GERMAN MUSIC - 1933-1945

In the years 1933-1945, Hitlers National Socialist Workers Party used music as a tool to forge political

unity among Germans.

Hitler and the senior NSDAP leadership instinctively grasped that among the arts, music was the most

readily laden with ideology, and could inculcate both the youth and the masses with state-serving Bildung.

NSDAP Copyright Peter Crawford 2013

Hitler-Jugend Copyright Peter Crawford 2013

National Socialist music education, promoted heavily by and among the Hitler Youth, expanded along

with concerns of cultural Bolshevism, and served as a counterpoint to degenerate music.

Once in power, Hitler moved to purge music and music scholarship of Jews, in an effort to promote the

unique origin of the German Volk, and further saturate citizens with racial theories.

In keeping with origin myths and racialism were the Romantic works of the composer Richard Wagner, a

prominent anti-Semite who would assume supreme musical status in Hitlers Germany.

In such a personalized regime as Hitlers, the dictators tastes virtually defined official aesthetic norms.

Throughout the period of Hitlers chancellorship, the musical bureaucracy of the NSDAP would struggle

to balance the tensions between art music (symbolized by Wagner) and popular demand for music such

as jazz.

Justified by vague memos from their Fhrer, Hitlers close associates carved out their own personal

spheres of influence.

Hitlers unwillingness to clearly lay out lines of command, combined with his intense personal interest in

artistic policy, resulted in an administrative situation in the arts which was exceedingly complicated.

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In 1933, competing National Socialist entities separately claimed control of all musical theaters in the

Reich, proclaimed jurisdiction over all state musicians, pronounced guidelines for publication of musical

materials, and sparred over administration of musical culture generally.

Alfred Rosenberg

A key figure in these struggles, and a key figure in any study of Nazi cultural policy, was Alfred Rosenberg.

For all of his failings - from inflating Hitlers trust to vacillating administration in the occupation of the East

- Rosenberg undeniably possessed a keen awareness of the power and potency of art forms as a means

of ideological struggle.

In response to electoral defeats in 1928, Rosenberg had fashioned a political contingent upon the arts

that would attract the German middle class to the NSDAP.

He also established the 'Nazi Society for German Culture' [Nationalsozialistische Gesellshaft fr deutsche

Kultur].

In keeping with the administrative entropy that characterized Nazi operations, Rosenbergs Society for

German Culture spawned still more organizations.

'The League of Struggle for German Culture' [Kampfbund fr deutsche Kultur], founded in 1930, became

an important offshoot.

This organization consisted of departments for music, cinema, visual arts, and radio, and effectively

served as the forerunner of Goebbels 'Ministry for Enlightenment and Propaganda' [Reichsministerium

fr Volksaufklrung und Propaganda].

Berlin Philharmonic

Kampfbund fr deutsche Kultur (KfdK), was a nationalistic anti-Semitic political society during the Weimar

Republic and the Third Reich. It was founded in 1928 as the Nationalsozialistische Gesellschaft fr deutsche Kultur

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(NGDK) [National Socialist Society for German Culture] by Alfred Rosenberg, and remained under his leadership

until it was reorganized and renamed as the Nationalsozialistische Kulturgemeinde in 1934. The aim of the

association was to make a significant imprint on cultural life in Germany based on the aims and objectives of the

inner circles of the NSDAP. Upon its reorganization, the club was merged with the association Deutsche Bhne

(German Stage). This was connected with the establishment of the official body for cultural surveillance, the

"Dienstelle Rosenberg" (DRbg), later known as the Amt Rosenberg.

In 1933, Rosenbergs adjutants took control of German music Radio and Recording during the Third

Reich, which amalgamated popular and traditional music history.

Membership in the Kampfbund fr deutsche Kultur shot upwards.

From a membership of one thousand in 1932, the Kampfbund saw more than 20,000 new members join

up in the first eight months of Hitlers Chancellorship.

Music thus functioned not only as an emblem of German distinctiveness, but served as a magnet for

mass involvement in party activities.

Rosenberg was the early architect of National Socialist cultural policies, but he was not their ultimate

champion.

Dr Paul Joseph Goebbels

On July 20, 1933, only months after the Gleichshaltung, Hitler arrogated far-reaching oversight over state

culture to Dr Paul Joseph Goebbels.

