Standing beside the desk in the Kaiservilla in Bad Ischl at which, on July 28 1914, Franz Joseph signed the declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia, thus signalling the start of the First World War- in Kennan's phrase, "the seminal event of the 20th century." Attendants placed a pen in his hand. He turned it over, balanced it between his fingers, studied it for several seconds, lost in thought. With that pen the Austrian Emperor signed the ultimatum to Serbia that sent the world to war. Here too with that same pen he wrote his famous "Appeal to My People" soon after the guns had spoken. The building at the foot of the Jainzenberg was originally a villa in the Biedermeier style built in 1834. After the engagement of Franz Joseph I to Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria in 1853, Franz Joseph's mother, Archduchess Sophie, acquired the property as a wedding present for the imperial couple. When Franz Joseph died in 1916 he'd left the estate to his youngest daughter, Archduchess Marie Valerie who was married to Archduke Franz Salvator from the Austria-Tuscany line, maintaining ownership to the Habsburg family. Since the Imperial Villa was privately owned by the Habsburgs and Franz Salvator and Marie Valerie renounced all claims to the throne, the property remained in their possession even after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1918. Her son Hubert Salvator Habsburg-Lorraine inherited the villa. Today's owner is his son Markus Emanuel Habsburg-Lothringen.
Dürnstein
Dürnstein from a Nazi-era postcard. One
of the most-visited tourist destinations in the Wachau region,
Dürnstein was first mentioned in 1192 when, in the castle seen above the
town built by the Kuenringer family in the middle of the 12th century, King Richard the Lionheart was held captive by Leopold V, Duke of
Austria, after their dispute during the Third Crusade from December 21, 1192 to February 4, 1193. Richard
the Lionheart had offended Leopold the Virtuous by casting down his
standard from the walls at the Battle of Acre, and the duke suspected
that King Richard ordered the murder of his cousin Conrad of Montferrat
in Jerusalem. In consequence Pope Celestine III excommunicated Leopold
for capturing a fellow crusader. This
is the first mention of the place name Dürnstein. As legend has it, the
King’s faithful French minstrel, Jean Blondel, discovered him with a
song known only to the two of them. A ransom of 77,100 pounds of silver
was paid and Richard released. The Babenbergs used the money to fortify
Enns, Hainburg, Wiener Neustadt and Vienna, whilst the name of the
faithful servant lives on in many of Dürnstein’s establishments. It's
actually no longer possible to determine whether the king was imprisoned
in Dürnstein Castle , in the valley or in a neighbouring castle that no
longer exists. The duke finally gave custody of the king
to Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, who imprisoned Richard at Trifels
Castle. The castle itself was eventually almost completely destroyed by
the troops of the Swedish Empire under Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson
in 1645.
Another
artist, Siegfried Stoitzner, has caused controversy in Dürnstein where
he remains an honorary citizen after having joined the Nazi Party. He
first joined on December 1, 1928 (membership number 83,189), but left
again on December 1, 1930, before rejoining on January 9, 1932
(membership number 781,279). In 1934 he was interned in the Wöllersdorf
detention camp as a member of the party, which was illegal in Austria
after the assassination of Dolfuß and the attempted coup. In 1936 he had
to sell the Kuenringer tavern in Dürnstein and move to Rossatz. In 1938
he was called up again, but soon demobilised and spent the war in Bad
Traunstein. That year he exhibited a pencil drawing of the Austrian Nazi leader Hans Hiedler and was represented at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich in 1938 and later in 1940. His
extensive work mainly involved landscape paintings, portraits and
hunting scenes connected to the Wachau and the Waldviertel; in
1939, Hitler bought the oil painting “Wachau Ferryman” there for 2000
Reichmarks. After the war Stoitzner was expelled from the Society of
Visual Artists of Vienna because of his Nazi connections although in
1950 he was readmitted together with other members who had been tainted
by Nazism and expelled in 1945.
Melk
Hitler
stopping before Melk as he was driven down the old Nibelungenstrasse
from Linz with the abbey, the original seat of the Babenbergs, towering
above the left bank of the Danube in the background. The photograph on the right of the same motorcade comes from an album in the private collection of H. Blair Howell. In the monitored and partly falsified election referendum
of April 10, 12,215 people in the Melk district expressed their support
for the anschluss with only eleven voting to remain independent. 
The
camp was then opened on April 20–21, 1944 and the prisoners were
accommodated in eighteen blocks to labour for Quarz GmbH, a subsidiary of the
armaments company Steyr-Daimler-Puch. Prisoners excavated six
underground caverns, each several hundred metres long, near Lossdorf to
be used as sites for the production of ball bearings. They also laid
rails, poured concrete for the approaches to the cavern, constructed
barracks for equipment and machines, laid cables and water pipes, and
transported building equipment and machines from the Lossdorf railway
station to the construction site. Despite the enormous effort, by the
winter of 1944–1945, only a fraction of the planned cavern could
commence production. Production eventually ceased on April 1, 1945, as a
result of the advance by Soviet troops by which time there were around
7,500 prisoners in the camp. On March 12, 1945, a group of 34
Scandinavian prisoners were transferred by the Red Cross back to their
home countries via Mauthausen and Neuengamme as the remaining camp
prisoners were then evacuated to Ebensee, Mauthausen, and Gusen. On
April 11, a transport to Mauthausen of 1,500 youths and sick prisoners
was put together, and thirty to forty seriously ill prisoners were
murdered in the infirmary. Two more transports left Melk on April 13,
with 1,440 prisoners in total sent to Ebensee travelling by goods train
and barge. The last transport of 1,500 prisoners left the camp on April
15 in the direction of Ebensee. The Melk subcamp existed officially
until April 19, 1945. After
the war a
constant stream of German Bohemians and Moravians moved into Austria,
and were given a camp in Melk by the Russians. However, as Giles MacDonogh relates in After the Reich (296), "it was
grossly overstretched and they ended up becoming a burden to all the
Allied zones. The response was to demand the expulsion of ‘Reich’
Germans."
St. Pölten
Adolf Hitlerplatz from a period postcard,
so-named from 1938-1946, and today. Today rathausplatz, it had been
renamed Marschallplatz after the war until 1955. Neugebäudeplatz
too had been
renamed at the same time Platz der SA. As early as March 11,
1938, there were pro-Austria rallies in St. Pölten, and the Austrian
army began arming itself against the invasion of German troops.
Nevertheless, by the evening, thousands of St. Pölten residents
celebrated with Nazi flags in the streets. The St. Pölten Nazi branch
gathered and appointed Hans Doblhofer as Kreisleiter,
Franz Pfister as deputy district leader and Franz Hörhann as mayor, an
office he would hold until August 20 of that year before becoming an
official of the German Labour Front and district chairman of Kraft durch Freude.
He would die on March 16, 1974 in his hometown. Pfister had played a
key role in sending former St. Pölten deputy mayor Viktor Müllner to
Dachau concentration camp for nearly five years before being released in
in 1942. Pfister had also 'aryanised' the
Arkaden Kino which had been owned by Olga Sattel until 1938. A letter
from the property transfer office to Pfister from December 14, 1938
rewarded him with the 'purchase' of the theatre in recognition of his activities as a Nazi party member since 1922 (number 11,288) when such activities were illegal at the time and he himself had lost his business, "Purgstaller Holzwarenindustrie," in the aftermath of the attempted 1934 coup.
In
1938, the Jewish community in St. Pölten had numbered at around 1,200,
four hundred of whom lived in the town itself. Organisations such as the
SD soon
began to arrest Jews, organise rallies, initiate bans on professions for
Jews practising as doctors, veterinarians, pharmacists and lawyers, and
other routine humiliations. During the so-called Reichskristallnacht,
about 350 uniformed men and civilians
destroyed St. Pölten's synagogue and shops; numerous Jewish citizens
were arrested. From May 1940 there were hardly any Jews left in St.
Pölten; those who had not been arrested and could not emigrate were
prompted to register in Vienna. On October 7, 1941, the mayor announced
that St. Pölten was free of Jews and gypsies. Three cases are known in
which Jews managed to survive undetected in St. Pölten until 1945.
Financially, the expulsion of the Jews benefited both the state, the
town and private individuals. Numerous shops, businesses such as the
Schüller factory, apartments and other property were expropriated. The
synagogue served as a camp for Soviet prisoners of war and base for
SA-Standarte 21. Meanwhile one Jewish cemetery was completely destroyed
whilst another one that still exists was left in ruins. From 1941
especially the number of mass murders in the concentration camps
increased; at least three hundred of the 1,200 Jewish citizens were
murdered with
almost none returning to St. Pölten after the war.
In
the course of the war, the conversion of industrial production to
armaments also took place to a large extent in St. Pölten. Numerous
companies, including the largest, increased their production and number
of employees considerably. Since not only the Jews had disappeared from
the city, but also large parts of the remaining male population having
enlisted into the Wehrmacht, women and forced labourers were also used
on a large scale in St. Pölten. This happened in almost all businesses
in the city, and - as in the camp for Jews deported from Hungary in the
Viehofner Au - there were at least 400 deaths or murders. The
resistance against the Nazi regime in St. Pölten increased
significantly compared to the rest of Austria, even if it had no
concrete political or military success. The Catholic resistance was
mainly limited to illegal religious instruction, the Jehovah's Witnesses
refused to serve in the army and towards the end of the war, the
non-partisan resistance group Kirchl-Trauttmansdorff of approximately
400 conspirators primarily was set up which included members of the
upper class; their aim was to hand over the city to the Soviet troops
without a fight. However, the group was infiltrated and betrayed and so
on April 13, 1945, twelve members were sentenced to death and shot in
Hammerpark, where a memorial commemorates them today. The most
significant were the resistance groups that emerged from the previously
strong labour movement.
In
June 1944, the first air raids by Allied bombers took place with the
station being the main target. The heaviest bombings took place at
Easter 1945 leaving 591 dead and 142 of the 4260 houses were completely
destroyed. 3500 people were made homeless and large parts of the
infrastructure (such as gas and water supply) were hit. The early months
of 1945 saw St. Pölten's Nazi leaders urging its citizens to fight to
the last man, resulting in the murder of prisoners, deserters and
resisters. On April 14, 1945 the Red Army finally launched the attack on
St. Pölten. After the rapid capture of the city on April 15, the front
ran for three weeks to the west of St. Pölten. During the assault,
roughly six hundred civilians died, 24,000 escaped and only about 8,000 people
remained in the city. Whilst the contact between the St. Pölten and the
Soviet soldiers on the one hand should have been friendly given Soviet
claims to believe it to be a liberation from the Nazi regime and the end
of the war, it ended up suffering from the usual Soviet army behaviour
of looting and rape. By the end of the war, 39% of St. Pölten's building
stock was destroyed or badly damaged.
At the Soviet cemetery to the north of the town
Amstetten
The
town hall on the former Adolf-Hitler-Platz. Today this tiny village is
infamous as the place where Josef Fritzl imprisoned, raped and kidnapped
his daughter Elisabeth for twenty-four years in a fallout shelter,
fathering seven children with her. After the horrific story died down
eventually, the town returned in the news after it was revealed that
Hitler was still listed as an honorary citizen.
Amstetten
had served as a garrison town for the Imperial and Royal Army and later
the Austrian army (Melk Command), which was absorbed into the Wehrmacht
after Austria was annexed in 1938. In the strategic considerations of
the Cold War, Amstetten was considered a “key military area”.
On
March 14, 1938, as he passed through the town during the anschluss,
local authorities took it as an honour and awarded Hitler the honour of
citizen. A torchlight procession through Amstetten had taken place
three days earlier on March 11th. Nazi district leader Wolfgang
Mitterdorfer wrote three days later how "[a]ll houses in the district
that do not yet have a completely correct swastika flag must get one as
quickly as possible." The people of Amstetten were asked to hand over
objects from forbidden parties and to remove everything that "reminds of
the unfortunate past" from public buildings. Weapons were also to be
handed over to the gendarmerie. For the upcoming referendum on April 10
on the anschluss, speakers were arranged and it was declared that there
was "no right to vote for the Jews." New offices were also created, such
as those of the ϟϟ
in the Amstettner town hall. The local paper carried advertisements and
notices for "Aryan representatives ... wanted" and "belonging to the
possession of every comrade is the book Hitler: Mein Kampf ... " Chancellor-Dr.-Dollfuß-Platz, today's Amstettner Hauptplatz, was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz. It
wasn't until May 2011 that the local Green Party sponsored the move to
strike his name from the honours list which was passed by a large
majority in the town council. But two members of the far-right Freedom
Party, formerly led by Jorg Haider, abstained, arguing simply that Hitler’s suicide in 1945 had de facto made him lose his honorary citizenship.
The
Seegrotte in nearby Hinterbrühl bei Mödling has changed besides the
flags it flies. Under the Nazi regime, Amstetten served as the setting
for the abuse and arrest of political opponents as well as the
increasing disenfranchisement and expropriation of Jews and gypsies. At
least sixteen of 43 Jews were deported and murdered. In the Amstetten
hospital, as in the Mauer-Öhling nursing home, forced sterilisations
were carried out on so-called Erbkranken (hereditary patients).
Mauer-Öhling also served as a transit station, and from autumn 1944 also
as the scene for numerous euthanasia murders. At the same time in
parallel to the extermination program, the Nazi officials responsible
for Amstetten pursued a comprehensive expansion programme for the city,
which included housing estates, schools and impressive Nazi buildings.
Only a few of these were realised due to the war, although industrial
and rail systems in particular were expanded.
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Traismauer
In
the old town itself one an still clearly see the street grid of the
Roman camp streets. Parts of the fortifications are within the remains
of the southeast corner of the mediæval city wall. The auxiliary fort
was built in the second half of the 1st century AD initially as a
wood-earth fort and housed a cavalry unit of around 500 horsemen, who
probably belonged to the Ala I Hispanorum Auriana. After being destroyed
by fire, a new wood-earth fort was built at the end of the 1st century.
An inscription stone documents the construction of the first which was a
large stone fort approximately 3.75 ha in size dating around 140 CE, in
which the Ala I Augusta Thracum, a mounted auxiliary unit with around
500 horsemen, was stationed. After the Marcomannic invasions around 170,
the fort was reinforced with walls and towers. In the following
centuries it was enlarged to approx. 4.1 hectares and the fortifications
reinforced. In Late Antiquity, the number of soldiers was greatly
reduced and their location shifted to a residual fort (burgus) in the
north-west corner, whilst the civilian population settled within the
fortified fort area. After the destruction by fire in the late 4th or
early 5th century, most of the remaining residents left the fort after
the soldiers had themselves left. It wasn't until the 8th century that
the place, which was now called Treisma, was resettled again; Traismauer
was first mentioned in documents in 799 as Tresma.
Parts
of the Roman fort defences were integrated into the mediæval city wall
and are still visible today. Remains of the foundations of the principia
were found and excavated under today's parish church. In the south-east
corner of the camp you can still see the rubble stone foundations of
the Roman fan-shaped tower from the 4th century, which also belonged to
the city fortifications in the Middle Ages. The brick wall visible today
was built just outside the original Roman walls in the 17th century to
protect against Turkish incursions. The Traismauer city palace was built
on the foundations of Roman Burgus from the 4th to 5th centuries. Roman
tombstones and components are exhibited in the inner courtyard of the
castle, including the dedicatory inscription for the construction of the
fort at the time of Antoninus Pius.
More recently
in the town a 21-year-old accused of being a drug dealer by a roommate
led to a house search in September 2018. The investigators noticed a
15x20 cm Hitler picture in a brown frame that was clearly visible on a
living room shelf. The black and white print was labeled "Uncle Adi from Purkersdorf" and because the picture was visible not only to the three
residents of the flat share, but also to about twenty visitors, it was,
according to the indictment, a crime.
Döbling
Just north of Vienna with the Leopoldsberg in the background. During the Weimar republic the Social Democrats had planned and established many blocks of public housing, siedlungen of which the Karl-Marx-Hof is one of the largest. The suburb of Döbling had a high percentage of Jewish residents and maintained a synagogue in the district. During the Reichskristallnacht this synagogue (like almost all others in Vienna) was destroyed. The harbour itself only ever became economically important for the logging industry and after the war it was converted into a marina for rowing clubs and motorboats. This was not before the Russian raping and looting that took place in which
[a] boon to the Russians and the looters were the big wine houses in Döbling and Heiligenstadt. The Russians emptied the great tun in Klosterneuburg and then sprayed it with machine- gun fire when it would provide them with no more solace. People were seen carrying off wine from Heiligenstadt in large vessels... (MacDonogh, 30)
‘The great provision of wine and schnapps in Vienna, above all in the vineyard areas, possibly provided a foundation for the raping of the women when it took place.’ It is true that some of the most aggravated instances were in the great cellars of Döbling, where Austrian sparkling wine or Sekt is made, and the wine ‘village’ of Grinzing. (33)
Salzburg
On February 5, 1914 Hitler travelled from Munich to Salzburg and was found "unfit for service, too weak and incapacitated for weapons" (which did not prevent him from serving as a war volunteer in the Bavarian Army during the First World War). Bullock (47) records that "after the Germans marched into Austria in 1938 a very thorough search was made in Linz for the records connected with Hitler's military service and Hitler was furious when the Gestapo failed to discover them." In the years after the Great War, as a politician for the Nazi Party he appeared at party events of the sister party DNSAP; at the Representatives' Day of all national socialists in the German-speaking area held in Salzburg on August 7, 1920, Hitler, who was still unknown outside Munich and who was also not the chairman of the Nazi Party, spoke up and delivered a celebrated speech in which he invoked the "Volksgemeinschaft" (as opposed to class thinking), calling for workers to win national ideas and make National Socialism a popular movement, and attacked Jews. The following evening in the Kurhaus gave him the opportunity for another speech. The Austrian Nazis used the opportunity to invite Hitler for a campaign campaign in the fall of 1920. On October 1, Hitler spoke at the Kurhaus in Salzburg in a speech lasting several hours where he distinguished himself as "a speaker far beyond the usual level of outstanding speakers who has the power to disseminate his views with compelling force," according to the Salzburg party newspaper "Deutscher Volksruf".
The following day Hitler appeared in Hallein at an event disrupted by Social Democrat participants led by Mayor Anton Neumayr. Hitler also gave a speech at the national Nazi party conference which took place from August 13 to 15, 1923 in Salzburg, The Nazi press reports focused more on the staging and inspiring effect of the performance than on the content of the one-and-a-half-hour speech in which Hitler openly announced that in a short time in Germany the decision would fall - bringing this a few months in his later attempted coup. The attitude of the Salzburg Nazi Party to Hitler was ambiguous. On the one hand glorifying him through visits of the Salzburg Nazi functionaries Otto Troyer, Anton Funk and Hans Prodinger with the imprisoned Nazi leader. On the other hand, some articles in the "People's Call" argued against the Hitler cult and against the Munich way of the violent seizure of power.
On the morning of March 12, 1938, German troops marched into the city of Salzburg. In many places, solstice fires in the form of swastikas were lit by supporters of the Hitler Youth in the mountains whilst, on official orders, the church bells rang throughout the country. The first German officers arrived in Salzburg at midnight between 11 and 12 March 1938.
The following day Hitler appeared in Hallein at an event disrupted by Social Democrat participants led by Mayor Anton Neumayr. Hitler also gave a speech at the national Nazi party conference which took place from August 13 to 15, 1923 in Salzburg, The Nazi press reports focused more on the staging and inspiring effect of the performance than on the content of the one-and-a-half-hour speech in which Hitler openly announced that in a short time in Germany the decision would fall - bringing this a few months in his later attempted coup. The attitude of the Salzburg Nazi Party to Hitler was ambiguous. On the one hand glorifying him through visits of the Salzburg Nazi functionaries Otto Troyer, Anton Funk and Hans Prodinger with the imprisoned Nazi leader. On the other hand, some articles in the "People's Call" argued against the Hitler cult and against the Munich way of the violent seizure of power. 
On the morning of March 12, 1938, German troops marched into the city of Salzburg. In many places, solstice fires in the form of swastikas were lit by supporters of the Hitler Youth in the mountains whilst, on official orders, the church bells rang throughout the country. The first German officers arrived in Salzburg at midnight between 11 and 12 March 1938.
Austrians celebrating the German army's entry into Salzburg via the Staatsbrücke over the river Salzach on March 12, 1938 and the site on my birthday, 2018. The first tank tips arrived in the early morning and from 10.30 to 11.00 aircraft of the German Air Force dropped leaflets with Hitler's greeting over the city. The German troops entered Salzburg with the roaring cheers of the population. Large quantities of Nazi flags and armbands had been delivered by truck and were distributed to the population. Franz Krieger's press photos seen here, taken on the afternoon of March 12, show German troops on the Staatsbrücke and Platzl, critical points at which a particularly large number of people had flocked to one another. The propaganda campaign for the "Anschluss" consisted of promises and
concrete economic improvements. In the course of the initial propaganda
effort workers received higher wages; child benefits, marriage loans and
unemployment benefits were paid out.
Not all Salzburgers cheered, although the only noteworthy resistance actions in the district of Salzburg were
in the working class strongholds Hallein and Bischofshofen. In the
afternoon and evening of March 11 there were clashes between Nazis and
Communists in Hallein and riots in Bischofshofen. Nazi newsreels showed
images from Salzburg on April 29, 1938 under the title "The borders have
fallen," where members of the Hitler Youth dismantled and destroyed
border symbols between Germany and Austria as boundary markers and signs
were symbolically burned. Books were next twenty-four hours later when,
on April 30, 1938 at around 20.30 books were burned at Residenzplatz which
the Nazis described as "degenerate art." 1,200 works by Jewish,
social-democrat, Marxist, ecclesiastical or liberal authors were
destroyed including works by Stefan Zweig, Arthur Schnitzler, and Franz
Werfel that had previously been collected
from libraries and private households near Residenzplatz with as many as
5,000 watching or taking part. This organised book burning was the only one on Austrian soil. Zweig wrote, shocked,
to a friend the next day of how Salzburg was the "most Nazi city" and
"humiliated" him. Zweig had lived in the city for many years, but went
into exile in 1934 after the fascist coup attempt. Now, four years
later, one of his books was thrown into the fire so that "it burns the
flames like all Jewish writing" as it roared over the Residenzplatz.
Nevertheless, at this stage of the dictatorship the Nazi leadership was
not at all happy about the burnings given the view of it abroad and how
it was a provocation for conservative Catholics. Thus the press ignored
the Salzburg book burning; in the Austrian section of the Münchner
Neuesten Nachrichten for example one reads a report about the
celebrations before May 1st, but nothing about the book burning.
In Austria, a total of 72,000 people were imprisoned in the first few
days after the Anschluss. Political opponents, Jewish citizens and other
minorities were subsequently arrested and deported to concentration
camps. The synagogue was destroyed.
After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, several PoW camps for Soviet prisoners and other enemy nations were organised in the city. During the Nazi occupation, a Romani camp was built in Salzburg-Maxglan intended as an Arbeitserziehungslager (work 'education' camp), which provided slave labour to local industry. It also operated as a Zwischenlager (transit camp), holding Roma before their deportation to German camps or ghettos in German-occupied territories in eastern Europe.
Soon Allied bombing would end up destroying roughly 7,600 houses and kill 550 inhabitants. Fifteen air strikes destroyed 46 percent of the city's buildings, especially those around Salzburg railway station. Although the town's bridges and the dome of the cathedral were destroyed, somehow much of its Baroque architecture remained intact. As a result, Salzburg is one of the few remaining examples of a town of its style. American troops entered the city on May 5, 1945 and it became the centre of the American-occupied area in Austria. Several displaced persons camps were established in Salzburg—among them Riedenburg, Camp Herzl (Franz-Josefs-Kaserne), Camp Mülln, Bet Bialik, Bet Trumpeldor, and New Palestine.
In Austria, a total of 72,000 people were imprisoned in the first few
days after the Anschluss. Political opponents, Jewish citizens and other
minorities were subsequently arrested and deported to concentration
camps. The synagogue was destroyed. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, several PoW camps for Soviet prisoners and other enemy nations were organised in the city. During the Nazi occupation, a Romani camp was built in Salzburg-Maxglan intended as an Arbeitserziehungslager (work 'education' camp), which provided slave labour to local industry. It also operated as a Zwischenlager (transit camp), holding Roma before their deportation to German camps or ghettos in German-occupied territories in eastern Europe.
Soon Allied bombing would end up destroying roughly 7,600 houses and kill 550 inhabitants. Fifteen air strikes destroyed 46 percent of the city's buildings, especially those around Salzburg railway station. Although the town's bridges and the dome of the cathedral were destroyed, somehow much of its Baroque architecture remained intact. As a result, Salzburg is one of the few remaining examples of a town of its style. American troops entered the city on May 5, 1945 and it became the centre of the American-occupied area in Austria. Several displaced persons camps were established in Salzburg—among them Riedenburg, Camp Herzl (Franz-Josefs-Kaserne), Camp Mülln, Bet Bialik, Bet Trumpeldor, and New Palestine.
The Mirabellgarten and Mozartdenkmal with the wife today. The primary allure of Mozart for the Nazis lay in the representation of a purely German cultural icon. As one of the most revered composers, Mozart's Austrian roots were conveniently overlooked, his legacy instead co-opted into a narrative of German racial and cultural supremacy. Erik Levi argues that the appropriation of Mozart was a strategic move by the Nazis to "claim cultural capital". They reinterpreted Mozart's operas to fit into a vision of German culture that was steeped in the ideals of racial purity, national unity, and Aryan supremacy. This appropriation was not merely an ideological imposition, but was facilitated through active reinterpretation of Mozart's works, with Nazi officials even going as far as altering Mozart's operas to suit their ideology. For instance, Kater's "The Twisted Muse" elucidates how The Marriage of Figaro, a critique of aristocratic privilege, was moulded into a piece that celebrated Aryan nobility. Such distortions of Mozart's operas were pivotal in creating a cultural narrative that served Nazi propaganda.
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| View over Salzburg from the Hohensalzburg |
The Theresienstadt camp, for example, often used performances of Mozart’s pieces to deceive Red Cross inspectors about the conditions of the camps. Shirli Gilbert, in her book "Music in the Holocaust", explains how the Nazis used Mozart’s music to create an illusion of normalcy amidst the brutal conditions in these camps. Even the victims of the Nazi regime, the Jewish prisoners, were coerced to perform Mozart’s music. This is a haunting testimony to the Nazis' duality, appreciating the beauty of Mozart’s music while inflicting unimaginable cruelty. It shows the deeply disturbing use of Mozart's music as a tool of deception and control in the hands of the Nazis. Gilbert further expounds how, paradoxically, many Jewish musicians held onto Mozart's music as a symbol of resistance and a source of solace amidst their grim circumstances. This showcases the complex, dualistic role Mozart’s music played during this period – as both a tool of Nazi propaganda and a beacon of hope and resistance for their victims. Another intriguing aspect to consider is the post-war perception of Mozart in light of his association with the Nazis. Levi argues that the post-war era saw a strong push to "denazify" Mozart, with extensive attempts made to disassociate his legacy from the taint of Nazi propaganda. This process not only reinstated Mozart’s universal appeal but also presented a case study on the lasting implications of art appropriation in a political context. In this endeavour, scholars like Brigid Brophy, in her biographical study "Mozart the Dramatist", sought to reinstate Mozart's cultural and historical context, arguing that his operas were not celebrations of racial superiority but humanistic dramas that transcended national and racial barriers. Thus, the post-war perception of Mozart was heavily shaped by the need to extricate his legacy from its wartime manipulation.
