Cultural Interpretation of the song "99 Bierkanister" by Deichkind

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Veröffentlicht am 04.02.2018

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Culture Intercultural Communication Interpretation song lyrics Deichkind 99 Bierkanister

Zusammenfassung

Interpretation des sozio-kritischen Liedes "99 Bierkanister" von Deichkind in englischer Sprache im Bezug auf die vielen kulturellen Anspielungen und Verbindungen zwischen dem deutschen und dem anglo-amerikanischen Raum.

Deichkind is a German Electro and Hip-Hop band founded in Hamburg. Its signature features are its unique live performances and crazy costumes as well as the band’s plebeian, humorous, bizarre, and sometimes socio-critical lyrics. If you read this song one way, then it states earlier and recent characteristics of the German culture which are distinctive of and typical for the country. It includes attributes and qualities that have shaped the German culture, like food, sports, philosophy and famous personalities. You can find the constant change between positive and negative characteristics, like Schadenfreude, Schmutz und Schnaps und Schweinehund and Bahnhof Zoo und Heroin, as opposed to Helmut Kohl, Kommunismus and Wunderkind. This symbolises the versatility of Germany and states that both, positive and negative factors, sum up into one big picture that arises of the country. Moreover, it could stand for the Germans being hypocritical by pretending that everything is okay whereas in reality everyone knows that our daily lives are filled with Schadenfreude and other negative things and thoughts. Still, everyone pretends not to see or hear anything and asks in an overly-politely way: “Guten Tag, wie gehts es Ihnen?”. Also, you can notice a cut after the second verse which leads to a change in the atmosphere and pinnacle lyrics. The number of negative connoted attributes subtle and slowly, but constantly increases until the last line. “Achtung, wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm!” may in this context refer to a warning not to overdo with hypocrisy and not to try to constantly look away from what is actually happening.
Apart from that, in this song many German words are mentioned that are used in the English language as well, for example Kindergarten, Poltergeist, Schadenfreude, Wunderkind and Übermensch. Also, some words were included that are typically associated with Germany, like for example Autobahn. Additionally, famous German personalities and German brands that are sold internationally, like St.Pauli Girl, which is a German beer brand for the US market, are referred to. Remarkably many alcohol brand names are mentioned in the lyrics of this song. Also, lots of food items are named, e.g. Bretzel, Federweißer, Sauerkraut. All in all, items from all aspects of a culture are included in the song lyrics. From this point of view, this song reflects how the German culture is seen from the perspective of non-Germans and especially Americans. Nevertheless, I would claim that many young Germans actually do not know most of the people or words mentioned in this lyrics because they are rather old. Cultures change constantly but it takes tens of years until the changes start to seep through to people outside the country. By the time the other countries start to change their view of another culture, this information is again outmoded and not correct anymore. It is hard for people to change how they think of others. Human beings like to classify everything and everyone. This is why stereotypes are so hard to get rid off. The things mentioned in the song are the stereotypes and ways Germany is seen from the perspective of others. These are only tiny and outmoded pieces of the German culture, quoted out of context and from very different subject areas that do not fit well together. But to be honest, I cannot think of many more recent examples of persons and things that are characteristic for Germany now. Also, there would be less German words that are also used in English anymore, but rather the other way round, English words that the Germans borrowed for their everyday language use. America is much more influencing us then we influence America because of its size and powerful position. Maybe people nowadays would rather know American persons than German ones if they were named in a song.
There are a lot of German people mentioned that are internationally known and famous for having done great things and contributed to the world’s history. Nena is a German singer who gained international success with her song “99 Luftballons”. She later also re-recorded her song in English, which made here a one-hit wonder in the USA. The term Kriegsminister could also allude to her song, as it occurs there as well. The song is about how mighty people see every opportunity to start a war and become even more mighty even if there is no reason for it. And about how this vicious cycle of actions and reaction sums up in the world being destroyed in the end.
The Deichkind song’s title is 99 Bierkanister. This is clearly a reference to Nena’s song combined with the Germans being known for beer and either the term Benzinkanister from “99 Luftballons” or the so called “Wehrmacht Einheitskanister”, jerrycans that were designed in Germany and were used by many countries in the second world war. Both hints include a clear reference to war. This combination of three very different things shows how biased and stereotype-led a view of another country or culture can be. People tend to label other countries without further thinking and do not care if the picture they have of another culture is right or not. In most cases this picture is outmoded and does not describe the core features of a culture in the right way. Also, it implies that the German’s nazi past is still not forgotten and will haunt the German culture for a long time. People will not stop blaming Germans for what they have done, no matter how long it is ago.
Another person mentioned in the song is David Hasselhoff, an American actor and singer, often associated with the TV series Baywatch and Knight Rider in which he played the main role. His singing career was not very successful in the USA, but starting with Austria, he became very popular in Germany. On New Year’s Eve, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he held a concert there singing the song “I’ve been looking for freedom”. This is why Deichkind associated him with Mauerfall in their song. Franz Beckenbauer is a former German football player and trainer. He is also the chairman of the supervisory board of FC Bayern München AG. Lately, he was often criticized for tax evasion. Dirk Nowitzki is a very successful and professional German basketball player, playing for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. He has a lot of achievements and career highlights and is considered one of the best basketball players in the history. He is often referred to as “German Wunderkind” in the USA. Ironical as they are, the band brings up the 7 feet high basketball player in one line with the German love for garden gnomes. Helmut Kohl has been the sixth Federal Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the one chancellor who held this position for the longest time so far. He played a major role in the German reunification and in composing the Maastricht Treaty for establishing the European Union. He has also been the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998 and Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate. Kohl