Rammstein Donaukinder lyric with English translation
Donauquell dein Aderlass Wo Trost und Leid zerfließen Nichts Gutes liegt verborgen nass In deinen feuchten Wiesen Keiner weiss was hier geschah Die Fluten rostigrot Die Fische waren atemlos Und alle Schwämme tot An den Ufern in den Wiesen Die Tiere wurden krank Aus den Augen in den Fluss Triebabscheulicher Gestank Wo sind die Kinder Niemand weisst was hier geschehen Keiner hat etwas gesehen Wo sind die Kinder Niemand hat etwas gesehen Mütter standen bald am Strom Und weinen eine Flut Auf die Felder durch die Leiche Stieg das Leid in alle Teiche Schwarze Fahnen auf der Stadt Alle Ratten fett und satt Die Brummen giftig allerort Und die Menschen soviel fort Wo sind die Kinder Niemand weisst was hier geschehen Keiner hat etwas gesehen Wo sind die Kinder Niemand hat etwas gesehen Donauquell dein Aderlass Wo Trost und Leid zerfließen Nichts Gutes liegt verborgen nass In deinen feuchten Wiesen Wo sind die Kinder Niemand weisst was hier geschehen Keiner hat etwas gesehen Wo sind die Kinder Niemand hat etwas gesehen Lyric © Rammstein |
Donau Spring your bloodletting/bleeding Where comfort and sorrow dissolve Nothing good lies hidden, wet in your damp meadows No one knows what happened here The floods (are) rusty red The fishes were breathless And all sponges dead At the banks in the meadows The animals became sick Out of the eyes into the river (the) stench (of) vile urge Where are the children? No one knows what happened here Nobody saw anything Where are the children? No one saw anything. Soon mothers stand at the stream And cry a flood On the fields through the dead body The sorrow climbed into all ponds Black flags on the city All rats fat and satisfied The poisonous humming everywhere And the people so far away Where are the children? No one knows what happened here Nobody saw anything Where are the children? No one saw anything. Donau Spring your bloodletting/bleeding Where comfort and sorrow dissolve Nothing good lies hidden, wet in your damp meadows Where are the children? No one knows what happened here Nobody saw anything Where are the children? No one saw anything. Translation © Affenknecht.com |
Submitted by Dill
The song deals with an accident near Baia Mare, in Romania, which occurred on 30th Januar 2000.
Extremely heavy rainfall on 30 January caused a dam to breach, causing 100.000 m³ of water to flood a goldmine and carry with it app. 100 ton of heavy metals and sodium cyanide into the nearby river Donau (German name for the Danube). The poison was carried along the river, causing havoc in several countries; drinking water became poisoned, and people fled the rivers’ surroundings to escape the deadly poison, which quickly destroyed all life in and around the river itself.
Lots of children were obviously affected by this disaster, but the name ‘Donaukinder’ (‘Danube Children’) more probably refers metaphorically to the fish in the river, seen as the ‘children’ of the Danube/Donau; the fish obviously suffered most directly the full force of this disaster and the absence of fish in the river is the most obvious consequence of the disaster. Hence, the song rhetorically asks: ‘Wo sind die Kinder?’ (‘Where are the children?’). Furthermore, the German name for Baia Mare, where the breach occured, is ‘Frauenbach’, meaning ‘Woman-River’, which sustains the metaphor of comparing River/Fish to Mother/Children.
35 Responses to “Rammstein Donaukinder lyric with English translation”
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Alex
1:34 pm on October 23rd, 2009Does anyone quite understand it and can provide insight?
Thanks.
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3:04 pm on October 23rd, 2009Some correction:
line 8: Schwämme/sponges -> Schwäne/swans
line 11: Augen/eyes -> Auen/(flood-)plain
line 12: Triebabscheulicher -> Trieb abscheulicher
-> came a horrible stench
line 18: weinen/cry -> weinten/cried
line 19: Leiche/dead body -> Deiche/levee
line 23: Brummen/humming -> Brunnen/wells
-> the wells were poisened everywhere
line 24: soviel fort/so far away -> ziehen fort/moved away -
Ais
1:04 am on October 24th, 2009Does anyone know what the song is about? Sounds to me like some sort of posioning or pollution disater on the Danube (Donau = Danube in German), however I never heard of any serious enviromental disaster on the Danube. Does anyone know what event they are refering to?
