On August 8, the website wPolityce.pl published a text about how the opposition and its affiliated media are minimizing the problem of the divergence of Polish and German interests.
READ MORE: “Hit on Germany” or how logomachy should put us to sleep in the face of the German problem
It was then that an incident took place in Gdańsk, where I found out how trivializing the German problem works in Poland. The incident was trivial – about a German chant that guests from Middle Franconia sang at the Dominican fair, which was considered the unofficial anthem of the Wehrmacht during World War II. A guest music band in Gdansk apologized for the inappropriate “Haili, hailo”, but what happened next showed how much the Third Polish Republic cares about cushioning the German shoes.
Polsat reported in its material that this song was not written for the Wehrmacht. Maybe he will soon find out that “heiling” also has an older pedigree? If such an incident happened to the Germans, there would probably be its defenders. The media shouted that it was all “PiS” making a scandal out of nothing, and Bartosz T. Wieliński wrote that “PiS” amused him. The author of “Gazeta Wyborcza” wrote that the song itself praises “anonymous Adelka” and Poles are suddenly afraid of this song. The mainstream media unanimously laughed at it.
And then there was an anonymous but more significant manipulation of the public consciousness. In the Polish entry for this song on Wikipedia, the description of the song “Ein Heller und ein Batzen” (because that’s the original name) has been drastically changed.
Words were cut out that clearly indicated that in the Polish cultural code “Haili, hailo” is simply one of the resident’s folk songs:
What exactly was deleted?
Wehrmacht soldiers singing this song on the march were shown in the film Forbidden Songs, among others. Variations on the melody of this song can also be heard in the music for Jerzy Passendorfer’s film Zamach. It was also used in Andrzej Wajda’s television movie titled “The verdict on Franciszek Kłos”
At the same time, words were added became the message of the day in the mainstream media:
Of the misunderstood words of the chorus in Poland, it is mistakenly called Heili, Heilo, Heila (hajli, hajlo, hajla). In fact, the chorus words are Heidi, Heido, Heida, which is a diminutive of the female name Adelheid (Polish version of Adelajda).
As in Orwell’s “memory gap”, one version of events disappeared and another appeared, necessary only for the political current. Most internet users start to learn new definitions, entries and explanations from Wikipedia, some even stop. On the naTemat.pl portal the paragraph added in Wikipedia was pasted, on the tvn24.pl portal the wording was changed, but the meaning remained.
So the message went to Poland, and although the administrators cleared the password on Wikipedia and later also in the online media, the record has been changed, things have already calmed down and many media receivers have the impression that the singing of ” Haili, hailo” by the Germans in Gdańsk was something innocent, remained .
And imagine if Poles did something similar somewhere in the country?
According to the IP number of the Internet user who most interfered with the password on the Wikipedia page, the manipulator edited the text from the Tri-City. Was he an overzealous supporter of the Gdańsk City Hall? Or perhaps a specific employee of Orwell’s “ministry of truth” in a new Vistula edition?
SEE ALSO THE “FACTS OR LIES” PROGRAM WHICH TEST THE MECHANISM OF MUTING THE GERMAN SUBJECT:
Source: wPolityce