Well, you may never have heard of Germany's most prominent songwriter Wolf Biermann and you may never have heard of his extremely popular antiwar song 'Soldat, Soldat' (Soldier, soldier) which still will be printed in German songbooks in 500 years, but the most often quoted line from this song is the boldest case of obstinate misquotation I know.

The line is 'Soldaten seh'n sich alle gleich' (all soldiers look alike) which is very often quoted as 'Soldaten sind sich alle gleich' (all soldiers are alike) which sound quite similar in German. A correct version of the song is at the other end of the link.

The irony is that Biermann in many interviews has insisted that for him it matters whether the line means 'are alike' or 'look alike'. He often has said explicitely that for him (who has survived Hitler's Germany as a young child but has lost his jewish father murdered in a concentration camp) there was for instance a big difference between Hitler's and the allied soldiers whom he greeted as liberators.

He has said and written that in many interviews, but when he became sixtyfive last year, the two newspaper articles I read about his birthday both quoted this line as the only line from his work and both had it wrong. So that's not just any random line from his work. If you ask a German which Biermann song she knows she'll name this song either first or second. If you ask which line from this song she recollects she'll more often than not quote that particular line and she'll misquote it.

Wolfgang

Link fixed. --JoeClone, 2-Feb-02.