Abstract
Both during or after the «Great War», song belongs to the popular artistic languages that this major conflict generated. In fact, World War I is still a source of inspiration for some French and German singers today. The article examines how this relation has changed after the war itself when patriotic songs competed with a few pacifist songs. It shows how some songs were “reactivated” during other periods of conflict, and finally how, through such songs, a desire for witness, denunciation, and reconciliation gradually took hold, but in different ways on both sides of the Rhine.