The song Lili Marleen was recorded in 1939 by singer Lale Andersen and popularised in 1941, when it was played on Radio Belgrade following the German occupation, but it was beloved by soldiers on both sides of the war, whose girlfriends and wives the song reminded them of.
In Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film of the same name, the song is now sung by the fictional Willie (Hanna Schygulla), who begins the film as a German expat living as a carefree nightclub singer in Switzerland. She is deeply in love with her Jewish fiancé, Robert (Giancarlo Giannini), who works with an antifascist network, spearheaded by his overbearing father, helping German Jews escape to safety. Distrustful of Willie’s German origins, Robert’s father (Mel Ferrer) has her deported back to Germany, where she begins singing again and eventually records Lili Marleen. The song catapults her to fame, making her the darling of the Nazi regime. Her stadium performance is portrayed with maximum pomp and circumstance. All the while, she must prove her loyalty to the resistance if she is to have any chance of being reunited with Robert. As her fame grows, so too do her chances of getting caught.
Lili Marleen can be described as a sentimental drama. The story of lovers kept apart by family and war is a well-trodden one; clandestine meetings in hotel rooms and longing glances are typical scenes in this kind of film; the lighting is soft and hazy like a 1930s’ melodrama, and the performances feel at times over-the-top, at other times dry and deadpan. None of these qualities diminish the film. In fact, Fassbinder embraces melodrama. There’s a self-awareness in the knowing artificiality and the deadpan, in scenes like Hitler’s birthday celebrations or the montage of soldiers listening to Lili Marleen.
The love between Willie and Robert, however, feels real. With every new roadblock in Willie and Robert’s relationship, it’s impossible not to despair for the couple, and especially for Willie, who risks her life for the resistance and is still viewed with suspicion by Robert’s father. Their love shows not just in the characters’ actions, but also in the almost reverent gaze of the camera. This is particularly evident in a brief sex scene: the camera lingers on the less sensual parts of the body – armpits, thighs, ears – highlighting the way Robert and Willie still touch and adore each other’s mundaneness. Though only a minute or so long, it’s a sex scene that will stay with you for some time.
Lili Marleen refuses to provide easy resolutions. Watching the film, our allegiances naturally fall with Willie as the primary protagonist. We see things from her perspective, and it’s difficult not to bristle at the unfairness of her being deported to Germany on the eve of war and then distrusted further by the very man who had her deported because of what she subsequently has to do in order to survive. At the same time, Robert’s father is not a villain. Indeed, he’s a hero. He spends the film helping Jewish refugees and trying to get proof of the horrific evils taking place in Nazi concentration camps. This fact forces the audience to periodically detach themselves from Willie’s point-of-view. How much can we really blame Robert’s father for distrusting a generally apolitical German woman in that climate? Did he actually do something bad by sending her away when the lives of innocent people were on the line?
We can’t help but question Willie’s framing of events – surely it’s possible for a white German woman to make a decent living in Nazi Germany without befriending top officials and even Hitler himself. Yes, she risks everything in order to prove herself, but she does this out of love for Robert, not out of any political conviction. Do motivations matter? Do her own heroic actions become less heroic when she’s rubbing shoulders with Nazis the rest of the time? These questions are left for the audiences to answer.
How much of our sympathy does Willie deserve? I’ve been mulling it over since I watched the film, and I still don’t know, but that’s
The beauty of Lili Marleen partly lies in these questions, and whether Willie deserves our sympathy. It’s a film that has its cake and eats it too in the best way. It allows us to enjoy a story of tragically fated lovers while also asking tough questions about morality and what happens when love, survival, and morality come into conflict.
Watch Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Lili Marleen as part of ArteKino Classics 2025 – just click here for more information.
