What to Do with National Anthems?
That history is something to remember rather than celebrate seems to be a new experience for America. Joe Biden came into office right on time to save America from the folly of building a “National Garden of Heroes” filled with the 244 statues that his predecessor was so keen on planting per executive order.
But the next historical (re)construction project is already underway in America and I bet it gets a lot of attention during the Tokyo Olympics: “The Star-Spangled Banner” and its slave-owning lyricist Francis Scott Key. I recently learned that there is an original, much longer version where it gets really ugly and “slave” rhymes with “grave” — Key’s poetic ways of making clear what will happen to African Americans who dare to flee for freedom to the British side during the War of 1812. Apparently, these and other controversial lines were the reason it took until 1931 before “The Star-Spangled Banner” was considered anthem material with the understanding that only the first stanza would be sung.
There wasn’t much patriotic singing or flag-waving when I grew up in West Germany in the 1960s and ’70s. But similar to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Das Lied der Deutschen,” written in 1841, had to go through a rigorous detox before it was deemed OK for the Federal Republic.
Only the third stanza survived. It talks about unity, freedom and, oddly, brotherly love. The second stanza praises the quality of “German women and German wine” and was considered too sexist even in the 1950s. And in the first stanza, with the infamous “Deutschland über alles” theme, the author muses about the borders of a future unified Germany that includes most of Central Europe with Austria, Poland and parts of France and Italy — obviously, the preferred stanza in the Third Reich and banned after WWII. There was one embarrassing hiccup not too long after the war, during the 1954 Soccer World Cup in Switzerland. West Germany unexpectedly won the final and the fans in the stadium, too excited to remember the new anthem etiquette, burst into singing “Deutschland über alles.” That’s when Swiss radio immediately cut its live broadcast. It’s all on YouTube now.
What else do we need national anthems for? “La Marseillaise,” for example has been shown to work perfectly if you need to drown out a choir of SS officers who are trying to turn Rick’s Café Americain into a Nazi gin joint. I can’t think of a better reason for singing a patriotic song than to make screaming fascists look like whimpering fools. But other than that, national anthems always strike me as disturbingly tribalistic. The importance of good foreign relations is usually not a topic, not even in “The Internationale.”
So, I wonder what’s going to happen in Tokyo during the medal ceremonies. How many knees will be taken and how many backs will be turned? “The Star-Spangled Banner” is what it is, or better, what it was in 1814: an anti-British war song written by a plantation owner of English and Irish descent. That’s about as diverse as it would get back then. How about something less obsolete and more inclusive? I’d pick “Take the A Train.” Commissioned by an African American nobleman, actually a duke, the song praises public transportation instead of flags and canons. There’s nothing more truly American than jazz and nothing more patriotic than riding the subway in times of climate change. And it swings — no way you can take a knee.
Henning Schroeder is a former vice provost and dean of graduate education at the University of Minnesota and currently teaches in the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch. His email address is schro601@umn.edu and his Twitter handle is @HenningSchroed1.
An earlier version of this article was published at https://www.startribune.com.
