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World War II was the first conflict to take place in the age of electronically distributed music.
Many people in the war had a pressing need to be able to listen to the radio and 78-rpm shellac records en masse. By 1940, 96.2% of Northeastern American urban households hadradio. The lowest American demographic to embrace mass-distributed music, Southern rural families, still had one radio for every two households.[1]
Similar adoption rates and mass distribution of music occurred in Europe. DuringNazi rule, radio ownership inGermany rose from 4 to 16 million households.[2] As the major powers entered the war, millions of citizens had home radio devices that did not exist in theFirst World War.
Therefore, World War II was a unique situation for music and its relationship to warfare. Never before was it possible for not only single songs, but also single recordings of songs to be so widely distributed to the population. Never before had the number of listeners to a single performance (a recording or broadcast production) been so high. Along with that, never before hadstates had so much power to determine not only what songs were performed and listened to, but also to control the recordings, not allowing local people to alter the songs in their own performances. Though local people still sang and produced songs, this form of music faced serious new competition from centralized electronic music.
"Lili Marlene" was the most popular song of World War II with both German andBritish forces. Based on a German poem, the song was recorded in bothEnglish and German. The poem was set to music in 1938 and was a hit with troops in theAfrika Korps. Mobile desert combat required a large number of radio units, and theBritish troops in theNorth African Campaign started to enjoy the song so much that it was quickly translated into English. The song was used throughout the war as a propaganda tool.
American troops had regular access to radio in all but the most difficult combat situations, and not only did soldiers know specific songs but also specific recordings. This gave a nature to American troops' music during WWII: not as many songs were sung around a fire or while marching, but instead were listened to between combat onArmed Forces Radio.
In a nod to the special services and sacrifices the troops were making both overseas as well as domestically, many of these songs were specially re-recorded by their original artists for a Department of Defense musical and morale mission entitledV-Discs for the exclusive consumption by military personnel, similar toArmed Forces Radio.
As the United States was able to utilize the exponential growth of the technological age to compose music, inSounds of War: Music in the United States duringWorld War II, it is made clear that music had various purposes, but more importantly, it mentions the tension that grew between institutions in order to find the right way to use music for U.S. overall interest. Examples can be seen throughout the different types of songs being produced and publicized during this time. Songs likeI'll Be Seeing You (1938) andPraise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition (1942) were songs that kept the citizens back in the U.S. calm and hopeful for the return of their loved ones.[3] On the other hand, these songs had other effects on the soldiers fighting abroad. For them, songs like these brought nostalgia and homesickness.
With the war continuing through the 1940s, other initiatives to muster morale arose. With drafting numbers reaching close to 500,000, the Defense institutions began to make military bands on the home front, to support patriotism and nationalism. The first patriotic war song of WWII in the U.S. was "God Bless America," written by Irving Berlin for a World War I wartime revue, but it was withheld and later revised and used in World War II.[4] There were many other patriotic wartime songs during this time such as, "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" by Glenn Miller and "Arms for the Love of America" by Irving Berlin in 1941.[4]
After the successful incorporation of music into the war efforts, more was needed in order to keep hopes alive and stable in the U.S. and on the front. At various times music was used as a tool for war, whether it was to entertain or to recuperate soldiers.[3] Furthermore, consideration must be given to the impact that music had on people then and the effect that it continues to have now. Sounds of War: Music in the United States during World War II argues that music composed during the 1940s was unlike any other era of music because of its emphasis on making the listener feel like they are part of the war or if they are somewhere else.[3] It adds that songs from World War II continue to be used today in order to remember those harsh times of war and to remind everyone of the costs of liberty and freedom.[3] Some examples of this would include Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" (1942) and "Lincoln Portrait" (1942). These are still played for presidential inaugurations and continue to have the effect of "loss for freedom".
