Historical songs from eight centuries. State centers for political education Hamburg and Schleswig Holstein, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-87474-851-0 , p. 134
  4. ↑ Presentation of Heinz Hentschke at the BdA Köpenick. Retrieved April 8, 2010 .
  5. ↑ “One week of refrigeration / and the rolling of heavy carts / always ring in our ears, / but nobody dreams of being lost. / Stay hopeful, Moorsoldat! ” , Quoted from: The Weimar Republic. An attempt at democracy between economic crisis and combatant culture. (pdf; 725 kB) p. 15 , archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved June 6, 2009 .
  6. ↑ The Weimar Republic. An attempt at democracy between economic crisis and combatant culture. (pdf; 725 kB) p. 15 , archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved June 6, 2009 .
  7. ↑ The Weimar Republic. An attempt at democracy between economic crisis and combatant culture. (pdf; 725 kB) p. 15 , archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved June 6, 2009 . , P. 13
  8. ↑ Vera Rosigkeit: A song went out into the world “When we walk from side to side”. Vorwaerts.de, February 28, 2007, archived from the original on June 28, 2009 ; Retrieved June 6, 2009 .
  9. ↑ “Lord God / help the leader / that his work is yours / that your work is his. / Lord God, stand by the Führer. ”Quoted from Vera Rosigkeit: A song went out into the world“ When we walk side by side ”. Vorwaerts.de, February 28, 2007, archived from the original on June 28, 2009 ; Retrieved June 6, 2009 . , → From the Weimar song to the pause sign .
  10. ↑ Music. Textbook for grades 7 and 8 . VEB Verlag Volk und Wissen, Berlin 1977, p. 105.
  11. ↑ We sing because we are young. (Eterna No. 810 035), folks, hear the signals. International workers' fight songs. (Eterna No. 815 061), cf. ETERNA LP 810000 to 810099. Archived from the original on June 30, 2009 ; Retrieved June 9, 2009 .
  12. ↑ In fact, since 1988 this has been the song "The soft water breaks the stone" by Diether Dehm , which has been slightly changed in the text . see. Hans-Peter Bartels et al. (Ed.): The Forward Songbook . forward book publishing house, Berlin 2009, p. 118 as well as loud and wrong . In: Der Spiegel . No. 19 , 1988 ( online ).
  13. ^ Juso Nordhausen / Liedgut. Retrieved June 9, 2009 .
  14. ^ Jusos Bergisch Gladbach / Workers' Songs. Retrieved June 9, 2009 .
  15. ↑ AWO Berlin-Nordwest, reprint of the song between mission statement and guiding principles. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved June 9, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.awo-nordwest.de
  16. ^ Workers' songs , IG Metall Recklinghausen, p. 47. Archived from the original on April 30, 2005 ; Retrieved June 9, 2009 .
  17. ↑ Juso Federal Congress: For a historical-critical examination of the legacy of the workers' movement in the SPD (X7). (PDF) In: Decision book. Juso Federal Office, December 2, 2018, p. 95 , accessed on May 29, 2019 .