We all know of the stirring German military music and marching songs that became one of the many enduring memories of World War Two, but who exactly were the musical soldiers behind this evocative music and from where did these famous Korps and unit songs originate?
A question posed by UK-based writer and broadcaster Brian Matthews, who through his own company Tomahawk Films, has produced and re-released over 15 albums containing some of the very best of this music. Now, after nearly 6 years of in-depth research, he has produced an amazingly detailed reference book documenting the full illustrious history of German military music from its creation in Turkey in the Middle Ages up to the modern Musikkorps of the Bundeswehr in the year 2002. In an exciting, photo-led, 100,000-word book focusing on the years of the Third Reich, Brian has painstakingly researched this overlooked area of German military history, resulting in a 20-chapter work that will appeal both to the military music/brass band enthusiast and Third Reich collector/historian…
Early chapters details the specialist training of all military musicians in the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, examines the military lives of these musical soldiers, documents their musical instruments and illustrates their uniforms and personal effects. Other in-depth chapters feature the life of a famous SS-Musikmeister, chronicles the famous military music composers, traces the Lili Marleen story and looks at life on the German 'Home Front', with its fledgling network radio, (including the world-famous Wunschkonzert fur die Wehrmacht series), and recording industry, before reaching the dying days of the Reich and the fate of many of these superb military musicians. The work comes up to date with the Old Comrades story and the post-war musical activities of East Germany's National Volksarmee and the modern military bands and musicians of a reunified Germany' in the new millennium and rounds off with a final chapter containing the complete German lyrics to 70 of the Third Reich's most famous military marching songs and treasured sentimental tunes from the war-time Home Front.
In this exciting, hard cover, large format, full colour book focusing heavily on the years of the Third Reich, Brian has painstakingly researched this hitherto overlooked area of German military history and documented the illustrious history of the most famous soldier-songs and their lyrics together with the development of German military music.
Totally unique, and including many previously unseen and rare archival photos, The Military Music and Bandsmen of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich is a lavishly illustrated, full-colour, over 1,000 black and white and colour photographs, 320-page, perfect-bound coffee-table reference book, published to compliment Tomahawk Films' catalogue of world-famous Third Reich Military Music CDs and fill the void on this short-lived but highly influential area of military musical history.
ISBN 0-9542812-0-9