Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nazism.

The doctrines of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) that dominated Germany’s government from 1933 to 1945. Nazism superimposed an ideology of nationalism and racism on all areas of culture, but although Nazi ideologues expounded on various notions of a musical ideal, the movement never articulated its designs for promoting or implementing a particular musical aesthetic. Many of the features of German musical life one might associate with Nazism, such as mass participation, folk culture, nationalism, anti-Semitism and arch-conservatism, had strong currents in German musical life long before Hitler came to power. Rather, the greatest impact of Nazism on music lay in more tangible policy measures of the Hitler regime: reforming music professions, restructuring musical organizations and purging German musical life of Jews and political opponents.

Music was unquestionably central to Germany’s cultural identity, and Nazi bureaucrats recognized its importance for maintaining Germany’s reputation and dispelling foreign perceptions of Nazi philistinism. They saw that in order to preserve Germany’s envied position as the centre of high musical achievement, it was necessary to guarantee social and economic security for musicians and composers. The situation of creative artists had been in gradual decline since the turn of the century, and a multitude of musicians’ and composers’ lobbying groups had fought for professional and economic safeguards. The Nazi government, unlike previous systems in Germany, centralized the administration of cultural affairs. Through the establishment of the Reichskulturkammer and its music division, the Reichsmusikkammer, it was possible to respond to musicians’ demands for professional and economic security. The Reichsmusikkammer, presided over first by Richard Strauss and then by Peter Raabe, became the obligatory union for practitioners in all facets of music-making and the music industries. Within a relatively short time, the Reichsmusikkammer managed to set wages for professional musicians, regulate certification and restrict amateurs from performing for money, introduce examinations and training courses for private music instructors, and establish an old age pension plan for artists. By requiring proof of Aryan lineage for membership, it also served to exclude Jews from taking part in German musical life.

The Nazi government also placed a high priority on preserving Germany’s musical institutions and lavished support on several that found themselves in serious financial straits by 1933. For instance, the Berlin PO, after years of unsuccessful negotiations with Reich and Prussian bureaucrats before the Nazi takeover, came under the full protection of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, was designated an official Reich Orchestra, and secured the highest pay scale ever for its musicians. The Bayreuth Festival also profited from Nazi government sponsorship. Hitler’s admiration for Wagner and his close ties with the family prompted him to rescue the festival from its financial difficulties, guaranteeing its growth from a biennial to an annual event from 1936, subsidizing new productions and averting its closure during the war. Some Nazi leaders saw this form of government sponsorship as an invitation to assume direct involvement in artistic matters: Hermann Göring exercised his authority in choosing artistic personnel for the Prussian State Opera in Berlin in his capacity as Prussian prime minister.

Nazi administrators recognized music’s potential to rally enthusiasm, enhance education and instil national pride. Rather than introducing widespread reforms in the schools, they concentrated on music-making in adult education, youth organizations, the military and official ceremonies. High culture was made accessible to the working class through large Nazi subscription services. The Nazi party had also established its own Reich Symphony Orchestra in 1931 which, alongside some of the more famous orchestras, appeared at numerous official events. The Hitler Youth expanded pre-existing youth music groups by establishing a multitude of choirs, bands and other ensembles within the organization. The military, too, enlarged its musical activities through the Waffen-SS. The ceremonial function of music was given priority and amateurs were encouraged to learn brass instruments and take part in ceremonial music-making. The organ, touted since the 1920s as the quintessential German instrument, was also promoted for inclusion in official ceremonies and party rallies.

In an effort to increase awareness and appreciation of Germany’s musical legacy, the Nazis gave unprecedented support to the field of musicology. The Education Ministry centralized all major research activities in Berlin, and the Propaganda Ministry appointed Hans Joachim Moser to oversee the reworking of texts in the standard repertory rendered politically problematic by virtue of content or Jewish authorship. The musicologist Herbert Gerigk, working for the chief Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, enlisted colleagues to evaluate literature, compile a music lexicon conceived in the Nazi Weltanschauung, plan a Nazi elite university and appraise goods plundered in the military occupation. The scientific branch of Himmler’s SS subsidized musicological publications and funded large-scale field research in the folk music of Germanic populations.

