Peat Bog Soldiers

The Peat Bog Soldiers song Börgermoor song or short Moor song was created in 1933 by prisoners of the concentration camp Börgermoor at Papenburg in Emsland. In this camp, political opponents of the Nazi regime were held mainly. With simple tools like a spade there they had to cultivate the Moor.

Formation

Lyricist of the song were the miner Johann Esser and the actor and director Wolfgang Langhoff, the music comes from the commercial employees Rudi Goguel. The song was on 27 August 1933 performed at an event called Circus Konzentrazani of 16 prisoners, mostly former members of the Solinger workers Choral Society.

Rudi Goguel later recalled:

" The sixteen singers, mostly members of the Solinger workers glee club, marched in their green police uniforms (our former prison uniform ) with shouldered spade into the arena, myself. At the top in a blue tracksuit with a broken shovel handle as a baton We sang, and already in the second stanza, the nearly 1,000 prisoners began humming along to the chorus. [ ... ] From stanza to stanza increased the chorus, and in the last stanza also sang the SS men, who had appeared with their commanders, in harmony with us, apparently because they felt themselves addressed as, Peat Bog Soldiers '. [ ... ] At the words, ... Then the peat bog soldiers no longer draw with spades to the moor ' came the sixteen singers the spade into the sand and marched out of the arena, the spade behind, which now, tucking in the peat, acted as grave markers. "

Two days after the first performance of the song of the camp was forbidden. Nevertheless, it was the guards of the camp, which repeatedly demanded that the song was sung by the prisoners on their marches to the workplace.

The song is about Börgermoor also is known by workers made redundant or moved to other camps prisoners. 1935 met the composer Hanns Eisler in London know. He revised the melody for the singer Ernst Busch. This joined during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) the Brigada Internacionales, the International Brigades who defended the Spanish Republic against Franco coup. This song has been strengthened internationally known. However, the original head of the tune by Rudi Goguel with three identical tones does not sound as confident as the version of Eisler. Goguel had three same tones the hopeless mood, from which the song was written, better captured when the amended by Eisler melody.

Today there are versions of the song in several languages, the best known performers include Ernst Busch, Hein and Oss Kröher, Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger, Perry Friedman, The Dubliners and Hannes Wader. Recent edits come from the Cologne Saxophone Mafia, Welle: Erdball, Liederjan, Die Toten Hosen, The Reaper, Michael von der Heide and Helium Vola.

The Documentation and Information Centre ( DIZ ) Emslandlager in Papenburg in 2002 a double CD The Song of the Peat Bog Soldiers issued, are included on the more than 30 different versions of the song and word posts, including Rudi Goguel. To mark the 75th anniversary of the song a second edition was issued on August 27, 2008. In DIZ in Papenburg and since his move to Esterwegen the fall of 2011 at the Memorial Esterwegen is also the story of the peat bog soldiers, as described themselves political prisoners in the early concentration camps Börgermoor, esters paths and Neusustrum itself, and the other prisoners in the Emsland camps 1933-1945 inter alia, documented in exhibitions.