{"id":60674,"date":"2021-11-07T21:12:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-07T19:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=60674"},"modified":"2025-11-22T14:26:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T13:26:50","slug":"lili-marleen-a-great-short-film-about-world-war-ii-and-some-interesting-facts-about-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2021\/11\/07\/lili-marleen-a-great-short-film-about-world-war-ii-and-some-interesting-facts-about-the-song\/","title":{"rendered":"'Lili Marleen': A great short film about World War II and some interesting facts about the song"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Without a doubt, the most popular song of World War II was \"Lili Marleen,\" released in 1937 and originally sung by Lale Andersen.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This is a <strong>German song that has been translated into many languages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gBi5j7yPwd0\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">English<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LSyEhgS8yj8\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spanish (sung by soldiers of the Blue Division in Russia)<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DcP2lm6u15c\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">French<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2Wm5twTQXew\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Italian<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gYMgn1MkusE\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Polish<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7IIzsSdq6sU\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Russian<\/a>... <strong>This song is the title of a short film released today by<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/ParaLightWorX\/featured\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ParaLight WorX<\/a>, a group of German filmmakers who make very good short films about World War II (in January you could already see the one titled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2021\/01\/25\/d-day-plus-a-very-good-german-short-set-in-the-battle-of-normandy\/\"\">\"D-Day Plus 2\"<\/a>), with great attention to detail when recreating uniforms and equipment of the time.<strong> This new short stars two German Army snipers and two US Army paratroopers.<\/strong> You can watch it here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yRTmrcCbV8E\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><big>The story of the popular German song of World War II<\/big><\/p>\n<p>\"Lili Marleen\" <strong>has its origins in the First World War<\/strong>. It arose from verses by the novelist Hans Leip, who was a soldier in the German Army during that conflict. <strong>The song is about a girl waiting for her boyfriend by the light of a street lamp, in front of the barracks.<\/strong> 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2020\/06\/18\/adios-a-vera-lynn-la-autora-de-esta-cancion-que-infundio-esperanza-a-muchos-soldados\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\"We\u2019ll Meet Again\"<\/a> (sung by the British singer Vera Lynn, who also recorded an English version of \"Lili Marleen\"), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lA9drBFJpns\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\"Katyusha\"<\/a> (sung by the Russian Lidia Rusl\u00e1nova) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gfCaCS5pSX8\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\"Bia\u0142e R\u00f3\u017ce\"<\/a> (composed by the Polish Mieczys\u0142aw Kozar-S\u0142ob\u00f3dzki during World War I). Here you can listen to <strong>the first version of \"Lili Marleen\" sung by Lale Andersen:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YjXC4N1HXf0\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Curiously, the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich, <strong>Joseph Goebbels, banned its broadcast in 1941 because he believed it could harm troop morale<\/strong>, but the protests from German soldiers were such that the song had to be reinstated. In 1944 <strong>the American OSS, predecessor of the CIA, used the song precisely to demoralize German troops<\/strong>, as part of a musical repertoire intended for that purpose and called Project Muzak. For this project, the song <strong>was recorded by the singer Marlene Dietrich, who in 1939 had renounced her German nationality to become an American citizen.<\/strong> Her versions of the song, both in German and English, ended up being as popular as, or more so than, Lale Andersen's.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ez-LULoyAVE\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Some sources indicate that <strong>the song has been translated into fifty languages<\/strong>. A collection of nearly 200 different versions of this popular song was released on CD. <strong>Even today, it remains part of the musical repertoire of the Bunderwehr (German Armed Forces).<\/strong> Above you can listen to a version recorded in 2001 by a choir and military band of the German Army.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Without a doubt, the most popular song of World War II was \u00abLili Marleen,\u00bb released in 1937 and originally sung by Lale Andersen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11549,11348],"tags":[10929,15644,15646,15647,15645,10389],"class_list":["post-60674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-history","category-music","tag-germany","tag-hans-leip","tag-lale-andersen","tag-lili-marleen","tag-proyecto-muzak","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}