Angela Merkel has rejected a proposal to make Germany’s national anthem more ‘gender neutral’ by ditching words such as ‘fatherland’ and ‘brotherly’.
The SPD’s Kristin Rose-Moehring, equality commissioner for Germany since 2001, wrote to family ministry staff to suggest removing male-specific references in the ‘Song of Germany’.
It has been Germany’s national anthem since 1922.
Under her proposals, the word ‘Vaterland’, which appears in the first and last lines of the current anthem, would be replaced by ‘Heimatland’, meaning homeland.
Merkel has deemed any such tweaks unnecessary. ‘The chancellor is very happy with our nice national anthem as it is in its traditional form and doesn’t see any need for change,’ spokesman Steffen Seibert said today’
The SPD’s Kristin Rose-Moehring, equality commissioner for Germany since 2001, wrote to family ministry staff to suggest striking male-specific references in the ‘Song of Germany’
She suggested making the change on March 8, International Women’s Day, according to the Bild am Sonntag.
But Merkel has deemed any such tweaks unnecessary.
‘The chancellor is very happy with our nice national anthem as it is in its traditional form and doesn’t see any need for change,’ spokesman Steffen Seibert said today.
A spokesman for the family ministry said Rose-Moehring’s letter had been a personal proposal and he could not comment on it, especially as it was an internal letter to employees at the family ministry.
The reports surfaced shortly before the SPD announced that two-thirds of its members had voted in favour of joining an alliance with Merkel’s conservatives, with whom they have been in power since 2013.
That paves the way for a new government under Merkel to start work in mid-March.
Rose-Moehring proposed replacing ‘brotherly with heart and hand’ with ‘courageously with heart and hand’.
The first stanza of the anthem, which declares ‘Germany, Germany above all else’ – reflecting efforts to unify Germany in the 19th century – and the second, with its refrain of ‘German women, German loyalty, German wine and German song’ were officially dropped in 1991 following reunification.
The now-disused first verse also describes Germany as extending to territory which now belongs to France, the Netherlands and countries in Eastern Europe.
The third stanza, which is now in use, begins: ‘Unity, justice and freedom for the German fatherland.’
‘Why don’t we make our national anthem gender sensitive,’ Rose-Möhring said when proposing her changes.
‘It wouldn’t hurt, would it?’
Austria and Canada have both removed gender-specific terms from their anthems in recent years, with Canada recently changing the words ‘in all thy sons’ command’ to ‘in all of us command’.
Germany officially cut its national anthem to only the third stanza in 1991, shortly after reunification. Pictured: A German flag next to the Reichstag dome in Berlin
However, the proposal triggered a scornful reaction from the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
‘Completely over the top, and not even an April Fool’s joke,’ tweeted a branch of the AfD in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg.
The anthem’s melody was written by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn in 1797.
It was also used by West Germany during the Cold War, while Soviet-backed East Germany used the song ‘Risen from Ruins’.
Equality commissioner Rose-Möhring successfully sued her own ministry in 2012 after three top ministry posts were given to male candidates without consulting her.