History of Europe

The German Schlager and its surprisingly exciting story

For many, the German Schlager is nothing more than a terrible form of music that "the others" always listen to. And even if it's often the case:people don't like to admit that they treat their ears to a good hit every now and then. Whether that's home alone (rather worrying) or drunk at the Oktoberfest (deeply understandable). Either way:the word Schlager means something to each of us. Everyone can imagine something under this music, but an exact definition of the hit is surprisingly difficult. Perhaps a look at the history of this genre of music can help?

The hit:operetta 2.0

For the German hit, it all began with the Austrian operetta of the second half of the 19th century. At that time, the operetta had slowly developed into something that was not so dissimilar to today's hits. Originally, the operetta was only conceived as a "small" opera. In the 19th century, however, it became a mass product for the growing middle-class public. Outside of courtly society, it served in these circles for mass entertainment. Of course, that doesn't mean it was inferior in quality. But well, this discussion could also be about today's hit...

In any case, the great pieces of operetta music of the 19th century were moving more and more in the direction of modern popular music. The songs were intended to support the plot of the operetta, which was mostly easy to digest, humorous or sentimental. The background music therefore became more and more catchy in the late 19th century. At some point, some of these numbers became hits outside of the operetta they came from, and that's how the hit was born. That's exactly where the name "Schlager" comes from. A hit was - like its English namesake hit - a particularly successful and popular piece of music. So you could perhaps call the "Csárdás" from Johann Strauss' "Fledermaus" one of the first great hits.

In the early 20th century, the center of hits - still not entirely unusual today - finally migrated from Austria to Germany. Berlin became the new epicenter of German popular music. Here we are slowly finding songs that would still easily pass as hit titles today. "Castles that lie in the moon" from Paul Lincke's operetta "Frau Luna", for example. In combination with the slowly spreading gramophone, the music continued to decouple itself from the operetta until the First World War. But the audience probably stayed the same. The people who could afford a gramophone in the 1910s were the same people who stormed the operetta halls before (and at the same time)

The way into the German mainstream

What began before the world war really picked up speed in Berlin between the wars. Now the record or shellac disc came onto the scene on a larger scale. And we're not even talking about the revolution that radio brought about. Even in lower middle-class circles, it was slowly becoming normal to consume music in everyday life. And German music in the 1920s meant primarily Schlager, however you want to define it. It was the kind of music you would have heard in an operetta ten or twenty years earlier. As far as the quality of the lyrics is concerned, we are getting a lot closer to today's hit. A few special pearls of the time are "Under the Pines of Argentina" or "Josef, oh Josef, how chaste you are". With songs like Friedrich Hollaender's "I'm set on love from head to foot" there were also songs that have remained part of German music culture to this day.

Needless to say, the fact that the National Socialists came to power in 1933 was not exactly good for this lively musical activity. The Nazis may be known for a lot, but a great sense of fun is certainly not one of them. In addition, many of the successful Schlager musicians and composers of the 1920s were Jewish and were now leaving the country in droves. Those who stayed soon found themselves banned from performing, and quite a few of them were later murdered in concentration camps. What remained of music in the "Third Reich" was mostly more or less clumsy propaganda. After the end of the World War, Schlager returned. As in the political and personal coming to terms with the Nazi era, it would also take the shock of the 1960s in music to break out of the old patterns. That would change German Schlager music forever.

How do you define Schlager?

Today it is difficult to imagine how dramatically the German music scene changed in the 1960s. A look at the hit parades of the time makes the change more than clear. Around 1960, almost all songs in the Top 40 were in German. Maybe one or the other Elvis song got lost among them, "Rock around the Clock" was also a hit in Germany. On the whole, however, the popular music of the time was German-speaking across the board. If you look at the hit parades ten years later, that has completely changed. Now maybe ten percent of the songs were in German. And one single band was to blame for this in the first place:the Beatles. When they celebrated their breakthrough in Germany in the mid-sixties, before you knew it, all the songs were in the top 10 Beatles songs! English language music had just become cool.

Music from Germany was then increasingly sung in English. An English-speaking rock scene also developed in Germany and numerous representatives of German pop began to sing in English. What remained was the German Schlager, which at that time led a rather disoriented existence. On the one hand, Schlager musicians tried to imitate new styles of music, such as Drafi Deutscher's "Marmor, Stein und Eisen hrt" took on beat music. Some of the more traditional Schlager artists such as Peter Alexander have also been able to hold on. But the heyday of German-language mass music was over once and for all. Since the seventies at the latest, the question has been raised as to what hits should actually be. A clear definition of the hit is difficult. Since the Neue Deutsche Welle, German pop music has increasingly found its way back to the German language. At the same time, so-called pop singers like Wolfgang Petry became more rock and pop.

What remains is usually just an elitist statement. Schlager is everything that is cheesy. What we would never hear ourselves. the music of others. And yet the hit in Germany fulfills an important function. He offers simple, emotionally charged music for the masses. It's music to sit back and not deal with the day-to-day difficulties of life. Music without consequence. And there is a need for this kind of music everywhere. There, the corresponding genre is not called hits, but maybe country or reggaeton...

In the podcast episode that accompanies this article this week, I talk to my good friend and schlager musician Daniel Courtney about exactly the same topic. There we philosophize for almost an hour about the hit, its definition, history and impact. Dan can also be seen in the picture accompanying this article, together with me and the other members of our hit band "Nicki und die Schneehaserl". Yes you heard right. I'm in a pop band. Here you can watch our debut hit "I want you". If you are now interested in more history (which I hope!), feel free to sign up for the Déjà-vu history newsletter. I would be happy to welcome you to the community.