Gilberte de Courgenay was Gilberte Montavon (1896-1957), but she was also Anne-Marie Blanc who passed away just a few days ago (5.2.2009). While the real Gilberte was a server in the Railway Station Restaurant of Courgenay, on the Swiss side at the French border, and got immortalized (in Switzerland) by one of the soldiers who defended Switzerland during World Word I, the music ethnologist and singer Hanns in der Gand (1882-1947) who wrote this famous song that every Swiss knows, the actress Anne-Marie Blanc who played the real Gilberte was further identified with this famous song that is sung in the movie by Erwin Kohlund who played cannonier Hasler.
Cannonier Hasler has a fiancée, Tilly, and her father is the rich hotelier Odermatt. When Hasler gets the call from the army to defend Switzerland (remark that military service has been always compulsory in Switzerland), he writes Tilly letter after letter, but never gets an answer. While he is sitting sad in the Railways Station Restaurant of Courgenay, Gilberte falls in love for him. He who plays basically the role that in reality played In der Gand, composes this famous song and breaks so down the last barriers between him and Gilberte. She organizes even a Christmas party for all those soldiers who are not allowed to join their relatives but have to stay in defense. However, meanwhile, a comrade of Hasler is commanded to go to Berne because of a sick horse and thereby finds out that Tilly's father held back Hasler's letters. Tilly takes the next train to Courgenaye and just arrives in the Railway Station Restaurant when the soldiers are starting the Gilberte-de-Courgenay-Song. When Gilberte realizes what is happening, she renounces of Hasler, although showing tears in her eyes.
Gilberte is the type of the soldier-mother like there have been several in Europe - Katherina Lanz was the most famous -, she cares for the needs of "her" soldiers and sometimes scolds them for not eagerly enough following their patriotic duties. Therefore, she incorporates the ideal woman-type of the "Geistige Landesverteidigung" (intranslatable: "Mental State-Defense"), as a sensitive, empathic, serving supporter of her husband being strong herself and never crying. This is not propaganda, but the creation of a hopeful counter-reality in dark times.
Cannonier Hasler has a fiancée, Tilly, and her father is the rich hotelier Odermatt. When Hasler gets the call from the army to defend Switzerland (remark that military service has been always compulsory in Switzerland), he writes Tilly letter after letter, but never gets an answer. While he is sitting sad in the Railways Station Restaurant of Courgenay, Gilberte falls in love for him. He who plays basically the role that in reality played In der Gand, composes this famous song and breaks so down the last barriers between him and Gilberte. She organizes even a Christmas party for all those soldiers who are not allowed to join their relatives but have to stay in defense. However, meanwhile, a comrade of Hasler is commanded to go to Berne because of a sick horse and thereby finds out that Tilly's father held back Hasler's letters. Tilly takes the next train to Courgenaye and just arrives in the Railway Station Restaurant when the soldiers are starting the Gilberte-de-Courgenay-Song. When Gilberte realizes what is happening, she renounces of Hasler, although showing tears in her eyes.
Gilberte is the type of the soldier-mother like there have been several in Europe - Katherina Lanz was the most famous -, she cares for the needs of "her" soldiers and sometimes scolds them for not eagerly enough following their patriotic duties. Therefore, she incorporates the ideal woman-type of the "Geistige Landesverteidigung" (intranslatable: "Mental State-Defense"), as a sensitive, empathic, serving supporter of her husband being strong herself and never crying. This is not propaganda, but the creation of a hopeful counter-reality in dark times.