Morgen marschieren wir in Feindesland - Lost 1916 Verses + Soldier's Version

🎺"Morgen marschieren wir." - "Tomorrow we march." Two German soldiers' songs begin with these same three words. One marches to a farmer's house for a cup of tea, coffee and a glass of wine. The other marches into enemy land. We are not German, and for a while, we could not tell them apart. A full rendition of "Morgen marschieren wir in Feindesland" (1916) in the original German, with the complete English translation on screen. Both texts are included: the forgotten 1916 farewell to a sweetheart, and the later soldiers' version that replaced it. Sung to a melody that exists only because of our own mistake, explained below. Footage of German soldiers of the First World War. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📜 THE STORY BEHIND THE SONG We should begin with a confession. None of us is a native German speaker. When we started working on this song, we searched for its first line, found a recording that opened with exactly the same words, and built our arrangement around it. Only later, checking the lyrics line by line against old songbooks, did we realise the recording was a different song altogether: "Morgen marschieren wir zu dem Bauern ins Nachtquartier", an anonymous soldiers' folk song of the nineteenth century, already in print by 1893. It is a cheerful song about being billeted with farmers. Tea, sugar and coffee, a glass of wine, and a girl who will cry when the regiment moves on. By then, the words of one song had settled onto the melody of the other. We listened back, and we decided to keep it. Soldiers have always done this, putting new words to tunes they already knew. But we want to be clear about what you are hearing: the words are from 1916, and the melody is not the one they were written for. The real song has a quieter history. Its melody was written in December 1916 by Hanns Heeren, a 23-year-old librarian from the Wandervogel youth movement. The words are attributed to Bogislav von Selchow, a naval officer. The earliest printed text appeared in the Liller Kriegszeitung, the army newspaper of occupied Lille, and it is not a battle song. It is a young man saying goodbye. "Mädel, so reiche mir noch mal die Hand." - "Girl, give me your hand one more time." "Gib mir noch einen Kuß, mach' kein Gesicht, und wenn ich sterben muß, so weine nicht." - "Give me one more kiss, don't make that face, and if I must die, do not cry." In the version soldiers went on to sing, the girl is gone. In her place: "Heiß in den Herzen glüht der Freiheit Brand" - "In our hearts burns the fire of freedom." A red glow over the forest's edge, a call to duty across the Rhine, graves in the north and the south with lilies growing on them. Only one line survived both versions unchanged in spirit: "Kehr ich nicht mehr zurück, was ist dabei?" - "If I do not come back, what of it?" In 1939, the song's opening line became the title of the official songbook of the German armed forces. The farewell to the girl was largely forgotten. We found it in archives and old transcriptions, but we could not find a recording of it. Two songs, one first line. One ends with a glass of wine, the other with lilies on graves. Hanns Heeren survived the war and lived until 1964. Many of the young men who sang his song in the trenches did not. This version began as our mistake. We kept it on purpose, and we dedicate it to them. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ EDUCATIONAL & HISTORICAL DISCLAIMER This video presents "Morgen marschieren wir in Feindesland" (1916) as a historical document of First World War soldiers' song. The melody used here is adapted from the older folk song "Morgen marschieren wir (zu dem Bauern ins Nachtquartier)" and is not the original melody by Hanns Heeren. The song was later appropriated by the National Socialist regime; this video uses no imagery from that period and does not endorse any political ideology. Aura Vault preserves music from all nations and all eras, without endorsement of any political regime. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🤖 AI DISCLOSURE This Aura Vault production may use AI-assisted tools for vocals, instruments, visuals, and arrangement, always under human creative direction and final curation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 MORE FROM AURA VAULT 🎺ALTE KAMERADEN (OLD COMRADES): https://youtu.be/z3IFUTxkyss 🌸 Erika — Original German: https://youtu.be/TFceaW-bpvM 🌸 Erika — Estonian Version: https://youtu.be/nxWucpaILz8 🇩🇪 Lili Marleen: https://youtu.be/LYndBgrHj3M 🇩🇪 Panzerlied — Rare 5-Verse Version: https://youtu.be/6Dnw-BK6UGI 🎺 The Battle Cry of Freedom — Union Version (1862): https://youtu.be/YXUqh3uQIpE 🇺🇸 Dixie's Land — Full Original 1859: https://youtu.be/roaDri5TddI ⚔️ THE CAISSON SONG 1908 — Epic Military Rock: https://youtu.be/AQ8iX-pfubo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for forgotten songs preserved in full. — Aura Vault | Music, History, Respect #MorgenMarschierenWir #GermanSoldierSong #WW1 #FirstWorldWar #HannsHeeren #AuraVault