Wrong German Anthem Sung On Court During Fed Cup v USA, USTA Under Fire

Seems hard to believe it was an act of ignorance. It looks this is just another sign of the new America of Donald Trump, provocative and disrespectful. Like the man himself likes to say, saaaaad…

February 12th, 2017 at 5:38 pm

Wow so this evil Donald Trump’s fault. He’s like a comic book villain. What is he not responsible for? Bad weather, children misbehaving, your soup too cold? I have noticed that most strident trump opponents lack the power of analysis. Lacking the power of analysis and trying to understand the modern world is like a blind man trying to play tennis.

February 12th, 2017 at 7:14 pm

TFS1976,

You beat me on that one, how ignorant one has to be to blame Trump for this, besides, that bloke was singing with conviction, did he know what was he really singing, I doubt it?
To my knowledge it is banned in Germany and you can end up in prison for singing it in public, any Germans around, is that right?

February 12th, 2017 at 7:26 pm

Ok as far as I know WG is right that its banned. It is banned since the 2nd world war. Only cause allies deemed it to nationalistic as far as I know. It has nothing to do with Nazis and was the National Anthem long before Hitler came along – though lots of News outlets clearly finding an excuse to scream the word Nazi. PC bs and this what you get.

February 12th, 2017 at 10:05 pm

What a cruel joke. Only the USTA could pull this off.

February 12th, 2017 at 10:20 pm

Berghain,

I thought all national anthems are supposed to be patriotic (nationalistic), to raise patriotic feelings, I don’t see a problem with that, after all that’s why they are called national anthems and not international anthems.
Following the same logic they should ban use of swastika too, but how, it is a sacred symbol in some other, pretty big religions..

February 12th, 2017 at 11:03 pm

After WWII the people big in the Soviet, Brit, and American propaganda organizations believed mightily in the power of symbols and how eradicating symbols from use would change thought. They convinced the Allies, their media and courts, that ‘eternal’ bans on “manifestations” of a belief system would work.

It was a dumb idea at the time. One thing to stop guys in 1950 from wearing their SS trenchcoats waving Nazi flags and singing the Horst Wessel Song down main thoroughfares – another to seriously think a global ban on a symbol used for at least 4 thousand years by different cultures had to be globally prohibited somehow, forever, because a new group associated with horrific conduct used the swastika or 13 years.
It will come back into global use, meaning different things. Already Navaho and Hopi have reclaimed the right to use the symbol on pottery and rugs. Iran (aka Aryan), Tibet, China, India pushed back and now use the swastika without it being a big deal in decorations.
Back in pump impellors, and quietly in Russian and other building design where a swastika shape optimizes # of windows and space. (The Soviets built a ton of Stalinist gray swastika high rises, and quietly lived with them rather than tear down perfectly good People’s housing.)
But the US Navy, pointed out in 2007 that 3 enlisted housing buildings were swastika shaped, spent millions to alter their shape and gave serious thought before that to just tearing down the structures,.
Along with the Horst Wessel song, the German national song written in 1846 to extol a single united Germany emerging from 30 different ministates. “Deutscheland Uber Alles” meant Germany over the mini states. It became the German national anthem in the Weimer Republic, but was in use as a patriotic song in three wars. Franco-Prussian war of 1870, WWI, and WWII.
The Allies didn’t like it. Too nationalistic. Banned and the Germans are still cowed in lingering shame about WWII and reluctant to bring a song back that lasted 100 years in common use 1846-1945..

February 13th, 2017 at 1:02 am

Trumped.

February 13th, 2017 at 1:53 am

If you had asked anybody before this what the anthem of Germany was, I bet everyone outside Germany would have said “Deutschland Uber Alles” (if they had any clue at all to begin with. Other than a small handful of really famous ones, how many people know much about most other nations’ anthems?). I bet few people outside Germany know that they “officially” now only sing the third verse rather than the whole of the “Deutschlandlied”. It’s second verse – about German wine, women and song – is quite delightful too and should be heard more often.

The whole controversy over the original “Deutschlandlied” is silly anyway. It is not a “Nazi-era anthem”. It was written in the 1840s with the intent of promoting German unity. The “uber alles” part does not mean Germany should rule over all, but was a plea for German unity above all to be the goal for which all Germans should strive. One can argue whether historically German unification was a good thing (personally I think it a tragedy that it was achieved under Prussian/Hohenzollern hegemony rather than under Austrian/Habsburg leadership in a loose confederation reviving the Holy Roman Empire that Napoleon had destroyed, but I digress). The key point here is that the “Deutschlandlied” was not a plea for German imperial world domination (even if some both inside and outside Germany later misinterpreted it as that), but simply for the unification of the various German states.

Many nations have anthems that express the ideas and aspirations of a certain historical period in time, and it is anachronistic to disclaim the entire “Deutschlandlied” because some idiots today don’t understand it in its historic context, think everything to do with German culture and history is tainted forever by National Socialism, and that Germans should forever be apologizing.

Funny how people take Germans to task for “Deutschland Uber Alles” by ripping the meaning of the first verse from its proper historical context, but I’ve never heard anyone demand the French change their anthem. Talk about offensive and downright repulsive anthems! The “Marseillaise” is the most bloodthirsty anthems ever, a paean extolling the virtues of revolutionary terror, violence, murder, mayhem, and blood running in the streets all in the name of Jacobin political abstractions. The “Deutschlandlied” (including the now-maligned first verse) is an innocuous lullaby compared to the bloodthirsty “Marseillaise.”

February 13th, 2017 at 12:37 pm

Most beautiful anthem melody is the Russian one.

February 13th, 2017 at 1:42 pm

True WG. I posted a link for you on the non tennis thread.

February 14th, 2017 at 5:08 am