Artist: Heinrich Heine
Author: Heinrich Heine
Year: 1844
Poem about that year's big revolt among weavers from Silesia for better wages (published in 1847). Bosses declined, hell broke loose, whereupon the Prusian army was engaged. Eleven strikers were killed, women and children among them. The next day cavalry forces arrested over a hundred die-hard strikers, handed them over to the Breslauer Oberlandesgericht and were convicted and sentenced for over 300 years in jail. Along with Heine's poem, the action of the Schlesischen Weber inspired Marx & Engels to proclaim the Communist Manifest in 1848.
Covers:
Stefan Wolpe [with own music as part of his Acht Lieder auf Text von Heine und Anderen; notorious anti-fascist during the Weimar Republic; exiled to the US for being Jewish]
Boudewijn de Groot [as De Wevers Van Sileziƫ for the album 't Oproep Kraait; music: De Groot, translation: Jaap van de Merwe]
Katja Ebstein [born in Silesia as Karin Witkiewiczia on album Katja Ebstein singt Heinrich Heine]
None of the covers follow the same melody. The lyrics make the link. See also: Les Canuts.
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)