111-602: The Swing Youth ( German : Swingjugend ) were a youth counterculture of jazz and swing lovers in Germany formed in Hamburg in 1939. Primarily active in Hamburg and Berlin , they were composed of 14- to 21-year-old Germans, mostly middle or upper-class students, but also including some in the working class . They admired the " American way of life ", defining themselves in swing music and opposing Nazism , especially
222-412: A Union Jack pin to their jacket. Additionally, as a reflection of their Anglophilia, the "Swing boys" liked to carry around umbrellas whatever the weather and to smoke pipes. Girls wore short skirts, applied lipstick and fingernail polish, and wore their hair long and down instead of applying braids or German-style rolls. The fondness of the "Swing girls" to wear their hair curled and to apply much make-up
333-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
444-619: A jargon mostly made of anglicisms. The Swing Youth were intense Anglophiles who preferred to listen to "English music" (i.e. American swing and jazz music) and liked to dress in the "English style". A secret report from the Reich Ministry of Justice in January 1944 described the Swing Youth as follows: The most striking example among these groups is the so-called Swing Youth, on whom there have been reports from various parts of
555-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
666-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
777-429: A 1985 interview: "Everything for us was a world of great longing, Western life, democracy – everything was connected – and connected through jazz". The Swing Kids danced in private quarters, clubs, and rented halls. These adolescents dressed differently from the others who were opposed to swing. For example, boys added a little British flair to their clothes by wearing homburg hats, growing their hair long, and attaching
888-528: A badge they wear a colored dress-shirt button in their lapels. They regard Englishmen as the highest form of human development. A false conception of freedom leads them into opposition to the Hitler Youth. Though they were not an organised political-opposition organisation, the whole culture of the Swing Kids evolved into a non-violent refusal of the civil order and culture of National Socialism. From
999-632: A counterculture, shown by their clothing and music. Their behaviour, described by many Nazis as "effete", ran counter to the spartan militarism that the regime was trying to inculcate in its youth. They organised dance festivals and contests and invited jazz bands. These events were occasions to mock the Nazis, the military and the Hitlerjugend —hence the famous " Swing Heil! ", mocking the infamous " Sieg Heil ! " Swing Kids wore long hair and hats, carried umbrellas and met in cafés and clubs. They developed
1110-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
1221-466: A massive restriction of their personal freedom. They rebelled against all this with jazz and swing, which stood for a love of life, self-determination , non-conformism, freedom, independence, liberalism, and internationalism. Reflecting their Anglophilia , the Swing Youth preferred to speak to each other in English rather than German as English was felt to be more "cool", a choice of language that vexed
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#17327765433071332-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
1443-473: A number of films. These included Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach and the 1957 version of Viktor und Viktoria . He stopped making movies around 1960 to concentrate on stage and television appearances and on producing records. In later years, Heesters spoke fondly of Hitler as a person, but condemned his political stance. In the 1990s, he and his wife toured Germany and Austria with Curth Flatow 's play Ein gesegnetes Alter ( A Blessed Age ), which
1554-611: A paper of the National Youth Leader : The members of the Swing youth oppose today's Germany and its police, the Party and its policy, the Hitlerjugend , work and military service, and are opposed, or at least indifferent, to the ongoing war. They see the mechanisms of National Socialism as a "mass obligation". The greatest adventure of all times leaves them indifferent; much to the contrary, they long for everything that
1665-610: A political statement, setting them in clear opposition to the Nazi Party. German musicologist Guido Fackler described the Swingjugend embrace of American music and the "English style" in clothing as reflecting the fact that: The Swingjugend rejected the Nazi state, above all because of its ideology and uniformity, its militarism, the ' Führer principle ' and the leveling Volksgemeinschaft (people's community). They experienced
1776-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
1887-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
1998-678: A singer at the age of 16 and began vocal training. He specialized in Viennese operetta very early in his career, and made his Viennese stage debut in 1934 in Carl Millöcker 's Der Bettelstudent ( The Beggar Student ). Aged 31, Heesters permanently moved to Germany with his wife and daughters in 1935. His signature role was Count Danilo Danilovich in Franz Lehár 's Die Lustige Witwe ( The Merry Widow ). His version of Count Danilo's entrance song, " Da geh' ich ins Maxim ",
2109-444: A stylish life in clubs, bars, cafes and house balls suppressed any positive attitude towards responding to the needs of the time. They were unimpressed by the performance of our Wehrmacht; those killed in action were sometimes held to ridicule. An attitude of hostility to the war is clearly apparent. The members dress in clothes which imitate English fashions. Thus, they often wear pleated jackets in tartan designs and carry umbrellas. As
