The Party Song

You will remember the scene where every one in the beer hall sings (or is made to sing) the song of the new order.. It should have been the party song 'Horst Wessel Lied' but this would have posed a problem, because the song was copyrighted, and the copyright holders (the Nazi Party) were not about to work with MGM on this one.

This would not have been a problem in Allied nations, but the film was also to be distributed in neutral nations where legal challenges could have inhibited its distribution. Besides, the USA was neutral too, at this point, and there could have been some legal difficulty here as well. The solution they chose was to craft a tune which kept the rhythmn of 'Horst Wessel' but had slightly different notes, sort of like modern designer drugs which alter their chemical formulae a little so as to get round legal restrictions on their sale and use.

This approach also allowed them to make up new lyrics, much more repulsive to American ears than the original. The original song, considered out of context, is not too bad. If you like to look it up in Wikipedia, the first verse simply says, in effect, that the flag is raised, the members rally round and march, and those who fell for our cause also march with them, in spirit. Many other movements could say the same, whatever they stand for, it is just a natural expression of solidarity amoung those who have the same beliefs.

The Party song in this movie however, is full of stuff about how We'll Crush Our Every Foe, and We Follow Our Great Leader to Glory, and No Other Race Can Stop Us, and We Are by Birth the Rulers of the Earth. and serveral other crowd-jarrers like that. I personaly think this catches the spirit of National Socialism much better than the Party's own song, but the viewer should be aware that the song as shown here is a Hollywood invention.

Warner Brothers had this same problem in the making of 'Casablanca', when they wanted to use the 'Horst Wessel Lied' in the famous battle-of-the-anthems sequence. They, however, decided to just substitute a public-domain song, 'Wacht am Rhein'. Note by this time the USA was in the war, so it was only the still neutral countries they were worried about, not the USA.