Swiss American Historical Society Review Volume 51 Number 3 Article 3 11-2015 A New Patriotic Song for Switzerland Based on Brecht's Children's Hymn Elmar Holenstein Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review Part of the European History Commons, and the European Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Holenstein, Elmar (2015) "A New Patriotic Song for Switzerland Based on Brecht's Children's Hymn," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 51 : No. 3 , Article 3. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol51/iss3/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swiss American Historical Society Review by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact
[email protected],
[email protected]. Holenstein: A New Patriotic Song for Switzerland A New Patriotic Song for Switzerland Based on Brecht's Children's Hymn by Elmar Holenstein In 2013, the Schweizerische Gemeinnutzige Gesellschaft (SGG I Swiss Society for Public Utility) announced a competition for a new national anthem. 1 Within a year, more than 200 entries were submitted. At the end of March 2015, six to be discussed nationwide were released. Once sufficiently distributed and found to be popular, the winning version was to be recommended to the federal government as the new national anthem. In the context of patriotic sentiments that have recently reemerged, national anthems seem also to enthuse people of artistic and intellectual bent. Despite their differences, patriotic emotions, those felt toward family members and relatives, and religious feelings are comparable to erotic sentiments: they are all, though not as openly and directly, rooted in human nature.