Rote Rosen, rote Lippen, roter Wein revisited : Italien als Imaginationsort im Schlager der BRD-Nachkriegszeit

The relationship between Germany and Italy is a special one, as Italy was already a place of longing in Goetheʼs time and became so even more in the 1950s post-war period, with the first travel abroad, interest in the new guest workers and the general desire for everything non-German. Italy thus became a very important place of the imagination in the Schlager-songs of West Germany: in addition to specifically German and Alpine themes, Italian subjects in particular can be found at this time and in this genre. The foundation for these attitudes, as this essay will show, lie in the approaches to Italy developed in the 19th century, based in part on escapism and exoticism. Even today, alongside pop and rock artists whose production functions differently, one German-Italian showmaster in particular still plays heavily with clichés but also with irony, as this essay will demonstrate. Through his staging, he implies that these patterns and paradigms are not yet completely obsolete.