Yes, I have vague memories of having been surprised,
in a good way, by various national anthems I had previously known nothing about
(India, Indonesia). I remember feeling
some anthems were distinctly “odd”, at least in the presentations I found on
YouTube (Saudi Arabia, whose anthem I could never find the lyrics to; Iran,
played against images of what I imagine to be Revolutionary Guards, armaments,
and explosions). And sometimes I was
surprised by my non-reaction; I’d expected to somehow be impressed or stunned,
and wasn’t, particularly (China, North Korea).
But several countries turned out to be much more
interesting than I had anticipated.
Let’s start with Germany.
The lyrics of the German anthem, known to most of us
as “Deutschland Über Alles,” was actually written, in 1841, as “Song of the
Germans.” At a time when German had
disintegrated into hundreds of kingdoms, principalities, and duchies, it urged
Germans to put “Germany Above Everything”—Germany first—rather than squabble on
behalf of your own particular little (or large) fragment of Germany.
The music, on the other hand, comes from the famous
Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn.
Austrian?
Yes. Since the Austrians are
ethnically and linguistically German; one of those kingdoms that Germany (or
rather the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation) had dissolved into—though a
rather luckier one; since, in driving the Turks back from the gates of Vienna,
it had amassed its own empire of largely non-German peoples. When Bismarck reconstituted Germany in 1871,
he specifically excluded Austria.
Haydn’s tune became the anthem of the Austrian
(later Austro-Hungarian) empire.
Meanwhile, the new German empire (like other nations we have discussed)
did not really have an official anthem.
Unofficially, Germans might sing “The Watch on the Rhine”—famously presented
in the film “Casablanca” before being drowned out by Frenchmen (and French
women) singing “The Marseillaise”—or they might sing “Heil Dir im Siegerkranz”
(to what seems the perpetually popular and apparently omnipresent—as we shall
see!—English tune “God Save The King”).
After World War I—and the collapse of the German
Empire as well as the Austro-Hungarian Empire—“The Song of the Germans,” sung
now to Haydn’s melody (no longer used as the Austrian anthem—some Austrians
were rather glad to be rid of it) became the anthem of the new German
state. With the rise of the Nazis
fifteen years after The Great War, “Germany Above Everything” became known to
the world as “Germany Over Everybody Else”—though in the Reich the custom was
to sing only the first verse, then follow that up with the “Horst Wessel Song”—the
anthem of the Nazi Party.
After World War II, what was a German to do? The first stanza was clearly verboten; not only did it talk about “Germany
Above All,” it mentioned various territory that supposedly constituted “Germany”—including
non-German ethnic areas that had been lost.
The second stanza—invoking German “wine, women, and song” seemed
comparatively trivial and a little bit sexist.
The Haydn tune was kept, along with the third
stanza. Known as the “Germany-Song,” it
proclaims the ideals of “unity, justice, and freedom” for Germany: The foundations of happiness.
There are lessons here: Not to think of your country in terms of
specific geographical boundaries (which can change); and to be mindful of how
your national anthem might come across to others (Arrogant? Sexist?).
There’s still the question, though, of using songs from other countries
as your own (though, since borders change, and a song may come from a mixed
background, let’s not be over-possessive).
In any case, we’ll see that several nations have shared one particular
tune…
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