From: Sinclair Hart (slobak@bcn.net)
Date: Wed May 26 1999 - 17:07:53 PDT
Thank you for your very interesting commentary on :"Lale Andersen". Many of us have been fasicnated with the song and its history, and you have made a great contribution. Vielen danke! Walter Felscher wrote: > > Reading through accumulated mail, I noticed the discussion > about Lili Marleen which took place during the week after > April 11th. The various somewhat erroneous informations > were corrected in the translation of a Swedish magazine > article which Christer Gustafson published on April 17th. > I want to to add two very minor comments. > > I doubt that the singer's "real name" was Lale Andersen; > from all I know this was her artist's name, and the real > name most likely was Liselotte Wilke which she used in 1935 . > The name "Lale Andersen" is fraught with pretension, with > "Lale" particularly apt for a singer. The person Andersen was > not of Swedish but of German nationality, and in those years > (not Greta Garbo but) a truly Swedish screen actress-plus-singer, > using the mysterious sounding name of Zarah Leander, had > acquired immense popularity in Germany. If I am not mistaken, > I remember another 78' record sung by Andersen, "Der rote > Rudolf kann tanzen ..." to have been in our family's possession > sometime during the war. > > Norbert Schulze, who wrote the tune, was a prolific composer > of military marching tunes to texts usually quite aggressive. > It is a sort of irony that this melancholy tune is what survived. > > As for the radio station located at Belgrad which made the > song popular, it was not a Yugoslav station in the capital > of that country, but a German armed forces radio station > named "Soldatensender Belgrad" and broadcasting to the > occupation army in German. It was the only German station > where the song was played, and regularly so after the news > at 10 pm ; it was not played on the normal German stations > destined for civilian consumption. But located on the > higher frequencies of the medium wave band, the station > could be received within Germany after dark, sometimes > clear, sometimes crackling. > > Also, the broadcasting of the song from that station was > cancelled for about half a year, in 1942 or 1943, and > resumed only upon thousands of complaints from soldiers at > the Eastern front. It would be new to me if, as the magazine > article writes, Lale Andersen then was permitted to sing the > song in concert halls. > > Finally, it would be interesting to know whether the English > version was permitted to be broadcasted over British or > American stations before the war had ended in May 1945 . > > PS: "Sag mir wo die Blumen sind" was not known during the > war; it appears to be from the later fifties and had > a certain popularity among the anti-atom protesters. > > W.F.