Drake Winston in front of Mozart's statue in 2019. Although the performance of Mozart’s Coronation Mass K317 in Salzburg's Cathedral conducted by organist Joseph Messner four days after Hitler’s triumphant entry into Salzburg on April 6 captured the euphoria of the moment, the Nazis had considerable issues with co-opting Mozart into their propaganda as seen later that year when the initial plans for the 1938 Salzburg Festival had been summarily altered. Of the four operas originally promised for 1938 for example, only Don Giovanni and Figaro were retained. Even then, the honour of opening the Festival was bestowed on Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler and staged in the presence of Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess. This would lead Goebbels to conclude that the inclusion of Wagner’s Tannhäuser and
Die Meistersinger had been a tactical mistake which diluted the
primacy of Mozart given that, despite all the propaganda, ticket sales for performances of Don Giovanni and Figaro amounted to roughly a third of the amount taken the year before. By November 6 Goebbels could record in his diary that Hitler had agreed that in future no further Wagner performances would be allowed at Salzburg, but from now on, the Festival’s main focus would be orientated towards Mozart and Richard Strauss.Despite the uniquely Germanic character of the 1938 Salzburg Festival Nazi propaganda stressed both Mozart operas were still presented in the original Italian, ostensibly to emphasise the burgeoning alliance with Italy, and which overrode the embarrassment of highlighting the Jewish authorship of the libretti. Of note too was the significant role allotted to sacred music, possibly as an attempt to reach out to the Catholic Church although the performance of Mozart’s Requiem under Joseph Messner in Salzburg Cathedral was dedicated to the memory of the 140 Nazis who had died during an abortive coup in July 1934.
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| With Drake Winston |
Although depicted at the time as the shining example of youthful German genius, whose memory German soldiers were supposedly fighting on the Eastern front to preserve, his music, unlike that of Beethoven or Wagner, does not easily fit into the mould of Teutonic heroism that was required at this particular time. In fact, Mozart was probably the least easily malleable of all the great composers to have been appropriated by the Nazis. On almost every level, his philosophical and moral outlook seems at odds with their weltanschauung. For example, despite a few isolated expressions of German patriotism that appear in his letters, he does not strike one as a virulent nationalist, at least not in the sense in which such a position was understood by the Nazis. As a libertarian who generally felt at ease in most of the countries of Europe, his vision appears to have transcended national barriers rather than emphasised Germanic hegemony. Furthermore, had he been alive and working during the 1930s, his well-known activities as a Freemason and his apparent willingness to collaborate with a Jewish librettist on three of his greatest operas would surely have placed him on a collision course with the regime.
Mozart's house on the right on Marktplatz 8, directly opposite the Salzburg State Theatre shown after its bombing and today. Mozart lived with his family from 1773 to 1780 in this spacious apartment in the middle of the town centre. Mozart's house used to be a meeting point for noble dance students and is still called the "Dance Master's House" today. Lorenz Speckner ran the dance school and was one of the witnesses at the wedding of Mozart's parents. From 1773 to 1780 Mozart composed a wealth of well-known works in this house, such as the Haffner Serenade dedicated to the Salzburg patron Sigmund Haffner the Younger, several symphonies (KV [1] 183, 201, 318, 319, and 338), piano concertos (especially KV 242, 271 and 365) as well as some masses (including the Coronation Mass KV 317) and small operas (Il re pastore, König Thamos, Zaide). Here he also began work on La Finta giardiniera and Idomeneo. After Mozart moved to Vienna and his sister Nannerl married in St. Gilgen, his father Leopold lived alone in these rooms, cared for only by his “cuddly companion Thresel”, and died here on May 28, 1787. 
Hitler at Residenzplatz on April 6, 1938. Hitler had arrived at Salzburg at 14.00 at the main train station where he was met by Gauleiter Anton Wintersteiger, General Eugen Beyer, ϟϟ Obergruppenführer Josef Dietrich, ϟϟ Obergruppenführer Franz Lorenz and various police and party officials. Accompanying Hitler were Reichsführer ϟϟ Heinrich Himmler, SA Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Brückner, Reichspressecheffer Dr. Otto Dietrich and ϟϟ group leader Julius Schaub. The entourage drove here to the residence, where a reception with party leaders including state governor Dr. Albert Reitter as well as Minister Edmund Glaise-Horstenau awaited him. Hitler signed the city's golden book and a choir of Salzburg middle school students under the direction of Prof. Friedrich Gehmacher performed a “folk song homage” and Otto Plantl recited a poem. As a welcome gift, the city presented him with one of the most valuable
objects from the Salzburg Museum Carolino Augusteum: Carl Spitzweg's
painting Der Sonntagsspaziergang. He then drives to the Austrian Court from where Hitler was cheered on the balcony by spectators and then asked a boy from the crowd to enter the hall. At 15.30 the procession continued to travel through Südtirolerplatz, Rainerstraße, Dreifaltigkeitsgasse, Adolf-Hitler-Platz,
Bismarckstraße, Staatsbrücke, Rathausplatz, Kranzlmarkt, Alter Markt,
Residenzplatz, Domplatz, Franziskanergasse to end at the rally in the Festspielhaus which lasted until 17.00. Among the roughly 3,000 people attending were predominantly “old fighters”, and was broadcast with loudspeakers on the streets and squares of the city, where 50,000 people were expected to have listened. 6,000 SA and ϟϟ men served on security detail. The rally itself began with a flag march and speeches by district leaders and Gauleiter Fritz Wächtler; apparently first aid had to be provided in 214 cases during the rally. Hitler spoke in his speech of his supposed longing for home: "For years I dreamed of entering this country in spite of everyone who hated this hour - and now I'm here!" He eventually ended his speech with reference to the issue of an economic integration of Austria into the Reich:
We have a most magnificent goal before us, the goal of rendering this Volksgemeinschaft more profound and to integrate this country economically in the enormous cycle of our great economic life—a truly magnificent goal. I am so happy that I was allowed to create this goal and to work on it. In only a few months’ time, the tide of new creativity and new economic activity will surge through this country. In a few years, thoughts of Social Democracy and Communism will have faded like the memory of an evil spirit from a distant past, and these ideas will be laughed at... Never before have I stepped before the nation with a clearer conscience or with greater pride and confidence. I am certain: on April 10 the entire German Volk will make its greatest avowal in history. It will solemnly pledge its allegiance to the new Reich and the new community. For only if all Germans form part of a sworn-in and unified community can Germany’s future be assured for all time. Our children and grandchildren shall not have to be ashamed of their ancestors. One day they shall, with all due respect, look back to those who lived before them, to those who protected the Reich, the Reich which gives life and sustenance to them. By then, April 10 will have become one of the great days in German history. All of us greatly rejoice in the knowledge that Providence has chosen us to fashion this day.The next day Hitler attended the breaking of new ground at the Walserberg near Salzburg for the Reich Autobahn, which was to connect Salzburg and Vienna one day. In front of an assembly of construction workers, Hitler delivered a short address, declaring
Here, too, we will begin with action immediately. I will hold you responsible, Herr Generalinspekteur [Todt], not only for commencing work here on this very day, but also for completing this first section within three years. You, my fellow workers, will help him. This bond shall tie together all of Germany and it shall serve as proof to the world that a Volk and a Reich capable of seeing through such an enormous undertaking—that these can never be separated. Now I myself will commence this work.Subsequently, Hitler himself inaugurated the construction by digging the ceremonial first spadeful. Nonetheless, his wish did not come true that the Autobahn might be completed “within three years.” As with many of his other enterprises, the war was to end the construction work prematurely.
Roughly three miles west of Salzburg is schloss Klessheim, a Baroque palace located in Wals-Siezenheim. Due to its proximity
to the Obersalzberg, Schloss Kleßheim was chosen as the "Guest House of the Führer" and served as the setting for state receptions. The palace was designed and constructed by Austrian architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach for Prince-Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun in 1700. It became the summer residence of the Archbishops of Salzburg. After the anschluss Hitler, when staying at his nearby Berghof residence, used Schloss Klessheim for conferences and to host official guests like Benito Mussolini, Miklós Horthy, Ion Antonescu, Jozef Tiso and Ante Pavelić. On April 16 and 17 1943, Horthy was Hitler’s guest at Klessheim castle. In addition to political and military matters, the talks mostly concerned the round-up of Hungarian Jews and their transport to concentration camps, that is, extermination camps. Horthy did not want to deal with this problem, and so Hitler felt forced to explain to him the necessity of the extermination of the Jews in the following manner:
If the Jews do not want to work there, then they will be shot. If they cannot work, they will go to seed. They must be treated like the tuberculosis bacillus that can infect a healthy body. This is not cruel if you consider that even innocent creatures of nature, like the rabbit and the deer, are shot so that they cannot do harm. Why should you be more kind to these beasts, who want to bring us Bolshevism? Nations that do not fight off the Jews go to seed. The decline of the once-so-proud Persian people is one of the most famous examples of this. Today, they lead as pitiful an existence as the Armenians.
Whilst Horthy stayed at Klessheim on another occasion the following year, Hitler on March 19, 1944 secretly gave orders for Operation Margarethe to occupy Hungary and enforce the deportation of the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. On July 7, 1944, on the occasion of a weapons exhibition, an attempt by several Wehrmacht officers around von Stauffenberg to kill Hitler failed, when conspirator Helmuth Stieff did not trigger the bomb. Until October 1944, the palace remained outside the reach of Allied bombers. In May 1945 it was seized by the American military administration. The American commander Mark Clark had his headquarters in Schloss Klessheim like Hitler before him. Clark was pleased with Klessheim, and was under no illusions about its previous role as a guesthouse for visitors to Berchtesgaden. It had been ‘wonderfully modernised and furnished with art treasures, mostly stolen from France’. Reichsadler statues made of lime stone, that were attached to the entrance portals, remain a reminder of the Nazi era today
Zell am See
Drake Winston overlooking the town flanked by Nazi-era postcards.
The church and Schmittenhöhe during the Nazi-era and today with wife and kid. Years before the Nazis even took power in Germany, Zell
am See organised a "Gautag der Hitlerpartei" for the 11th and 12th of
October in 1930 in the district capital. At the welcome party about 250
people, mostly Germans, were involved. On Sunday at 9.00 a festive
service took place in the parish church, although its pastor of Zell am
See refused to allow the flags and standards inside the church. After
the service, a celebration took place in the town square. Here, various
speakers from neighbouring Bavaria spoke of 'Austromarxismus;' the
region, directly adjacent to Bavaria, was well located geographically
for supporting propaganda from Germany. A month later on November 9, 1930 National Council elections took place in Austria which would prove to be the last free, secret and democratic National
Council election until 1945. 
The Nazis, or "Hitler movement", as it was called on the ballot
paper, received around 3
percent of the vote nationally whilst in the Zell am See
district alone, around 10 percent of the population voted for the “Hitler
movement”.
After the seizure of power by Hitler in 1933, Austrian Nazi officials
found shelter in neighbouring Germany and can continued their work from
there. In the spring of 1931 bloody clashes between Nazis and Social
Democratic supporters occurred again and again in the Zell am See area.
In April 1931, 34 Nazis held a meeting in Ferleiten. On the return trip,
they were attacked by about 200 workers, and in the ensuing mêlée one
person was severely injured and four persons slightly injured. In
September 1932, a meeting in Zell am See ended in a bloody hall battle
between the Social Democrats and the Nazis. The local organisation of
the Social Democratic Party was invited under the theme "National
Socialist demagogy" to a meeting in the Park Hotel on Zell am See. After
the event, three people were seriously injured and ten slightly
injured. The Parkhotel was badly damaged. During the parliamentary
elections between the National Council election in 1930 and the state
election in 1932, the Nazis made considerable gains in this area.
The Nazis, or "Hitler movement", as it was called on the ballot
paper, received around 3
percent of the vote nationally whilst in the Zell am See
district alone, around 10 percent of the population voted for the “Hitler
movement”.
After the seizure of power by Hitler in 1933, Austrian Nazi officials
found shelter in neighbouring Germany and can continued their work from
there. In the spring of 1931 bloody clashes between Nazis and Social
Democratic supporters occurred again and again in the Zell am See area.
In April 1931, 34 Nazis held a meeting in Ferleiten. On the return trip,
they were attacked by about 200 workers, and in the ensuing mêlée one
person was severely injured and four persons slightly injured. In
September 1932, a meeting in Zell am See ended in a bloody hall battle
between the Social Democrats and the Nazis. The local organisation of
the Social Democratic Party was invited under the theme "National
Socialist demagogy" to a meeting in the Park Hotel on Zell am See. After
the event, three people were seriously injured and ten slightly
injured. The Parkhotel was badly damaged. During the parliamentary
elections between the National Council election in 1930 and the state
election in 1932, the Nazis made considerable gains in this area.
From Where Eagles Dare and the same site today
The hauptplatz during Nazi rallies in 1938 and Drake Winston today. The tourist office has moved to the main street..gif)
The first American soldiers in Pinzgau were the paratroopers of the 101st American Airborne Division ( 101st Airborne Division ). They moved into Zell am See on May 8, 1945, the day of the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht. An American soldier, Charles A. Lindbergh, wrote in his war diary at this time: "Well, the highest ranks of the German army are in the area, more generals than you have ever seen in one place." A little later, the "Rainbow Division" (42nd Infantry) took over the administration, denazification and democratisation of the liberated areas in Pinzgau. The situation was confusing with American soldiers, prisoners of war, scattered German soldiers, the last members of the Waffen-SS, wounded and refugees dominating the area. These days of anarchy also claimed their last victims in the Zell am See area: In Lofer, two German soldiers were shot on May 7, 1945 for "desertion", even though the ϟϟ itself was "deserting" at the same time. On May 27, 1945, ϟϟ officer Eduard Altacher, commander of the Saalfelden barracks, was killed. Altacher disregarded the US Army's curfew and was mistreated and murdered by forced labourers and Americans. Soon American commanders, working with city officials, were able to alleviate widespread shortages of food and other necessities. It is also worth mentioning that at that time there was an American university (the Rainbow University) in the Grand Hotel with a branch in the Metzgerwirt. As everywhere else, the first years after the end of the war were difficult in Zell as the shortage of food made things difficult for the people, and there was also extensive clean-up and restoration work to be done. On May 28, 1945, the population of Zell am See doubled from 4,785 to around 9,000. But slowly everything was restored, the infrastructure on the Schmittenhöhe was continuously improved with new lifts and more spacious ski runs, and shipping was also promoted through the purchase of the Libelle boat. This was followed by municipal works, the construction of the elementary school, the adaptation and establishment of the hospital and much more. Due to the rising economy and the steadily growing tourism, Zell am See soon moved up into the front ranks of Salzburg's tourist destinations as winter tourism became more and more important and skiing found more followers.
Overlooking Zell on Schmittenhöhe.
Spending a cold winter morning at castle Fischhorn. As shown in the then-and-now GIFs, a fire on September 21, 1920 destroyed large parts of the castle. The owner had it restored by the Bremen architect Karl Wolters based on the much simpler architecture that existed before the neo-Gothic reconstruction. In May 1943 the Nazis seized the castle and the surrounding buildings. From then on, the property of the ϟϟ served as a remontage, as a riding school and from September 1944 as a sub-camp of the Dachau concentration camp. On the evening of May 7, 1945 German Corps G, First Germany Army, and the American Seventh Army had negotiated a cease-fire, and both units agreed to stop troop movements as well as to cease shooting at each other. During this time Göring sent a note to Seventh Army Headquarters in Kitzbühel informing them that he would meet the Americans at the Fischhorn Castle at Zell am See, to surrender. As they drove up to the gaunt stone building, Göring glimpsed a G.I. and an ϟϟ officer standing guard on opposite sides of the gateway. Rather alarmingly, the castle still housed the staff of an ϟϟ cavalry division. “Guard me well,” he said, turning to his captors, but a Luftwaffe major noticed that his face was wreathed in smiles. Emmy and Heli Bouhler fell into each other’s arms as they stepped out of the cars. “When do I get to meet Eisenhower?” asked Göring. Stack answered evasively. Later, Göring returned to the matter. He turned to the interpreter. “Ask General Stack,” he said, “whether I should wear a pistol or my ceremonial dagger when I appear before Eisenhower.” “I don’t care two hoots,” retorted the general.Irving, Göring (686)
In May 1945, Hermann Göring was captured in Altenmarkt im Pongau by
American soldiers. From May 7-9, 1945 Göring lived with Emmy and
daughter Edda in castle Fischhorn before being transferred to the Grand Hotel in Kitzbühel.
The castle's story doesn't end there- Philipp Bouhler, a senior Nazi Party functionary who was both a Reichsleiter and Chief of the Chancellery of the Führer and the ϟϟ official responsible for the Aktion T4 euthanasia programme that killed more than 70,000 handicapped adults and children, as well as co-initiator of Aktion 14f13, the so-called "Sonderbehandlung" ("special treatment"), that killed 15,000–20,000 concentration camp prisoners, was arrested with his wife Helene by American troops on May 10, 1945. Thereafter, both committed suicide. His wife Helene jumped from one of the castle's windows whilst on May 19 Bouhler used a cyanide capsule whilst in the American internment camp at Zell-am-See.
Innsbruck
Nazi flags on the former Adolf-Hitler-Platz (now Hofburgplatz) and, below right, Herzog-Friedrich-Straße with its Goldenem Dachl and today. Innsbruck gave the Nazi Party some of its strongest support in Austria before the Anschluss, although when, in 1921 radical nationalists stood for the first time under the name of the National Socialist Party in the Innsbruck supplementary elections, they received only 646 votes (2.8 percent). Their programme - the union of all “German peoples”, racism, anti-Semitism, “common good before self-interest” and “national community” - was more radical than that of the other parties. Despite the proletarian influence, it was most similar to that of the Greater German Party, which had ruled Innsbruck, albeit under a different name, for decades and provided the mayor until 1929. One of the National Socialist candidates was still on the municipal council for the Greater Germans in 1919. In the 1923 elections, the Nazi party won one mandate for the first time, and a second in 1925, which was held by a city teacher. In 1927, the Greater German People's Party, which had suffered significant losses in votes in the previous two ballots, formed an alliance with the National Socialists and ran under the name of the “National Unit List”. The amalgamation of the “national Innsbruck” gained votes and mandates, but not to the extent it had hoped for. In addition, the Nazi party split into a group that followed an Austrian path and one that submitted to the National Socialist German Workers' Party in the German Reich. Both Nazi parties ran separately and lost in 1929. Together they won just 1.4 percent of the vote. 
By the end of the year the effects of the global economic crisis were already being felt, and the established parties seemed to have no recipes to cushion them for the population. This was also evident in the number of lists that applied for votes and seats. In 1929 a total of eight parties ran for election- three from the nationalist camp - Greater Germans and two Nazi parties; three from the conservative - Tyrolean People's Party, Employees' Party, Homeowners and Innkeepers; and two from the left - Social Democracts and the Communist Party. In the run-up to the 1931 elections, there were riots and riots, especially between Nazi supporters and those of the Social Democrats, but also with the police. The Nazis end the end achieved only 4.1 percent of the vote. From autumn 1931, the Nazi Party relied on a massive propaganda campaign and public presence. Parades, torchlight procession, swastika graffiti on house walls, leaflets, bonfires in the form of swastikas - this and the promise that the Nazis would alleviate the problems of poverty and hardship created by the economic crisis caused many people to gravitate to the Nazi Party. The appointment of Hitler as chancellor across the border gave the Tyrolean Nazi Party further impetus. Before the supplementary election in April 1933, the Nazi party presented itself as a saviour, promising that Austria would flourish like the German Reich under the leadership of Hitler. That election on April 24, 1933, saw them gain a remarkable 14,996 votes (41.2 percent). After the Nazi Party was banned in mid-June after the Dolfuß assassination, the Nazis lost their seats. A few months later the government banned the Social Democratic Party and the Austro-Fascist self-appointed corporate state ruled dictatorially until March 1938 and the “Anschluss”.
During the anschluß and on the occasion of Hitler's visit on April 5, 1939. Hitler would return March 18, 1940 when his train stopped over ifor him to to review an honour guard. According to the Party newspaper, he was “very touched by the enthusiasm demonstrated by the Tiroleans.” Significantly, they sang the “Englandlied” to greet him. It wouldn't be until the catastrophic defeat of the 6th Army in Stalingrad in February 1943 that Innsbruck and other Austrian towns began to feel the impact of the war. With the surrender of Army Group Africa in Tunisia and the landing of the Anglo-Americans in Sicily, the Allies were able to open a new air front from the south. The Gau Tirol-Vorarlberg was now within range of their and the Gau, which until then had been completely spared from the bombing war, suddenly became of strategic interestgiven that war production was increasingly being relocated here as well as the fact that the Inn valley and the Brenner route had become extremely important for German supplies after the Wehrmacht occupied Italy in September 1943. Already on September 1, American planes bombed the train stations of Bolzano and Trento, and on October 1st, the first air raid on the Gau in Feldkirch killed 210 people. Now the neglect of the Nazi regime, which had completely neglected the air raid shelter simply out of confident arrogance, began its toll. Shortly before the first attack on Innsbruck, the Tyrol-Vorarlberg district group of the Reichs Luftschutzbund had expressly pointed out that the "production of tunnels for air defense purposes was completely prohibited." In the summer of 1943, some flak batteries were installed in and around Innsbruck and along the Brenner route, but in view of the increasing threat to the In the Gau area, such defences in no way corresponded to the necessities. The regime also had to fall back on 15 to 17-year-old students as air force helpers and Soviet prisoners of war for air defence. On December 15, 1943, the 15th US Air Force used its strategic location, which had been improved by the new bases in the Foggia area, for the first time and launched the first and most disastrous of a total of 22 attacks on Innsbruck. 48 B17 Fortress bombers and 39 P38 fighters dropped 126 tonnes of bombs over the Gau capital to destroy the railway systems. The result was devastating: 269 dead, 500 wounded, 1,627 homeless and massive material damage, especially in the city centre. The causes of the devastating effects of this first attack on Innsbruck lay in the antiquated gun material of the flak, the lack of experienced soldiers and bomb-proof security rooms as well as the complete failure of the warning system. Even before the worst damage had been repaired, the next attack took place on December 19, which, however, met with far greater resistance from the Tyrolean air defence. In addition, for the first (and last) time, there were aerial battles between German fighters and American aircraft. Whilst five American bombers were shot down, the Luftwaffe lost at least 24 aircraft; probably even 38. The consequences of this attack for the Innsbruck population were seventy deaths. Seven 17-18 year old foreign boys were hanged as looters because they had bought clothes and were caught secretly eating bread and jam. A 34-year-old Tyrolean who stole valuable clothes from the suitcase of a bomb refugee from Innsbruck was sentenced to death by the Innsbruck Special Court. Since there were no more attacks on Innsbruck until June 1944, there was time to increase the effectiveness of the air defence by expanding the use of school children and apprentices on the flak and, from November and December 1944, by a larger number of Hungarian soldiers and flak batteries from Italy. Incredibly, it wasn't until January 1944 that the Nazi regime set about building air raid tunnels that offered the Innsbruck population some safe protection. As a result, 8,901 metres of tunnel would be built within a few months through the concentration of funds on Innsbruck and the predominant use of foreign workers, forced labourers and prisoners of war or of the "labour education camp Reichenau" under the supervision of local construction companies. For example, in March 1944 in Innsbruck, in addition to 75 domestic workers, 491 foreign and forced labourers and 112 prisoners of war were working on such tunnel construction.  |
Maria-Theresien-Straße |
The Allied bombing had not led to the hoped-for demoralization of the civilian population, but it did lead to general physical and psychological exhaustion. The Americans saw the successful bombing of the Brenner route as one of the main factors behind the surrender of the German troops in Italy and the failure of a "final battle" on Tyrolean soil. As a result of the air war, around 1,500 bomb victims were mourned in the former Tyrol-Vorarlberg district, a third of them in Innsbruck (504 people). Innsbruck also bore the brunt of the material damage. 80 percent of the total damage concerned the state capital. Almost 54% of the buildings and almost 60% of the apartments in Innsbruck were damaged,destroyed or uninhabitable. The worst damage occurred in the districts of Wilten and Pradl, in the vicinity of the train station as well as in Maria-Theresien-Straße and the old town.The liberation of InnsbruckIn the last weeks of the war more and more people joined the small, heterogeneous resistance groups that Karl Gruber had united. When the Americans threatened to bomb and completely destroy Innsbruck on May 2, 1945 if the Nazis didn't surrender the city, Innsbruck was surrendered the next day without a fight after Gauleiter Franz Hofer had previously forbidden any resistance in a radio address.
Kitzbühel
Kitzbühel was fortunate to be spared from destruction in the First and Second World Wars. During the Nazi period from 1938 to 1945, Kitzbuhel was a holiday destination among leading Nazis. Speer, Göring and Riefenstahl were guests; Foreign Minister Ribbentrop bought a farm in the village of Bichlach. At the same time, a communist resistance group organised in Kitzbühel, with connections to Berlin's Robert Uhrig. Five members of the group, Anton Rausch, Andreas Obernauer, Joseph Pair, Viktor da Pont and Ignaz Zloczower, were arrested and murdered in 1942 after being spied on by the Gestapo. Novelist and sports writer Budd Schulberg, assigned by the American navy to the OSS for intelligence work whilst attached to John Ford's documentary unit, had been ordered to arrest Riefenstahl at her chalet in here in Kitzbühel, ostensibly to have her identify Nazi war criminals in German film footage captured by the Allied troops shortly after the war. At this point Riefenstahl claimed not to have been aware of the nature of the internment camps. According to Schulberg, "[s]he gave me the usual song and dance. She said, 'Of course, you know, I'm really so misunderstood. I'm not political'".
Bad Radkersburg
Bad Radkersburg, on the Slovenian border (where it is known as Radgona). In the course of the 19th century language conflict, nationalist struggles in the ethnically mixed area arose between the predominantly German-speaking citizens and the Slovene-speaking peasant population down the Mur River. A garrison town of the Austro-Hungarian Army during the Great War, it was occupied by troops of the newly emerged Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) on December 1, 1918. An armed revolt against the occupation forces, led by Johann Mickl, in order to affiliate the town with German-Austria failed. Nevertheless, by resolution of the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, the area north of the Mur passed to the First Austrian Republic, whilst Oberradkersburg (Gornja Radgona) and the neighbouring municipality of Apače (Abstall), on the south bank, became part of Yugoslavia. The nationalist conflicts lingered on, on both sides of the border. During the war many members of the German minority greeted the Wehrmacht invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 and joined the German combat units, while large parts of Radkersburg were devastated by armed conflicts. After the war, most of the remaining German-speaking population south of the Mur was forcibly expelled.
Kufstein
Nazi flag on the Römerhofgaße in front of the Auracher Löchl on the left, and on the Italian-Austrian border during the war and today with baby Drake Winston. In 1938 Kufstein became the connection of Austria to the German Reichkreisstadt in the Gau Tirol-Vorarlberg. Even before the anschluss high-ranking Nazis such as Himmler, Göring, Heß and Hitler himself enjoyed staying in Kufstein around 1930, sitting on the terrace of the Hotel Egger for meetings or hiking in the mountains. Hartmann Lauterbacher, who ran a chemist's in the town, founded a “German Youth” group with fifty youths which was later incorporated into the Hitler Youth making it in 1923 the first Nazi-oriented youth group in Austria. Shortly before the end of the war, the city was bombed and attacked with artillery, destroying many historic buildings. After the end of the war, Kufstein was occupied by the Americans and the French.
