Music and Nazism: Art under Tyranny, 1933-1945 (review)

The last ten years have witnessed a veritable explosion in the number of books devoted to the study of music under Nazi rule. That it took nearly half a century after the demise of the Third Reich for scholars to begin a serious investigation of this area of cultural activity requires some explanation, especially given the detailed attention that has been accorded to most of the other arts during that era. Although there is little doubt that the pioneering studies of Joseph Wulff (1969) and Fred K. Prieberg (1982) managed to expose both the barbarous methods of the regime and the opportunistic activities of those musicians who lent varying degrees of support to its policies, very few German musicologists took up the invitation to explore in greater depth some of the issues posed by these books. Perhaps such reluctance was understandable. To present such potentially controversial material in an objective and balanced manner must have seemed impossible, not least because too many members of the music establishment, in both West Germany and the former GDR, had vested interests in trying to cover up anything from their murky past.

The social historian Michael H. Kater alludes to the problem in the introduction to this valuable book. Invited to Munich in the early 1990s by the Carl-Orff Zentrum to deliver a paper on the composer's ambiguous relationship with the Third Reich, he encountered a stubborn refusal on the part of the authorities to publish the fruits of his research. He was later able to present and expand on this material in two important books, The Twisted Muse (New York, 1997) and Composers of the Nazi Era (New York, 2000). However, his desire to bring a wider body of scholars into theframe, including many from Germany, prompted him to organize an international conference in Toronto in October 1999, the papers from which appear in the present book.

One of the major advantages of such a symposium is that it affords scholars the opportunity to focus their attention on a specialized topic, rather than adopt the broad brush strokes that have characterized previous books on this subject. The depth of enquiry offered in each of the sixteen essays is variable, with some breaking new ground and others revisiting familiar territory. One might argue that exploring the relationship between Adolf Hitler and Richard Wagner falls very much into the latter category. But in fact Hans Rudolf Vaget's 'Hitler's Wagner: Musical Discourse as Cultural Space' provides much food for thought. Arguing that the true import of Hitler's cult of Wagner is by no means self-evident from the most recent biographical studies of the Führer, and that it is far too simplistic to scapegoat Wagner as the progenitor of the Holocaust, Vaget discusses the possibility that Hitler regarded Wagner's anti-Semitism as being insufficiently radical. Nonetheless, he does not challenge the point that Hitler's Wagnerian mission encompassed the elimination of Judaism from German life, and that by appropriating the role of Parsifal as healer and that of Siegfried as liberating hero, Hitler could lay claim to being Wagner's political heir.

As the most obvious Nazi musical icon, the Bayreuth Master inevitably reappears elsewhere in the book, notably in Stephen McClatchie's painstaking exploration of the activities of the Richard-Wagner-Forschungsstätte, a research organization unveiled by Hitler in 1938. The focus of his enquiry is the work of the largely discredited Nazi musicologist Otto Strobel, who directed its activities during the war. As in his admirable study of Alfred Lorenz, McClatchie adopts a judiciously even-handed appraisal of Strobel's achievements, defending his positivistic source-driven publications, as well as condemning those that were ideologically tainted.

Three of the major figures in German music of the 1930s, Strauss, Hindemith, and Pfitzner, are subjected to detailed scrutiny. Jens Malte Fischer has perhaps the most difficult task of all in trying to rationalize...