Hello. That was a very good reaction you did. Thank you. It is very pleasant to see a sophisticated reactor who doesn't just consume Musik and the videos for clicks. I'm from Germany so let me give you some thoughts from someone who's born here. First of all, first time I watched the video I was shocked and deeply moved. The song/ video takes a very deep look into our german souls and how most of us feel about our country. It's a love- hate- relationship. The video is loaded with tons of symbols, that as a German you catch onto. Let's start: in the intro you see Germania ( Personification of Germany) during roman/ germanian tribes time. The red Lazer represents the "red thread" of the story/ history. Astronauts from the future bringing Germania in a glass coffin (snow-white) so she can lead through the/her german history. Next you observe the twenties(Weimar Republic).The prison scene representing the rough, violent times especially for the majority of the population struggling to survive. Money raining down/ the great depression. And Germany's first try as a democratic state. In between Germania is dressed in knight's armor awaking her knights/band with the Lazarus spear. Next Germania is pushed in a wheelchair by the band through the Berlin Holocaust Memorial with burning bodies. Next vignette the office scene showing east Germany and west Germany reunited (1989). Then you're being taken back to mideveal times, monks/ church are feasting off of Germania. In most scenes you'll see some church man involved. No coincidence. The concentration camp scene in the background you see V2 rockets ignition. The inmates are wearing different types of stars on their chests and a sign on the gallows reads: no photos. Germania wears an eye-patch first on her left, than on her right eye. Than a quick shot of Germania dressed modern with lots of gold leading german shepherds., representing Germany's wealth. The 70's scene shows the RAF- extremists holding Germania/ Germany hostage. Next vignette is the witch burnings shifting to the book burning. If you have a close look, at minute 4:45 you see a church man holding up a cross hugging a Nazi, symbolising the churches over all position to the horrific events happening during 1933-1945. The birth scene. Germania is giving birth to dogs respectively "Leonberger" a breed preferred by Kings and Queens. The Breed almost went extinct during WW1 and WW2. A cardinal or possibly a supreme court judge helping (dressed in red) a new Germany being born. At minute 5:50 you see the riots against refugees homes in the 90's in Hoyerswerda. Molotovs are being thrown and a car is being pushed over with the help of a man dressed in Nazi uniform. Than the scenes/ time vignettes start shifting faster and faster, showing how many times, when circumstances becoming to extreme everything is falling apart and Germania ( dressed in knight's) armor is crying. The outro is the piano version of the song "Sonne" which completed how we feel thinking of our past: a sense of sadness. To sum it up. Germany has a long, wild, violent, unique history, because we as a state of today exist only since 1989. Yet the roots go back a very long time. "Young and yet so old" I hope that helped a little to understand the video and with that us Germans. We don't have a strong feeling of patriotism, but a strong sense of unity. It's complicated. With love from Germany 🤘 😎
excellent rundown of the song, it is great to here native perspectives because you inherently understand the culture, the language, the nuance and so on that non-German people find much harder to decipher otherwise. I would guess every frame of that video is intentional and has meaning
Thx for the reaction! As you said, it is a very complex video with lot´s of historical references, symbols and references to older Rammstein songs. The lyrics is about the love/hate relation you can have for your country with such a dark history as Germany.
First time watcher, enjoyed your reaction. Considering that you didn't know what the lyrics were saying, I'd say your initial impression was surprisingly insightful. It is exactly that, pride Vs shame for their homeland. There is so much within the video that I still see new things now after multiple watches. Some of it literal and obvious, some of it abstract. Some of it requires a pretty decent knowledge of German history, so I learned some stuff off the back of it. As well as the German history, however, there are also more than a few Rammstein Easter eggs from previous videos and live performances as well, which are fun to spot.
Hi, I'm from Germany. Rammstein is playing a classic "Industrial Metal" style. A 50-50 mix of synthesizers and hard metal guitars. A big part of the German history in one video. The black woman as Germania. Germania is the personification of the German nation. It isn't and wasn't a goddess or Joan of Arc. The glass coffin: It is Little Snow White from the Grimm-fairytales....and from their own video "Sonne". Only with black skin and in space. The piano song at the end is the song "Sonne", too. The line in this song "So jung und doch so alt" (So young and yet so old) means: Germany as a unified state is very young. A unified German nation is only existing from 1871 onwards. Before that year of unification Germany was made of countless, little mini-states and the people identified first and foremost as Prussians, Hessians, Saxons etc, etc, etc. and only in a second line of thought they had a lose sense of being somehow Germans, too, as a kind of unifying second identity. So the area & the landscape where the Germans are living and the Germans themselves as a people...are thousands of years old. But only recently, in 1871, there was a unified Germany as one single state. So Germany as a unified state is very young...and at the same time it is thousands of years old. The battle of the Teutoburg forest against the Romans (and Rammstein as Roman soldiers and Germans alike). That battle is of ABSOLUTE importance for the German history. The hanged bodies in the trees were the beaten Roman soldiers, who were gruesome sacrificed to the Germanic gods...and were partly nailed to the trees. The Varus-(Teutoburg)-Battle was already in 9 AD. In 16 AD were the vengeance campaigns of Emperor Germanicus. Therefore we see here the arrival of the Roman troops of Germanicus and they are watching their dead comrades hanging in the trees or getting their heads chopped off (for nailing them to the trees). In reality the Romans under Germanicus found only the bones of the Varus army in the various ways they were slaughtered, sacrificed and displayed at the trees. Slaves were liberated even decades after the battle. After the scenes with the Romans we saw the Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster (the burning Zeppelin in the background). The moustaches and clothing from the fight scene are from WWI and post WWI years. From the working class people in WWI and the roaring 20's. In the WWII years later on this kind of big bushy moustache was already out of fashion. The falling banknotes in the prison are not about corruption. That scene is about the hyper-inflation of the 1920's, that took away the savings of the Germans and left them in deep poverty and desperation. One had to pay a loaf of bread with a handcart full of nearly worthless banknotes back then and it hit the German people deep down inside and in their souls. Especially the poor ones and the simple workers. The V2 rocket (first manmade object in space) as technical triumph of the German spirit...and at the same time the killing of the concentration camp prisoners in the bunker factories below the mountains during the production of that rocket. This scene in the video could be a representation of a very specific concentration camp. It was "Mittelbau-Dora" below the Kohnstein mountain. A mixture between a big, huge bunker factory for V1 and V2 rockets and a concentration camp. The concentration camp inmates had several different markings for different kinds of convicts and their "crimes" sown to their chests, like it was in reality, too. A pink triangle for homosexuals, the star of David for Jews and two of them were marked with the double-triangles for Jehovas Whitnesses. The book burnings of the Nazis and the burning of the witches of the church. In the same scene with the book burning there is EVEN MORE going on. The cooperation of the church with the Nazis, when the priest with the cross embraces the Nazi SA-man. The scene with the sign with the Hammer and a pair of compasses in a circle of wheat is the sign of the GDR (DDR). The socialst German state in