'LILI MARLENE'
THE STORY BEHIND THE SONG

The soldier's song Lili Marlene was the ballad that crossed the trenches and won the  hearts of soldiers of both the Allied and Axis armies during World War 11. The wistful lyrics were composed in 1918 by Hans Leip, (22.9.1893 - 6.6.1983). He was then a German infantryman of the Great War. The words were written with feeling shortly before he and his comrades left for the Russian front.

Lili Marlene is not a single young lady but two, Lili being his own sweetheart, the daughter  of a local grocer whilst Marlene was a comrade's girlfriend, a young nurse.

Lili Marlene was originally a poem written simply to record the angst of barracks life and  the pain felt by a soldier on being separated from his loved one. It was later published in a collection of poetry in 1937 under the title, 'The Song of a Young Sentry', Hans Leip.

The poem's evocative pathos was then to capture the imagination of Norbert Schultze, the  popular German composer of operas, musicals, and songs and in 1938 he set the words to music.

It was no more than mildly popular and had sold just 700 copies when German Forces  Radio began broadcasting it to the Afrika Korps in 1941. Its popular singer was the enchanting Lale Anderson. Such was its immediate popularity that Field-Marshall Erwin Rommel requested Radio Belgrade to incorporate the song into their broadcasts, and they duly obliged.

Norbert Schultze was incidentally the composer of the backing music to such German  period films (and battle songs) as 'Bombs for England' (Bomben auf Engeland) and 'Tanks Roll into Africa'. (Panzer Rollen in Afrika!). Indeed he composed many military battle hymns and marches, operas and musicals.

After the war the 'liberators' classified Schultze as a 'sympathiser', banned his music, and  forbade him his profession. He then worked in heavy construction and later worked as a gardener before eventually resuming life in the song writing disciplines.

British soldiers were roundly condemned when the song caught their imagination and they  enthusiastically sang the German version. It was then that the official The BBC spin erroneously described Lili Marlene as 'a German prostitute' in a failed attempt to deflect the song's growing popularity.

The libel hardly dented enthusiasm for the two young German ladies until J. J. Phillips, a  British song publisher berated tommies for singing the German version. "Then why don't you write us some English words?" challenged one mutinous soldier. Soon after both Phillips and songwriter Tommy Connors came up with an English language version.

Forces near-favourite Anne Shelton brought instant popularity to the German poem, Vera  Lynne the forces favourite sang it over the BBC and the British Eighth Army adopted it.

Lili Marlene was also a chart buster. An anonymous chorus brought it to No.13 in 1944.  It hit the US charts again in 1968 and the Japanese charts in 1986.

There are a number of versions of Lili Marlene in a diversity of languages. It has been  translated into 48 languages including French, Russian, Italian, and surprisingly, Hebrew.

This poignant off-the-cuff poem penned in a wistful moment by an eighteen-year old  Hamburg-born sentry who pulled the heartstrings of soldiers across the world is by far the most popular wartime song ever recorded.


 

Being a citizen and passport holder of a country that remained neutral throughout the war I  find it difficult to comprehend why anyone would think my pursuit of fair play should be considered reprehensible. As someone kindly pointed out, it wasn't my war. What I do consider reprehensible is the ambiguous and sometimes adoration of a half-American warmonger who flaunted his perversions and riches whilst he puffed cigar smoke in the faces of those who couldn't afford a packet of Woodbines (Camel cigarettes or Luckies to you Americans).

I sometimes find the Germans just as incomprehensible; not the least their generosity of  spirit. Bob Leadbetter, ex 214 Sqd RAF says: "Returning from Berlin (Flying Short Sterlings) on August 24, 1943, our aircraft was attacked by a German fighter and the rear gun turret was set on fire.

After abortive attempts to extinguish the fire, it was noticed that the wing was on fire too,  and the order to abandon aircraft was given.

As we were preparing to leave, we were fired upon again, and three of us were wounded,  though we all got out alive.

Next day the wounded were taken to a local police station and treated by a civilian doctor  before being taken by a military ambulance to an Army hospital in Mecklaiburg, Germany. There we were treated with respect and great kindness.

We were later transferred to the German Air Force hospital at Wismar, where RAF and  USAF personnel were treated with the same respect and kindness. Oh, the fortunes of war.

You are unlikely to see any books on the subject of British POWs held in German camps.  Occasionally however, in local newspapers, because they relate to local issues and personalities, you will come across photographs of Britons held in German captivity.

There they pose, just as they had for their group photo-shots at school, college, sport or  service careers; yet one would hardly notice that they were in captivity at all. They are smart in their uniforms; obviously well nourished and clean; the pictures of health. There was no end of recreational pursuits for them, including education.

Let's hope the poor bastards in their trenches for whom capture had been elusive didn't  see how their mates behind bars were doing. Hardly Great Escape stuff at all when you think about it.

A CANDID ACCOUNT

"What kind of war do civilians suppose we fought anyway? We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped out hospitals, lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians, finished off enemy wounded, tossed the dying into a hole with the dead, and in the Pacific boiled the flesh of enemy skulls to make table ornaments for sweethearts, or carved their bones into letter openers. We topped off our saturation bombing and burning of enemy civilians by dropping atomic bombs on two nearly defenseless cities, thereby setting an all time record for instantaneous mass slaughter.

As victors we are privileged to try our defeated opponents for their crimes against humanity; but we should be realistic enough to appreciate that if we were on trial for breaking international laws, we should be found guilty on a dozen counts. We fought a dishonorable war, because morality has a low priority in battle....

.... I have asked fighting men for instance, why they - or actual we - regulated flame-throwers in such a way that enemy soldiers were set afire, to die slowly and painfully, rather than be killed outright by a full blast of burning oil. Was it because they hated the enemy so thoroughly? The answer was invariably, 'No, we don't hate those poor bastards particularly; we just hate the whole god dam mess and have to take it out on somebody.'

"Possibly for the same reason we mutilated the bodies of the enemy dead, cutting off their ears and kicking out their gold teeth for souvenirs, and buried them with their testicles in their mouths, but such flagrant violations of all moral codes reach into still unexplored realms of battle psychology." - Edgar L. Jones, U.S. Second World War veteran. Atlantic Monthly, February 1946

HIROSHIMA COVER-UP

Wilfred Burchett (London Daily Express) broke the first eyewitness account of the aftermath of the destruction at Hiroshima a month after the bombing. His report was the first to reveal radiation sickness and its appalling effects.

"In Hiroshima, thirty days after the first atom bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly, people who were uninjured in the cataclysm – from an unknown something which I can only describe as the Atomic Plague.

Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as though a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the world."

Army Press Relations immediately called a conference in Tokyo to reject Burchett's account of unfolding events. "There was no such thing as radiation sickness." The spokesman said.

Hiroshima was immediately put out of bounds to all correspondents and Burchett was served with an expulsion order. Trust the experts? Major-General Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, the organisation that developed the Atomic Bomb said, "This talk about radio-activity is so much nonsense."