sheet music for men’s, women’s, andmixedchoruses.²⁸Through the inclusion of
mass choruses in theatrical performances,choral singingbecame an integral
part of variousWeimar-era experimentswith choraldrama and masscultural
forms, includingtheSprechchormovement discussed in chapter 12.²⁹Meanwhile
theDAS’s1928Bundesfest inHannover,which celebratedthe workers’choral
movement with posters,calendars, postcards,newsreels,and sound recordings,
sawthe first public eruptions of long-simmeringtensions over the proper role of
choral singingbetween political militancy and apoliticalrecreation (seefigures
4.1and 4.2).
The motto of the worker singers duringthe Weimar Republic mayhavebeen
that“workers’song meansclass struggle.”³⁰Yetinmanycases, this musical
commitment to struggle amounted to little more than hollow phrases and cli-
chés. The clubby atmosphere and quaint rituals cultivated by workers’choral so-
cieties and disparaged by manycritics as provincialLiedertafelei(singsong jo-
viality) proved increasingly unattractive to younger workersraised on new
mass cultural diversions and interested in more forceful expressions of class
pride.Accordingtoanarticle published in the KPD’sRoteFahne,the main
goal ofanew workers’choral movement spearheaded by the Communists was
thereforetooffer“proof of the culturalstrength of the workingclass”and, inre-
sponse to residual nationalist andvölkischinfluences,to liberate workers’songs
“from the spirit of the people’scommunity.”³¹Siegfried Günther,aninfluential
music critic associatedwith DAS, promotedacloser alignment of choralsinging
with agitational effortsbycalling for the developmentofamore combative,con-
frontationalTendenzlied(tendentious song).Based on the proper definitions of
tendencyand partiality that had preoccupiedsocialist critics since the prewar
years, Günther described thetendentious song as“the manifestation of the emo-
tional opposites found in the juxtaposition of matter and idea, of master and
Alfred Guttmann,Chorsammlung des Deutschen Arbeiter-Sängerbundes(Berlin:Verlagdes
DAS, 1926). Also see hisGemischte Chöreohne Begleitung(Berlin:Verlagdes DAS, 1926), with
specialvolumes for tenor, bass,soprano, and altovoice. On the history ofDAS, see Dietmar
Klenkeand FranzWalter,“Der Deutsche Arbeiter-Sängerbund bis 1933,”inIllustrierte Geschichte
der Arbeiterchöre,ed. Rainer Noltenius (Essen: Klartext,1992),54–64 and Dietmar Klenke,Na-
tionale oder proletarische Solidargemeinschaft? Geschichte der deutschen Arbeitersänger(Heidel-
berg: StiftungReichspräsident-Friedrich-Ebert Gedenkstätte,1995).
On the close connection between workers’music and theater,also see Dietmar Klenkeetal.,
ed.,Arbeitersänger undVolksbühnen in derWeimarer Republik(Bonn: Dietz, 1998).
Quoted by Rainer Stübling,Kulturund Massen in Frankfurt: Das Kulturkartell der modernen
Arbeiterbewegung in Frankfurt amMain von 1925bis 1933(Offenbach am Main: Saalbau, 1983),
28.The reference is toa1929article inVolksstimme.
Quoted inKaden,Signale desAufbruchs,14.
96 Chapter4