Because the text is both offensive and frightening to many foreigners, West Germans have been asked by the Bonn government not to use the first stanza of the German national anthem. It begins with a rousing Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, and goes on to lay claim to vast tracts of land that either never were German or have been ceded to other countries after two lost wars.* Instead, Bonn has asked West Germans to sing the far less nationalistic third stanza, which calls simply for "unity, justice and freedom for the German...
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