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Burak Kucukcerci
1:32 pm on October 24th, 2009As far i understood , it’s about the downfall of socialsim in East and Middle Europa.
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Storm46
9:37 pm on October 24th, 2009Maybe the song is linted to this story I found…
DANUBE TRAGEDY
Children Perish in Iron
Gates
BUCHAREST Monday
A motor boat carrying 22 children
aged from seven to nine, on an ex-
cursion accompanied by the head-
master, struck an ice floe in the Iron
Gates where the Danube rages be-
tween towering cliffs.Desperate fathers and mothers
leapt into the icy water in an attempt to save their children. All theFix this text
parents were picked up by rescue
boats but the, driver of the children’s
boat alone survived. . , -
grasshopper
10:02 pm on October 24th, 2009All I can think of is a cyanide poisoning in another river in Europe, and it is the river Tisza. I know it very well, because I live next it, and I remember… It was really terrible back then… As far as I remember the toxic material came from Romania and was poured into the river just before it reached the Hungarian border. (Tisza later joins the Danube though.)
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1:14 pm on October 25th, 2009After a careful listening, I agree with Cthulhu from the second comment above; expect from the correction for “weinen –> weiten”, which does not sound correct and is grammatically wrong.
For the subject of this song, it is a little confusing: it is talking about “Die Fluten rostigrot” which sound like blood, from one hand, but also mention “Die Brunnen giftig” which support the poisoning story. Isn’t there any official comment about this issue? -
rocko
9:07 pm on October 25th, 2009hei dudes the story i think refers to a concentretion camp named “Donau” where of course, children were kiled with gases and stuf like that. anyway, it was nearby the Danube river, the perfect way to get reed of the bodys. it’s the most plausible explanation.
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9:13 pm on October 25th, 2009or is about an SS ship, as wikipedia refers : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Donau
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1:19 am on October 26th, 2009In Budapest there was a thing where people would be lined up beside the river to be executed so their bodies would fall into the river. I don’t think this is what inspired the song, the cyanide incident sounds more likely because of the way the river is described in the song. Really until there is an official comment we could keep finding possibilites ad nausium.
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9:01 pm on November 1st, 2009Hello!
I am from Romania, and as far as I know Danube has anything to do with Romanian territory anywhere near Baia Mare. This city is in north of Romania, and Danube “enters” in our territory in south east. However, I don’t know if the interpretation of the song is mistaken or just the name of the city.Anyway, beautiful song!!
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1:28 am on November 3rd, 2009That event mentioned in the describing box is exactly what I was talking about before. Baia Mare is not ‘nearby’ the Danube, actually it is pretty far from it. The toxic material was poured into a small river, which later joins river Tisza. The entire wildlife died all along the river, and the cyanide concentration was still very high where it joins the Danube, but as far as I know, the vast part of the destruction was in the Tisza.
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11:29 pm on November 3rd, 2009Thank you for the enlightenment! However, I don’t see the slightest connection between a merely dreadful accident and a Rammstein song. Why would they sing about a classical “shits happen” accident? Perhaps there is no connection, or I really have understanding issues.
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paps
1:51 am on November 5th, 2009 -
nick paterson
12:05 pm on November 9th, 2009it is about the cyanide poisening of the danube river children etc are the fish
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Lonely
10:55 am on November 11th, 2009i really dont know what the song is about but either way its a great song and very depressing at the same time. if the person who had translated it is relatively close then yes it would be a poisoning of a river. however i checked for a few days on anything like this. and there were no poisonings of the danube river. now as grasshopper has mentioned there was a poisoning of the Tisza river but by the time the tisza meets the danube the poisoning was cleared for the most part. now the person that mentioned the ss donau may be in fact onto something. but we wont know unless rammstein themselves state what the song is really about.
