Harmonies Abound

In the summer of 1949 the Yale Glee Club took its first post-World War II tour abroad. The Club consisted of 65 young men, nearly all undergraduate students at Yale University. Some were combat veterans of WW II; others were recent high school graduates. All were devoted singers. The tour was planned for four weeks through Scandinavia, followed by two weeks in Germany, hosted by the U.S. Government as a good-will offering to the German people. In those two weeks the Glee Club gave fifteen concerts at different universities in Germany. They met with German students and shared views about the state of the world. The tour is described by one of the Glee Club members, drawing on his recollections of those events in considerable detail, considering that he was recalling them from over sixty-five years earlier. Interestingly, the tour came at the start of the Cold War with Russia, for just before the group got to Germany, Russia closed off Berlin from all commercial traffic, trying to starve out the western occupants of Berlin. The U.S. and other western powers responded by establishing a 24/7 airlift of supplies. The Glee Club's visit came in the middle of and was affected by those events. The book provides a glimpse of a world recovering from the ravages of a mighty war, as seen by a 21-year-old who at the time had no experience in traveling.