Swing in Nazi-Berlin: Otto Stenzel Orch- Musik! Musik!, 1939

[stanthology]

Statue on column from "Wings of Desire", "Himmel uber Berlin" at start of film. What a beautiful city.

[kamilla1960]

The "swing" the Nazis objected to was a bohemian youth culture that did not accept their indoctrination--these young people enjoyed swing music and danced in an uninhibited manner--the word 'swing' was used against them.

[r8448]

Haha The Muppets link with the Nazi's. :p

[IIsykoII]

der text is so herrlich^^ musikalisch erstrecht

[radiocomedyteam]

Musik ist Kunst und das ist Musik vom Feinsten. Wer hier von Nazi Musik redet war damals garantiert noch nicht geplant. Lasst doch mal die alte scheisse ruhen. Was machen den dann die Toten Hosen die Pseudo Linken Lach weg ? Da hör ich echt lieber diese Musik und bin unbefangen.

[Shangas]

When you listen to this music, you think of what Berlin was like in the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s. A city of culture, jazz, high society facading over political and economic problems that would destroy everything that Germany had struggled to make for itself after the disaster of the Great War...

Boy oh boy...what could've been...

[DustBowlD]

Great song from Germany! Thanks for sharing!

[Moenchengladbach]

Mein neuer Weckton ;)

(My new wake up song)

[geekmiki]

@MsFreedomGundam: Not scared and no one is going to hurt me, just want to get things straight. It is important for me, in his memory, to clarify that he suffered under the Nazi-regime, that he did time in Sachsenhausen and that he had to flee from Germany... Being associated with the Nazi regime is a way too big accusation to just let it be...

[miguelmouta]

Muppet Show Opening !

[TCDS75]

Preciosa .................. César

[SuperPenisPeter]

iwo her kenn ich dit! woher???

[FalconSupreme]

Ich möchte mal zwischen die Leute in den schönen alten Bilder zu dieses Video gehen und mir mal so richtig die Stadt zu der Zeit anschauen.

[TheIloveberlin]

@FalconSupreme

Da kann ich dir nur zustimmen

Berlin war vor dem Krieg eine viel interessantere Stadt

[tramway58]

Ich höre diezes Lied gern! German sure had that swing twist that nobody else had!

Tahnks for sharing this one, I never Stenzel before.

[battisa]

C&A XD!

[pachminette]

Tout à fait, cela ne peut pas être du swing nazi; les nazis considéraient cette musique comme de la Musique Dégénérée, de même ttes les compositions de l'Ecole de Vienne ( Schoenberg...), Kurt Weill, tous deux juifs, résolus à l'exil comme bp d'autres,ce qui s'est étendu également à Mahler (juif) et aussi Mendelssohn, compositeur extrêmement chanté et joué en Allemagne, de +, converti au protestantisme; propagande nazie= innommable fourre-tout.

[SEETER1]

cool this song you hear in the mupit show:D

[MowgliX]

This is great music actually. I wish we had a time machine so with could eliminate Hitler and somehow avoid the war. Actually *both* of the world wars! I wonder if it ever will be possible in the future. What do you think?

[MsOldjazz]

berlin is a beautiful city

[rudiherold84]

For some reason I find German and British orchestras during the 30's and 40's had better arrangements than American Orchestras.

[jeanniedee]

MUPPET SHOW ????????

[crusader210]

@jeanniedee thirty years before the muppet show.....

[refohtiew]

Der Schriftzug "Horn" auf dem zweiten Bild ähnelt beinahe dem heutigen der Firma "Honer" in Ulm. Ist dies schon mal jemandem aufgefallen?

[rhekan]

The nazist didnt accept jazz so its no nazi music noobs xD

[KarstenKriwat]

Nazi-Germany was a good country!

[enferno00]

@KarstenKriwat Yes death camps,and killing of the mentally ill what a country it was.

[AlmutAlpen]

@KarstenKriwat Sie sprechen Unfug

[KarstenKriwat]

Ich brauche keine jüdische Musik...

[AlmutAlpen]

@KarstenKriwat Was reden Sie für Unfug? Kommt der Swing aus dem Jüdischen? Bilden Sie sich erst mal. Wir brauchen keine unwerte Musik von Neu-Nazis.

[Stalin111]

kinda reminds me of Leonid Utyosov and the soviet jazzbands.

[shlomofeuerwerk]

Very nice. I thought the Nazis did not like Jazz.

