A very interesting (propaganda though) article in Dutch about the (very true) importance of a soldiers' song in war and about Herms Niel, the famous soldiers' song composer who held several concerts in the Netherlands at the time.
From
De Waag, 15.05.1942, p. 1096
A couple of excerpts, translated:
Hendrik Lindt wrote:
[...]
Wars are won or lost through song.
[...]
It is the touchstone of a conviction. After all, battle songs are not usually born for a conviction, but from a conviction. They are the lava emerging from a revolutionary volcano and thus are the evidence of an eruptive force.
[...]
Germany has soldiers' songs because it has soldiers - it sings battle songs, because it fights for its being. Anyone who recognises this fact - and he alone - understands and feels the life's work of Herms Niel.
[...]
But to hear Herms Niel live, to see him live, that is an enlightening life experience. Not because it is something "grand", something "big", something of a monumental or colourful spectacle. But because it is so completely without pose, so completely familiar, so naturally coming from the folk soul.
[...]
Without gold-braided attendants and without entertainment tax, but with a heart-to-heart contact. It is an exemplary-sounding ensemble, this orchestra. And Niel is, in all modesty, an excellent conductor.
[...]