Today, and for the next few weeks, we are exploring Deutschland — the more recent song by Rammstein. It turns out that this song has quite a lot to say about Germany and I have quite a lot to say about the band and the song, so this review has gotten a bit out of hand. As such, I have split it up into three separate articles: this post, which serves as an overview of the band’s reputation in Germany and which provides a translation of the song’s lyrics with some brief commentary; the next one, diving into the themes explored in the song’s official video; and a concluding examination on what the song and video say about Germany from Rammstein’s point of view.
First things first, let’s take a look at the band itself and its relationship to the nation for which the song was written.
You have almost certainly already heard of Rammstein. They are, without question, the most famous German-speaking musical enterprise in the world, and likely will be for all time. Almost everywhere they have gone for the last twenty-five years has seen them mobbed by tens of thousands of fans; not only do they have an impressive stronghold in South America, but they are almost unaccountably beloved in the former Soviet Union, and they have developed an enviable following in the United States and the rest of the Anglosphere as well.
Achieving that sort of universal and sustained acclaim in the global music industry is a very rare feat, and pretty much unheard-of for any band with no real songs of their own in English.1 Sure, everyone unfortunate enough to have been conscious in the mid-90’s remembers the Macarena, but I defy you to find more than a half-dozen Russians or Australians or Canadians who could tell you that Los del Rio were even a thing.
Rammstein, for better or worse, have introduced more people to the German language and to certain aspects of German culture and history than any other group of men since the Nazis initiated the invasion of Poland.
It may come as a surprise to non-Germans, then, to learn that the band aren’t particularly well-regarded in their home country. Don’t get me wrong — they do have a massive following here, as evidenced by the German-speaking cities of their 2020 stadium tour not only selling out within a day, but its 2023 follow-up doing so even more rapidly.2
But most Germans you will encounter as a tourist or a well-heeled immigrant tend to turn up their noses at the mere mention of the band’s name. At best they are considered déclassé, the kind of music that truck drivers and window washers and mechanics listen to as they go about their business. At worst, and not coincidentally to all of that, Rammstein are frequently “associated” with neo-Nazis in some vague and impugnatory way. This makes it acceptable for a politically-correct German, even one who claims to support the working classes, to openly disdain the band.
In my experience in discussions about Rammstein’s music, this accusation is usually based on some combination of their overall aesthetic, the pyrotechnics of their live shows, the way Till Lindemann trills his Rs3, and the fact that many of Till’s lyrics are inspired by German works of literature spanning the last thousand years. That the Nazis laid claim to the totality of this literary and cultural heritage is a somewhat painful reality for anyone who is not content to allow that claim to stand uncontested — though it may be ironic that Rammstein’s attempts to contest this may very well lie at the root of the accusations that they somehow support National Socialism.
Last time, we saw how Die Prinzen spoke for a certain kind of German who was skeptical of anyone a bit too proud of Germany, which was (and remains) a significant proportion of the population. In Rammstein we have a band, perhaps the band, which has exploited that skepticism in order to engender controversy and reap the attendant benefits. They have generated enormous amounts of attention (and not a little bit of infamy) within Germany by tickling Germans’ Nazi-radar and accruing spurious accusations of supporting fascism from people unwilling to actually listen to their lyrics.
To be fair, regardless of one’s opinion of the man, it is difficult to call Till Lindemann dumb or cast him as naïve; it was inevitable that these artistic choices, taken together, would bring accusations of sympathy for Nazis and right-wing extremism. It strains credibility to imagine that Till and his bandmates could have made those choices without at least suspecting how they would be received by a significant segment of German society…though that itself may be a commentary on the state of German society, which I may explore in this series’ closing essay.
Nevertheless, the band have always explicitly denounced right-wing causes in general and neo-Nazism in particular, going so far as to publish a song fairly early on which more-or-less told both their inattentive critics and some of their own misguided fans that the band were, are, and always will be left-wingers. (It is also a banger of a song, and likely worthy of its own analysis, but that is beyond the scope of the current work.) And while Rammstein’s fan base likely does count some skinheads and neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists among its number, that is little different from any other heavy-metal act, and it furthermore requires these misguided fans to ignore the band’s oft-repeated denunciations of their cause.