is internationally regarded as a great European leader and is now the oldest living former German chancellor, which refers to the line in the Deichkind song “Helmut Kohl will never die”. Hannelore Kohl was the first wife of Helmut Kohl. She was raped by Russian soldiers after WWII was over and received psychological and physical damage from this tragic occurrence. As an adult, she suffered from a photo allergy and committed suicide at the age of 68 in 2001. Her father has been an active and ranking member of the NSDAP. Steffi Graf has been a German tennis player and the world’s best during her career. Many experts even consider her to be the greatest female tennis player of all time. It is very ironical that Deichkind mentioned her in the same breath with the characteristical, but totally irrelevant size of her nose rather than with her great successes in tennis. This could allude to the people only focusing on obvious and easy to see things and stereotypes rather than seeing the people for what they really are and judging them by their accomplishments rather than by things like appearance. People cannot change what they look like and the other people will never stop judging them by their looks and other obvious characteristics. This is the same as with Germany. No matter how long WWII is over, people will never stop associate it with Germany and reproach Germans for it. Even if the only thing that connects people today to people in national socialist times is that they by pure chance are living in the same country.
Boris Becker is also a former professional tennis player. He won a lot of championships and Wimbledon titles and has been ranked number one in the world. Ernst Gräfenberg was a very successful German scientist and chief gynaecologist in Berlin. Being of Jewish descent, he was forced to lay down his office, left Germany in 1940 and emigrated to America, where he continued his research on female physiology and human reproduction. It was not until the eighties that his work started gaining popularity and made Gräfenberg internationally known. Karl Marx was a German philosopher and economist of Jewish descent living from 1818 to 1883. He was one of the most influential persons in sociology, founding the theory of communism and contributing to the current understanding of economy, labour and capital. His theory included the assumption of class struggle and the differentiation of bourgeoisie, the upper class, controlling the means of production, and proletariat, the lower class, selling their labour for wages. Friedrich Engels, living from 1820 to 1895, was a German social scientist and philosopher. Together with his close friend Karl Marx he founded the Marxist theory of communism and wrote many crucial books about this topic.
Heidi Klum is an internationally-known German model who also acquired the American citizenship. She was the first German model to become a Victoria’s Secret Angel. Tina Turner is an award-holding and internationally known artist, singer and dancer. Born in America, she acquired Swiss citizenship and has been living in Switzerland with her German husband since 1990.
Übermensch is a philosophical concept of German philologist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It stands for the ideal image of a perfect human as a goal to reach in life. Nietzsche’s work has influenced former and current philosophy greatly. After his mental ill-health and death in 1900, his sister, wife of national socialist and antisemite Bernhard Förster, acquired the rights upon Nietzsche’s work and manipulated his statements for her and her husbands benefits. Nietzsche’s assertions about the Übermensch were then misused by Hitler in order to justify the claims of race inferiority and Germans being a superior race during the time of national socialism. Only later scholars began to rectify that Nietzsche’s original ideas had nothing to do with national socialism. Weißer blonder Bürgermeister could refer to many people. One option could be Ole von Beust, first mayor of Hamburg, where the band Deichkind is from. He held office from 2001 until 2010 and was, despite his homosexuality, one of the most popular German mayors. 2010 he was one of the finalists for the World Mayor prize. This line in the song, if you interpret it in a different way, could also refer to Karl Fiehler who was high-ranked in the NSDAP and mayor of Munich from 1933 until 1945. He had a stellar career during national socialist times and was one of the most intimate co-workers of Hitler.
Heider could mean the cafe Heider in Potsdam, which was a very popular and intellectual venue in the seventies and eighties and was often visited by important personalities. Today it is still popular and often visited by tourists. Heider could also refer to Otto Heider, NSDAP politician and former mayor of Bremen. Wadenbeißer means a person that is obviously insignificant and inferior, but still is aggressive towards others and attacks them. In the context of the many allusions to national socialism this could mean Adolf Hitler. In America, he is often portrayed as a person to be made fun of. Even some Disney cartoons exist, where this is the case. While the chorus “Achtung alle Hände hoch” may be simply a meaningless exclamation like the ones you can find in many songs made for a mainstream audience, it could also be a reference to World War II. This phrase is repeated over and over again in the song with a different voice than the rest of the song. It is louder, harsh and sounds mechanically like it is also often referred to in movies with harsh sounding and shouting German commandants. It highlights the strong association which other countries have of Germany and the Second World War. This is still one of the major things, people in other countries associate with Germany. Although some time has passed, this negative connotation sticks to the German culture and will probably last for a very long time. The term Sprechgesang could also be seen as reference to national socialism. It could refer to the songs the German soldiers sang while marching or to nationalist hip hop or rap that has begun to appear again in recent years and has tried to take over the youth scene. In this context, also Völkerball could not mean a form of sport, but in a transferred sense the extinction of Jews. Achtung, wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm! is a reference to “Sesamstraße”, a children’s TV series that is aired in America as well as in Germany. This sentence appears in the series’ title song and refers to the children asking questions to get to know the world and everything that is happening in there. However, in the context of Deichkind’s song, you could also interpret this sentence as a kind of warning. The people in national socialist time did not ask any questions and just did what they were told and what everyone else did. This is the reason for all the horrible things that happened during that time. Maybe people did not know about what was happening or maybe they were just pretending not to know. The most important thing is that they did not even care about or asked about what was going on. This ignorance and averting one’s eyes on such an important topic was the only reason that Hitler could subsist for that long. If people do not ask questions and do not take a look beyond the obvious things, all of this could happen today again even if most people like to pretend that this is impossible because they are better or more educated to let things like this happen again today.