Schultze, Norbert Arnold Wilhelm Richard.

Schultze, Norbert Arnold Wilhelm Richard, born on 26-11-1911 in Braunschweig, the son of the doctor Walter Hans Schultze, who died 17-04-1964, ge 84 on a trip to the Alps. Norbert graduated from Realgymnasium in Braunschweig and studied piano, conducting, composing and the subjects of musicology and theater studies in Cologne and Munich. In Munich he appeared as a composer in the early 1930s. Under the pseudonym Frank Norbert, he was composer for the student cabaret Die four Nachrichter for a while. This was followed by engagements in Heidelberg from 1932 to 1934 and as Kapellmeister in Darmstadt, Munich and Leipzig. In 1932 he married his first wife, the actress Vera Spohr with whom he had four children. After his divorce in 1943 he married the Bulgarian actress, singer and writer Iwa Wanja, who contributed libretti to several of his stage works. They had two sons..She died 26-06-1991, age, 85, in Berlin,

His later life was spent with his third wife Brigitta Salvatori (married Easter 1992, in a ceremony performed by his daughter Karin, a priest),

Schultze a Nazi party member was the composer of Lili Marleen   , the German song immortalised by Marlene Dietrich,  which became an anthem for troops on both sides during the Second World War. Lili Marleen was originally a poem, The Song of a Young Sentry, written by a German soldier, Hans Leip, who died old age 89 on 06-06-1983,

Schultze, Lalle Andersen and Leip.

before he was sent to the Russian front in 1915. The name Lili Marleen combined that of Leip’s girlfriend, Lili, the daughter of a grocer, and a young nurse named Marleen, who had waved to Leip and then disappeared into the fog. The poem was published in 1937, and Norbert Schultze, already an established composer of German operas and film scores, set it to music in 1938. Initially, the song was not popular and Joseph Goebbels (did you know) urged Schultze to change it to a marching tune. Just before the outbreak of war, however, it was recorded by  (Eulalia Bunnenberg) Lale Andersen, although it did not take off until German Forces Radio began to broadcast it to the Afrika Korps in 1941.

After Field Marshal  der Infanterie, Erwin Rommel The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps  DAK) was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the formation fought on in Africa, under various appellations, from March 1941 until its surrender in May 1943. The unit’s best known commander was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

  It was blasted out of speakers mounted on trucks, and echoed over the tannoys in military hospitals and across the frontline. Every soldier could sing along to the wistfully sentimental lyrics: Underneath the lantern, by the barracks gate, Darling I remember the way you used to wait.’Twas there you whispered tenderly That you loved me, you’d always be My Lily of the Lamplight, my own Lily Marleen. By the time Marlene Dietrich had incorporated a haunting, husky (and slightly flat) rendition of Lili Marleen into her repertoire, and sung it to American infantrymen in Germany, it was established as the most popular war song ever.  From 1931 to 1932 Schultze was a composer and actor in cabaret in Munich, after which he became an opera conductor at Heidelberg and Darmstadt. In 1934 he joined the Telefunken record company, but left in 1936 to become an independent composer for stage, films and television.

   That same year, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Rudolf Schock made their opera debut in Schultze’s Schwarzer Peter, which ran successfully throughout Germany and was performed in more than 100 theatres. During the war Schultze was called upon to compose the music for propaganda films, and he wrote a number of songs, including Bombs for England and Tanks Roll into Africa. As a result, in 1945, the Allies classified him as a sympathizer, a charge of which he was found guilty by a denazification court. Schultze was forbidden from composing and spent three years as a gardener and heavy construction worker. He later expressed his regret at having co-operated with the Nazis. After he resumed composing, Schultze had success with the musical Kapt’n Bay-Bay (1950) and the operetta Regen in Paris. He also owned a music publishing firm. During the 1960s, he served as a member of the board of supervisors of GEMA, the German body responsible for the protection of musical authors’ rights. In 1996 he was awarded the GEMA-Ehrenring  in recognition of Lili Marleen as “a stroke of genius which, in just a few beats, expressed the sentiments of an entire generation”.

Death and burial ground of Schultze, Norbert Arnold Wilhelm Richard.

    Norbert Schultze died very old age 91, on 14-10-2002 and is buried on the Hauptfriedhof of Braunschweig. Close by the grave of the resistance man Friedrich Werner Graf von der Schulenburg,  Schulenburg a German diplomat who served as the last German ambassador to the Soviet Union before Operation Barbarossa.

Although Hitler lost the battle for Britain, he opened a second front in the east. On 22-06-1941, he invaded the Soviet Union, marking the start of ‘Operation Barbarossa’. Because Hitler surprised Josef Stalin, the attack is initially successful. At the end of September the Germans encircled Leningrad. Millions of Russians die or are taken prisoner of war. However, in December, when winter sets in and the Germans are in front of Moscow, the advance comes to a standstill. The Russians counterattacked and inflicted their first defeat on the Eastern Front on the Germans. In May 1942, the Soviet army tried to recapture Kharkiv, but the Germans hit back hard and also conquered Crimea. About 250,000 Russians are killed in these battles and an equal number are taken prisoner of war.

Schultze began his diplomatic career before World War I, serving as consul and ambassador in several countries. After the failed July 20 plot Oberst Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg in 1944, Schulenburg was accused of being a co-conspirator and subsequently executed, on 10-11-1944, age 68 in Plötsensee prison

.    The 20 July threaten for Hitler at the Bendlerblock in Berlin was saved by Major Otto Ernst Remer

commander of the Infantry Regiment Grossdeutschland who refused to arrest Joseph Goebbels, after talking to an unhurt Hitler in the Wolfschanze by phone. Also buried here the Generalmajor der Flieger, Commander 2^ndFallschirm Jäger Division , Hans Kroh, Generalmajor der Infanterie, Commander Infanterie-Regiment 9, Adolf Raegener.

Norbert Schultze senior. (sitting), his wife Birgitta Salvatori-Schultze (behind him),;Norbert Schultze jr., Dickie;Wehmeyer-Schultze, Birgit Schultze, husband Kristian, Pastorin Carin;Carter-Spohr, Dr. Elsayed Hegazy, Eva;Schultze-Spohr, husband Roderich, Clyde;Carter, (from left), Birthday party,;Spanien, Mallorca, “Mariott”-Hotel..

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