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11:04 am on November 11th, 2009nope after doing more research i came across this the meaning of the song did in fact happen at a goldmine in Baia Mare. it hit romania’s somes river, hungary’s tisza river, and yugoslavia’s danube river. the link i put there is the story of what happened and whatnot. the website is http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/cyan-f15.shtml
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Tigrella
12:34 pm on November 13th, 2009I really love this song and I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s comments here. Interestingly, Donauquelle is a real place. All the websites for it are in German, but it’s the place where two springs join together to become the official source of the Danube, which fits in nicely with the first verse. There are some great pictures of it on German Wikipedia site: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donauquelle
The local town of Donaueschingen has a dyeing industry, which can be associated with environmental pollution and could explain the red river, but there aren’t any specific incidents cited. (But then, of course, “none has seen anything”, so we probably won’t find out.) Pollution sometimes turns rivers red, depending on the pollutants involved, and so perhaps it’s a generic tale rather than some specific event.
First time I heard the song, it made me think of the dark and melancholy tale of the Pied Piper (Der Rattenfänger von Hameln) which contains a river, rats, and townsfolk mourning for their lost children, who have been spirited away. It’s a “vibe” thing!
Finally, can anyone tell me what the verb is that geschah and geschehen come from? I’m stumped….. -
12:16 pm on November 14th, 2009I’m romanian. In 2000,in Baia Mare had happened a very bad accident in a factory. Tons of cianyde got in Tisza. This river flows in Hungary and then in Serbia, where it flows in the Danube and Danube flows again in Romania. The pollution caused a terrible pollution which poisoned the fish and the water was no longer drinkable. That’s all i know.Sorry for my english if it was bad
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3:34 pm on November 15th, 2009Well, I believe that Donaukinder should have been in the place of Mehr and Mehr in the bonus tracks…
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Jackie
6:18 am on November 23rd, 2009I was thinking about this, and I have thought this could be a metaphor for Swine Flu. Swine Flu has affected mostly children, and perhaps the fish drowning, is a metaphor for children dying from Swine Flu. Leaving the parents of both to wonder, where their children have gone.
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9:12 am on November 23rd, 2009@ Adrian “Finally, can anyone tell me what the verb is that geschah and geschehen come from? I’m stumped…..”
“Geschehen” is itself the verb – in other words, it is the infinitive. This is unlike, for example, “gesehen”, which is the past participle of the verb “sehen”.
“Geschehen” also acts as the past participle (of itself!), and that is how it is used in the line “Niemand weiß was hier geschehen”. The fully grammatically correct sentence would be “Niemand weiß was hier geschehen ist”, but the “ist” is omitted for poetic reasons.
“Geschah” is the simple past form, so it does not use the helping verb “ist” and thus the line “Keiner weiß was hier geschah” is correct as written.
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10:27 am on November 25th, 2009i’m from romania. baia mare is in the north of the country, it has nothing to do with donau, danube. the pollution of tisa in 2000 is a real thing, it affected both romania and hungary, but it had nothing to do with “the havoc created in several countries”. and as far as i recall, it had little effect on the danube itself.
futhermore, even if it affected the danube, as it flows to the black sea, romania would have been the only country affected.
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VolKaniK
2:30 am on December 2nd, 2009This song is really touching, I think. I absolutely love it!!!
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Hyde
7:33 pm on December 20th, 2009I find interesting the Lager theory – that concentration camp was really named Donau, and it was not an ellimination lager like Treblinka or Auswitchz, only a working lager, so there was bigger number of women and children.. But I hate nexuses between Rammstein and Nazi, so I believe that the cyanide theory will have to do..
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7:07 pm on December 21st, 2009i always feel disturbed and sick when i read comments or interpretations of Rammstein lyrics, and there is always a guy that brings the Nazi shit… well i`m portuguese. i make a band, will you link it to the portuguese inquisition or slavery in africa?? c`mon, let`s make interpretations of american bands and maybe i`ll digg up some thing related to the coward Atomic bomb that killed thousands of innocent people. STOP bringing the NAZIS to Rammstein lyrics goddamm it!!! it`s all on your imagination!! it`s just crazy lyrics, it`s just (brutal) music. enjoy it!!!!
