Andreas Löhrer: “Bella ciao” is the song that all leftists sing

In 1958, the central leadership of the pioneer organization “Ernst Thälmann” in the GDR published a song book with the slogan “Be ready!” In the introduction it was stated that one should sing wherever one comes, be it “on hikes, trips, in the pioneer camps” but also – as it was put it – “in our socially useful activities”. also want.

The central leadership wanted these songs to tell “about our beautiful homeland, (…) about people’s fight for peace and socialism, about friendship between peoples, about joy and cheerfulness and the great deeds of the new people in socialist construction.” And so the songbook opened with the national anthem of the GDR.

The songbook contains around 130 songs arranged by group, one of which is called “I carry a flag”. And lo and behold: under the heading: “One morning very early” there is an “Italian partisan song” printed there. The text comes from Hans Berner, who returned from the Second World War as a wounded man and then worked as a music lecturer at the Institute for Teacher Training in Quedlinburg for 30 years.

The lyrics of the song are not about carrying a flag at all. It is also not about a structure, about a joy or a cheerfulness or presumably great deeds of the new people, but, much more simply, about a “small, very delicate flower”. Of this flower, everyone who passes by says that it is the flower of the partisan “who died for our freedom.” The song has six verses. For the refrain “Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao,” the editorial team for the Young Pioneers noted: “Ciao: say: tschau.” This is the first print of “Bella ciao” in a German language Book.

The song is now popular all over the world. Hannes Wader sings it just like the actors in the Netflix series “House of Money” (as a remix by the French DJ Hugel). The translator Andreas Löhrer has now examined the history of the song, asking an almost minimalist question: “How did the partisan song come about? Is it even a real partisan song or was it only written in the post-war period? Are there any precursors?”

Löhrer, who worked at the Walter A. Berendsohn Research Center for German Exile Literature at the University of Hamburg, goes far in his research and looks at the history of the Italian Resistance in their fight against fascism in the years 1943 to 1945.

In the original version, the song was probably sung by traveling workers in the Po Valley and was adapted by the Resistance during World War II. It experienced its scandalous breakthrough in 1964 in Umbria, at the “Festival of Two Worlds” in the small town of Spoleto, when it was sung in two versions. The rice workers’ version – “And with the insects and with the mosquitoes / Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao / I have to do hard work” – changed into the partisan version, with all the other singers and Singers started in the background and drowned out the first version: “And if I die as a partisan / oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao / And if I die as a partisan / Then you have to bury me.”

Part of the audience reacted with applause, another part was annoyed: “I didn’t pay 1,000 lire admission to hear my maid sing on stage!”, according to Löhrer, a lady from a better family who was adorned with lots of jewelry is said to have cursed. And at the end, carabinieri came on stage to ask who was responsible for the rebellious songs and then took down the singers’ personal details.

At the following performances at the festival, fascists who had traveled from Rome tried to prevent the singing of “Bella ciao,” which the musicians defended themselves against by beating around with their guitars. The Spoleto festival received enormous press coverage: the right-wingers spoke of a scandal, but telegrams of solidarity arrived from musicians and intellectuals from all over Italy. Since then the song has been on everyone’s lips.

In a total of 35 entertaining chapters, Löhrer follows the path of this song from its tumultuous reception in Spoleto in 1964 to the present day. The author makes use of the versions available on YouTube from the early 1960s to today, which are proven in the introduction with a QR code that leads to all 46 versions of “Bella ciao” that he has observed and also to interviews with contemporary witnesses.

The list of performers of this song is impressive: it ranges from Yves Montand, Milva and Zupfgeigenhansel to the Burmese punk band The Rebel Riot X Cacerolazo. There is now almost no country in the world where “Bella ciao” is not sung – and always in the spirit of protest and resistance. The melody is used both in Israel in opposition to the Netanyahu government’s judicial reform and in Palestine as a protest against the occupation of its own territory. But Italian trade unionists also insisted on disrupting the appearance of the post-fascist Giorgia Meloni at a CGIL trade union conference by singing “Bella ciao” and noticeably ruining her mood. This can also be read as evidence of the statement of the partisan Marie Freçais, who spread it in the French Resistance and once predicted: “This song that we have written will triumph in the end and kill Lili Marleen.”

Andreas Löhrer has turned his research into its origins, its history and its lasting impact into a great book.

Andreas Löhrer: Bella ciao. On the trail of a partisan song. Edition AV Bodenburg, 182 pages, br., 16 €.