A philologist and writer, Dr Paul Josef Goebbels welded the whole of German artistic culture to the aims

of the National Socialist state.

Paul Joseph Goebbels (29 October 1897 1 May 1945) was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda

in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was

known for his zealous orations.

Goebbels earned a PhD from Heidelberg University in 1921, writing his doctoral thesis on 19th century romantic

drama; he then went on to work as a journalist. He also wrote novels and plays. Goebbels came into contact with

the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP) in 1923 during the French occupation of the Ruhr and

became a member in 1924. He was appointed Gauleiter (regional party leader) of Berlin.

Goebbels would have lasting impacts on German musical culture.

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Berlin Philharmonic

The ease of Goebbels first task - the co-opting of arts organizations - had been facilitated by the financial

devastation of the preceding Weimar Republic.

The Weimer era may have produced some significant cultural figures, but a period of fiscal abundance it

was not.

Orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic among them, were actively seeking state support and patronage from

any party in 1933.

Guided by Dr Paul Josef Goebbels the National Socialists supplied the Philharmonic with operating funds

and in the process armed themselves with a significant tool that conferred the Party additional legitimacy

among German elites.

Not only symphony orchestras fell under National Socialist sway.

Dr Paul Josef Goebbels

Reichskulturkammer Copyright Peter Crawford 2013

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On September 22, Dr Paul Josef Goebbels established the Reichsmusikkammer (Reichs Chamber of

Music).

The Reichsmusikkammer promoted "good German music" which was composed by Aryans and seen as

consistent with Vlkisch ideals, while suppressing other, "degenerate" music, which included atonal

music, pop music such as jazz and country, those experimenting with electronics and music by Jewish

composers as they were seen to be of non-artistic merit and produced solely for popularity and financial

gain.

The Institute was founded in 1933 by Joseph Goebbels and the Reichskulturkammer (State Bureau of

Culture), and it operated until the fall of the Third Reich in 1945.

One of the Institute's primary goals - that of extolling and promoting "good German music", specifically

that of Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, Pfitzner and the like - was to legitimize the

claimed world supremacy of Germany culturally. These composers and their music were re-interpreted

ideologically to extol German virtues and cultural identity.

Peter Raabe

Richard Strauss

Although Richard Strauss was the president of the RMK, real power lay in the hands of the organizations

chair, Peter Raabe, a musicologist.

Peter Raabe (27 November 1872, Frankfurt an der Oder12 April 1945, Weimar) was a German composer and

conductor. Graduated in the Higher Musical School in Berlin and in the universities of Munich and Jena. In 1894-

98 Raabe worked in Knigsberg and Zwickau. In 1899-1903 he worked in the Dutch Opera-House (Amsterdam).

In 1907-20 Raabe was the 1st Court Conductor in Weimar. Raabe has been giving performances in the United

Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands etc. On 19 July 1935 Raabe superseded Richard Strauss as the president of

Reichsmusikkammer. For almost ten years Raabe directed the music activity of the Third Reich.

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Franz Liszt

He was the first to provide a complete Chronology of Franz Liszt works.

By 1934, the organization consisted of seven departments for composers, performing musicians, concert

managers and publicists, choral and folk singers, music publishers, music dealers, and music instrument

manufacturers, respectively.

The high degree of organization indicated also that the RMK was not free to set its own course in the

arts.

In keeping with his desire to see the Propaganda Ministry become the cultural arbiter for all of society

Goebbels would provide the RMK with direction from above.

As scholars would later note, the Reichsmusikkammer and German musical life were to become a single

entity.

Although orchestras suffered purges of their Jewish personnel, orchestral programming was not

immediately brought into harmony with the Aryan party line.

Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn, Berlins wunderkind of the early 19 century, initially escaped censure, and his

celebrated Violin Concerto remained on the programs of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Stravinsky, another problematic Jewish genius, enjoyed a 1935 performance of Firebird in Berlin.

In the autumn of that year, however, the NSDAP cultural apparatus initiated more codifie efforts to end

the performance of music even marginally associated with Jews.

On September 1, 1935, Gobbels Propaganda Ministry issued a document for internal circulation,

outlining a blacklist of 108 composers whose works could no longer be played in the Reich.

Of the composers listed, most were Jewish.

Goebbels clearly attributed high importance to both classical music and the elimination of the

Judenfrage (Jewish Question) within the community of musicians.

