How Django Reinhardt survived the NAZI Occupation of Paris
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- Опубліковано 9 чер 2015
- How Django Reinhardt survived the NAZI Occupation of Paris.
Open Modal Guitar
Interesting documentary, some great snippets of Django on film and some good context for understanding how he survived occupied Paris. However the issue of Django's possible collaboration is poorly dealt with. There is no primary evidence (witnesses or documents) nor secondary evidence (rumours or second hand tales) presented to support the contention, just the puzzle of how Django survived with such apparent freedom. Was he protected the doco asks? Of course he was. Django was worth a lot of money to a lot of people. Nightclub owners, promotors, record companies all made big $ from Django and the Nazis were surely taking more than their share from all these sources. Django was a one man economy, regardless of what any German officers thought of him personally or of his music, the fact that Django generarated so much money they could tap into was doubtless the best protection he could have. This would have been reinforced by his personal popularity among Parisians. If the Nazis were to harm or petsecute Django it would certainly have incited public fury and resistance, and made occupation more dangerous and difficult for them. It was a very complex situation for Django, which for a while he was able to exploit in his favour although eventually in the chaos of the later stages of the war things got quite fraught. The fact that Django saw out the war in Paris and maintained his public popularity itself indicates that he was not a collaborator. For how could such a thing be kept secret given Django's high profile? Nobody in Paris at the time seemed to have any reason to considet him a collaborator. The reputation of this genius guitarist, one of the truly great musicians of all time, should not be tainted with such accusations. Yes there is a puzzle, and a complex situation to understand, but Django's honour here must surely be considered intact.
Thanks for an enlightening documentary. I think "collaborate" is probably not correct. I would only use that word for people who HELPED the Nazis. I don't think that trying to get by under a murderous occupier by playing music and posing for photos qualifies as collaboration, particularly when you're already in a persecuted group.
Django was a very complicated and contradictory person and don't forget he was belgium .the only loyalty he had was to himsellf. He tried to get through the. War without uppseting the apple cart .he was no collaborator but he was the greatest guitarist who ever lived
Fascinating. My dad was a classical violinist about 10 years younger than Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli. He idolised Grapelli and had 78s discs of the pair. When Grapelli returned to touring in the early 70s, with Diz Disley taking up the jazz guitar part effectively in homage to Reinhardt, our dad took us kids to see them a couple of times with top seats at close quarters. It really left an impression on me.
I will have to look up more to see if Grapelli talked much in interview about those times.
This really feels as though Hollywood have missed a trick not making a biopic given the subject matter, but I guess there’s too much not known and would generate controversy. The enigmatic element as it stands adds to the interest in many ways and the wartime story for Reinhardt, his cultural and artistic background amidst a Nazi occupation and oppression is unique.
That jazz survived under Nazi occupation in France has the same simple reason why it survived in Germany itself. It was simply declared to be "dance music", and re-named accordingly. German bands played the original American records but gave them german titles or lyrics. So "jazz" was forbidden, but precisely the same music - under the label "Tanzmusik" - was routinely played.
Django himself doubtlessly had some helping hands for him on the part of the occupiers. You can read some hints of it in Charles Delauney's book on Django, e.g. at the end of chapter 10.
Right.
Picasso was in France during the occupation. Nazi's couldn't touch him because he was a Spanish national. They couldn't just kill Django, the biggest star in Europe. Could they? Yeah but that would be bad optics!
Interesting documentary, some great snippets of Django on film and some good context for understanding how he survived occupied Paris.
However the issue of Django's possible collaboration is poorly dealt with. The evidence presented to support the contention is scant, especially given Django's high profile in occupied Paris. There is a photo of Django with a German officer. This shows only that an officer wanted his picture taken with Django who obliged. The photo was taken in public, a celebrity pic, not in any clandestine meeting, and the reasons Django stood there while the camera clicked should be seen in the context of the complex situation he found himself in. (Anyway would a collaborator actually pose for such a public snapshot with a German officer?) Beyond this and a second hand statement about a German officer claiming to have protected him there is nothing but speculations on the puzzle of how Django survived the occupation with such apparent freedom.