the east that existed before the German reunification. Therefore it was Karl Marx in the background in the scene with the tank (not the scene at the concentration camp). The scene with Rammstein wielding guns (the pumpgun) and taking Germania hostage was about leftwing terrorism of the 1970's. The terrorists were called the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion). My interpretation of the red scanner-like beams: There are two different kinds of beams. The massive straight red light beam that goes up into the heavens AND there were those smaller, thinner "scanner" beams. Aliens (or humans from the future) are scanning the whole German history. Like some real scientists are scanning and excarvating ancient Mexican or Egyptian statues, for example. The massive red light beam is the red ribbon of time that ties together all the historical events. PS: As for the dogs: Germans are fanatical dog lovers. We are a dog-owner nation. The dog is a firm part of Germany. PPS: They didn't eat the body of the woman and her inner organs, even if it really looked that way. They were eating the national dish of Germany, that was put on the body of the black woman: Sauerkraut, Kassler & sausages. In my opinion it symbolizes the church eating itself fat on the goods and values and food of Germany during the simple people (farmers, simple workers etc) lived a long time in a kind of hell of poverty and serfdom (the red fetish area below the table with Germania on it). But that eating scene could indeed have a double meaning. It could represent the 30 years war, that was fought for religious reasons and depopulated large areas of Germany. It forced the people to commit canibalism because nobody was there anymore to produce food. Except the fat, wealthy people of the church, of course. They were still able to eat enough. Only the simple people at the bottom (farmers etc) died from hunger and had to fight and die in that war. The 30 years war was the biggest catastrophe in Germany until WWI happened. PPPS: The short scene with the dogs and their gas masks = WWI, where in reality animals (messenger dogs & horses) AND soldiers were wearing gas masks, too. PPPPS: The puppies at the end are Leonberger dogs. The Leonbergers nearly went extinct during WWI and WWII. PPPPPS: The black woman in the prison was dressed in a Prussian uniform with a Prussian helmet. Till sings the famous, often misinterpreted, line of the "Deutschlandlied" (Song of the Germans), that is not forbidden in Germany but simply isn't sung anymore in our modern national anthem. Till sings in his version the line "Deutschland über allen" (Germany above everybody) What is a BIG change to the real line in the orginal Deutschlandlied-song. In the original Deutschlandlied song it is written as "Deutschland über alles" (Germany above everything). The real, whole line of that old Deutschlandlied goes "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles. Über alles in der Welt" (Germany, Germany above everything. Above everything in the world). This line is often misinterpreted by many people as chauvinism and as a looking down upon all other countries on this planet. But that is wrong and not many people know about that in Germany and elsewhere. The writer of that famous line didn't meant it in a chauvinistic way. When that song was written, Germany was divided into umphteeth mini-states, what made Germany relative powerless and defenseless. Therefore the task of German unification was the goal above any other goal for all Germans (at least the writer of the song meant it that way). So the main goal for all Germans had to be the united Germany. The goal of "(united) Germany above everything else". That was, how that line was meant by the writer of the song. The line isn't forbidden, like many people wrongly think. It's simply not sung anymore and not part of the official anthem of modern Germany anymore. This has NOT its reason in the seemingly chauvinist meaning of "Deutschland über alles", like many people wrongly think. This whole stanza of the Deutschlandlied isn't sung anymore, because in other parts of the stanza are borders and landscapes mentioned, that aren't German borders and landscapes anymore. We want to live in peace with the people and countries, who are now living in those former German lands and therefore we don't sing about those old borders and landscapes anymore. It has nothing to do with the "Deutschland über alles" line in that stanza, like many people wrongly are thinking. Finally: The scenes I'm now talking about are pretty dark and low light. The WWII submarine in the submarine bunker during the astronauts are walking by with the glass coffin. I think, the choice of the black woman as main actress was made, because: a) it makes any accusations of racism and fascism against Rammstein useless b) she represents one colour of the German flag and she is wearing the rest of the colours of our German flag as makeup and jewellery and clothes on her body: Black, Red and Gold c) it provokes many people EVEN MORE 😄 Greetings
The whole Video will understand only Historians and Germans and these people also have to watch the video several times. The song is about the ambivalent relationship of Rammstein and many Germans to their country, because of the violent and cruel history with extensive human crimes ("red line of violence through german history"), especially in recent history. Therefore the video features various events from German history, including Roman times, the Middle Ages, witch hunting and burning, Protestant Reformation, the November Revolution, the "Golden Twenties" and hyperinflation, Nazi book burnings, the Hindenburg disaster, the First and Second World Wars, the Holocaust, the Weimar Republic, the Red Army Fraction (violent anti-capitalist terror alliance of young people and students against Nazis in high state and economy positions in post-war Germany), and the division of the country into West and East Germany including the Uprising June 17 in East Germany. The black woman represents Germany and one of the Colors of the German flags, sometimes as a victim, but mostly as a perpetrator. With her black skin she is also a provocation to all stupid racists A lot of people do not understand the scenes with the dogs. This breed of dogs are not German Shepards, but Leonberger. This breed of dog narrowly escaped extinction during the First and also Second World Wars and is symbolic of the German people, whose existence was also strongly threatened in those wars (Morgenthau-Plan) - both now have a second existential chance, just like the new German democratic constitution, which in future must be protected as strongly as if it were under quarantine (Judges in red robes, Rammstein members in protective suits with the dogs) The Holocaust was for this reason the greatest human crime because it was the first industrially organized mass murder in human history, by a country that was culturally at its highest point at this time and called itself the country of poets and thinkers. But it is precisely the high cultural and scientific level of Germany that unfortunately caused others to be viewed as subhuman who can be killed without pity, just like animals. Seeing other people as inferior has always brought a lot of suffering to people Rammstein is one of the most famous metal bands and living legends with the same line-up for 25 years. They are a german band and are considered the best live band in the world, especially when it comes to showmenship, pyro and fire. Above all, Rammstein uses pyro quite differently than all other bands. Rammstein's music is a mixture of techno (electronic music) and metal (= industrial metal). Rammstein concerts are a life time experience that you will never forget. Their videos are art but also often controversial. Rammstein also refers to classical German literature, e.g. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's. Several of their songs are related to controversial and taboo subjects such as sadomasochism, homosexuality, intersexuality, incest, pedophilia, necrophilia, cannibalism, pyromania, religion and sexual violence. Also several of their songs are allegedly inspired by real-life events or politics. Rammstein lyrics are very deep and are also often used in school and universities around the world to learn German. There are people who learn German only because of Rammstein. Rammstein fans are considered to be the craziest and most fanatical fans in the world. In concerts from the hardcore fans all over the world it is expected that you can sing along with the German lyrics even if you don't speak German.
