"Peat Bog Soldiers" (German : Die Moorsoldaten) is one of Europe's best-known protest songs. It exists in countless European languages and became a Republican anthem during the Spanish Civil War. [1] It was a symbol of resistance during the Second World War and is popular with the Peace movement today. It was written, composed and first performed in a Nazi concentration camp by prisoners.
This song was written by prisoners [2] in Nazi moorland labour camps in Lower Saxony, Germany. The Emslandlager [3] ("Emsland camps") – as they were known – were for political opponents of the Third Reich, located outside of Börgermoor, now part of the commune Surwold, not far from Papenburg. A memorial of these camps, the Dokumentations- und Informationszentrum (DIZ) Emslandlager, is located at Papenburg.
In 1933, one camp, Börgermoor, held about 1,000 Socialist and Communist internees. They were banned from singing existing political songs so they wrote and composed their own. The words were written by Johann Esser (a miner) and Wolfgang Langhoff (an actor); the music was composed by Rudi Goguel and was later adapted by Hanns Eisler and Ernst Busch. [4]
It was first performed at a Zircus Konzentrani ("concentration camp circus") on 28 August 1933 at Börgermoor camp. Here is Rudi Goguel's description of it: [5]
The sixteen singers, mostly members of the Solinger workers choir, marched in holding spades over the shoulders of their green police uniforms (our prison uniforms at the time). I led the march, in blue overalls, with the handle of a broken spade for a conductor's baton. We sang and by the end of the second verse nearly all of the thousands of prisoners present gave voice to the chorus. With each verse, the chorus became more powerful and, by the end, the SS – who had turned up with their officers – were also singing, apparently because they too thought themselves "peat bog soldiers".
When they got to, ... "No more the peat bog soldiers / Will march with our spades to the moor.", the sixteen singers rammed their spades into the ground and marched out of the arena; leaving behind their spades which now had, sticking out of the peat bog, become crosses.
The song has a slow simple melody, reflecting a soldier's march, and is deliberately repetitive, echoing and telling of the daily grind of hard labour in harsh conditions. It was popular with German refugees in London in the Thirties and was used as a marching song by the German volunteers of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. It was soon picked up by other nationalities and it appears in almost all the collected anthologies of Spanish Civil War songs.
The French Foreign Legion use the French version of the song, "Le Chant Des Marais", as one of its marching songs, the sombre tone and timing matching the 88 paces per minute distinctive of the Legion.[ citation needed ]
Langhoff and Esser's original song [6] runs to six verses, plus refrains (see below). For performance – and, therefore, for most translation – shorter lyrics are used. These omit verses two, three and four of the original.
Die Moorsoldaten Wohin auch das Auge blicket.
Auf und nieder geh'n die Posten,
Doch für uns gibt es kein Klagen,
| Peat Bog Soldiers(loose translation) Far and wide as the eye can wander,
Up and down the guards are marching,
But for us there is no complaining,
|
This is the full six-verse German version, together with a literal English translation.
| Die Moorsoldaten | Literal translation |
|---|---|
Wohin auch das Auge blicket.
| Wherever the eye gazes
|
Hier in dieser öden Heide
| Here inside this barren marshland
|
Morgens ziehen die Kolonnen
| In the morning, the columns march
|
Heimwärts, heimwärts jeder sehnet,
| Homeward, homeward everyone yearns
|
Auf und nieder geh'n die Posten,
| Up and down the guards are walking
|
Doch für uns gibt es kein Klagen,
| But for us there is no clamoring,
|
Landkreis Emsland is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany named after the river Ems. It is bounded by the districts of Leer, Cloppenburg and Osnabrück, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the district of Bentheim in Lower Saxony, and the Netherlands.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Busch was a German singer and actor.
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Stalag VI-B was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp (Stammlager), located about 3 km (1.9 mi) east of the village of Versen in the Emsland district of Lower Saxony, in north-western Germany, close to the border with the Netherlands.
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Lähden is a municipality in the Emsland district, in Lower Saxony, Germany.
Wolfgang Langhoff was a German theatre, film and television actor and theatre director.
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The Esterwegen concentration camp near Esterwegen was an early Nazi concentration camp within a series of camps first established in the Emsland district of Germany. It was established in the summer of 1933 as a concentration camp for 2000 so-called political Schutzhäftlinge and was for a time the second largest concentration camp after Dachau. The camp was closed in summer of 1936. Thereafter, until 1945 it was used as a prison camp. Political prisoners and so-called Nacht und Nebel prisoners were also held there. After the war ended, Esterwegen served as a British internment camp, as a prison, and, until 2000, as a depot for the German Army.
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