Ernst Busch - Six Songs For Democracy - Discos De Las Brigadas Internacionales (New York, Keynote Recordings, 1940)

Today is the 123. birthday of Ernst Busch. 

The legendary album "Six Songs For Democracy" was originally issued by Keynote in 1940. It was a reissue of six songs recorded by Ernst Busch in 1937/38 in Barcelona during the spanish civil war. In 1937 Ernst Busch joined the International Brigades to fight against Fascism in Spain. His wartime songs were then recorded and broadcasted by Radio Barcelona and Radio Madrid.

These 6 songs by prominent German singer and stage actor Ernst Busch, a political refugee from Nazi Germany, who fought with the antifascist International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War were recorded with a chorus of soldiers, purportedly in the men's barracks, with noises of wartime activity in the background. As translated from their Spanish titles, the songs included are "The Four Generals," "Song of the United Front," "Song of the International Brigader," "The Thaelmann Column," "Hans Beimler," and a song from the Nazi concentration camps, "Song of the Peat Bog Soldiers."

The photograph below shows Ernst Busch with comrades from the XI Brigade of anti-fascist forces in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. (As printed in "Ernst Busch: Canciones de las Brigadas Internationales", VEB Deutsche Schallplatten, Berlin: Aurora-Schallplatten, 1963). Note: Busch is the only man in the photo not in uniform.

Ernst Busch - Six Songs For Democracy

(192 kbps, front cover included)