Nazi Propaganda Jazz

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

I worked a hoedown Saturday with a buddy who turned me on to one of the more bizarre discs I've ever heard, the second volume of the Proper Box "Swing tanzen Verboten!" (The 4th volume is all Django.) It consists of swing and jazz standards rendered by a Nazi band (Charlie and His Orchestra), with lyrics altered so they could be broadcast as propaganda to Allied troops. Here are a couple of excerpts from The Nation article, as well as a link to the whole piece:

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'Charlie and His Orchestra--weren't merely German swing enthusiasts flouting their leaders' disapproval. They were government employees broadcasting to the enemy in the enemy's own language and in a musical form that their employers were nominally committed to stamping out. Though less well-known than the infamous Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce) or Axis Sally (Mildred Gillars), who broadcast on behalf of the fascist regimes, they were an important part of the Reich's propaganda effort to smuggle a defeatist message into British and American homes.'

(to the tune of The Sheik of Araby)
After that first verse, a voice cuts across the music: "Here is Mr. Churchill's latest song." The melody stays the same, but the words are unfamiliar. "I'm afraid of Germany/her planes are beating me./At night, when I should sleep,/into the Anderson I must creep./Although I'm England's leading man/I'm led to the cellar by ten./A leader in the cellar each night/that's the only damned way I can fight."


(to Onward Christian Soldiers)
"Onward conscript army,/marching on to war,/fight and die for Jewry,/as we did before."

(to They All Laughed At Christopher Columbus)
"They all laughed at Germany and its leader/when he said that Germany will rise/...They all laughed at Germany wanting colonies/said, she was reaching for the moon!/Now it's a joke to deny German victory/wise guys have to change their tunes."




Swing Time For Hitler

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

[Monte Smith]

SdcS:

This book came out from Yale in 1997 and is a comprehensive study of Nazi swing propaganda. Charlie and His Orchestra and the British "Tokyo Rose," William Joyce, are the central figures. The book includes a free CD of 22 cuts, interspersing news propaganda with Hitlerian swing, including an antisemitic Makin' Whoopee that is unintentionally funny.


Hitler's Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing
by Horst J.P. Bergmeier and Rainer E. Lotz
ISBN: 0-300-06709-7

[Stephen Stralka]

This reminds me of a short story by Arthur Miller that appeared in the New Yorker a couple of years ago. It had to do with an American tap dancer, who also happens to be Jewish, who winds up doing a performance for Hitler in Germany in the 1930's. Hitler, not knowing that the guy is Jewish, or that tap dance is an African American art form, gets all excited and wants to hire the guy to teach tap dancing to the master race. Irony abounds.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Stephen Stralka

...Hitler, not knowing that the guy is Jewish, or that tap dance is an African American art form, gets all excited and wants to hire the guy to teach tap dancing to the master race. Irony abounds.

Hahaha. It's a nightmare scenario right up there with a Nazi A-bomb. Can you imagine the cacophony had the Nazi hordes tapped across the Maginot Line?