2220-506: A teleprompter, he had to memorize his lines before a show. He played in the 2011 short film Ten as Simon Petrus and made his last stage appearance on 31 October 2011 in Munich . "My secret to a long, healthy life is love and passion; age differences do not matter." Heesters had two daughters by his first wife Louisa Ghijs , whom he married in 1930. After her death in 1985, he remarried in 1992. His second wife, Simone Rethel (born 1949),
2331-506: A very controversial figure in the late 1970s. Heesters always denied these accusations despite reliable evidence. He befriended several high-ranking Nazi -officials and SS-officers . Hitler is known to have been an avid admirer of his acting skills. At the same time, Heesters was idolized by the Swingboy subculture, who admired his pale face and combed long black hair and tried to copy his attire. His style contrasted that promoted by
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#17327765433072442-614: Is a German actress, painter, and photographer. His younger daughter Nicole Heesters is a well-known actress in the German-speaking world, as is his granddaughter Saskia Fischer . On 1 January 2008, he fell down some stairs in his holiday home in Tyrol and broke two ribs. In December 2010, 107-year-old Heesters announced that he had quit smoking for his then 61-year-old wife: "She should have me as long as possible." On 31 October 2011, Heesters gave his last public performance at
2553-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
2664-547: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
2775-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
2886-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
2997-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
3108-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
3219-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
3330-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
3441-520: Is not German, but English. From 1941, the violent repression by the Gestapo and the Hitlerjugend shaped the political spirit of the swing youth. Also, by police order, people under 18 were forbidden to go to dance bars, which encouraged the movement to seek its survival in clandestine measures. The strict regimentation of youth culture in Nazi Germany through the Hitler Youth led to
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3552-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
3663-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
3774-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
3885-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
3996-722: Is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),
4107-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
4218-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
4329-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
4440-606: The völkisch music propagated by the party for American jazz forms, especially swing . The Swing Kids of Hamburg at some point had contacts with another resistance movement, when three members of the White Rose (German: Weiße Rose ) developed a sympathy for the Swing Kids. No formal co-operation arose, though these contacts were later used by the Volksgerichtshof ("People's Court") to accuse some Swing Kids of anarchist propaganda and sabotage of
4551-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
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4662-520: The Bayrischer Hof in Munich . Four weeks later, on 29 November 2011, he developed a fever, and was rushed into the hospital. He was fitted with a heart pacemaker and following a good recovery was allowed to go home less than a week later on 4th December 2011 just in time to spend his 108th birthday the next day with family. He did not feel strong enough to make the planned stage appearance to sing in celebration of his birthday and also had missed
4773-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
4884-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
4995-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
5106-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
5217-693: The Hitler Youth (German: Hitlerjugend ). They loosely structured themselves into “clubs” with names such as the Harlem Club, the OK Gang, and the Hot Club. This underground subculture, distinctly nonconformist with a focus on African-American music , was active in the German youth scene. Despite being largely apolitical and unstructured, the Swing Youth were targeted and, in some cases, repressed by
5328-454: The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls . The leaders of these organisations realised they had to offer some attraction in the area of social dancing to recruit members. Instead of adopting the popular swing dance (because it was viewed as degenerate and tied to the "damnable jazz"), they resorted to the new German community dances. This proved to be unsuccessful, and instead of embracing
5439-578: The Hitlerjugend . Heesters met Hitler several times, especially in the role of Count Danilo. Throughout the war, Heesters continued to perform for German soldiers in camps and barracks. According to German author Volker Kühn, Heesters performed for the SS at the Dachau concentration camp. Kühn cites as evidence the testimony of a Dachau inmate, Viktor Matejka , who worked for the SS and told Kühn he pulled
5550-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