[vHumboldt77]

@shlomofeuerwerk --the Nazis didn't like swing, but jazz was the universal music of the time. Even if they had wished to do away with it, it would have been impossible.If you listen to some orchestras, you'll notice no difference to what was going on on the other side of the Atlantic! --try e.g. Horst Winter and the Allan Sisters in "Heute Nacht keim Heimlich das Glück zu mir" --it's Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra, Berlin version :)

[brutusmuerto]

American (jew/negro) jazz was banned.Germany filled the void with their own.

No trash, graffiti or bums! All this culture had to be smashed and turned into DDR. So much better wasn't it? =)

[KillerMeerschwein]

ich bin auch ein Stenzel!^^ und entfernt mit otto stenzel verwand

[tracerab]

really 1939 ? seems to be more...1936/37

[TheBuddha1987]

haha think so

[kenjin016]

I love this song. he sings fast 2.

[Grobbekee]

This tune reminds me of the muppet show somehow :)

[Audinos]

I think this song was the inspiration for the Muppet theme.

Nice shot of the Kranzler Restaurant, before it was blown to smithereens in a bombing raid. They re-opened on the KuDamm and only closed a few years ago.

[JimmyT132]

@Audinos the muppet theme!! I thought the exact same thing!!

[NecroPhil85]

lol you're right. I knew this song for such a long time but never realized it xD

[BradPittza]

Swing tanzen verboten!

[rhbookout]

I love this song, it has a beautiful sound and great message...I don't need a million to be happy, just music, music, music! But, more than the music I absolutely love the editing. There is such an air of happiness, joy and pride, then it all comes to a tragic end with the last frame of the military parade. Hitler was charismatic and led millions to destruction. Evil can always be cloaked in art. Can we love the art and hate the evil? Hope so! I will watch this video many more times.

[MTotenkopf]

i think this music was banned. dosnt fit with the ideals of the time.

[ChrEich008]

@MTotenkopf Jazz was prohibited, but the regime also "invented" their white style, which was not called Swing. As you can hear quite boring.

[alontas]

Nitrate6971: If photos are from 1939, the time of broken glasses and burnt synagogues had passed. Sadly, for that time, virtually no jewish store or business remained in Germany. It would have been hard to find a shop with "Juden" in the window. On the other hand, I doubt those who made these movies would film such vicious antisemitic attacks. Many jews from Germany came to South America that year, including about 900 to Venezuela in the ship Caribia: Their lives were saved, thanks G'd.

[sbchelldiver]

SWING HEIL!!! :D:D

[182port]

FEELING

[AAErikCO]

Muppets Show theme :D Sounds like Jim Henson 'has some 'splainin' to do!"

[NoirFan01]

@AAErikCO Wow, you're right. It's the Muppet Show theme!

[Texmeister]

Regardless what the so called Nazis thinked about jazz...the average German wouldn't support the nazi view on this music...they just adored it !!

[mokacode]

I believe you

[LeRoi715]

is that Woolworth &CO a department store in Berlin?

did not know that....

the music super and the city beautiful ...visited Berlin in late 70 ...

cheers from Toronto

[nitrate6971]

Happy music, and interesting photos, but no broken glass on the sidewalks, no burned synagogues, no shops with Juden painted on them.

[kashgar22]

If I'm not mistaken, Hitler & company hated jazz. Interesting there was a great jazz band (Charlie's orchestra) that the Germans used to broadcast to the decadent Allies. It was a great band. I think they were even popular with the Americans after the war.

[yedon68]

interesting message here...!!!

[MarkoBagic]

Hey its the Muppets Show theme ! :D

[IPMVerlag]

@MarkoBagic : Its treu, not all Germans were Nazis, nevertheless this music was absolutly against Hitler and his lousy breed.

There was more resistance against this dictator,that one would believe. To be be true this was brave and nessary. Because Swing was forbiddden.

Its no NAziswing. People were put to Ccamps for swing. So one would insult them for saying day Naziswing.

[Quex01]

@IPMVerlag People where'nt put camps because of the swing, where did you get from that idea? Probably from some propaganda history books. Swing was very popular music in dancing places late 30's and 40's world wide, except in soviet Union of course. Even Goebbles loved it and UFA used many swing melodies in their music films, like "Die Frau meiner Träume" (1943)

[IIsykoII]

@MarkoBagic at first i think the same too :D

[IIsykoII]

@MarkoBagic at first i think the same too :D

[xiane1111]

I wish some people out there were not calling this nazi jazz, or whatever, as the nazis were not at all fond of the music, nor of many musicians, artists, or intellectuals and they often suffered greatly.

