'Deutschland Ueber Alles?'

I still feel sure and even dare to bet that the inclusion of the Deutschland Ueber Alles in the recent memorial ceremonies for our dear and beloved late Mrs. Tien Soeharto -- whether right or wrong -- was due to ignorance.

Juergen Schoenherr in his letter in the May 15, 1996 edition of The Jakarta Post was right mentioning Franz Joseph Hayden as the composer of the Kaiserhymne melody in 1797. It was, however, the famous August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the composer of Das Lied der Deutschen, who in Aug. 26 1841, at Helgoland wrote the lyrics of the three strophes for Hayden's Kaiserhymne which became the Deutschland Ueber Alles and which in Aug. 11, 1922 had been declared by president Friedriech Ebert as the official German national anthem to replace the less official Die Wacht Am Rhein and the Heil Dir Siegerkranz. It was thanks to the determination of Adenauer and Heuss that the DUeA was readopted as the German Hymne in spite of violent and monstrous instigation and defamation on the part of certain worldwide anti- German mass media which unfortunately succeed in dominating global opinion.

Personally, I am not as unfamiliar with the history of the DUeA as Juergen Schoenherr thinks. I am also not unfamiliar with the long tale of misery this beautiful and national awakening song had and still endures even more than 55 years after World War II.

As a matter of fact, I learned about the DUeA in the sixth grade of -- believe it or not -- a private Dutch elementary school (HIS) back in 1935 (I was 11 years old) in Madiun. One of my schoolmates, although younger than I, was the former minister of finance Prof. DR. Ali Wardhana. The DUeA, the first strophe of which we had to know by heart, was at that time considered an ordinary popular folk song like O Du wunderschoene Deutscher Rhein, Die Lorelei, O Du lieber Augustin, Roeslein auf der Heide, Drunten im Oberland, Aenchen von Tharau, Ich hatt einen Kameraden, O Deutschland Hoch in Ehren, etc.

The truth is that the DUeA has been misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who do not know or pretend not to know that ueber alles (above all) does not mean "the ambition to rule the world" and is not to be construed like "Britain Rules the Waves." Every nation has the right to be proud of their country, their flag and their national anthem.

SOELARTO HADISOEMARTO

Jakarta