Beyond these administrative, social and institutional reforms, Nazi leaders had little impact on musical standards, partly because those dictating the cultural agenda had little interest in music. Hitler was known to be thoroughly consumed with Wagner, even modelling the title of his autobiography Mein Kampf on Wagner’s Mein Leben. Yet knowledge of the Führer’s musical tastes did nothing to reverse the steady decline in Wagner’s popularity that had set in by the 1920s. The Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg and the Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels paid homage to Wagner, but they focussed their energies much more on education, the visual arts and the media.

Lacking clear directions from leaders, music critics and publicists espousing a so-called Nazi musical aesthetic took their cue from existing popular trends in musical thought, embellishing them with rabid nationalism and anti-Semitism. Some of their ideals came from the conservative nationalists typified by Hans Pfitzner, who bewailed the decline of German musical greatness at the hands of American and ‘Jewish influences’ (i.e. jazz and the Second Viennese School). At the same time, an alternative consensus influencing Nazi thought was the campaign to eliminate the virtuosity and individualism associated with the Romantic era (similarly denigrated as ‘Jewish’) and to promote music for the folk that could educate and elevate the German nation. This last component of Nazi propaganda shared much with the musical ideals of both the workers’ movement and the conservative middle-class youth movement (Jugendbewegung). All of them encouraged mass participation and harboured the belief that music could instil a sense of community (Gemeinschaft), an idea easily adapted to the Nazi conception of the Volksgemeinschaft.

These varied and sometimes contradictory trends can all be detected in the rare official statements on music issued by National Socialist leaders. The largest musical gathering of the 12-year regime, the Reichsmusiktage in Düsseldorf in 1938, supposedly displayed a German musical ideal with performances, speeches and conventions. Yet at the event Goebbels, the masterful orator, was strikingly vague in spelling out Nazi musical goals. In his ‘ten commandments’ for German musical creation, he proclaimed that the nature of music lies in melody; all music is not suited to everyone; music is rooted in the folk, requires empathy rather than reason, deeply affects the spirit of man and is the most glorious art of the German heritage; and musicians of the past must be respected. The accompanying exhibit on ‘Degenerate Music’, a potential tutorial in recognizing and rooting out allegedly destructive musical influences, was comparably incoherent. It vilified prominent Jewish composers, conductors, critics and their associates, and attacked jazz, operetta and atonal composition; but it neither provided consistent guidelines for music practice nor reflected current or future music policy. Jazz actually enjoyed increasing success in Nazi Germany, especially during World War II. The exhibit’s more focussed criticism against the ‘destroyers’ of ‘Germanic’ tonality were largely ad hominem attacks on Schoenberg and his school, but atonal and serial works actually continued to be heard and created in the Third Reich.

Thus although some general guidelines were sketched, specific musical standards were never implemented in any systematic way. Part of this failure was due to a lack of organization and a profusion of in-fighting among officials responsible for musical regulation. This proved especially capricious in determining the careers of prominent composers and performers. A classic example was Paul Hindemith, who, with the support of the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, had convinced both Hitler and Goebbels of his potential as a model composer and music educator for the new Reich with his opera Mathis der Maler and his plans for music education reforms. In the meantime, Alfred Rosenberg had been passed over as head of culture when the Propaganda Ministry was established. Looking for any signs of ideological transgressions by Goebbels, Rosenberg used Hindemith as a pawn in his crusade and cited Hindemith’s earlier works as ‘degenerate’. Rosenberg successfully undermined Goebbels’s approval of Hindemith, and the composer emigrated. The success or failure of all composers and performers was unpredictable and depended more on personal and political alliances than on racial pedigree or adherence to any aesthetic ideals. Guidelines were so loose and controls so lax that even a few select Jews managed to lead successful careers well into the late 1930s.

The other obstacle to control was the impracticality of music censorship. Anyone serious about rooting out allegedly destructive musical influences would have to contend with the wealth of musical outlets lying beyond government or police controls: amateur activities, recordings and radio. Even though radio came under government supervision, ‘degenerate’ music such as jazz ultimately survived on the air waves to appease soldiers and to discourage Germans from tuning into foreign broadcasts. Music censorship as such consisted of little more than a few lists issued by the Reichsmusikkammer proscribing the works of certain non-Aryans (Mendelssohn was not among them) and a ruling that dealers and publishers receive permission before disseminating the works of émigrés, but there was no mechanism to implement these measures. During the war, bans were more strictly enforced, mainly targeting foreign works from enemy countries.

