3rd Reich: Horst Winter Tanz-Orchester - Komm zurück (J’attendrai), 1942

Horst Winter mit seinen Solisten, mit Refraingesang -- Komm zurück (J’attendrai) (Olivieri -- Siegel) Phonoton, 1942 (Third Reich) This film is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the end of the battle of Stalingrad, which has passed today. It was a major and decisive battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany lost its claws and teeth. After the Battle of Stalingrad, German forces never recovered their earlier strength, and attained no further strategic victories in the East. NOTE: Horst (Harry) WINTER was a talented German bandleader, singer, violinist and clarinetist. Born in 1914 in Bytom; (in German: Beuthen; a city in Upper Silesia, back then it belonged to the Prussian Empire, now in Poland) died in 2001 in Wien, Austria. After completing musical education in the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, Horst Winter played clarinett and sung with the renowned German swing dance-bands led by Kurt Widmann and Hans Rehmsted. In 1941 he arranged his own dance orchestra, which recorded for Tempo and for Phonoton records. In 1943 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht service, which brought him -- via Normandy -- to the American zone in Wien, where he led various dance orchestras and composed until the late years of his life. The Phonoton label belongs to ephemeric wartime German record firms, which started to operate during the 2nd WW (- note on the bottom of the label writes: Kriegsausführung, meaning “the war series“). Phonoton advertised itself as “non-breakable records“ and indeed, they were made of more durable shellack, that made the product suitable to a safer transport across war-engulfed Europe. Alas, Phonoton was too small to withstand the competition of large German companies as well as the growing popularity of flexible records. After two years it ceased production, leaving behind a set of simply arranged and nicely orchestrated recordings, favored by the front soldiers. Also Horst Winter makes here a nice presentation of one of the most beautiful danc etunes, composed in Europe in the 1930s. Composed by famous Italian composer and bandleader, Dino Olivieri in 1938, it immediately had international recognition, due to most of all the excellent French interpretations by Tino Rossi , Jean Sablon or Rina Ketty . Produced in millions copies, “J’attendrai“ was together with English “Lambeth Walk“ the last enormous hit during the months preceeding the war catastrophe in Europe. See some other renditions of “J’attendrai“ which I posted in recent years in You Tube: Michael Jary Tanz Orchester Hans-Georg Schütz Kurt Widmann’s Tanz-Orchester Interestingly, in last rendition the vocal had been made by Horst Winter!