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Thanking @roedagardet for digitising the record this song came on, and allowing me to use it. This is recording sung by a Yugoslav Slovenian choir (Tržaški Partizanski Pevski Zbor / Coro Partigiano Triestino).
"Freiheit", also known as "Spaniens Himmel" or "Die Thälmann-Kolonne", is a song written in 1936 by Gudrun Kabisch and Paul Dessau, German anti-fascists. The song was written for the International Brigades but later became a popular standard in Germany and in American communist and folk music communities. The title translates as "Freedom" in English.
The song was written as an anthem for the German volunteers who made up the Thälmann Battalion of the International Brigades and was originally named "The Thaelman Column" ("Die Thälmann-Kolonne" or "Spaniens Himmel" (Spanish Skies) in German). Composer Dessau and lyricist Kabisch, husband and wife, composed the song while living in exile in Paris and used the pseudonyms Peter Daniels and Paul Ernst, names that still appear on printed versions of the lyrics. The most well known recording of the song is by Ernst Busch and Pete Seeger. A modern recording has been done by Hannes Wader.
The German-speaking battalions were one of the first and eventually largest groups that formed in the International Brigades, coalescing out of the 'Thälmann Centuria' of the early war days. Most of the Germans volunteering were working-class people, "members of the Weimar Republic's 'lost generation', who had never known stability nor regular employment", and to many, the simple arrival in Spain (through the French blockade) to join the fight on the Republic's side was their first victory after years of losing their political struggle at home. In their home countries of Germany and Austria, fascism had already conquered, giving their foreign struggle a special grim context.
Ernest Hemingway, the American writer, admired the Thälmann Battalion, calling them representative of the "true Germany" and contrasting them unfavourably with the Germans fighting on the other side in the Legion Condor. The respect with which the Germans were accorded - by the others in the International Brigades, as well as by the Republican populace - lifted their spirits as well. Many of them had been stripped of their nationality by the Nazis, and had spent years underground or in exile, and the war gave them the opportunity to reclaim an anti-fascist identity, their vision of a better Germany. For many it was also a time of either communist re-affirmation or political enlightenment (the largest block of all volunteers in the International Brigades was communist or had been recruited by communists).
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Tags: #spanishcivilwar #german #republicanspain #internationalbrigades #spanish #communist #rotfront
Негізгі бет "Die Thälmann-Kolonne"- German International Brigade Song (Yugoslav Choir)
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