Just a Pretty Voice on the Radio?

To hear Lale Anderson, Zarah Leander (discussed below) and a number of versions of Lili Marleen...go to: http://www.germaniaclub.homestead.com/

The following items were taken from my Ontario DX Association column (originally "Listening In", now "Programming Matters") between 1999 and 2001. It took me a while to find these files. Some things might be a bit out of date, like a reference to Napster :-P

Occasionally, a cultural phenomenon comes along that is both unexpected and virtually unexplainable. Sometimes it is a result of an extraordinary talent (The Beatles 1964) or unusual circumstances. Let us go back to Christmas 1943 in Italy as the Canadian Army fights its way towards Ortona...

"One of the nightly events at Campobasso which has fascinated us all is the languorous sexy singing of Lilli Marleen preceding the German news in English...It is a must for everyone who can get near the signals truck or a radio...Our German interrogators sing it in German. Most of us have one or another of the many English translations, some with the beauty of poetry, others perversely obscene. All finding consolation in an extraordinary enemy love song, which has become the favourite of two opposing armies." (Maj. Charles Comfort quoted in the documentary No Price Too High about Canadian participation in World War II.)

In 1941, German troops attacked Yugoslavia (delaying the invasion of Russia by six weeks...a fatal error for Hitler as it turned out) and took over the Belgrade radio station, which became Soldatensender Belgrad (Soldiers Station Belgrade). They only had a handful of records to play, which they found in an old box. One turned out to be a song recorded by Lale Andersen based on a poem written by Hans Liep in 1915 and set to a tune by Norbert Schultz written in twenty minutes in 1938. Known as the "Sentry Song" or Song of the Sentry", it was played nightly and became incredibly popular with not only German troops in the Balkans but with Rommel's Afrika Korps and the British Eighth Army.

A 1941 article in Signal, the glossy Nazi picture magazine, published in English and several other languages and designed to be read abroad (but in actuality, only distributed in the Channel Islands) the song was described thus:

"About four years ago in a Berlin cafe a certain song was sung for the first time. The audience liked it but it did not make a very lasting impression. Lale Andersen, the cabaret singer, however, recorded it for the gramophone. In spite of all, it was just another song among millions. It was called `Lili Marleen`.

"The words were taken from the volume of poetry 'The Little Harbor Organ' by the Hamburg poet Hans Leip, the music is by Norbert Schultze.

"Three years later in summer 1941 the German soldiers radio station Belgrade was put on the air. Everything happened rather suddenly: among the hastily assembled equipment was a case of more or less (chiefly less) up-to-date recordings including "Lili Marleen". The song was broadcast. After a few days dozens of letters came from the soldiers asking for the "song with something about a lamp-post in it". Then came a regular deluge of field-post letters from France, Norway, Crete and the Ukraine, "Broadcast Lili Marleen" Now for many months, at 10 p.m. every evening, the Belgrade station has beenbroadcasting to all fronts the "Sentry Serenade", to quote two of the many names by which the song is known, and hundreds of thousands of German soldiers are never tired of hearing it. All over Europe people are whistling it and humming it and Lale Andersen has to sing it at least twice wherever she appears...

"What is the secret of its success? Lale Andersen's voice? But she has sung many other songs. The song itself?? It has been known for years before it became famous." (Signal: Hitler's Wartime Picture Magazine, Edited by S. L. Mayer, Prentice Hall 1978)

There is a movie by Werner Fassbinder and starring Hanna Schygula in the title role called “Lilli Marleen” which occasionally shows up on CBC TV, which is based on Andersen's perhaps imaginative autobiographical “Der Himmel hat vielen Farben.”

Lale Andersen was born near Bremerhaven in 1905 and died in Vienna in 1972.

The popularity of her version of the song led, reportedly, to Vera Lynn's stellar career, as it was felt that British soldiers needed someone to listen to other than Lale.

The song also appeared in the film "Judgement at Nuremberg" starring Spencer Tracy and Marlene Dietrich. I also came across an unsubstantiated report that German troops in Kosovo had a radio station that was known to play the song...almost exactly 58 years after an earlier generation of German troops visited the area." I found that in a German language website that may or may not be run by the EXTREME left in Germany...not sure I trust my German or the internet on that one.

Lale Andersen and another singer/actress Zarah Leander not only are mistaken for each other but vie for the title of "the German Vera Lynn". The careers of these three women are related in a rather complex manner, which I'd like to expand on and tie in with the tragic story of Iva d'Aquino (Tokyo Rose) in a future column.

(December 1999)

Last month I spoke about Lale Anderson and Lilli Marleen. Another famous singer/actress of Nazi Germany was Zarah Leander. She appeared in many German films of the era and was known for her deep, sultry voice...at one time she was considered a rival of Marlene Dietrich...except she remained inGermany. I was first put on to Zarah by an ODXA member (who saw her films and heard her music in occupied Holland, perhaps two to three years ago, a Mr. Hylkema, I believe who speculated that she disappeared after the war, no doubt caught up in the de-Nazification of the entertainment industry.

Truth is stranger than fiction. I have a book, which shows Zarah in Sweden after the war...she was in fact a Swedish national. She got out of Germany when things started to go sour in 1943-44. She was later barred from entry to Germany or Austria for a few years after the war, but eventually made a return to stage and screen. She died in 1981, and has more recently become something of a gay icon. Female impersonators like to portray Zarah, because of her deep voice.

While on the internet I came across a website for a gay bar in Oslo, the highlight of which is the Zarah Leander room!

But wait...it gets more interesting...see the following article:

Was Zarah Leander a Soviet spy?

Copenhagen-Mar 2-(BANNS)-Zarah Leander, the Swedish singer and actress, was known for her German sympathies during World War II, but new evidence indicates she may also have been involved with the Soviet Union, according to daily Dagens Nyheter's internet service Tuesday.

Newly opened documents in files of the Swedish intelligence service, SÄPO, show that the service received several indications from anonymous sources and defence intelligence that Leander had contacts with well-known communists.

According to the archives which were studied by Goran Elgemyr, a Swedish radio journalist, Leander was suspected of being both a German and Russian spy. Conflicting documents describe her as being respectively a Nazi, an anti-Nazi, a communist, and in the press she was even rumoured to be a British agent.

Her allegedly Soviet connection was supported by the fact that Sweden's Communist Party gave her a certificate at her return from Germany in 1943 stating that she was "a true democrat" and not infested by Nazism.

According to the report, American military intelligence supplied information in the 1950s that Leander was suspected of being a Soviet spy.

Leander (1907-81) was a popular actress in German films from 1937 to 1943.

(By Ulla Plon BkNNS - The Baltic and Nordic News Service. This material may be used provided BkNNS is quoted as source.)

There (was) a television series on CITY-TV in Toronto, which airs at 6am Sunday mornings called The War Years that I watch regularly (thank goodness for VCRs!). In the episode on the Battle of Britain they showed German pilots relaxing between sorties listening to Zarah. (Sadly this series is not shown anymore).

I checked this out, there are a number of songs available on the internet by both Lale Anderson and Zarah Leander via napster.com Check them out, and see what I mean about Zarah's deep voice. (fw)