THE GERMAN NATIONAL ANTHEM (Direct TRANSLATION)

Germany, Germany over all, over all in the world,

If it always stands together brotherly for protection and resistance.

From the Meuse (river) to the Memel (river), from the Adige (river) to the Belt,

Germany, Germany over all, over all in the world.

German women, German truth (fidelity), German wine and German singing

Shall maintain in the world, their old beautiful sound,

Inspire us to noble deed(s), our whole life long

German women, German truth, German wine and German singing

Unity and justice and freedom for the German fatherland,

Let us all strive for that, brotherly with heart and hand.

Unity and justice and Freedom are the pledge of happiness,

Bloom in the shine of this happiness, bloom German fatherland.

AN UNFORTUNATELY NECESSARY comment:

Like many other German national symbols, also the German anthem was defamed since the end of World War II. Therefore a few things have to be made clear:

1. It were democratic republicans, who made the song a state-symbol after World War I. One mostly sang the first stanza, like in the case of the American anthem as well. The symbol was however always the entire anthem. Everything else would even be idiotic, as a poetic peace of art gets created by an author so, that it’s inner evolution fulfils the wanted sense. - You can’t separate it without “tearing it apart“. - Everyone, who does this, acts like someone, who tears a flag apart ...
2. The anthem consists of two components: the melody, which Joseph Haydn (an Austrian!) had composed as the “Kaiserhymne = Kaiser-anthem“ in 1797, and the vocals of the democratic poet Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who wrote it as a victim of political persecution, in exile. It was (in fact) always a democratic symbol!
3. These facts already show, that it is defaming to call parts of the anthem evil. If someone reads the first line “Germany, Germany over all, over all in the world,” and than thinks that to be an expression of expansionism, this only shows how much incitement can drive people into stupidity! After all a comma follows in this sentence now(!) and than a defensive reference to a hostile invasion. Such experiences marked the German people for centuries! Afterwards geographical particulars about the connected German culture area follow. Also this limitation exposes the idea of expansionism as STUPIDITY! - It is about an “over all“ in this area, about the division of Germany into small states. - The problem of the time, in which the song was written! ... – Actually very simple!!! … - That a geographic limitation stands in contradiction to a geographic “over all in the world“, additionally shows very easily that it is about a spiritual sense of “in the world“. Apart from that however it is religiously neutral. Only incitement can explain the far spread misbelieve, that parts of the anthem would be evil or forbidden anywhere.
4. The first and the third stanza refer to Germany, the second one to the German culture. Symbolic terms for different manifestations of this culture are being given. That the German woman, so a German femininity also appears as a model here, is thereby remarkable in a special way, as it expresses a notion of femininity as a value like we already find it in the German Minne of the middle ages (see our history chapter). So it enlarges the typical symbolism of fighting and bravery in anthems by the aspects of beauty, emotionality, welfare and loveliness! Especially the second stanza is therefore giving the anthem a special cultural value - and only the more, because it also reveals the value of the culture-nation in these values.
5. The second stanza is bold here, to propose to sing this stanza in America. It shall thereby always be sensed as part of the entire text, and accordingly also remind of the German motto UNITY, JUSTICE, FREEDOM, but the second stanza fits better to German-Americans, if it isn’t currently about a reference to Germany.