Ich hatt' einen Kameraden

Last updated

War memorial fountain in Speyer Ich hatt einen Kameraden Speyer.jpg
War memorial fountain in Speyer

"Der gute Kamerad" ("The Good Comrade"), also known by its opening line as "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden" ("I had a comrade"), is a traditional German anti-war song and soldiers' lament. The lyrics were written by German romantic poet Ludwig Uhland in 1809. Its immediate inspiration was the deployment of Badener troops against the Tyrolean Rebellion. In 1825, the Lieder composer Friedrich Silcher set it to music, based on the tune of a Swiss folk song, in honor of those who fell during the more recent Wars of Liberation against the French Imperial Army of Napoleon Bonaparte. [1]

Contents

The lyrics are about the universal wartime experience of losing a friend in combat, while completely detached from any political or nationalist ideology, and twice shift from past tense to present tense in order to explore the subject of traumatic flashbacks, survivor's guilt, and what is now called PTSD. [2] As a result, the song's appeal was overwhelming and has never been limited to any one country or political ideology. It was widely sung and used across the political and nationalist spectrum throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, and its lyrics were translated into multiple languages for use in numerous military forces, French, Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese amongst others. [3]

Usage

Ernst Busch used the tune for his eponymous Spanish Civil War song about the death of Hans Beimler. [4] German playwright Carl Zuckmayer in 1966 used the song's line "Als wär's ein Stück von mir" as the title for his autobiography (English title: A Part of Myself).

"The Good Comrade" still plays an important ceremonial role in the Austrian and German armed forces and remains an integral part of each military funeral, continuing a tradition started at least around 1871. [5]

The song has also become traditional in obsequies of the Austrian firebrigades. In the German-speaking Italian province of South Tyrol, the piece is played at funerals of volunteer firefighters and during remembrance ceremonies held by the Schützenbund. The Chilean Armed Forces and the National Army of Colombia also utilize it, though Chile does not exclusively use it for funerals or remembrance ceremonies. The song has been adopted by the French Foreign Legion at least by the 19th century. [6]

Occasionally the song is played at civilian funeral ceremonies, most often when the deceased had been affiliated with the military.

Its use was also common in the formerly German-speaking region surrounding St. Cloud, Minnesota, which was largely settled in the 1850s by Catholic immigrants invited by local missionary Fr. Francis Xavier Pierz. According to local historian Fr. Colman J. Barry, during the traditional parish feast day picnics and old country festivals that, very similarly to the Pennsylvania Dutch Fersommling, were very much a central pillar of "Stearns County German culture", it was particularly common at for German-American Union Army veterans of the American Civil War to stand up and sing, Ich hatt' einen Kameraden, with tears and intense emotion, in honor of their fallen friends. [7] (see German Americans in the American Civil War).

On 22 May 2009, an all-Flemish band performed the lament on the Great Highland bagpipes and drums during a joint Belgian, British, and German memorial ceremony at the Langemark German war cemetery in Belgium. In addition to the flying ace Werner Voss (1897-1917), the cemetery contains the graves of more than 44,000 German and 2 British soldiers who fell during the First World War. [8]

It is also commonly sung at the funerals of members of a Studentenverbindung . The song is often played on the trumpet during the annual wreath laying ceremonies at the Neue Wache along Unter den Linden, Germany's national war memorial, on Volkstrauertag or Remembrance Day and every 20 July at the Memorial to the German Resistance inside the courtyard of the Bendlerblock in Berlin. [9]

This is because the legacy of the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi Party has permanently changed the ideology of the German armed forces. Since its creation during West German rearmament in the 1950s, the modern Bundeswehr holds that military officers and enlisted men have a moral duty (German : Innere Führung ) which goes beyond blind obedience to superior orders, and that the Wehrmacht and Abwehr officers who plotted to kill Hitler were not traitors, but heroes, martyrs, and national icons who died trying to save the German people from continued rule by a genocidal police state. [10]

Text

Uhland's text Uhland Der gute Kamerad.jpg
Uhland's text

The above text is Uhland's original version. Various variants have been recorded over the years.

Heymann Steinthal in an 1880 article in Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie noted a variant he heard sung by a housemaid, "Die Kugel kam geflogen / Gilt sie mir? Gilt sie dir?" (i.e. "the bullet came flying" instead of "a bullet". Steinthal argued that this version was an improvement over Uhland's text, making reference to the concept of a "fateful bullet" in military tradition and giving a more immediate expression of the fear felt by the soldier in the line of fire. [3]

Melody

Ich hatt' einen Kameraden

Related Research Articles

This article is about music-related events in 1825.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinhard Mey</span> German "Liedermacher" (born 1942)

Reinhard Friedrich Michael Mey is a German Liedermacher. In France he is known as Frédérik Mey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludwig Uhland</span> German poet and politician (1787–1862)

Johann Ludwig Uhland was a German poet, philologist, literary historian, lawyer and politician.

<i>Kindertotenlieder</i> 1904 song cycle by Gustav Mahler

Kindertotenlieder is a song cycle (1904) for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler. The words of the songs are poems by Friedrich Rückert.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military funeral</span> Memorial or burial rite given by a countrys military

A military funeral is a memorial or burial rite given by a country's military for a soldier, sailor, marine or airman who died in battle, a veteran, or other prominent military figures or heads of state. A military funeral may feature guards of honor, the firing of volley shots as a salute, drumming and other military elements, with a flag draping over the coffin.

