Michael Jary

Michael Jary was born on September 24, 1906 in Laurahütte, Upper Silesia, Germany as Michael Andreas Jarczyk.

In 1931 he received the award of the Beethoven Prize from the city of Berlin, which was a great honour for the young man.

His dream of a great career as a so-called serious composer, however, came to an abrupt end on 8 February, 1933, the day of his concert. As a Polish Jew he was booed off the stage by members of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur. Paul Graener, the new director of the Stern'sches Konservatorium denigrated his concert as "the cultural bolshevistic musical stammering of a Polish Jew".

His friendship with the songwriter Bruno Balz brought the outcast a job as an assistant to the film composers Franz Doelle and Leo Leux. His first cooperation for a film was the box-office hit "Amphitryon" (1935).

In order to make a career in Germany he changed his name from Max Jarczyk into Michael Jary. The managed his breakthrough as a composer of pop songs in 1938 with the song "Roter Mohn.".

In 1948 he set up his own publishing company, Michael Jary Productions, which in the fifties even had an office in New York.

He did demonstrate his talent once more to the music world with the song "Wir wollen niemals auseinadergehen" for the German preliminary rounds leading up to the 1960 European Song Contest. The festival jury relegated it to second place. But, to this very day, it has been one of the greatest successes in the history of German Pop Music.

He settled in his final domicile in Switzerland above the Lake of Lugano. He suffered there from three heart attacks in 1973.

He was a composer, known for Das Boot (1981), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Downfall (2004).