Bundeslied für den Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiterverein

Bundeslied für den Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiterverein is presented through a brief excerpt that gives its political force a compact progression: working people are urged to awaken, recognize their power, and understand that this power can stop the machinery on which ordinary production depends. The book identifies the song as a work by Georg Herwegh from 1863, connecting its lines to the General German Workers' Association and to a tradition of worker-directed political expression.

Identification and Text

The book’s note identifies the excerpt as a line from Bundeslied für den Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiterverein, dated 1863 and attributed to Georg Herwegh. The passage is supplied first in German: “Mann der Arbeit, aufgewacht!” and “Und erkenne deine Macht!” The accompanying English translation renders these as “Working Man, arise!” and “Your power realize!” The wording is direct and imperative: the addressee is not asked merely to observe injustice or admire strength, but to become conscious of a power already possessed.

The next two lines state the consequence of that awakening: “Alle Räder stehen still,” followed by “Wenn dein starker Arm es will.” In the translation, “All the wheels grind to a halt” when the worker’s “mighty arm” wills it. The image turns machinery into a measure of dependence. Wheels ordinarily signify production in motion; here their stopping makes visible the human labor that sustains that motion. The lines do not describe a particular stoppage or action in the plot. They present a general claim about workers’ capacity to interrupt the system through which their labor is organized.

From Awakening to Leverage

The excerpt’s structure is a small argument in four lines. Its first movement is inward and declarative: arise, then recognize your power. Its second movement turns that recognition outward, showing what such power could do. Awareness becomes leverage, and the abstract idea of worker strength acquires a concrete image in halted wheels. The final condition, “if your strong arm wills it,” makes the outcome depend on the worker’s choice rather than on machinery acting independently.

That sequence gives the passage both a summons and a proposition. The imperative address urges recognition; the conditional claim imagines the consequence of acting on it. The transition from the individual figure of the working man to the plural, system-wide image of all wheels broadens the scale of the statement. The quoted lines thus frame labor not only as activity within production but as a source of power over whether production continues.

Political and Narrative Significance

The book’s note places the song within the history of the General German Workers' Association by identifying its title, author, and 1863 date. The excerpt itself makes no further historical claims, and the surrounding evidence does not establish that a character sings or performs it in a particular scene. Its significance here rests on the words supplied: a concise expression of worker awakening, recognition, and collective economic leverage.

The image of halted wheels also offers a sharp contrast between a system that appears to run by its own mechanical rhythm and the human agency that can interrupt it. The lines do not elaborate how workers might organize or what follows a stoppage; instead, they concentrate their force in the relation between will and consequence. Read in that limited but pointed sense, the excerpt turns a familiar sign of industrial motion into an emblem of dependence on labor.