The German Federal Republic was created on September 7th 1949 with the formation of the Bundestag under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer but it wasn't until 6 years later that this new West German state was permitted to raise its own independent Armed Forces.

The first military in-take on November 12th 1955 comprised volunteers from the Federal Border Guard, with all candidates screened to prevent former Third Reich-era Wehrmacht & Waffen-SS members re-enlisting. However at least four former musicians from Hitler’s bodyguard division, the SS-Leibstandarte 'Adolf Hitler' and a number of younger Wehrmacht musicians were known to have ‘slipped though the net’ and these experienced WW-II veterans would help continue Germany’s famous military musical traditions into the early days of the fledgling Bundeswehr in the late 1950s.

The Stabsmusikkorps der Bundeswehr (Staff Band of the Army) was created on February 16th 1957 under a training designation, or Lehrmusikkorps, at Rheinbach near Bonn, initially with 16 musicians, though on June 16th 1957 Hauptmann Friedrich Deisenroth took over musical command and a month later increased this new musical strength to 50 bandsmen. Their first duties included playing alongside the Bundeswehr’s Wachbataillon Honour Guard in the new capital city of Bonn whilst September saw its first  performance in public.

In November 1957 the Stabsmusikkorps had undertaken its maiden studio recording session and, seen for many years as West Germany’s most elite and accomplished new musikkorps, (before Germany’s Green Party and its allies would succeed in watering down all West German military music to an almost unrecogniseable and pale imitation of its former self), this stunning CD offers a producer’s introduction and 14 superb instrumental marches from that first post-war recording played in the true and very stirring pre-war Janissary style that harked back to the musical glory days of the Third Reich including:

Der Badenweiler - Parademarsch Nr.1 - Bayerischer Defiliermarsch - Marsch des Yorck’schen Korps - Der Torgauer Parademarsch - Nationalhymne - Des Grossen Kurfürsten Reitermarsch - Koburgermarsch and Zum Städtele hinaus