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After this, little would be left to chance in the sphere of high culture.

Undoubtedly the two greatest German composers of this period were Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner.

Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 8 September 1949) was undoubtedly

the leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras.

His significant works of the period were:

'Film music for Der Rosenkavalier' (1925), and the operas 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' (1919), 'Intermezzo'

(1923), 'Die gyptische Helena' (1927), 'Arabella' (1932).

'Olympische Hymne', for chorus and orchestra (1934)

Horn Concerto No. 2 in E flat major (1942) and Oboe Concerto in D major (1945)

At the end of this period Strauss wrote the incomparable 'Metamorphosen, for 23 Solo Strings' (1945)

Hans Pfitzner

Hans Erich Pfitzner (5 May 1869 22 May 1949) is undeservedly less well known.

He was a German composer and self-described anti-modernist - ('modernism' being the atonal work of

Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern)

His own music - including pieces in all the major genres except the symphonic poem - was respected by

contemporaries such as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.

Pfitzner's works combine Romantic and Late Romantic elements with extended thematic development,

atmospheric music drama, and the intimacy of chamber music.

His greatest work of the period was the romantische Kantate 'Von deutscher Seele' (Of the German Soul)

(1921).

During this period he also composed a 'Sonata in e-minor for Violin and Piano' Op. 27 (1918), and his

'String Quartet [Nr. 3] in C-Sharp minor' (1925).

Other Orchestral works composed during the period include the 'Piano concerto in E-flat Major' (1922),

the 'Violin Concerto in b-minor' (1923) and the Symphony in C-sharp Minor (1932).

Small Symphony in G major, Op. 44 (1939).

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Symphony in C major, Op. 46 (1940).

Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 52 (1944).

.

Music and Youth

Trommeln und Trompeten - Hitler-Jugend

With the inception of National Socialist rule in Thuringina and across Germany, the NSDAP conspicuously

sought legitimacy through the promotion of German music.

The National Socialists thus merged their ideology with a deeply ingrained German song culture in a

successful bid to assume a leading role in the music education of the youth.

Such a perspective is particularly necessary when one considers Germany occupied an elite position at

the end of Weimar period as a world leader in the realm of music education.

Carl Orff

In the free-wheeling mlange that preceded Hitlers accession to the Chancellorship, a number of German

music educators and pedagogues had experimented with various pedagogical approaches.

The emerging pedagogical canons promoted Carl Orff and J.E. Dalcroze, however, were eventually

overwhelmed by the ideologically-driven National Socialist party machinery.

Working from the basis of German tradition, German music educators were inevitably co-opted by the

state.

German music educators also had to pay obeisance to the racial theories of the National Socialist

leadership.

While music historians were looking selectively for examples of Musik im Judentum, the task of music

educators became similarly wrapped up with the National Socialist cause.

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Fritz Jde

One National Socialist music educator, Fritz Jde, wrote of the important role played by music in

Kindergarten, a level he clearly believed should mark the beginning of overt state control over children.

Fritz Jde (* August 2 1887 in Hamburg , October 19 1970 ) was a German music teacher and one of the leading

figures in the youth music movement .

Jde wrote of Kindergarten as a conclusive break from childrens reliance on their mothers and the

beginning of going their own wayto fulfill their goals and dreams as adults.

Kindergarten marked a clear opportunity for the state to sedulously promote National Socialist through

ideological texts.

Wolfgang Stumme, an educator and editor, became one of the most prolific advocates of National

Socialist music education.

His 1944 essay Music in the Hitler Youth reveals much about the climate for arts education

under National Socialism.

Stumme enthusiastically cited over nine hundred musical groups united under the banner of the Hitler

Youth, including all manner of youth choirs.

Hitler-Jugend Trommler

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To this list, Stumme noted the presence of orchestras, instrumental groups, groups of wind-playing

comrades, music teams, sport and fanfare teams, song playing and puppet shows, and radio groups, all

sponsored by the Hitler Youth.

Stumme, in a plea for resources in the waning years of the Second World War, linked the expansion of

music groups to the war effort:

This high number of musical groups has arisen from the progress of the war, the beginning of which saw

only one hundred unified Hitler Youth music groups.

These groups evidence the foundational emotions of gratefulness that Germans hold toward all cultural

efforts of the Hitler Youth; they also prove that political leadership and music education are intimately

unified.