Ha! Got you! Hello Arno, hope everything is OK down at the Bodensee. Well, I shortly where looking into another video and have to say, back then (in the 1990s) I was also listen to Bon Jovi, but I have to say, since minimum 8 years not anymore. They are on tour now and I thought I endet up at a Karaoke Bar. I am still not sure if it was not only a guy looking like John Bon Jovi, but sounding like he never sang this song before. 🙈 I know why I stick to those guys. I am also exited. I get soon some post. 😁 Not only the Album. 😉 And yes, it is ART.
The credits are the piano version of Sonne a song written for one of the Klitschko Bros. The outro is just perfect to reflect the fast paced main part.
Your reaction is very similar to how we all reacted after the first watch. The thing to consider with Rammstein videos is that everything is in there for a reason.
I highly recommend that you watch a video analysis on this music video from the channel named "Three Arrows", they have a brilliant video basically analysing and interpreting this epic video and I think you would get a LOT out of watching it. Because as you say, the video is epic in scope (2000 years of history of the place now known as Germany) and there are many different things going on, visually and also lyrically, which have multilayered and multifaced meanings that are often times highly culturally specific. The interpretation and translation and explanations of the Three Arrows video help us outsiders better understand the masterpiece you just watched. I would like to add that it is good that you took note of what your viewers had to say regarding distraction and so on from a previous video. I found it interesting that you noticed when the monks/religious men were eating from/off Germania (the character played by the actress seen throughout the video, an embodiment of the German lands, kinda like Britannia for GB), they were, IMO, not eating her, but eating off her, "the fat of the land" or however it is said. Meanwhile in the tank below are people held in bondage and slavery fighting for scraps depicted literally as being like BDSM. Thank you for watching to the end! The piano arrangement of Sonne (another of their tracks) is hauntingly beautiful, that is what you hear at the end over the credits.
Germania is a possessive entity. The effect of this video makes that plain. I'm generations removed from Germany, raised in a new country that formed all my memories and allegiances. Yet, I watch this video and feel Germany's gravitational pull. I thought the red laser was brilliant. it's like a thread stitching together everything German. ••• Thanks! PEACE!!!
There's an expression in German that literally translates to "red thread" or "red wire". Your interpretation is quite spot on actually, because that expression is used to indicate the central theme of a story.
Great reaction! The english lyric translations are not all that bad. Maybe the word play with "Über..." gets a bit lost. This song is quite a rabbit hole. There is so much symbolism and cross references in there. The queen for instance. She wears either black, red, gold or black red white. The colors of the current and former German flag. She represents "Germania" (quite clearly as she is listed in the credits as Germania). Germania is kind of the mythical impersonation of Germany. There is this picture in there with her wearing a bullet bellt and some dogs on a leash. I guess this is a reference the statue on the "Brandenburger Tor" in Berlin depicting godness Victoria on a chariot. Well and I guess having a black german actress playing Germania is kind of a big F... Y.. to racists...
Your assessment is pretty spot on. This song is about the band's love/hate relationship with their country Germany. They know that they're expected to feel patriotic and prideful, but they personally can't bring themselves to feel that way because all of them are fully conscientious of the atrocities that Germany has committed over its history. Rammstein is no stranger to political controversy. They've often been accused of being Nazi sympathizers, even in Germany, because of the way their music and imagery is presented. They are quite the opposite. They even wrote a song saying their political veiws are left, called "Links 1,2,3", and they did it to mock the people claiming that their militaristic sound means they're Nazi sympathizers.
Hi, I'm from Germany. Rammstein is playing a classic "Industrial Metal" style. A 50-50 mix of synthesizers and hard metal guitars. A big part of the German history in one video. The black woman as Germania. Germania is the personification of the German nation. It isn't and wasn't a goddess or Joan of Arc. The glass coffin: It is Little Snow White from the Grimm-fairytales....and from their own video "Sonne". Only with black skin and in space. The piano song at the end is the song "Sonne", too. The words "Germania Magna" at the beginning are a Roman name for the area of Germany, that wasn't conquered by the Roman Empire at that time. Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were the Roman conquered areas (Roman provinces) of Germany. The line in this song "So jung und doch so alt" (So young and yet so old) means: Germany as a unified state is very young. A unified German nation is only existing from 1871 onwards. Before that year of unification Germany was made of countless, little mini-states and the people identified first and foremost as Prussians, Hessians, Saxons etc, etc, etc. and only in a second line of thought they had a lose sense of being somehow Germans, too, as a kind of unifying second identity. So the area & the landscape where the Germans are living and the Germans themselves as a people...are thousands of years old. But only recently, in 1871, there was a unified Germany as one single state. So Germany as a unified state is very young...and at the same time it is thousands of years old. The battle of the Teutoburg forest against the Romans (and Rammstein as Roman soldiers and Germans alike). That battle is of ABSOLUTE importance for the German history. The hanged bodies in the trees were the beaten Roman soldiers, who were gruesome sacrificed to the Germanic gods...and were partly nailed to the trees. The Varus-(Teutoburg)-Battle was already in 9 AD. In 16 AD were the vengeance campaigns of commanding field general Germanicus under Emperor Tiberius Augustus. Therefore we see here the arrival of the Roman troops of Germanicus and they are watching their dead comrades hanging in the trees or getting their heads chopped off (for nailing them to the trees). In reality the Romans under Germanicus found only the bones of the Varus army in the various ways they were slaughtered, sacrificed and displayed at the trees. Slaves were liberated even decades after the battle. After the scenes with the Romans we saw the Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster (the burning Zeppelin in the background). The moustaches and clothing from the fight scene are from WWI and post WWI years. From the working class people in WWI and the roaring 20's. In the WWII years later on this kind of big bushy moustache was already out of fashion. The falling banknotes in the prison are not about corruption. That scene is about the hyper-inflation of the 1920's, that took away the savings of the Germans and left them in deep poverty and desperation. One had to pay a loaf of bread with a handcart full of nearly worthless banknotes back then and it hit the German people deep down inside and in their souls. Especially the poor ones and the simple workers. The V2 rocket (first manmade object in space) as technical triumph of the German spirit...and at the same time the killing of the concentration camp prisoners in the bunker factories below the mountains during the production of that rocket. This scene in the video could be a representation of a very specific concentration camp. It was "Mittelbau-Dora" below the Kohnstein mountain. A mixture between a big, huge bunker factory for V1 and V2 rockets and a concentration camp. The concentration camp inmates had several different markings for different kinds of convicts and their "crimes" sown to their chests, like it was in reality, too. A pink triangle for homosexuals, the star of David for