This was a favorite of Sophie Scholl, a philosophy student at the University of Munich during the Nazi occupation. She, her brother, and her friend Christoph were beheaded for disseminating anti-Nazi literature. I have always viewed this tune as being anti-fascist and anti-Marxist with its glorification of intellectual freedom. Leftists in America are on an unyielding mission to control our thoughts and our values. Here, however, we are reminded how cherished and unassailable they really are. Few people rightly understand that fascists are leftists as much as communists are. For example, Nobel Laureate Friedrich Von Hayek grouped them together as “collectivists” with fascists being on the right of the collectivists and communists being on the left of the collectivists. Von Hayek, writing in The Road to Serfdom, also pointed out that the roots of anti-Semitism are a hatred for capitalism. 

Thoughts Are Free

Die Gedanken sind frei
My thoughts freely flower,
Die Gedanken sind frei
My thoughts give me power.
No scholar can map them,
No hunter can trap them,
No man can deny:
Die Gedanken sind frei!

I think as I please
And this gives me pleasure,
My conscience decrees,
This right I must treasure;
My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator,
No man can deny–
Die Gedanken sind frei!

And if tyrants take me
And throw me in prison
My thoughts will burst free,
Like blossoms in season.
Foundations will crumble,
The structure will tumble,
And free men will cry:
Die Gedanken sind frei!

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