What They Were Listening To

Mosey into this melodic episode exploring the pre- and postwar music scene in Germany and the kinds of music that Anneliese, Alma, Barbara and Lisa and others of their generation would have been listening to in their youth and in their lives abroad. Cover graphic by Alexe Normandin. All music is public domain. Source links forthcoming.   Episode Transcript: [Music plays] Our past isn't just black and white pictures and dates in the history book. The past is colorful and cinematic, musical and moving, dreadful and wonderful, just like today. Welcome to What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast. My name is Frank Brueckner and I created this series to provide additional context to the website “What They Can Teach Us”, which was developed from interviews with four women who immigrated from Germany to Canada in the early 1950s. The website and podcasts were initiated and are supported by the Chair in German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg. In these podcasts you will learn what life was like in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese, like so many of our parents and grandparents, left Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to begin their lives anew in Canada. This is part 1: What They Were Listening To. Let's dive right in. This episode started with a bang, literally. What you heard was a collage of actual sounds from World War II, ending with the last line of an old German folk song from the 1800s, recorded in 1932 by the Comedian Harmonists. It says, ich möchte am liebsten sterben/dann wäre es auf einmal still, which roughly translates to, I would rather be dead, only then it would finally be quiet. Although the song is about a broken heart, the sentiment expressed in those last words might have been exactly what many people felt during this horrible war. And then the war ended, and it was quiet indeed. Well, not really. Nazi Germany was beaten and conquered, and the music of the liberation in western Europe was swing. After 12 years of a brutal dictatorship that imprisoned people, or worse, for listening to what the Nazis called degenerate music, Germans enjoyed the new freedom to listen to whatever they wanted to. And along with the American, British, French and Canadian occupying forces came military radio stations, broadcasting the hit tunes from back home. [Music plays] As swing became less fashionable, music changed, but the topics remained the same. Love, longing, and even everyday themes such as this song from 1951 about packing your swim trunks and going for a swim in Berlin's Lake Wannsee, sung by an eight-year-old girl from Berlin. [Music plays] After years of deprivations and restrictions, Germans weren't satisfied with a vacation at home. They were longing to travel to sunny southern Europe, particularly Italy and Spain, this time as peaceful vacationers. A good number of songs show this yearning. [Music plays] Others felt the urge to leave Germany and Europe behind altogether and start life anew far, far away. Thousands left for Canada, Australia and the United States, some as war brides on the arms of Allied soldiers, others chasing the dreams of streets paved with gold. But despite their hopes for a new beginning, many carried the sorrow of saying farewell. No song describes this feeling better than Marlene Dietrich's interpretation of the old German folk song, “Muss i denn.” [Music plays] This ongoing series will add new podcasts in irregular intervals, so stay tuned for What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast and check back regularly for new episodes.