The Constitution of my Uncle Sam protects me not so my cousins in Germany.You see, I can sing all the verses of the German national anthem and the Horst-Wessel Lied.Once upon a time, the most patriotic songs of the Reich and its people.The melody of the anthem is still used today but not the first verse.You see the borders have been changed.The Maas River(Meuse) is still flowing...its bloody shores with crosses upon crosses on both sides of the river as far as you eyes dare to see.The terrible results of wars upon wars since 1839.Even though the river became Belgium-Dutch later,the words were never changed when the song became the national anthem of Germany during the Weimar Republic of Germany in 1922.This should have given somebody a clue of the future.On the eastern border the song mentions the Memel River.The name is no longer in a germanic tongue and the western side of the river is Russian until the Polish border.There is no German land until you cross the Odra-Oder River that I crossed in the spring of 1947 going West.
The other song is something else all together.It is stirring and provocative.I learned the hard way how this song could cause problems and hurt unintentionally on my part.I am a member of the German American Institute and was singing in a mixed choir.Well, I made the mistake in humming the melody and sing the first two lines as a joke. The person next to me got up and left and would not sit next me or talk to me for years after.He was not Jewish and I assume his family were German Socialists or Communists or belonged to other persecuted minorities or religious groups during the NAZI dominated period in Germany.It was never explained to me ...maybe I need to resolve this before I leave for the new Heimat Ort( home place).
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