Schlager and Folk
German Music
Course 1 · Chapter 7 · Schlager, Folk Song & Popular Music
Outside the concert hall, German music has a long popular tradition that is much less known abroad: folk songs sung at home and in the pub, the Schlager that fills radio and television, the very different pop of East and West Germany, and the angular punk-influenced sound of the Neue Deutsche Welle. This chapter follows that popular line from the nineteenth century to the 1980s and asks what made it distinctive and why it is so often overlooked. Names and dates are from general knowledge and flagged "check".
Folk Song and the Stammtisch
The Volkslied
The folk song, collected in the Romantic period in works such as Des Knaben Wunderhorn (see The Brothers Grimm & German Fairy Tales 2; check). Songs like "Der Mond ist aufgegangen" and "Die Lorelei" (a Heine poem set to a tune by Friedrich Silcher; check) became widely known.
Singing together
Choral societies (Gesangvereine), student songbooks and hiking and youth movements spread community singing in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (check). The tradition survives in pub and club life.
The Stammtisch
The regular table in an inn where a group of locals meets, often with song and talk. It stands for a sociable, local, amateur music culture, though its image can be cosy or dated (check).
Folk music was also used politically. Nationalist and youth movements, and later the Nazi regime, claimed it as "German", and after 1945 many people were wary of it. In the 1960s and 1970s a folk revival, including groups such as Zupfgeigenhansel, tried to recover the tradition without the old associations (check).
The Schlager
- What it is. A sentimental, easy-to-sing popular song, usually in German, on love, holidays, home or longing. The word means "hit". It dates from the nineteenth century (check).
- Heyday. After 1945 the Schlager dominated West German radio, film and television, with stars such as Freddy Quinn, Peter Alexander and later Udo Jürgens and Helene Fischer (check names). Songs about travel to Italy reflected the new prosperity (check).
- Reputation. Often mocked by critics as escapist and old-fashioned, but with a huge and loyal audience, and a revival among younger listeners in recent years (check).
- Why it matters. It shows what many Germans actually listened to, which a history that goes from Bach to Kraftwerk would miss.
East and West
| West Germany (BRD) | East Germany (DDR) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pop industry | Commercial labels, radio, television and imports (check) | State record label Amiga, state radio and quotas for East German music (check) |
| Foreign influence | Strong American and British influence, including US military radio | Western music heard through radio from the West; official wariness and a gradual opening (check) |
| Schlager and pop | Schlager mainstream, with beat, rock and later disco | Its own pop and rock, with bands such as Puhdys and Karat, and singer-songwriters (check) |
| Control | Market and taste | Licensing of performers and censorship of lyrics (check) |
| Protest | Rock and singer-songwriters on the left | Underground and church-linked scenes; the singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann was stripped of citizenship in 1976 (check) |
The Neue Deutsche Welle
- Why German? Earlier rock bands often sang in English. NDW artists chose German, partly as a statement and partly as fun with the language (check).
- The influence. It opened a path for later German-language pop and rock.
- Eurovision. Germany won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982 with Nicole's "Ein bisschen Frieden", and again in 2010 with Lena's "Satellite" (check both); the contest is a recurring subject of national debate and ridicule.
Exercises
Define the Schlager in your own words and explain two reasons it is often left out of "serious" histories of German music.
Compare how popular music was produced and controlled in East and West Germany, giving one similarity and two differences.
Explain why singing in German mattered to the Neue Deutsche Welle, and what difference it made to its audience.
Quick Reference
- Folk: Volkslied, choral societies, Stammtisch, the 1960s and 1970s revival (check)
- Schlager: sentimental German-language hits; huge post-war audience (check)
- East and West: state-run Amiga and licensing in the DDR; commercial industry in the BRD (check)
- NDW: German-language new wave, about 1979 to 1983 (check)
- Eurovision: German wins in 1982 and 2010 (check)