Lili Marlene

Cue (NZERS), Issue 22, 30 April 1945, Page 5

Lili Marlene

a CROSS the moonlit, muddy ground n which separated the two armies the strains of a song formed a strange link. It came from a loudspeaker balanced on the edge of a slit trench in the Eighth Army’s forward lines. U it died away, the sound of clapping from the German lines could be heard in the crisp night air. The song was the most popular item of the propaganda programme which had been broadcast, to the enemy. It was ’’Lili Marlene.”

Nothing that is good has come from Germany in the past five and a-half years. That is what the soldier will say. He might, however, make one exception—’’Lili Marlene.’’ This simple, lilting tune has captured the imagination and regard of fighting men of many nations, and through the long years of bitter struggle it has retained a position that is still unassailed by any other song. In the time, more than in the words that are sung to it, is all the nostalgia of the common man exiled from his home and loved ones. All over Europe the song has spread and to the furthermost corners of the world has its haunting tune been carried. New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans, and Canadians have carried it to the corners of the Commonwealth, British troops leaving the Middle East for Burma have taken it with them, on their crowded troopships. Others have whistled or sung it in Madagascar, ian Palestine, and Greece. Americas have introduced it to their homes, ven though a war music committee 01Qt ' banned it in their country. Gerans took it to the lands . they nquered, passed it on to the musical nta ians, an sang it in the deserts of °rth Africa. . tli^ s Vas in the Western Desert that uiq sono- ' x * first came to be known and

liked 'by the Allied Armies. The famous ’’Desert Rats” of the Eighth Army first heard it after Germany had overrun Yugoslavia, and were using Radio Belgrade for their propaganda broadcasts. It was one of the bright spots of desert life to hear ’’Lili Marlene” at five minutes to ten every night. In the months of weary fighting in the desert the song .became even more familiar than the whine ,of a Spandau, the scream of an 88, or the snarl of a Stuka. The men of many nations who comprised the famous Eighth Army sang it, Italians, with their great gift for music, gave it great depths of sentimental appeal, and the more guttural German voices’ for once showed a trace of human feeling as they sang it. When, the Afrika Korps was finally defeated in Tunisia, the British soldier felt that part of the booty that went with it was ’’Lili Marlene.” As they moved on to Italy and the southern approach to Hitler’s, inner fortress, the song went with them, and it will continue to do so wherever their future footsteps might, lead.

’’Lili Marlene” is not entirely a song of this war. Its original words were written in 1923 by a Hamburg painter and poet named Hans Leip, but it was not until 1938 that the music was

composed. The credit for the music goes to a Berliner named Norbert Schultze, who tried thirty publishers before the song was accepted. Then it was printed in a very limited edition and created little attention in Germany

in the fateful year of 1939. It was sung in dingy night clubs by a Swedish girl named Lala Andersen, but neither the song nor the singer attracted much attention.

And then occurred the accident that sent ’’Lili 'Marlene” on its meteoric rise to universal popularity.. It happened that a recording of Lala Andersen’s singing of ’’Lili was selected as a signing-off number for a programme broadcast for German troops from Radio Belgrade. Overnight it became a popular favourite, and in a remarkably short time had swept Germany. It was welcomed by the authorities as a counter to the American dance programmes which were popular all over the Continent. On the crest of this wave of popularity rode Lala Andersen. She toured Norway, Belgium, Holland, and France, singing to the troops the song that had captivated them.

Emmy Goering, the actress wife of the overfed Hermann, sang ’’Lili Marlene” at a special concert for Nazi leaders in Berlin's Kroll Opera House, millions of fan letters and love poems for the mythical ’’Lili” poured in, and Lala Andersen became a musical pinup girl for the German military machine. The song seemed to express the thoughts and longings of soldiers everywhere, and in the one score seemed to encompass the .sentiments of all the war songs ever written. The guttural German words which first graced the lilting tune have given way to an Italian translation, and many' sets of verses in English. Throughout the towns of Italy, and in corners of the quiet campagna ragged children with angelic voices sing the soft Italian version of the famous song, and in innumerable concert halls and dingy restaurants dark-eyed signorinc or ageing tenors sing this plaintive ballad of a lonely German sentry who rs sometimes visited by a fraulein in the barrack square. (Soldiers of the. Allied Armies .sing a wide variety of words to the tune. Some of these bear a resemblance to the literal translation of the original German, some are vastly different, and others again are unprintable parodies. ERS has already (supplied members of 2 NZEF with one popular version of the song, giving the words in German, Italian and English. Here is another English translation:— Every evening, underneath the light Outside the barracks, in the stormy night J wait for you, a soldier's girl, Just to forget, the whole, mad world With you, Lili Marlene, with V™ Lili Marlene. Oh, may the bugler never sound M call f Nothing disturb us, nothing, dear a all. Cling to me closer in the night & A soldier's love will wrap you tag a My love, Lili Marlene, my love, Marlene.

Owe me a rose, and press it to my heart, Give me a rose ' be f° re 1 ™ UBt depart; perhaps tomorrow you to ill cry But later on perhaps you’ll sigh For whom, Lili Marlene, for whom Lili Marlene? Back into battle, I have got to go; Next to my heart, your rose is throbbing so Whatever now becomes of me I’ll only smile, and think of thee, Of thee, Lili Marlene, of thee, Lili Marlene. And in my dreams, I know that yon are there The lamplight still shining, upon your golden hair;

Our tears are mingled with the rain; I will come home and stay again B ith you, Lili Marlene, with you, Lili Marlene. Danes and Norwegians, Dutch and French have all made their parodies of the famous song, and usually it is not a lantern that hangs from the lamp-post but a pale, neurotic little man with a black moustache, and a wayward lock of hair. The singing of their versions have been a good outlet for bottled-up feelings. In the past few weeks it is doubtful if there have been many Germans singing ’’Lili’’ with much gusto—unless it is those who are so fortunate as to be languish, ing in prison camps waiting to return to a battered, conquered Fatherland. 1