"HYMN OF HATE" RECALLED

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22274, 13 December 1937, Page 3

"HYMN OF HATE" RECALLED

GERMAN [WRITER’S DEATH

WAR BITTERNESS REGRETTED IN LATER LIFE

(UNITED press association—copyright.) VIENNA, December 10. The death has occurred in exile of Ernst Lissauer, the German Jewish author of the famous Hymn of Hate, “Gott Strafe England,” for which he often expressed regret. Lissauer was born in Berlin in December, 1880, of a well-known Jewish family. After specialising in the history of literature at the university he began to write, and before the war won some small success with his poems, “Der Acker,” “Der Strom,” and “1913.” It was his “Hymn of Hate,” however, that brought‘him world-wide notoriety. It spread like wildfire all over Germany and was distributed by Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria to his army. But “Lissauerei,” as it was called, was less relished at the German front than at the base. The following excerpt from the English translation will give an idea of the tone of this remarkable outburst: Hate by water and hate by land, Hate of the heart and hate of the hand. We love as one: we hate as one, We have but one foe alone —England. Amusement in England The verses merely caused amusement in England where “a German family indulging in its morning hate” was one of the funniest of the war cartoons. By 1918 Lissauer had come to the conclusion that a reconciliation between the nations must be effected, if Western civilisation was to be saved from collapse. He explained in 1929 that his “Hymn of Hate” was written “in good faith, inspired by the declarations of English politicians and newspapers that England desired to strangle Germany. I realise today,” he added, “that it would have been better to have expressed my anxiety in a song of love to Germany than in a song of hate against England. It is painful to me that my name is now allied with ideas of death and destruction.” Called up in 1916 as a member of the Landsturm (third line of defence), Lissauer served for a time on the staff of two papers published for soldiers at the front and then in the War Office. During and after the war he published several volumes of poems and some plays of which only “Force” was much acted. He went to live at Wiesbaden where he had an opportunity of making a closer acquaintance with the hated English at the headquarters of their army of occupation.