During the 1940s theUnited States State Department also encouraged the mutual exchange of music on the radio with the neutral countries of Latin America in order to promote President Franklin Roosevelt'sGood Neighbor policy andPan-Americanism.[5] Through the establishment of theOffice of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), President Roosevelt utilized music as a form ofcultural diplomacy in order to improveinternational relations with Latin America and forestall the spread of military hostilities throughout the Americas.[6][7][8] Professional musicians and composers from both North and South America were invited to concertize together on radio shows such asViva América to support these efforts.[8][6][9] Included among these musicians were:Alfredo Antonini,Juan Arvizu,Nestor Mesta Chayres,Eva Garza,Elsa Miranda,Miguel Sandoval,John Serry Sr. andTerig Tucci.[10][11][12][13]
In the years immediately after World War II, theUnited States Army continued to utilize music as a form of cultural diplomacy amidst the ruins of western Europe. In 1952, theSeventh Army Symphony Orchestra was established under the musical direction of the composerSamuel Adler in an effort to demonstrate the shared musical heritage of the United States and Europe. Through a series of live musical performances and broadcasts over theArmed Forces Radio Services network, the orchestra successfully promoted mutual understanding and peace between the German and American people for a decade until 1962.[14][15][16][17][18][19]
The role of music not only had effects in the international sphere but in the domestic society of the United States as well,[3] since the prolific number of war songs caused the number of concerts performed to greatly increase, along with the incorporation of women and African American musicians into military bands and groups.
During the war, theBBC was forced to adapt, if only because British soldiers were listening to German radio stations to hear dance music. This adaptation did not commence without conflict. The BBC increased the amount of dance music played, butcensorship was severe. The American hit "Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer," for example, was censored because of its almost blasphemous mix of religious words and a foxtrot melody. BBC heads were also worried about American-style crooners undermining the virility of British men.
The BBC tried hard to stick to the jaunty tone which they felt had helped to win the first world war - soGeorge Formby andGracie Fields were regularly played.
Britain did have a mass media which played popular music, much enjoyed by the Germans stationed in France and the Low Countries or flying over Britain. The most famous single performer wasVera Lynn who became known as "the forces' sweetheart".
Popular concert songs in Britain during the war included:
The theme tune of the TV seriesDad's Army, "Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler?" does not date from the war, although it was intended as a gentle pastiche of wartime songs. With lyrics by Jimmy Perry and music by Perry and Derek Taverner, it was sung by one of Perry's childhood idols, wartime entertainerBud Flanagan who died in 1968, soon after the first episode played.
TheNazi government took a strong interest in promoting Germanic culture and music, which returned people to the folk culture of their remote ancestors while promoting the distribution of radio to transmit propaganda. The Nazi government had an obsession with controlling culture and promoting the culture it controlled. For this reason, the common people's tastes in music were much more secret. Many Germans used their new radios to listen to thejazz music hated by Hitler but loved all over the world.
In art, this attack came afterexpressionism,impressionism, and all forms ofmodernism. Forms of music targeted includedjazz as well as the music of many of the more dissonant modern classical composers, including that ofIgor Stravinsky,Paul Hindemith, andArnold Schoenberg. Hindemith was one of many composers who fled the Third Reich as a result of musical persecution (as well as racial persecution, since Hindemith's wife, was part Jewish). Modern composers who took a more conventional approach to music, however, were welcomed by the Third Reich;Carl Orff andRichard Strauss, for example, were able to stay in the country during the Nazi period.
Also, a subtle factor of history makes gaining a reliable picture of the music of Germany more difficult than among the Allies. World War II in the English speaking world is usually remembered as a great triumph and the music is often performed with a sense of pride. Therefore, over time the collective consciousness of this period's music has become stronger. In Germany, World War II is generally seen as a shameful period; it would be difficult to imagine a band playing 'all the old favourites' of World War II in a public place.
Popular music is tied with nostalgia and collective memory. Though a historian can find samples of music that were played on the radio or can collect soldiers' songs from a period, ranking the subjective meaning and value assigned to a song by the people of that period will be greatly impacted by those subjects' later opinion of that music.
For example, it is known that many Germans enjoyed American jazz, and it is also known that Germans sang songs in Nazi sponsored events, but it would be difficult to determine the relative popularity of this music in the current context of shame concerning the war.
Therefore, the best that can be understood about German Music during the war is the official Nazi government policy, the level of enforcement, and some notion of the diversity of other music listened to, but as the losers in the war German Music andNazi songs from World War II has not been assigned the high heroic status of American and British popular music. As the music itself goes, however, it is considered by many as being above the level of the latter, which is also true of Fascist Italian music of the time.
