Track Listing

1. Wir fahren gegen Engelland (choral)
2. Flieg, deutsche Fahne, flieg
3. Heut geht es an Bord (choral)
4. Seemanns los (choral)
5. Warte mein M�del (choral)
6. Windst�rke 12 (choral)
7. Kameraden auf See (choral)
8. Mit vollem Segeln (choral)
9. Heut' stechen wir ins blaue Meer (choral)
10. Wo Matrosen sind (choral)
11. Michel, horch der Seewind pfeit (choral)
12. Altniederl�ndisches Dankgebet
13. Willst du Deutscher sein (choral)
14. Admiral Stosch-Marsch (choral)
15. Wir ziehen nach Engelland (choral)
16. U-Boot Lied (choral)
17. Torpedo Los! (choral)
18. Homecoming report Lt G�nther Prien U-47 (choral)
19. U-47 Lied (choral)
20. H�te dich, Engelland (choral)
21. Ritter der Nordsee - Schnellboot (choral)
22. Unsere Minensucher (choral)
23. Panzerschiffe Deutschland
24. Das mu� den ersten Seelord doch ersch�ttern (choral)
25. Denn wir fahren gegen Engelland (choral)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98088 in Music
• Released on: 2004-05-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Single

Album Description
Share a moment in history with the German soldier on the front where the sound of rousing martial music gave new strength to flagging morale or in a bomb shelter with civilians where encouraging music calmed racing hearts. More then a CD its an audio history lesson of WWII, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Third Reich. With quality you can trust, PzG nazi songs and marches are factory produced from ORIGINAL Third Reich recordings and professionally re-mastered for even listening with a musical balance between instrumental and choral marches. A Powerful musical collection for everyone interested in the heroic men and music of WWII.

Michael Kelly PzG Inc.
Includes the favorites war song "Wir fahren gegen Engelland".

About the Artist
Since the dawn of organized armies men have been led into bloody battle by heroic martial music and soothed their lonely spirits with sweet songs of their loved ones by the campfire. No where was this more true than Nazi Germany. Dr. Goebbel's ministry of Propaganda encouraged the writing and production of many of the most rousing and heroic military songs and marches in history, yet the hard soldiers softer side was not ignored. Lili Marlene was not just a favorite German Nazi soldier love song but became the favorite of American GI's and British Tommies as well! We invite you to share that moment in history just as the German soldier or civilian did whether on the frozen hell of the endless steppes or in a bomb shelter where the sound of the encouraging music calmed their racing heart and gave new strength to flagging morale to carry on the fight.

Customer Reviews

Sailing back through time...
Some of the finest music to come out of wartime Germany was written for its navy, and "Kriegsmarine Marches" features many outstanding examples. But its cover reproduction of a painting by Third Reich artist, Claus Bergen, of a Type VII u-boat patrolling some coastal waters is itself worth the album's purchase price! "Wir fahren gegen Engelland" ("We sail against England") was perhaps the best known of its kind, with its fatalistic lyrics telling of a seaman who tells his girl that if she should receive word that he sleeps at the bottom of the ocean, not to grieve for him, but only think he shed his blood for the Fatherland. The song, sung on board famous ships like the "Bismarck" and "Scharnhorst", indeed paralleled the fate of these vessels and their crews.

Perhaps the single most popular tune to come out of the undersea service was "Warte, mein Maedel" ("Wait, my girl-friend"), likewise addressed to a sweetheart left behind, and a hit tune from 1941's acclaimed motion picture, "U-Boot West". Another submarine song, "Torpedo, los!", appropriately precedes actual radio coverage, recorded "live", of the homecoming of one of the war's outstanding captains, Guenter Prien, whose U-47 wracked revenge on Britain's chief facility at Scapa Flow by sinking the battleship, "Royal Oak", pride of the Royal Navy. It was there that German ships had scuttled themselves twenty one years before, rather than surrender. In this one minute, thirty nine-second slice of real history, the announcer describes Prien's arrival to the playing of the national anthem, the shouted greetings of his crew, and congratulations from Admiral Erich Raeder. The report is followed, appropriately enough, by "U-47 Lied" ("The Song of the U-47"): "So klein ist das Boot und so gross ist das Meer" : "So little is the boat, and so great is the sea", which swallowed U-47 with all hands during a subsequent operational cruise.

While submarine songs might be especially dramatic, other naval services are represented, including the relatively less glamorous mine-sweepers, without whom the u-boats would not have been able to leave port. A particularly brisk march is "Panzerschiffe Deutschland" ("Pocket Battleship Germany"). Renamed "Luetzow" after the outbreak of hostilities, she ended up fighting on land, when her11-inch guns were installed on the shores of the Baltic to blast Soviet hordes streaming into Eastern Europe in the closing days of the war. "Ritter der Nordsee" ("Knights of the North Sea") describes the lethal "Schnellboote" ("e-boats" to the British; known as "PT-boats" to the Americans), which almost singlehandedly aborted the Normandy Invasion before it began, when a handful of these nimble craft killed more than three thousand soldiers and sailors during an Allied training exercise in the Battle of Slapton Sands.

Listeners to "Kriegsmarine Marches" might be surprised by some selections, such as "Windstaerke 12" ("Gale Force Winds"), a medley opening with a German language version of the Mexican folk melody, "Appalona", a traditional favorite with German sailors going back to the mid-19th Century. The c.d. is not without humor, as demonstrated by "Das muss den ersten Seelord doch erschuettern", a reference to Winston Churchill and his inability to keep his ships from sinking: "How glad Churchill must be to blockade us now! `You see, it looks now black.' The German submarines are attacking with torpedoes. That's gotta shake up the First Sealord! His imperial dream of ruling the world is finished."

Certainly, the rarest selection here is the Admiral Stosch March, and, so far as this reviewer is aware, uanavailable in any other collection. The title refers to Alberecht von Stosch, founder of the modern German Navy, in 1872. Although virtually forgotten today, he was once von Bismarck's most serious political rival. His name lives again, however, in this no less obscure, though very interesting rendition. In any case, listeners to "Kriegsmarine Marches" will find themselves sailing back through time with the authentic sounds of World War Two at sea.

Good original recordings, but...
...there is a missed opportunity here. Unlike some other publishers of historic military music who recognize the value of text information on the music, PzG has produced a thinly packaged item here. The liner notes consist of a list of the titles on the CD, plus a "bonus" lyric sheet (in both German and loosely translated into English)on the inside cover. The issue there is that the lyrics are only for one song, "Wir fahren gegen Engeland". It's a famous tune, and it's nice to have that. Unhappily that is nearly the extent of the liner notes. There is no info on the original recordings - where and when they were made, who recorded them originally, historic significance of a particular piece, etc. I reckon you can Google it if you really want to know about it !

You do get a nice U-boat illustration on the front cover, and a miniature historic photo on the back, along with a cheesy promo shot of PzG's owner, Mr. Kelly - and his dog. The micro-font text used for the track listing there is also less than helpful. Perhaps this was all miniaturized from an LP and the liner notes inside went missing in the transition...?

The music itself is fine. The historic recordings are apparently reproduced without the benefit of remastering technology ( but I can't speak conclusively here, as there are no liner notes !). The glorious (or not - depending on your perspective) sound of 1930s/1940s recordings is there for the listener. It is, to the best of my knowledge, a fairly complete review of the best known German Navy tunes of WWII.

Since my primary interest is in the history here, and the music is contextual, I'm not disturbed by the sound quality. I don't expect to have to do my own research on provenance and production of the original songs however. For what seems an egregious oversight in this CD product, I'll avoid PzG CDs in the future.