Hans Baumann (22 April 1914 – 7 November 1988) was a German poet, songwriter, literary translator and author of children's books.
Some of his songs, such as his famous 1932 Es zittern die morschen Knochen ("The frail bones tremble", especially known for the line changed, "Denn heute da hört uns Deutschland/Und morgen die ganze Welt", in English "For today Germany hears us/But tomorrow the whole world shall", where da hört was frequently replaced by gehört, "belongs to") which became the official marching song of the Reichsarbeitsdienst in 1935, were enormously popular within the National Socialist movement, and are naturally no longer accepted today.
[3] The song collections Unser Trommelbube, Wir zünden das Feuer, Der helle Tag and others date from that period.
They have been compared to the novels of Rosemary Sutcliff, his earlier books described as major works: "long complicated stories, full of difficult concepts and problems of psychology".
[9] His attempted strides into other literature genres were less successful as he was viewed with suspicion by the post-war German literary and political circles because of his past NS involvement.
In 1962 he was at a center of a literary controversy when forced to return the prestigious Gerhard-Hauptmann Prize received in 1959 for his drama Im Zeichen der Fische (written under a pseudonym), after his real identity was revealed.