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With ideas too big for a single episode, The Compass presents mini-series about society

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The Compass: Soul Music: Soul Music: Lili Marlene

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Marlene Dietrich - Actor and Singer

22/09/2016 GMT

Soul Music: Lili Marlene

Soul Music

BBC World Service - The Compass, Soul Music, Soul Music: Lili Marlene

Stories of love, loss and friendship through the WW2 song Lili Marlene

Stories of love, loss and friendship through the WW2 song Lili Marlene, made famous by Marlene Dietrich and sung by soldiers on both sides.

It tells the story of Alexander Franks deployed into the desert in World War Two. He remembers listening to the song, surrounded by ‘a million square miles of nothing’ and how they would turn the radio up so the song could be heard by both sets of soldiers. Amidst the carnage and the tension, the haunting melody would raise their hearts, and remind them of their common humanity. After the war he got in touch with the very German men he had been fighting and, to this day, they sing Lilli Marlene to remember the good things and the bad.

(Photo: German born actress Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) at the first inter-allied athletic meeting of Berlin's occupying troops, 25 September 1945. Credit: Fred Ramage/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Compass: Soul Music

A series of programmes about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.

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