It is on a hit from the communist era signed by a punk diva that Angela Merkel will bid farewell to the armed forces on Thursday, a choice that surprised and amused Germany.
The army will pay him homage to the torch at the end of the day during a carefully codified ceremony called
Zapfenstreich
.
Read also Angela Merkel's farewell to the long term
Before closing her sixteen years in power on Wednesday and handing over to Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor will attend, like her predecessors, this military ritual. And like them, Angela Merkel had the opportunity to order the “soundtrack” of the ceremony from the Bundeswehr brass band. Among her three musical choices is a 1974
hit
:
Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen
(“
You forgot the color film
”) by East German punk diva Nina Hagen.
A wish widely commented on in recent days in Germany where Angela Merkel is best known for her taste for opera and her annual visit to the Bayreuth festival.
Asked at a press conference on Thursday about this choice, she explained that it reminded her of her twenty years in communist East Germany.
“
This song was a highlight of my youth (…) The song also comes from East Germany and, coincidentally, it is still played in an area that used to be my constituency.
Everything is in agreement today,
”observed the 67-year-old leader.
A touch of humor
Angela Merkel was born in the port city of Hamburg before her father, pastor and teacher, decided to take the whole family to live in the GDR to preach the gospel. In her recent farewell speeches, she has repeatedly paid tribute to an East German culture which has tended to disappear from collective memory since Reunification. In this song, Nina Hagen, known in the 1980s for her powerful voice and extravagant looks, criticizes her lover for having forgotten the color film for vacation photos, in an era before pixels, smartphones. and digital photography.
Some saw it as a mark of irony from the Chancellor after 30 years of career in a political environment dominated by men. "
By choosing a song that many bellow at the kitchen table on the birthdays of the uncle of the family, the Chancellor once again demonstrates the finesse of her humor
", greeted the Berlin newspaper
Tagesspiegel.
The title did not appear in the register of the Bundeswehr, which had to make an express adaptation, confided the leader of the fanfare to the press.
The musicians are on more familiar ground with the rest of the Chancellor's selection: a 1960s ballad
Für mich soll's rote Rosen regen
(
"It should rain red roses for me"
) and a religious hymn.
