[4] During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the young Inge Wagner and Luftwaffe Fliegerleutnant (Flight Lieutenant) Herbert Koch meet, and within a few days fall in love.
They make plans for their joint future, but before they can get married, Herbert is seconded to the Condor Legion and ordered to the Spanish Civil War; he is forced to leave immediately without giving Inge any explanation.
Since the beginning of the war, a big musical event has taken place in Berlin every week, which is broadcast on the radio as Wunschkonzert für die Wehrmacht and provides a channel for greetings and messages between the front and home.
Starring roles were played by Ilse Werner as Inge Wagner, Carl Raddatz as Herbert Koch, and Joachim Brennecke as Helmut Winkler.
After World War II, the Allied Control Council, which, in 1945, subjected all German-language films then on release to an ideological examination, banned its performance.
[5] With this film (her 11th), Ilse Werner tightened her grip on star status, and added to her image the role of the "girl back home", faithfully enduring.
[8] The blend of distracting escapist entertainment on the one hand and naked propaganda on the other makes Wunschkonzert one of the most significant products of Nazi film politics.
Echt deutsche Gefühlsinnigkeit ("genuine German sensibility") is celebrated in another scene, in which Schwarzkopf, a young pianist, plays Beethoven to a house-party in farewell.
[11] The real main theme of the film however is German Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community", a specifically Nazi term), the inner bond between home and the front, and the participation of every level of society.
[13] Consequently, the film closes, not just on the images of the idyll of love, but with battleships, bomber squadrons, swastika banners, and the patriotic song "Denn wir fahren gegen Engelland"[13] (Hermann Löns' "Matrosenlied" (1912) to the 1939 melody by Herms Niel.
On 21 December, the completed film was laid before the Filmprüfstelle (original edition: 2,832 metres, 103 minutes), which classified it as fit for youth viewing.
[2] At its presentation to the FSK on 24 January 1980 (2,720 metres, 99 minutes), the film was cleared as suitable for showing on public holidays, and for those aged 16 and over (Prüf-Nr.