5661-549: The Nazi government . The name Swingjugend was a parody of the numerous youth groups that were organised by the Nazis, such as the Hitlerjugend . The youth also referred to themselves as Swings or Swingheinis ("Swingity"); members were called "Swing-Boy", "Swing-Girl" or "Old-Hot-Boy". During the Nazi regime, all the youth (those aged 10 to 17) in Germany who were considered to be Aryan were encouraged to join
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#17327765433075772-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
5883-462: The Reich . They began in Hamburg. These groups are motivated by the desire to have a good time and have increasingly assumed a character bordering on the criminal-antisocial. Even before the war boys and girls from Hamburg from the socially privileged classes joined groups, wearing strikingly casual clothing and became fans of English music [i.e. American music] and dance. At the turn of the year 1939/1940
5994-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
6105-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
6216-513: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
6327-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
6438-411: The "English style". One "swing boy", in a 1940 letter written in slightly broken English to a friend who was going to Hamburg, stated: "Be a proper spokesmen for Kiel, won't you? i.e, make sure you're really casual, singing or whistling English hits all the time, absolutely smashed and always surrounded by really amazing women". Hamburg, the most Anglophile of German cities, was regarded as the "capital" of
6549-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
6660-431: The Flottbeck group organized dances which were attended by 5–6000 young people and which were marked by an uninhibited indulgence in swing. After the ban on public dances they organized dances at home, which were marked above all by sexual promiscuity... The hunger for English dance music and for their own dance bands led to break-ins in shops selling musical instruments. The greed to participate in what appeared to them to be
6771-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
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#17327765433076882-437: The German court did not find whether Kühn's allegations were true, but rather that too much time had passed for an accurate determination of fact to be made. Heesters worked extensively for UFA until almost the end of the Second World War (his last wartime movie being Die Fledermaus , produced in 1945) and easily made the transition from the Nazi-controlled cultural scene to post-war Germany and Austria, appearing again in
6993-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
7104-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
7215-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
7326-401: The Hitler Youth pastimes, city girls and boys crowded the swing dance joints. This seemed to be the case particularly in the town of Hamburg, where the swing scene was huge. These teenage hoppers were known as Swing-Heinis , a name the authorities called them. The Swing Youth disparagingly (in the context of a predominantly homophobic culture) called the Hitler Youth the "Homo Youth" while
7437-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
7548-423: The League of German Maidens was called the "League of Soldiers' Mattresses", implying the group existed to have sex with German soldiers. This also would be seen as derogatory in a society praising chaste behaviour before marriage for girls, as the League of German Maidens promoted. The Swing Youth used their love of swing and jazz music to create their sub-culture with one former Swing Kid Frederich Ritzel saying in
7659-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
7770-707: The Nazis by drawing heavily on Hispanic pachucos . On 18 August 1941, in a brutal police operation, over 300 Swingjugend were arrested. The measures against them ranged from cutting their hair and sending them back to school under close monitoring, to the deportation of the leaders to concentration camps . The boys went to the Moringen concentration camp while the girls were sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp . The film Swing Kids (1993) examined this underground culture of rebellion during Nazi Germany. Directed by Thomas Carter (Holly Harold, assistant Mr. Carter) and starring Robert Sean Leonard , Christian Bale , Frank Whaley , and Kenneth Branagh (uncredited),
7881-574: The Swing Youth, and British jazz players like Jack Hylton and Nat Gonella were popular with the Swing Youth, through Willet wrote that they "... were sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate the superiority of the American artists as well as the stylish and sensuous qualities of their performances." The Swing Youth were also Americanophiles as many took monikers like Alaska Bill or Texas Jack and their clubs had such names like Harlem Club , OK Gang Club , and Cotton Club . For those designated non- Aryan , it became even more dangerous to be associated with
7992-700: The age of 102, he was featured as a soloist in a major concert tour with the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg under the direction of Scott Lawton . On 5 December 2006, Heesters celebrated his 103rd birthday with a concert at the Wiener Konzerthaus . On 5 December 2007, he celebrated his 104th birthday with a concert at the Admiralspalast , Berlin . Then in February 2008, he performed in his home country for
