Does Germany need a new anthem?

Soul music for a fractured nation

From the cover of Kurt Tucholsky’s book, which voiced staunch criticism of the German anthem.

Amidst all the heated debates over immigration, state expenditure and the ailing economy, Germany is currently having a small but intense discussion about its national anthem. The former Minister President of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow, who is now serving as Vice President of the German parliament, suggested holding a referendum on it and potentially replacing it with a different song.

If this seems strange to you, you’re probably from a country with a relatively firm national identity like the UK, the US or France. In Germany, one of the youngest European nation states and one with a past that contains some of the darkest chapters of human history, no aspect of nationhood is ever entirely unchallenged.

But let’s begin with what Ramelow actually said. Giving an interview to the local newspaper “Rheinische Post”, he claimed that he knew many Germans in the east of the country who “don’t sing along to the national anthem for various reasons.” The same applied to the flag and the constitution, Ramelow continued, to which many easterners “kept their distance.” The constitution and all state symbols and songs should be subjected to a referendum, he told the interviewer.

On paper, this isn’t an outrageous suggestion. The current constitution is the old West German one, which was initially designed to be temporary. Article 146 states that it becomes invalid “the day a constitution is enacted that was approved by the German people in a free decision.” One of the core debates after the fall of the Berlin Wall was whether a reunified Germany should draft a new constitution for itself. That never happened. East Germany joined the existing system of West Germany with its laws, colours, flags and national anthem. Ramelow has, in effect, picked up this debate again.

In a way, the unification of the two German flags was an easier decision than what to do with an all-German anthem. Both East and West Germany used the black-red-gold tricolour of the liberal nationalist movements of the 19th century, colours that stood for the values of the revolutions of 1848/9 during which central ideas for German democracy and a system that upheld the rule of law for all citizens were promoted.

Depiction of street barricades in 1848.

There were never any foreign (i.e. Soviet) symbols on the GDR flag, no red stars, etc, just a hammer, compass and ring of rye to symbolise the union of all social classes. Remove that, and both Germanys used the same flag anyway. It was also a set of colours the Nazis had loathed because it stood for the democratic ideals of 1848 and of the Weimar Republic. There was no issue picking them back up after 1945, as they remained untainted by Nazism.

Flag of the GDR from 1959. Before, the flag had no emblem. It was just the plain tricolour.

Anthems were a trickier question. The current German anthem, the Deutschlandlied, has been adopted – if in different forms – since 1922. Both the liberal Weimar Republic and the dictatorial Nazi regime used it. That’s because you can take very different things from it.

The lyrics were written as a poem by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841 and centre around the idea that Germans must overcome their divisions and place their national identity above regional, religious, social and cultural divisions. At the time, many saw German disunity as a cause for the success of the Napoleonic invasions. The argument was that if Germans stood together, they could repel aggression and flourish.

In this context, the first stanza of the poem, which has often been misinterpreted, appeals to Germans to unite despite their differences:

Germany, Germany above all,

Above all in the world,

When it always stands united

Brotherly in protection and defence.

From the Meuse to the Neman,

From the Adige to the Little Belt,

Germany, Germany above all,

Above all in the world!

The Nazis, just like later critics of the anthem, saw a call here for aggression against other nations. “Germany above all” is read as “Germany above all other nations” rather than a call to value German identity above being Catholic, Bavarian or working class, say. At that point, the national anthem was divided into its separate parts, as it remains today. The Nazis chose to play only this first stanza and always in conjunction with their Nazi Party anthem, the Horst-Wessel-Lied. The other two parts didn’t have anything to offer the Nazis:

German women, German loyalty,

German wine and German song

Shall retain in the world

Their old, beautiful sound,

Inspiring us to noble deeds

Throughout our entire lives –

German women, German loyalty,

German wine and German song!

Unity and justice and freedom

For the German fatherland!

Let us strive for this together,

Brotherly with heart and hand!

Unity and justice and freedom

Are the foundation of happiness –

Bloom in the radiance of this happiness,

Bloom, German fatherland!

After the war, neither of the two German states founded in 1949 wanted to be seen as in line with Nazi traditions. West Germany opted for a compromise. They dropped the bits of the Deutschlandlied used by the Nazis and decided to only play the third stanza.

