Schultze, Norbert

Norbert Schultze was born on 26 January 1911 in Braunschweig, attended here the school and received violin and piano instruction. After completing A-levels, he left Braunschweig in order to study music in Cologne and, later on, dramatics in Munich.

He then worked as a rehearsal pianist and theatre conductor in Heidelberg, Darmstadt and Munich before accepting an offer from a Berlin recording company in 1935 to act as a recording manager. It was during this time that the idea of Norbert Schultze's first opera "Schwarzer Peter" was born; it was a resounding success on the stage of the Hamburg State Opera in 1936. This opera made Norbert Schultze world-famous almost overnight. One year after "Schwarzer Peter," Norbert Schultze produced the dancing spectacle "Der Struwwelpeter;" in 1938 he set Wilhelm Busch's "Max und Moritz."

Already during the First World War, Hans Leip had written the "Lied eines jungen Wachtpostens" (Song of a Young Guard) for his poetry collection "Die kleine Hafenorgel" (The Little Port Organ) as a farewell to a girl. Norbert Schultze set it to music as "Lili Marleen," with Lale Andersen singing it for the first time in 1938 over the Cologne Reich Station. From the soldiers' stations it went directly into the soldiers' hearts, becoming so popular during the Second World War that when "Lili Marleen" was played, a silent cease-fire was said to have been maintained on many fronts for a few minutes.

Honours and awards flowed in, deservedly. Norbert Schultze became the President of the "Dramatists' Union," assumed a leading function in the GEMA (German Society for Performing Rights and Mechanical Reproduction Rights) for the benefit of composers and awarded the Paul Lincke Ring in 1973. Norbert Schultze was always committed to his works, adding new ones, writing arrangements for others, conducting them in broadcasts and producing recordings.

Norbert Schultze died on 14 October 2002 in Bad Tölz.