Written in 1915 as a poem, the song was published in 1937 and was first recorded by Lale Andersen in 1939 as "Das Mädchen unter der Laterne" ("The Girl under the Lantern").

[1] The words were written in 1915 as a poem of three verses by Hans Leip (1893–1983), a school teacher from Hamburg who had been conscripted into the Imperial German Army.

[3][4] The poem was later published in 1937 as "Das Lied eines jungen Soldaten auf der Wacht" ("The Song of a Young Soldier on Watch"), with two further verses added.

In early 1942, she recorded the song in English, the lyrics translated by Norman Baillie-Stewart, a former British army officer working for German propaganda.

[6] Another English translation was done by Theodore Stephanides during World War II and published in his memoir Climax in Crete in 1946.

HMV's copy was discarded during renovations to their Oxford Street store in the 1960s, but the disc was recovered and is now in a private collection.

For example, in his memoir Eastern Approaches, Fitzroy Maclean describes the song's effect in early 1942 during the Western Desert Campaign: "Husky, sensuous, nostalgic, sugar-sweet, her voice seemed to reach out to you, as she lingered over the catchy tune, the sickly sentimental words.

"[12] The next year, parachuted into the Yugoslav guerrilla war, Maclean wrote: "Sometimes at night, before going to sleep, we would turn on our receiving set and listen to Radio Belgrade.

But still, punctually at ten o'clock, came Lale Andersen singing their special song, with the same unvarying, heart-rending sweetness that we knew so well from the desert.

"Then, at ten o'clock, loud and clear, Radio Belgrade; Lili Marlene, sweet, insidious, melancholy.

"At Valjevo, as at so many other places [...] we would tune our wireless sets in the evening to Radio Belgrade, and night after night, always at the same time, would come, throbbing lingeringly over the ether, the cheap, sugary and almost painfully nostalgic melody, the sex-laden, intimate, heart-rending accents of Lili Marlene.

A cartoon by Bill Mauldin in the American army newspaper Stars and Stripes shows two soldiers in a foxhole, one playing a harmonica, while the other comments, "The krauts ain't following ya too good on 'Lili Marlene' tonight, Joe.

"[citation needed] In 1944, the Morale Operations Branch of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) initiated the Muzak Project,[17] musical propaganda broadcasts designed to demoralize enemy soldiers.

"Lili Marleen" became the theme song on the German language OSS MO radio station Soldatensender.

The MCA Records release (D-1284) peaked #93 in the Oricon charts and spend three weeks there, and sold a total of 8,000 copies, this version has "Falling in Love Again" as a B-side.

The singer later re-recorded the song for her albums Cadavrexquis (1993) and Heart (2001), the latter version with updated lyrics, written by Norbert Schultze shortly before his passing.

A version called "The D-Day Dodgers" with words by Harry Pynn was sung by the allied troops in Italy once the Normandy invasion had begun in 1944.

A recording was made by Perry Como on 27 June 1944 and issued by RCA Victor on 78 rpm (catalog number 20-1592-A) with the flip side "First Class Private Mary Brown".

Matia Bazar (Italy) recorded an uptempo beat song called "Lili Marleen" on her 1982 album Berlino, Parigi, Londra.

Most recently it was recorded by Neil Hannon of the Irish pop group The Divine Comedy as a B-side to the 2006 single "A Lady of a Certain Age".

A slow-tempo instrumental version can be found on the compilation LP, Vienna: City of Dreams, by the Austrian zither master Anton Karas.

"Lili Marlene" has been adopted as the regimental slow march by the Special Air Service, Special Air Service Regiment and Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and its melody is the basis of the official march of Kodam III/Siliwangi in the Indonesian Army.

During WWII Soviet counterpropaganda officer (and future dissident) Lev Kopelev wrote a parody of the original song for demoralization of enemy soldiers.