ABSTRACT
The consideration of the popular war poetry in the Axis countries during the Second World War presents a range of problems. Some are pragmatic: it is not always easy to lay hands on original material, and the post-war anthologies tend, unsurprisingly, to ignore them. Even if the charge of revisionism need hardly be levelled at an objective interest in the reflection of the war in the poetry and songs of Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy or Vichy France, there remains a natural reluctance to promote their ideas in any way at all. Thomas Rothschild’s excellent anthology of political lyrics in German excludes, programatically, all reactionary, militaristic, and nationalistic lyrics, for example, and thus all Nazi lyrics are excluded,2 although he does not deny their documentary interest.
