Finding Good Wehrmacht Music - Difficult but Not Impossible
Posted by juliabennet on February 26th, 2012
Good Wehrmacht music is hard to come by these days, but that does not mean that the task is an impossible one. If you know where to look for such music compositions performed by great Musikkorps, then you will surely meet with success in your search for this genre of music. The unified armed forces belonging to Nazi Germany from the year 1935 to the year 1945 were called the Wehrmacht. Wehrmacht had three branches, namely Heer or army, Kriegsmarine or navy and lastly Luftwaffe or air force. The size of Wehrmacht was about 20,700,000 in the year 1939 but in the year 1945 it trickled down to 2,200,000.
Therefore Wehrmacht music is the music which was used by such forces during the time when they were in operation. It is very easy to identify the band - just look for a Swastika because this is its main identification symbol. Back in those days, Adolf Hitler was the ceremonial chief and also the patron of the Wehrmacht. The group has engaged in two main wars, the World War II and the Spanish Civil War. Wehrmacht and German marching music were jointly used and to form the best German musical pieces to inspire soldiers, good Musikkorps were essential.
The website Tomahawk Films has a great collection of German military march music and Wehrmacht music. Among all of these, ‘The Kaiser’s Musikkorps of the Great War 1914-1918’ is a great CD that you can consider for purchase. The duration of this CD is forty three minutes and it contains sixteen German march tracks. This CD has the rarest music that has managed to pull through times like that of the First World War, the Second World War and also turmoil post wars. Other CDs’ pertaining to German band music are also available here.
The songs of ‘The Kaiser’s Musikkorps of the Great War 1914-1918’ CD was meticulously restored by the popular Simon Wood. Very few other studio engineers are as experienced as Wood. He used cutting-edge technologies like Sadie-DEW systems and Cedar Noise reduction for the purpose of restoring the music so that people can enjoy it. The CD features Wehrmacht music which was discovered back in 1997 in Quedinburg in the attic of one of the houses. The credit for discovering the songs goes to Tony Dean, a music enthusiast. This collection has the earliest-known 78rpm shellacks belonging to the German military back in those days.
When you play ‘The Kaiser’s Musikkorps of the Great War 1914-1918’ you will be able to identify and get an insight to rare Wehrmacht music. The shellacks featured in the audio files of this CD are incredibly old. The original recording of these songs were done way before 1916 with German officers playing gramophones in different trenches. So when you hear the music, you will get the feel of the ‘golden years’. At 15.95 only for people overseas and 14.95 for UK Inc p&p, this CD is quite a bargain for the invaluable legacy which it offers.
It would be wrong to say that ‘The Kaiser’s Musikkorps of the Great War’ CD is immaculate because the CD does contain some minor faults here and there since the recording was done when the bands used to play Wehrmacht music live. Since there wasn’t much advancement in technology back in those days, one can hear some disturbance noises like clicking and hissing in some sections. It is not possible to do away with these faults because that would alter the integrity of the songs and hence they have been left there. To truly enjoy this enchanting CD one must treasure the rarity and the true age of the songs which have been restored and were revived for being enjoyed.
The Third Reich laid a lot of store by music and one of the first priorities on its agenda was the establishment of Musikkorps or the German music bands. In addition to playing marching music, these bands also attained mastery in playing Wehrmacht music and created a legacy which is revered till this day.
