Now we know why the East German national anthem was not sung...
And what of the very stirring East German anthem? It includes calls for national unity (“Deutschland, einig Vaterland,”) which ceased to be official policy in 1972. From then on, no one was allowed to sing the lyrics and everyone stood mute whenever it was played on official occasions.
Chubby Eagle, Swastika Reflect Germany’s Troubled Image: Review
Review by Catherine Hickley
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...TrA&refer=muse
June 9 (Bloomberg) -- The German eagle, a national symbol, was depicted before World War II as a lean, fierce creature with flared claws and an open beak, tongue extended to attack.
That changed in 1953, when Ludwig Gies designed a new eagle for the West German parliament building in Bonn.
Chubby and unthreatening with closed beak, it looked almost cuddly compared with its predecessors. Lawmakers affectionately dubbed it the “fat hen.” The new model was just right for the image that the Bonn republic wanted to project -- a cozier, friendlier Germany, well nourished and above all, inoffensive.
The eagle and its expanding waistline are among a number of national symbols explored in a revealing and thoughtful exhibition in Leipzig titled “Flagge zeigen?” (Hoist the Flag?)
The question mark says it all: Germans have for a long time had deep misgivings about national symbols. The beginning of the show addresses Nazi symbols, with portraits of Adolf Hitler and swastika banners and armbands, paraphernalia that is banned in Germany except in the context of education and art.
It has taken decades to shake off the stigma attached to demonstrations of patriotism and many Germans are still uncomfortable with any hint of national fervor.
This year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Federal Republic of Germany’s 60th birthday. It’s a time for celebration, but also for even more soul searching about the national identity than usual.
Century of Upheaval
Symbols are a part of that identity and, as the Leipzig exhibition shows, in a century of upheaval it was not just a question of the eagle developing a paunch. Verses were dropped from the national anthem, landmark buildings were destroyed and rebuilt, statues toppled, emblems banned and flags declared illegal -- sometimes to be reintroduced a decade or so later.
It was not until 2006 that Germans voluntarily hoisted the black, red and yellow tricolor en masse. During the soccer World Cup, the flags appeared on cars, homes, even bicycles. While the rest of the world might find that normal, Germans were taken by surprise by their newly found enthusiasm for the national colors.
First introduced in 1948, the flag was back then at best a source of indifference and at worst, of discomfort, opinion polls showed. Even in 1951, polls found that West Germans would have preferred a black, white and red flag, the colors of the German Empire that Hitler had adapted for his swastika flags. The Nazis had banned the black, red and yellow flag of the ill- fated Weimar Republic, which had itself lifted the colors from student fraternities of the early 19th century.
Banned Symbols
The battle over the national anthem, set to the melody of Joseph Haydn’s “Emperor Quartet,” raged for much longer, especially over the controversial first verse, “Deutschland Ueber Alles” (“Germany Above Everything.”)
The anthem was in fact a rousing call for German unity written by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841, when Germany was a hodgepodge of small states.
After the Nazis, who sang the anthem in stadiums filled with swastikas, torches and uniformed parades, the words of the first verse acquired supremacist overtones.
In 1950, German President Theodor Heuss proposed a new national anthem. The communist East German regime had already introduced its own -- “Auferstanden aus Ruinen” (“Risen From Ruins”) -- and Heuss believed it would be better to have a new song, unburdened by history. His proposal, which you can hear in the exhibition, was not terrible. It was just a bit bland.
Women and Wine
It didn’t catch on, and as a compromise, Heuss agreed with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer that only the third verse of the “Deutschlandlied,” which praises unity, justice, freedom and fraternity, should be sung at official occasions. (The second verse, lauding German women and wine, would seem oddly out of place at ceremonies attended by visiting heads of state etc.)
The exhibition shows interviews with elderly Germans who remember the Nazis’ use of the anthem and say that hearing it now still makes them uneasy, even afraid. Even as late as the 1970s, most people didn’t know the lyrics. Yet as with the German flag, reunification and, to some extent, soccer have led to its revival. Polls show that an increasing proportion of the population knows the words -- to the right verse.
And what of the very stirring East German anthem? It includes calls for national unity (“Deutschland, einig Vaterland,”) which ceased to be official policy in 1972. From then on, no one was allowed to sing the lyrics and everyone stood mute whenever it was played on official occasions.
Lenin, Marx
Where West Germany was as sparing as possible with state symbols, the East had no such qualms. Statues of Lenin and Marx, red flags and parades were a must: Citizens showing disrespect or even reluctance to accept them were, as in the Nazi era, automatically suspect to the regime and therefore at risk.
Though the East German state also adopted the black, red and yellow flag, at its center was a pair of compasses and a hammer surrounded by a wreath, to symbolize learning, manual labor and agriculture. When crowds of discontented East Germans took to the streets of Leipzig and other cities in 1989, they cut out that emblem to wave the colors of the German flag with a gaping hole in the middle.
Another national symbol bit the dust, and the state that conceived it crumbled shortly afterward.
“Flagge Zeigen?” is showing at Leipzig’s Zeitgeschichtliches Forum through Oct. 11. Admission is free. For more information, go to http://www.hdg.de.
