Die Moorsoldaten
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Die Moorsoldaten [German Version], performed by Hannes Wader
Peat Bog Soldiers is one of Europe’s best-known protest songs. It exists in countless European languages, became a Republican anthem during the Spanish Civil War; was a symbol of resistance during the Second World War; and is popular with the Peace movement today. What makes it perhaps so poignant is the knowledge that is was written, composed and first performed in a Nazi concentration camp by the prisoners themselves.
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Broadcast about the Moorsoldaten Lied on Radio Goethe
This song was written by prisoners in Nazi moorland labour camps in Lower Saxony, Germany. By 1933 the Börgermoor camp held about 1,000 Socialist and Communist internees. They were banned from singing 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.
It was first performed at a Zircus Konzentrazani ("concentration camp concert") on 28 August 1933 at Börgermoor camp. Here is Rudi Goguel’s description of it:
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".
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Die Moorsoldaten [German Version], performed by Helium Vola
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.
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Peat Bog Soldiers [English Version] performed by Paul Robeson
Source: Wikipedia | Deutsche Version
milkboys » Peat Bog Soldier says:
[...] composed and first performed in a Nazi concentration camp by the prisoners themselves. I have an article about this on my personal blog where you’ll also find the English version of the [...]