Ah, the things you can find on YouTube! An orchestral performance of the scene from Casablanca (1942) where a group of German officers are singing Die Wacht am Rhien, only to be ultimately drowned out by the French patrons in Rick’s Cafe singing La Marseillaise. Go here for an excellent examination of this moving scene. At the time the movie was made the Vichy regime had banned the song and it had become the anthem of de Gaulle’s Free French Movement. The movie was rushed into release shortly after Allied, mostly American, troops had landed in North Africa in Operation Torch. After some initial fighting, the French garrisons came over to the Allied side, so the film had a strong contemporary resonance for American audiences which was completely fortuitous.
Many of the actors and actresses belting out La Marseillaise in Casablanca were French refugees from the Third Reich. Ironically, Major Heinrich Strasser, leading the German officers in Die Wacht am Rhein, was portrayed by German actor Conrad Veidt. A combat veteran of the German Army during World War I, he too was a refugee from Nazi Germany.
Great scene from Casablanca (1942). We forget how grim most of the film was because of its eventual happy ending. The movie came out in general release in January 1943 to take advantage of the publicity of the Churchill-Roosevelt meeting in Casablanca. (It’s New York premier was on November 26, 1942, a rushed affair to take advantage of the news about Operation Torch and the Anglo-American liberation of French North Africa.)
On the whole 1942 had been a grim year for the Allies, but with Midway, El Alamein, Guadalcanal and Stalingrad, 1942 also marked the turning point of the War. However let us imagine a less happy reality in which Japan retained much of its new found empire and the Third Reich held on to much of Europe. Tyranny forever? No, because tyranny tends to raise up unremitting foes and because the chief enemy of all tyrannies cannot be beaten: Time. All despotisms are a more or less futile attempt to call a time out on History. Hitler talked about his thousand year Reich. The Japanese imagined that their Emperor was destined to rule the four corners of the globe. Today we have truly foolish individuals who speak about being on the right side of History and work feverishly and futilely to make that category error a reality. One of the few truisms of Man’s journey in this Vale of Tears is the impermanence of “permanent” institutions with the Catholic Church, so far, being an exception to this rule. Mere human contrivances are erected in one historical moment and in the next change, and in the next fall to pieces. Human tyrannies are not immune to that rule, no matter how formidable they appear, or how ghastly they are to the people with the misfortune to live under them.
Thank you. Gives me hope that the present Vatican tyranny will falter and fall. Guy, Texas
A good reminder that time for that little man in Moscow is past due if only the West will get its act together. Like the Vichy, the average Russian has little desire to participate in his vainglorious venture.
Historic irony: the French song was written by patriots who feared a German attack across the Rhine in the 1790s, while the German song was written by university students to rally their fellows against a feared French incursion across the river in the 1840s. The tune to “Die Wacht am Rhein” is still the melody of the Yale alma mater.
Thank you so much for this. I was unaware of the timeline and the participants in the movie, extras, and other actors, who truly had their hearts in the picture due to the events.