Sign over Buchenwald

[Thorlifter]

Most of us know the sign over Auschwitz but I just learned there was a sign over Buchenwald that said, "Jedem das Seine"

So I've heard different translations.....

Everyone gets what they deserve
Everyone chooses what they want
To each their own

Very different translations. Anyone know for sure what it means or meant at the time?

 

[mikewint]

In German the meaning is closer to "To Each What They are Due" and actually comes from a old German proverb which comes from a dictum in Roman law Suum Cuique and further back to the Greeks and Plato who observed that: Justice is served as long as everyone minds their own business. Or as I've always felt, Your Rights END where my Nose Begins.
Martin Luther used the dictum and so did the first King of Prussia who inscribed it on his coins. Bach even wrote a piece of music titled Nur Jedem das Seine.
There are also a number of German plays bearing that title.
The Nazis perverted the meaning and gave it a much more sinister meaning. It is interesting to note that the phrase on the Buchenwald gate is placed backwards so that it is meant to be read once you are in the gate or from the inside out.
In Germany the phrase is closely associated with the Nazis and is very seldom heard or spoken.

 

[Thorlifter]

Thanks for the info Mike. So if I understand correctly, the Nazi's perversion of the meaning is probably closer to my 1st translation above when the more accepted translation is more what you said, "To Each What They are Due".

 

[mikewint]

The phrase can have several meanings depending. If you were on a stage receiving an award and I observed "To each what he is due" it takes on a positive meaning, i.e. you worked hard and are now receiving the honors that are due to you.
However to the prisoners in Buchenwald passing by that gate the meaning is quite sinister. YOU are locked up here and you are getting what you deserve for being non-Herrenvolk. Prison and death are what you deserve
The phrase surfaces in Germany from time to time. Esso and Tchibo (coffee) used the phrase innocently in advertising taking the "To each his Own" meaning. You like premium I like regular; you like dark roast I like medium. There were immediate protests by Jewish organizations calling the advertisement: "unsurpassable tastelessness" or an example of "total ignorance of history".

 

[Capt. Vick]

Check out the big brain on Mike! Well done sir!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It actually literally translates to "To each his own", but as Mike has pointed out (probably through Wiki... ), it had various meanings especially in the way the Nazi's used it.

 

[pbehn]

It has echoes of Jesus saying "render to Caesar that which is Caesar's"

 

[mikewint]

Chris, my German, such as it is, is a lot older than yours dating to 1950 or so and my most modern German language to college and about 1961. Literal translations are tough whether from German to English or the reverse and many don't translate well. We (family) said Ich wasche meine Hände für mich and in college Ich wasche mir die Hände. Literally I wash my hands for myself but then again who else would you wash them for?
Wie geht es ihnen shortened to simply Wie geht's today. Consider the way modern German casually uses familial tense to strangers. If I used Sie to Mom or Du to an older lady I'd have lost teeth. Es tut mir lied - It does me suffering, literally.
For the phrase To each his own, I would have said jedem sein eigenes

 

[mikewint]

It has echoes of Jesus saying "render to Caesar that which is Caesar's"

Going back to my original post I eluded to the Roman Law dictum SUUM CUIQUE. To follow that thread SUUM CUIQUE, is a Latin phrase for "to each his own," In Roman times it was traditionally seen as a short definition of justice itself. The Institutes of Justinian (535 AD) define the precepts of the law as "honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere," translated as, "to live honestly, not to injure another, and to give each one that which belongs to him." The Institutes of Justinian define Justice itself as "constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuens," the "constant and perpetual desire to give to each person his due."
I also mentioned that Bach had written a Cantata (a narrative piece of music for voices with instrumental accompaniment) in which the Roman precept, suum cuique is translated as Jedem das Seine. In his Cantata Nur jedem das Seine! Johann Sebastian Bach addresses the Gospel story where Jesus is asked by the Pharisees whether a tax to Caesar is legitimate (Matthew 22:15-22). The Pharisees hoped to entrap Jesus with this question: "Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" Matt. 15:17. Jesus recognized the Pharasitic effort at entrapment, and asked to see the coin used to pay the tax. Whereupon they brought him a denarius, a Roman coin that bore the imprint of Caesar and his image
Jesus asked them whose portrait and whose inscription was on the coin, to which they replied "Caeasar's." The Jesus answer: Reddite ergo quae sun Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Using this Gospel text as the basis for his Cantata, Bach stresses both the obligation to pay tax to the legitimate authorities (Obrigkeit), and the more important obligation to render to God what is due God. The State, Bach reminds us in his cantata, has no purchase on our hearts; they belong to God alone about as anti-Nazi as you can get:

Doch bleibet das Herze dem Höchsten alleine.

But our heart continues to belong to the Almighty alone.

