According to Gordon's book Glenn Miller and his band was probably the favorite of the Desert Raiders. And their favorite song was the smash hit In the Mood. The music of WWII was known as Swing. It came in two flavors, Sweet and Hot. In the vernacular of the times the In the Mood was sweet. By comparison, Benny Goodman's Sing, Sing Sing was considered Hot.
But the song of songs of the desert warrior was neitherhot nor sweet. The song was considered a march song and march music was out of fashion. The song was based on a poem written by Hans Leip around the time of World War I. The poem was put to music by Norbert Schultze in 1938
That song was Lili Marlen.
To some Lili Marlen is a street walker. To other's she is one's true love. To every soldier in the desert, be he Desert Rat or Afrika Korps, she was the woman he left behind. Indeed, the song Lili Marlen is often called the Anthem of the Desert Warrior.
Neither the **** leaders or the Allied Command embraced the song, officially. In fact both tried to ban the song at one time or another. But in the end, the emotions of the average soldier, German, French, British, American, and every other nationality that served in the North African desert looked upon the song as "their song". In fact the British actually took the German song and had it translated for their troops.
But even with the English versions being played, the warriors of the desert always looked upon the original "auf Deutsche" version to be theirs. Below you will see the lyrics in German, a 1944 English translation, and the last a version written by a member of the SAS.
In 1939 Lale Andersen recorded the song under protest, not wanting to be associated with a "march" song. Joseph Goebbels hated the song and promptly banned it from play but it eventually made the air ways and by the time Rommel landed in North Africa the song was being played over Radio Belgrade in **** occupied Yugoslavia. Rommel liked it and asked for it to be played more often. It became a hit.
Lale Andersen, Vera Lynn, and Anne Shelton would all later produce wartime English versions. German versions were also recorded by Willi Fritch and Mimi Thoma Eventually Marlene Dietrich, a former German star who came to Hollywood to escape the Nazis recorded it in English for the Americans. She also recorded the song in German. Those who did not already know the song, knew it once Dietrich sang it.
The BBC produced an anti-****** parody of the song in 1943 titled Lucy Mannheim