This lovely music and some of the images form a wonderful picture of a Germany that could-have-been, but of course, was not.

[MrGrowser]

This is Weimar Musik!

[squatworldwide]

@xiane1111 swing musik was banned in nazigermany, watch the movie ,,swingkids,,

but the most people dosnt know.

[ronaldrobin]

@xiane1111 I would have loved to have visited Berlin in the 30's as it looked a really great place full of character and charm. Today I doubt the same feeling would be there but it is still Berlin and that said it would still be worth visiting just to capture the atmosphere that lingers in the memories of a once great city

[phillipgaley]

@ronaldrobin . . . . I suppose, the city is half-full of those nasty Moselms, . . . dirty, poor, and of a criminal mentality, . . . sure be nice when they can be gotten rid of, . . .

[ronaldrobin]

@phillipgaley I think your off your trolley mate. Get a grip the war is over German people are the same as any other people I was born during the war in fact during an air raid. I dont have an axe to grind over them. In fact I feel ashamed at all the damage we did to German cities in the name of war. We need to learn from the past to secure the future for the generations to come.

[phillipgaley]

@ronaldrobin . . . . I think rather, that, "we" aren't going to learn anything, any more than "we" bombed German cities, just as "we" blacks weren't brought here in chains, or, "we" raped female slaves, etc., and so forth and so on. Churchill was adamant that, Dresden was to be bombed—the most which can be said, Buddy, is that, you ought to not do likewise, all of which has little or nothing to do with Islam in this day and age, over-running and ruining German cities, or Danish cities, . . .

[jamjamsterjiggidyjay]

@phillipgaley umadbro?

[phillipgaley]

@jamjamsterjiggidyjay While I don't have any idea of how your "umadbro" would effect the difference in the price of oolong in Berlin and Cairo—or even what that means—if "umadbro" makes you happy, why then, that's great; and, that's what it's all about, anyway—isn't it?

But however "umadbro" might be, wherever they go, Moslems always create slums which are in the pattern of M.E. areas which they inhabit—don't they?

[jamjamsterjiggidyjay]

@phillipgaley lolnoudidnt

[phillipgaley]

@jamjamsterjiggidyjay . . . . Moselm slums; and equally, the rebellion in Egypt and all such similar, cannot in anywise turn out to a better Egyptian standard of living—wouldn't you agree, or, would you need to wait say, 3 years, or maybe, 30 years, to see their folly proved out?

[jamjamsterjiggidyjay]

@phillipgaley sick life bro

[phillipgaley]

@jamjamsterjiggidyjay But then too, of an equivalent mindset, the "occupy Wall St." stuff also, will result in nothing good because, . . . it cannot—right?

[DanzilF]

@xiane1111 What about Herbert von Karajan? One of the best conductors ever, coming from a Nazi family.

[trvlman1966]

@DanzilF Autobahnen wurden auch von den "Nazis" gebaut!

[TerraP]

For you non german speakers i tried to translate the lyrics. Could be not 100% right but well.... I don't need millions of $'s I don't want a cent (pfennig) for my luck I ain't need nothing than music music music I don't need a castle to live in I don't need a car, sparkling and fancy I ain't need nothing than music music music Well, one little thing i need to boot and this big little thing is you, only you, only you, you, you!

[TerraP]

I don't need a million $

I don't want a cent for my luck

I only need your love and

music music music

Instrumental

[vHumboldt77]

now I see this one! sorry :)

[vHumboldt77]

In some other version there's a slight variation in one of the verses --"ich brauche deinen Lieb und nur Musik, Musik, Musik" (I ain't need nothing that your love and music, music, music)

[korniszonek89]

i po jakiego hu...a była ta wojna potrzebna.

Teraz wiem dlaczego używamy tylko 10 procent naszego mózgu a adolf tylko 3 procent :/

[singlewohnung]

Einfach ein schönes zeitloses Lied!

Versucht das mal unpolitisch zu sehen ...

[vHumboldt77]

ich stimme absolut dazu!

[SLACKER614]

ah...the classic past...

[telemacherT2]

SWING HEIL !

[KillerMeerschwein]

GEIL ich weiss nich ob ich mit dem verwandt bin aber ich heiße ach mit Nachnamen Stenzel

LÖL^^

[buspojken13]

FUCK HITLER

[sexiestboy1]

Genau deiner Meinung

[vHumboldt77]

buspijken13 --this has nothing to do with Hitler...It's just music --even under the most enduring circumstances people have to get through, there are things worth rescuing. Good music is one of them. Learn with the example of people like Daniel Barenboim who, Jewish himself, has enough guts to have gone to Israel and play Wagner with the Berliner Philarmoniker...Try to discern a bit, instead of uttering the first insult that come to your mind...

