When I was an American army officer stationed in Germany twenty-five years after the end of World War II, standing alone at night in the dense fog, in Army uniform and overcoat, beneath a street lamp outside die Kaserne, I cherished the mystique and the romanticism of Lili Marlene as it played over and over in my head, I half-expecting, half-hoping that Marlene Dietrich would step out of the fog and say, in her beautiful, deep, soft German accent: Got a light, soldier?
I loved being a soldier. I loved Germany. I loved the American Army. I loved my countless German friends. I loved the beautiful German women; I still think about them often. I loved the splendid German men I knew and who were my friends.
However I still cannot understand how the nation of Beethoven and Eric Maria Remarque and so much more could descend into the nightmare of naziism.
A pilgrimage to Dachau intensified the horror and made it even more incomprehensible.
All I could do was promise God and myself that I would NEVER be a part of evil, that I would seek Truth and accept it wherever it might present itself, and that I would fight against evil until my last breath and beyond.
That song has an unusual draw for me as well. I have always found it interesting that nearly all armies adopted and sang the song...except for probably the Japanese!