"V" sign, BBC and Beethoven

[Eric Alan Weinstein University Of London Centre For English Studies]

     Greetings,

    If this point has been mentioned in the past, pardon, it is new to 
me. I recently encountered  the follwing fact about "V", relating to
 Churchill's "V" for "Victory" salute. It seems the BBC World Service
 used to broadcast, all over Europe repeatedly during the war, the
 opening five notes of  Beetoven's Fifth (V) symphony, as a kind of
 audio signifier of the British/Allied victory sign.  It seems people all
 over occupied Europe would play the Fifth  in order to annoy  the Nazi
 army. To play  it, one still  maintained "plausable deniability," for one 
could, of  course,  merely be appreciating fine  music.

     It drove the German millitary potty to have the BBC and its millions of
European listeners turn this particular symbol of German culture against 
them.

    ( Yes, folks, this is the kind of stuff you can learn during three days of 
non-stop V-E day media coverage.) 

    E.A.Weinstein
    Centre For English Studies
    University Of London
     E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk