Alexandra "Grau zieht der Nebel - Tombe la Neige"

Salvatore Adamo / Ernst Bader
montana, Rudo Editions
1968 Phonogram GmbH

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The German singer Alexandra, born as Doris Treitz in Heydekrug, Memelland (today: Šilutė, Lithuania). Due to Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII, her mother had to take her and her two elder sisters to the West. While the father wanted his daughters to aim for office jobs, the mother supported artistic aspirations, and the interest in foreign languages. At age 17, she left school in Kiel to become a fashion designer and actor in Hamburg, studying at Margot-Höpfner-Schauspielschule, working in several jobs to earn the money. At age 19, Doris Treitz took part in the Miss Germany pageant, enjoying being in the spotlight while still living with her mother in a small cheap apartment in Hamburg's Rothenburgsort. In order to pay the rent, they had to lease a room, to a Russian, Nikolai Nefedov, who was 49 years old and en route to emigration into the US. Doris fell in love, they married. After their boy Alexander ("Sascha") was born when she was 20, the couple got a divorce and Mr. Nefedov went to America alone.

As she did not consider her legal name Doris Nefedov as helpful for a career, she chose Alexandra instead, after her son. Before a concert of singer Salvatore Adamo, the crowd booed other new female talents away, until Alexandra won them over with her rather melancholic style. Hans R. Beierlein, the well known German music manager of Udo Jürgens, became her manager, friend and lover.

Alexandra's first hit single, "Zigeunerjunge" ("gypsy boy"), was released in 1967; several more releases followed, including, "Schwarze Balalaika" ("black balalaika") and "Mein Freund, der Baum" ("my friend, the tree"). Most of the songs became no big hits, according to producer Fred Weyrich because they "were ahead of their time". She was forced to record a song not written by herself, "Sehnsucht" ("yearning") and vowed not to sing it again, yet it became a hit.[1]

In her international career, she performed songs in several other languages besides German as well, including French, English, Russian and Hebrew. In 1968, she performed in Rio de Janeiro, and spent a holiday there, meeting a new lover. In spring of 1969, she was awarded the "Golden Europa" award for best newcomer. Soon, she had to take a time-out in Davos due to the stress of her career which soon resumed after a move to Munich. She met Pierre Lafaire, and they intended to marry even though her sisters disagreed, suspecting fraud. They split up. Following phone calls, she sleeps in the same room with her son fearing that her son might get abducted, and writes her last will in favour of her son and mother.
On July 31, 1969, Alexandra traveled to Hamburg to negotiate with her record company. She took a car shuttle train. The same day, on her way to a holiday on Sylt, Alexandra drove her recently acquired Mercedes-Benz 220 SE Coupé. With her were her son, Alexander, and her mother. On the way, she had the car checked in a work shop before she failed to brake for a crossing, colliding with a truck near the town of Tellingstedt, Holstein under unexplained circumstances. Alexander survived with minor injuries, while Alexandra was killed instantly and her mother dying in hospital. The car might have had problems, and there was some speculation that the accident was sabotage.

With 3,000 people attending, Alexandra was buried at the Westfriedhof in Munich: her tombstone is simply labelled "Alexandra".

A biography was published in 1999 by movie director Marc Boettcher; Boettcher received several anonymous threats while researching the circumstances of Alexandra's death, and announced that he would push for a new investigation of the circumstances of her death in 2004 after further research, citing former Stasi documents that revealed that her lover Pierre Lafaire had been an American secret agent in Denmark as well as testimonies contradicting the documented results of the original investigation.

Grau zieht der Nebel durch die menschenleere Stadt
Mein Herz ist einsam, weil es dich verloren hat

Das Licht der Laternen scheint fahl durch die Bäume
Und grau wie der Nebel sind all meine Träume

Und so wird für mich die Zeit zu einer Ewigkeit
Ich warte vergebens so viel Stunden des Lebens

Grau zieht der Nebel durch die menschenleere Stadt
Mein Herz ist einsam, weil es dich verloren hat

Könnt' ich dich doch fragen: Was ist nur geschehen?
Dann werde ich dir sagen: Ich kann dich verstehen!

Und so wird für mich die Zeit zu einer Ewigkeit
Ich warte vergebens so viel Stunden des Lebens

Laß' neu uns beginnen, wenn die Nebel zerrinnen