Customer Comments & Music Reviews:
CD220 Panzer Marches
The new panzer cd you sent me is fabulus. I enjoy listening to it quite often. Excellent recording, great production!!!! - Steve
Viewers of a Hollywood film from the 1960s, Battle of the Bulge, are familiar with the Panzer Song sung by German tank crews before their attack on the Americans, during late 1944. In PZGs Panzer Marches, listeners will be able to hear this popular tune as it was originally performed and recorded more than sixty years ago by the men who actually drove the usually outnumbered but never out-classed Panthers and Tigers against Allied Shermans, Matildas and T-34s.
Other tank music featured on this BRASSY CD include Heil, Motorenstandarte (Hail, Standard of the Motorized Divisions), Mit vereinigten Kraeften (With United Forces), and Landser und Panzer. Included are two versions of Marsch der Panzergrenadier, but both are so different from each other, they each make unique contributions to the collection. The same applies to the Adolf Huenlein Marsch, performed with and without chorus. Huenlein was the founder and leader of the National Socialist motorcyclists --- Stormtroopers on wheels, who provided escort for Hitler and his colleagues as they drove across Germany from one mass-rally to another. Known as the Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahr Korps (National Socialist Motorcycle Corps), we hear the NSKK Marsch, with one of the Partys most catchy melodies.
Lovers of traditional military music will search in vain for better performances of the classic Steinmetzmarsch, the Fehrberliner Rittermarsch, or Fredericus Rex Grenadiermarsch. These orchestral pieces, composed long before the Third Reich, were not banned by the postwar occupation authorities, unlike the fate of other PZG 200s selections, all of which are still outlawed in todays German democracy.
Some of the music on Panzer Marches may be identified with specific campaigns. For example, Ade, Polenland is one of the few songs to come out of the brief fighting in Poland, during 1939. Set, appropriately but unconventionally to a polka beat, one wonders if it was revived for the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, some years later.
Panzer rollen in Afrika vor (Panzers roll ahead in Africa), and Heia, Safari! are obvious veterans of the Afrika Korps. In the former, the chorus sings, in part, Go forward trough the wicked sand, and the hot, burning sun. Hi, ya, Safari! Whenever the British lion roars, well shut his big mouth! Lyrics for Panzer rollen in Afrika vor begin, From all over Germany, the Fuehrer's soldiers in their black uniforms came to defeat France. Now, the Panzers are rolling through Africa. The treads clank, the motors roar. The sun shines hot over the German Afrika Korps, but our Panzer engines sing their song, as we drive through the sands against the English. The Brits are afraid of the Fuehrers soldiers, but we fear neither death nor the devil. Miserable English arrogance is collapsing. A contemporary song about the Desert Fox, Unser Rommel (Our Rommel), runs, We are the German Afrika Korps, the Fuehrers stalwart troops. We fight like devils, taking the Tommies by surprise, and march to the beat of our drum. Forward with our Rommel!
As far as this reviewer knows, Panzer Marches is the only collection to include Lied der Panzergruppe Kleist, named after Ewald von Kleist, who was promoted to Fieldmarshal for his successful campaigning on the Eastern Front, in the Caucasus. Although retired from the Army a year before wars end, the 65 year-old man was arrested by the Americans in 1945 and turned over to the Soviets, in whose tender mercies he died nine years later.
Lyrics for his Panzer song read, In the West, we showed the enemy that we were the greater power. Whether in the mountains or on the plains, no obstacle hinders us. We roll
on, and if we have to make sacrifices for victory, for our country, why then, roll on! We are the Panzer Group Kleist. - Marc Roland
Good evening Micheal.
Ran marathon yesterday, was out of steam after seven miles. So I listened to my walkman and heard a collection of songs I bought from you. I lugged around my cassette player. I even had a couple songs from the Victory of Faith VHS that you got to me in time before the marathon.
I got second and third winds. At mile 21, my feet and legs went to pieces. So I played Panzer Marches which I bought from you years ago. It gave me energy. So I finished the marathon successfully and received my metal. This would not have been possible without your music.
Interestingly enough, I read reviews on Google before they hassled you about how walkers and joggers say this music gives them energy and strength. It worked for me. Thanks again for the VHS. I really appreciate it. John.
CD 200 Panzer Marches is GREAT!!!!!!!!!! For a student of history as I am it has a big value. Thanks - Peter
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