[refohtiew]

Fotomontage? Diese Adlerstelen stehen nämlich in Wirklichkeit nicht in Siegessäulen-Nähe (Säule im Hintergrund). Weder jetzt noch zu Zeiten der Olympischen Spiele - da habe ich mal ein Foto gesehen, was zu Zeiten dieser abgelichtet worden war. Und das war nur(!) 3 Jahre davor! Die hätte man dann ja in rapider Arbeit aufbauen müssen, und nagelneu sind sie hier auch nicht. Und dann wäre es ja möglich, dass sie kriegszerstört wurden, im Tiergarten stand kein einziger Baum mehr!

[robbe8889]

Ich brauch kein Schloss um zu wohnen Kein Auto funkelnt und schick Ich brauche weiter nichts als nur Musik Musik Musik Doch eine ganze Kleinigkeit Die brauch ich noch dazu Und diese große Kleinigkeit Bist Du nur Du Du Du Du Ich brauche Keine Millionen Mir fehlt kein Pfennig zum Glück Ich Brauch nur deine Liebe Und Musik Musik Musik

[amadrys77]

...and that's why you went nach Stalingrad

because du brauchst kein pfennig zum Glueck? Millionen ermorden, ZUM GLUECK? Jaaa !

[robbe8889]

hey AyameChan139,

i have the lyrics :D

Ich brauche Keine Millionen

Mir fehlt kein Pfennig zum Glück

Ich Brauch weiter nichts

als nur Musik Musik Musik

[AyameChan139]

I want a lyric too..please write it for us :D:D

I understand a few words but my German is trully horible ! :D

[robbe8889]

i understand it brilliant, cause i'm german, but i want to have for singing xDD

plz write the lyrics for thx !!!

[AyameChan139]

:D:D Now I understand too :D cause my friend translated it for me :D She speak german better than me !

However when you understand why do you want to have it for singing ??:D:D just hear the words and sing ! :D:D You are german so you can write lyrics for example for me :D:D

"Ich brauche kein Milionen ...." :D continue please ;)

[robbe8889]

okay, i will try it ;D

[AyameChan139]

Yes Yes try it please :D I have lyrics which wrote my friend but some words are not correct or miss!

You can do that ! I believe you ! :D:D and I think it is surprising that such young person as you like this kind of music ! :) Because nowadays generations prefer only stupid hip-hop or similar rubbish :P

[robbe8889]

i have your lirics, but it's in an other way round :D hope you like it :D

[AyameChan139]

haha it´s brilliant ! :D:D danke schön :D:D!!!

Ich mag diese Lied ! und Ich kann es singen :D:D:D

Ok sorry :D:D I wanted to practice my German :D I have learned this language 3 and half years and I know big nothing ! :D:D

once again thank you :D:D What´s a pity , that my voice does not sound pretty :D:D But never mind :D I can sing it ! and this is important !:D:D

[robbe8889]

does anyone can give me the lyrics of this great song??

or the link??? thakns

[robbe8889]

i'm only 15 and i really LOVE this music!!!

thanks for uploading

[AYALACAtheist]

Actually, there's a Woolworth's on Turmstrasse around the corner from my house....

[lewis1936]

Now even Woolworths has gone!!

[academicusprecarius]

@lewis1936 In Berlin there are still several Woolworth stores existing (Müllerstraße, Scharnweber Straße etc.)

[lewis1936]

@academicusprecarius

[lewis1936]

@academicusprecarius

I am obliged,thanks for the info. I was afraid as in this country ,they had all gone bust.

[LeRoi715]

super music !!! thanks. made my sad day happier !!!

[videorocker2001]

240252, watching all these photos together with the music is like seeing thorugh a window into the past. the photos make it very real and alive, as if you're there. how sad that history turned out as it did (nazi-party coming to power).

[michaelwright999]

Mikidevk Thanks for that, Great music love it

[mikidevk]

Please do not mix up everything! Otto Stenzel was my grandfather and I can assure you that he wasn't a nazi! He had to leave Germany because the Nazis persecuted him. He even did time in Sachsenhausen (a camp near Berlin). So this is NOT nazi music eventhough is was composed and performed during that time.

