Why is the song so popular? The last word goes to Lale Anderson : "Can the wind explain why it became a storm?" Its theme of dreaming for one's lover is universal. Lili Marlene is easily the most popular war song ever. Tito in Yugoslavia greatly enjoyed the song. The song is said to have been translated into more than 48 languages, including French, Russian and Italian and Hebrew. ![]() ![]() It hit the US charts again in 1968, the German charts again in 1981 and the Japanese charts in 1986. Marlene Dietrich featured The Girl under the Lantern in public appearances, on radio and "three long years in North-Africa, Sicily, Italy, in Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, in England," as she later recalled.Īn RCA US recording, by an anonymous chorus in June, made it to No. The British Eighth Army adopted the song. Vera Lynn sang it over the BBC to the Allied troops. Phillips and a British songwriter Tommie Connor soon had an English version in 1944.Īnne Sheldon's English hit record started the songs popularity with the Allied countries. One irate soldier shouted back : "why don't you write us some English words?". Phillips reprimanded a group of British soldiers for singing the verses - in German. The immense popularity of the German version spawned a hurried English version, supposedly when a British song publisher named J.J. The Allies listened to it and Lili Marleen became the favourite tune of soldiers on both sides, regardless of language. The song soon became the signature of the broadcast and was played at 9:55 pm each night, just before sign-off.Īfter the song was broadcast there was no holding it back. General Feldmarschall Rommel liked the song so much he asked Radio Belgrade to incorporate the song into their broadcasts, which they did. He aired Lale Anderson's version for the first time on 18. The director of Radio Belgrade had a friend in the Africa Corps who had liked the tune. The songs was immediately banned in Germany, for its portentous character, which did nothing to slow its spread in popularity.Īfter the German occupation of Yugoslavia, a radio station was established in Belgrade and beamed news, and all the propaganda fit to air, to the Africa Corps. Recorded just before the war by Lale Andersen (Eulalia Bunnenberg), the song sold just 700 copies, until German Forces Radio began broadcasting it to the Afrika Korps in 1941. The propaganda secretary of the Nationalist-Socialist party, Joseph Goebbels didn't like the song, he wanted a march. In 1945 the Allies told Schultze to forget about composing but he got back to it in 1948. His operas, film scores, marches and tunes for politically inspired lyrics were successful. ![]() Schulze was already rich and famous before the success of The Girl under the Lantern, who awaited her lover by the barrack gate. ![]() The poems caught the attention of Norbert Schultze (born 1911 in Braunschweig), who set this poem to music in 1938. His poem was later published in a collection of his poetry in 1937. He wrote these verses before going to the Russian front in 1915, combining the name of his girlfriend, Lili (the daughter of a grocer), with that of a friend's girlfriend or by a wave given to Leip, while he was on sentry duty, by a young nurse named "Marleen" as she disappeared into the evening fog. Original German lyrics from a poem The Song of a Young Sentry by World War I German soldier, Hans Leip (*) in Hamburg, † in Fruthwilen, near Frauenfeld (Thurgau), Switzerland. Surely the favourite song of soldiers during World War II, Lili Marleen became the unofficial anthem of the foot soldiers of both forces in the war. Leed ( Ripuarian, northern Moselle Franconian )įrom Middle High German liet, from Old High German liod ( “ song, lay, singing ” ), from Proto-West Germanic *leuþ ( “ song ” ), from Proto-Germanic *leuþą ( “ song ” ).Lili Marleen - the story behind the song.
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