No, “Edelweiss” Is Not an Austrian Folk Song or a Nazi Song

There are a lot of popular misconceptions about the song “Edelweiss.” Many people think it is an age-old Austrian folk song. Many people even think that it is the national anthem of Austria. Other people have gotten the bizarre impression that it was composed as a Nazi song or even that it was the national anthem of Nazi Germany.

In reality, the song “Edelweiss” was composed by the American composing duo Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers as an original song for the 1959 musical The Sound of Music. Although Hammerstein and Rodgers were trying to imitate the overall genre of folk music, they did not base their song on any preexisting lyrics or melody.

An Austrian folk song?

In case you are unfamiliar with the song “Edelweiss,” in The Sound of Music, it is sung by the character Georg von Trapp right before he and his family are forced to flee their homeland of Austria forever in order to escape from the Nazis. Here is the version of the song from the 1965 film version of The Sound of Music:

Oscar Hammerstein II was remarkably talented at composing all-original song lyrics that sounded so much like actual folk song lyrics that people could easily mistake them for such. He also wrote the lyrics for the song “Ol’ Man River” for the 1927 musical Show Boat, which many people have mistaken for a real black spiritual.

With “Edelweiss,” though, Hammerstein really outdid himself; the song sounds so convincingly like a real folk song that even a few native Austrians mistook it as one and imagined having heard it in German long before it was actually composed.

Theodore Bikel, the actor who played Georg von Trapp in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music, recorded in his autobiography how, after a performance of the show, a native Austrian approached him and told him, “I love that ‘Edelweiss’—of course, I have known it for a long time, but only in German.”

In reality, there never was an original version of the song in German; it was originally composed in English. There may be versions of the song in German today, but these are translations of the original song lyrics in English.

The Austrian national anthem?

“Edelweiss” is not the Austrian national anthem, nor has it ever been the Austrian national anthem, nor is it likely that it will ever become the Austrian national anthem.

The national anthem of Austria from 1929 to 1938 was “Sei gesegnet ohne Ende” (“Be Blessed without End”). The national anthem of Austria when it was part of Germany under Nazi rule was composed of the first stanza of the “Deuschlandlied,” the national anthem of Germany, and the “Horst-Wessel-Lied,” the official Nazi anthem.

The current national anthem of Austria is “Land der Berge, Land am Strome” (“Land of Mountains, Land by the River”), which is also known as “Bundeshymne der Republik Österreich” (“National Hymn of the Republic of Austria”). This has been the official national anthem of Austria ever since 1946. Here is a YouTube video with a performance of the song:

“Edelweiss” is certainly nowhere close to becoming the Austrian national anthem. In fact, to this day, almost no one in Austria has even heard of The Sound of Music or the song “Edelweiss.” Of the few Austrians who have seen The Sound of Music, the vast majority of them absolutely despise it, because they regard it as perpetuating demeaning and inaccurate stereotypes about what their country is like. Most of them specifically hate the song “Edelweiss” too, regarding it as silly and overly sentimental.

For proof of this, just look at some of the responses by actual Austrians to the question “What do Austrians think about “The Sound of Music”?” on Quora. Basically, every Austrian person replying to the question says that the musical is completely unknown in Austria and that, after they found out about it, they were disgusted by it. Here are some of the highlights:

I think you get the idea. Basically, the only good thing any of them have to say about The Sound of Music is that it at least draws in tourists.

Meanwhile, here is a blog post written by an Austrian that specifically criticizes the musical for its music, which the author of the blog post says “sucks.”

A Nazi song?

Now we need to address an even stranger misconception that has arisen in recent years, which is the misconception that “Edelweiss” originated as a Nazi anthem. In reality, “Edelweiss” did not even exist at the time when the Nazis were in power in Germany, because Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers didn’t compose the song until 1959—nearly a decade and a half after the Nazis were defeated.

Furthermore, in the musical The Sound of Music, “Edelweiss” is not presented as a pro-Nazi song in any way. The line “Bless my homeland forever” in the song is referring not to Nazi Germany, but rather to independent Austria. In the musical, Georg von Trapp actually emotionally breaks down upon singing this line because he is saddened that his beloved homeland is coming under the rule of the Nazis, whom he hates.

Both Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote the lyrics for the song, and Richard Rodgers, who wrote the melody, were Jewish and fiercely opposed to Nazism in all forms. The edelweiss flower, from which the song takes its name, was actually used by a variety of anti-Nazi resistance groups. Notably, one youth resistance group that fought back against the Nazis was known as the “Edelweiss Pirates.”

