Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein ...

 

 

ERIKA is a German marching song, mainly associated with Nazi Germany. The marching song is from the perspective of a soldier who is longing for his sweetheart back home. The theme of the song is based on Erika being both a common German female name and the Latin name (Erica) of the heather plant that grows on the heath.

 

 

The above postcard features only the first stanza of the song. The full song is written below:

 

Erika On the heath, there blooms a little flower and it’s called: Erika. Eagerly a hundred thousand little bees, swarm around … Erika. For her heart is full of sweetness, a tender scent escapes her blossom-gown. On the heath, there blooms a little flower and it’s called: Erika. Back home, there lives a blonde little maiden and she’s called … Erika. That girl is my faithful little darling and my joy, Erika! When the heather blooms in a reddish violet, I sing her this song in greeting. On the heath, there blooms a little flower and it’s called … Erika. In my room, there also blooms a little flower and it’s called … Erika. Already In the grey of dawn, as it does at dusk, It looks at me, Erika! And then it’s to me as if it’s saying aloud: “Are you thinking of your fiancée/bride?” Back at home, a maiden weeps for you and she’s called … Erika.

 

Before I could become a teenaged "Halbstarker", I had already joined the "Fahrenden Gesellen", who, on hikes and in camps, taught me my self-reliance, which has kept me in good stead throughout all my life.

 

'Yours truly' on the left

 

And, yes, we marched as we sang, and we sang as we marched, which included such old favourites as "Erika", because those were the 1950s and 1960s, a time well before the zenith of German self-flagellation.

 

 

Remember Oskar Matzerath? In Günter Grass's "Blechtrommel", on his third birthday, Oskar Matzerath, disgusted by the mundane and hypocritical adult world around him, throws himself down the cellar stairs to halt his physical development, remaining the size of a three-year-old child while his mind matures. He uses his glass-shattering vocal shrieks against anyone who tries to take away his red-and-white toy tin drum, which he constantly beats in protest against society.

Where, in today's brow-beaten Germany, are the people who are prepared to halt their personal and professional development to "beat the drum" in protest against what is happening in their country?

 

 

I am no longer a German and I no longer live there to have to witness the Untergang des Abendlandes, and no-one can stop me from singing "Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein, und das heißt: Erika ..."

 

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