An early boy band was world famous — until the Nazis took over
Long before there were The Backstreet Boys or BTS, there was a boy band called the Comedian Harmonists. A vocal sextet in Weimar Germany, they were world famous — but once the Nazis rose to power they were silenced, because three members were Jewish.
Their story has now been turned into a Broadway musical called Harmony, with a score by pop superstar Barry Manilow.
A new musical
About 30 years ago, playwright Bruce Sussman, who, went to a screening of a film about the Comedian Harmonists "and endured three and a half hours of German documentary making with subtitles," he said. "And instead of being daunted by it, I was completely overwhelmed by it in the most positive way. And I ran to a pay phone and called Barry and said, 'I think I might have found the story we would like to musicalize.' "