Jews and two of them were marked with the double-triangles for Jehovas Whitnesses. The book burnings of the Nazis and the burning of the witches of the church. In the same scene with the book burning there is EVEN MORE going on. The cooperation of the church with the Nazis, when the priest with the cross embraces the Nazi SA-man. The scene with the sign with the Hammer and a pair of compasses in a circle of wheat is the sign of the GDR (DDR). The socialst German state in the east that existed before the German reunification. Therefore it was Karl Marx in the background in the scene with the tank (not the scene at the concentration camp). The scene with Rammstein wielding guns (the pumpgun) and taking Germania hostage was about leftwing terrorism of the 1970's. The terrorists were called the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion). My interpretation of the red scanner-like beams: There are two different kinds of beams. The massive straight red light beam that goes up into the heavens AND there were those smaller, thinner "scanner" beams. Aliens (or humans from the future) are scanning the whole German history. Like some real scientists are scanning and excarvating ancient Mexican or Egyptian statues, for example. The massive red light beam is the red ribbon of time that ties together all the historical events. PS: As for the dogs: Germans are fanatical dog lovers. We are a dog-owner nation. The dog is a firm part of Germany. PPS: They didn't eat the body of the woman and her inner organs, even if it really looked that way. They were eating the national dish of Germany, that was put on the body of the black woman: Sauerkraut, Kassler & sausages. In my opinion it symbolizes the church eating itself fat on the goods and values and food of Germany during the simple people (farmers, simple workers etc) lived a long time in a kind of hell of poverty and serfdom (the red fetish area below the table with Germania on it). But that eating scene could indeed have a double meaning. It could represent the 30 years war, that was fought for religious reasons and depopulated large areas of Germany. It forced the people to commit canibalism because nobody was there anymore to produce food. Except the fat, wealthy people of the church, of course. They were still able to eat enough. Only the simple people at the bottom (farmers etc) died from hunger and had to fight and die in that war. The 30 years war was the biggest catastrophe in Germany until WWI happened. PPPS: The short scene with the dogs and their gas masks = WWI, where in reality animals (messenger dogs & horses) AND soldiers were wearing gas masks, too. PPPPS: The puppies at the end are Leonberger dogs. The Leonbergers nearly went extinct during WWI and WWII. PPPPPS: The black woman in the prison was dressed in a Prussian uniform with a Prussian helmet. Till sings the famous, often misinterpreted, line of the "Deutschlandlied" (Song of the Germans), that is not forbidden in Germany but simply isn't sung anymore in our modern national anthem. Till sings in his version the line "Deutschland über allen" (Germany above everybody) What is a BIG change to the real line in the orginal Deutschlandlied-song. In the original Deutschlandlied song it is written as "Deutschland über alles" (Germany above everything). The real, whole line of that old Deutschlandlied goes "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles. Über alles in der Welt" (Germany, Germany above everything. Above everything in the world). This line is often misinterpreted by many people as chauvinism and as a looking down upon all other countries on this planet. But that is wrong and not many people know about that in Germany and elsewhere. The writer of that famous line didn't meant it in a chauvinistic way. When that song was written, Germany was divided into umphteenth mini-states, what made Germany relative powerless and defenseless. Therefore the task of German unification was the goal above any other goal for all Germans (at least the writer of the song meant it that way). So the main goal for all Germans had to be the united Germany. The goal of "(united) Germany above everything else". That was, how that line was meant by the writer of the song. The line isn't forbidden, like many people wrongly think. It's simply not sung anymore and not part of the official anthem of modern Germany anymore. This has NOT its reason in the seemingly chauvinist meaning of "Deutschland über alles", like many people wrongly think. This whole stanza of the Deutschlandlied isn't sung anymore, because in other parts of the stanza are borders and landscapes mentioned, that aren't German borders and landscapes anymore. We want to live in peace with the people and countries, who are now living in those former German lands and therefore we don't sing about those old borders and landscapes anymore. It has nothing to do with the "Deutschland über alles" line in that stanza, like many people wrongly are thinking. Finally: The scenes I'm now talking about are pretty dark and low light. The WWII submarine in the submarine bunker during the astronauts are walking by with the glass coffin. I think, the choice of the black woman as main actress was made, because: a) it makes any accusations of racism and fascism against Rammstein useless b) she represents one colour of the German flag and she is wearing the rest of the colours of our German flag as makeup and jewellery and clothes on her body: Black, Red and Gold c) it provokes many people EVEN MORE 😄 Greetings Mega
PS: UA-cam didn't allow me to integrate this information into the bigger text (above) for unknown reasons, therefore I'm posting it here: The troops, who smashed the Jewish shops during the Kristallnacht (not shown in the video) were SA (Sturmabteilung) in brown uniform and not the later SS (Schutzstaffel) in the black uniform. The SA did all the dirty work at the beginning of the Nazi rise to power...until the "Night of the long knives", an inner-Nazi power struggle, happened. The head of the SA (Ernst Röhm) was killed and from then on the SA was turned more and more into the SS under Himmler. The book burnings were part of the early Nazi years, too, and were done by the SA, too. One can see the SA burning the books and Till is watching it in a brown SA uniform. Both, Kristallnacht and book burnings were different things and happened at different times. The book burnings happened over a longer timespan at different locations at different times during the Kristallnacht was one big "event" that happened at one single day. Kristallnacht means "Crystal Night" and was called that way, because the smashed shop windows of the Jewish shops looked like thousands of crystals on the ground. But in the Rammstein video I've only seen the book burnings. PPS: The two beer drinking soldiers to the left side of the table, where Germania is lying on and where the priests are eating Sauerkraut & Sausages from her body, are not French soldiers and they aren't representing the French revolution. Those two beer drinking soldiers are Prussian soldiers and they are emphasizing the importance of Prussia for the German history. As far as I could see: They were from the era of Friedrich der Große (The Old Fritz), who was of extraordinary importance for German history. Amongst many other achievements he was the one, who brought the potato to Prussia and Germany. That saved many Germans from hunger and the potato became one of the most beloved foods in Germany on that way.
Rammstein is no stranger to political controversy. And yes, the teaser clip for this video they released caught a lot of shit because it was the clip at the end which pans and shows them all in nooses in the outfits of the deathcamp prisoners.
Hello. That was a very good reaction you did. Thank you. It is very pleasant to see a sophisticated reactor who doesn't just consume Musik and the videos for clicks.
I'm from Germany so let me give you some thoughts from someone who's born here. First of all, first time I watched the video I was shocked and deeply moved. The song/ video takes a very deep look into our german souls and how most of us feel about our country. It's a love- hate- relationship. The video is loaded with tons of symbols, that as a German you catch onto.