The war has established itself as the father of music practice, and formed an explicit antithesis of the old

Latin saying that during the war the muses must have silence. The rich number of Hitlers words [zahlreich

Fhrerworte] on the importance of art are like the deepest kernels which the youth, in their action,

transform into a constant state of fulfillment.

Throughout the war effort, Hitler Youth raised flagging morale by singing at community events, hospitals,

and factories.

In the words of one Hitler Youth executive, performances of the Hitler Youth Cultural Circle

simultaneously supported the war effort and exposed the boys and girls to our nations most valuable

cultural heritage.

German musical traditions thus fused with party-centered patriotism.

The music of the Hitler Youth played an important role in state indoctrination and public morale, and the

visual arts thus validated and eulogized the idea of musical youth.

Jrgen Wegener - Hitlerjugend Wandmalerei

A mural by Jrgen Wegener shows the ideal musical setting for the boys of the Hitler Youth.

The centerpiece of his triptych shows six boys in a circle, grasping bugle and drum, joining in the anthem

entitled For us the sun never sets.

Such images were infused with the National Socialist desire to unite the nation through the martial music

of the youth.

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Leni Riefenstahl

It was not merely by coincidence, after all, that Leni Riefenstahl chose to highlight group musical activities

of German youth in her film apotheosis of the NSDAP, 'Triumph des Willens' (Triumph of the Will).

Triumph des Willens

Beyond mere imagery, National Socialist musical curricula dipped deep into the stream of German folk

tunes, creating a base of easily-retained tunes onto which nationalist texts could be sedulously placed.

The National Socialists thus used the classic model of music education first promoted by Plato, while

simultaneously drawing upon theories of Martin Luther in order to improve the efficacy of their musical

indoctrination.

In an age proliferating with radios and jazz, however, these techniques would be severely tested.

The National Socialists were not alone in their efforts to secure the loyalty of the youth.

Music was a battleground through which the NSDAP endeavoured to wrest control of childrens hearts

and minds from Germanys established churches.

While manoeuvring to separate the youth from the churches, the National Socialist Party also moved to

counter secular rivals in the sphere of music education.

As became apparent in Vienna, the NSDAP expanded its influence among the youth by establishing

'Hitler Jungend Music Schools'.

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The Anschluss of 1938 had not resulted in the immediate National Socialist control over the musical

apparatus; indeed, Viennas relative cultural autonomy in the early months of the Anschluss was reflected

in the independence of all twenty-seven of the citys youth music schools.

As part of political consolidation in 1938, the National Socialists opened two branch schools [Zweigschule

fr Volk und Jungend].

The first of these schools was planned for and administered by the Hitler Youth.

Hitlerjugend Musikschule

By 1942, the Hitler Youth music school had attracted sufficient numbers of students to close down six of

Viennas non-Nazi youth music schools.

Administrator Othmar Steinbauer, the head of the Hitler schools, celebrated this triumph in a statement

flecked with Austrian dialect Now only the Party is the force for progress.

In strenuous cooperation with the community of Vienna, we set out to create a school fully new in form,

through which the Volk, the youth, the industrious classes, and the artistic elite will unite and train for

music.

The unity that had eluded Germans during the Weimar period could now be achieved through dedication

to a common musical culture.

Epitomizing this common musical culture was folk music, a genre which took on renewed importance in

the Third Reich.

Although Germans had been drawing inspiration from their linguistic and mythical origins since the early

nineteenth century, the National Socialists enacted a particularly forceful turn to this product of the Volk.

A 1934 essay by Fritz Stein, a music professor in Bremen, directly illustrates the connection

between National Socialist ideology and folk music.

Steins essay On the Nature of German Music posited that folk music was the key method of unifying a

fragmentary people.

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Hitler-Jugend Trompeter

Moreover, as long as it remained undiluted and true to its German roots, folk music was an essential

means of gaining respect abroad.

The purity of German music, the sacred symbol of the Volk, was also a means of national cultural defense

in a hostile world.

Stein described the responsibilities of the musician in the Third Reich: The task of the German guardians

of music is to be the intermediaries between art and the Volk. Our experience with German musical

culture allows us to understand uniquely; we are the defenders of our highest musical inheritance, of its

fullness and fulfilling purity. To further this defense, we must win over the Volk through orderly plans of

education [Erziehung]. Our foundational work strives for unity, and we must strive to complete the desired

and worthy goal: to create the great musical unity of Germans and to further struggle for the world

recognition of German music.