The Nazi phenomenon left perhaps its most indelible mark on German musical life in the massive purge of Jews and other outcasts active in performance, composition and music education. While the eradication of ‘undesirable’ music proved ill-advised, if not impossible, the eradication of ‘undesirable’ personnel was carried out aggressively. The Nazi purge affected Gypsies, non-whites, and political, social and sexual ‘deviants’, but most attention was focussed on the Jews. Their exclusion was carried out first by the public ostracism of prominent figures such as Schoenberg, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer, and then through bureaucratic means: by 1935, all non-Aryans were excluded from the Reichsmusikkammer, and in 1937 Jews were officially banned from attending public cultural events (this could be enforced only after 1941, when every Jew was required to wear a yellow badge).

The list of music personnel who fled Germany in the first three years of the Nazi regime is long and includes such names as Adolf Aber, Theodor Adorno, Willi Apel, Paul Bekker, Paul Ben-Haim (Frankenburger), Rudolf Bing, Manfred Bukofzer, Paul Dessau, Alfred Einstein, Hanns Eisler, Emanuel Feuermann, Hans Gál, Szymon Goldberg, Berthold Goldschmidt, Herbert Graf, Jascha Horenstein, Erich von Hornbostel, Leo Kestenberg, Otto Klemperer, Erich Korngold, Fritz Kreisler, Lotte Lenya, Edward Lowinsky, Ernst Hermann Meyer, Hans Nathan, Paul Pisk, Hans Redlich, Franz Reizenstein, Curt Sachs, Hermann Scherchen, Arnold Schoenberg, Leo Schrade, William Steinberg, Fritz Stiedry, Ernst Toch, Bruno Walter, Kurt Weill and Stefan Wolpe. Many more fled German-occupied countries in the course of the World War II, especially from Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Jews left behind and forced out of their jobs and businesses had to be dealt with in some manner, however. Recognizing the serious economic implications of this sudden increase in unemployment, and also acknowledging the public relations value of giving an impression of providing for the Jewish community, the Nazi government allowed the Jews to set up the Jüdischer Kulturbund to conduct cultural programmes for their own audiences. Its musical activities were initially rich and varied, but the repertory decreased as the regime sought to disassociate ‘German’ art from ‘Jewish’ art (for example, Jews were prohibited from performing or listening to Beethoven after 1937 and Mozart after 1938). The Jüdischer Kulturbund shrank in size and activity as more Jews emigrated or were deported to concentration camps, and it was shut down by the Gestapo in 1941. Music was an organized activity in the concentration camps as well, where ensembles of inmates were used for daily activities to entertain SS troops with waltzes, lieder and symphonies, as well as to torture and humiliate inmates, serve as a background for gruelling labour and drown out screams during executions. The number of promising musicians who perished in the camps is impossible to enumerate.

An impressive list of composers, performers, conductors and academics flourished under Hitler and continued their successes without interruption after World War II (e.g. Herbert von Karajan, Karl Böhm, Wilhelm Backhaus, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Walter Gieseking, Friedrich Blume, Heinrich Besseler, Werner Egk and Carl Orff, to name a few). Given the climate of denial in the era of denazification and the Cold War politics that ensued, details of the role of music and musicians in the Third Reich were suppressed for many years, giving rise to a number of misconceptions. One was that Nazism, not unlike Stalinism, imposed aesthetic guidelines for music and took complete control over all facets of musical production and consumption. Another myth was that the majority of musical personnel were forced to cooperate with the Nazi regime against their will, when in fact many of the measures instituted by the Nazi regime were welcomed by the musical community. Finally, the impossible task of rationalizing Germany’s rich cultural past with the atrocities of the Nazi era led to a tendency to divorce the 12-year Reich from the rest of Germany’s history. However, even the nationalist and anti-Semitic elements of Nazi music policy had their roots in earlier movements, and many prominent personnel in Nazi Germany continued to influence German musical life after 1945.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PAMELA M. POTTER

Nazism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG2 (‘Nationalsozialismus’, B. Sponheuer)

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