Was he protected the doco asks? Of course he was. The logic of war, occupation and money means he must have been. Django was worth a lot of money to a lot of people. Nightclub owners, promoters, record companies all made big $ from Django and the Nazis were surely taking more than their share from all these sources. Django was a one man economy, regardless of what any German officers thought of him personally or of his music, the fact that Django generated so much money they could tap into was doubtless the best protection he could have. If a German officer said that he looked after Django, he probably did, perhaps he was a fan, but that is not collaboration on Django's part. Django made his music, the music made money, he did not seek protection but as a source of wealth for the Germans he got it anyway. Why could he tour? Money. Record? Money. If Django himself saw enough of the revenue he generated to be personally wealthy, imagine how much the Nazis took for themselves.
This would have been reinforced by his personal popularity among Parisians. If the Nazis were to harm or persecute Django it would certainly have incited public fury and fuelled the resistance, and made occupation more dangerous and difficult for them.
It was a very complex situation for Django, which for a while he was able to exploit in his favour although eventually in the chaos of the later stages of the war things got quite fraught.
The fact that Django saw out the war in Paris and maintained his public popularity itself indicates that he was not a collaborator. For how could such a thing be kept secret given Django's high profile? Nobody in Paris at the time seemed to have any reason to consider him a collaborator. The reputation of this genius guitarist, one of the truly great musicians of all time, should not be tainted with such accusations. Yes there is a puzzle, and a very involved context to understand, but Django's honour here must surely be considered intact.
Thank you for the very well reasoned and articulated analysis. You've saved me enormous effort!
Thank you for this information. What a world to have survived in. His brilliant music and staying calm and.. Staying.. constant about his music
There are two really great ORIGINAL European jazz musicians; Django and Toots Thielemans.
Dietrich Schültz-Kohn was just a German soldier and a jazzfan and record collector. The photo with Django was just a souvenir for Dietrich; he had nothing to do with any "protection" of Django, if indeed that existed at all.
super interesting film. Thank you!!
BRILLIANT. So thankful For D'Jango Reinhardt.. Bringing the world his gorgeous Jazz
@ 23:29 Mrs Monet went to speak to some Nazi officers about sparing her husband's art & studio, and the Nazi's respected her request.
Very interesting, thank you
32:44 nice video of django
Even with a disabled left hand and leg - nobody else come close...
Nice video...
right
No one comes close.
At 35:06 Into this video the words said are " Let me tell you something if Django was alive HE would kill them all " - - To me if you ask Django kills them all dead or alive !
Great, many thanks.
tell me more
Joseph Goebels would have a fit if he saw my record collection.
Qué no hay una versión en español gracias
French gitarist ?? Django was a Belgian !!
Does anybody know the song at 13:09 and 20:04
I just watched the documentary today otherwise I could've answered your question sooner. The song at 13:09 is "Dinah" which Django also recorded as "Dinette;" and the snippet at 20:04 is "Sweet Chorus." You can likely find both of these on youtube.
He was los
Great video. Unfortunately because of his enormous genius as a guitar player, we tend to put Django Reinhardt on a pedestal. He was a superstar in France during the war, popular with the Germans and the French as well. Django used his superstar status to his own benefit, enriching himself and enjoying the good life while millions suffered. To my knowledge Django was not an active member of the Resistance, or worked behind the scenes to help persecuted Jews or Gypsies or other victims of the Nazis. He did not put his life on the line, and remained a totally neutral observer, which is a black mark on his name as far as I am concerned. He'll always be the greatest jazz guitarist who ever lived, but during the war he was as close to being a collaborator as you can get.
You betray a great paucity of spirit in your ungenerous analysis. None of us knows what another goes through during trying times, and in the absence of affirmative evidence of collaboration, "close to being a collaborator" is discourteous enough. Furthermore, his attempted escapes serve as solid counter-examples to your already thin thesis.
Considering he was :
-Crippled
-Gypsy
-Jazzman
-Reluctant to play in Germany.
But survived the occupation and the war.
For my concern, as a collaborator ( among so many other things), he was definitely one of his kind.
You, cannot even IMAGINE what people had to go thru to SURVIVE that time in history. Putting yourself on the front line did nothing but get you & everyone you loved killed…. Django was smart enough to understand he could do more Alive. He tried numerous times to get himself & his family out of France. That’s all he COULD do, and that’s all YOU could’ve done, too. Take the social justice, feigning the moral high ground elsewhere… you’re embarrassing yourself. Don’t be so sure that YOU wouldn’t have made sacrifices, or done all kinds of things against your moral compass that you could do avoid the camps. It was pure SURVIVAL. Something none of us have ever had to experience… and hopefully never do, so don’t think for a second you have any right to JUDGE ANYONE who endured this atrocity.