The more that the songs served as a departure from the hard reality into dreamful felicity and affected a sentimental love song idyll, the better the "true face of Nazi Germany" could be hidden behind the joyful major-key notes. In particular the Reichpropagandaminister Joseph Goebbels, as Berszinski writes, noticed early on that down-to-earth, simple songs were a useful propaganda tool. Niel, who in early May 1933 joined the NSDAP and was among others became a "leading" Kapellmeister at the Reichsarbeitdienst, created numerous marches that largely served the National Socialist propaganda campaigns. It was a great success even before the start of World War II. The song was originally published in 1938 by the publishing firm Louis Ortel in Großburgwedel. The exact year of the song's origin is not known often the date is given as "about 1930," a date that, however, has not been substantiated. The lyrics of the song were written by Niel, a German composer of marches. A version, with Afrikaans lyrics, was the anthem of the South African Air Force during the apartheid years. The Finnish Army had a Finnish translation version, Kaarina, of this song during the World War II. The song has also become traditional by the highly Prussianized Chilean Army. In itself, the song has no military themes, beyond the fact that the narrator (evidently a soldier, though this is not explicitly stated) is away from his beloved and recalls her when seeing the plant which has the same name. The theme of the song is based on "Erika" being both a common German female first name and the name of the heather plant (German: Heide, Erika Latin: Erica), of which the heather-yards are considered as a "symbol of German natural heritage". The song was composed by Herms Niel in the 1930s, and it soon came into usage by the Wehrmacht, especially the Heer and, to a lesser extent, the Kriegsmarine. Erika (or Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein) is a marching song of the German military.
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