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Marc Boettcher

Wednesday, 31 December 2008 17:15

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The Life Story of Inge Brandenburg

It was a life full of passed-up opportunities and unhappy coincidences. And it started that way, too. Born in Leipzig, Germany on February 18, 1929, Inge Brandenburg spent her youth in homes in Dessau and Bernburg. Her father was a communist and was beaten, deported and confined before his children’s eyes by Nazi henchmen. In 1941 her father committed suicide by running into an electrified barbed wire fence at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Her mother, who lost her right to raise her five children after her husband was deported and had to look on as her children suffered at homes was arrested for making “subversive remarks” and died under unspecified circumstances during deportation to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

And so, though it was true that at the end of the Second World War the young woman was liberated, yet she was without her parents with no one to turn to. Due to the war and relocating between various homes, she lost track of her siblings and was unable to find them for years afterwards. Inge first worked in the Soviet zone and, fleeing across the “Grüne Grenze” (green border) in 1949 in a dangerous night-time escape to Hof, Bavaria in the American-controlled sector. Her escape led her on to Augsburg where she found work as a house maid. She enjoyed going to bars frequented by soldiers in order to take in the music and its swinging rhythms. One night she is picked up by the police, half undressed, her floral confirmation dress unaccounted for. Drunk GIs had torn it off her body. Because she had no documentation, she was put in jail for six months for vagrancy. Her cell mates were streetwalkers and thieves.

After her release, she ended up at a farm in a small village near Augsburg wearing only her torn prison clothing. The farmer’s wife sewed a new dress for her from her curtains. She still did not have formal identification papers. Finally, she managed to obtain a residency permit from the local job office and thus improved her social standing. She regained contact with her family and years later had a home of her own. The family even had a piano. "I worked for 25 Deutschmarks a month at a bakery, and was allowed to use the family piano." The musical baker’s family even found her a piano teacher. She had to give him 20 out of her 25 German marks for piano lessons. "But I turned into a different person. I finally had a goal to work towards."

She had always felt a special love for music. Her favorite radio station was AFN (Armed Forces Network) and her favorite recording artists were Peggy Lee, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra. One day, after reading an ad in the Augsburg daily newspaper that a dance orchestra was looking for an attractive singer with a low voice, Inge Brandenburg screwed up her courage and applied for the job. In the winter of 1949 the band leader Eugen Weigele took the talented young lady to the American Crossroads Club and had her sing. The thrilled soldiers got her a job by the power of their applause. From then on she toured with a broad ranging repertoire for the grand sum of 170 German marks a month to German nightclubs, acquired a huge repertoire of approximately 2,500 hit music tunes, standards and evergreens. She sang with innumerable dance bands. The constant experience performing allowed her to refine her musical talent and professionalism. The self-taught performer became a favorite act at GI night clubs, whose audiences cheered her on with the name "Brandy." Whether she performed swing, cool jazz, blues, hillbilly or hit music – Inge Brandenburg sang her way through the Fifties without a wider audience taking note. Only among musicians did news spread about the phenomenal singer. In 1957 she moved to Frankfurt because she hoped the Frankfurt music scene would give her new impetus for her professional career.