Albo in Berlin
We might be surprised that when Albanese was shown on television being greeted in Berlin by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, while we saw the Bundeswehr guard, we didn’t hear the band strike up Advance Australia Fair.
There is an explanation – a mistake by the Militärmusikdienst, the military band. They had the wrong score, believing that Waltzing Matilda was the Australian National Anthem. Fortunately the mistake was spotted, but we can hear a rehearsal played before one of the musicians realized something was wrong.
Seriously, however, Waltzing Matlilda is probably an Australianization of the German tradition of Auf Der Walz, roughly meaning “on the road”, and “Matilda” derives from an old German name (Mathildis). Banjo Paterson would have had a great deal of contact with German immigrants and perhaps even some Wandergesellen in the Australian colonies.