Internationally, this initially caused a bit of a scandal, particularly in the Allied nations. The British and French Foreign Ministries were openly critical of what they saw as a return to an anthem that Nazi Germany had used. Some Social Democrats also didn’t like the continuity. Often, only the melody was played without the lyrics being sung, not least because the “unity” aspect of the third stanza seemed inappropriate, given that the German division seemed to be cemented.

East Germany opted for a completely new anthem to demonstrate that it was a new entity, distancing itself from the past. Its national anthem, “Auferstanden aus Ruinen” or “Risen from Ruins”, was written in 1949 by Johannes R. Becher and set to music by Hanns Eisler specifically for the context of the time.

I personally find the lyrics and melody rather moving, but judge it for yourself if you will. There is a version with English subtitles on YouTube. This anthem too contained references to unity and therefore ended up mostly being played as an instrumental version in the 1970s and 80s. Given its association with the dictatorship, it was never going to be the all-German anthem after 1989.

From the ruins risen newly,

To the future turned, we stand.

Let us serve your good weal truly,

Germany, our fatherland.

Triumph over bygone sorrow,

Can in unity be won.

For we shall attain a morrow,

When over our Germany,

There's the shining sun!

May both peace and joy inspire,

Germany, our fatherland.

Peace is all the world's desire,

To the peoples lend your hand.

In fraternity united,

We shall crush the people's foe.

Let all paths by peace be lighted,

That no mother shall again

Mourn her son in woe!

Let us plow and build our nation,

Learn and work as never yet,

That a free new generation,

Faith in its own strength begets!

German youth, for whom the striving

Of our people is at one,

You are Germany's reviving,

And over our Germany,

There's the shining sun!

To find a compromise between old and new, east and west, Ramelow suggested a different text and song altogether: Berthold Brecht’s Kinderhymne, or Children’s Anthem, written in 1950 and, like the GDR’s anthem, set to music by Hanns Eisler.

Brecht’s work was a purpose-made text to replace the Deutschlandlied. The geographical references (rivers and mountains), for instance, are “updated” with the new German post-war borders. In Brecht’s version, Germans are addressed as living “from the Oder to the Rhineland, from the Alps to the North Sea” and it also rejects the liberal nationalism of the Deutschlandlied (“Neither over nor yet under other peoples will we be”). The Kinderhymne was never used nationally, but several groups favoured it as an all-German anthem after unification.

That Ramelow would prefer it is hardly surprising. He is a prominent politician of the far-Left party Die Linke (The Left) and described himself as a “good-natured socialist” in the aforementioned interview. Brecht remains a much-cherished writer, poet and playwright among left-leaning intellectuals (and beyond). But I think therein lies the problem.

In my view, the national anthem shouldn’t be renegotiated according to the political preferences of the day. Apart from Ramelow, other critics have complained that the wording of the Deutschlandlied is too old-fashioned, so that young people or those with German as a second language no longer understand it. Others have demanded that the lyrics be made gender-neutral. They want words like “fatherland” and “brotherly” replaced. Yet others want the anthem translated into the languages of the different ethnic groups living in Germany, such as Turkish.

As a historian, I feel all these renegotiations fail to see the point of national anthems. They are all about continuity. Of course, they are mostly products of the 19th century – or, in the case of states created later, hotly debated symbols of relatively recent national identities. People who have a problem with nationhood itself or with the state in which they live will dislike it, and this is also true in all countries. But I think many people also value the sense of tradition, rootedness and togetherness they represent.

In Germany’s case, there were good reasons to think about new anthems in 1918, 1949 and 1989 because all marked the beginning of new versions of Germany. But there is something powerful in the idea that, despite Germany’s extremist politics in the past, there is also a tradition of liberal democracy that runs all the way from the earliest notions of German nationhood in the 19th century to the present.

This tradition of German democracy, parliamentarianism and liberalism is represented by the flag and the anthem and, in my view, we shouldn’t tamper with the symbols of these values every time new flavours of current-day politics come to the fore.

I doubt Ramelow’s suggestion will get much traction beyond the world of high politics and journalism. Still, the heated responses to it in the media are as revealing as his proposal. Both suggest that reunification in 1990 was not the happy ending to the German story. The consensus over what kind of nation Germany wants to be and what stories it wants to tell and write about itself remains as brittle and fragile as ever.