Das Lied der Fallschirmjäger (Rot scheint die Sonne...)

[FRANCY RITTER]

Hello dear Ivan ...

The German pratroops song "Das Lied der Fallschirmjäger" .

MUSICA FALLSCHIRMJAGER.jpg

Source: expired eBay auction

[Ivan Ž.]

Hey, FR, always good to "see" you!

Thanks for posting.

Cheers,
Ivan

[FRANCY RITTER]

It's a pleasure my dear "old" friend

Ciao

Francesco..

[predattak]

I stumbled upon it when i watched this documentary, i can't understand the words to at least have chance in finding it and also i don't know German language so twice as hard.

The song starts from 54:06 and ends around 54:49

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEScizv8yrQ&t=3246s

It sounds like a recorded march instead of a studio recording so i think it's one of the songs used in marches or something like that.

Any idea about what song it could be?

[Ivan Ž.]

Hello, predattak

It is the German paratroopers' anthem (I've merged your post with the thread dealing with the song in question).

The video contains only a short excerpt from the first strophe, played twice. It was copied from the 1942 film "Sprung in den Feind".

Cheers,
Ivan

[predattak]

Thank you.
I searched the web for it but because it sounds very different with music and when professional singers are singing it AND i know very little German i kept missing it )

[hannibal2]

It's indeed the very powerful Fallschirmjägerlied with the booming refrain, "In die Maschinen, in die Maschinen! Kamerad, da gibt es kein Zurück!" ("To the machines, to the machines! Comrade, there's no turning back!"). You'll find several renderings of it on Youtube.

Cheers, Gert

[Ivan Ž.]

As you can see in the lyrics, the beginning of the refrain changes after each strophe: there's "In die Maschinen, in die Maschinen" (the take-off), "Schnell wird gelandet, schnell wird gelandet" (the landing) and "An die Gewehre, an die Gewehre" (the fighting). It's an exceptionally composed air force song, which perfectly simulates, with its melody, paratroopers going into action: at first there's peaceful and almost idyllic departure and flying, with a dose of anxiety and uncertainty (the strophes melody), which is followed by action/attack (the refrain melody).

Another German air force piece which equally well simulates the feeling of flying (into battle) is Schultze's "Marsch der Seeflieger" (the intro).

Cheers,
Ivan

[Alarm_Uboat]

Is there any information about how many versions of the song there were? I found only "Grammophon" and "Odeon". And the version where the air alarm sounds first and then play the song

[Ivan Ž.]

These are the known Third Reich recordings of the song:

27.02.1940 | Rundfunk | Chor des RAD, Soldatenchor, Musikkorps des Regiments "General Göring", Ltg. Paul Haase
18.05.1940 | Rundfunk | Männerchor, Blasorchester
24.06.1940 | Grammophon | Soldatenchor, Reichsmusikzug des RAD, Ltg. Herms Niel
24.09.1940 | Lindström (Odeon) | Waldo-Favré-Chor, Musikkorps des Wachbataillons Berlin, Ltg. Guido Grosch
02.07.1941 | Grammophon | Soldatenchor, Musikkorps des Wachbataillons Berlin, Ltg. Guido Grosch * the version with siren sound

All five performances used the brass band arrangement by Willi Lachner (with some differences in tempo; the 27.02.1940 and the 24.06.1940 versions are particularly slow).

It's likely that additional radio (Rundfunk) recordings were made, but there's no info on them so far (one can search for paratroopers' scenes in German wartime newsreels and check if there are different recordings of the song there; as I wrote before, newsreels used radio recordings).

A version with new lyrics was recorded for the 1942 film "Sprung in den Feind".

The song can be also heard (as instrumental) in the 1944 film "Fallschirmjäger - Sturmsoldaten der Luft".

After WWII, the song was further recorded by the Bundeswehr (oddly enough, sometimes with Lincke's march "Märkische Heide" as its intro) and was falsely presented in several publications as a piece from 1936 or 1938, i.e. peacetime. Which was whitewashing rubbish. It's a wartime song, copyrighted and first recorded in 1940, which replaced the unsuccessful 1939 "Lied der Fallschirmjäger" by Kuntzen and Theilmann as the main paratroopers' song (note that the 1944 film "Fallschirmjäger - Sturmsoldaten der Luft" starts with a scene from the 1939 film "Fallschirmjäger", but this time set to the music of Schäfer's "Das Lied der Fallschirmjäger", while the 1939 film contained the Kuntzen-Theilmann's song there).

Cheers,
Ivan

[Alarm_Uboat]

Thanks!