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Origins: Peat Bog Soldiers

DigiTrad:
DIE MOORSOLDATEN
PEAT BOG SOLDIERS
PEAT BOG SOLDIERS (3)


Related threads:
Prison Songs (26)
(origins) Origins: Peat Bog Soldiers pre-WWII? (10) (closed)
moorsoldaten (8) (closed)
Peat Bog Soldiers (5) (closed)
Lyr Req: The Peat Bog Soldiers (5) (closed)


In Mudcat MIDIs:
Peat Bog Soldiers (Moorsoldaten) (fro Something to Sing About, Okun)


Len Wallace 30 Sep 99 - 02:20 AM
Sourdough 30 Sep 99 - 02:03 AM
_gargoyle 30 Sep 99 - 12:34 AM
_gargoyle 30 Sep 99 - 12:22 AM
paddymac 30 Sep 99 - 12:10 AM
Stewie 29 Sep 99 - 09:07 PM
DownEast Bob 29 Sep 99 - 09:00 PM
Tiger 29 Sep 99 - 08:43 PM
John Hindsill 29 Sep 99 - 08:36 PM
Sourdough 29 Sep 99 - 07:24 PM
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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: Len Wallace
Date: 30 Sep 99 - 02:20 AM

When the nazis came to power in Germany they immediately began arresting left-wing politicos and sympathizers. The first to be imprisoned in the new camps were communists and socialists.

Here's what I learned from John McDonnell's "Songs of Struggle and Protest":

The song was writtem by an unnamed prisoner in the Borgermoor Camp near the Dutch frontier. Its German name "Die Moorsoldaten" first appeared in 1935 in a book of the same name written by Wolfgang Langhoss.

Fritz Selbmann in "Neue Deutschland" April 17, 1965 wrote:

"On the 3rd of September 1941, 70 prisoners lie in the bunks of a barrack room in a German concentration camp. They hear the shots outside, 465 on this particular night, and every shot kills a comrade, a brother, a communist. Every shot bores into their own hearts. the lie awake counting the shots, clenching their fists, trying not to cry out. Then something beautiful and terrible happens . . . in the farthest corner of the room a comrade begins to hum softly. The song is the Peat-bog Soldiers. Slowly, one by one, the others take up the tune and by the fourth line, 70 prisoners, all political, almost all communists, are singing this hymn of defiance."

I have a copy of it on an old album with Ernst Busch and the choir of the 11th Brigade from the International Brigades that fought in the Spanish Civil War "6 Songs for Democracy: Discos de las Brigadas Internacionales".


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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: Sourdough
Date: 30 Sep 99 - 02:03 AM

Gargoyle,

I know first hand that it is older than '65, I heard Theodore Bikel sing it at a party in the Fifties. (Of course, I can't place it in the early thirties.)

Sourdough


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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: _gargoyle
Date: 30 Sep 99 - 12:34 AM

Dachau WAS a pre-war camp reserved for political prisoners of "the state."

However, it is difficult to interpret "resistance" intentions into the lyrics.

MY earliest copyright for the song is 1965.....The skeptic in me believes most references before this date are perhaps "urban myths." A tiny bit of fact mixed with fantasy.


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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: _gargoyle
Date: 30 Sep 99 - 12:22 AM

Something to Sing About Macmillan and Company, London 1968 compiled by Milton Okun, p. 103-105

Lists the song as a favorite of Theodore Bikel and words by Wolfgang Langhoff and Esser. The tune is credited to Rudi Goguel (not one of my relatives)



Bikel Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRZDpQEgk-E


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Subject: ADD: Peat Bog Soldiers^^
From: paddymac
Date: 30 Sep 99 - 12:10 AM

English Lyrics, per the Dubliners & Black Family:
    (1) Far and wide as the eye can wander,
    heath and bog are everywhere.
    Not a bird sing out to cheer us.
    Oaks are standing gaunt and bare.

    (ch-1) We are the peat bog soldiers,
    marching with our spades to the moor.

    (2) Up and down the guards are marching,
    no one, no one can get through.
    Flight would mean a sure death facing,
    guns and barbed wire block our view.

    (ch-1)

    (3) But for us there is no complaining,
    winter will in time be past.
    One day we shall rise rejoicing.
    Homeland, dear, you're mine at last.

    (ch-2) No more the peat bog soldiers
    will march with our spades to the moor.
    ^^


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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: Stewie
Date: 29 Sep 99 - 09:07 PM

I first heard it on an old Mitchell Trio recording on Mercury - 'Violets of Dawn'. There the song is attributed to W.Langhoff-Esser - R.Goguel, whoever they might be. No other information is given.


Mitchell Trio Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2138BQsL9s


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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: DownEast Bob
Date: 29 Sep 99 - 09:00 PM

This was recorded and released as part of a Stinson 78 rpm record album in the late 40s or early 50s. I believe it may have also been included in a 10"lp that was released in the mid to late 50s, called, I believe, "Songs of the Lincoln Brigade." Most of the songs, but not this one, were sung by the Almanac Singers. Although it was not a Spanish Civil War song, it might easily have been sung in Spain by members of the Lincoln Brigade.


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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: Tiger
Date: 29 Sep 99 - 08:43 PM

According to the "Fireside Book of Folk Songs":

"It is generally believed that this song originated and was first sung in the Börgermoor concentration camp in 1933. Pierre Martinot, designer of this book, who was a prisoner in Dachau in 1944-45, says that the old prisoners there claimed that the song was first sung in Dachau, and that it was carried from there by underground to Börgermoor."

Lyrics on request.......Tiger


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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: John Hindsill
Date: 29 Sep 99 - 08:36 PM

Sourdough--

I have three versions of this song; Theo Bikel, Paul Robeson and Peat, er Pete, Seeger. In the notes accompanying GAZETTE,v. 2 on Folkways FN2502 it is said that the song comes from pre-war (WWII) Nazi concentration camps. The Nazis permitted it to be sung until they figured out that it was really a resistance song. It came to America in the mid-30s, brought by German refugee, one Hanns Eisler.

Hope that helps.---John


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Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
From: Sourdough
Date: 29 Sep 99 - 07:24 PM

I remember in the early sixties being very moved by "Peat Bog Soldiers". Even when sung in German (the original language - Moor Soldaten - ?it was a haunting song. I've often wondered about it. Is it a folk melody? Was it sung originally in German. Was it Jewish in origin or was it somehting connected to the German political prisoners. Perhaps it's roots are in Poland or some other Eastern European country overrun by the Germans.

Sourdough

Whose head is hanging low because he somehow has started an awful lot of threads where he only meant to start one.


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