The poet and musician met for the first time in October 1949 at the Hotel Bristol in Warsaw. As the leading cultural functionary (and later Minister of Culture) of the newly founded GDR, Johannes R. Becher had organized celebrations in the Polish capital for Goethe's 200th birthday and also invited Hanns Eisler.
The composer had spent much of the Nazi period as his companion, the playwright Bertolt Brecht, as an emigrant in the United States and had also been expelled in the wake of the Communist attack after the war; the literary mug had fled to Moscow. As communists, both decided to return to the German state in the east.
At breakfast in the hotel Becher gave Comrade Eisler a few verses: That was the text for a planned GDR anthem; other composers would have received it, he would be happy, even if Eisler would think about a setting. When both went to Chopin's birthplace in the afternoon, Becher experienced a surprise. "I had found a tune by now," Eisler recalled, "and I played him the national anthem on Chopin's old piano, and he was very surprised it was going so fast."
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DDR national anthem: "Germany, united fatherland"To implement orders quickly - Eisler had learned during the emigration. In Hollywood, he wrote film scores, 1943 and 1944, works by him were nominated for Oscars. Hanns Eisler (1998-1962) was one of the most gifted musicians of the 20th century. He was able to compose catchy war songs for the workers' movement, but also mastered the avant-garde music of his teacher Arnold Schoenberg.
Brecht blasphemed about "this meteorological hymn"
Eisler's GDR hymn with the text by Becher received the blessing from the SED Politburo and the Council of Ministers of the GDR on November 5, 1949. The following day, text and notes were sent to the Berliner Rundfunk Choir, which premiered the new work on November 7 at the Ost-Berliner Staatsoper on the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the Russian October Revolution.
Because leaflets were distributed with the text, the audience could sing along. The first stanza:
"Rising from the Ruins
and facing the future,
let us serve you for the good,
Germany United fatherland.
Old hardship is about to force
and we force them together,
because we have to succeed
that the sun is beautiful as never
seems to be about Germany. "
Becker's words were an expression of his conviction. The returnee from the Soviet Union considered the GDR to be a temporary solution and dreamed of living in his native city of Munich. Of course, the text was synonymous with the then politics of the GDR. "Germany is an indivisible, democratic republic," it said in the constitution. According to Becher biographer Jens-Fietje Dwars, "What's not in the anthem - the Soviet liberators and socialism as the goal" of the new state - is "exciting".
While few noticed the text, the melody triggered controversy. Eisler's anthem was a plagiarism of the song "Goodbye Johnny", the hit composer Peter Kreuder had written in 1936 for the Hans Albers film "Water for Canitoga", reported West German media. And that GDR residents rise from their seats when somewhere "Goodbye Johnny" sounded. In fact, parts of Kreuders and Eisler's songs are very similar. But more likely than Eisler's alleged plucking off is that both composers - probably unconsciously - used a larger one: Beethoven's Opus 119, No. 11.
"Sound disturbance" on West TV
"Rising from ruins" was well received in the young GDR. Most people liked the song. Only Becker's poet colleague Bert Brecht blasphemed in a private circle about "this meteorological hymn" - an allusion to the line "that the sun shines like never before over Germany".
Meanwhile, the Federal Republic boycotted the "Eisler-Becher-Hymne". Ambassadors in Third World countries had to submit protest notes when confused organizers confused the Deutschlandlied and the DDR anthem. The ARD temporarily put a damper on the sound when East German winners were honored with their anthem during sports broadcasts. "Sound disturbance - We apologize and for a little patience" was then displayed.
Johannes R. Becher died in 1958 and did not experience how his words disappeared in the sinking. For the text of the "united fatherland" became uncomfortable when the GDR officially renounced reunification in the early 1970s and propagated the independent socialist state. The statement that the hymn would in future only be instrumental to play deleted the most famous verses of the always line-loyal East German Communist.
Becher's key line was picked up when so many people took to the streets in 1989 for another state. In addition to the main slogan "We are the people" protesters also chanted "Germany united fatherland". The ostracized verses were in demand again. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the resignation of the SED leadership, the East Berlin Transitional Government announced in early January 1990: "Radio and television must be informed that the state anthem of the GDR is to be broadcast again with the text of Johannes R. Becher . "
Both hymns in jazz mix
But how should it continue? Lothar de Maizière, the last GDR Prime Minister and studied violist, had an idea: In the negotiations on the unification treaty, he suggested in July 1990 to attach the first verse of the GDR anthem as a second stanza to the Deutschlandlied - in vain. Helmut Kohl was outraged, said Maizière.
After all, the chancellor had no objection when the jazz musician Peter Herbolzheimer 1994 for the opening of the permanent exhibition "Germany since 1945" in the House of History in Bonn an arrangement from the Germany song, the GDR anthem and the European anthem "Joy beautiful gods spark" played. Herbolzheimer's original potpourri without shrill tones was applauded. But the pianist Hans Lüdemann experienced how visitors left the room in a scandalous manner, as he improvised in those years in a free-jazz manner about the two German hymns.
For the German hymn dispute also continued after the decision for "unity and right and freedom". "I just can not get the third verse of the German song down," said 1998 Werner Schulz, member of the German Bundestag and former East German civil rights activist, the "Welt". Like some politicians and creative artists, he wanted Brecht's "Children's Anthem" to be a hymn to reunited Germany. Brecht wrote it in 1950, as an alternative to the German song as well as the GDR anthem.
Eisler set to music the poem that begins with the lines: "Grace does not save effort, passion nor understanding that a good Germany flourishes like another good land." In the end it says: "And because we improve this country, we love and protect it, and the dearest may seem to us as other peoples do it." About the Brecht / Eisler work wrote the political scientist Iring Fetscher: "There is probably no anthem that so beautifully, so rationally, so critically justified the love of their own country, and no that ends with so conciliatory lines."
Eisler's other anthem - the one with Becher's text - was played for the last time on 23 November 1995 for an official occasion. During the state visit of the Federal President of Brazil, the police band of Porto Alegre intoned "Risen from Ruins". Roman Herzog endured the error calmly.