Gröbming
Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today. During the war, Gröbming hosted thousands of refugees. Between 11.00 and 11.10 on March 11, 1944, three American aircraft arriving from Öblarn attacked Gröbming station killing two men- Otto Kar and Werner Ulbrich- with minor resulting building damage. Later that month on the 25th Gröbming's railway station was bombarded by two fighter bombers approaching from Schladming between 13.00 and 13.15, damaging a locomotive. On February 20, 1945 from 14.55 to 15.20 a passenger train on the Klachau - Bad Mitterndorf railway line was attacked by six American planes approaching from Gröbming damaging a locomotive and eight carriages.
Bad Leonfelden
Schloss Brunnwald, built between 1724-1727 in the midst of a forest as an hunting lodge. A fire in 1898 badly damaged it but by 1905 it had been rebuilt. In 1939 the castle was confiscated by the Nazis to serve as an NSV Müttererholungsheim. After the war services were held for the large number of refugees within.
Friesach
Nazi flags flying from the Hotel Friesacher Hof and the town today. It was here where famed mountaineer and writer Heinrich Harrer lived and is buried. He is best known for being on the four-man climbing team that made the first ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland, and for his book Seven Years in Tibet which was later made into a film starring Brad Pitt in the role of Harrer. Escaping from British internment in India during the war, Harrer and his colleague Aufschnaiter (familiar with the Tibetan language), reached Lhasa on January 15, 1946. In 1948, Harrer became a salaried official of the Tibetan government, translating foreign news and acting as the Court photographer. Harrer first met the 14th Dalai Lama when he was summoned to the Potala Palace and asked to make a film about ice skating, which Harrer had introduced to Tibet. Harrer built a cinema for him, with a projector run off a Jeep engine. Harrer soon became the Dalai Lama's tutor in English, geography, and some science, and Harrer was astonished at how fast his pupil absorbed the Western world's knowledge. A strong friendship developed between the two that would last the rest of their lives. 
Standing in front of the Potala palace which served as Harrer's home during his period of exile. By the time he died in 2006, Harrer's Nazi past came back to haunt him. A decade earlier film-maker Gerald Lehner found in American archives the Harrer's SA membership card dated October 1933. After the Anschluss Harrer immediately joined the ϟϟ holding the rank of Oberscharführer, and on May 1, 1938 he became a member of the Nazi Party. After their ascent of the Eiger North Face he and his colleagues were formally received by and photographed with Hitler. Harrer later said he wore his ϟϟ uniform only once when he married Charlotte Wegener, daughter of eminent explorer and scholar Alfred Wegener. Nevertheless, when Harrer returned to Europe in 1952, he was cleared of any pre-war crimes and would describe in his book Beyond Seven Years in Tibet his involvement with the Nazi Party a mistake made in his youth when he had not yet learned to think for himself.
Kapfenberg
Adolf-Hitler-Platz with the Altes Rathaus then and now. After the annexation of Austria in 1938, Kapfenberg's industrial facilities were expanded and expanded to meet the requirements of the massive military rearmament. Since the area around the main plant in the valley of the Thörlbach offered too little space, construction of the plant VI in the north-east of the city was begun. Additional underground tunnelling systems, some of which are still preserved, were built in order to be able to continue production in an emergency. Böhler also founded the non-profit Mürz-Ybbs-Siedlungs-A.G in 1938, which began with the construction of the Hochschwab settlement. In 1943, with the support of Böhler, the municipality decided to found a trolleybus company, Mürzaler Verkehrsgesellschaft m.b.H. (MVG). Soon after the Anschluss, the Antifascist Front, a resistance movement with about one hundred members, formed in Kapfenberg. One of the most important organisers was Anton Buchalka, who was executed in 1941 in Berlin. For the large number of war prisoners and forced labourers who were employed in war production at Boehler, several barracks camps were erected at the Schirmitzbühel, near the plant VI, in Hafendorf and Winkl. From November 1944 to May 1945, the facilities of Böhler, the station and the freight station were attacked several times by Allied bombers in Kapfenberg. After the end of the war, the city was occupied by Soviet soldiers on May 9, 1945, who were then fortunately replaced by British occupiers on July 24 1945. A DP camp was set up for about six hundred Jewish and non-Jewish so-called displaced persons.
Lienz
Adolf-Hitler-Platz with the Nazi Eagle-topped memorial and today. After the First World War the southern parts of the former Cisleithanian crown land of Tyrol (Trentino and South Tyrol) were awarded to the Kingdom of Italy under the terms of the London Pact and the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, making the Lienz district of East Tyrol an exclave with no territorial connection to the mainland of North Tyrol. As a result of this and the effects of the economic crisis, the number of unemployed rose massively in Lienz. It was only from 1937 that an improvement in the employment figures could be observed. Modest growth in tourism was hampered by the imposition of the Thousand-Mark barrier, and greater investment in tourism remained in Lienz as a result. With the opening of the new building of the district hospital in 1931, however, an important infrastructure project could be realised. In 1936, the Lienzer garrison was also installed and the modernisation of the city began in the 1920s. From the February fighting in the course of the Austrian Civil War in 1934 Lienz was spared, but the Lienzer garrison was used in the crushing of the fighting in neighbouring Carinthia. In the 1930s, the Nazis succeeded in gaining a foothold in East Tyrol, albeit only to a modest extent. In 1933, 150 Lienzers were still members of the Nazi Party, with the share of Nazi members being comparatively low compared to other surrounding municipalities. After the 1938 Anschluss of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi
Germany, the Lienz district became a part of the "Reichsgau" of
Carinthia and with it the integration of the population into
the Nazi organisations. The four Jews
were expelled from Lienz as early as 1938; in Lienz, according to the
Nazis' classification, two families, whose
members were partially classified as "full or half Jews". Although two
members of one of these families were to be deported to Dachau for
several weeks, the families were not killed by
the Nazi persecution although at least twelve were eventually murdered in concentration camps or were poisoned.
The annexation of East
Tyrol to the Gau Carinthia took place in October 1938. Lienz also experienced
population growth through the settlement of several hundred South
Tyroleans, who had decided to resettle in the German Reich. For the new arrivals the so-called South Tyrolean
settlement was built in typical Nazi construction.
Towards the end of the war, several bomb attacks on Lienz occurred, the first attack on June 13, 1944, meeting the district of Peggetz. As a result, the population was often destroyed by minor and major bombings, with the heaviest bombings taking place on February 5 and April 26, 1945. A total of about a thousand bombs were dropped on Lienz, killing thirteen people and destroying 19 buildings, including the station. thirty buildings were also heavily damaged, twelve medium and 41 slightly damaged. Altogether about 360 Lienzers were killed in the war.
Towards the end of the war, several bomb attacks on Lienz occurred, the first attack on June 13, 1944, meeting the district of Peggetz. As a result, the population was often destroyed by minor and major bombings, with the heaviest bombings taking place on February 5 and April 26, 1945. A total of about a thousand bombs were dropped on Lienz, killing thirteen people and destroying 19 buildings, including the station. thirty buildings were also heavily damaged, twelve medium and 41 slightly damaged. Altogether about 360 Lienzers were killed in the war.
On May 8, 1945 victorious British forces occupied Lienz, which together with Carinthia and Styria became part of the British occupation zone. At this time several thousand members of the former Wehrmacht 1st Cossack Division coming from Yugoslavia had arrived in and around Lienz who then surrendered to the British troops before being forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. These Cossacks
who had fought alongside the Germans had been saved
from Soviet troops in a British-controlled area. The Cossacks,
however, were handed over to Soviet units by the British army in June
1945, and hundreds of Cossacks died by suicide or were killed in the tragedy on the Drava.
A wounded German soldier being given a ticket by a fellow soldier at the 1 1941 Salzburg Festival. Lebrecht Photo Library. 2 18. Programme book for Hamburg’s Mozart-Gedenktage. 3 19. Special programme booklet ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sein Leben und 4 Schaffen’ transmitted by Grossdeutscher Rundfunk, Autumn 1941. 5 20. Front cover of the special commemorative book celebrating the 6 Mozartwoche in Vienna, December 1941. 7 21. Joint declaration by Goebbels and von Schirach published at the begin- 8 ning of the commemorative book of the Mozartwoche. 9 22. Advertisements detailing the programmes devised for the Mozartwoche 10 in Vienna. 1L 23. Joseph Goebbels delivering his Mozart speech at the Staatsoper in 2 Vienna, 4 December 1941. 3 24. Goebbels visiting the newly restored Figarohaus in the Domgasse 4 Vienna, 5 December 1941. 5 25. Mozart-Huldigung at the Albertinaplatz Vienna, 5 December 1941 6 Bildarchiv, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Wien. 7 26. Magazine poster for the Mozart biopic Wen die Götter lieben (1942). 8 27. Front and back cover of Hans Watzlik’s Mozart novel Die Krönungsoper. 9 28. Magazine advertisement for the film Eine kleine Nachtmusik first 20 screened in German-occupied Prague, 1939. 1 29. Two specially designed postage stamps issued by the Reichsprotektorat 2 Böhmen und Mähren in 1941 in honour of Mozart. 3 30. Programme book for the Semaine de Mozart à Paris 13–20 July 1941 4 organised by the Institut Allemand. 5 31. Poster advertising the opening production in the Deutsches Theater in 6 den Niederlanden of Don Giovanni in The Hague, 19 November 1942. 7 Koninklijke Bibliotheek/Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie. 8 32. Poster for the Mozart Commemoration in Flanders, May 1942. 9 33. Italy’s homage to Mozart - a performance of the Requiem in the Basilica 30 di Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome, 3 and 4 December 1941. 1 34. Playbill for one of the first post–war performances of Figaro by members 2 of the Vienna State Opera, 1945. 3 4x Unless otherwise indicated, all illustrations are taken from the author’s own 5 archive. 36L vii Folio 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L There are many people whose kindness and advice have helped me enor- 2 mously in preparing this book. Among the libraries that provided me with 3 precious documents I would like to thank in particular the Bundesarchiv in 4 Berlin, the Musik Sammlung of the Austrian National Library, the EMI Trust, 5 the German National Library Leipzig, the Wiener Library London, the Fred 6 K. Prieberg Archiv at the University of Kiel, and the University of California 7 Berkeley Music Library. Special thanks are due to Rachel Beckles Willson, 8 Nicolas Bell, Liza Blake, Geoffrey Chew, Barbara, Tony and Jessica Ford, 9 Michael Haas, Boris von Haken, Ernst Hainisch, Werner Hanak, Paul Harper- 20 Scott, Simon Keefe, Lottie Levy, Paul Lilley, Eva Moreda-Rodriguez, 1 Katarzyna Naliwajek, Ewald Osers, Francesco Parrino, Tully Potter, Jim 2 Samson, Florian Scheding, Tim Schwabedissen, John Shepard, Nigel Simeone, 3 Raphaël Taylor, Toby Thacker and Diura Thoden van Velzen for their efforts 4 and expertise. I am particularly indebted to Cliff Eisen who read the manu- 5 script and offered many invaluable comments and suggestions and to Emily 6 Kilpatrick for her brilliant copy-editing of my text. I also wish to express 7 particular gratitude to Malcolm Gerratt for encouraging me to complete and 8 expand this project, which originated in 2006 when I acted as academic 9 advisor to the Da Ponte Exhibition at Vienna’s Jewish Museum. Finally, I am 30 deeply grateful to my wife Jo and my daughters Mica and Francesca for their 1 patience, love and understanding. 2 3 4x 5 36L Folio ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 They, the Nazis, claimed for themselves the glory of Germany’s cultural past. 1L They discovered the German classics, they discovered Bach, Beethoven, 2 Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and of course Wagner, whose music roused 3 the hysterical Führer into a frenzy in which he was capable of anything. 4 (ADOLF ABER)1 5 6 Although many regimes have appropriated great historical and artistic figures 7 of the past for their own political purposes, none has done so with such 8 thoroughness as the Nazis. Exploiting the wave of national euphoria that 9 followed their accession to power in 1933, the Nazi government sought to 20 harness the greatest representatives of Germany’s rich cultural heritage as 1 a means of serving their particular aims and objectives. In order to lend grav- 2 itas and respectability to their actions, as well as maintain a sense of continuity 3 with the past, they pursued a policy that necessitated recreating these icons in 4 their own image. 5 This policy was particularly well co-ordinated in the sphere of music, a point 6 powerfully emphasised by Adolf Aber, a German-born refugee and musicolo- 7 gist who had settled in England in 1936. Writing in June 1944 about the musical 8 situation in Third Reich, Aber summarised Nazi intentions as ‘thinking war 9 every minute, but shouting peace every second’. One way of shouting peace, 30 Aber argued, was to arrange musical festivals and other such events organised 1 ‘with almost overwhelming lavishness, usually to the accompaniment of recep- 2 tions attended by ministers and high-party officials who in honey-sweet 3 speeches tried to convince the world of Nazi Germany’s peaceful intentions’.2 4x Almost certainly, Aber was alluding here to the most overwhelmingly 5 lavish musical celebration to have been organised by the Nazi regime, namely 36L Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 the extensive and morale-boosting activities organised throughout the 2 German Reich and its occupied territories in 1941 to mark the 150th anniver- 3 sary of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Yet Mozart seems the most 4 unlikely candidate to have become a useful adjunct to Nazi propaganda. 5 Although depicted at the time as the shining example of youthful German 6 genius, whose memory German soldiers were supposedly fighting on the 7 Eastern front to preserve, his music, unlike that of Beethoven or Wagner, does 8 not easily fit into the mould of Teutonic heroism that was required at this 9 particular time. 10 In fact, Mozart was probably the least easily malleable of all the great 1L composers to have been appropriated by the Nazis. On almost every level, his 2 philosophical and moral outlook seems at odds with their weltanschauung. 3 For example, despite a few isolated expressions of German patriotism that 4 appear in his letters, he does not strike one as a virulent nationalist, at least 5 not in the sense in which such a position was understood by the Nazis. As a 6 libertarian who generally felt at ease in most of the countries of Europe, his 7 vision appears to have transcended national barriers rather than emphasised 8 Germanic hegemony. Furthermore, had he been alive and working during the 9 1930s, his well-known activities as a Freemason and his apparent willingness 20 to collaborate with a Jewish librettist on three of his greatest operas would 1 surely have placed him on a collision course with the regime. 2 Yet even if we concede Leon Botstein’s argument that the attempt to trans- 3 form Mozart into a Nazi icon was ultimately rendered ineffective, largely 4 because there was something elusive about his music that ‘permits it to resist 5 equally the evil and good with which it is periodically allied’, it does not make 6 an examination of the process any less fascinating.3 The manipulation of 7 Mozart not only sheds interesting light on the manner in which the Nazis 8 dealt with the nation’s musical heritage, but also illustrates the absurd and 9 sometimes contradictory lengths to which those supportive of the regime 30 were prepared to go in order to ensure Mozart’s hallowed status as one of the 1 most important representatives of Aryan cultural supremacy. 2 The book traces the reception of Mozart throughout this period, as a victim 3 of Nazi propaganda, and also as a beacon of hope for those who had been 4x forced out of Germany after 1933 on racial or political grounds. The survey 5 begins with a brief consideration of musical events relating to Mozart in the 36L anniversary year of 1931. It introduces a number of important figures who Folio 2 INTRODUCTION would be closely associated with the composer throughout the next decade or 1 so, either as supporters or opponents of the incoming Nazi regime. For the 2 following three chapters, the focus is placed on the ways in which the Nazis 3 exploited or subverted certain aspects of Mozart’s outlook and activity to 4 serve their ideological programme: his patriotism, his relationship to 5 Freemasonry, and his collaboration with the Jewish-born librettist Lorenzo 6 Da Ponte. Chapters 5 and 6, on the other hand, explore the reception of 7 Mozart’s work from the perspective of a number of highly influential 8 performers and musicologists who were persecuted by the regime and forced 9 to continue their work outside Germany. 10 Since the Nazis only began to take a really proactive interest in Mozart at the 1L highest levels of government after the annexation of Austria in 1938, Chapter 7 2 focuses attention on Mozart propaganda and performance from 1938–1945, 3 with specific reference to the Nazification of the Salzburg Festival and the 1941 4 anniversary celebrations. Chapter 8 examines the use of Mozart as a weapon 5 of German cultural imperialism in the occupied territories. Finally, despite 6 the failure of the Nazis to render irreparable damage to Mozart’s reputation, 7 a concluding chapter considers the extent to which the regime’s legacy casts a 8 shadow over post-war issues directly associated with the composer. As an 9 appendix, the book includes English translations of the Mozart Speeches by 20 Reichsleiter Baldur von Schirach and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels 1 which were delivered in Vienna in November and December 1941. These 2 documents provide first-hand evidence of the exploitation of Mozart for propa- 3 ganda purposes at a crucial moment during the war, as the German army was 4 advancing eastwards in an attempt to capture Moscow. 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L 3 Folio 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L For our musicians in 1931, Mozart is – a longing. 2 (OSCAR VON PANDER)1 3 4 1931 was a particularly bleak year for Germany. The after-effects of the world 5 economic crisis, prompted by the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, had cast 6 a long dark shadow over the country. To all intents and purposes, the Weimar 7 Republic was dying on its feet, its impotent government merely lurching from 8 one calamity to another. Unemployment, already at very high levels at the begin- 9 ning of the year, had risen to over five and a half million by January 1932.2 A 20 spate of bank failures during the summer months, culminating in the collapse of 1 the Darmstadter National Bank on 13 July, intensified a crisis of confidence, 2 even though in the previous month US President Herbert Hoover had tried to 3 stabilise the situation by placing a moratorium on Germany’s war reparations. 4 These cataclysmic events had an inevitable impact upon cultural life. After 5 enjoying a period of relative prosperity from 1923 to 1929, Germany’s heavily 6 subsidised theatres, opera houses and orchestras experienced a drastic 7 change of fortune. Attendance suffered particularly badly in the wake of the 8 economic crisis. For example in Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city, 9 audiences declined by as much as 28 per cent between 1929 and 1932. With 30 reduced box office receipts, arts organisations hoped to rely more than ever 1 on public money for survival. But regional and local governments were no 2 longer able to come to the rescue. In a desperate attempt to alleviate the effects 3 of mass unemployment and shore up welfare costs, most were forced to cut 4x their subsidy for the arts. The reductions in terms of financial support for 5 theatre companies were particularly stringent, averaging around 27 per cent 36L between the 1929/30 and 1931/32 seasons.3 Folio CHAPTER 1 PROLOGUE 1931, A MOZART YEAR PROLOGUE: 1931, A MOZART YEAR Of all the performing arts, music suffered especially badly. Given its 1 expense, opera was an obvious target for budgetary cuts. Many theatres 2 resorted to reducing their number of annual opera productions and the size 3 of their orchestras, or in the most extreme cases, abandoning opera altogether. 4 In 1931, an estimated 1,000 of the 6,000 members of the German opera 5 and concert orchestras lost their jobs alongside the enormous number of 6 musicians who found themselves out of work as a result of the emergence of 7 the sound film. Even the most hallowed of Germany’s performing institutions 8 could not remain immune from the crisis. During the same year, the city 9 council of Berlin cut the subsidies of the Berlin Philharmonic, first by a third 10 and then by half. It was only saved from almost certain extinction by an 1L enforced merger with the lesser-known Berlin Symphony Orchestra.4 2 Against such a background of unrelieved misery, the musical world had 3 little cause for celebration. Yet the 175th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang 4 Amadeus Mozart, which fell in 1931, provided one small opportunity for 5 Germans to be reminded of their great musical heritage. At a time of crisis, 6 this process was both necessary and cathartic, for it reinforced the belief, 7 steadfastly maintained by Germany’s educated classes, that music had the 8 capacity both to preserve a sense of national identity and to renew the feeling 9 of belonging together. 20 Among the many anniversary tributes that were paid to the composer, the 1 reflections of the critic Oscar von Pander, published in the Münchner Neueste 2 Nachrichten, were typical. Regarding Mozart as an object of longing rather 3 than one of fulfilment, von Pander argued that contemporary composers, 4 captivated by his ‘spare and objective form’, the ‘unsurpassable precision of 5 his style’ and the ‘purity of his emotional expression’, viewed him as an ideal 6 to which the music-making of that time ‘must turn as a reaction against a 7 previous overreaching and overblown style’. Yet paradoxically, in the current 8 artistic climate, such an ideal could never be realised: 9 30 It is no coincidence that today’s composers, on the one hand, sense the formal 1 perfection of his works as a paradigm and, on the other, find their beauty 2 less or not at all worth imitating. Certainly, the barriers and restraints that 3 are intrinsic to the contemporary human being lie almost insurmountably 4x on the path towards Mozartian beauty. Nonetheless, only an emergence of 5 his clarity and depth will bring fulfilment to the numerous approaches and 36L 5 Folio Folio 6 MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 currents of new musical creation. In this sense, we can today experience the 2 peculiar sensation of daring to consider him, possibly the most uneducated 3 composer from a purely human viewpoint, the educator of the German 4 musician.5 5 6 Although the uncertain economic and political situation inevitably inhib- 7 ited the scope of the Mozart anniversary year celebrations, which were far 8 more modest in scale than those accorded to Beethoven for the centenary 9 of his death in 1927, a number of Mozart-related achievements in the field 10 of scholarship, performance and publication in 1931 set the agenda for the 1L composer’s reception during the later 1930s, both within and outside the Third 2 Reich. 3 4 5 6 One particularly significant milestone was Alfred Einstein’s edition of the 7 complete score of Don Giovanni, which was published by the Leipzig firm of 8 Ernst Eulenburg in May 1931. The project had occupied Einstein since 1923, 9 while he was working as an editor for the Munich-based publisher Drei Masken 20 Verlag. That it took nearly eight years to come to fruition had much to do 1 with the inaccessibility of the autograph manuscript, which had been deposited 2 at the Paris Conservatoire in 1910. In order to compensate for this ‘loss to 3 Germany’ of a such a precious document, as Einstein put it in the introduction 4 to the published score, his initial idea had been to bring out a facsimile repro- 5 duction of the autograph.6 But this proposal hardly got off the ground, partly 6 as a result of fraught relationships between France and Germany, and partly 7 because it was deemed economically unviable by his publishers, who were 8 suffering from the effects of rampant inflation. Einstein therefore had little 9 option but to set to work on creating his own edition. To speed up the process, 30 he gratefully utilised whatever facsimile pages the Munich firm already had in 1 its possession. 2 In the introduction to the score, Einstein placed considerable emphasis on 3 the scholarly value of his edition. He wanted to ‘offer the opera in the purest 4x and most faithful form approaching the original as closely as it is ever possible 5 for a print to approach a manuscript’. Einstein went further, claiming that this 36L attempt must also help to bring about ‘a new spiritual conception of the work, Alfred Einstein’s edition of Don Giovanni PROLOGUE: 1931, A MOZART YEAR or better’. Above all, he declared, it should become ‘a symbol or an invitation 1 to allow the opera to appear again in all its purity, free from all the romantic 2 and unromantic distortions of the 19th century . . . without moralistic or 3 ethical or philosophical evaluation, without the implication of Wagnerian 4 “Leitmotives”, and especially without the debates on the stylistic question of 5 its typology, either as opera buffa or a mixture of buffa and seria.’7 6 The Einstein edition of Don Giovanni should be regarded as arguably the 7 most substantial achievement of the musicologist’s pre-1933 career, a career 8 that up to this juncture had been blighted by difficulties and disappointments, 9 not the least of which was the impossibility of securing a professorship in a 10 German university. The brilliant scholar undoubtedly deserved such recogni- 1L tion, but was denied this opportunity as a result of jealousy and ‘rampant 2 anti-Semitism’ among his academic colleagues.8 Nonetheless, despite these 3 unpleasant undercurrents, the initial reaction to Einstein’s edition seems to 4 have been positive.9 Only after the Nazi takeover was there a sharp reversal. 5 As one of many German-Jewish musicologists that were driven out of their 6 native country, Einstein was now censured on racial grounds, his claim to 7 have restored Mozart’s opera from its previous misrepresentations and 8 falsifications cutting little ice with those that were controlling musical life 9 after 1933.10 20 The rival arrangements of Idomeneo: ‘tainted’ Strauss/Wallerstein versus ‘pure’ Wolf-Ferrari/Stahl 1 2 3 4 Einstein’s desire to create a pure and faithful Mozart, divested from the 5 unwanted accretions of nineteenth-century performance practice, stood in 6 direct contrast to other musicians who were perfectly prepared to distort the 7 composer’s original intentions in various ways with the aim of making them 8 more accessible to contemporary audiences. Among the works that proved 9 most vulnerable to this course of action were some of the many operas by 30 Mozart which had thus far failed to establish a secure place in the repertory. 1 During the nineteenth century there had been some limited but largely 2 unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate Mozart’s neglected stage works. After the 3 First World War, however, the general artistic climate, reacting against the 4x excesses of late-Romanticism, appeared to be far more receptive to the idea of 5 reviving long-forgotten eighteenth-century operatic works. The most obvious 36L 7 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 reflection of this trend was the renewed interest in staging Handel’s operas, 2 which began in earnest in Göttingen under the directorship of Oskar Hagen in 3 1920.11 Likewise, a number of opera houses also incorporated early Mozart 4 works into their schedules. Among the novelties which were featured between 5 the First World War and the end of the Weimar Republic was the early musical 6 intermezzo Apollo et Hyacinthus, which was revived in two alternative versions, 7 both translated into German. The first of these was staged at Rostock in 1922 8 and translated by H. C. Schott with the music arranged by Paul Gerhard Scholz 9 and Josef Turnau, whilst the second, first performed in Munich in 1932, 10 featured a translation by Erika Mann (daughter of the novelist Thomas Mann) 1L with the music arranged by Karl Schleifer.12 Other Mozart operatic revivals 2 during this period included La finta semplice translated into German by Anton 3 Rudolph as Die verstellte Einfalt in Karlsruhe in 1921 and Breslau in 1927, La 4 finta giardiniera in translations by Rudolf and Ludwig Berger (Mainz, 1915), 5 Oscar Bie (Darmstadt, 1915 and Berlin, 1916) and Anton Rudolph (Karslruhe, 6 1918); and Zaide, arranged by Rudolph (Karlsruhe, 1917). 