The song was composed in 1941, to celebrate Operation Mercury of the Battle of Crete, the first mainly airborne invasion in military history. It uses the melody of “Auf Kreta im Sturm und im Regen” (On Crete in windstorm and in rain), a popular song of the Fallschirmjäger, German paratroopers during the WWII period. There is an old French popular song whose lyrics are very close to the above translation. The music, it is very different.En Afrique, malgré le vent la pluie (In Africa, despite wind and rain) is a song of the French Foreign Legion.

When the Lord God created me, yes created. I would stay quietly at home, yes at home This song does not fall under Article 86a of the German Criminal Code , prohibiting the dissemination of signs of unconstitutional organizations, as is the case of Horst-Wessel-Lied . The Luftwaffenmusikkorps 4 der Bundeswehr Hamburg , Music of the Luftwaffe (air force of the Bundeswehr ), based in Hamburg , has even included in its repertoire 4 . It was also recorded in 2005 by the German singer Heino in his album Das Beste Zum Jubiläum 3 .

This was the case when the German heavy metal band Accept incorporated the melody in the song Fast as a Shark on his fourth album Restless and Wild , and will be the subject of a real trial of intention of a party of the French specialized music press. Heidi, heido, heida “(and not” heili, heilo, heila “) and mistakenly equated it with the very archetype of the Nazi song , when it is absolutely nothing: it is not really more militaristic than When Madelon … sung by the French troops during the First World War and of which it is in some way the equivalent.Įven today ignorance for the German culture and language of a large part of non-German speaking people continues to maintain this mystification and thus feed the controversy as soon as this song, out of the context of the Second World War, is taken again as a festive anthem . Ein Heller und ein Batzen was frequently sung by the German troops who occupied Europe during the Second World War , to the point that the populations of the occupied countries (notably in France and Poland ), designated it under the name resuming its refrain.

Soldatenlieder heili heilo