In all of the little stories it is the
ordinary, the commonplace thing or incident against the background of the
bombing that leaves the indelible picture.
“An old woman was selling little miserable
sprays of sweet lavender. The city was rocking under the bombs and the light of
burning buildings made it like day. The air was just one big fat blasting roar.
And in one little hole in the roar her voice got in—a squeaky voice. ‘Lavender!’
she said. ‘Buy Lavender for luck.’ ”
The bombing itself grows vague and dreamlike.
The little pictures remain as sharp as they were when they were new.
LILLI MARLENE
LONDON, July 12, 1943—This is the story
of a song. Its name is “Lilli Marlene” and it was written in Germany in 1938 by
Norbert Schultze and Hans Leit. In due course they tried to publish it and it
was rejected by about two dozen publishers. Finally it was taken up by a
singer, Lala Anderson, a Swedish girl, who used it for her signature song. Lala
Anderson has a husky voice and is what you might call the Hildegarde type.
“Lilli Marlene” is a very simple song. The
first verse of it goes: “Underneath the lanterns, by the barracks square, I
used to meet Marlene and she was young and fair.” The song was as simple as
that. It went on to tell about Marlene, who first liked stripes and then
shoulder bars. Marlene met more and more people until, finally, she met a
brigadier, which was what she wanted all along. We have a song with much the
same amused cynicism.
Eventually Lala made a record of the song and
even it was not very popular. But one night the German station in Belgrade,
which sent out programs to Rommel’s Afrika Korps, found that, due to a little
bombing, it did not have many records left, but among a few uninjured disks was
the song “Lilli Marlene.” It was put on the air to Africa and by the next
morning it was being hummed by the Afrika Korps and letters were going in
demanding that it be played again.
The story of its popularity in Africa got back
to Berlin, and Madame Goering, who used to be an opera singer, sang the song of
the inconstant “Lilli Marlene” to a very select group of Nazis, if there is
such a thing. Instantly the song was popular and it was played constantly over
the German radio until Goering himself grew a little sick of it, and it is said
that, since inconstancy is a subject which is not pleasant to certain high Nazi
ears, it was suggested that the song be quietly assassinated. But meanwhile
“Lilli Marlene” had got out of hand. Lala Anderson was by now known as the
“Soldiers’ Sweetheart.” She was a pin-up girl. Her husky voice ground out of
portable phonographs in the desert.
