Hmmmm ............
Putin's bungled gambit in Ukraine has resulted in a number of strategic failures including destruction of the Russian modernized ground forces, significant losses among all classes of aircraft including C3 assets, degradation of the Russian fleet, massive casualty lists, long term damage to the Russian economy, and opening the door for Swedish and Finish membership in NATO. A less obvious, but perhaps even more dangerous obstacle to future Russian ambitions is the reawakening of NATO and particularly German military power.
This is a clip of the recent change of command ceremony for the 1st Armored Division. The band plays the "Panzer Lied" (the Tank Song). Other than in a couple of guesthouses following drive hunts back in the seventies when men in their fifties and sixties would sometimes sing it to a liter or two of beer, it is a march that I have only heard on recordings because it was the anthem of the Wehrmacht panzer formations of WWII. I hasten to add, this was not, like the "Horst Wessel," a Nazi song per se, but was one of the era's songs that was not performed by the military for many years.
The anthem was written by Oberleutnant (First Lieutenant) Kurt Wiehle in 1933.
The original Lyrics in English. The modern German tank forces apparently are not allowed to perform the second and third verses.
In rain storm or snow or in sun's laughing light,
In day's scorching heat or in bitter cold night,
Our faces covered with the dust
But hearts with joy are filled (Yes, joy are filled),
Our panzers like whirlwinds advance in the field.
With thundering engine and lightening fast speed
We charge toward the front on our steel sided steed,
And leading on our comrades
In the fight alone we stand,
We break through the ranks of the foe's hostile band.
When foes may appear with their tanks in our sight,
We step on the throttle and race toward the fight.
What value then has life for us?
We serve the Reich's army,
Our life's highest honor we give Germany.
With trenches and mines the foe seeks to impede,
We laugh in derision and pay him no heed,
And when he trains his guns on us
Emplaced in yellow sand
We find other ways that the foe had not planned.
And when fickle luck will desert us at last
Then comforts of home are but memories past,
And when the fatal bullet strikes us
Then no one can save
Our panzer will be our glorious grave.
It will be an interesting result of the war if one of Putin's lasting accomplishment is to have single handedly resurrected German military power.