Let's start: in the intro you see Germania ( Personification of Germany) during roman/ germanian tribes time.
The red Lazer represents the "red thread" of the story/ history.
Astronauts from the future bringing Germania in a glass coffin (snow-white) so she can lead through the/her german history.
Next you observe the twenties(Weimar Republic).The prison scene representing the rough, violent times especially for the majority of the population struggling to survive. Money raining down/ the great depression. And Germany's first try as a democratic state. In between Germania is dressed in knight's armor awaking her knights/band with the Lazarus spear.
Next Germania is pushed in a wheelchair by the band through the Berlin Holocaust Memorial with burning bodies.
Next vignette the office scene showing east Germany and west Germany reunited (1989).
Then you're being taken back to mideveal times, monks/ church are feasting off of Germania. In most scenes you'll see some church man involved. No coincidence.
The concentration camp scene in the background you see V2 rockets ignition. The inmates are wearing different types of stars on their chests and a sign on the gallows reads: no photos. Germania wears an eye-patch first on her left, than on her right eye.
Than a quick shot of Germania dressed modern with lots of gold leading german shepherds., representing Germany's wealth.
The 70's scene shows the RAF- extremists holding Germania/ Germany hostage.
Next vignette is the witch burnings shifting to the book burning. If you have a close look, at minute 4:45 you see a church man holding up a cross hugging a Nazi, symbolising the churches over all position to the horrific events happening during 1933-1945.
The birth scene. Germania is giving birth to dogs respectively "Leonberger" a breed preferred by Kings and Queens. The Breed almost went extinct during WW1 and WW2. A cardinal or possibly a supreme court judge helping (dressed in red) a new Germany being born.
At minute 5:50 you see the riots against refugees homes in the 90's in Hoyerswerda. Molotovs are being thrown and a car is being pushed over with the help of a man dressed in Nazi uniform.
Than the scenes/ time vignettes start shifting faster and faster, showing how many times, when circumstances becoming to extreme everything is falling apart and Germania ( dressed in knight's) armor is crying.
The outro is the piano version of the song "Sonne" which completed how we feel thinking of our past: a sense of sadness.
To sum it up. Germany has a long, wild, violent, unique history, because we as a state of today exist only since 1989. Yet the roots go back a very long time. "Young and yet so old" I hope that helped a little to understand the video and with that us Germans. We don't have a strong feeling of patriotism, but a strong sense of unity. It's complicated.
With love from Germany 🤘 😎
excellent rundown of the song, it is great to here native perspectives because you inherently understand the culture, the language, the nuance and so on that non-German people find much harder to decipher otherwise.
I would guess every frame of that video is intentional and has meaning
Thx for the reaction! As you said, it is a very complex video with lot´s of historical references, symbols and references to older Rammstein songs. The lyrics is about the love/hate relation you can have for your country with such a dark history as Germany.
First time watcher, enjoyed your reaction. Considering that you didn't know what the lyrics were saying, I'd say your initial impression was surprisingly insightful. It is exactly that, pride Vs shame for their homeland.
There is so much within the video that I still see new things now after multiple watches. Some of it literal and obvious, some of it abstract. Some of it requires a pretty decent knowledge of German history, so I learned some stuff off the back of it.
As well as the German history, however, there are also more than a few Rammstein Easter eggs from previous videos and live performances as well, which are fun to spot.
Hi, I'm from Germany.
Rammstein is playing a classic "Industrial Metal" style. A 50-50 mix of synthesizers and hard metal guitars.
A big part of the German history in one video. The black woman as Germania. Germania is the personification of the German nation. It isn't and wasn't a goddess or Joan of Arc.
The glass coffin: It is Little Snow White from the Grimm-fairytales....and from their own video "Sonne". Only with black skin and in space.
The piano song at the end is the song "Sonne", too.
The line in this song "So jung und doch so alt" (So young and yet so old) means:
Germany as a unified state is very young. A unified German nation is only existing from 1871 onwards. Before that year of unification Germany was made of countless, little mini-states and the people identified first and foremost as Prussians, Hessians, Saxons etc, etc, etc. and only in a second line of thought they had a lose sense of being somehow Germans, too, as a kind of unifying second identity.
So the area & the landscape where the Germans are living and the Germans themselves as a people...are thousands of years old. But only recently, in 1871, there was a unified Germany as one single state.
So Germany as a unified state is very young...and at the same time it is thousands of years old.
The battle of the Teutoburg forest against the Romans (and Rammstein as Roman soldiers and Germans alike).
That battle is of ABSOLUTE importance for the German history.
The hanged bodies in the trees were the beaten Roman soldiers, who were gruesome sacrificed to the Germanic gods...and were partly nailed to the trees.
The Varus-(Teutoburg)-Battle was already in 9 AD. In 16 AD were the vengeance campaigns of Emperor Germanicus. Therefore we see here the arrival of the Roman troops of Germanicus and they are watching their dead comrades hanging in the trees or getting their heads chopped off (for nailing them to the trees).
In reality the Romans under Germanicus found only the bones of the Varus army in the various ways they were slaughtered, sacrificed and displayed at the trees. Slaves were liberated even decades after the battle.
After the scenes with the Romans we saw the Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster (the burning Zeppelin in the background).
The moustaches and clothing from the fight scene are from WWI and post WWI years. From the working class people in WWI and the roaring 20's. In the WWII years later on this kind of big bushy moustache was already out of fashion.
The falling banknotes in the prison are not about corruption. That scene is about the hyper-inflation of the 1920's, that took away the savings of the Germans and left them in deep poverty and desperation.
One had to pay a loaf of bread with a handcart full of nearly worthless banknotes back then and it hit the German people deep down inside and in their souls. Especially the poor ones and the simple workers.
The V2 rocket (first manmade object in space) as technical triumph of the German spirit...and at the same time the killing of the concentration camp prisoners in the bunker factories below the mountains during the production of that rocket.
This scene in the video could be a representation of a very specific concentration camp. It was "Mittelbau-Dora" below the Kohnstein mountain.
A mixture between a big, huge bunker factory for V1 and V2 rockets and a concentration camp.
The concentration camp inmates had several different markings for different kinds of convicts and their "crimes" sown to their chests, like it was in reality, too. A pink triangle for homosexuals, the star of David for Jews and two of them were marked with the double-triangles for Jehovas Whitnesses.
The book burnings of the Nazis and the burning of the witches of the church. In the same scene with the book burning there is EVEN MORE going on. The cooperation of the church with the Nazis, when the priest with the cross embraces the Nazi SA-man.
The scene with the sign with the Hammer and a pair of compasses in a circle of wheat is the sign of the GDR (DDR). The socialst German state in the east that existed before the German reunification.
Therefore it was Karl Marx in the background in the scene with the tank (not the scene at the concentration camp).
