With the "Abhor verbot van Auslandsendern" (ban on listening to foreign radio stations) in place in 1939, it became impossible for Germans to listen to swing and jazz music broadcasted by foreign radio staions. In spite of the stiff penalty of imprisonment for 5-10 years, this law was disobeyed on a grand scale. The BBC jazz programs were popular not only with the German populace, but its armed forces as well. The success of the British "Sandwich formula" (where news broadcasts were packaged around popular music) led the Germans to use a similiar system for their propaganda broadcasts. Programs used the music as bait to attract listeners to its foreign language propaganda broadcasts. Using technologically advanced radio transmitting technology, the programs could reach the whole of Europe, as well as England and the United States. The shows were mainly produced to demoralize the enemies across the Channel.
Of all the programs produced, the most popular was "Germany Calling", hosted by William Joyce, also known as "Lord Haw Haw". The show mostly consisted of his self written cynical comments about Winston Churchill and accusations of his corruption due to Jewish influences, mixed with sketches and jazz music by the band known as Charlie and His Orchestra. Founded in 1940 by Lutz Templin, he assembled some of the finest jazz musicians to be found in Europe at the time, and was charged with the task of creating what could only be described as "Propaganda Jazz". Templin, along with his fellow band members, wrote the arrangements that mainly consisted of standard settings of popular American big band music, showtunes and Hollywood film songs, designed to get the enemy used to listening to the programs if they could not find anything on their own radio channels, thus being exposed to the propaganda. Despite having some of the best jazz musicians of Europe, the music was carefully arranged and the songs were selected to reach a wide target audience, resulting in heavily scored music with limited space for the occasional solo.
The band gets its name from the lead singer, Karl "Charlie" Schwedler. Aside from being the lead vocalist, Schwedler also wrote all of the anti-American and anti-British lyrics he performed. To maximize the effect of his lyrics and to confuse listeners, Schwedler would usually sing the first verse of the song with its original lyrics, then follow with his anti-Jewish comments or tirades against Roosevelt and Churchill. The band members were not allowed to discuss their work to anyone outside the studio, so they operated in secrecy. When Allied bombing raids increased in 1943, the band moved from their studio in Berlin to Stuttgart where they continued to broadcast until the end of the War. The band became in high demand for occupying forces, (many of whom found the lyrics to be more of a laugh as opposed to the demoralizing effect German radio had in mind) and toured occupied Germany for a brief time before returning to their countries of origin. A number of the members received playing bans by the courts in their respective countries of birth after the end of the War.