[miguelmouta]

Sorry. But is too late to hind bad ethics with

good esthetics. Thats THE PROBLEM modern philosophers must deal, after psychobiology did born based on DNA facts( and knocked-out old Wittgenstein, Jung and Freud interpretations).

[vHumboldt77]

@mikidevk --lovely music. It must be an honor to have a grandfather that left such beautiful music to the world. Don't mind the fanatics --there have always been fanatics in all times and places. Many Germans didn't like the Nazis and many Nazis were not German! . Nazi music....ridiculous....there are melodies and arrangements that one could easily take for Benny Goodman's, Tommy Dorsey's or Artie Shaw's!. All the best, Patricio

[bimhimbim]

@mikidevk AshkeNazi means German.

[AnimeAndFF]

@bimhimbim yes !

[464748]

@mikidevk bei dem lied würd ich auch nich vermuten das er irgendwie Nazimäßige züge hat^^

eher im gegenteil^^ musik musik musik

[MsFreedomGundam]

@mikidevk even if he was nazi, why so scared? Is someone going to hurt you? please the only ones in need for doing that are the commies

[onesterov]

Ich liebe sehr dieses Lied und brauche richtige Woerters, weil selbst in Moskau liebe

[19581228]

Dear "240252",

that is really great of you. Thank you very much! I'm happy we share taste for the same kind of music, no matter if it's American, English, French, Polish, German or whatever. Just good and hot music from the 20s, 30s and 40s.

Keep on swingin' and all the best,

Yours, "19581228"

[19581228]

This is not "Nazi-Swing"!!! It is good German dance music composed by Peter Kreuder! Since American swing music wasn't necessarily permitted by the political administration then, many German musicians tried their very best to be as "hot" as possible without getting censored. Please don't call everything straight away "brown" or "nazi" just because it is of that time. Thank You!

[Recordhistorian]

The comment of 19581228 is quite superbe! It's unbelievable: how naive and hateful the reaction are, when someone only mentioned the nasty word "Nazi": Ironic - I had a telephone calls with the bandleader in 1984, with Otto Stenzel: He was himself in 1939 a few weeks in a concentration camp - because of "politics". His then 2nd trumpetplayer Carl Hohenberger (15 piece band) ,married with a jewish wife and "salon-communist" died because of an "accident" - a revolver of a russian soldier in 1945!

[hebneh]

Yes, this does resemble "The Muppet Show" theme song somewhat:

"It's time to put on make-up

It's time to dress up right

It's time to get things started

On the Muppet Show tonight"

But more than that, the photos accompanied by the wonderfully cheerful music are an amazing contrast to the reality of the mass killing which the Nazis were just about to unleash with the attack on Poland which started WWII in Europe.

[gerrygeorge1]

Let's get it straight hebneh - both you and I know that the Nazis didn't have a priority- option on mass killings; the Bolshevists having just slaughtered 80 million innocents between 1918 and 1936, when this Muppet tune was written, all in the name of their cursed poitical patriarch Komrad Marx; about whom they no doubt recorded merry ditties, too !

[saxondog2001]

Thank you. This is terrific and your presentation is wonderful. A lot of us in the U.S. only remember images of the bleak 20's and the social and political upheaval of the early 30's. -- And of course War's devastation. It's refreshing to be reminded that there was a brief, bright, and modern side to life.

[midholm]

I love this song. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the 8 bar main theme forms the nucleus for "The Muppet Show Theme"? I suppose that just because Sam Pottie / Jim Henson weren't Nazis, any "similarities" between the crucial opening phrases have been conveniently overlooked.

[midholm]

I love this song. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the 8 bar main theme forms the nucleus for "The Muppet Show Theme"? I suppose that just because Sam Pottie / Jim Henson weren't Nazis, any "similarities" between the crucial opening phrases have been conveniently overlooked.

[midholm]

I love this song. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the 8 bar main theme forms the nucleus for "The Muppet Show Theme"? I suppose that just because Sam Pottie / Jim Henson weren't Nazis, any "similarities" between the crucial opening phrases have been conveniently overlooked.

[parlophonman]

Wunderschoene foto's von alt-Berlin!

Dankeschoen!

[vonderbild]

Einfach Klasse

[SeppDietrich555]

Superb vid! Thanks

[dzheger]

"I don't need millions" he sings, and yet they plundered Europe. Anther good reminder of the pleasant and the evil. Nice swinging 'musik', I must say, and good photos of peaceful Berlin and the military parade. Thanks G.