The scene with Rammstein wielding guns (the pumpgun) and taking Germania hostage was about leftwing terrorism of the 1970's. The terrorists were called the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion).
My interpretation of the red scanner-like beams: There are two different kinds of beams. The massive straight red light beam that goes up into the heavens AND there were those smaller, thinner "scanner" beams.
Aliens (or humans from the future) are scanning the whole German history. Like some real scientists are scanning and excarvating ancient Mexican or Egyptian statues, for example.
The massive red light beam is the red ribbon of time that ties together all the historical events.
PS: As for the dogs: Germans are fanatical dog lovers. We are a dog-owner nation. The dog is a firm part of Germany.
PPS: They didn't eat the body of the woman and her inner organs, even if it really looked that way. They were eating the national dish of Germany, that was put on the body of the black woman: Sauerkraut, Kassler & sausages.
In my opinion it symbolizes the church eating itself fat on the goods and values and food of Germany during the simple people (farmers, simple workers etc) lived a long time in a kind of hell of poverty and serfdom (the red fetish area below the table with Germania on it).
But that eating scene could indeed have a double meaning. It could represent the 30 years war, that was fought for religious reasons and depopulated large areas of Germany. It forced the people to commit canibalism because nobody was there anymore to produce food. Except the fat, wealthy people of the church, of course. They were still able to eat enough. Only the simple people at the bottom (farmers etc) died from hunger and had to fight and die in that war.
The 30 years war was the biggest catastrophe in Germany until WWI happened.
PPPS: The short scene with the dogs and their gas masks = WWI, where in reality animals (messenger dogs & horses) AND soldiers were wearing gas masks, too.
PPPPS: The puppies at the end are Leonberger dogs. The Leonbergers nearly went extinct during WWI and WWII.
PPPPPS: The black woman in the prison was dressed in a Prussian uniform with a Prussian helmet.
Till sings the famous, often misinterpreted, line of the "Deutschlandlied" (Song of the Germans), that is not forbidden in Germany but simply isn't sung anymore in our modern national anthem.
Till sings in his version the line "Deutschland über allen" (Germany above everybody) What is a BIG change to the real line in the orginal Deutschlandlied-song. In the original Deutschlandlied song it is written as "Deutschland über alles" (Germany above everything).
The real, whole line of that old Deutschlandlied goes "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles. Über alles in der Welt" (Germany, Germany above everything. Above everything in the world).
This line is often misinterpreted by many people as chauvinism and as a looking down upon all other countries on this planet. But that is wrong and not many people know about that in Germany and elsewhere.
The writer of that famous line didn't meant it in a chauvinistic way.
When that song was written, Germany was divided into umphteeth mini-states, what made Germany relative powerless and defenseless. Therefore the task of German unification was the goal above any other goal for all Germans (at least the writer of the song meant it that way).
So the main goal for all Germans had to be the united Germany. The goal of "(united) Germany above everything else".
That was, how that line was meant by the writer of the song.
The line isn't forbidden, like many people wrongly think. It's simply not sung anymore and not part of the official anthem of modern Germany anymore.
This has NOT its reason in the seemingly chauvinist meaning of "Deutschland über alles", like many people wrongly think. This whole stanza of the Deutschlandlied isn't sung anymore, because in other parts of the stanza are borders and landscapes mentioned, that aren't German borders and landscapes anymore.
We want to live in peace with the people and countries, who are now living in those former German lands and therefore we don't sing about those old borders and landscapes anymore.
It has nothing to do with the "Deutschland über alles" line in that stanza, like many people wrongly are thinking.
Finally:
The scenes I'm now talking about are pretty dark and low light. The WWII submarine in the submarine bunker during the astronauts are walking by with the glass coffin.
I think, the choice of the black woman as main actress was made, because:
a) it makes any accusations of racism and fascism against Rammstein useless
b) she represents one colour of the German flag and she is wearing the rest of the colours of our German flag as makeup and jewellery and clothes on her body: Black, Red and Gold
c) it provokes many people EVEN MORE 😄
Greetings
Awesome reaction to pure art, thanks 🙏
The whole Video will understand only Historians and Germans and these people also have to watch the video several times. The song is about the ambivalent relationship of Rammstein and many Germans to their country, because of the violent and cruel history with extensive human crimes ("red line of violence through german history"), especially in recent history. Therefore the video features various events from German history, including Roman times, the Middle Ages, witch hunting and burning, Protestant Reformation, the November Revolution, the "Golden Twenties" and hyperinflation, Nazi book burnings, the Hindenburg disaster, the First and Second World Wars, the Holocaust, the Weimar Republic, the Red Army Fraction (violent anti-capitalist terror alliance of young people and students against Nazis in high state and economy positions in post-war Germany), and the division of the country into West and East Germany including the Uprising June 17 in East Germany. The black woman represents Germany and one of the Colors of the German flags, sometimes as a victim, but mostly as a perpetrator. With her black skin she is also a provocation to all stupid racists
A lot of people do not understand the scenes with the dogs. This breed of dogs are not German Shepards, but Leonberger. This breed of dog narrowly escaped extinction during the First and also Second World Wars and is symbolic of the German people, whose existence was also strongly threatened in those wars (Morgenthau-Plan) - both now have a second existential chance, just like the new German democratic constitution, which in future must be protected as strongly as if it were under quarantine (Judges in red robes, Rammstein members in protective suits with the dogs)
The Holocaust was for this reason the greatest human crime because it was the first industrially organized mass murder in human history, by a country that was culturally at its highest point at this time and called itself the country of poets and thinkers. But it is precisely the high cultural and scientific level of Germany that unfortunately caused others to be viewed as subhuman who can be killed without pity, just like animals. Seeing other people as inferior has always brought a lot of suffering to people
Rammstein is one of the most famous metal bands and living legends with the same line-up for 25 years. They are a german band and are considered the best live band in the world, especially when it comes to showmenship, pyro and fire. Above all, Rammstein uses pyro quite differently than all other bands.
Rammstein's music is a mixture of techno (electronic music) and metal (= industrial metal). Rammstein concerts are a life time experience that you will never forget. Their videos are art but also often controversial.
Rammstein also refers to classical German literature, e.g. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's. Several of their songs are related to controversial and taboo subjects such as sadomasochism, homosexuality, intersexuality, incest, pedophilia, necrophilia, cannibalism, pyromania, religion and sexual violence. Also several of their songs are allegedly inspired by real-life events or politics. Rammstein lyrics are very deep and are also often used in school and universities around the world to learn German. There are people who learn German only because of Rammstein. Rammstein fans are considered to be the craziest and most fanatical fans in the world. In concerts from the hardcore fans all over the world it is expected that you can sing along with the German lyrics even if you don't speak German.