<i>Az obsitos</i> Operetta by Emmerich Kálmán

Az obsitos is an operetta by Emmerich Kálmán. It has been performed under many different names.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Last Post</span> British and Commonwealth bugle call

The "Last Post" is a British and Commonwealth bugle call used at military funerals, and at ceremonies commemorating those who have died in war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Langemark German war cemetery</span> Cemetery in West Flanders, Belgium

The German war cemetery of Langemark is near the village of Langemark, part of the municipality of Langemark-Poelkapelle, in the Belgian province of West Flanders. More than 44,000 soldiers are buried here. The village was the scene of the first poison gas attacks by the Imperial German Army in the Western Front, marking the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Liechtensteins</span> National Scouting and Guiding association of Liechtenstein

Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Liechtensteins is the national Scouting and Guiding association of Liechtenstein. Scouting in Liechtenstein started in 1931, and Guiding followed in 1932. The Boy Scouts became a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1933, and the Guides joined the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1952. In 1989 both organizations merged and formed the present Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Liechtensteins. The PPL has about 1,100 members of both sexes and is organised in ten troops.

<i>Gestern war heute noch morgen</i> 2001 box set by Böhse Onkelz

Gestern war heute noch morgen is a song compilation of the German rock band Böhse Onkelz. It was released on three CDs. The box reached the third position in the German Media Control Charts which is really rare for best-ofs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Resistance Memorial Center</span> Memorial and museum in Berlin, Germany

The German Resistance Memorial Center is a memorial and museum in Berlin, capital of Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Silcher</span> German composer (1789–1860)

PhilippFriedrich Silcher, was a German composer, mainly known for his lieder (songs), and an important Volkslied collector.

Volkstrauertag is a commemoration day in Germany two Sundays before the first day of Advent. It commemorates members of the armed forces of all nations and civilians who died in armed conflicts, to include victims of violent oppression. It was first observed in its modern form in 1952.

Elfi Graf is an Austrian Schlagersinger.

"La Sonnerie aux Morts" is a bugle call of the French Armed Forces used at funerals and the commemoration of battles and wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schubert's song cycles</span> Group of works

Franz Schubert's best known song cycles, like Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are based on separate poems with a common theme and narrative. Other song cycles are based on consecutive excerpts of the same literary work: Schubert's "Ave Maria" is part of such a song cycle based on excerpts of the same poem, in this case by Walter Scott.

The Good Comrade, or I Had a Comrade, is a 1923 German silent film directed by Hans Felsing and starring Willy Kaiser-Heyl, Henri Peters-Arnolds and Margit Barnay. It takes its title from a popular song.

Felix Römer is a German historian who specialises in the history of World War II. He has conducted pioneering research into the implementation of the Commissar Order by combat formations of the Wehrmacht and the attitudes of German soldiers based on the surreptitiously recorded conversations of prisoners of war held in Fort Hunt, Virginia, United States.

"Ach, wie ist's möglich dann" also known as "Treue Liebe", and “How Can I Leave Thee” is a German now-traditional song. Friedrich Wilhelm Kücken (1810–1882), a German composer and conductor, claimed to have composed the tune, and that it was later modified "probably by Silcher" and given the general name Thüringer Volkslied. Its popularity helped Kücken get chosen for the court of Paul Frederick, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The tune is used at West Point, Lincoln University (Missouri) and Wake Forest University. Marlene Dietrich sang the song and it has been used in some movies, e.g. Three Comrades uses the melody throughout the film as Leitmotif for love. Similarly, Max Ophüls used it in the same year as a leitmotiv in Le Roman de Werther. The silent film Ach, wie ist's möglich dann (1913) by Peter Ostermayr bears the song's title.

The Bundeswehr regulations on traditions (Traditionserlass) are a series of regulations by the Bundeswehr developed in the 1950s that until today with revisions, all in respect to the German military traditions that have had been upheld by its predecessor services before and the traditions in force today by the current service.

References

  1. ↑ Silcher (1825): "aus der Schweiz, in 4/4 Takt von mir verändert" ([melody] from Switzerland, changed to 4
    4     time by me", cited after Suevica  [ de ] 4 (1983), p. 76).
  2. ↑ A Necessary Madness: Ich hatt' einen Kameraden
  3. 1 2 Oesterle, Kurt (1998). "Die heimliche deutsche Hymne". Bundesverband Digitalpublisher und Zeitungsverleger  [ de ] (in German). Archived from the original on 18 October 2014.
  4. ↑ "Ernst Busch: 'Ich hatt' einen Kameraden'". erinnerungsort.de. Archived from the original on 7 December 2009. Retrieved 11 September 2022.
  5. ↑ R. Oeding, Das deutsche Totensignal Archived 22 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine , 2013
  6. ↑ "J'avais un camarade | French Foreign Legion Information" . Retrieved 4 January 2024.
  7. ↑ Coleman J. Barry (1956), Worship and Work: Saint John's Abbey and University 1856-1956, Order of St. Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. Pages 89-90.
  8. ↑ "Ich hatte einem Kameraden" at Langemarck German military cemetery In Flanders Fields
  9. ↑ "Ich hatt einem Kameraden (The Good Comrade)
  10. ↑ Die Konzeption der Inneren Führung (German), Zentrum Innere Führung (Center of Leadership Development and Civic Education)

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.