7 In 1931, the spotlight fixed upon Idomeneo, primarily because it was 150 years 8 since Mozart’s first great opera had seen the light of day in Munich. Long consid- 9 ered a problem child among Mozart’s mature stage works on account of its 20 unwieldy libretto, Idomeneo had been revived relatively infrequently during the 1 nineteenth century. Whenever it was performed, the opera was subjected to 2 considerable modifications and re-arrangements. This happened as early as 3 August 1806 in Berlin, where the work was presented with extra arias composed 4 by Ferdinando Paer, Bernhard Anselm Weber and Vincenzo Righini.13 The 5 tendency to meddle with Idomeneo persisted into the early twentieth century 6 with a new version staged in Karlsruhe in 1917 and Dresden in 1925 by Ernst 7 Lewicki, director of the Dresden Mozartverein. As was the convention at that 8 time, Lewicki translated the Italian libretto into German. Basing his arrange- 9 ment on the principles of Gluck and Wagner, he compressed the action into two 30 acts, reducing in particular the prominent role allotted to Electra. Lewicki 1 sought to excise most of the stylistic features associated with Italian opera seria, 2 shortened the recitatives and eliminated some of the music Mozart composed 3 for the closing Ballet and Intermezzo at the end of Act 1.14 4x Although nowadays Lewicki’s Germanic interventions would be regarded 5 as a gross distortion of Mozart’s original intentions, they nonetheless paved 36L the way for the four different versions of Idomeneo that were to be featured Folio 8 PROLOGUE: 1931, A MOZART YEAR during the opera’s anniversary year. Two of these, an arrangement by the 1 conductor Arthur Rother presented in Dessau on 19 February and one by 2 Wilhelm (Willy) Meckbach heard in Braunschweig on 31 May, made relatively 3 little impression having only been performed in provincial opera houses.15 In 4 any case, both were overshadowed by two high-profile versions given at major 5 opera houses. The Vienna State Opera provided the prestigious venue for 6 the first of these arrangements, by Richard Strauss and Lothar Wallerstein, 7 which was given its premiere on 16 April. Two months later another version, 8 by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and Ernst Leopold Stahl, was first heard in Munich 9 on 15 June. 10 Irrespective of their claims to have served Mozart first and foremost, both 1L composers and librettists opted to make sweeping changes to the original 2 work. In the case of Strauss/Wallerstein, the libretto was translated into 3 German, abandoning Varesco’s original rhymed verse in favour of prose, 4 cutting down the length of the recitatives and dividing each act into clearly 5 defined but continuous scenes. Even more drastic was Strauss’s decision to 6 replace the role of Electra with that of Ismene, Priestess of Poseidon. Although 7 it has been suggested that he had no wish to represent this character on the 8 stage for a second time, such a strategy alters the opera’s plot in a very funda- 9 mental manner, not least in imposing an ideological framework that, 20 according to the musicologist Chris Walton, might have proved attractive to 1 the Nazis. Thus Ismene, unlike Electra, no longer acts as a rival for Idamante’s 2 love, and becomes ‘a veritable Goebbels in petticoats, jealously guarding the 3 racial purity of her people and determined that her future king should not 4 defile his race by marrying Ilia, a mere Trojan slave’.16 5 Yet these alterations to the libretto were nothing as compared to the treat- 6 ment of Mozart’s music. Unable to inhibit his own larger-than-life musical 7 personality, Strauss created a score that veers between a more or less faithful 8 adaptation of the original and clear reminiscences of his own style, with 9 echoes of Der Rosenkavalier and Die ägyptische Helena percolating through 30 the texture from time to time. Although some critics remained sympathetic to 1 Strauss’s intentions, others reacted with considerable hostility to the concoc- 2 tion.17 Leading the charge against Strauss and Wallerstein was Alfred Einstein, 3 who was so outraged by the whole enterprise that he famously described the 4x arrangement as ‘a gross act of mutilation’ in his 1937 revision of the Köchel 5 catalogue of Mozart’s Works.18 Strauss responded to such objections in a char- 36L 9 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 acteristically defiant manner, declaring that although the critics could say 2 what they wanted, ‘I know my Mozart better than these gentlemen do, and at 3 any rate I love him more ardently than they!’19 4 Although Wolf-Ferrari did not succumb to such flights of creative fantasy 5 as Strauss, his arrangement of Idomeneo also presents the work in a post- 6 Wagnerian manner, with the greatest emphasis placed upon achieving conti- 7 nuity within each act. In setting Stahl’s new German translation, he decided 8 to made drastic cuts to the recitatives, presenting many of them in a different 9 orchestral garb to that of Mozart’s original score. Furthermore, he eliminated 10 some arias, altered the sequence of set numbers in the Ballet and compressed 1L Act 3. Writing about his approach in 1931, the composer admitted both 2 recomposing as well as jettisoning many of the opera’s ‘insufferably long 3 recitatives’, but argued that his intention had always been to preserve as much 4 of Mozart’s music as possible. In an obvious attempt to draw a distinction 5 between his concept of the work and that of Strauss, he suggested that 6 although some of the recomposed material might sound surprisingly modern, 7 he could nonetheless prove that everything he had written ultimately derived 8 from Mozart.20 9 While the Wolf-Ferrari Idomeneo did not occasion anything like the same 20 degree of controversy as the Strauss/Wallerstein version, its cause appears 1 not to have been helped by the original performers. Certainly initial reviews in 2 German music journals were dutiful rather than enthusiastic.21 Herbert F. 3 Peyser, reporting for the New York Times, was far more disparaging, suggesting 4 that for all its earnestness, Wolf-Ferrari’s arrangement had proved to be 5 dramatically lifeless. In a damning indictment of performance standards in 6 the Bavarian capital in 1931, he criticised the vocal contributions as dull and 7 undistinguished. But Peyser saved his most vitriolic comments for Hans 8 Knappertsbusch, whom he felt had conducted Mozart with a ‘hand of lead and 9 in an otherwise unimaginably crude and undistinguished fashion’. Nor was the 30 orchestra spared: it played ‘execrably’, sounding ‘as if it had not troubled to tune 1 in the space of six months, at least’.22 2 Peyser’s contention that Wolf-Ferrari had failed to revitalise Mozart’s opera 3 seems to have been borne out by the initial performance statistics. In the 4x following season, only Munich remained loyal to Wolf-Ferrari and Stahl. By 5 contrast, Strauss’s greater prestige as a composer ensured more widespread 36L interest in his version, with performances staged in Bremen, Magdeburg and Folio 10 PROLOGUE: 1931, A MOZART YEAR Mannheim. Berlin followed suit in November 1932 with a production at the 1 Städtische Oper. 2 After the Nazis came to power, the reputations of the rival versions fluctu- 3 ated. Initially, during the 1933/34 and 1934/35 seasons, Idomeneo disappeared 4 completely from the repertory of all German opera houses. Reichsdramaturg 5 Rainer Schlösser, the theatre censor appointed by the Nazi Propaganda 6 Ministry, sought to rectify this neglect through a document dated 21 June 7 1935 issued to all opera house administrators, which contained a substantial 8 list of works considered acceptable for the German stage. Among the operas 9 by Mozart which were recommended for the standard repertory, Strauss’s 10 arrangement of Idomeneo received specific endorsement.23 1L At this juncture Schlösser must have been unaware that Strauss’s arrange- 2 ment contravened Nazi law as the librettist Wallerstein was Jewish. Perhaps 3 this problem may even have been overlooked, given Strauss’s influential 4 position in German musical life, in particular his appointment in November 5 1933 as President of the Reichsmusikkammer. Yet only three days after the 6 issue of Schlösser’s directive, Strauss committed a further and much more 7 high-profile transgression in the eyes of the Nazis with the world premiere 8 in Dresden of his latest opera Die schweigsame Frau, which featured a libretto 9 by the Austrian-Jewish writer Stefan Zweig. Although the work drew a 20 warm response from the public, the regime was particularly displeased 1 that the composer had stubbornly refused to suspend his collaboration with 2 Zweig. Hitler and Goebbels made their position on the matter perfectly 3 clear by declining the opportunity to attend the first performance, and after 4 the interception by the Gestapo of a letter from Strauss to Zweig which 5 contained remarks that were critical of Nazi cultural policy, the composer 6 was forced to resign from his post as President of the Reichsmusikkammer 7 on 6 July.24 8 These events had a direct impact on the subsequent fate of the two 9 Idomeneo versions. If Schlösser’s initial recommendation to effect a revival 30 of Strauss’s adaptation carried little weight, his subsequent endorsement of 1 Wolf-Ferrari ensured that it was the latter racially unimpeachable version 2 (both Wolf-Ferrari and Stahl being pure Aryans) that thereafter held full 3 sway.25 Idomeneo thus enjoyed a modest resurgence in German opera houses 4x between 1936 and 1940, beginning with a revival of the Wolf-Ferrari arrange- 5 ment in Munich on 27 May 1936. Further confirmation that the Wolf-Ferrari 36L 11 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 version commanded official approval came with the publication two years 2 later of the vocal score.26 3 After his fall from grace, Strauss wisely refrained from commenting on the 4 demise of such a cherished project as Idomeneo. Yet on the evidence of a letter 5 written in September 1941 to the conductor Clemens Krauss, he continued to 6 harbour resentment that Wolf-Ferrari’s ‘totally inadequate’ version had eclipsed 7 his own.27 The proscription of Strauss’s Idomeneo nonetheless proved to be only 8 temporary. In the autumn of 1940 the Reichsdramaturg unexpectedly lifted the 9 embargo on the arrangement, having granted permission for it to be performed 10 by the Leipzig Opera House as part of their 1941 complete cycle of Mozart 1L operas celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death.28 Surprised 2 as well as delighted by this unforeseen reversal, Strauss began to revise the 3 score. 4 Strauss’s Idomeneo arrangement was heard not only in Leipzig but also in 5 Vienna, where the composer conducted the opera as part of the Mozartwoche 6 des deutschen Reiches (Mozart Week of the German Reich) in December 1941. 7 Judging by the playbill, the performance could only have been sanctioned as 8 long as the identity of his collaborator was suppressed. Wallerstein’s name was 9 thus excised from the programme – a ploy designed to avoid offending Nazi 20 sensibilities or reminding the Viennese public of their former theatre director, 1 who had fled Austria after the Anschluss and was now living in exile in the 2 United States.29 3 4 5 6 7 Ten years earlier, Wallerstein could hardly have imagined that his adaptation 8 of the Idomeneo libretto would have remained unacknowledged in such a 9 manner. In fact in the months that followed the premiere, Wallerstein proved 30 to be just as staunch an advocate of his arrangement as Strauss. So confident 1 was he of the value of his work that in early August 1931, four months after 2 the Vienna premiere, he gratefully accepted an invitation to deliver a paper on 3 Idomeneo at the International Mozart Congress in Salzburg.30 4x The Congress can be regarded as perhaps the most important Mozart event 5 of 1931 in the German-speaking world, bringing together eminent scholars 36L from Germany and Austria as well as a select few from the rest of Europe. Setting the agenda: The International Mozart Congress and the Central Institute for Mozart Research Folio 12 PROLOGUE: 1931, A MOZART YEAR Judging by the papers that were featured in the published proceedings, the 1 Congress covered a wide range of topics, many of which were specifically 2 current to the modern aims and objectives of Mozart scholarship. Among these 3 were two questions that would cause particular difficulties for the Nazis. First 4 was Mozart’s relationship to Freemasonry, an issue that had occasioned much 5 intensive research over recent years, including a probing discussion of the 6 Masonic background to Die Zauberflöte which was presented to the Congress 7 by the Czech-born scholar Paul Nettl.31 Second, and no less contentious, was the 8 question of Mozart’s national identity, in particular the extent to which German 9 or non-German elements determined his musical development. This debate 10 brought forth passionate support on both sides of the argument. On the one 1L hand, the German Ludwig Schiedermair, in his paper ‘Das deutsche Mozartbild’ 2 (The German view of Mozart), laid out the essential ingredients for establishing 3 a proto-nationalist view of the composer that would subsequently find a sympa- 4 thetic response during the Third Reich.32 On the other, the Italian musicologist 5 Fausto Torrefranca argued, in his paper ‘Mozart e il quartetto italiano’ (Mozart 6 and the Italian quartet), that eighteenth-century Italian composers were the 7 genuine forerunners of Mozart, exerting a much stronger influence on the 8 composer than the Mannheim School and such figures as Johann Christian and 9 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.33 20 One prominent Mozart scholar notable for his absence from the 1931 1 Salzburg Congress was Alfred Einstein. Whether he was invited remains unclear. 2 Undoubtedly it is possible that his duties as a music critic – which, according to 3 his personal diaries, necessitated attending performances at the Bayreuth 4 Festival during this period – could have prevented him from being present.34 5 Nevertheless, while Einstein’s non-appearance can be explained on purely 6 professional grounds, it is tempting to wonder whether he might have been 7 deliberately excluded from the Congress. Certainly such conclusions could 8 be drawn from the evidence of a short article entitled ‘Organisation der 9 Mozartforschung’ (Organisation of Mozart Research) by Erich Schenk which 30 appeared in the published proceedings. Given that Schenk’s brief was to outline 1 some of the ongoing projects which had recently been undertaken by leading 2 Mozart scholars, it is worth noting his failure to mention any of Einstein’s impor- 3 tant contributions, in particular the recent edition of Don Giovanni and, perhaps 4x more significantly, the well-known information that from 1929 he had started 5 work on compiling a much-needed third edition of the Köchel catalogue. 36L 13 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 These suspicions could be further substantiated by taking a closer look at 2 Schenk’s career and his political outlook. A highly ambitious musicologist 3 born in 1902, he had studied in his native Salzburg, then in Munich, Vienna 4 and Berlin. In 1928 Schenk was appointed to a lectureship in music at the 5 University of Rostock, whilst always harbouring ambitions of returning to 6 Austria. Tracing Schenk’s background, Matthias Pape notes that he was a 7 typical representative of the Salzburg educated classes, manifesting anti- 8 Semitic attitudes and remaining strongly supportive of the Groβdeutschen 9 Volkspartei, a political party which in the post-war era advocated union 10 between Austria and Germany. Schenk’s political and racial attitudes may well 1L have helped him to retain his post in Rostock after the Nazis came to power, 2 but following the Anschluss he returned to Austria, where at the age of 38 he 3 was promoted, becoming professor of musicology at the University of 4 Vienna.35 5 In the light of this biographical information, Schenk’s actions at the Salzburg 6 Mozart Congress are particularly revealing since he seems to have taken a 7 prominent role in organising the event and editing the papers for publication. 8 Determined to influence the future direction of Mozart scholarship, he felt 9 it was vitally important to fill the void that followed the death in 1927 of 20 Hermann Abert. As an extremely active Mozart specialist, Abert had not only 1 written the monumental two-part biography of the composer published after 2 the First World War, but also initiated a series of Mozart Yearbooks which 3 appeared between 1923 and 1929.36 One positive solution, proposed by Schenk, 4 was the establishment of a Zentralinstitut für Mozartforschung (Central 5 Institute for Mozart Research) which would oversee new projects associated 6 with Mozart, promote specific publications devoted to the composer, and 7 resuscitate the Mozart Yearbooks. The idea was unveiled at the Congress and 8 evidently met with strong approval. Schenk was to act as the Institute’s secre- 9 tary, working alongside an inner council of Mozart scholars which included 30 Hans Engel, Robert Haas, Robert Lach, Alfred Orel, Bernhard Paumgartner 1 and Ludwig Schiedermair.37 2 Because of the difficult political and economic situation that faced Austria 3 during this period, the Central Institute for Mozart Research was not able to 4x carry out its duties to any great effect until after the Anschluss. Nevertheless, 5 Schenk had demonstrated a clever strategic hand in determining the make-up 36L of its inner council, bringing together a group of academics who by and Folio 14 PROLOGUE: 1931, A MOZART YEAR large shared similar political and cultural values. A particularly significant 1 alliance was forged with Ludwig Schiedermair, professor of music at the 2 University of Bonn, whose writings, as I have already suggested, were to 3 exhibit an extremely strong enthusiasm for Nazi ideology.38 Furthermore, 4 with the exception of Paumgartner, most of the other figures co-opted onto 5 the Inner Council were also to remain in Germany or in occupied Austria 6 after 1938, working as loyal servants of the Third Reich. Almost all were 7 brought on board in 1941 in some capacity to make a contribution towards 8 furnishing an essentially Nazi view of Mozart in his anniversary year. It was 9 no coincidence that a continuity of activity between 1931 and 1941 was 10 reflected in the publication of a book commemorating the Mozartwoche des 1L deutschen Reiches. The opening three articles in the book were in fact written 2 by Schiedermair, Schenk and Orel.39 3 A few weeks after the International Conference had taken place in Salzburg, 4 Joseph Goebbels attended a performance of Figaro at the Berlin Staatsoper. 5 Writing about the opera in his diary, Goebbels punctuated his remarks with a 6 customary grumble about the excessive prominence of Jews in the audience. But 7 he refused to allow this to spoil his enjoyment of the performance. ‘One feels 8 totally refreshed by Mozart’s sweet and adorable music’, he wrote. ‘Only Mozart 9 could have written such a piece – an absolute music bereft of any problems or 20 theories.’40 At this juncture, the future Propaganda Minister in Hitler’s Third 1 Reich could hardly have envisaged that refashioning Mozart’s music to serve 2 the interests of the Nazi regime was to prove anything but a straightforward 3 matter. 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L 15 Folio CHAPTER 2 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART That German, that greatest and divinest genius was Mozart. In the story of the breeding, education, and life of this German, one may read the history of all German art, of every German artist. (RICHARD WAGNER)1 The first three months of Nazi rule in 1933 bore witness to one of the most tumultuous changes in German musical life. Within weeks, a whole swathe of prominent musicians, regarded by the new regime as politically and racially unacceptable, had been forced out of work and felt compelled to leave the country. The process was accomplished in two different stages. Initially, the regime appeared to sanction a show of force from Nazi party organisations as the most effective means of driving undesirable people out. This happened in two separate incidents that took place in early March 1933. In Dresden demon- strations by Storm Troopers brought an end to Fritz Busch’s conducting career at the opera house, and hastened his departure from Germany.2 Similar agita- tion, supported by a vitriolic campaign in the Nazi press, coerced opera admin- istrators to remove Kurt Weill’s latest opera Der Silbersee from theatres in Magdeburg, Erfurt and Leipzig, and succeeded in convincing the composer that his only option for personal survival was to flee across the border to France.3 A slightly different tactic was employed with regard to Bruno Walter. The distinguished conductor was obliged to withdraw from scheduled engage- ments with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in March 1933 after the authorities refused to guarantee public safety if the concerts went ahead.4 Walter responded to this action by cancelling all further appearances in Germany and retiring to Simmering, Austria, reportedly a ‘broken-hearted’ man.5 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART Although such destabilising episodes had the desired effect of instilling fear into those who were particularly vulnerable targets of Nazi propaganda, the regime could not continue to rely exclusively on political demonstrations as the most effective means of hounding such people out. For this reason, the policy of retribution entered a new phase in the following month, after it was deemed necessary to resort to legal measures so as to ensure the comprehensive removal of musicians that the Nazis regarded as undesirable on racial and political grounds. On 7 April 1933 the Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums (Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service) was promulgated, effectively terminating the employment contracts of many who were working in orchestras, opera houses and music conservatoires.6 Amidst this period of turmoil and uncertainty, the new regime needed to reas- sure its population that such actions would not result in the complete de- struction of the musical fabric of the nation. On the contrary, the Nazis argued that the removal of such people as Busch, Weill and Walter was one of many necessary steps towards restoring a sense of pride in the German nation. Yet to achieve such an objective it was also important to present the regime in construc- tive terms as the true guardians of Germany’s cultural heritage. Not surprisingly, the words ‘Ehrt eure deutschen Meister’ (Honour your German masters), sung by Hans Sachs in the closing passage of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, were shamelessly appropriated for the purpose of bolstering such notions. In the musical sphere, these German masters to which the regime pledged its allegiance were an elite group of composers who were manipulated in such a way that they could be presented as important precursors of Nazi ideology. Inevitably the degree to which these composers were convincingly embraced by the Nazi cause varied on a case by case basis. Among nineteenth-century figures, Wagner was paraded as the composer whose Weltanschauung most closely anticipated the outlook of the Nazis.7 Likewise, Anton Bruckner was presented as a credible Nazi icon. Hitler’s strong personal identification with the composer was an obvious factor in this process, as it was with Wagner. Biographical issues also came into play, for example Bruckner’s profound admiration for Wagner, his simple peasant background, and the perceived idea that his compositions had suffered victimisation at the hands of the Jewish- dominated musical press.8 Apart from Wagner and Bruckner, Beethoven ranked as the most impor- tant proto-Nazi among the great composers. Although portrayed in some 17 MOZART AND THE NAZIS quarters as the archetypal revolutionary whose outlook was imbued with strongly democratic principles, the Nazis interpreted Beethoven as a Führer- type personality conquering the musical world through the strength and determination of his will, and through the heroic and spiritually uplifting nature of his music.9 Similar contrivances were employed for other composers born in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With regard to Johann Sebastian Bach, it was deemed necessary to downplay the religious context of his work and present the master of ‘Nordic’ polyphony as an archetypal German with a völkisch feeling for life.10 Although spending most of his life outside Germany, George Frideric Handel was likewise interpreted in stead- fastly nationalist colours. However, the emphasis placed upon this aspect of the composer’s outlook changed in accordance with the political situation. In 1935, during the 250th anniversary celebrations of his birth, Handel’s resi- dence in England was utilised as a positive symbol of shared cultural values that existed between the German and English nations. Four years later, at the outbreak of war, it was no longer possible to make such claims. Handel was now portrayed as someone who had resisted complete integration into English society, and had held firm to his Germanic principles in spite of a vicious and evil campaign mounted against him by his enemies in London.11 Placing Mozart into a similar Nazi straitjacket proved to be a much more tortuous process. Some thorny issues, such as Mozart’s close relationship with Freemasonry and his association with Jews (the subject of the following two chapters), had to be fudged. However, one concern seems to have been resolved immediately after the Nazi takeover: that of confirming the composer as a staunch German nationalist. Cosmopolitanism versus nationalism The debate regarding Mozart’s sense of national identity, and by implication his political outlook, can be traced back to the nineteenth century. On the one side were those who viewed Mozart as the cosmopolitan composer par excel- lence. Friedrich Nietzsche made such claims in his essay Jenseits von Gut and Böse (Beyond Good and Evil) (1886), contrasting the narrow nationalist outlook of Robert Schumann (‘merely a German event’) with the open- minded Mozart (‘the last echo of a great European taste which had existed for 18 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART centuries’).12 This interpretation of German music history would hardly have been deemed controversial since it was backed up by solid biographical evidence. Fluent in German, French and Italian, and responsive to different musical traditions, Mozart seems to have transcended the limitations of national boundaries. Furthermore, Mozart’s music attained a similar degree of popularity in England and France as in Germany and Austria, and his universal appeal can also be demonstrated by the substantial number of biog- raphies of the composer that were published in almost every major European language throughout the nineteenth century and beyond.13 Nietzsche’s position on Mozart was largely sustained during the early part of the twentieth century by musicians who rediscovered his art in the wake of the Mozart Renaissance that began in Munich during the late 1890s under the guidance of Richard Strauss and Ernst von Possart.14 This revival of interest in the composer had wider consequences, culminating, for example, in the establishment of the Salzburg Festival in 1920, with Strauss as one of its most significant guiding spirits.15 In aesthetic terms it also spearheaded a reaction against the excesses of late-Romanticism. Writing in 1911, Emil Ludwig went so far as to argue that Mozart had ‘delivered us younger ones from Wagner’.16 Somewhat later, in the mid-1920s, the musicologist Guido Adler presented a more idealistic interpretation, suggesting that the composer had inspired a growing internationalist outlook in contemporary music. Adler cited Debussy, Strauss and Mahler as inheritors of this Mozartian tradition. The Mozart Renaissance had generated ‘a common bond of union between the nations’ which constituted ‘a significant token of united international effort’.17 It may or may not have been coincidental that many of those who perpe- trated the notion of Mozart as a cosmopolitan (Ludwig, Adler, Robert Hirschfeld, Hermann Cohen and later Alfred Einstein) were Jews. Certainly this would not have gone unnoticed by those who subscribed to a more narrow nationalist view of the composer, amongst whom the disciples of Wagner, including Houston Stewart Chamberlain, were the most vociferous. For them Mozart was a profoundly German composer and the spiritual predecessor of their hero. This connection to Wagner was reflected through perceived simi- larities in outlook, in particular a desire to reach out to the public at large and to counter the notion of their work being the exclusive province of the upper classes.18 19 MOZART AND THE NAZIS This nationalist position with regard to Mozart gained considerable ground in the inflammatory political environment that preceded the First World War. It was stimulated by a flurry of publications which sowed the seeds for the omnipresent and unchallenged interpretation of the composer that followed the advent of the Third Reich. Particularly significant in this respect were the various pre-1914 compilations of Mozart’s letters by Karl Storck, Max Weigel, Albert Leitzmann, Curt Sachs and Hugo Leichtentritt, which served to bring his writings into much wider circulation.19 These were followed by Ludwig Schiedermair’s five-volume edition in 1914 – the first comprehensive collection of Mozart’s letters to appear in the twentieth century.20 Greater awareness of such rich biographical details enabled writers to focus in particular on the composer’s expressions of German patriotism which, against the context of the First World War, struck a particularly deep resonance. Such an impression is certainly gleaned from sporadic remarks in Hermann Abert’s comprehensive biographical study of Mozart, first published in 1919-21. Two examples illustrate this position admirably. Commenting on a letter of desperation that Mozart wrote to his father from Paris on 1 May 1778 in which he pledged ‘to hold out with fortitude and be an honour to himself’ and ‘the whole of the German nation’, Abert noted that ‘there is something touching about the way in which this German artist, far from home, was assailed by an increasingly ardent longing for that homeland and its way of life’.21 Likewise, in the final paragraph of his preface, which one should remember was written in the aftermath of Germany’s defeat, Abert cites the final sentences of the famous letter Mozart wrote to Anton Klein on 21 March 1785, regarding the attempt to establish a German National Theatre in Vienna, as a rallying cry for national renewal: This study is appearing at a very dark time for our German fatherland, perhaps the darkest it has ever known. Its consequences are bound to be felt by the world of German scholarship too. Although the country’s inward and outward collapse has not affected its leading position in scholarship, it too will have to preserve its strength and guard against weariness and trivializa- tion. Together art and scholarship are destined to play a part in the intellec- tual renewal of German life. We shall not of course achieve this goal through nebulous dreams or by feebly marvelling at foreign achievements. Rather we 20 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART must bethink ourselves of the living intellectual and moral forces that lie locked away within our own people and, armed with these forces, begin the task of rebuilding. Mozart had a sure feeling for the German character. ‘If only a single patriot had been in charge, things would look very different’ he once wrote. ‘But that would of course be an everlasting blot on Germany if we Germans were seriously to begin to think as Germans – to act as Germans – to speak as Germans – and even – to sing as Germans.’ Even today these words still ring out like a bright-toned fanfare.22 Perhaps Abert’s comments were inspired to some degree by Ernst Lewicki’s article ‘Mozarts Deutschtum nach seinen Briefen’ (Mozart’s Germanness according to his Letters) which was published in November 1918 in the first volume of the Mozarteums Mitteilungen. As its title suggests, Lewicki’s essay examines an extremely selective collection of Mozart’s letters with the prime objective of presenting the composer in purely Germanocentric colours, as a staunch patriot who resented the influence of foreign musicians. In the opening paragraphs Lewicki, whilst acknowledging the universal appeal of Mozart’s music, emphasises his belief that ‘his masterpieces are, essentially, thoroughly German in their conception and elaboration, as even with the masterful operas on Italian texts, the German heart and sentiment of their creator is always evident’.23 This German heart and sentiment is then explored through carefully managed quotation of a sequence of letters, mainly written between 1778 and 1785, with key statements from the composer highlighted in a wider typeface. Lewicki also adds some pointed commentary to the mate- rial, as in the case of the letter to Anton Klein where he suggests that Mozart’s ironic outburst about the everlasting shame about thinking, acting, speaking and even singing as Germans was a warning as justified as it was qualified in a time when the foreigner prevailed in Germany, especially in culture. And how long did it last until the Germans really became aware of their own art and did what Mozart demanded here in their own country!24 Taken out of context and divorced from any serious scrutiny of the kind of Germany to which Mozart might have pledged such strong loyalty, the quota- tions presented in this article present a strongly xenophobic picture of the 21 MOZART AND THE NAZIS composer – an impression that is powerfully reinforced by Lewicki’s concluding biographical citation, which is derived from an article written by Otto Jahn that appeared in the Neue Berliner Musikzeitung in 1856. This example, dating from 1789, quotes the composer’s intemperate response after a frosty encounter with the cello virtuoso Jean-Pierre Duport in Berlin. When Duport begged Mozart to converse with him in French, the composer refused and was reputed to have said: ‘A foreign rogue who has lived for years in Germany and who eats German bread should also be able to speak German, or rather murder it, however well or badly his mouth, his French mouth is suited to it.’25 As with the preface to Abert’s Mozart biography, it was hardly coincidental that Lewicki’s article should have appeared right at the end of the war and at a time of considerable political instability. Even though such writing was disseminated to a limited specialist readership, the strategy, sentiment and scholarly approach would not have appeared out of place had it been published after 1933. Mozart – German or Austrian? In the climate of national renewal that followed the Nazi takeover, it was an imperative to place examples of German patriotism at centre stage for any figure of cultural and historical significance. Predictably, therefore, the letters that had been singled out by Lewicki for detailed scrutiny would become widely known and highlighted every time Mozart’s work was featured anywhere. Thus almost all writing about Mozart, whether in concert and opera programmes, newspaper reports and musicological journals, resounded with the same sentiments emphasising the composer’s declared love for the fatherland.26 Rather than surveying this huge body of tediously repetitive material, which in essence offers the same nationalist view of Mozart that had already been firmly established in the literature on the composer from the First World War onwards, it would be far more useful to examine the extent to which the Nazis succeeded in adapting Mozart’s Germanness to serve their own political and ideological agendas. One early objective was to undermine the independ- ence of the Austrian Republic, paving the way for the eventual union between Germany and Austria. In this respect Mozart’s legacy was exploited as a useful 22 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART cultural propaganda weapon against the Austrians, who continued to claim the composer as their own. The Salzburg Festival was particularly trouble- some to the Nazis, dominated as it was by Jewish interests and representing to their mind a betrayal of Mozart’s German spirit. Efforts to undermine its exis- tence began almost immediately after the Nazis came to power. On a different matter, the authorities may even have been emboldened in their attacks on Salzburg by the activities of the Belgian police. Responding to the isolationist cultural policies of the Third Reich, which severely restricted employment possibilities for foreigners, they placed an embargo on performances of Figaro in Malmédy and St Vith in May 1933. Such action implicitly acknowledged Mozart as a German.27 To counter Austrian propaganda the Nazis reinforced the idea of Mozart as a patriotic German, not only through printed propaganda but also with arrangements of his music and special Mozart festivals. Inspired by the over- whelming feeling of national euphoria during this period, the Leipzig firm of Kistner & Siegel published Mozart’s Hymne an Deutschland (Hymn to Germany), a composition for chorus and orchestra, in May 1933. One need hardly add that Mozart’s output does not contain a work with this title. Yet the music was certainly authentic, its material drawn from the first chorus ‘Schon weichet Dir, Sonne’ from the heroic drama König Thamos. The well-known editor Max Friedlaender was responsible for the musical arrangement, which was adapted with a commercial view of suiting the needs of a mixed choir, a male-voice choir or a school choir. Replacing the original text was a patriotic poem by Valerian Tornius which opens with the words ‘Dich preisen wir, Deutschland! Heimat!’ (We praise you, Germany, our homeland) The Hymne an Deutschland undoubtedly reflected a particular trend in music publishing during the first months of the Third Reich, when the market was especially receptive to issuing works that extolled the national revolu- tion.28 The printing of a patriotic hymn by Mozart during this period may also have been prompted by a mounting propaganda campaign against the Austrian Republic. One month after its publication the Austrians banned the Nazi Party, and the Germans retaliated by preventing some of their artists from participating in the forthcoming Salzburg Festival.29 Inevitably there is some irony that the person responsible for the musical arrangement of Mozart’s Hymne an Deutschland was a scholar of Jewish descent. Only a few years earlier, Friedlaender had gratefully accepted a commission 23 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 1 Title page to Mozart’s Hymne an Deutschland published during the first years of Nazi rule. from Leo Kestenberg, who had been a hugely influential music advisor to the Prussian Ministry of Education and became a particular beˆte noire of the Nazis for bringing Schreker, Klemperer, Kleiber and Schoenberg to the German capital. He asked Friedlaender to compile a collection of arrangements of German folksongs from some of the leading composers of the Weimar Republic, 24 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART including Schoenberg and Hindemith.30 Undoubtedly this earlier association with Kestenberg – a figure much hated in Nazi circles – would in the coming years disqualify Friedlaender from receiving credit for taking on this work, and it is perhaps significant that his name does not appear on the published score.31 Nonetheless, judging by the advertisement for the Hymne an Deutschland, which appeared in the June 1933 issue of the Zeitschrift für Musik, Friedlaender’s racial origins and his earlier career were of little concern at that particular juncture: With this choral work we present to the German choral societies and school choirs a patriotic composition that could hardly ever have been written more beautifully and worthily. The symbolism of light in the text, which has been absorbed in Mozart’s music in a magnificent way, literally called for a rein- terpretation in the patriotic sense. The Schubert scholar Max Friedlaender, who has been paving the way for true German art at home and abroad for decades, has brought to light a choral composition that must be welcome to us Germans especially at a time of national rebirth! Since there is a lack of worthy, popular, and national works with a patriotic character, this Mozart choral work fills such a gap in the best possible way.32 Despite the confident assertion of Roland Tenschert, reviewing the work for the journal Die Musik, that Mozart’s Hymne an Deutschland would soon become ‘an established repertory piece’, this opportunistic arrangement seems to have enjoyed only limited dissemination.33 In the last resort perhaps it may not have survived simply because of Friedlaender’s contribution. As attacks against Salzburg intensified between 1933 and 1937, with the refusal not only to allow German artists to participate but also to enable German visitors to attend the event, the Nazis sought to bolster or establish musical festivals in their own country that honoured Mozart. In fact, a ready- made alternative to Salzburg was already in place in Würzburg, whose annual Mozart Festival had been founded by the composer Hermann Zilcher some years earlier in 1921. Initially, visitors to Würzburg would not have perceived any tangible difference in the character and programming of the festival after the Nazis came to power. The first time Würzburg’s Mozart Festival succumbed to more overt political exploitation was in 1936 and 1937 when the local cultural organizer Dr August Diehl choreographed a ‘topically rele- vant’ staged version of Zilcher’s An Mozart (Tanzfantasie), a re-working of 25 MOZART AND THE NAZIS several dance compositions by Mozart. A sequence of three different dance groups were assembled on stage, one dressed in the costumes of Mozart’s time, the second representing the ‘freethinking timeless fantasy world of the composer’, and the third the contemporary period, represented by uniformed Hitler Youth and Bund Deutscher Mädel.34 Almost at the same time, a flurry of new festivals exclusively devoted to Mozart were added to Germany’s concert calendar (Danzig, Tübingen and Flensburg in 1936, Heidelberg in 1937, Ansbach and Bad Cannstatt in 1938). Although often organized under the auspices of the National Socialist Cultural Community (NSKG), these festivals remained primarily musical events designed to boost the fortunes of a music profession that had suffered the deprivations of unemployment during the early 1930s. As the guardians of such occasions, the Nazis could certainly take credit for enhancing cultural activity, local tourism and employ- ment. Nonetheless, the political hierarchy was not present en masse, as happened with the high-profile patronage of Wagner at Bayreuth in 1933 and Handel in Halle two years later. This attitude would change following the Anschluss, after which the Nazis began to exploit Mozart more proactively as a propaganda symbol of the Greater German Reich. Catching the mood of euphoria that followed Hitler’s march into Vienna, Adolph Meuer, writing in the Signale für die musikalische Welt, went so far as to suggest that the current union between Germany and Austria had been inspired by Mozart’s vision: The tremendous events of recent times, which have at long last allowed German lives, German spirit, and German character to unite in a formidable awakening of national forces, span like a blazing arch across time and history, during which the act, which is now finally becoming reality, had been aspired to in foresight. The reunification of Austria with the motherland, the reintegration of two inextricably linked countries under the unifying force of the national idea, allow us to commemorate in awe and appreciation the forces that deliberately devoted their ambitions and efforts to this aim throughout our intellectual history. In whatever way the battle was fought, whether on a political, economic, spiritual, or artistic platform, the aim was always directed towards German identity, as it is being realised in our time. Many an advocate had to stand upright and raise their voice for the German spirit and the German character before history could realise itself. Mozart, the great citizen 26 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART of Salzburg, was one of the spokesmen who time and again demanded adamantly Germanness in music and its manifestations, who himself felt so strongly German that being abroad tortured him, and who had to pray to God every day to give him mercy in order that he could bring to bear honour to himself and ‘the entire German nation’.35 Nazi dimensions to Mozart’s Germanness As has already been mentioned, there was an all-pervasive recourse to selective quotation from Mozart’s letters in justification of the composer’s Germanness after 1933. But other arguments peculiarly endemic to the Nazi era were also marshalled in support of this interpretation. For example, in order to reinforce his position as a German national hero, concerted efforts were made to find common musical and aesthetic connections between Mozart and Wagner. The most comprehensive exploration of this musical relationship was pursued by the critic Alfred Weidemann. In an extensive survey of Wagner’s writings and the reminiscences of his contemporaries, which was published both in the programme book for the 1934 Bayreuth Festival and in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, Weidemann charted the Bayreuth master’s reaction to Mozart’s work and its possible influence on his own output. Among the more obscure anecdotal details that he highlighted was a philological link between Mozart’s name and old German mythology: As his biographer reports, Wagner in old age once provided an inventive interpretation of the peculiar, very rare name ‘Mozart’ at a soirée during a conversation on all kinds of philological analyses and derivations of names. He derived the quintessential German name Mozart from Moutishart, an old sobriquet of Wotan. Moutishart means hero of courage.36 Discussion of the possible mythological background to Mozart’s surname provides an obvious link to the issue of race, a topic of special interest for the Nazis. In Mozart’s case, the composer’s unequivocally Aryan background should by all accounts have served a useful purpose in terms of reinforcing notions of his profoundly Germanic outlook. Yet the composer’s racial origins were explored in a relatively limited number of publications after 1933. Perhaps musicologists fought shy of tackling this subject because there 27 MOZART AND THE NAZIS seemed to be few clearly defined and intellectually plausible ways of correlating a composer’s physical features and family background with his musical language.37 This impression is certainly reinforced by examining the arguments concerning Mozart that are presented by Richard Eichenauer in Musik und Rasse (Music and Race), a book that first appeared in 1932 and was held up as a model reference work during the Nazi era, despite the author’s lack of training as a professional musicologist. In his discussion of the composer, Eichenauer sought to establish the primacy of Mozart’s supposedly Nordic musical make-up at the expense of any implied Italian influence. Yet in drawing attention to the common racial heritage which was shared by Mozart and Haydn (a mixture between Nordic and Dinaric), he was unable to explain how it was possible for these contemporaries to have developed in such diverse ways.38 In a short essay published in 1941, Erich Schenk faithfully adopted Eichenauer’s terminology but reached somewhat different conclusions, which appeared to be more accommodating to the notion of Mozart’s responsiveness towards Italian culture: Translated into the idiom of racial theory, Mozart, ‘like Haydn, is a Nordic- Dinaric hybrid’, while the Nordic element derives more from the father, the Dinaric element more strongly from the mother. In this respect in the master’s work and character one finds the ‘continuously emphatic fusion of profoundness and popularity, of “character” and “beautiful” art, of north and south, of Germany and Italy’. This illustrates the balance of ratio and senti- ment that became a reality in more recent music history only once and was possible only in the decades of Mozart’s life: in a situation of peculiar twilight at the dusk of the Enlightenment and the emerging dawn of Romanticism. It reflected a musical language amalgamating the inexhaustible wealth of the German character with the best of foreign art. It reflected formal control matched by dramatic agitation. It meant the unutterable delight gushing from bright awareness, as well as the strongest experience of the entire rich- ness of existence. It meant the emphasis on and balance of form and – in Goethe’s words – the floating ‘mature, lovely sensuousness’.39 The psychologist Walther Rauschenberger was another figure who explored racial matters in an extended article about Mozart’s family 28 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART background that was published in the 1942 issue of the Neues Mozart- Jahrbuch. Rauschenberger was especially interested in attempting to relate creative genius to race, and in placing Mozart’s situation within the context of other great figures of the past. His basic premiss was to suggest that the union between the composer’s Nordic father and Dinaric mother had provided the ideal circumstances for the blossoming of such extraordi- nary talent, citing analogous examples of fruitful racial cross-breeding in figures such as Leonardo, Goethe, Beethoven, Schopenhauer and Wagner. Furthermore, Rauschenberger stressed that a front-ranking creative genius was more likely to emerge from a large family, as was the case with Mozart.40 Of the numerous Mozart experts working in Nazi Germany, Ludwig Schiedermair took the lead in presenting an interpretation of the composer that placed his legacy in the context of the turbulent political situation of the 1930s. In his 1931 Salzburg conference paper ‘Das deutsche Mozartbild’ (The German interpretation of Mozart), Schiedermair had already outlined his position in unequivocal terms, arguing for a new organic ‘comprehensive’ interpretation of Mozart’s Germanness that did not demean his achievement by presenting him either on the one side as Apollonian, or on the other as a demonic Dionysian figure.41 Significantly, the tone of the original article was sufficiently strident for the text to have been reproduced almost verbatim in Alfred Rosenberg’s journal Die Musik in March 1937 under the new title of ‘Mozart und unsere Zeit’ (Mozart and our time). In both articles Schiedermair echoed the Nazi line of attack against the cultural atmosphere engendered during the Weimar Republic, being particularly scathing about the ways in which recent musicologists had portrayed the composer: Eclectic unscrupulous biographies created on the one hand the image of a sleek playful rococo musician whose dressed-up wig with its coquettish ribbon provided a very welcome object of Kitsch, while on the other hand constructing a modern, realistic Mozart whose cool naturalism and so-called objectivity were applied to puffed-up triviality.42 Schiedermair was particularly insistent that too much emphasis had been placed on Mozart’s indebtedness to French and Italian culture. Anxious to set 29 MOZART AND THE NAZIS the record straight, he argued strongly that such works as Figaro and Don Giovanni were as profoundly German as Die Zauberflöte: The fact that the librettos are in a foreign language does not alone justify us in regarding either of the two works as Italian operas. . . . Even more detached observers will notice that this Figaro and his Susanna, the Count and the Countess, as well as Don Giovanni and the Commendatore, Donna Anna, Leporello, Tamino and Pamina, Monostatos and Papageno could only have originated on German soil, even if they fall into the musical jargon of Italian and French opera every once in a while.43 In a later article published in 1942 Schiedermair applied his Germano- centric interpretation of Mozart to serve the war effort. Reiterating his belief in the Germanic provenance of Mozart’s musical outlook, he declared the composer to be one of the nation’s most treasured cultural possessions that needed to be protected at all costs from the looming danger of destruction by warring forces in the East.44 Whereas Schiedermair discussed Mozart’s Germannness in broad-brush rhetorical strokes focusing upon aspects of the soul, patriotic sentiment and operatic characterisation, his writings avoided analysing these elements in terms of musical style. Walther Vetter, by contrast, attempted such a task in his paper ‘Volkhafte Wesensmerkmale in Mozarts italienischen Opern’ (National characteristics in Mozart’s Operas) which was delivered at the Musicological Conference of the Reichsmusiktage (National Music Days) in Düsseldorf in May 1938 and later published in the Zeitschrift für Musik. After preliminary discussion regarding nationality and music, in which Mendelssohn was notably denied any connection to a Germanic heritage, Vetter’s main argu- ment was to suggest that ‘the secret of Germanness in Mozart’s work will not reveal itself to those who attempt to interpret the music purely from the text, but only to those who interpret the text from the viewpoint of the music’. To support this view he cited a clear organic intervallic and rhythmic correlation between two passages in the first act of Don Giovanni, the first derived from a duet between Donna Anna and Don Ottavio and the second from the ensuing aria by Donna Elvira. In his article, he cited the following music examples as offering conclusive proof of the organic, and by implication essentially Germanic, nature of Mozart’s musical language:45 30 DER DEUTSCHE MOZART Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 2 Music examples from Don Giovanni cited by Walther Vetter to substantiate the Germanic provenance of Mozart’s musical style. The xenophobic position adopted by Schiedermair and Vetter, which sought to undermine and even negate Mozart’s responsiveness to non- German culture, was somewhat toned down during the final years of the Third Reich. The reasons for this modification in approach had much to do with the changing political situation. With the ever-strengthening partnership between Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, for example, it was deemed more pragmatic to avoid unnecessarily anti-Italian rhetoric in order to avoid alienating Germany’s closest ally. Greater emphasis was therefore placed on the common principles and values that linked Italian and German music, rather than on bolstering Germanic hegemony. The writer Hans Engel sought 31 MOZART AND THE NAZIS to exemplify this bond in his 1944 book Deutschland und Italien in ihren musikgeschichtlichen Beziehungen, (Germany and Italy and their relationship in music history). The bare bones of this argument are presented in the preface in which Engel attempted to smooth over obvious differences in the musical temperament of both nations: in spite of all the similarities caused by nature and history, there have been and there remain several contrasts and tensions between German and Italian musical talent and love of music, which have been fruitful. Beside the general yearning for the land, sun, and beauty of Italy, there has always been a certain musical longing for Nordic depth with German musicians as well; these are not opposites in themselves.46 Yet for all his efforts at emphasising rapprochement between the two nations, when it came to dealing with Mozart Engel still followed Schiedermair’s line of argument, duly distancing the composer’s mature works from demonstrating undue Italian influence. While acknowledging early compositions such as the opera La finta giardiniera as ‘consummating the Italian opera buffa tradition which is strongly related to the achievement of such composers as Piccini, Paisiello, Gugliemi, Anfossi and Galuppi’, he detached Mozart’s later operas, such as Figaro and Don Giovanni, from these models.47 Commenting on Figaro, for example, Engel claimed that the opera did not merely offer ‘amusement and sentiments as characterised by the best Italian achievements of the following era such as Rossini’s Barber of Seville, but depth of mind, not only feelings of human love, but a surging of restlessness and a secret longing that strives beyond daily issues’.48 Writing for a German readership, it was unnecessary to emphasise that these latter qualities were intrinsically German, and somewhat alien to an Italian way of thinking. 32 CHAPTER 3 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS A NAZI PROBLEM Anyone who calls . . . Die Zauberflöte a Masonic opera is not taken seriously by our people1 (BALDUR VON SCHIRACH) In his political testament Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler attacked Freemasonry as a conspiratorial agency of the Jews. ‘To strengthen his political position’, he argued, the Jew tries to tear down the racial and civil barriers which for a time continue to restrain him at every step. To this end, he fights with all the tenacity innate in him for religious tolerance—and in Freemasonry, which has succumbed to him completely, he has an excellent instrument with which to fight for his aims and put them across. The governing circles and the higher strata of the political and economic bourgeoisie are brought into his nets by the strings of Freemasonry, and never need to suspect what is happening. Freemasonry, according to Hitler, had also joined forces with the press as a further agency under Jewish control. ‘With all his perseverance and dexterity he seizes possession of it. With it he slowly begins to grip and ensnare, to guide and to push all public life, since he is in a position to create and direct that power which, under the name of “public opinion”, is better known today than a few decades ago.’2 Hitler’s paranoid fear that a Masonic-Jewish alliance was taking control of the world was echoed during the 1920s in the speeches and writings of other prominent Nazis such as Erich Ludendorff, Alfred Rosenberg and Gregor Schwartz-Bostunich.3 As Hitler and his supporters gained more seats in the MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 German Parliament, the campaign against Freemasonry intensified. In 1931, 2 for example, Nazi party officials were issued with a ‘Guide and Instructional 3 Letter’ that claimed ‘the natural hostility of the peasant against the Jews, and 4 his hostility against the Freemason, must be worked up to a frenzy’.4 5 After coming to power, the Nazis pursued the suppression of the Freemasons 6 with a ruthlessness that paralleled their persecution of the Jews. The pattern of 7 prosecution followed a similar course, beginning with Storm Troopers acting 8 spontaneously, or under the orders of local authorities, to effect the forcible 9 termination of the activities of lodges and impound Masonic property. 10 Following this action, individual Masons were targeted through the enactment 1L of the Civil Service Laws of 7 April 1933. Many lost their jobs and some were 2 thrown into prison. During the next two years Freemasons faced increasing 3 restrictions. In May 1934 the Minister of Defence passed a decree banning 4 members of the armed services from being members of a Masonic Lodge, and 5 requiring those who had already joined to cancel their membership. Reich 6 Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick issued a ruling on 28 October which 7 condemned the Lodges as hostile to the state and ordered the confiscation of 8 their assets. By August 1935, all Masonic organizations in Nazi Germany were 9 either prohibited or forced to dissolve. Lodge halls were vandalised and lodge 20 archives seized.5 1 Although the most important Masonic structures were crushed within a 2 matter of years, the regime remained committed to fighting any residual 3 elements of the Masonic spirit that remained in the country. In particular, the 4 Nazis sought to eliminate the supposedly subversive influence of Freemasonry 5 on German society and on the civil service. Yet it also suited the regime to 6 perpetuate the myth of the ‘Jewish-Masonic’ conspiracy as a powerful weapon 7 of propaganda. In essence, therefore, the Masonic issue continued to be 8 a central preoccupation of the Nazis long after the movement was suppressed 9 in Germany. 30 Even if it was common knowledge that Mozart, Goethe and Schiller had 1 been committed Freemasons, such an allegiance sat rather uncomfortably 2 against the background of Nazi ideology. Under these circumstances, the 3 most suitable course of action would have been to suggest that none of these 4x great models of German culture had actually been contaminated by the influ- 5 ence of Freemasonry, or that their enthusiasm for it was merely misguided. 36L Yet in the case of Mozart, making such assertions, and thereby sweeping his Folio 34 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM connections to Freemasonry under the carpet, proved distinctly problematic. 1 Apart from challenging unequivocal documentary evidence of Mozart’s 2 loyalty towards Freemasonry, how, for example, could one explain away the 3 Masonic symbolism in his immensely popular opera Die Zauberflöte, or that 4 his output contained such works as the Cantata Die Maurerfreude (Masonic 5 Joy) K471, the Maurerische Trauermusik (Masonic Funeral Music), K477 and 6 Eine kleine Freimaurer Kantate (Little Masonic Cantata) K623? 7 Conspiracy theories – Daumer, Ahlwardt and Mathilde Ludendorff 8 9 10 The desire to detach Mozart from any direct association with Freemasonry 1L was not, however, something that originated with the Nazis. In fact concerns 2 about the Masonic associations in Die Zauberflöte had already surfaced in 3 the years immediately following Mozart’s death in 1791. In the wake of the 4 potentially destabilising impact of the French Revolution on the Austrian 5 monarchy, both Emperor Leopold II and his successor Francis II pursued an 6 increasingly restrictive policy towards secret societies, which were deemed to 7 be agents of the Jacobins. The pressure on the Masons to cease their activities 8 intensified, culminating in a law passed in June 1795 which brought about the 9 forcible closure of all surviving lodges.6 Against the background of the contin- 20 uing popularity of Die Zauberflöte during this period, the Austrian authorities 1 sought to divert attention away from the Masonic elements in the opera by 2 issuing a brochure in 1794 which claimed that Mozart and his librettist 3 Schikaneder had composed the work as an allegory of the French Revolution 4 with an anti-Jacobin message.7 5 Speculation regarding the Masonic dimension to Die Zauberflöte resur- 6 faced in the middle of the nineteenth century. In his four-volume study of 7 Mozart published between 1856 and 1859, Otto Jahn referred to the 8 composer’s heartfelt devotion to Freemasonic ideas as providing the basis 9 for the opera’s lofty dignity and radiant lustre.8 Likewise, Leopold von 30 Sonnleithner, inspired by Jahn’s suggestion, completed an article in 1857 1 arguing that Zauberflöte sought to portray Freemasonry in the most positive 2 light.9 Once again, as had happened in the mid-1790s, a counter-argument 3 appeared only a few years later. This position attempted to distance the 4x composer and his opera from Freemasonry. Furthermore, in the light of the 5 mysterious circumstances surrounding the composer’s death, the suggestion 36L 35 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 was made that his demise had resulted from poisoning and betrayal at the 2 hands of his fellow Masons. 3 The author of this hypothesis was the nineteenth-century poet and philoso- 4 pher Georg Friedrich Daumer. A Protestant convert to Catholicism, Daumer 5 attacked the insidious influence of Freemasonry in an article which appeared 6 in the fourth issue of the periodical Aus der Mansarde (Out of the Attic) in 7 1861. He suggested that Mozart had been innocently drawn into joining the 8 Freemasons without realizing that their upholding of freedom and equality 9 was a sham. Although acknowledging the presence of Masonic symbolism in 10 Die Zauberflöte, Daumer argued that the opera in reality reflects a struggle 1L between Mozart’s adherence to Freemasonry and his deeply held Catholic 2 background, citing as musical evidence the surreptitious use of a chorale in 3 the Duet of the Armed Men (‘Der, welcher wandert diese Straβe voll 4 Beschwerden’) near the end of Act 2. Mozart’s plan to found a rival order enti- 5 tled Die Grotte, as revealed in a letter from the composer’s wife written to the 6 publisher Breitkopf in 1799, proved that by the time of writing the opera, the 7 composer had already become disenchanted with Freemasonry. But taking 8 this step cost him his life. Reiterating a similar conspiratorial argument to that 9 presented in the 1790s with regard to the early death of Emperor Leopold II, 20 Daumer suggested that Mozart was betrayed by the Masons who poisoned 1 him and allowed him to be buried in a pauper’s grave.10 2 Daumer’s theory about Mozart’s death seems to have acted as a catalyst 3 for others with a particular grudge against Freemasonry to elaborate upon 4 the myth in ever more extravagant terms. In 1910, the virulent anti-Semite 5 Hermann Ahlwardt added a further dimension to the argument by suggesting 6 that the Jews, alongside the Masons, were largely instrumental in poisoning 7 Mozart.11 A similar contention was reiterated in a speech in 1926 delivered by 8 General Erich Ludendorff, a co-conspirator with Hitler in the failed putsch of 9 1923 and a passionate opponent of Freemasonry.12 But it was Erich Ludendorff ’s 30 wife Mathilde who managed most successfully to bring this unsubstantiated 1 theory into the mainstream with her book Der ungesühnte Frevel an Luther, 2 Lessing, Mozart, Schiller (The Unatoned Crime against Luther, Lessing, Mozart 3 and Schiller), first published in 1928. 