The Nazis were dedicated to the concept that German Culture was the greatest in history, but, as with all parts of art, Hitler took an interest in suppressing the work of all those he considered "unfit" while promoting certain composers as proper Germans. All musicians were required to join theReichsmusikkammer, or "Reich Music Chamber", part of theReich Chamber of Culture founded byJoseph Goebbels in 1933. Membership required a so-calledAryan certificate, meaning that Jewish musicians could no longer work.
Along with exhibitions of "degenerate art" (entartete Kunst) the Nazi government identified certain music, composers and performers asentartete Musik. Designation into this category was based upon the race, ethnicity, and political orientation of the composers and performers in question. The works of Jewish classical composers were banned, including those ofGustav Mahler,Felix Mendelssohn, Arnold Schoenberg,George Gershwin andClaude Debussy (who had a Jewish wife). The popular music ofIrving Berlin (also Jewish) was completely banned.
In 1938 Nazi Germany passed an official law on Jazz music. Not surprisingly it deals with the racial nature of the music and makes laws based on racial theories. Jazz was "Negroid"; It posed a threat to European higher culture, and was therefore forbidden except in the case of scientific study.
TheReichsmusikkammer promotedclassical music by German composers such asBeethoven andWagner, as well as Austrians such asMozart. Military music was also promoted, but lighter, non-political music was a source of escapism for many. TheWunschkonzert für die Wehrmacht [de], or "Request Concert for the Armed Forces", was a radio program broadcast from Berlin. The subject of a1940 film, it consisted of live music requested by soldiers. Connecting the military to the home front and vice versa, contributed to theVolksgemeinschaft, the Nazi concept of a "people's community".[20]
Degrees of censorship varied, and the Germans were likely more concerned with the war than styles of music. But as the war went poorly the objectives of the government moved from building a perfect German state to keeping the population in line, and the relative importance of morale-raising songs would have increased.
Popular songs were officially encouraged during the war including:
Goebbels commissioned a swing band called "Charlie and His Orchestra" which existed for supplying propaganda to British and American troops over the radio. Popular tunes were sung in English with Nazi propaganda. The musicians were competent (they were spoofing highly polishedBig Band music). As an example, the singers would twist a hit such asBob Hope's "Thanks for the Memory" with a taunt to English-speaking soldiers about thefall of Singapore, rhyming "Singapore" with "we don't go there anymore".
There were specific songs ofPolish resistance,Polish Armed Forces in the West andPolish Armed Forces in the East. These includedSiekiera, motyka, the most popular song inoccupied Poland; "Rozszumiały się wierzby płaczące" - a song associated with the Polish partisans;Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino - a song connected with thePolish Armed Forces in the West;Oka, a favourite song of the Polish Armed Forces in the East, andMarsz Gwardii Ludowej - a song also known asPartisans' Song anthem ofGL.
They played a few American records first. I don't remember everything she said. She said, "Your wives and girlfriends are probably home in a nice warm building, dancing with some other men. You're over here in the cold." It was cold and it was snowing.Dent Wheeler on Axis Sally during the battle of the Bulge[22]
"There is no 'Tokyo Rose'; the name is strictly a GI invention. The name has been applied to at least two lilting Japanese voices on the Japanese radio. Government monitors listening in 24 hours a day have never heard the words 'Tokyo Rose' over a Japanese-controlled Far Eastern radio."[23]
During World War II, often cut off troops or isolated outposts found themselves exposed in the radio range of the enemy, which used popular music as a means to attract listeners and then provide propaganda messages.
This type of propaganda was performed by both sides and is some of the earliest mass psych-ops. Often the propagandist was listened to by the other sides, and there is little evidence that these had any impact, except that the Axis participants were often detained and if originally from allied countries prosecuted, while Allied broadcasters were seen as legitimate in Allied countries. Again it shows the way music is understood in the context of World War II is from the winners' point of view, whereasTokyo Rose (Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino) andAxis Sally (Mildred Gillars) faced years of persecution after the war.England executedLord Haw Haw (William Joyce) for treason, in 1946.