(Catherine Hickley is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)
And what of the very stirring East German anthem? It includes calls for national unity (“Deutschland, einig Vaterland,”) which ceased to be official policy in 1972. From then on, no one was allowed to sing the lyrics and everyone stood mute whenever it was played on official occasions.
Chubby Eagle, Swastika Reflect Germany’s Troubled Image: Review
Review by Catherine Hickley
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...TrA&refer=muse
June 9 (Bloomberg) -- The German eagle, a national symbol, was depicted before World War II as a lean, fierce creature with flared claws and an open beak, tongue extended to attack.
That changed in 1953, when Ludwig Gies designed a new eagle for the West German parliament building in Bonn.
Chubby and unthreatening with closed beak, it looked almost cuddly compared with its predecessors. Lawmakers affectionately dubbed it the “fat hen.” The new model was just right for the image that the Bonn republic wanted to project -- a cozier, friendlier Germany, well nourished and above all, inoffensive.
The eagle and its expanding waistline are among a number of national symbols explored in a revealing and thoughtful exhibition in Leipzig titled “Flagge zeigen?” (Hoist the Flag?)
The question mark says it all: Germans have for a long time had deep misgivings about national symbols. The beginning of the show addresses Nazi symbols, with portraits of Adolf Hitler and swastika banners and armbands, paraphernalia that is banned in Germany except in the context of education and art.
It has taken decades to shake off the stigma attached to demonstrations of patriotism and many Germans are still uncomfortable with any hint of national fervor.
This year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Federal Republic of Germany’s 60th birthday. It’s a time for celebration, but also for even more soul searching about the national identity than usual.
Century of Upheaval
Symbols are a part of that identity and, as the Leipzig exhibition shows, in a century of upheaval it was not just a question of the eagle developing a paunch. Verses were dropped from the national anthem, landmark buildings were destroyed and rebuilt, statues toppled, emblems banned and flags declared illegal -- sometimes to be reintroduced a decade or so later.
It was not until 2006 that Germans voluntarily hoisted the black, red and yellow tricolor en masse. During the soccer World Cup, the flags appeared on cars, homes, even bicycles. While the rest of the world might find that normal, Germans were taken by surprise by their newly found enthusiasm for the national colors.
First introduced in 1948, the flag was back then at best a source of indifference and at worst, of discomfort, opinion polls showed. Even in 1951, polls found that West Germans would have preferred a black, white and red flag, the colors of the German Empire that Hitler had adapted for his swastika flags. The Nazis had banned the black, red and yellow flag of the ill- fated Weimar Republic, which had itself lifted the colors from student fraternities of the early 19th century.
Banned Symbols
The battle over the national anthem, set to the melody of Joseph Haydn’s “Emperor Quartet,” raged for much longer, especially over the controversial first verse, “Deutschland Ueber Alles” (“Germany Above Everything.”)
The anthem was in fact a rousing call for German unity written by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841, when Germany was a hodgepodge of small states.
After the Nazis, who sang the anthem in stadiums filled with swastikas, torches and uniformed parades, the words of the first verse acquired supremacist overtones.
In 1950, German President Theodor Heuss proposed a new national anthem. The communist East German regime had already introduced its own -- “Auferstanden aus Ruinen” (“Risen From Ruins”) -- and Heuss believed it would be better to have a new song, unburdened by history. His proposal, which you can hear in the exhibition, was not terrible. It was just a bit bland.
Women and Wine
It didn’t catch on, and as a compromise, Heuss agreed with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer that only the third verse of the “Deutschlandlied,” which praises unity, justice, freedom and fraternity, should be sung at official occasions. (The second verse, lauding German women and wine, would seem oddly out of place at ceremonies attended by visiting heads of state etc.)
The exhibition shows interviews with elderly Germans who remember the Nazis’ use of the anthem and say that hearing it now still makes them uneasy, even afraid. Even as late as the 1970s, most people didn’t know the lyrics. Yet as with the German flag, reunification and, to some extent, soccer have led to its revival. Polls show that an increasing proportion of the population knows the words -- to the right verse.
And what of the very stirring East German anthem? It includes calls for national unity (“Deutschland, einig Vaterland,”) which ceased to be official policy in 1972. From then on, no one was allowed to sing the lyrics and everyone stood mute whenever it was played on official occasions.
Lenin, Marx
Where West Germany was as sparing as possible with state symbols, the East had no such qualms. Statues of Lenin and Marx, red flags and parades were a must: Citizens showing disrespect or even reluctance to accept them were, as in the Nazi era, automatically suspect to the regime and therefore at risk.
Though the East German state also adopted the black, red and yellow flag, at its center was a pair of compasses and a hammer surrounded by a wreath, to symbolize learning, manual labor and agriculture. When crowds of discontented East Germans took to the streets of Leipzig and other cities in 1989, they cut out that emblem to wave the colors of the German flag with a gaping hole in the middle.
Another national symbol bit the dust, and the state that conceived it crumbled shortly afterward.
“Flagge Zeigen?” is showing at Leipzig’s Zeitgeschichtliches Forum through Oct. 11. Admission is free. For more information, go to http://www.hdg.de.
(Catherine Hickley is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)
if they heard you at the ECB!
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