8103-574: The arm whatever the weather, and, as an insignia, a dress-shirt button worn in the buttonhole, with a jewelled stone. The girls favoured a long overflowing hair style. Their eyebrows were penciled, they wore lipstick and their nails were lacquered. The bearing and behaviour of the members of the clique resembled their dress. One of their German idols was Johannes Heesters , an actor specialised in operettas. The Swingboys admired his pale face and combed long black hair and tried to copy his attire. This group consisted mostly of teens and young adults from
8214-460: The armed forces. The consequent trial, death sentences and executions were averted by the ending of the war. When bigger gatherings were banned, the Swing Kids moved to more informal settings, and swing clubs and discotheques emerged in all the major cities of the Reich. Participants were mainly from the upper middle class, as swing culture required the participants to have access to the music, which
8325-489: The authorities greatly. English together with French were languages widely taught in Gymnasium (high schools intended as preparation for university) since the early 20th century in the case of the former and since the 18th century in the case of the latter, so any German teenager who attended a Gymnasium could speak at least some French and English. As the Swing Youth were Anglophiles, they often tried to speak and write in
8436-647: The band Die Goldenen Zitronen – uncover and stumble upon the history of the Swing Kids. In the DC Comics Bombshells comic series, the character of Huntress is a guitar-playing swing kid and secret resistance leader. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It
8547-400: The concert stage with a career dating back to the 1920s. He worked as an actor until his death and is one of the oldest performing entertainers in history, performing shortly before his death at the age of 108. Heesters was almost exclusively active in the German-speaking world from the mid-1930s and became a film star in Nazi Germany , which later led to controversy in his native country. He
8658-416: The curtain when Heesters performed in 1941. According to German writer Jürgen Trimborn however, the interview with Matejka may not be reliable as it occurred some 50 years after the performance was said to have taken place. In December 2009, Heesters lost his libel suit against Kühn. While acknowledging having visited the camp, he denied having performed as entertainment for the SS troops. In its ruling,
8769-482: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
8880-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
8991-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
9102-642: The emergence of several underground protest movements, through which adolescents were better able to exert their independence. There were street gangs ( Meuten ) of working class youths who borrowed elements from socialist and communist traditions to forge their own identities, and there were less politically motivated groups, such as the Edelweiss Pirates ( German : Edelweißpiraten ), who acted in defiance of Hitler Youth norms. A third group, consisting mainly of upper middle class youths, based their protest on their musical preferences, rejecting
9213-559: The first five years of the Third Reich, Nazi propaganda had been favourable to Britain as Hitler had hoped for an Anglo-German alliance, but in 1938, when it become clear that Britain was not going to ally with Germany, the propaganda of the regime turned fiercely Anglophobic; a major Britain-bashing campaign was launched in the autumn of 1938. In this light, the Anglophilia of the Swing Youth could be seen as an implicit rejection of
9324-593: The first time in four decades amidst protests against his Nazi associations. On 13 December 2008, at the age of 105, Heesters apologised for calling Adolf Hitler a "good chap" on the popular German TV show Wetten, dass..? . He stated that he had said something stupid and horrible and asked for forgiveness. German media suggested that he had failed to understand the show's satirical nature. Heesters played smaller roles in his last years, as he began to lose his eyesight due to macular degeneration and could not perform on stage for long periods of times. Unable to read
9435-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
9546-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
9657-439: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Johannes Heesters Johan Marius Nicolaas Heesters (5 December 1903 – 24 December 2011), known professionally as Johannes Heesters , was a Dutch actor of stage, television and film, as well as a vocalist of numerous recordings and performer on
9768-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
9879-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
9990-471: The picture was not a commercial success but sustains a large underground following and is described by film critic Janet Maslin as having a historical background. German filmmaker Margit Czenki's made-for-television movie Swingpfennig/Deutschmark (1994) featured the original Swingboys Günter Discher and Otto Bender. Set in the St. Pauli of the early 1990s, the protagonists of the film – musicians around
10101-435: The pressure to do "useful work" and the repressive sexual mores of the time. Reports by Hitler Youth observers of swing parties and jitterbug went into careful detail about the overtly sexual nature of both. One report describes as "moral depravity" the fact that swing youth took pleasure in their sexuality. The German historian Detlev Peukert noted how much the police reports on the Swing Youth obsessively concentrated on
10212-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
