Edelweiss über alles

Steyn On-line ^ | April 20, 2019 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

The moronization of society proceeds apace. As we mentioned on the show, a bigshot New York Times correspondent thinks that playing "Edelweiss" at the White House is some kind of Nazi dog-whistle to Trump supporters. It is tragic and profound the way even small artifacts of our inheritance get trashed in these witless arguments, so, if you want to know the real story of the very last song in the Oscar Hammerstein catalogue, here's what I had to say a couple of years back:

Not long after Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote the song, Theodore Bikel was leaving the theatre when he found a fan and fellow immigrant waiting at the stage door for his autograph: 'I love that "Edelweiss",' said the theatregoer. 'Of course, I have known it a long time, but only in German.'

Not for the first time, Hammerstein had done too good a job. Just as his 'Ol' Man River' for Show Boat is assumed by many to be an authentic Negro spiritual, so 'Edelweiss' is assumed to be an authentic Austrian folk song. Not so. In both cases, a great craftsman manufactured them to solve a structural problem with the storytelling. But he did it so well that they have become for real what they were only intended to simulate. Some years ago 'Edelweiss' was played at the White House, at a state dinner for Austria's President Kirschschlager, and everyone but the Austrians stood up for the national anthem. Actually, no. The current Austrian anthem is 'Land der Berge, Land am Strome', and the only official anthem by Rodgers & Hammerstein is their title number for their very first show, which serves as the state song of Oklahoma.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Every time I hear Edelweiss, my right arm rises in a Nazi salute, and I am prone to start goose stepping.

Peter Sellers

[The_Media_never_lie]

Mark Steyn is a marvelous scholar with a sense of humor!

[Fiji Hill]

That's a great tune. Austria also had a great national anthem, composed by Joseph Haydn in 1791.The tune is used for the current anthem of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Gott Erhalte Franz den Kaiser (God save Francis the emperor)

Das Lied der Deutschen (the song of the Germans)

[higgmeister]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leontopodium_nivale

[gogeo]

They say that the song is a dog whistle to Trump's Nazi supporters.

I don't follow. How can it be addressed to "Nazis" when only leftys seem to be able to hear it?

[dfwgator]

I like this one.

Deutschland - Rammstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc

[gogeo]

Not lesbians, of course, who have no musical tastes.

Yeah, what's up with that?

[Ezekiel]

Ah indeed, the simple meaning.

These folks only know and want darkness.

[dfwgator]

This is actually what they did sing when the marched into Poland

In einem Polenstädtchen (In a Polish Town)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUm39VjTsp4

[dfwgator]

That movie clip always gives me the chills.

Me too, very well done scene, the poor old man knows what's coming and knows he's helpless to stop it, kind of how I feel sometimes.

[Kid Shelleen]

>> it's a good tune, <<

It is a beautiful song. That is what makes the movie scene so evil and ominous.
I am sure Davig Hogg has sung that tune many times to himself in the mirror.

[RedMonqey]

"It is a beautiful song. That is what makes the movie scene so evil and ominous. ”

That describes it perfectly. As in the Bible Lucifer, the Morning Star, has been described as the most beautiful of God's angels but evil personified.

Evil is so irresistible because on the surface it has the allure of beauty but it hides the demonic temptations man is prone to.

So too is this song, being sung by a beautiful teenager... in a Brownshirt uniform adorned with a swastika armband.

[RedMonqey]

"This is actually what they did sing when the marched into Poland”

Not exactly a catchy tune but then I don't understand very much German so maybe it helps to know the language

Now this version of "Panzerlied" (Battle of the Bulge version) I can see the Wehrmacht in their battledress marching in formation as they terrorise every Polish village they crossed into.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JDkdc246QQ

[RedMonqey]

Probably not exactly how Rommel's men sang it but, as a movie prop it certainly was effective.

I liked Robert Shaw as the Col. Hessler character, although the movie itself hasn't aged very well as war movies go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JDkdc246QQ

[fortes fortuna juvat]

I don’t know how anyone who read “Mein Kampf” could come away from it without knowing Hitler was mad and the Nazis plan would end in world wide disaster.
.............................................
Don’t be so hard on Uncle Adolf today. It’s his birthday!

[Rummyfan]

Thirty years ago Barry Humphries helped set up the Melbourne Comedy Festival and agreed to lend his name to its most glittering prize - the Barry Humphries Award for Comedy. Alas and alack, Barry gave an interview to The Spectator, which has been declared by the new commissars of comedy to be "transphobic". Mr Humphries feels that transgenderism is a "fashion", and further outraged the pearl-clutchers of edgy comedy festivals by characterizing Caitlyn Jenner as a "publicity-seeking ratbag".

He's right!

[BTerclinger]

I thought Sound of Music would be banned already as everyone is white.

[kalee]

This snowflake PC thinking destroyed American football, baseball and hockey are next.

[BTerclinger]

Haberman is a moron.

[BTerclinger]

Happy counting.