ABSTRACT
Music associated with the term Volksmusik is viewed problematically in Germany today, and is marginalized largely because of its propagandistic uses during the Nazi era (1933-1945). I had always taken this marginal status for granted; neither I nor my friends had ever identified strongly with the various folk songs we had sung in kindergarten and school. Even though I was born and raised in Schleswig-Holstein, I had never felt deeply connected to its vernacular traditions because my parents were not native to this region.1 With neither a strong personal connection to my region’s music nor to the kitschy, Bavarian-Alpine images with which the highly popular volkstümliche Musik (“folkstyle music”) is inseparably intertwined, a study of German traditional music seemed, for me, highly unlikely.
