A Rock Band Flirts with German Taboos, and Finds a Huge Following

NATZ, Italy — By the time Frei.Wild took the stage at Alpen Flair, a three-day music festival in northern Italy, the sun had disappeared behind the forested peaks of the surrounding Alps. Most of the 20,000 audience members had traveled over 100 miles from Germany to see the band. The crowd was overwhelmingly white and largely male, and many fans shouted along as the band launched into one of its most controversial songs, “Südtirol.”

The song celebrates Frei.Wild’s home region of South Tyrol, where the festival was taking place, a largely German-speaking enclave that was passed to Italy from Austria-Hungary after World War I. “I won’t tolerate any criticism of this sacred land, our homeland,” the band’s heavily tattooed singer, Philipp Burger, sang. An eagle like the one on the region’s flag flashed on a large screen onstage.

Frei.Wild (pronounced FRY-vilt) has become one of the most contentious and successful bands in Germany, where its lyrics about loving one’s homeland have resonated with people who want to challenge the postwar taboo against public expressions of national pride. The band sings in German, and its music is a punk-inflected variant of “deutschrock,” a form of German rock music. But a South Tyrolean identity allows the group to voice nationalist sentiments in German, for a largely German audience, while partly avoiding the backlash that a German band would encounter for making similar statements.

The band’s most recent album, “Rivalen und Rebellen,” (“Rivals and Rebels”) went to the top of the German-language charts in Germany and Austria this spring, and it is the second best-selling album in any language in Germany this year. Many of the group’s tour dates, which included stadium audiences as large as 12,000 people, were sold out.

The Spanish Inquisition never ruled in the Southern Netherlands. Spain once ruled the Netherlands - because of the Hapsburg family dynastic holdings - but the Spanish Inquisition never ruled any country

You're splitting hairs. When the Netherlands were under Spanish rule, the Inquisition was able to mostly stamp out Protestantism in what later became Flemish Belgium, but not in the north in what became today's Holland.

I read an account by a German OrderPolizie who was part of one of the first Judenakton in Poland. He was assigned to take an older man into the forest and shoot him. He found that the guy was German, not Polish, and a highly decorated veteran of WW1.
Still shot him, but apparently felt a little bad about it.

__________________

I try to keep telling people who say that if there is a CWII that the cops will rein that this is the reality...

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/s%C3%BCdtirol-south-tyrol.html

South Tyrol
Yeah our homeland, it’s so beautiful
You can also see it on our mountains
They tower up proudly to the sky
Even our ancestors were mightily proud of that
The meadows so green, the forest thick
Be glad about this country that’s your home
So let the drums and the guitars sound
And sing this song to us again and again

South Tyrol, we carry your flag
Because you are the most beautiful country in the world
South Tyrol, we are your proud sons
Our homeland, we will never give you away again
South Tyrol, snatched from your brothers
Scream it out, so everyone knows
South Tyrol, you are not lost yet
Your enemies should rot in hell

This land was always fiercely contested
And I say it, I say it with delight, I am your son
Noble palaces, proud castles and the rustic towns
Were built by the rigorous work of our fathers
In short, I don’t tolerate any criticism
Of this holy country which is our home
So take a deep breath and scream it out
Homeland we will never give you up

From Brenner to Salurn, from Vinschgau to East Tyrol
Extends this country, built by God’s hand
Nothing more beautiful than this for all eternity
Is there on this Earth, are you ready?

South Tyrol, you are my homeland
The heart of this world
That’s perfectly obvious1
The land of thousand mountains
Birthplace of many heroes
We will give everything
South Tyrol, you are my life

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.