From Here To Venezuela

there's nothing more to see than a hundred thousand islands flung like jewels upon the sea for you and me.

Booked the last flight and hotel today. 't will be off to Tierra del Fuego today for Toni and in three weeks time for me. Across the sea and way down south. Wanderlust has got me again, after many years. Up and away to Cape Horn. Trust in the wind and aerodynamics.

Ein Wind weht von Süd und zieht mich hinaus auf See. Mein Kind, sei nicht traurig, tut auch der Abschied weh! ...

Wie blau ist das Meer, wie groß kann der Himmel sein? Ich schau, hoch vom Mastkorb, weit in die Welt hinein. Nach vorn geht mein Blick, zurück darf kein Seemann schaun. Kap Horn liegt auf Lee, jetzt heißt es auf Gott vertraun.

Seemann gib Acht, denn strahlt auch als Gruß des Friedens, hell durch die Nacht das leuchtende Kreuz des Südens, doch schroff ist das Riff, und schnell geht ein Schiff zugrunde, früh oder spät schlägt jedem von uns die Stunde.

La palome ohee, einmal muss es vorbei sein. Nur Erinn'rung an Stunden der Liebe bleibt noch an Land zurück. Seemann's Braut ist die See, und nur ihr kann ich treu sein, wenn der Sturmwind sein Lied singt, winkt mir der großen Freiheit Glück.

Now we know we should not post that last one because it is from a 1943 movie. Too bad. Still, the song is from the 1^st half of the 19^th century, written by Spaniard Sebastián Yradier. This song about a dove went to around the world and especially to middle America.

It is "forbidden" to sing on Austrian sailing boats because it was the favorite song of not by god's but by emperor Napoleon III's grace and by Benito Juarez' grace executed emperor Maximilian of Mexico, erstwhile commander of the kk. yachting club. It has been translated not only to German, French and English but also for example to Basque, Afghan and Swahili. It spawned recorded versions in numbers surpassed by maybe only Paul McCartney's Yesterday.

Even the Nazis did not forbid but tried to incorporate it. In 1943 they commanded to put it at the heart of a movie on the German commercial navy. Hans Albers was booked an unhappy singing former sailor. Director Helmut Käutner produces a film, that did not really fulfill the propaganda ministry and Göbbels' purpose.

Die Große Freiheit No. 7 so abunds with symbols of peace and freedom that the movie was allowed to premiere in Prague on December 15, 1944, but then was banned in the German Reich until the end of the war. The new lyrics that Käutner had written after 1945 became even more popular than the standard German text by one Heinrich Rupp from 1880 who was also the first to bring sailors and sailing into the song.

Albers, not a special friend of the Nazis as it turned out nevertheless had his work sweetened by 460,000 RM of dirty Nazi money. Disgusting.