Overview
- Description
- On March 9, 1941 Kurt Weill talked with William H. Marshall, Assistant District Director of Immigration at Ellis Island about his expression of American ideals through music. Kurt Weill reveals he wanted to become a citizen as soon as he arrived to America. He adopted English as his first language and encouraged other schoolchildren to do the same. Weill shares his thoughts on the national songs and American folk songs. He believes America is strengthened by music because it is a universal language. He adds music provides passion to overused words like “liberty” and “democracy.” The German American composer reveals how a play he created was destroyed by a dictator, but he was able to debut the performance in America. He closes the episode by saying, if Americans felt democracy was in danger then they would have the same passion for freedom.
Kurt Weill (b. Kurt Julian Weill) was born on March 2, 1900 in Dessau, Germany to a Jewish family. The son of a cantor, Weill began taking piano lessons at the age of 12. The aspiring musician quickly became a fixture in Berlin’s cultural scene of Weimar Germany. Weill had some early successes, but it was his partnership with Bertoldt Brecht that transformed Weill into an international sensation. The Jewish Weill and the Marxist Brecht represented everything that the Nazi regime declared its enemy. Nevertheless, The Threepenny Opera was a hit. His powerful music, combined with the cynicism and social criticism of Brecht’s libretto, was one of the most important cultural creations of interwar Europe. Nazi protests frequently interfered with his performances, and Weill fled to France in 1933 after he learned that he and his wife were on the Nazi blacklist and due to be arrested. He continued on to the United States where his hit musical "Knickerbocker Holiday" written with playwright Maxwell Anderson debuted in 1938. Not one to shy away from his heritage, the Jewish composer was an early figure in memorializing the Holocaust and raising public awareness about the plight of Europe’s Jews. Weill produced important works critiquing American optimism and ‘way of life’; as well as tackled issues such as the unequal distribution of wealth, segregation, and the effect of industrialization on families. - Date
-
Broadcast:
1941 March 09
- Format
- WAV
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Genre/Form
- Radio broadcasts.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- This archival media can only be accessed in a Museum reading room or other on-campus viewing stations.
- Copyright
- NBC Universal
- Conditions on Use
- Contact NBC Universal at www.nbcuniarchives.com for permission to duplicate and use this film or sound recording.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- In process
- Recorded Sound Provenance
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum purchased digital copies of these sound recordings from the Library of Congress in March 2018.
- Recorded Sound Notes
- More information about Kurt Weill:
https://www.kwf.org/pages/kw-biography.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kurt-Weill
http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/third-reich/weill-kurt/
More information about I’M AN AMERICAN:
https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/our-history/historians-mailbox/im-american
https://www.npr.org/2017/10/16/557338355/im-an-american-radio-show-promoted-inclusion-before-world-war-ii - Recorded Sound Source
- Library of Congress - Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS)
- File Number
- Source Archive Number: RGA 9794
- Record last modified:
- 2024-02-21 07:27:09
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn620823
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Also in "I'm An American" NBC radio broadcasts
I’M AN AMERICAN premiered in 1940 on the eve of WWII. The NBC radio broadcast was spearheaded by the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the U.S. Department of Labor to foster a “deeper consciousness of the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship and more tolerance for fellow american of all birthplaces”. The weekly program featured distinguished foreign-born citizens discussing their naturalization process, the meaning of “democracy” and reminding all Americans of the value/privilege of U.S. citizenship. Sound recordings of I’M AN AMERICAN are available from the NBC Radio Collection in the Library of Congress.
Date: 1940-1944
I'm An American -- Attilio Piccirilli
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I'm An American -- Igor Sikorsky
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I'm An American -- Louis Adamic
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I'm An American -- Konrad Bercovici
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I'm An American -- Emil Ludwig
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I'm An American -- Walter Damrosch
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I'm An American -- Guiseppe Bellanca
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I'm An American -- Thomas Mann
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I'm An American Day 1942 part 2
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I'm An American Day 1942 part 3
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I'm An American Day 1942 part 4
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I'm An American Day 1943 part 1
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I'm An American Day 1943 part 2
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I'm An American Day 1943 part 3
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I'm An American Day -- Christmas in Freedom
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I'm An American -- Walter Huston
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I'm An American -- Robert Zuppke
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I'm An American -- Efrem Zimbalist
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I'm An American -- Daniel Tobin
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I'm An American -- Edith Kempthorne
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I'm An American -- Pitirim Sorokin
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I'm An American Day 1942 part 1
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I'm An American -- Vilhjálmur Stefánsson
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I'm An American -- César Saerchinger
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I'm An American -- Ferdinand Schumann-Heink
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I'm An American -- Frank Kingdon
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I'm An American -- Richard Waring
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I'm An American -- William Schlamm
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I'm An American -- Max Lerner
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I'm An American -- Fortune Gallo
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I'm An American -- Fred Perry
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I'm An American -- Raymond Loewy
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I'm An American Day 1941 -- The Dangerous Days
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I'm An American Day 1941 -- I'm An American Day
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I'm An American Day 1941 -- Fiorello LaGuardia
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I'm An American Day 1941 -- One Nation Indivisible
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I'm An American -- Henry Morgenthau Sr
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I'm An American -- Franz Werfel
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I'm An American -- Frank Capra
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I'm An American -- Xavier Cugat
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I'm An American -- Anton Carlson
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I'm An American -- Johannes Steele
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I'm An American -- Yolanda Mero-Irion
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I'm An American -- Jean Hersholt
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I'm An American -- Rabbi Stephen Wise
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I'm An American -- Gregory Zilboorg
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I'm An American -- Anton Lang
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I'm An American -- Guy Lombardo
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I'm An American -- Ludwig Bemelmans
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I'm An American -- Hans Kindler
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I'm An American -- Luise Rainer
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I'm An American -- Charles Pergler
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I'm An American -- Gaetono Salvemini
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I'm An American -- Paul Muni
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I'm An American -- Béla Schick
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I'm An American -- Leopold Stokowski
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