So, while Rammstein’s authentic sympathies aren’t really impeachable by anyone paying attention, they are not exactly innocent victims of an overzealous Antifa brigade. Examples of their pot-stirring include (but are far from limited to) using footage recut from Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (a Nazi propaganda film for the 1936 Olympics) as a music video, putting out a different song and video glorifying BDSM which was briefly banned in Germany for supposedly promoting violence, and dressing both as Nazis and as Holocaust victims in the video for the ostensible subject of this very article (which we will be covering in the next article).
As mentioned previously, Rammstein have made many songs incorporating Germanic folktales, motifs, and turns of phrase. These often serve as an integral part of Till’s storytelling, offering a cultural backdrop in which the narrative unfolds. Rarely are the Germanic elements the point of the narrative, and even more rarely do Rammstein interrogate what it has meant (and might yet still mean) to be a German in the modern world. Some songs come close to such commentary, such as Mein Land or Ausländer, but these offerings are tongue-in-cheek excoriations of general phenomena rather than anything particularly German.
Deutschland is the exception; it is an unflinching, even unrelenting look at the nation of Germany as it has existed for the last two thousand years. The song serves as an odd sort of love letter from the band to their country of origin — not the infatuation of a young couple lost in the rush of hormones, but a deeper and more considered love, one tested by time and perhaps even found wanting.
What follows is the song’s text as interpreted and translated by me. Feel free to offer any corrections or alternative interpretations you feel should be considered in the comments.
Du… (du hast mal 4)4
hast viel geweint (geweint mal 4)
im Geist getrennt (getrennt mal 4)
im Herz vereint (vereint mal 4)
—
You… (you have x4)
have cried a lot (cried x4)
divided in your soul (divided x4)
joined in your heart (joined x4)
—
Wir… (wir sind mal 4)
sind schon so lang zusammen (ihr seid mal 4)
Dein Atem kalt (so kalt mal 4)
Das Herz in Flammen (so heiß mal 4)
—
We… (we are x4)
have been together so long already (you all are x4)
Your cold breath (so cold x4)
Your heart in flames (so hot x4)
—
Du… (du kannst mal 4)
Ich… (ich weiß mal 4)
Wir… (wir sind mal 4)
Ihr… (ihr bleibt mal 4)
—
You… (you can x4)
I… (I know x4)
We… (we are x4)
You all… (you all remain x4)
—
Deutschland
Mein Herz in Flammen
Will ich lieben und verdammen
Deutschland
Dein Atem kalt
So jung, und doch so alt
Deutschland
—
Germany
My heart in flames
I want so5 to love and to condemn (that)
Germany
Your breath cold
So young, and yet so old
Germany
—
Ich (du hast mal 4)
Ich will dich nie verlassen (ich weiß mal 4)
Man kann dich lieben (du liebst mal 4)
Und will dich hassen (du hasst mal 4)6
—
I (you have x4)
I so never want to leave you (I know x4)
One can love you (you love x4)
And so want to hate you (you hate x4)
—
Überheblich
Überlegen
Übernehmen
Übergeben
Überraschen
Überfallen
Deutschland, Deutschland über Allen
—
Haughty
Superior
To take over
Surrendered
To surprise
To attack
Germany, Germany, above everyone
—
Deutschland
Mein Herz in Flammen
Will ich lieben und verdammen
Deutschland
Dein Atem kalt
So jung, und doch so alt
—
Germany
My heart in flames
I want so to love and to condemn (that)
Germany
Your breath cold
So young, and yet so old
—
Deutschland
Deine Liebe ist Fluch und Segen (Deutschland)
Meine Liebe kann ich dir nicht geben
Deutschland
Deutschland
—
Germany
Your love is a blessing and a curse (Germany)
I cannot give you my love
Germany
Germany
—
Du… (du im Widerhall)
Ich… (ich im Widerhall)
Wir…
Ihr…
(Du…) Übermächtig, überflussig
(Ich…) Übermenschen, überdrüssig
(Wir…) Wer aufsteigt, der wird tief fallen
(Ihr…) Deutschland, Deutschland über Allen
—
You… (you echoing)
I… (I echoing)
We…
You all…
(You…) Super-powered, superfluous
(I…) Supermen, weary
(We…) He who rises will fall deeply
(You all…) Germany, Germany above everyone
—
Deutschland
Dein Herz in Flammen
Will ich lieben und verdammen
Deutschland
Mein Atem kalt
So jung, und doch so alt
Deutschland
Deine Liebe ist Fluch und Segen
Deutschland
Meine Liebe kann ich dir nicht geben
Deutschland
—
Germany
Your heart in flames
I so want to love and to condemn (you)7
Germany
My breath cold
So young, and yet so old
Germany
Your love is a blessing and a curse8
Germany
I cannot give you my love
Germany
The text is not overly complicated, but no less powerful for its seeming simplicity. There is plenty of room for interpretation — the placement and wording of Deutschland über Allen does more than allude to das Lied der Deutschen, for example; it may well fundamentally change the meaning of the line. Instead of “Germany above everything” as in the original poem, or even “Germany above everyone” in the abstract sense of Germany being more important than any individual person, one could read the stanzas more closely. In particular, überfallen -> Deutschland über Allen could be read to mean “attack Germany above all others” and wer aufsteigt, der wird tief fallen -> Deutschland über Allen could be read to mean “he who climbs up will fall deeply; none moreso than Germany”.