4x In the book’s third chapter, entitled ‘Der Logenmord an Mozart und der 5 Judenfluch über seine Gebeine’ (The Lodge’s Murder of Mozart and the Jewish 36L curse on his bones), Mathilde Ludendorff acknowledges Daumer’s article as Folio 36 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM providing sufficient proof that Mozart had been betrayed by the Freemasons. 1 She also suggests that the plot to kill the composer was hatched through a 2 sinister alliance between the Jews and the Jesuits, whose objective of creating 3 a cosmopolitan Jewish world order was threatened by Mozart’s patriotic senti- 4 ments. Naively unaware of the criminality of the Freemasons, Mozart 5 suddenly saw the light after he learned of the events that followed the French 6 Revolution when the ‘bloody race-hatred of the Jews massacred the blonde 7 nobility of Paris’ and condemned Marie-Antoinette to death for the crime 8 perpetrated by her mother empress Maria Theresa, who had banned the 9 Masons in Austria.13 10 In a passage that is strongly reminiscent of the anti-Jacobin propaganda 1L released during the mid 1790s, Ludendorff relies on this purely fictitious 2 set of circumstances to support the contention that Mozart promoted an 3 anti-Masonic theme in his opera Die Zauberflöte – a dangerous strategy that 4 resulted in his untimely death at the hands of the Masons. She suggests that 5 the Jews, fearful that their conspiracies would be exposed to general indigna- 6 tion, forced Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder to write an opera in glorifi- 7 cation of the lodge. But Die Zauberflöte interweaves two contradictory 8 legends in such a skilful way that Mozart clearly symbolised his real intentions 9 to any informed audience: 20 1 With the magic flute, carved by his father (the German people) from the 2 thousand-year-old German oak, hence with German music, Tamino 3 (Mozart) wants to induce the hearts of the wicked, dark brothers to rescue 4 the imprisoned Pamina (Marie-Antoinette) who is incarcerated for the sake 5 of her mother, the Queen of the Night (Maria Theresa). He thereby knows 6 that, if he does not succeed, his untimely death is certain.14 7 8 By 1936, 55,000 copies of Der ungesühnte Frevel an Luther, Lessing, Mozart, 9 Schiller had been published.15 In the same year, Mathilde Ludendorff 30 expanded her chapter on Mozart into a complete book with the title Mozarts 1 Leben und gewaltsamer Tod (Mozart’s Life and Violent Death). This larger 2 work merely regurgitates the same arguments that were presented in her 3 earlier chapter. However, the material is now fleshed out in a more detailed 4x study that draws extensively upon the 1828 biography of the composer by 5 Georg von Nissen, as edited by the composer’s widow Constanze, with 36L 37 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 quoted paragraphs from this source accounting for almost two-thirds of the 2 entire book. 3 Mathilde Ludendorff’s conspiracy theory now encompasses Mozart’s entire 4 life. The first culprit to be singled out is Leopold Mozart, whose only interest 5 was to exploit his son’s talents for monetary gain by forcing him to travel 6 throughout Europe and thereby making him desperately homesick for his 7 fatherland. Leopold also persuaded his son to join the Freemasons in Salzburg, 8 whilst his patron Archbishop Colloredo, another member of the lodge, perse- 9 cuted Mozart for resisting the demand to compose music in the required 10 Italian style. Moving to Vienna, Mozart tried to overcome Italian influence by 1L composing German opera, but was once again thwarted by the aims of the his 2 fellow Masons. In this context, Ludendorff quotes in its entirety the widely 3 disseminated patriotic letter of 21 March 1785 which Mozart wrote to Anton 4 Klein regarding his desire to found a German national opera, prefacing it with 5 the following observations: 6 7 Since Mozart had created German opera, since he had overpowered for once 8 and for all the dominance of Italian music for the German people and 9 replaced it with something more precious, since he had achieved the same in 20 the area of secular music that Bach and Handel had achieved in the area of 1 sacred music, since Mozart had furthermore proven an immeasurable 2 creative power in all areas of composition as well, he had become a fierce 3 enemy to the supra-national powers of Freemasonry and its aims. The 4 German people could gather strength forever from his immortal works, and 5 thus Mozart was so hateful for all those who want to ‘redeem the people 6 from race, folk, and language’ and force them into a Jewish or Jewish- 7 Christian universal empire. That was the reason why this sunny and kind- 8 hearted human was met with intrigues everywhere, which moved in alliance 9 with the ones that every gifted person is exposed to on the part of the jealous 30 less-gifted ones.16 1 2 With its anti-Masonic, anti-Semitic, anti-clerical and anti-cosmopolitan 3 interpretation of Mozart, it would seem that Ludendorff’s book chimed in 4x perfectly with the prevailing ideological climate of Nazi Germany. That it 5 failed to secure official approval, and was even subjected to a veto from 36L Propaganda Minister Goebbels, may have initially been connected with the Folio 38 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 3 Front cover and title page of Mathilde Ludendorff ’s anti-Masonic book on Mozart. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 increasingly strained relationship between Hitler and his former ally Erich 1 Ludendorff after 1933.17 More specifically, it fell foul of the Propaganda 2 Minister because Goebbels had become increasingly annoyed at the stream of 3 conspiracy theories which Mathilde Ludendorff and her followers were 4 applying to other highly regarded national figures including Fichte, Leibniz, 5 Nietzsche, Schubert and J. S. Bach. He was determined at all costs to put a stop 6 to such activity. 7 The spur for official action to be taken against Ludendorff was prompted 8 by another of her allegations, namely that Goethe and the Freemasons were 9 instrumental in poisoning Friedrich Schiller and bringing about his unnatural 30 death in 1805. The Goethe-Gesellschaft was particularly outraged by this claim, 1 and in 1935 it commissioned the Schiller expert Max Hecker to refute 2 Ludendorff’s arguments in the book Schillers Tod und Bestattung (Schiller’s 3 Death and Burial). Julius Petersen, another Schiller expert, followed suit by 4x denouncing her writing in the first volume of the Vierteljahrsschrift der Goethe- 5 Gesellschaft in 1936 as ‘sensationalist literature spreading a poisonous cocktail of 36L 39 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 misinformation within a quagmire of national self-incrimination’.18 In the same 2 year, Schiller’s death was subjected to a detailed medical investigation by Dr 3 Wolfgang Veil. He found no evidence to suggest that Schiller had been a victim 4 of foul play.19 5 Goebbels’s hostile reaction to Ludendorff ’s theories was first articulated in 6 an article which appeared in the newspaper Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger in 7 January 1936. Without naming her outright as the culprit, he attacked as 8 ‘cheap and completely unprincipled’ the idea of subdividing the history of 9 German art and culture into ‘a series of criminal cases, and to attempt to 10 ascertain with the aid of cabalistic numerals whether Schiller poisoned 1L Goethe, or who murdered Mozart’.20 2 Since further printings of Ludendorff’s Der ungesühnte Frevel an Luther, 3 Lessing, Mozart, Schiller, as well as her expanded Mozart book, were published 4 in the summer of 1936, it seems that she took no notice of Goebbels’s attack. 5 Realising that his authority was being undermined, the Propaganda Minister 6 therefore took further steps to marginalize her influence. At a national 7 press conference convened in Berlin on 17 October 1936, he raised the 8 matter again, warning his audience against the potentially destructive impact 9 of Ludendorff’s writing, which he believed was destabilising a carefully 20 controlled campaign to extol the virtues of German supremacy in the literary 1 and musical arts: 2 3 It should be equally superfluous to examine which earlier poet and 4 composer had connections to a Masonic lodge or could have mixed with 5 Jews. For example, in some quarters it is said of Mozart that he had belonged 6 to a lodge and that he should now be rejected forever. Wagner is accused of 7 having mixed with Jews. Goethe is supposed to have poisoned Schiller. This 8 kind of snooping around into characters could easily lead to a situation 9 where one day we might not be able to perform the work of any of our great 30 heroic minds at all. If we allowed all these people a free hand, it would soon 1 lead to German cultural life becoming shallow and stultified.21 2 3 Goebbels’s final denunciation of Ludendorff was delivered at the third 4x annual meeting of the Reichskulturkammer on 27 November 1936. Quoting 5 the same sentences he had used in his article for the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, 36L Goebbels announced that an official veto had been placed on further Folio 40 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM reprintings of Ludendorff’s books, the ban being upheld once more in 1 June 1938.22 2 As was the case with Schiller in 1936, medical evidence was also harnessed 3 to contradict Ludendorff’s conspiracy theory with regard to Mozart’s death. 4 An inaugural dissertation presented at the Friedrich Schiller University in 5 Jena by Hans Holz and published in 1940 explored the composer’s illnesses 6 and demise in some detail. On the basis of a close reading of Mozart’s letters 7 and reminiscences by his contemporaries, Holz came to the conclusion that 8 the cause of his death was erythema nodosum (an inflammation of the skin 9 often connected to tuberculosis). Significantly, the notion that the composer 10 might have been poisoned by the Masons is not acknowledged anywhere in 1L Holz’s text.23 2 Die Zauberflöte and the Nazis 3 4 5 Having relegated Mathilde Ludendorff ’s interpretation of Die Zauberflöte as an 6 anti-Masonic opera to the sidelines, the Nazis still faced the problem of finding 7 the most ideologically acceptable way to present Mozart’s work to the German 8 public. Given the overwhelming scholarly evidence that had come to light 9 in the years before the Nazis came to power, which strongly supported the 20 argument that the connection between Die Zauberflöte and Freemasonry was 1 intrinsic to an appreciation of the opera, it was to prove particularly difficult to 2 establish any kind of consensus on this matter between Mozart specialists, 3 theatre producers and officials working for the Propaganda Ministry. 4 Since the regime was prepared to tolerate the ideological doctoring of other 5 Mozart works, it is surprising that it did not encourage a similar course of 6 action with Die Zauberflöte. That this did not happen was entirely as a result 7 of Hitler’s own position on the matter. In her study of Hitler’s relationship to 8 Vienna, the biographer Brigitte Hamann reported an undated occasion when 9 ‘an overly eager man’ had presented the Führer with a new ‘Aryan’ libretto to 30 Die Zauberflöte designed to replace Schikaneder’s text which was ‘regarded as 1 a product of the Jewish mindset’. Yet Hitler apparently rejected the proposal 2 without further consideration, making it clear that he had no intention of 3 looking ridiculous in the eyes of the world.24 4x Hitler must have recalled this episode in his cultural address at the 1937 5 Nuremberg Party Rally. In a section of the speech devoted to the great 36L 41 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 artefacts of the past, he urged the German nation to maintain the highest 2 respect for works such as Die Zauberflöte: 3 4 It is wrong to apply the standard of the currently regulated interpretation, 5 which is often very much caused by the prevailing circumstances of the time, 6 to the great cultural creations of powerful artistic heroes. Only a creature 7 without the predisposition to appreciate art can apply such an impossible 8 method. But not only that. Such a method is also disrespectful towards our 9 great past and is furthermore narrow-minded historically. Only a nationally 10 disrespectful man would condemn Mozart’s Zauberflöte because its libretto 1L might oppose his ideological views. Likewise, only an unjust person will 2 reject Wagner’s Ring because it does not conform with Christian concepts; or 3 Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Parsifal, because they, on the other 4 hand, might not appear to accord with the tenor of other viewpoints. The 5 great artwork bears in itself an absolute value. This value is not measured by 6 the standard of a viewpoint that does not even affect the artwork as such and 7 that is more or less limited to its own times!25 8 9 With the highest authority in the land warning against unwarranted manipu- 20 lation of Die Zauberflöte, this should have settled the issue once and for all. 1 Certainly Herbert Gerigk, writing in the NS-Monatshefte in February 1938, 2 underlined his agreement with Hitler’s pronouncements and attacked opponents 3 of the regime who had spread misinformation regarding the ideological refur- 4 bishment of great vocal works of the past. Gerigk also pointed out that it would 5 ‘exceed the boundaries of acceptability when arrangers in their greed for royal- 6 ties consider themselves wiser than one of the greatest geniuses of musical drama 7 and add completely or partly altered plots and generally act haphazardly with the 8 traditional organism of the work’.26 9 But if Die Zauberflöte remained sacrosanct as far as Hitler and Gerigk were 30 concerned, opera producers continued to be perturbed by the Masonic 1 dimension of the work and were unsure as how best to represent it on stage. 2 The composer and writer Roderich von Mojsisovics grappled with this issue 3 in 1934. Acknowledging that the Masonic symbolism of the text of Die 4x Zauberflöte was incompatible with National Socialism, he argued that in 5 future the work should be presented as fantastic fairy-tale in the style of its 36L Vienna premiere of 1791, where it was received purely as a German Folio 42 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM Singspiel.27 Yet it took seven years before the Reichsdramaturg issued instruc- 1 tions to theatres proposing that they adopt a similar course of action. In the 2 meantime, the uncertainty as to whether Die Zauberflöte could be featured at 3 all in German opera houses had a noticeable impact on the work’s popularity, 4 since the total number of performances on the German stage fell from 195 per 5 season in 1932/33 to 144 in 1937/38.28 6 Given the very conservative attitudes towards production and staging that 7 were to be fostered during the Third Reich, theatres proposing to perform Die 8 Zauberflöte were understandably reluctant to break the mould and offer a 9 radical re-interpretation of such an established repertory piece. To take such 10 a course of action risked severe censure and the accusation that the modernist 1L aesthetic of the Weimar Republic was still holding sway in Germany’s opera 2 houses. This criticism was certainly levelled against the Duisburg Opera in 3 1936 after it engaged Bertolt Brecht’s collaborator Caspar Neher to design the 4 stage sets for a new production of Zauberflöte. In seeking to detach the opera 5 from its associations with fairy-tale and magic, Neher had opted for a stylised 6 and objective setting. According to Wolfgang Steinecke, reviewing the 7 performance in Die Musik, this approach amounted to a misguided theatrical 8 experiment which failed to ‘respect the eternal values’ and the ‘truly popular 9 effect’ that were intrinsic to Mozart’s opera.29 20 No less controversial than Neher’s Duisburg Zauberflöte, though for some- 1 what different reasons, was the staging mounted at the Berliner Volksoper 2 in September 1938, which was intended to recreate the opera in a Nordic 3 National-Socialist context. Producer Carl Möller and stage designer Walter 4 Kubbernuss had opted to present a timeless interpretation of the work and 5 divest it of all Masonic or Egyptian associations. Although Monostatos was 6 depicted as an evil and devious Moor, his slaves were presented on stage as 7 Aryans, and such associative lines as ‘O Isis und Osiris’ were removed 8 from Schikaneder’s text. Since the theatre was closely associated with Robert 9 Ley’s Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Union) and prided itself on 30 producing repertory in a highly politicised manner, one might assume 1 that such a radical approach would have met with strong endorsement. Yet 2 Fritz Stege, reviewing the production for Zeitschrift für Musik, remained 3 more sceptical. Highlighting the resultant problems of pursuing this interpre- 4x tation, he questioned whether disentangling the opera’s content from all its 5 chronological and geographical connections would actually strengthen its 36L 43 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 timeless quality. The risks attached to this entirely chimerical conception 2 were no different to that of the opposite solution of ‘objectification’ which 3 characterised the manner of the Kroll opera’s experiments of the Weimar 4 period.30 5 Taking serious notice of the objections expressed by critics such as Stege, 6 the Reichsdramaturg Rainer Schlösser felt compelled to hold the line adopted 7 by Hitler at his 1937 Nuremberg speech. On 27 October 1938, he issued a 8 statement which was to be circulated to all German theatres to indicate his 9 disapproval of the Berliner Volksoper production. It was intended to sound a 10 warning to other opera houses that might have contemplated following in its 1L footsteps: 2 3 Lately there have been more endeavours and regrettably also practical 4 attempts to try and remove the Egyptian and Masonic elements in Mozart’s 5 Zauberflöte. This is not only an unnecessary but also dangerous strategy. 6 Mozart’s Zauberflöte belongs amongst such works whose musical value is so 7 highly regarded and so deeply embedded in the German soul that the 8 libretto really does not carry any weight against it and its idiosyncrasies, 9 which are the deciding factor, are hardly perceived at all by the theatre-going 20 public. At the same time, the way should not be barred toward attempting 1 new kinds of production ideas as long as they do not alter the opera in the 2 above-mentioned sense of a classic work of German creative art.31 3 4 By coincidence, the Berliner Volksoper’s Zauberflöte was not the only new 5 production of the opera to have been presented in the German capital during 6 the 1938/39 season. In December, the Staatsoper unveiled a rather different 7 conception of the work produced by Gustaf Gründgens with Herbert von 8 Karajan as conductor. The inspiration for Gründgens’s approach was derived 9 from the spirit of the pantomime and so-called ‘machine comedies’ that 30 Mozart’s librettist Schikaneder had cultivated at Vienna’s Theater an der 1 Weiden. Thus there were spectacular effects such as a deafening thunder 2 machine, a mechanically controlled boa constrictor and a huge white 3 elephant. At the same time Gründgens and his stage designer Traugott Müller 4x did not seek to camouflage the Egyptian and Masonic dimensions of the 5 opera.32 Following in the wake of the Volksoper and the Staatsoper, Berlin’s 36L third opera house, the Deutsches Opernhaus, presented its own new produc- Folio 44 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 4 Mozart Die Zauberflöte (Berliner Volksoper, September 1938). Producer Carl Möller and stage designer Walter Kubbernuss presented a National Socialist re-interpretation of the opera manifested in this particular scene by the raised right arms of those greeting Sarastro. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 tion of the work in February 1939. In this version there was a deliberate 3 attempt on the part of the producer Alexander d’Arnals to recreate the opera 4 in the historical context of early Romanticism. The most notable feature of 5 d’Arnals’s production was the reproduction of the famous geometric stage 6 designs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel which dated back to the Berlin perform- 7 ance of the opera in 1815. 8 Although the sharply differentiated approaches to Zauberflöte mirrored to 9 a certain extent the vested interests of the politicians that held the greatest 30 sway in each theatre (Ley at the Volksoper, Goering at the Staatsoper and 1 Goebbels at the Deutsches Opernhaus), Richard Ohlekopf, writing in the 2 Signale für die musikalische Welt, was concerned that such a situation had 3 been allowed to flourish, not least because he believed that it ran counter to 4x the unifying interests of National Socialist cultural politics. In this respect 5 he was hopeful that in future theatre authorities would exercise a more 36L 45 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 controlling influence over such matters, as had happened on the concert 2 platform.33 3 In fact Reichsdramaturg Schlösser was to intervene yet again on 26 July 4 1940, forbidding any further requests to present Zauberflöte with a revised text 5 and adding the comment that he had already put brakes on these intentions 6 several times before.34 Only six months earlier, Friedrich Kranich had 7 submitted a revised text of Die Zauberflöte under the title of Die Liebesprobe to 8 the Reichsmusikprüfstelle (Government music reading panel). But Kranich’s 9 attempt found little favour with the authorities and was officially rejected on 10 2 February 1940.35 Yet while Schlösser remained strongly opposed to textual 1L interventions with regard to Mozart’s opera, he seems to have refrained from 2 censuring the Bavarian Opera for its radical production of Die Zauberflöte 3 given in Munich in 1940 conducted by Clemens Krauss. Following the trend 4 set by the Berliner Volksoper, Krauss staged the entire opera in a timeless 5 frame as a solar myth about the formation of a new race with Sarastro, a heroic 6 young man carrying a spear and a shield, being portrayed as the leader of the 7 cult of Apollo. 8 It is possible that Schlösser did not raise objections to Krauss’s production 9 because the conductor had complied with his request not to tamper with the 20 libretto. In any case, by the time Krauss staged the opera at the 1943 Salzburg 1 Festival, his conception of the work had changed, most obviously in the trans- 2 formation of Sarastro from a warrior king to a wise old counsellor. Perhaps 3 Krauss was also responding to a shift in official opinion which now actively 4 encouraged attempts to break the direct association between Zauberflöte and 5 Freemasonry, and to adopt the idea that the opera should be presented as a 6 German Singspiel in the manner of its original Viennese staging. 7 Judging by two entries in Goebbels’s diary, this new impetus for removing 8 the Masonic imagery from future productions of Zauberflöte may even have 9 come directly from Hitler. On 22 November 1941, the Propaganda Minister 30 reported a discussion with the Führer regarding the representations of 1 Wagner’s Parsifal and Mozart’s Zauberflöte on the German stage. With refer- 2 ence to the latter, Hitler stuck to his previously-held contention that neither 3 the text nor the scenario needed to be purified, but then added the significant 4x statement that ‘one should stage it much more as a fairy tale or a stage 5 spectacle rather than a Masonic play’.36 Nearly one and a half years later, 36L on 22 March 1943, Hitler reiterated the same idea, suggesting that Die Folio 46 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM Zauberflöte was essentially a variety show and that Mozart’s librettist 1 Schikaneder should be regarded as the eighteenth-century equivalent of 2 Heinz Hentschke (1895–1970), then director of Berlin’s Metropol Theatre and 3 a well-known author of several popular operetta libretti: 4 5 The Führer merely wishes that Mozart’s operas be interpreted differently 6 than has been the case hitherto. Schikaneder, the librettist of Die Zauberflöte, 7 for example, is often regarded as a mysterious propagandist of Freemasonry; 8 in reality he was, as the Führer has correctly highlighted, Mozart’s Heinz 9 Hentschke. If he had not found Mozart, his texts would long have fallen into 10 oblivion. Only with Mozart’s music have they been immortalised. Therefore 1L in future it seems necessary to stage Die Zauberflöte more in the manner of 2 a revue rather than as an ideological work. I will concern myself with this 3 question somewhat more intensely. After the war it must surely be solved.37 4 5 Although Goebbels alluded to the possibility that the ideological problem 6 surrounding Die Zauberflöte would be finally resolved once the War was over, 7 he had perhaps forgotten that a month before Hitler made his earlier state- 8 ment about the opera, the Reichsdramaturg had already taken very specific 9 steps to put such suggestions into practice. In a detailed letter drafted to 20 Goebbels and dated 15 October 1941, Schlösser wrote: 1 2 The Minister desires, for the Führer’s information, and with all the possibili- 3 ties explained, to rid Die Zauberflöte from all connections with Freemasonry. 4 I believe that for these aspirations to be achieved, the style of stage scenery 5 will be the most deciding factor. Furthermore, in order to present the produc- 6 tion primarily in the form of a fairy-tale opera, it would be recommendable 7 to return to the sets of the original first performance in Vienna as it is 8 portrayed in copies of the old Wiener Theaterzeitung. In this version the 9 opera is presented in a naïve and natural manner, like a folk-tale, and the 30 Priest scenes are only reminiscent of a jovial Pagan ceremony. In contrast, 1 the grandiose sketches by Schinkel could point more towards the pathos that 2 has a kind of festive classification that might awaken associations with a 3 Lodge-like ceremony. 4x Furthermore, the direction towards a Fairy-tale Opera can be helped to a 5 certain extent by the manner in which the dialogue is spoken, in that 36L 47 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 nothing is being too fervently declaimed and that all merriment is treated as 2 being as jolly as possible and projected in the style of a mechanical comedy. 3 I have checked through the text again and have come to the conclusion 4 that although certain expressions such as ‘Brother Bond’, ‘Temple of 5 Wisdom’, ‘Temple of Examination’, ‘The Initiated’, ‘Sun-Circle’ and ‘Mysteries 6 of Isis’ may well be understood in the sense of Freemasonry, they are so well 7 established that they could be applied to any other mystic cult and to the 8 total explanation of the Eighteenth Century. As such terms belong in part to 9 the text of the arias, they should probably not be altered.38 10 1L Even before Schlösser had written this memorandum, there was a good 2 deal of evidence that many opera houses were actively adopting such princi- 3 ples. For example, when the Salzburg Festival featured a new production of Die 4 Zauberflöte in the summer of 1941, with Heinz Arnold as producer, Ludwig 5 Sievert as stage designer and Karl Böhm as conductor, there was a conscious 6 attempt, as Michael Steinberg argues, to present the work as a natural bridge 7 between high operatic culture and popular theatre. Thus the production 8 attempted to ‘rediscover the fairy-tale innocence of the text and the score’ 9 while jettisoning ‘all the Egyptian and Masonic elements which had the poten- 20 tial for all too obvious political referentiality’.39 1 The drive to distance Die Zauberflöte from its Masonic associations did not 2 only concern Germany’s opera houses during the 1940s. An examination of 3 contemporary writings about the opera reveals similar objectives. Some 4 authors, such as Egon von Komorzynski and Roland Tenschert, made the 5 strategic decision to ignore this dimension of the work almost entirely. Others 6 were prepared to acknowledge the Masonic elements in the opera, but warned 7 against taking them seriously.40 A particularly revealing document in this 8 respect is a short primer published in 1940 on Die Zauberflöte by Thilo 9 Cornelissen, which was intended for use in German high schools. As 30 the brief outline in the introduction makes clear, Cornelissen’s principal 1 objective was to focus on the profoundly nationalist and populist qualities of 2 the opera. These characteristics, which forged an inextricable historical link 3 to Weber’s Freischütz and Wagner’s Meistersinger, ‘represented most clearly 4x the German character in opera’ and were borne out of a ‘deliberate renuncia- 5 tion of foreign elements’. Such qualities, Cornelissen argued, meant that they 36L ‘deserved first and foremost to live on in the hearts of the German people and Folio 48 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM to be brought closer to the population again and again through education in 1 the arts’.41 2 In the section that follows, entitled ‘methodical discussion’, Cornelissen 3 examines the opera from various dimensions, ranging from the political, 4 Masonic, religious, symbolic, humanitarian, fairy-tale, folklorist and farcical, 5 to its historical and aesthetic position with regard to Mozart’s struggle to 6 establish German national opera and its premonitions of Romanticism. From 7 the way in which the material is slanted, it becomes clear from the outset that 8 an interpretation emphasising the fairy-tale, folk-like and comic elements is 9 favoured at the expense of any possible political or religious connotations. In 10 this respect, Cornelissen is particularly careful to undermine any plausible 1L connections the opera has with Freemasonry: 2 3 Comparing these interpretations with Mozart’s original stance one realises 4 that most of them have read something into Die Zauberflöte that is not there 5 at all. In most cases, it is ‘the master’s own mind’, rather than an admiration 6 of Mozart’s work, that has led them astray through one-sidedness and blind- 7 ness to the genuine factors. The extent to which it is advisable to respond to 8 the Masonic interpretations in class must therefore be considered carefully, 9 not only because we reject Freemasonry ideologically today, but also because 20 these viewpoints attempt to found a new religion, albeit with the inadequate 1 means of philosophy.42 2 3 Another attempt to refute Mozart’s links with Freemasonry, this time 4 directed towards the general reader, is manifested in Alfred Orel’s book Mozarts 5 Deutscher Weg (Mozart’s German Way), first published in 1941 and reprinted 6 two years later. Orel’s work is essentially a biographical study of the composer 7 drawing on a selection of Mozart’s letters as the basis for personal commentary. 8 As its title suggests, the emphasis is placed upon exploring the nationalist 9 aspects of Mozart’s work, a theme that comes particularly to the fore in the 30 discussion of Die Zauberflöte. Inevitably Orel rejects the work’s connection to 1 Freemasonry, taking the opportunity to attack those who had presented this 2 interpretation in the past: 3 4x Recent literature has purposefully aimed to brand the Zauberflöte as a 5 ‘Freemasonry-opera’ and hence to paint the overall image of the person 36L 49 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 and the artist, Mozart, in fake colours. Up to the point of particular details of 2 scenic staging and text, indeed even including certain phrases in the music, 3 parallels were contrived and interpretations were excogitated that were 4 supposed to illustrate the idea that this opera could only be understood against 5 the background of Freemasonry and that Mozart aimed here virtually to 6 apotheosise this secret society. Besides the fact that these attempts at an expla- 7 nation emerged only latterly, and were, once they had been accomplished, 8 understandably developed further and further by certain quarters with unbe- 9 lievable obstinacy, they entirely misjudge the background against which Die 10 Zauberflöte was created and irresponsibly distort Mozart’s image.43 1L 2 Given his objectives of reinforcing the party line, Orel is concerned to 3 detach the opera from any tangible connections with Freemasonry and rein- 4 force the argument that it should be appreciated and understood as a magical 5 and fantastic spectacle: 6 7 Throughout his spiritual path of life Mozart had gone from the dogmatic- 8 Catholic ideology to this more general morality, and the fact that he made 9 Viennese friends who shared his intellectual mindset in his Freemasonic circles 20 had probably established his spiritual and inner relationship to the lodge. 