Communal singing by inmates was an everyday act of self-assertion and an identity and community-building strategy. Several hundred songs are now believed to have been composed in the camps. These so-called "concentration camp songs" deal specifically with everyday life in the camp and the hopes and fears of the prisoners. The Moorsoldatenlied, which is an example of the protest and the unconditional determination of the intellectual and cultural resistance, belongs to this genre of songs. It was written in the Börgermoor concentration camp in Emsland in 1933 by the inmates Johann Esser and Wolfgang Langhoff; it was set to music by Rudi Goguel. It describes the area around the camp from the point of view of the prisoners, the strenuous forced labour in the moor, as well as the yearning for family and freedom.

The graphic artist Hanns Kralik designed the best-known song sheet shown here. It was smuggled out by a fellow prisoner on his release from the camp. This song sheet is just one of probably hundreds of copies (according to Langhoff) which were taken from the camp e.g. hidden in shoes, sewn into clothing or removed by prisoners' wives. In Germany, distribution of the song was forbidden in any form. Abroad, however, it could be published freely by exiles. 

Further reading:
Dokumentations- und Informationszentrum Emslandlager (Hg.), Das Lied der Moorsoldaten: Bearbeitungen – Nutzungen – Nachwirkungen, Audiobook, Papenburg 2008.
Dr. Albrecht Dümling (Hg.), Entartete Musik, Eine Tondokumentation zur Düsseldorfer Ausstellung „Entartete Musik“ von 1938, Berlin 2002.