With world recognition of German music came the possibility of German music serving as the glue for

a new German empire.

Indeed, military campaigns into such regions as Poland and Ukraine prompted German musicologists to

press hard for folk music education as a means of cementing the consolidation of the newly acquired

Eastern territories.

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Hitler-Jugend Trompeter

As the Germans knew from their own experience, political consolidation could be considered complete

only when broad masses of citizens could raise their voices to the same tunes and words without fear of

reproach.

National Socialist efforts to guarantee the loyalty of German youth, however, inevitably clashed with

ecclesiastical tradition.

Up until the forceful emergence of youth movements in the early twentieth century, German churches

had held a monopoly on ritualistic rites of passage.

A regional report from a National Socialist Party Chancellery in April 1943 outlined several difficulties

confronting the party in its competition with the churches.

The report stated that although induction ceremonies for new Hitlerjungend had followed all guidelines

issued by the Propaganda Ministry, progress in recruiting new members remained slow.

The report complained: These Hitlerjungend ceremonies are still not accorded the importance which they

deserve, particularly in those districts where the churches are strong. The fact that a large number of

those being inducted had already participated in a corresponding church ceremony was particularly

invidious.

The report went on to highlight the importance of the musical background of the ceremonies, criticizing

wartime conditions for the lack of appropriate musical backing.

Wagner and National Socialist Culture

Richard Wagner

In their drive towards legitimacy, the NSDAP took pre-existing elements of German nationalism and

amplified them.

In this period, therefore, the philosophical underpinnings of musical culture increasingly rested upon

Wagnerian ideals.

The composers well-known writings and compositions accorded with Hitlers ideology, and the cult of

Wagner grew prodigiously under the National Socialists.

Wagner Societies, already a fixture of bourgeois [Brgerlich] German life, further proliferated across the

country.

Individuals joined for divergent reasons: some were prompted by Hitlers nationalistic awakening, others

by careerist desires, while others desired to display ideological conformity.

Among artistic circles, Wagner formed the centerpiece of Germanic musical rhetoric.

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Walter Abendroth

In an essay in the prominent journal 'Die Musik', critic Walter Abendroth decried recent products of

modernism while upholding Wagner as the attainable paragon of German musical expression: Avant-

garde music was a foul, anti-Volk bacillus that denigrated the cultural body through cynicism and

calculation.

Walter Abendroth (29 May 1896, Hanover 30 September 1973, Fischbachau) was a German composer, editor,

and writer on music

Wagner, in other words, served as a correct model from whom proper inferences could be drawn.

Bayreuth

Hitlers personal connection to the cult of Bayreuth made Wagners image all the more powerful during

the Gleichschaltung.

Hitlers intense interest in Wagners ideals stemmed from the Austrians adolescent self-perceptions as

an artist in Linz and Vienna, - cities where he attended many operas.

Some have speculated that Hitlers failings as a young man en-flamed his deep desire to use the arts,

particularly opera and the visual arts, as a means of propelling him to a position from which he could

save Germany.

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A performance of Wagners Rienzi in 1906 had called forth visions of grandiosity in the young man.

Wagners musical architecture, his ideals of Gesamtkunstwerk, and his heroes had influenced Hitler

profoundly.

Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (WWV 49) (Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes) is an early opera by Richard Wagner

in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name (1835). The

title is commonly shortened to Rienzi. Written between July 1838 and November 1840, it was first performed at

the Hofoper, Dresden, on 20 October 1842, and was the composer's first success.

August Kubizek

The opera is set in Rome and is based on the life of Cola di Rienzi (13131354), a late medieval Italian populist

figure who succeeds in outwitting and then defeating the nobles and their followers and in raising the power of the

people.

The youthful Adolf was "overwhelmed by the resplendent, dramatic musicality" of the opera, as well as deeply

affected by the story therein; that of Cola di Rienzi, a medieval rebel who was an outcast from his fellows and was

"destroyed by their incomprehension".

After the opera ...

"... Hitler began to orate. Words burst from him like a backed-up flood breaking through crumbling dams. In

grandiose, compelling images, he sketched for me his future and that of his people".

Thirty years later Hitler would remark: "It all began at that hour !".

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