Though I describe the song as a love letter, Till explicitly says that as much as he may wish to, he cannot bring himself to love his native country. Now, whether this is Till Lindemann exposing his own soul to the world or him adopting the point of view of a fictional narrator, it is certainly an understandable frame of mind for someone born here in the shadow of the Holocaust and the Second World War, heir to the ashes of millions of human beings. How can anyone fully come to grips with such an inheritance? How can it not drive a person mad with horror and revulsion and grief? How, being so blessed by the abundance and security and freedom of the richest democracy in Europe, can a German live with the curse that their grandparents helped to cast upon the world?
The narrator settles for a middle ground, unable to reconcile the desires to both love and to damn his homeland; instead he laments that he cannot give his love, not unconditionally. The fire in his heart and the ice in his lungs leave him ambivalent, unable to fully commit to either impulse. Rather than an exponent of what Germany means, Till serves as a humble and conflicted witness, and perhaps a reluctant one, at that. And it is notable that, despite the narrator’s ambivalence, he affirms his desire never to abandon his country — he does not want to move away, and we can infer that he also does not want to surrender the entirety of his people’s legacy to the very madmen who drove Germany over the cliff.
One can also detect a bitter irony in the one-word recitations of stereotypical German characteristics, as though Till is tired deep into his bones of hearing about how haughty and superior Germans supposedly are. The dichotomous übermächtig, überflüssig, Übermenschen, überdrüssig contrast how the Nazis viewed Germans with how many Germans view themselves today — not the all-powerful supermen destined to conquer the world, but somewhat superfluous, enervated, possibly even impotent.
The Germany we see in these lyrics is one of competing and even contradictory impulses. When Till sings “so young, and yet so old”, he is referencing the fact that Germany in its most recent form is quite a recent country, having been constituted when West and East Germany reunited in 1990. This makes Germany younger than the members of Rammstein — in fact, the modern state is only about five years older than the band itself.
And yet the idea of Germany is much older, in some sense reaching back into the mists of European prehistory. Those who call themselves German must reckon with this idea and its consequences; as the lyrics show us, this reckoning is rarely uncomplicated9. The legacy of the last century weighs heavily upon the narrator without the words having to spell that legacy out.
The lyrics of the song stand quite powerfully on their own, but unlike the outing from Die Prinzen, the music video for this Deutschland is a work of cinema that exposes its own themes as well complementing those presented by the text. So next we will do a deep dive into that video, exploring the most important shots to discover the references and ideas the band present there.
See you then.
As far as I can tell, across the eight full studio albums of Rammstein’s discography (as of late 2022), there is precisely one song that has any notable English content at all; this is Stirb nicht vor mir, whose chorus is half in English, with the rest of the song in German. The band also released a collection of covers to Depeche Mode’s Stripped fairly early on in their career, but — with all due respect to Depeche Mode — that one song hardly explains the breadth and depth of Rammstein’s success since making that release (even if it was the one with the recut Nazi film as a music video). There may also be the odd cover or obscure original song in English that I have missed, but these would have also played virtually no role in Rammstein’s rise to worldwide fame.
