Thank you very much, Wilfried (but don't be too hard on Wolfgang Roth). Anyway, he had nothing to do with the Hitler Youth, while I'm sure you are right (and he was wrong) about the autenticity of many of the songs.

Here is what he wrote about himself, from the booklet in his first Folkways lp:

As a protest against war and to champion ideas of brotherhood and peace, a group of young idealists and people of vision established themselves under the leadership of poets, artists and educators, in 1913.    I was a member of this German Youth Movement in 1925 to 1929.    Here I learned the old songs of the Germans who had fought against tyranny and injustice.    And I met at this time a wonderful old man (with a long beard), a musical instruments maker, who gave me a lute and taught me how to play it.
The songs we sang around the campf ire or in our "herbergen" were not Lieder.    These "minne" songs, these songs of love and hope and protest had been preserved orally; there were no printed versions - nor were they sugar-coated or sentimentalized, and I wrote them down as I heard them.
I have only changed the verses sung in 'middle-high' German to a somewhat more modern German so that they might be better understood.    These are some of a large number of similar songs from the time of The Peasant-Wars.
In the 19th - l6th Centuries (the Renaissance) the peasants revolted against the oppression of their feudal landlords, the Teutonic Knights.    In the "Landsknechte" songs are references to the Mercenaries (who sold themselves, therefore the Soeldners or Soldknechte) who were forced by their King, or Duke or Knight to fight anywhere or anyone.    Theirs was a lamentable fate and they warn the youth not to fall victim to it.    The peasants sing of their plight and of their struggle, their hunger, their defeats and their fight, their hopes and their belief in God, while opposing the landed and wealthy Clergy, the Pfaffen.
Unfortunately, when I left Germany early in 1933, I lost all of my notebooks where I had written down the words of many of the songs.    For many years I did not sing at all, feeling depressed and hopeless by what happened in Germany in the years following.
Lately, however, I have come back to these songs which seem to me now as worthy as the beautifulAmerican and English folksongs I have been hearing these last 27 years.    I want them to tell the story of a German people who were believers in good and not evil.