The Berlin Teachers’ Singing Society [Berliner Lehrergesangverein] was founded in 1887 as the male voice choir of Berlin music teachers. After the choir won the “Kaiserkette” [imperial necklace], the highest prize awarded to a choir at the time, in the competition of German men’s choirs in 1903 and 1913, it became famous throughout Germany, which is reflected in numerous surviving sound recordings. This recording from 1927 features a double quartet of the Singing Society. The patriotic folk song, “Mein Schlesien, du geliebtes Land” [My Silesia, beloved land] was written and composed by Ludolf Waldmann (1840-1919) during the Wilhelmine period. When Germany had to cede most of Silesia to Poland and Czechoslovakia after the First World War according to the Treaty of Versailles, songs like this one now also took on a political dimension. For the lyrics not only evoke the unbreakable attachment to one’s homeland and the patriotism of the Germans from Silesia, but also their claim to Silesia as a German territory.