This is even more impressive than it sounds, because the 2020 tour was interrupted partway through by COVID, with more than half of its dates delayed first to 2021 and then to 2022 before they finally took place. Not only were the 2022 events (some of which spanned multiple days in the same venue) all packed, interest in the 2023 tour was so high that the vendor website seemingly ran out of tickets for most dates within the first handful of minutes (though it continued offering false hope and frustrating error messages in equal measure for the first couple of hours). This repeated itself once the band added “surprise” dates in Munich, Berlin, and Vienna. The fact that some other dates in Europe took much longer to sell out (at least in comparison) shows that the band has a very strong following in the German-speaking areas, despite their reputation among a certain class of German-speakers.
Here is a video (in English) showing that this sound is a conscious affectation from Till Lindemann, which also touches on the controversy surrounding its use as just such an affectation. I will briefly summarise the issue here.
The modern form of Standard German has two or three R-sounds, but none of them are similar to the rolled trill which Till uses in exaggerated fashion for many of his songs. The controversy arises because this was also a language feature that Adolf Hitler accentuated in his public speeches, for reasons that may have also influenced Till’s decision do adopt it — namely that it is an impressive and attention-grabbing sound to produce, and, perhaps more importantly, the rolled trill used to be much more common across all Germanic dialects and so bespeaks a sort of classical pedigree that a modern native speaker tends to find sonorous and evocative.
Hitler had the excuse that this sound actually still existed in his own native alpine dialect (and indeed still does, though it is arguably softening to the tapped R more common in northern Bavaria and the Austrian lowlands). Hitler just hit it a bit harder than normal when he gave his big speeches. And, partly because he spoke that way, it became more common for his confederates and lickspittles to speak that way too, including radio presenters and film narrators in the country’s nascent propaganda organs. Thus this language feature became associated with National Socialism across most of Germany, and once that regime had been defeated, using it as an affectation became somewhat frowned upon.
It should be noted, however, that the trill’s popularity in the 20’s and 30’s was not singularly attributable to the Nazis; it was a feature of Bühnendeutsch, or Stage German, which was showcased prominently in the socialist cabarets of Berlin and other left-wing enclaves before becoming more fully associated with fascism. The video linked above shows a short example of a rare post-WWII recitation using this style.
Nor has the trill disappeared from other people’s music completely; Max Raabe makes use of it often (with this song a particular favourite). Furthermore, Raabe actually sings the kind of Tanzmusik that was popular just before and during the early Nazi era, though he has neither been denounced as a neo-Nazi by polite German society nor has he been adopted by actual neo-Nazis as far as I am aware.
Thus this one particular language feature is not itself decisive in Rammstein’s case — it is the totality of factors which has given rise to the controversy. In any case, thoroughly documenting and refuting the aspersions cast in the band's direction goes beyond the scope of this article; those interested in such a discussion can read this blog series and judge for themselves.
This is of course a callback to the first song that brought Rammstein international (and especially American) attention, Du Hast. That one is also worth a listen.
The verb wollen is tricky to translate into modern English; there is an archaic usage of to will which means the same thing as the German (namely, to strongly and not very politely wish for something), but modern usage of the verb has a different usage — to will something into being or to will yourself to the finish line, for example. The closest English phrasing to wollen is to want something very much.
This is a callback to the original wordplay of Du Hast, which rests upon the coincidence that the German for you have and you hate sound essentially identical, and differ only by the presence of an extra ‘s’ in the latter word.
This stanza is worded nearly-identically to previous refrains, with the only real difference being Dein Herz (your heart) instead of Mein Herz (my heart). In particular, Will ich lieben und verdammen (I want so to love and to condemn) remains the same between the two variations. But I have translated the parenthetical to this line as (that) and (you) respectively because of the previous change; I get the sense that the singer is conflicted about his own affections when he sings of “my heart in flames”, but that by the time he sings “your heart in flames”, the conflict has moved on from himself to Germany writ large. Since the line is missing a clear object, however, its meaning remains ambiguous; both “that” and “you” work as objects in all instances of the refrain.
The order of the words is reversed between the English and the German; fluchen is to curse, while segnen is to save/bless (spiritually). A literal translation of the line would’ve thus been “…a curse and a blessing”, but that is a rare ordering for English idiomatic usage.
To be fair, if it were simple, it wouldn’t really be German.