Rammstein is ART
Ha! Got you! Hello Arno, hope everything is OK down at the Bodensee. Well, I shortly where looking into another video and have to say, back then (in the 1990s) I was also listen to Bon Jovi, but I have to say, since minimum 8 years not anymore. They are on tour now and I thought I endet up at a Karaoke Bar. I am still not sure if it was not only a guy looking like John Bon Jovi, but sounding like he never sang this song before. 🙈 I know why I stick to those guys. I am also exited. I get soon some post. 😁 Not only the Album. 😉 And yes, it is ART.
The credits are the piano version of Sonne a song written for one of the Klitschko Bros.
The outro is just perfect to reflect the fast paced main part.
Pretty spot on! I´m looking forward to your take on Rammstein´s "Zeit" (Time")
The music during the credits is the piano version of the song "Sonne (Sun)".
An epic masterpeace! In the video they only showed the negatives... No positives...
Your reaction is very similar to how we all reacted after the first watch. The thing to consider with Rammstein videos is that everything is in there for a reason.
I highly recommend that you watch a video analysis on this music video from the channel named "Three Arrows", they have a brilliant video basically analysing and interpreting this epic video and I think you would get a LOT out of watching it.
Because as you say, the video is epic in scope (2000 years of history of the place now known as Germany) and there are many different things going on, visually and also lyrically, which have multilayered and multifaced meanings that are often times highly culturally specific.
The interpretation and translation and explanations of the Three Arrows video help us outsiders better understand the masterpiece you just watched.
I would like to add that it is good that you took note of what your viewers had to say regarding distraction and so on from a previous video.
I found it interesting that you noticed when the monks/religious men were eating from/off Germania (the character played by the actress seen throughout the video, an embodiment of the German lands, kinda like Britannia for GB), they were, IMO, not eating her, but eating off her, "the fat of the land" or however it is said. Meanwhile in the tank below are people held in bondage and slavery fighting for scraps depicted literally as being like BDSM.
Thank you for watching to the end! The piano arrangement of Sonne (another of their tracks) is hauntingly beautiful, that is what you hear at the end over the credits.
Germania is a possessive entity. The effect of this video makes that plain. I'm generations removed from Germany, raised in a new country that formed all my memories and allegiances. Yet, I watch this video and feel Germany's gravitational pull. I thought the red laser was brilliant. it's like a thread stitching together everything German. ••• Thanks! PEACE!!!
There's an expression in German that literally translates to "red thread" or "red wire". Your interpretation is quite spot on actually, because that expression is used to indicate the central theme of a story.
Great reaction! The english lyric translations are not all that bad. Maybe the word play with "Über..." gets a bit lost.
This song is quite a rabbit hole. There is so much symbolism and cross references in there. The queen for instance. She wears either black, red, gold or black red white. The colors of the current and former German flag. She represents "Germania" (quite clearly as she is listed in the credits as Germania). Germania is kind of the mythical impersonation of Germany. There is this picture in there with her wearing a bullet bellt and some dogs on a leash. I guess this is a reference the statue on the "Brandenburger Tor" in Berlin depicting godness Victoria on a chariot. Well and I guess having a black german actress playing Germania is kind of a big F... Y.. to racists...
Your assessment is pretty spot on. This song is about the band's love/hate relationship with their country Germany. They know that they're expected to feel patriotic and prideful, but they personally can't bring themselves to feel that way because all of them are fully conscientious of the atrocities that Germany has committed over its history.
Rammstein is no stranger to political controversy. They've often been accused of being Nazi sympathizers, even in Germany, because of the way their music and imagery is presented. They are quite the opposite. They even wrote a song saying their political veiws are left, called "Links 1,2,3", and they did it to mock the people claiming that their militaristic sound means they're Nazi sympathizers.
You got many placed details and there are so many more to find.
ZEIT and ZICK ZACK are the newest productions....RAMMSTEIN is always getting better with every song they published....
Hi, I'm from Germany.
Rammstein is playing a classic "Industrial Metal" style. A 50-50 mix of synthesizers and hard metal guitars.
A big part of the German history in one video. The black woman as Germania. Germania is the personification of the German nation. It isn't and wasn't a goddess or Joan of Arc.
The glass coffin: It is Little Snow White from the Grimm-fairytales....and from their own video "Sonne". Only with black skin and in space.
The piano song at the end is the song "Sonne", too.
The words "Germania Magna" at the beginning are a Roman name for the area of Germany, that wasn't conquered by the Roman Empire at that time.
Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were the Roman conquered areas (Roman provinces) of Germany.
The line in this song "So jung und doch so alt" (So young and yet so old) means:
Germany as a unified state is very young. A unified German nation is only existing from 1871 onwards. Before that year of unification Germany was made of countless, little mini-states and the people identified first and foremost as Prussians, Hessians, Saxons etc, etc, etc. and only in a second line of thought they had a lose sense of being somehow Germans, too, as a kind of unifying second identity.
So the area & the landscape where the Germans are living and the Germans themselves as a people...are thousands of years old. But only recently, in 1871, there was a unified Germany as one single state.
So Germany as a unified state is very young...and at the same time it is thousands of years old.
The battle of the Teutoburg forest against the Romans (and Rammstein as Roman soldiers and Germans alike).
That battle is of ABSOLUTE importance for the German history.
The hanged bodies in the trees were the beaten Roman soldiers, who were gruesome sacrificed to the Germanic gods...and were partly nailed to the trees.
The Varus-(Teutoburg)-Battle was already in 9 AD. In 16 AD were the vengeance campaigns of commanding field general Germanicus under Emperor Tiberius Augustus. Therefore we see here the arrival of the Roman troops of Germanicus and they are watching their dead comrades hanging in the trees or getting their heads chopped off (for nailing them to the trees).
In reality the Romans under Germanicus found only the bones of the Varus army in the various ways they were slaughtered, sacrificed and displayed at the trees. Slaves were liberated even decades after the battle.
After the scenes with the Romans we saw the Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster (the burning Zeppelin in the background).
The moustaches and clothing from the fight scene are from WWI and post WWI years. From the working class people in WWI and the roaring 20's. In the WWII years later on this kind of big bushy moustache was already out of fashion.
The falling banknotes in the prison are not about corruption. That scene is about the hyper-inflation of the 1920's, that took away the savings of the Germans and left them in deep poverty and desperation.
One had to pay a loaf of bread with a handcart full of nearly worthless banknotes back then and it hit the German people deep down inside and in their souls. Especially the poor ones and the simple workers.
The V2 rocket (first manmade object in space) as technical triumph of the German spirit...and at the same time the killing of the concentration camp prisoners in the bunker factories below the mountains during the production of that rocket.