 

[pbehn]

Going back to my original post I eluded to the Roman Law dictum SUUM CUIQUE. To follow that thread SUUM CUIQUE, is a Latin phrase for "to each his own," In Roman times it was traditionally seen as a short definition of justice itself. The Institutes of Justinian (535 AD) define the precepts of the law as "honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere," translated as, "to live honestly, not to injure another, and to give each one that which belongs to him." The Institutes of Justinian define Justice itself as "constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuens," the "constant and perpetual desire to give to each person his due."
I also mentioned that Bach had written a Cantata (a narrative piece of music for voices with instrumental accompaniment) in which the Roman precept, suum cuique is translated as Jedem das Seine. In his Cantata Nur jedem das Seine! Johann Sebastian Bach addresses the Gospel story where Jesus is asked by the Pharisees whether a tax to Caesar is legitimate (Matthew 22:15-22). The Pharisees hoped to entrap Jesus with this question: "Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" Matt. 15:17. Jesus recognized the Pharasitic effort at entrapment, and asked to see the coin used to pay the tax. Whereupon they brought him a denarius, a Roman coin that bore the imprint of Caesar and his image
Jesus asked them whose portrait and whose inscription was on the coin, to which they replied "Caeasar's." The Jesus answer: Reddite ergo quae sun Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Using this Gospel text as the basis for his Cantata, Bach stresses both the obligation to pay tax to the legitimate authorities (Obrigkeit), and the more important obligation to render to God what is due God. The State, Bach reminds us in his cantata, has no purchase on our hearts; they belong to God alone about as anti-Nazi as you can get:

Doch bleibet das Herze dem Höchsten alleine.

But our heart continues to belong to the Almighty alone.

I was actually making a slightly different point. The most noble of ideals and language can be corrupted by the homicidal. In Bond movies and those about the mafia, the most sinister villains speak softly with a great vocabulary and wit, making their homicidal madness normal in their world. "Work brings freedom" has a different understanding when everyone knows the freedom is death.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Chris, my German, such as it is, is a lot older than yours dating to 1950 or so and my most modern German language to college and about 1961. Literal translations are tough whether from German to English or the reverse and many don't translate well. We (family) said Ich wasche meine Hände für mich and in college Ich wasche mir die Hände. Literally I wash my hands for myself but then again who else would you wash them for?
Wie geht es ihnen shortened to simply Wie geht's today. Consider the way modern German casually uses familial tense to strangers. If I used Sie to Mom or Du to an older lady I'd have lost teeth. Es tut mir lied - It does me suffering, literally.
For the phrase To each his own, I would have said jedem sein eigenes

I'm well aware. I have spoken it my whole life...

 

[mikewint]

Chris, I thought that I was speaking it too until I got to college and actually TOOK German. The hillbilly dialect German of my Gparents and Parent wan't even close. I had to unlearn more than I learned

 

[pbehn]

Chris, I thought that I was speaking it too until I got to college and actually TOOK German. The hillbilly dialect German of my Gparents and Parent wan't even close. I had to unlearn more than I learned

Germany is a new country formed thirty years after my grandmother was born, even now there are a massive range of dialects spoken, I met a guy from Bayern and didn't understand a word he spoke but no one else in the bar did either. I met many Germans who spoke two types of German, standard and local dialect.

 

[GrauGeist]

I learned German as a kid from my Great Aunt Hanke.
When I was in high school, I thought I'd take German for an easy grade - boy, was I in for a shock.

Preußisch doesn't play well with Schule Deutsch. At all.

 

[michael rauls]

Germany is a new country formed thirty years after my grandmother was born, even now there are a massive range of dialects spoken, I met a guy from Bayern and didn't understand a word he spoke but no one else in the bar did either. I met many Germans who spoke two types of German, standard and local dialect.

I just speek a little bit my grandmother taught me. I had no idea the local dialects were so varried.

 

[pbehn]

I just speek a little bit my grandmother taught me. I had no idea the local dialects were so varried.

Where Germany borders other countries there is sometimes a common dialect across the border. I have seen a German and Dutch guy speaking in a language that was neither German nor Dutch, they were born just a few miles apart but different sides of the border.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Chris, I thought that I was speaking it too until I got to college and actually TOOK German. The hillbilly dialect German of my Gparents and Parent wan't even close. I had to unlearn more than I learned

What you learned in College is not German. No one speaks that in Germany. There are hundreds if not thousands of dialects. I speak Schwabian and Hoch Deutsch (what you learned in college).

 

[mikewint]

Chris, yup, das ist richtig. What my Gparents and Parents referred to as HIGH German. At the time spoken by the upper classes and well-educated.
Die Leute meines Vaters were city people, educated and skilled tradesmen. My paternal Gfather eventually became one of the top design engineers for Uarco and held a number of patents. Paternal Gmother on the other hand was a farm girl. GGmother, total ruler of the clan, never fully accepted her. Under her breath she called her Schwein Mädchen. Maternal Gparents were late comers to America around 1890 Maternal Gfather from around the Bremen area on a horse farm and Maternal Gmother around the Munich area a family-type farm. Since I spent most of my time with Mom and her mother I picked up on their hillbilly dialect as Gmother remembered it. Even today there are phrases that they used, that I cannot find in any type of German vocabulary

 

[michael rauls]

What you learned in College is not German. No one speaks that in Germany. There are hundreds if not thousands of dialects. I speak Schwabian and Hoch Deutsch (what you learned in college).

Are many of the dialects dissimilar enough that a person from one part of the country would have trouble understanding a person from another part?

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Are many of the dialects dissimilar enough that a person from one part of the country would have trouble understanding a person from another part?

Most can be understood, but there are some. Schwabian for instance can be a bit difficult.