Day: March 8, 2005

Two years later, in 1926, the husband of mystery writer AGATHA CHRISTIE told her he had been having an affair with another woman. On the night of December 3rd, the author climbed into her Morris automobile and drove off into the night. The car was later discovered teetering on the edge of a rock quarry, with no sign of Christie. After a breathless public search of nearly two weeks, she was discovered 250 miles away, registered under the name Theresa Neele at a country hotel. Despite assertions of emotional distress and memory loss, Christie’s disappearance (and cross-country travel) were never explained, and she refused to speak about the incident for the rest of her life.

The Legacy Project will build a global exchange on the enduring consequences of the many historical tragedies of the 20th century.

As the survivors of historical traumas pass on, the lasting resonance of their experiences will depend on whether younger generations can understand and recognize them. Such recognition will challenge subsequent generations to discover new connections across historical events and to maintain distinctions among them. To be grounded in individual experience, and to recognize common ground in the historical experience of others.

In the 1930’s the Nazis had the same love/hate relationship with swing music. They outlawed it on their homefront, throwing it into the category of “degenerate” art. But at the same time, they employed it in the service of the fatherland. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, assembled a fairly competent swing band called Charlie and His Orchestra to perform Nazified versions of the jazz hits of the day. Led by an English speaking German, Karl Schwendler, Charlie and His Orchestra broadcast on the medium-wave and short-wave bands throughout the 1930s to Canada, the US and Britain.

The idea was to lure the masses in with the irrestible tonic of swing music and then slyly work in the anti-Jewish, American and British lyrics after the second or third verse. The broadcasts of Charlie and His Orchestra were not available in the Fatherland proper, but that only enhanced their legend, and they picked up an underground following in Germany as well.