Tonight on TV: Behind this masterpiece that runs on Art, hides the true story of the world’s famous song

1938. Willie, a young German singer, loves Robert, a Jewish musician whose father heads the Refugee Cland Organization. Soon the war separates them. Under the protection of the Third Reich Culture Commissioner, Willie becomes a figure of the regime propaganda, and her song “Lily Marlein” is on everyone’s lips. But he didn’t forget Robert. In search of her, she joins the resistance …

The latest collaboration with the Grand Rainer Werner Fassbinder with his muse Hannah Shelula is inspired by the history of the first performer of the famous song Lale Andersen, who in his time became the standard of Nazi propaganda. But not only: his success significantly exceeded the Frame of the Third Reich, even the benefits of the allies and the whole world. Song with a singular and sad fate.

A Love Song of a Verse

Lily Marlein Is a German love song whose words are inspired by a poem written in April 1915 by German novelist and poet Hans Leep and published in 1937 in a collection of poems Die Kleine Hafenorgel.

He wrote the day before leaving the Russian front, the author tells his concern. For Hindicin, he finished his compulsory chorea, taking a hundred steps in front of the barracks, instead of getting a girl who is in love.

Discovered by German singer Lale Andersen, the poem by Norbert Shulz is at the request of her music. He recorded the song in August 1939, the day before the War Declaration. And it’s a bitter failure: they sell only 700 copies.

Here is the original version of the song, in 1939 …

Unexpected success

Entering the German War and invasion of the USSR in 1941 suddenly changed the status of the song: from a love song, it becomes a ship’s song.

Its success began on August 18, 1941, after the English bombers destroyed the record warehouse of Lieutenant Heinz-Carl Reitgen, the director of Belgrade’s German military radio, which was heard before the North Africa and the Norwegian fronts.

Wehrmacht soldiers, far from their homes and their friends, send loyalities to the popular program. The song is an indication that ends at the end of the program every evening until 10am. In turn, it is becoming very popular.

The Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich, Joseph Goobels, does not like the song. Very nostalgic, it would give cockroaches to soldiers who will have pain in the country and seriously reduce their fanaticism to fight all theaters of operations.

But the song also has the favor of strong figures in the party, starting with Marshal Ervin Rome, nicknamed “Desert Fox” as he took the head of the African Corps on the Tripolit Front (current Libya). Radio Berlin does this programming daily, 35 times a day. Even the second wife of Herman Goring, a former opera singer protects the song.

Allliés troops are not susceptible to sweet melancholy and Lailer’s Andersen’s sound seal. In A program dedicated to this famous songWriter Jean-Pierre Guano said that in 1942, on the Tripolit Front, a dedicated program would result in instant termination daily, and a kind of fraternity between English troops and German troops in Tobrok, when the song was broadcasting in the speakers at 10am every evening.

For the offspring of planetary mile

The success of the song is like a powder trail. Thus, it was adapted to France in 1942, in occupied France, singer Solidor, who vocalized in Cabaret, The life of ParisVery often German officers were made. In 1942 Lily Marlein Translated and adapted to 43 languages.

Although the British Army created and recorded the local version in May 1943, the song of the US, which is explained by the female trio Andrews sistersHe won a huge success. But this is Marlene Dietrich, who will reach the song even more offspring.

Anti-Nazis failed, now an American citizen (since June 1939), the actor and singer have appropriated a song. In the sense that for many soldiers, Marlen has completed identification Lily Marlein Song.

He will sing it for GI for all the operations theaters: Algeria, on the Italian Front, and even during the Arden Battle, the final attempt of the third Reich to overthrow the Western Front. He will sing about sixty times during the war.

Marlene Dietrich will also continue singing years later, in the world’s music tours that she will conduct since the 1950s. In the deep melancholy nymph, he first heard the fatigue and frustration of the soldier.

The version is given here Lily MarleinSang in German by Marlene Dietrich:

Here, Marlene Dietrich’s English language was singing the version as well as moving:

The song adapts to the other end of the earth, even in China. Lily Marlein East “The message of a sad and nostalgic love, which recalls the tragic reality of human loneliness. A poem that speaks of childhood adults, with their mothers separated from their mothers, frustrated husbands of their spouses, their daughters’ personal fathers, loved ones who make their mistakes. Write Jean-Pierre Guéno Lily Marlein, the true story of the most beautiful love song of all time” Published by Librio in 2012.

“A song that gives an incredible presence of men or women to these silhouettes may be once in a lifetime. A subversive song, we also understand why it was banned in many totalitarian regimes.