#karl-heinz reintgen

[hildegard-von-bingen]

Lili Marlene

performed by: Vera Lynn

Lili Marlene was the most popular song of World War Two, loved by both Axis and Allied countries and armies, and a favourite of Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox”.

In 1915, Hans Leip, a schoolteacher in the German army, wrote a poem entitled Das Lied eines jungen Soldaten auf der Wacht (The Song of a Young Soldier on Watch).  The girl's name in the poem, Lili Marleen, was named after his friend's girlfriend Lili, and a nurse called Marleen who would wave to him when going off duty.

In 1937, the poem was published as part of a collection, and the following year, Norman Schultze set it to music.  Lale Anderson recorded it for the first time in 1939, but it sold poorly.

Nazi politics were also an issue.  The song had a strong anti-war theme, and this was anathema to propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. It was banned, and Andersen and Schultze were accused of “moral sabotage”.  Andersen, who was believed to be sympathetic towards Jewish people, was placed under house arrest, and Schultze was ordered to compose more Nazi-oriented music.

When Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, the German army took over Radio Belgrade for their own broadcasts.  However, their music options were limited, as most of the records had been smashed in the bombing.  Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Reintgen, the officer in charge of the station, was asked to collect more records while on leave in Vienna.  One of them was Lili Marleen, and Reintgen remembered that a friend in the Afrika Korps liked the song, so he chose it for broadcast.  Soon, they were playing it nightly at 9:55pm.

Goebbels demanded that the song be removed, but was forced to back down under popular demand.  The song was a hit with the German troops in North Africa as well as back at home, and Erwin Rommel specifically asked the station to play the song every night. Schultze and Andersen were sent around Germany to perform the song for which they'd previously been condemned.

The Allied 8th Army in North Africa could pick up German broadcasts, and were soon singing the song as well.  Fitzroy Maclean, a Lance Corporal in the Special Air Service, wrote after the war:

Husky, sensuous, nostalgic, sugar-sweet, her voice seemed to reach out to you, as she lingered over the catchy tune, the sickly sentimental words.  Belgrade...The continent of Europe seemed a long way away.  I wondered when I would see it again and what it would be like by the time we got there.

Soldiers took it back home with them, and it was eventually translated into English.  The publisher Jimmy Phillips told off a group of soldiers on leave for singing a German song, so they told him to translate it if he wanted them to sing it in English! However, Phillips made some changes, making it more of a love song without the anti-war themes of the original.