This scene in the video could be a representation of a very specific concentration camp. It was "Mittelbau-Dora" below the Kohnstein mountain.
A mixture between a big, huge bunker factory for V1 and V2 rockets and a concentration camp.
The concentration camp inmates had several different markings for different kinds of convicts and their "crimes" sown to their chests, like it was in reality, too. A pink triangle for homosexuals, the star of David for Jews and two of them were marked with the double-triangles for Jehovas Whitnesses.
The book burnings of the Nazis and the burning of the witches of the church. In the same scene with the book burning there is EVEN MORE going on. The cooperation of the church with the Nazis, when the priest with the cross embraces the Nazi SA-man.
The scene with the sign with the Hammer and a pair of compasses in a circle of wheat is the sign of the GDR (DDR). The socialst German state in the east that existed before the German reunification.
Therefore it was Karl Marx in the background in the scene with the tank (not the scene at the concentration camp).
The scene with Rammstein wielding guns (the pumpgun) and taking Germania hostage was about leftwing terrorism of the 1970's. The terrorists were called the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion).
My interpretation of the red scanner-like beams: There are two different kinds of beams. The massive straight red light beam that goes up into the heavens AND there were those smaller, thinner "scanner" beams.
Aliens (or humans from the future) are scanning the whole German history. Like some real scientists are scanning and excarvating ancient Mexican or Egyptian statues, for example.
The massive red light beam is the red ribbon of time that ties together all the historical events.
PS: As for the dogs: Germans are fanatical dog lovers. We are a dog-owner nation. The dog is a firm part of Germany.
PPS: They didn't eat the body of the woman and her inner organs, even if it really looked that way. They were eating the national dish of Germany, that was put on the body of the black woman: Sauerkraut, Kassler & sausages.
In my opinion it symbolizes the church eating itself fat on the goods and values and food of Germany during the simple people (farmers, simple workers etc) lived a long time in a kind of hell of poverty and serfdom (the red fetish area below the table with Germania on it).
But that eating scene could indeed have a double meaning. It could represent the 30 years war, that was fought for religious reasons and depopulated large areas of Germany. It forced the people to commit canibalism because nobody was there anymore to produce food. Except the fat, wealthy people of the church, of course. They were still able to eat enough. Only the simple people at the bottom (farmers etc) died from hunger and had to fight and die in that war.
The 30 years war was the biggest catastrophe in Germany until WWI happened.
PPPS: The short scene with the dogs and their gas masks = WWI, where in reality animals (messenger dogs & horses) AND soldiers were wearing gas masks, too.
PPPPS: The puppies at the end are Leonberger dogs. The Leonbergers nearly went extinct during WWI and WWII.
PPPPPS: The black woman in the prison was dressed in a Prussian uniform with a Prussian helmet.
Till sings the famous, often misinterpreted, line of the "Deutschlandlied" (Song of the Germans), that is not forbidden in Germany but simply isn't sung anymore in our modern national anthem.
Till sings in his version the line "Deutschland über allen" (Germany above everybody) What is a BIG change to the real line in the orginal Deutschlandlied-song. In the original Deutschlandlied song it is written as "Deutschland über alles" (Germany above everything).
The real, whole line of that old Deutschlandlied goes "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles. Über alles in der Welt" (Germany, Germany above everything. Above everything in the world).
This line is often misinterpreted by many people as chauvinism and as a looking down upon all other countries on this planet. But that is wrong and not many people know about that in Germany and elsewhere.
The writer of that famous line didn't meant it in a chauvinistic way.
When that song was written, Germany was divided into umphteenth mini-states, what made Germany relative powerless and defenseless. Therefore the task of German unification was the goal above any other goal for all Germans (at least the writer of the song meant it that way).
So the main goal for all Germans had to be the united Germany. The goal of "(united) Germany above everything else".
That was, how that line was meant by the writer of the song.
The line isn't forbidden, like many people wrongly think. It's simply not sung anymore and not part of the official anthem of modern Germany anymore.
This has NOT its reason in the seemingly chauvinist meaning of "Deutschland über alles", like many people wrongly think. This whole stanza of the Deutschlandlied isn't sung anymore, because in other parts of the stanza are borders and landscapes mentioned, that aren't German borders and landscapes anymore.
We want to live in peace with the people and countries, who are now living in those former German lands and therefore we don't sing about those old borders and landscapes anymore.
It has nothing to do with the "Deutschland über alles" line in that stanza, like many people wrongly are thinking.
Finally:
The scenes I'm now talking about are pretty dark and low light. The WWII submarine in the submarine bunker during the astronauts are walking by with the glass coffin.
I think, the choice of the black woman as main actress was made, because:
a) it makes any accusations of racism and fascism against Rammstein useless
b) she represents one colour of the German flag and she is wearing the rest of the colours of our German flag as makeup and jewellery and clothes on her body: Black, Red and Gold
c) it provokes many people EVEN MORE 😄
Greetings
Mega
PS: UA-cam didn't allow me to integrate this information into the bigger text (above) for unknown reasons, therefore I'm posting it here:
The troops, who smashed the Jewish shops during the Kristallnacht (not shown in the video) were SA (Sturmabteilung) in brown uniform and not the later SS (Schutzstaffel) in the black uniform. The SA did all the dirty work at the beginning of the Nazi rise to power...until the "Night of the long knives", an inner-Nazi power struggle, happened. The head of the SA (Ernst Röhm) was killed and from then on the SA was turned more and more into the SS under Himmler.
The book burnings were part of the early Nazi years, too, and were done by the SA, too. One can see the SA burning the books and Till is watching it in a brown SA uniform.
Both, Kristallnacht and book burnings were different things and happened at different times. The book burnings happened over a longer timespan at different locations at different times during the Kristallnacht was one big "event" that happened at one single day.
Kristallnacht means "Crystal Night" and was called that way, because the smashed shop windows of the Jewish shops looked like thousands of crystals on the ground. But in the Rammstein video I've only seen the book burnings.
PPS:
The two beer drinking soldiers to the left side of the table, where Germania is lying on and where the priests are eating Sauerkraut & Sausages from her body, are not French soldiers and they aren't representing the French revolution. Those two beer drinking soldiers are Prussian soldiers and they are emphasizing the importance of Prussia for the German history.
As far as I could see: They were from the era of Friedrich der Große (The Old Fritz), who was of extraordinary importance for German history. Amongst many other achievements he was the one, who brought the potato to Prussia and Germany. That saved many Germans from hunger and the potato became one of the most beloved foods in Germany on that way.
great reaction!
Nice 👍
Rammstein is no stranger to political controversy. And yes, the teaser clip for this video they released caught a lot of shit because it was the clip at the end which pans and shows them all in nooses in the outfits of the deathcamp prisoners.
Try mein hertz brennt…official video 😉