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10:04 am on December 22nd, 2009i agree with fender. ive listened to rammstein from the beginning and none of there songs has any reference to the nazi movement. in fact i read in a magazine that they were touring in mexico somewhere and someone brought the mein kampth (however the fuck its spelled) book written by hitler and they all refused to autograph it and said that was the biggest disgrace anyone could have ever done to them. and another thing any song that would even come close is Feuer Frei! and thats only because during the wars a general or commanding officer would scream it to the soldiers to fire at will. hence the songs name meaning fire free. thats one of the only songs that really even refers to war. but if u read the translation u will see that the song doesnt have anything to do with war at all just the name. so again ppl leave the nazi bullshit out of rammstein’s lyrics and translations.
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Zac
10:27 pm on December 22nd, 2009To my knowledge the only songs by Rammstein that are politically motivated are Amerika and Links 2 3 4, the latter emphasising their hatred for the facist regime
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2:34 pm on December 26th, 2009It seems to me that this song is a modern Requiem for those who passed away due to the massive poisoning of Europe during the days when these guys were kids.
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DummeDäne
1:52 pm on December 28th, 2009No, Rammstein are no Nazis. They are just artists specializing in songs about cannibalism, rape, burying children alive, crashing airplanes, killing for love, hate or fun and whatever daily activities that are happening in a suburb near you.
Thank God for their tongue in cheek-lyrics. Unfortunately not all fans around the globe share the same sense of humour. Thanks for this site to bring us back on track.
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Eldritch
9:01 pm on January 10th, 2010At first I was sure this must be about the pollution accident, but listening to it now I think that whoever brought up that it might be a metaphor for the Eastern communist governments may have been onto something.
The fish are all breathless- that is, the press is silenced. The animals become sick- as in, people starve and die of disease. “No one saw anything”… because those who did mysteriously vanished at the hands of the government.
Red has been considered the colour of communism since the revolts in Russia where Lenin took over. Official story is it’s to represent the blood the early rioters willingly bled at the hands of soldiers of the Tsar, but there is also a rumour that it became the colour of the revolution when a little girl started the trend of soldiers joining the rebellion they were sent to crush by handing a Cossack commander a red flower.
The last verse depicts the fall of communism and capitalist takeover which has been just as bad- black flags (as economic anarchy, allowing the corporations to do whatever they please) over a deserted city in which rats (businessmen) grow fat and prosperous on the suffering of others, and the poisonous humming of polluting factories.
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Meister
7:09 pm on January 12th, 2010I’m no expert but I have studied the concentration camps in history classes, and as far as I know there were never one in Donau. There was however one in Dachau (Germany)and another in Dörnhau (Germany/Poland), because the names are somewhat similar I can imagine how they could get mixed up.
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7:27 pm on January 20th, 2010I was really thrilled to read all the postings here, even more happy that it didn’t degenerate to swearings and such. Regarding rammstein and the nazi movement, i also belive that they don’t have the slightest involvement in lyrics regarding nazism, althou what is present, are the minds of people that bend the song ideas to their will. Anyway it would have been suicidal for the band to relate to the former nazi party, in a country with such a strict censorship such as Germany.
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10:06 pm on January 24th, 2010Insight? That not precisly what happened…
yes cyanide was the cause and and the Danube was decimated.
Romanians caused it and it was an “accident” but they didn’t take the blame.And it was because the didn’t cared and followed regulations. I know because saw the “aftershock”, and smelled the rotting flesh of fish. It was terrible. We thought we never see fish in the Duna( Danube ) again. -
4:46 pm on January 25th, 2010Hi guys, it`s great to read so many speculations on the Donaukinder, but to me the link posted by Lonely gives all the necessary explanations, just take your time and read it carefully.
And the issue I`d probably discuss first is… when R U going to correct this horrible translation, it`s a nuisance. I wouldn`t go so far to call it stupid, but it`s definitely a shameful one, especially after the “Call of the Cthulhu”.
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Till Lindemann
vocals
Date of birth: January 4, 1963
Place of birth: Leipzig -
Richard Kruspe
guitar
Date of birth: June 24, 1967
Place of birth: Wittenberg -
Paul Landers
guitar
Date of birth: December 9, 1964
Place of birth: Berlin -
Oliver Riedel
bass
Date of birth: April 11, 1971
Place of birth: Schwerin -
Christian Lorenz
keyboard
Date of birth: Nov 16, 1966
Place of birth: Berlin -
Christoph Schneider
drums
Date of birth: May 11, 1966
Place of birth: Berlin
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