The misconception that “Edelweiss” was originally a Nazi anthem seems to have been fueled by the fact that a super creepy version of the song sung by Swedish singer Jeanette Olsson was used as the theme song for the Prime Video television series The Man in the High Castle (released 2015 – 2019), which is set in an alternate universe in which the Axis Powers won World War II and the territory of the former United States has been divided between the Empire of Japan and the Greater Nazi Reich. Here is a YouTube video with The Man in the High Castle’s version of the song:

Both English and German viewers have expressed great annoyance with the fact that, in this version of the song, the double s is pronounced more like an sh. This is not the correct pronunciation in English or German, since, in both languages, the double s is pronounced exactly the same. Furthermore, there is no doubt that Jeannette Olsson, the singer who performed this version of the song, can pronounce the double s properly, since she recorded another version of the song with the correct pronunciation that was not used in the show.

The best explanation I have seen for the mispronunciation is that Olsson was told to deliberately mispronounce the words in the theme to imitate a version of the song by Japanese singer who had troubles pronouncing the double s that the makers of the show particularly liked.

The creators of the series The Man in the High Castle have not fully explained the reasons why they decided to use the song “Edelweiss” as the theme for their show, but my guess is that they expected viewers to recognize it from The Sound of Music and remember the original context in which it is sung in the musical.

In The Sound of Music, Georg von Trapp sings the song “Edelweiss” as an ode to his beloved homeland that has come under the occupation of the Nazis. I think that the showrunners of The Man in the High Castle expected viewers to remember this and realize that the line “Bless my homeland forever” in the theme song isn’t talking about the Nazi Reich, but rather about the fallen United States.

In the context of the show, “Edelweiss” is not an anthem of the Nazis, but rather an anthem of the resistance. Some viewers, though, unaware of the origin of the song, seem to have completely misinterpreted it.

I imagine that the sheer creepiness of The Man in the High Castle’s rendition of the song is a large part of why people misinterpreted it. If they had made the song simply sad rather than outright creepy, it would have probably been easier for viewers to recognize.

ABOVE: Promotional image for the Prime Video series The Man in the High Castle, which used a version of the song “Edelweiss” as its theme song

About the White House thing

On 18 April 2019, “Edelweiss” was played at the White House while the White House press corps entered. Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for The New York Times left a reply to a tweet by Nikki Schwab asking “Does… anyone at that White House understand the significance of that song?”

Rachel Sklar, a lawyer and contributor for CNN, left a reply to Haberman’s tweet saying, “I don’t believe anyone plays ‘Edelweiss’ by accident.”

Haberman and others received massive blowback from right-wing media outlets for allegedly thinking that “Edelweiss” was a Nazi anthem. On 19 April, The Federalist, a conservative online magazine, published an article with the title “Haggie Haberman Thinks It’s Weird for the White House to Play ‘Edelweiss.’” On 22 April, the conservative media site RealClearPolitics published an article titled “’Edelweise’ and the Media,” which described Haberman’s tweet like this:

“New York Times reporter and longtime Trump critic Maggie Haberman responded on Twitter: ‘Does anyone…at the White House understand the significance of that song?’ In an astounding lack of cultural awareness, Haberman apparently presumes that ‘Edelweiss’ conveys some nefarious message, perhaps because of its recent use as the introductory theme song for the Amazon TV series ‘The Man in the High Castle,’ which fictionalizes a post-WWII America occupied by victorious Nazi and Japanese fascists.”

The thing is, though, as far as I can tell, Haberman never actually said anything about “Edelweiss” being a Nazi song. She didn’t even say there was something wrong with the song itself; she just questioned whether the White House understood the song’s “significance.”

Someone else replying to the same tweet as Haberman left this comment, which is in line with what Haberman and Sklar wrote, but also shows a clear awareness of the song’s origin in The Sound of Music:

I think it is entirely possible that Haberman may have been thinking something similar when she asked whether anyone at the White House understood the “significance” of the song. She may very well have been thinking about how, in The Sound of Music, “Edelweiss” is sung in the midst of the Anschluss, right before the von Trapps are forced to flee for their lives. In other words, at least as far as I can tell, right-wing media outlets seem to have jumped to an unwarranted conclusion regarding Haberman’s meaning.

Sklar’s tweet in reply to Haberman, on the other hand, is a bit harder to explain. Haberman’s tweet only questions the White House’s understanding of the song; whereas Sklar’s wording implies that there is something inherently wrong with the song “Edelweiss” itself. I could definitely believe that Sklar thought that “Edelweiss” was a Nazi song, even though she does not actually say anything about Nazis in her tweet.

(By the way, while we are debunking misconceptions about popular songs, I should probably note that, contrary to popular belief, the song “Ring around the Rosie” is definitely not about the Black Death.)