10323-420: The regime. Jazz music was offensive to Nazi ideology , because it was often performed by blacks and a number of Jewish musicians. They called it "Negro Music" (German: Negermusik ), "degenerate music"—coined in parallel to "degenerate art" (German: entartete Kunst ). Moreover, song texts defied Nazi ideology, going as far as to promote sexual permissiveness or free love . Despite this, not all jazz
10434-484: The same time, for the Zazous also enjoyed American music, liked to dress in the "English style", and had a preference for speaking English over French as the former was felt to be more "cool". In Austria, the term Schlurf was used for a similar group. A popular term that the swing subculture used to define itself was Lottern , roughly translated as something between "laziness" and "sleaziness", indicating contempt for
10545-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
10656-507: The subject of the Swing Youth's "unabashed pleasure in sexuality", though he cautioned that some of the more sensationalist claims about the sexual lives of the Swing Youth in these reports probably said more about the mindset of the people who wrote them than what the Swing Youth were actually doing. In particular, Peukert wrote that the lurid claims made by the police that Swing Youth dance sessions were followed up by group sex seems to have had no basis in reality. The Swing Kids were defining
10767-454: The swing crowd by November 1938, during and after Kristallnacht . The "Swing Youth" tended to welcome Jewish and Mischlinge ("half-breed") teenagers who wanted to join their gatherings. Affiliation with the jazz culture was damaging whenever other incriminating information could be factored into a formula for persecution. For example, many half- Jews were sought out and persecuted before others if they were known as Swing Kids. For
10878-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
10989-425: The upper-class homes of Hamburg. Their objectives were originally more self-indulgent in nature, being privileged with wealth and German heritage, they spent their money on expensive clothing and liquor. The British musicologist Ralph Willett wrote that the Swing Youth wanted to emulate "the cool, languid demeanour" of British and American film stars. When the restrictions on jazz became law, their pastime would become
11100-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
11211-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
11322-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
11433-438: Was a rejection of the Nazi regime's fashion tastes as in the Third Reich, the "natural look" with no make-up and braided hair was the preferred style for women as it was felt to be more "Germanic". A police report from 1940 described the Swing Youth as follows: The predominant form of dress consisted of long, often checked English sports jackets, shoes with thick light crepe soles, showy scarves, Anthony Eden hats , an umbrella on
11544-522: Was able to maintain his popularity in Germany in the decades until his death. Heesters was born in Amersfoort , Netherlands, the youngest of four sons. His father Jacobus Heesters (1865–1946) was a salesman and his mother Geertruida Jacoba van den Heuvel (1866–1951), a homemaker. Heesters was fluent in German from an early age, having lived for several years in the household of a German great uncle from Bavaria . Heesters decided to become an actor and
11655-620: Was also televised in 1996. On 5 December 2003, he celebrated his 100th birthday with a television special Eine Legende wird 100 ( A legend turns 100 ) on the ARD television channel. He received the title " Kammersänger ". In December 2004, at the age of 101, Heesters appeared in Stuttgart at the Komödie im Marquardt theatre in a show commissioned on the occasion of his 100th birthday, Heesters – eine musikalische Hommage . In 2005, at
11766-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
11877-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
11988-658: Was forbidden in Germany at the time. German art policy was very similar to the Soviet Union at this time, with espousal of Heroic Realism , which was very similar to Socialist realism in that it saw art as an instrument of the party. The Swing Kids were initially basically apolitical, similar to their zoot suiter counterparts in North America . A closer parallel to the Swing Youth were the Zazou movement in France at
12099-408: Was in some ways comparable to the zoot suit style popular in the United States at the time. Boys usually wore long jackets, often checkered, shoes with crepe soles (for dancing), and flashy scarves. They almost always carried an umbrella, and added a dress shirt button with a semi-precious stone. Girls generally wore their hair long and loose and added excessive makeup. Their dandyish dress style riled
12210-466: Was not played on German radio , so that extensive collections of phonograph recordings were essential. Similarly, to understand the lyrics of the predominantly American songs, it was necessary to have at least a rudimentary understanding of English , which was not taught in the Volksschule (working-class high school). Relative wealth also fostered a distinctive style among the Swing Kids, which
12321-552: Was well known. During his time in Germany, he performed for Adolf Hitler and visited the Dachau concentration camp , which made him a controversial figure for many Dutch. Joseph Goebbels placed Heesters on the Gottbegnadeten list as an artist considered crucial to Nazi culture ; he was the only non-German included. Heesters funded the German war machine by donating money to the weapons industry. This helped to make him
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