'Lili Marleen': A great short film about World War II and some interesting facts about the song

Without a doubt, the most popular song of World War II was "Lili Marleen," released in 1937 and originally sung by Lale Andersen.

This is a German song that has been translated into many languages: English, Spanish (sung by soldiers of the Blue Division in Russia), French, Italian, Polish, Russian... This song is the title of a short film released today by ParaLight WorX, a group of German filmmakers who make very good short films about World War II (in January you could already see the one titled "D-Day Plus 2"), with great attention to detail when recreating uniforms and equipment of the time. This new short stars two German Army snipers and two US Army paratroopers. You can watch it here:

The story of the popular German song of World War II

"Lili Marleen" has its origins in the First World War. It arose from verses by the novelist Hans Leip, who was a soldier in the German Army during that conflict. The song is about a girl waiting for her boyfriend by the light of a street lamp, in front of the barracks. It is a love song full of nostalgia, a nostalgia that we can also find in other songs that were very popular among the soldiers of that war, such as "We’ll Meet Again" (sung by the British singer Vera Lynn, who also recorded an English version of "Lili Marleen"), "Katyusha" (sung by the Russian Lidia Ruslánova) and "Białe Róże" (composed by the Polish Mieczysław Kozar-Słobódzki during World War I). Here you can listen to the first version of "Lili Marleen" sung by Lale Andersen:

Curiously, the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels, banned its broadcast in 1941 because he believed it could harm troop morale, but the protests from German soldiers were such that the song had to be reinstated. In 1944 the American OSS, predecessor of the CIA, used the song precisely to demoralize German troops, as part of a musical repertoire intended for that purpose and called Project Muzak. For this project, the song was recorded by the singer Marlene Dietrich, who in 1939 had renounced her German nationality to become an American citizen. Her versions of the song, both in German and English, ended up being as popular as, or more so than, Lale Andersen's.

Some sources indicate that the song has been translated into fifty languages. A collection of nearly 200 different versions of this popular song was released on CD. Even today, it remains part of the musical repertoire of the Bunderwehr (German Armed Forces). Above you can listen to a version recorded in 2001 by a choir and military band of the German Army.