1 Nevertheless, Die Zauberflöte is not at all the work of a brother mason, but the 2 private avowal of a human being pervaded with the true ideals of his time. And 3 if one believes that a connection glorifying Freemasonry has been detected, the 4 strict secrecy of the Masonic brothers alone quite contradicts [the idea] that 5 Mozart should have brought details of lodge rituals to the stage. The implied 6 route: magic piece – oriental milieu – King Thamos – Egyptian priesthood with 7 its enigma, may explain the creation and design of Die Zauberflöte quite easily. 8 What Mozart was concerned with regarding Die Zauberflöte was the fulfilment 9 of a popular piece with a high moral idea; what Schikaneder was concerned 30 with was the attractive magical spectacle piece equipped with details as 1 effective as possible, seemingly novel in their combination.44 2 3 Alfred Orel presents his conclusions with only minimal recourse to docu- 4x mentary evidence or to the views of earlier writers. By contrast, Leopold 5 Conrad, whose doctoral thesis Mozarts Dramaturgie der Oper was published in 36L 1943, fleshes out a similar argument with much greater thoroughness and with Folio 50 MOZART AND THE FREEMASONS: A NAZI PROBLEM copious footnotes citing arguments from highly venerated Mozart scholars. In 1 an exhaustive study of Mozart’s operatic output, rather than ducking the 2 Masonic dimension in Die Zauberflöte as Roland Tenschert had done, Conrad 3 tackles the issue head-on. Furthermore, unlike other writers during this period, 4 Conrad is prepared to acknowledge the expertise of Jewish authors such as Paul 5 Nettl and Otto Erich Deutsch, whose scholarly research into Mozart’s activities 6 as a Freemason is referenced in many footnotes. Yet even the evidence provided 7 by these scholars is manipulated to support a counter-argument that Mozart’s 8 connection with Freemasonry was at best ‘pure hypothesis’: 9 10 Mozart belonged to the lodge from the end of 1784 onwards. He believed that 1L he had found an opportunity here where he could pursue his innermost 2 thoughts. While the order, protected by Joseph II, primarily served the ideas 3 of the Enlightenment, Mozart was attracted to the secondary object of mysti- 4 cism that preoccupied him in a distinctive manner. . . . He actually was a 5 stranger to the tendencies of Freemasonry as such and, accordingly, did not 6 allow himself to be discouraged later in life when he failed to see the much- 7 sermonised charity in his distress and at his bitter end. All the same, it was a 8 certain religious moral sense that kept him connected to his lodge. It was his 9 own special way of looking at life and the world, for which he could certainly 20 have drawn equivalent stimulus from German literature as well.45 1 2 Having taken such a firm stand to distance Mozart from Freemasonry in 3 general, Conrad then provides a thorough examination of the text to Die 4 Zauberflöte, once again arguing against a Masonic dimension both in its ethos 5 and in its specific use of geographical locality and symbolism: 6 7 In contrast to the views of Freemasonry, the humanitarian ideal that was 8 characteristic of Mozart and that reveals itself in Die Zauberflöte was free from 9 any rationalist-international dimensions. In the final analysis, it could not be 30 anything else other than Mozart seeking in Freemasonry what corresponded 1 to the mystical-idealist aspect of his character. . . . Thus, the Egyptian cult of 2 mysticism did not belong to the Masonic world of thought, which had erected 3 the Salomonic temple as a symbol instead. The adoption of elements from the 4x Babylonian and Egyptian secret services of Isis, Serapis, Cybele, Mithras and 5 others rendered a clear spiritual orientation of the order impossible.46 36L 51 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 Conrad’s comprehensive examination of Mozart’s relationship to 2 Freemasonry, and in particular his statement that it would be ‘totally wrong 3 to amalgamate the German humanitarian ideal of the time with its pernicious 4 internationalism’, appears to the innocent reader to have the weight of intel- 5 lectual authority.47 However, it is worth noting that the footnote that is 6 appended to this sentence emanates from a joint political briefing issued by 7 the Nazi Party and Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Workers Front) in 1939.48 8 In a last-ditch attempt to separate Mozart once and for all from any associa- 9 tion with Freemasonry, Conrad could no longer rely entirely on scholarly 10 evidence to support his tortuous arguments. 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L Folio 52 CHAPTER 4 ARYANISING MOZART Lorenzo Da Ponte, the son of a Jewish leather dealer in Venice, became the librettist for Mozart after he had written mediocre works for Salieri, Martin y Soler, and Gazzaniga. While lacking any poetic talent, he cleverly under- stood how to distinguish between things that were effective and ineffective for the stage. His ambitious, selfish, and unscrupulous character had guided him on a reckless path of life. (LEOPOLD CONRAD, 1943)1 After settling in Vienna in 1781, Mozart came into contact with a number of colleagues and acquaintances who were of Jewish origin. Many had secured their position in the Austrian capital as a result of their acumen in business, public finance and munitions. They were also to benefit from the reforms of Emperor Joseph II, whose Edict of Tolerance, issued on 2 January 1782, was designed to end the social and economic isolation of the Jews in Lower Austria. The majority of those known to Mozart had converted to Christianity, no doubt believing such a move would advance the possibilities of closer integration into Viennese society, while at the same time overcoming centuries of religious prejudice. Mozart had good reason to be grateful to his Jewish friends for their support and patronage. The banker Raimund von Wetzlar, for example, provided the composer with free lodgings in December 1782. A number of Jews, including Joseph von Sonnenfels and Baron Nathan Adam von Arnstein, were regular subscribers to his concerts. Mozart would also have established cordial rela- tionships with Jews who were granted admittance to the Masonic Lodges to which the composer was attached. Most important of all, however, was Mozart’s collaboration with the court poet and baptised Jew Lorenzo Da Ponte, MOZART AND THE NAZIS who provided him with the librettos for three of his greatest operas, Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1790).2 In refashioning him as a profoundly German and anti-Masonic composer, those writing about Mozart during the Third Reich would skate over his connections with such figures as Wetzlar and Sonnenfels, regarding them as merely incidental acquaintances adding little significance to his achieve- ments as a creative musician. For obvious reasons, the partnership with Da Ponte could not be so easily ignored. A strict application of Nazi anti-Semitic laws would have conceivably resulted in the operas on which they collabo- rated being removed from the repertory. Yet, as was the case with other inviolable masterpieces involving the combined talents of an Aryan composer and Jewish poet or librettist (for example, Schubert’s Schwanengesang, Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Bizet’s Carmen), such action remained incon- ceivable, not least because it ran the risk of exposing the regime’s cultural policies to ridicule. Lorenzo Da Ponte – a victim of anti-Semitic character assassination Instead of censuring Mozart for his ‘misguided’ decision to work with Da Ponte, a more obvious strategy was to focus attention on his librettist with the aim of downgrading and denigrating his contribution and achievement. This mindset was already established in Nazi circles well before the regime came to power. For example, the Völkischer Beobachter, the party newspaper, alluded somewhat negatively towards Da Ponte in a review of a performance of Don Giovanni published on 17 August 1929. Reminding readers that Mozart’s favourite librettist came from a Jewish background, the article was riddled with familiar anti-Semitic rhetoric. Thus Da Ponte was ‘a definite precursor of those reprehensible groups of Jews who write too much’ and whose creativity was driven not out of any inner compulsion but merely because Jews ‘know how to make a living out of such activity’.3 Apart from damning Da Ponte’s productivity, the same newspaper regarded it as fair game to question the quality of his work in comparison to that of Mozart. In a review of Le nozze di Figaro, performed at the Munich Festival in 1928, the critic argued that Da Ponte’s work was second-rate, and a weak link in Mozart’s creative process which the German composer somehow managed to overcome: 54 ARYANISING MOZART Mozart did not slip and fall on Da Ponte’s shiny Glitz. He ennobled the frivolous text of Figaro by applying to it the reserve, refinement and soulful depth of German music. Thereby did he provide the librettist a sort of unearned renown, in the shadow of his immortal genius.4 Although such pronouncements must have carried some weight after 1933, in reality there was little agreement as to the way in which Da Ponte should be presented to the German public during this period. Indeed, some representa- tions of the librettist were not completely dismissive. The writer Günther Andrees, whose book Mozart und Da Ponte, oder Die Geburt der Romantik (Mozart and Da Ponte, or the Birth of Romanticism) was published in 1936, depicted him in bold and adventurous terms. For Andrees, writing essentially for a popular audience, Da Ponte’s capacity to rise from the Jewish ghetto to the posi- tion of court poet to Emperor Joseph II could be regarded as a sign of formidable strength of personality. Yet whilst acknowledging the quality of the work he achieved with Mozart, Andrees nonetheless frequently alludes to negative (and, by implication, Jewish) traits in his character, in particular his unscrupulousness. According to his interpretation, Mozart supposedly abandoned Da Ponte for this reason, turning instead to Emanuel Schickaneder with whom he was able to realise his genuine desire to create a truly German opera in Die Zauberflöte.5 Whereas Andrees presented a rather ambivalent portrayal of the librettist, the Mozart specialist Willy Meckbach was more prepared to speak out in favour of Da Ponte. In an article which appeared as part of a special Mozart volume published in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung in June 1938, Meckbach challenged the evidence that Da Ponte’s ‘frivolous and shallow character’ had exercised such a detrimental influence on Mozart’s achievement, and that the composer would have reaped greater benefits from working with a genuinely German poet: Was it really quite such a calamity that only Da Ponte rather than Goethe became Mozart’s librettist? Should we not be pleased and grateful that we have been given Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte? Beethoven said that he could not have set such texts to music; yet Mozart managed it perfectly.6 A similar attitude could be discerned from Egon von Komorzynski, in his 1941 book Mozart: Sendung und Schicksal eine deutschen Künstlers (Mozart: 55 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Mission and Destiny of a German artist). Although Komorzynski hardly explores the relationship between composer and librettist in any great detail, he was nonetheless prepared to make the unequivocal statement that Mozart had been ‘fortunate to make the acquaintance of the theatre poet Da Ponte’.7 In some respects, Komorzynski’s attempt to defend Da Ponte was more coura- geous than that of Meckbach, for the simple reason that it was published at a time when there was more detailed scrutiny in official circles of the way Jews were portrayed in books. Yet the depictions of Da Ponte presented by Meckbach and Komorzynski were very much the exceptions to the rule. All too often, writers followed the trend established by the Völkischer Beobachter of showing Da Ponte in the worst possible light. For Alfred Burgartz, writing in 1941, the librettist exhibited typical Jewish features of craftiness and unscrupulousness that had been already highlighted by Andrees. In order to reinforce such tendencies, Burgartz paints a distinctly unappetising picture, not only of Da Ponte’s character but also of his physical appearance: a cool and weak person with a slightly hooked nose and spiteful thin lips. An actor who was well past his prime with a toga thrown over his shoulder and wisps of dishevelled silver hair falling over his toothless face – a narrow skull with large haughty but wretched eyes looking out from it.8 Alongside denigrating his physique and personality, it was also deemed necessary to damn the quality of Da Ponte’s writing. One potentially easy target was Così fan tutte, a work whose moral values had already been ques- tioned during the nineteenth century by influential figures such as Beethoven, Wagner and the critic Eduard Hanslick.9 Here indeed was one instance in which the Nazi agenda against Da Ponte proved to be hardly out of step with a long-standing critical perception of an evident incompatibility between the opera’s text and its music. The origins of this discourse can be traced back to the frequently cited remark from the biographer Franz Niemetschek in 1798 expressing astonishment that Mozart ‘could have condescended to squander his divine melodies on such a frivolous hodge-podge of a libretto’.10 In the same passage Niemetschek initiated another influential argument which influenced the reception of Così fan tutte throughout the nineteenth century by intimating that the composer had not been fully committed to the opera 56 ARYANISING MOZART in the first place, and that Mozart was forced to accept the commission to write the opera and ‘dutifully set the text’.11 The myth of distancing Mozart from an enthusiastic espousal of this partic- ular operatic project with Da Ponte, together with the perceived shallowness of the libretto, continued to hold sway during the Third Reich.12 For example, Hans Engel, writing about the opera in 1944, condemned Da Ponte’s ‘immoral and implausible’ text as lame and ‘littered with tiresome repetitions’. Questioning Da Ponte’s competence in handling such material, he drew the conclusion that the ‘hallmarks of this libretto are not witty frivolity, but, surely, insufferable superficiality and banality’.13 Others such as Hans Joachim Moser and Leopold Conrad shared Engel’s contempt for Da Ponte’s contribution to this particular opera. Moser attacked Da Ponte’s play of partner exchange and mockery of women as cynical, but nonetheless argued that Mozart’s music elevated the material into something that was noble and magnificent.14 Conrad presented a rather different argu- ment which, whilst acknowledging the weakness of Da Ponte’s workmanship and praising the quality and inspiration of Mozart’s music, attributed greater blame to the decadent cultural climate that was prevalent during the final years of Joseph II’s reign: The reason that the marionette figures did not obtain any true, deeper life does not even lie primarily in Da Ponte’s poetic shortcomings, but rather in the Rococo spirit that was supposed to move these figures and to which Mozart could attribute no deeper value whatsoever.15 While Nazi commentators could marshal a wealth of critical evidence from the past to support their contention that Da Ponte’s text to Così was shoddy, the other two operas upon which composer and librettist collaborated proved far less vulnerable to such an argument. The ploy in this case was to downplay the significance of Da Ponte’s contribution to both masterpieces. This tactic was strongly endorsed by the critic Herbert Gerigk. Echoing views expressed in the Völkischer Beobachter during the late 1920s, Gerigk regarded Mozart’s librettist as a ‘mere subordinate’ adding that it remained largely ‘insignificant that the Jew Da Ponte collaborated in the genesis of Mozart’s Don Giovanni or Così fan tutte . . . since not only the music but the text bore the seal of the Mozartian spirit’.16 The Mozart scholar Roland Tenschert 57 MOZART AND THE NAZIS appears to have agreed with Gerigk’s assessment. In a chapter entitled ‘Mozart and his librettists’ in his 1941 book Mozart: Ein Leben für die Oper, Tenschert could only bring himself to mention Da Ponte once by name and merely in passing with regard to Goethe’s lifelong fascination for Don Giovanni, a work he strongly admired ‘despite its connection to Da Ponte’s libretto’.17 If Tenschert largely evades reference to Da Ponte, his Austrian colleague Alfred Orel went one better, choosing to ignore him altogether. In his 1944 monograph Mozart in Wien (Mozart in Vienna), Orel describes in some detail the three operas upon which composer and librettist collaborated without revealing Da Ponte’s identity anywhere in his text. Equally mendacious, but for different reasons, was the tactic employed in the widely disseminated Mozart film Wen die Götter lieben (Whom the Gods Love) produced by Karl Hartl and released by Wien-Film in 1942. One scene illustrates the composer working on a well-known aria from Le nozze di Figaro with someone who at first sight appears to be his librettist. Yet it is soon apparent that the person who actually stands by Mozart’s side is not Da Ponte, but his composition pupil Franz Süssmayr. As is well-known, Süssmayr may have been a promising composer, yet possessed no gifts as a librettist. Evidently in a film designed to emphasise the purely German aura surrounding Mozart, it was deemed more ideologi- cally acceptable to fabricate biographical detail rather than put a Jewish-born writer on screen. Der deutschen Bühne, den deutschen Mozart! The mission of Siegfried Anheisser The determined effort to denigrate Da Ponte and even to deny his very existence was symptomatic of the continuing need to lend some degree of credibility to Nazi racial ideology. Yet in one respect, the matter could well have been bypassed altogether. Since the late eighteenth century, it had been standard practice in German opera houses for Mozart’s Italian operas to be performed in German translation. In such circumstances, the dissemination of the Da Ponte operas should not theoretically have posed such problems for the Nazis. After all, it could be maintained that a translation would serve the dual purpose of distancing Mozart from the stigma of having compromised himself by working with a Jew, while at the same time reinforcing the profoundly German characteristics of these works. 58 ARYANISING MOZART Unfortunately, there was a major obstacle to sustaining this argument. Of the many competing German translations of Mozart’s Da Ponte operas, the ones that had found the greatest favour were those devised at the end of the nineteenth century by the famous German-Jewish conductor Hermann Levi.18 In fact, Levi’s versions had maintained an almost unchallenged posi- tion in German opera houses for the first thirty years of the twentieth century. Yet to sanction the continued performance of the Levi translations in the Nazi era, at a time when virulent anti-Semitism was rife, seemed almost inconceiv- able. If anything, Levi’s arrangements merely served to further intensify the determination to rescue Mozart from being tainted by Jewish opportunism Of the contemporary authors who were eager and willing to step into the breach and launch their ‘aryanised’ alternatives to Levi and Da Ponte, Siegfried Anheisser enjoyed a head start over his rivals. Originally trained as a musicol- ogist, Anheisser took his doctorate at the University of Bonn with an analysis of text and music in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. In the early 1920s he was working as an assistant producer in several theatres, moving finally to Essen in 1923 where he hoped to combine his passions for music and theatre through intensive efforts in the operatic field. According to the obituary published in August 1938 edition of Zeitschrift für Musik, Anheisser had already outlined his plans to bring an end to the ‘textual ignominy’ that had blighted German translations of Mozart’s Italian operas in an article which he wrote for the Kölnische Zeitung on 31 August 1926.19 His appointment in the same year to the post of chief producer at the newly founded West German Radio (WERAG) in Cologne gave him the necessary springboard towards achieving this goal. Despite primitive broadcasting technology during this period, the radio station appears to have transmitted an ambitious roster of operas between 1927 and 1930. In order to bring such repertory to a wider public, the Rufu-Verlag in Cologne issued the libretti for these works, with Anheisser generally providing a short introductory essay, and in some cases, rearranging and retranslating the texts.20 Among Werag Sendespiele’s earliest publications was a libretto booklet for Mozart’s Die Hochzeit des Figaro which is of partic- ular interest in view of Anheisser’s subsequent career during the Third Reich. Anheisser’s 1927 version of Figaros Hochzeit is based on an amalgam of various earlier German translations of Da Ponte’s libretto, starting with the long-established versions of Adolf von Knigge, Christian August Vulpius and Carl Niese, but also incorporating some elements of the more recent 59 MOZART AND THE NAZIS edition by Hermann Levi.21 Anheisser’s own contribution consisted of retrans- lations of most of the numbers in the first two acts and the aria ‘Dove sono’ from Act 3.22 At this stage, Anheisser’s attitude towards the Levi version seemed equivocal. On the one hand, he claimed in the introductory essay that Levi’s arrangement achieves a certain level of perfection, but qualified this by suggesting that the conductor’s contribution to the process was more modest than had been previously argued.23 Over the next few years Anheisser would focus his attention towards trying to make much less well-known Italian operas by Mozart as intelligible as possible to German listeners. In 1928 Rufu-Verlag issued his adaptation of La finta giardiniera as Die Gärtnerin aus Liebe, following this with Zaide in 1929. A more ambitious manifestation of this programme was the publication in 1930 by the Verlag des Westdeutschen Rundfunks of both text and piano reduction of Il re pastore, which in Anheisser’s German translation of Metastasio’s text was known as Der Hirt als König. In the written introduction to this edition, Anheisser once again turned his attention to Hermann Levi, making notable distinctions between the conductor’s arrangements of Figaro and Don Giovanni: The best translator of Mozart’s recitatives is usually considered to be Hermann Levi. Already when working on Figaro, however, his extraordi- narily free treatment of the prescribed melodic line, which he deforms severely, disturbed me. Even then, a feeling of instinct pushed me to stick with Mozart to a considerably closer and stricter degree . . . Regarding his Don Giovanni translation, however, one finds that [Levi] has nearly found the right style. He almost follows Mozart note by note and only a few places reveal that the secret of verse has not yet disclosed itself to him, and that he only sounded out the right rhythm intuitively and merely followed his musician’s ear.24 For the Mozart Anniversary Year in 1931 Anheisser returned to his trans- lation of Figaro and, armed with a commission from the Reichsrundfunk- Gesellschaft in Berlin, revised and expanded his original work for publication. In order to justify the decision to bring his translation beyond the sphere of the broadcasting network, Anheisser cited the hostile response to earlier German translations from two eminent Mozart scholars, Hermann Abert and 60 ARYANISING MOZART Bernhard Paumgartner. According to Anheisser, Abert argued that such attempts to adapt Figaro for the German stage represented ‘one of the most dismal chapters in the history of the work’, while Paumgartner condemned these versions for their shallow and distorted Biedermeier style and their violation of the natural relationship between words and music.25 Taking this point a step further, Anheisser notes that earlier translations had been partic- ularly cavalier with regard to adopting the free rhythm of Mozart’s original recitatives, breaking the natural flow of the melodic line, wilfully altering note values, juxtaposing feminine word-endings with masculine ones and gener- ally failing to respect the style of the opera. Although more critical of Hermann Levi than in his 1927 booklet, Anheisser’s analysis of earlier trans- lations remains focused on the relationship between text and melodic line with no particular arrangement singled out for criticism. Certainly the article on his Figaro translation, which he wrote for the October 1931 issue of Die Musik, presents a relatively balanced appraisal of Levi’s version, offering no tangible evidence that Anheisser’s critique in this respect was determined by racial bias.26 Despite Anheisser’s persuasive arguments in favour of his new translation of Figaro securing a place on the German stage, he had to wait three years before the Cologne Opera House gave the premiere of his version in the summer of 1934. In the meantime, nailing his colours to the political mast, he had become a willing collaborator in the reorganisation of the German radio system which had been undertaken by the Nazi regime in 1933.27 Furthermore, he seems to have lent his support to Alfred Rosenberg’s NS-Kulturgemeinde (National Socialist Cultural Community or NSKG) – an organisation that had the neces- sary muscle to carry Anheisser’s campaign for the German Mozart beyond the confines of the broadcasting network and specialist music journals. The link with the NSKG was soon to pay dividends. Apart from the Cologne performance, Anheisser’s Figaro translation was also featured on the Stunde der Nation (Hour of the Nation) programme that was transmitted to all German broadcasting stations in the summer of 1934. The programme to Germanise Mozart’s Italian operas was gathering pace, with the Deutscher Musikverlag in der NS-Kulturgemeinde publishing the libretto and vocal score of Anheisser’s adaptation of La finta giardiniera as Die Gärtnerin aus Liebe in 1934. In the following year Die Gärtnerin aus Liebe was given a high-profile staging at Munich’s Residenz Theater, and at the Munich Festival in the 61 MOZART AND THE NAZIS summer.28 Anheisser then turned his attention back to the remaining Da Ponte operas. In 1935 the Deutscher Musikverlag in der NS-Kulturgemeinde issued the libretto and vocal score of Anheisser’s Don Giovani oder der bestrafte Wüstling and in the following year his Così fan tutte was published by the Neuer Theaterverlag in Berlin. Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 5 Front cover of the piano reduction of Don Giovanni featuring the ‘aryanised’ German translation by Siegfried Anheisser, 1935. 62 ARYANISING MOZART Having published two of Anheisser’s translations and taken over the distri- bution of his Figaro arrangement, the NSKG and its journal Die Musik had a vested interest in ensuring the widest possible dissemination of his work. From 1934 onwards, Die Musik effectively pursued a publicity campaign in favour of their author, carrying regular articles and reviews by various critics praising the profoundly German qualities of Anheisser’s work.29 At the same time, the journal was particularly keen to name and shame opera houses that persisted in performing Mozart in the Hermann Levi translations. First in the line of fire was the Berlin Staatsoper. In November 1935 the critic Herbert Gerigk, commenting on the Staatsoper’s performance of Così fan tutte, raised strong objections against Richard Strauss who had commended the ‘almost exemplary text translations by Hermann Levi’ in the accompa- nying programme book.30 A few months later, Die Musik attacked the Dresden Staatsoper for staging a new production of Don Giovanni while still adhering to the Levi translation: The performance had only one grave blemish. It used the decrepit transla- tion of Hermann Levi for the work (a fact that was tactically suppressed from the programme book) . . . It is well-known that Levi’s translation is quite inadequate, and hardly less well-known that we have the translation of Siegfried Anheisser, which has been created in the spirit of the German language and, at the same time, in the spirit of Mozart’s music, in the same way in which he had already translated Figaro some years ago. In our opinion, the leading theatres should set a good example instead of regarding it as their task to galvanise the corpse of the Levi version artificially.31 The vendetta against Hermann Levi gathered pace from 1936 onwards. In April of that year Hermann Killer, reviewing a performance of Figaros Hochzeit at the Berlin Volksoper reinforced the point that it ‘goes without saying that Levi’s arrangement no longer has a place in today’s Germany’.32 Friedrich Herzog was more emphatic. Reviewing the first performance of Anheisser’s arrangement of Così fan tutte in January 1937, he appealed to the higher authority of the Reichstheaterkammer to confirm the primacy of Anheisser’s versions and outlaw further performances of the Levi 63 MOZART AND THE NAZIS arrangement.33 This position was more forcefully stated by the Völkischer Beobachter on 13 February 1937: The fact that the earlier bad translator of the German Mozart was the Jew Hermann Levi, can only encourage us in our struggles; and Anheisser’s work of modernisation, too, has always been attacked by Jews and their accom- plices! Every German will surely agree with us that it must really be regarded as ‘a blemish for Germany’ today if there are still German stages that perform the bad translations of Levi when there is a good German translation avail- able, only because in their walls some ‘more or less prominent people’ tremble in desperation about relearning the text, paint the name of their patron Levi on their doors with some stick-in-the-muds, and want to block every crack from the fresh air of the German spirit with the word ‘tradition’.34 The pro-Anheisser, anti-Levi campaign drew support from sources outside the immediate orbit of the Rosenberg wing of the Party. For example, Dr Hans Sikorski wrote letters to Hans Hinkel in the Propaganda Ministry in 1936 and 1937, condemning the Berlin Youth Theatre for having put on a production of Figaro in 1936 using the Hermann Levi translation. As Director of the Vertriebsstelle und Verlag Deutscher Bühnenschriftsteller und Bühnenkomponisten (Sales Office and Publisher of the German Association of Playwrights and Theatre Composers), Sikorski had a vested interest in promoting the sale of Anheisser’s publications, and he hoped Hinkel would use his influence to ensure that the German broadcasting authorities banned transmission of the Levi versions.35 Other influential voices to lend their support included the eminent Mozart scholar Dr Ludwig Schiedermair. Writing in the Kölnische Zeitung on 4 October 1935, Schiedermair praised the NS-Kulturgemeinde for promoting ‘the sensitive translations of Dr Siegfried Anheisser’ which succeeded in presenting Mozart’s work in ‘its purest undamaged form liberated from the clogged-up layers of the nineteenth century’ and ‘put an end at last to the widespread caricatures of translation on the German operatic stage’.36 Likewise, the famous baritone Gerhard Hüsch felt compelled to persuade his reluctant singing colleagues to avoid an unthinking adherence to Levi on the grounds of familiarity, and shift their allegiance to Anheisser. Hüsch informed readers of the journal Die Bühne in December 1935 that some eight years 64 ARYANISING MOZART earlier he had steadfastly refused to learn Hermann Levi’s text for a new production of Figaro at the Cologne Opera. He persisted with this refusal when singing the same opera in Berlin, stating that he took this stand despite recognising that singers in general maintained an understandable aversion to re-learning material. This was something which he argued was growing into a slow illness, particularly in Mozart’s case. Yet according to Hüsch no-one could ‘refute my claim that Levi’s version, apart from being a scrappy piece of patchwork, has the brand of inadequacy written on its face far too much’.37 Throughout this period, Anheisser also tirelessly promoted his work in a series of articles. One of his earliest writings, published in the Völkischer Beobachter on 2 November 1934 under the title ‘Der deutschen Bühne den deutschen Mozart!’, regurgitates a few of the same arguments and illustrations that had already appeared in the October 1931 issue of Die Musik, but the tone is more trenchant than three years earlier, revealing a particular bitter- ness at the reluctance thus far of German opera houses to take up his version of Figaro.38 In specialist journals, however, Anheisser was generally more restrained, examining in analytical detail the differences of approach adopted in his translations as compared to those of his predecessors, including Hermann Levi.39 While engaged on producing his various translations and articles, Anheisser worked on the book Für den deutschen Mozart (For the German Mozart), published in 1938, which represented the culmination of his life’s work. For the most part, Anheisser concerned himself with expanding the kind of painstaking analytical and semantic discussion of the relationship between text and music that was already familiar from his earlier scholarly articles. Only in a section entitled ‘Hermann Levi und die anderen jüdischen Übersetzer: Die Stellung des Judentums zu Mozart und Wagner’ (Hermann Levi and the other Jewish translators: the position of Judaism with regard to Mozart and Wagner) did he succumb to gratuitous anti-Semitism.40 Apart from subjecting Hermann Levi to character assassination, the line of argument he adopted here is a familiar one of conspiracy, namely that the Jews had misappropriated Mozart as their favourite composer in opposition to Wagner. This conspiracy, Anheisser argued, had begun during Mozart’s lifetime as a result of inescapable circumstances. He suggested that after settling in Vienna during the 1780s, Mozart had little option in his choice of librettist if he wanted to gain favour at the Hapsburg court: 65 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 6 Advertisement emphasising the widespread dissemination of Siegfried Anheisser’s version of Figaros Hochzeit. Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 7 Article from a contemporary theatre journal promoting Anheisser’s Mozart translations. 66 ARYANISING MOZART The Jews would have liked to turn Mozart into their most favoured composer; they even felt like the guardian of his heritage and in fact probably toyed with the idea of branding him as a fellow of the Jews. After all, they could argue that in Da Ponte, the baptised Jew, he had found the librettist of his most important Italian operas! However they forgot, or concealed all too readily that Mozart, heavily oppressed by the Italians and leading the bitterest battle for artistic recognition, had to use a librettist that was approved of and was influential at the Emperor’s court in order to be performed in Vienna at all. Emperor Joseph II had already made Da Ponte an official playwright in 1784, and it was the Emperor who commissioned compositions. Indeed, only an opera whose performance was ordered by the Emperor could rely on being staged.41 Following his contention that it was only the genius of Mozart that breathed life into the text of the ‘dwarf Da Ponte’, Anheisser suggested that his own ultimate intentions went far beyond the necessity to suppress Levi’s transla- tions, ‘because . . . I did not merely push aside Levi’s translations, but replaced the Jewish texts of Da Ponte with new Aryan poetry!’42 In other words, as Carl Niessen explained in the postlude to Für den deutschen Mozart, Anheisser was driven by the ambition to restore Mozart’s operas to the ‘rightful’ ownership of the Germans: Anheisser has reclaimed the German Mozart for young people, upon which alone depends the future of our national theatre. He has accomplished this in a way that no longer insults common sense, and with a feeling for language that is entirely in the spirit of the heavenly music.43 Herman Roth’s Don Giovanni Despite a residual reluctance in certain opera houses to dispense with their long-term allegiance to Hermann Levi, performance statistics and various advertisements published between 1934 and 1938 suggest that Anheisser and the NSKG by and large succeeded in persuading many German opera houses to take up his versions. By December 1935, for example, Anheisser’s Figaro had been performed in Cologne, Berlin, Bochum, Bonn, Braunschweig, Duisburg Frankfurt am Main, Halberstadt, Halle, Hamborn, Kaiserslautern, Krefeld, Leipzig and Münster.44 Furthermore, according to the information 67 MOZART AND THE NAZIS presented in the book Für den deutschen Mozart, seventy-six theatres had already put Anheisser’s Don Giovanni into their repertoire by the time of his death in 1938.45 Yet despite these obvious advances in his favour, the success of Anheisser’s attempt to exercise a complete monopoly over German translations of Mozart was by no means guaranteed. The politics of rivalry, which were never discouraged in Nazi Germany, made it all but inevitable that other trans- lators would stake a claim for German opera houses to adopt their versions of Mozart rather than his. The first person to have mounted a serious challenge to Anheisser’s primacy was Herman Roth, his new translation of Don Giovanni being first performed at the Hamburg State Opera on 6 September 1936. A pupil of Hugo Riemann, Roth worked as a music critic in Leipzig (1907–10) and Munich (1910–20), taught at the Conservatory in Baden-Baden (1921–24) and at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart (1925–32), then as a music critic in Hamburg (1932–35), settling finally in Berlin. Roth secured a fine reputation as an editor of works by Bach, Handel and C.P.E. Bach. As a translator, he had carved out a reputa- tion as a Handel specialist, his adaptations of Tamerlano (1925) Solomon (1926) and Alcina (1928) having been published by Breitkopf & Härtel. Earlier, he had written books on Gluck (1922) and Beethoven’s Fidelio (1922). The Mainz publisher Schott, who was scheduled to bring out his translation of Don Giovanni, featured a short article by Herman Roth about his work in the October 1936 issue of their house magazine Neues Musikblatt. Apart from informing readers that he had begun work on his version of Don Giovanni in 1927, Roth revealed his scholarly credentials by discussing the relative merits of the Prague and Vienna versions of the opera and stating that his edition had been based almost exclusively on the former. Beyond this, he outlined the principles which he had utilized to achieve as faithful a representation as possible of Da Ponte’s libretto: Faithfulness to the poetic and musical original, to the unity into which both have grown for us, was the core intention of the new translation. While the composition hitherto proved decisive artistically, the libretto itself will probably not have received a more precise and more ‘readable’ German reproduction until now: there is never anything invented beyond what it contains, at least its rhythmical features and, where feasible, also its form of rhyme have been maintained and its characteristic tone, which has justly been labelled ‘ironic’, 68 ARYANISING MOZART has been Germanised as far as possible. The main advantage of this should be with regards to a performance. It will now be possible to really capture the comic dimensions of the work, which linguistically and musically depends on the recondite iridescent fusion of buffa and seria elements, also in the German text . . . the factually precise translation succeeds in enlivening the subject matter of the play. This is an additional advantage that might be hoped to be welcomed by producers and performers alike.46 Immediately below Roth’s article Neues Musikblatt printed an effusive review of the first Hamburg performance by the critic Robert Oboussier under the title ‘Great success in Hamburg’. Oboussier commended Roth for having devised a text that had overcome the roughness of earlier versions whilst achieving an ‘astonishing’ fidelity to the original Italian. Furthermore, he reported that the Hamburg audience reacted with spontaneous enthusiasm to a superbly executed performance, a response which Oboussier had rarely encountered when it came to Mozart’s operas.47 Not everyone welcomed Roth’s version with same degree of enthusiasm as Oboussier. Predictably the most hostile reaction emanated from Rosenberg’s journal Die Musik which in the same month published an editorial bitterly attacking Roth’s translation. Having intensively promoted Anheisser’s Don Giovanni since its publication the previous year, they were hardly likely to welcome the arrival of a competitor. In order to persuade readers of the merits of their criticisms, they published selected excerpts from the texts by Anheisser and Roth in a line-by-line comparison, interspersing these with observations that predictably favoured the former at the expense of the latter. Their main complaint was directed against Roth’s attempt to maintain a faithful adherence to Da Ponte’s original; in the opinion of Die Musik, only Anheisser’s version breathed the ‘true spirit of the German language’. The editorial mocked Roth’s programme book, suggesting that far from being the Messiah who had managed to resolve once and for all the problem of translating Da Ponte’s libretto into German, on the evidence of the Hamburg performances, his arrangement did not reflect any progress, but rather an ‘embarrassing backward step’.48 Determined at all costs to sink Herman Roth’s Don Giovanni translation, Die Musik continued their criticisms in the following month (November 1936). Reporting on the Hamburg performance, H.W. Kulenkampff affirmed the prob- lematic nature of Roth’s translation, but also suggested, in direct contradiction to 69 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Robert Oboussier, that the performance had been completely deficient in theatrical matters, demonstrating a singular lack of coordination between stage designer and producer. Even worse, the main female characters had been poorly cast, Donna Anna being over-dramatic and Donna Elvira too lyrical.49 Other music journals offered a more measured reaction to Roth’s Don Giovanni. Writing in the Signale für die musikalische Welt, Richard Ohlekopf conceded that in places Roth had sacrificed beauty of language in his quest to preserve a stronger relationship to the Italian text, but nonetheless praised the quality of the recitatives.50 On the other hand, Walter Hapke in the Zeitschrift für Musik maintained a stronger allegiance to Anheisser, criticizing Roth for denigrating Anheisser’s achievements at a press conference and more specifi- cally for wreaking havoc with the rhythmic patterns of Mozart’s melodic line.51 Observing from the sidelines in Austria, the debate surrounding the respective merits of the Anheisser and Roth translations prompted the Schenker disciple Viktor Zuckerkandl (writing as Viktor Zauner) to reflect in more analytical depth about the relationship between text and music in Mozart’s opera in an article published in the journal Der Dreiklang.52 The mixed reception accorded to Roth’s translation inevitably impeded its wider dissemination. Certainly its prospects could not have been helped by the knowledge that the soloists engaged for the Hamburg performance allegedly required as many as 300 rehearsals simply to learn the text – a staggering statistic which would have bankrupted a much smaller opera house. Therefore, although the Deutsches Opernhaus in Berlin mounted a new production of Don Giovanni in September 1937 using Roth’s translation, few other opera houses followed suit. Some may also have been frightened off by Herbert Gerigk’s article on Mozart published in the NS-Monatshefte in which he endorsed Hitler’s 1937 admonition against those who failed to respect Die Zauberflöte and implicitly attacked Roth for greed, opportunism and arrogance in considering himself wiser than one of the greatest geniuses of musical drama.53 Such hostility, coming from a highly influential source, must have inhibited Schott from going ahead with its intention to publish Roth’s version. The text remained in manuscript and plans to issue a vocal score never materialised. Nonetheless, the performance of two newly ‘aryanised’ versions of Don Giovanni within a year of each other generated considerable debate. Although Anheisser may have won this particular contest in terms of securing more performances, neither translation had emerged as clearly superior. As Walter 70 ARYANISING MOZART Krüger regretfully remarked in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, the situation regarding Mozart translations could easily become one of ‘Babylonian confu- sion’. As far as he was concerned, it was an ‘imperative necessity’ that all ‘German opera institutions’ should come to an agreement and support one translation.54 Yet the issue was only to become increasingly complicated when more people made their pitch for this particular territory. Willy Meckbach’s Figaros Hochzeit Of all Anheisser’s rivals, Willy Meckbach was undoubtedly the most formi- dable. Whilst earning his living as a civil servant, the poet and playwright had devoted a lifetime to studying, adapting and translating Mozart’s stage works. A prolific writer, he produced several articles on Mozart which were published during the 1930s, most significantly two extended essays ‘Unbekannte dramatische Meisterwerke Mozarts’ (Unknown Dramatic Masterpieces by Mozart) and ‘Mozarts Melodramen’ (Mozart’s Melodramas) which were printed in the journal Deutsche Musikkultur.55 In a 70th birthday tribute to Meckbach published in the May 1939 issue of the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, Otto Eckstein-Ehrenegg underlined the scale of his achieve- ment, drawing special attention to the eight operas which he had adapted for the stage (including Gomas und Zaide, Die Gräfin Gärtnerin, L’oca del Cairo, Der Schauspieldirektor, Figaro, Così fan tutte and two versions of Idomeneo) as well as the five Mozart arrangements that had been performed either in the concert hall or on the radio (Idomeneo, Gomas und Zaide, König Thamos and the early Apollo et Hyacinthus).56 As is evident from this list, Meckbach focused most of his energies on attempting to make Mozart’s lesser-known Italian operas stageworthy, his greatest success being Die Gnade des Titus (La Clemenza di Tito) which was published by Schott and first performed with considerable success at the Nuremberg Opera in the summer of 1937.57 Since Meckbach had also completed his own translations of Figaro and Così fan tutte, he was almost inevitably going to be drawn into direct rivalry with Siegfried Anheisser. In fact Meckbach fired the opening shots in this contest in May 1936 with an article in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung dealing with the issues involved in making a German translation of Cherubino’s aria ‘Voi che sapete’. Having recently attended a performance of Figaro in Anheisser’s adaptation, Meckbach remained neutral in his assessment of the 71 MOZART AND THE NAZIS translation. Nonetheless, the experience of hearing Figaro in this context seems to have inspired him to make his own version of the text. Selecting Cherubino’s aria as a starting point, he subjected the translations by Hermann Levi and Anheisser to analytical scrutiny. While daring to suggest that in certain instances Levi’s solution was more effective than Anheisser’s, he justified the inclusion of his own ‘improved’ version of the text with specific examples. The article concluded with the three translations placed side by side.58 Anheisser does not appear to have responded to Meckbach’s criticisms of his work at this juncture. But after Meckbach produced a further article in the March 1937 issue of Die Literatur in which he reflected more generally on the principles of translating Mozart’s Italian librettos into German, Anheisser felt duty-bound to outline his own position. Accordingly, in July of the same year Die Literatur carried Anheisser’s response – a lengthy diatribe in which he attacked his predecessors such as Hermann Levi and the more recent Don Giovanni translation of Herman Roth. Meckbach too came in for criticism on the grounds that he had attached far too much significance to issues which Anheisser considered of incidental interest.59 One month later the editor of Die Literatur allowed Meckbach the right of reply. While it was not his intention to open up a philological quarrel, the editor contended that readers might well be enlightened by the discussion of some of the difficult issues that faced translators of libretti. Meckbach was far less accommodating, however. First he disputed Anheisser’s contention that he was merely preoccupied with trivialities: I have clearly stated what I consider to be the essential point. The translator must find words that are suitable to amalgamate into unity with Mozart’s music, which, with all its expressive strength, always remains graceful. How could this be a ‘triviality’?60 Then Meckbach questioned Anheisser’s ethical position, particularly with regard to his attack on Herman Roth. As far as he was concerned, the fact that Meckbach, Roth and Anheisser were actively engaged in Mozart translations was a positive rather than negative development: It would be good if all three left it to others to judge their achievements comparatively. Nothing can be said against Anheisser juxtaposing for compar- 72 ARYANISING MOZART ison his own translation of a passage of a secco recitative from Don Giovanni with that of Roth. If he himself passes the verdict in such a competition and condemns one as a ‘slavish’ piece of translation, however, while honouring the other one with the title of ‘Germanisation’, this is an exaggeration which can only be explained in itself as a natural bias, but cannot be justified. An impar- tial judge will hardly find any considerable difference of merit between these two translations of this comparatively insignificant passage.61 Stoking up the argument with even greater vitriol, Anheisser hit back at Meckbach in his book Für den deutschen Mozart. While regretting the hostility with which Meckbach had reacted to his article in Die Literatur, Anheisser decided that he would answer line-by-line Meckbach’s criticisms of his translation of ‘Voi che sapete’. The conclusion he came to was that Meckbach’s alternative was neither musically nor poetically distinguished and even reflected a deficient understanding of the German language.62 It was only after Anheisser’s death that Meckbach had an opportunity to present his Figaro translation to the public. Having mounted a successful staging of his arrangement of Die Gnade von Titus, the Nuremberg Opera was particularly well disposed to maintaining a good partnership with Meckbach. Accordingly, it staged the first performance of Meckbach’s Figaro in May 1939. Critical reaction was positive. For example, Willy Spilling, writing in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, commended Meckbach’s German translation as being in a ‘good style, mirroring the characteristic features of Mozart’s musical language: the nature of his humour, sometimes hidden, sometimes drastic, the lightness of the accents, the pathos-less passion of his music as well as its trans- parency and natural simplicity’.63 Ministerial indecision and inaction The extensive and rather undignified bickering between Anheisser and Roth, and between Anheisser and Meckbach, presented a somewhat confused situation. Opera houses remained uncertain as to which translation of the Da Ponte operas they should adopt. Yet the theatre authorities seemed to prevar- icate. They realised that singers were still reluctant to learn new translations, particularly after having studied these works in the trusted Hermann Levi versions. Ideologically they were obliged to dispense with Levi, but at 73 MOZART AND THE NAZIS the same time, they were not offered unequivocal guidance from the Nazi hierarchy as to which of the three possible contenders they should endorse. Three entries in Goebbels’s diaries reveal that the Propaganda Minister was well aware of the problem. On 2 October 1936 he reported that the issue had been discussed with Heinz Tietjen, the Intendant of the Berlin Staatsoper. At this meeting Goebbels promised Tietjen to convene an examination board to provide him and others with a definitive answer.64 Tietjen was particularly hostile to Anheisser’s work, so much so that he had effectively placed a temporary embargo on further performances of the Da Ponte operas in his own theatre until the matter had been resolved.65 But on 5 December of the same year Goebbels confided that he had passed the decision temporarily to a group of experts in the Ministry of Propaganda since the position still remained unclear.66 Three months later, he reported that no further progress had been made. As no agreement had been reached, he was unwilling to make a ruling since the arguments for revision ‘had not been fully formed’.67 Goebbels’s apparent willingness to pass the buck and avoid making a judge- ment regarding the Da Ponte operas may have been influenced by the hostile reactions to Anheisser from Tietjen and the conductor Clemens Krauss. A more likely explanation, however, was that Anheisser had thrown in his lot with Rosenberg, Goebbels’s bitter rival in cultural matters. It was therefore highly unlikely that Goebbels would ever have made a public endorsement of Anheisser’s versions, so he allowed the matter to rumble on. Without a clear decision from the Nazi hierarchy in 1937, other theatres were faced with the possibility of following Tietjen’s example by imposing a reduction or a wholesale ban on the number of performances of Mozart’s Da Ponte operas. Recognising the problem and anxious that opera houses did not simply revert to clandestine performances of the Levi translations, the Reichsdramaturg Rainer Schlösser gave notice on 30 January 1937 that hence- forth all new productions of Mozart’s operas should contain precise informa- tion about which German translation was being used.68 Significantly, the ruling did not indicate a clear preference for a specific version. An attempt to stem the tide of indecision was made by Richard Ohlekopf, the editor of the Berlin-based journal Signale für die musikalische Welt. Ohlekopf took it upon himself to mount a campaign with the objective of bringing the matter to some kind of resolution. In an editorial published in April 1938, Ohlekopf looked forward to the first Reichsmusiktage (National 74 ARYANISING MOZART Music Days), to be held in Düsseldorf in the following month, as he believed this event would provide the perfect opportunity for the Propaganda Minister to rule on the matter and save theatre directors from further ‘headaches’.69 Unfortunately Ohlekopf ’s plea was to fall on deaf ears. Reviewing musical events over the past 12 months in December 1938, he noted ruefully that the issue had not yet been resolved since no decision had been taken in Düsseldorf.70 However, the impending performance on 22 January 1939 on Frankfurt Radio of Willy Meckbach’s arrangement of Idomeneo allowed him another opportunity to give readers his own appraisal of the respective strengths of all three contenders. Herman Roth was praised for his accurate word for word translations, Anheisser for the brilliant parlando of the recita- tives, whilst Meckbach demonstrated a strong understanding of classical German in the style of the eighteenth century.71 In March 1939 Ohlekopf reviewed Anheisser’s book Für den deutschen Mozart. He was particularly incensed by the author’s unnecessarily malicious attacks on Roth and Meckbach which went against the ‘grain of the cheerful- ness and joy that was so characteristic of Mozart’s art’.72 Two months later the successful performance in Nuremberg of Meckbach’s version of Figaro spurred Ohlekopf yet again to provide a possible solution to the current impasse. Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of all three translators, he concluded that Anheisser, despite his antagonistic character, had produced an excellent Così fan tutte, while he suggested Roth was the best solution for Don Giovanni and Meckbach for Figaro: We do not consider it correct to grant a monopoly to any of these translators or to a new additional one, i.e. to decree that only one translator can be performed in Germany. In the area of art free competition must not be elim- inated. Also, there might well be legal doubts raised regarding a monopoly solution. It is not admissible to ignore the decades of work of serious Mozart scholars and to deprive publishers or the partners of publishers, who have promoted these works with considerable expenses in some cases, of the profit for their work with a stroke of the pen.73 Ohlekopf was not to know that his suggestions would soon be rendered obsolete. After three years of indecisiveness, a final pronouncement on the Mozart Da Ponte translations was forthcoming. Instead of favouring one of 75 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 8 Title pages of Mozart opera libretti published by the Berlin firm of Emil Wernitz in 1938 in conjunction with the Amt Feierabend der NS-Kulturgemeinde Kraft durch Freude in der deutschen Arbeitsfront (Leisure time division of the NS Cultural Community Strength through Joy movement). Note that Da Ponte’s authorship of the text is only acknowledged in the edition of Figaro. 76 ARYANISING MOZART the three translators at the expense of the others, or adopting Ohlekopf’s suggestion of selecting the best version of each opera, a decision was reached to bring a new expert into the arena. The chosen candidate was the highly respected Berlin academic, Georg Schünemann. Georg Schünemann to the rescue Unlike Anheisser, Meckbach and Roth, Schünemann had been a major figure in German musical life for many years. In 1920 he was appointed deputy director of the Berlin Hochschule für Musik and concurrently held an academic position at Berlin University. During the Weimar Republic, Schünemann developed a reputation as a progressive, working closely with the Socialist Leo Kestenberg in the reorganisation of institutional and private music education in Prussia. He also published widely on pre-Romantic composers including Zelter and on music pedagogy.74 When nationalist forces in the Prussian government removed Franz Schreker from his post as Director of the Hochschule in 1932, Schünemann was nominated his successor. After the political changeover in the following year, however, he soon realized that his position might be vulnerable. In an attempt to protect his job, Schünemann tried to join the Nazi Party, but his membership was rejected primarily on the grounds of his previous associa- tion with Kestenberg. Despite making further overtures to the Party, his efforts to ingratiate himself with the new regime failed, and he was dismissed from the Hochschule in May 1933. At the same time he was allowed to continue his work at the University, and was appointed to become director of the State Musical Instrument Collections. One year later, the Nazis placed him in charge of the music section of the Prussian State Library, though he accepted this enforced appointment somewhat grudgingly. According to Michael Kater, Schünemann spent the following years trying ‘to get by as best he could’, while ‘undoubtedly resenting the Nazi state and what it had done to him’.75 Nevertheless, he continued to work diligently as a writer, completing the Führer durch die deutsche Chorliteratur, a book of facsimiles entitled Musikerhandschriften von Bach bis Schumann and a short study of Schubert in 1936. In the following year, he discovered in the vaults of the library a long-forgotten Violin Concerto that Schumann had composed near the end of his life. After being edited for publication, the Concerto 77 MOZART AND THE NAZIS enjoyed several performances and was recorded by the violinist Georg Kulenkampff for Telefunken.76 Without doubt Schünemann’s revival of the Schumann Concerto helped to secure his rehabilitation, and henceforth his scholarly expertise was deemed of vital importance to the regime. It also served to remind the authorities of the other musical treasures in the Prussian State Library that warranted reappraisal, in particular the autograph manuscripts of Mozart’s Figaro and Così, as well as important editions, libretti, and early German translations of all three Da Ponte operas. Since Schünemann had done such a good job for Schumann, he was the obvious person to tackle these works. Earlier attempts in the 1930s to provide German translations of the Da Ponte operas had been self-motivated ventures – although Siegfried Anheisser had enjoyed the support of the NSKG – whereas this time it was the Ministry of Propaganda that formally engaged Schünemann with the task of editing these operas for the German stage. The financial rewards for this work were to be considerable. In April 1940 the Ministry granted Schünemann an honorarium of 4,000 Reichsmarks in recognition of his labours. As a further indication of the official nature of the whole enterprise, it should be noted that Schünemann’s Mozart editions were to be brought under the aegis of the Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen (Government organization for musical arrangement), an adjunct of the Propaganda Ministry formed on 1 May 1940 for the dual purpose of restoring and rearranging early operas and operettas and imposing upon them revisions that were deemed ideologically acceptable to the regime.77 As a scholar first and foremost, Schünemann’s main objective was to prepare editions of the Mozart operas that attained exemplary textual fidelity to Mozart’s original manuscripts, while in the cases of Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte bringing into the public domain musical material that had been suppressed or inaccessible in earlier editions.78 For the more controver- sial issue of the German translation, he determined that ‘the most beautiful phrases and these which have been sung everywhere in the German lands for a century’ should be preserved. ‘The additions, re-compositions, and changes of irresponsible arrangers are deleted. All passages where Mozart’s score demands a precise transcription and translation have been renewed.’79 Negotiations for the publication of Schünemann’s editions were a protracted business, and they were not helped by internal wrangling between Rosenberg’s organisation and the Ministry of Propaganda. On 16 December 1938, Herbert 78 ARYANISING MOZART Gerigk, Rosenberg’s musical advisor, wrote a lengthy diatribe berating Dr Fritz Chlodwig Lange of the Theatre Department of the Ministry of Propaganda for the way in which the issue of the Mozart translations had been handled by the Propaganda Ministry. Gerigk was outraged that the Ministry had taken the decision to commission Schünemann as a fait accompli without consulting Rosenberg’s office. Expressing annoyance and suspicion at the undue influence exerted by Heinz Tietjen and Clemens Krauss in their continued rejection of Anheisser, he doubted whether it would be possible to enforce a ruling against the 76 theatres that were currently performing his translations of the Mozart operas. Finally, Gerigk raised strong objections about the announcement, emanating from the Ministry, that Schott was scheduled to publish Schünemann’s editions. Recalling their promotion some years earlier of the Herman Roth arrangement of Don Giovanni, he felt that giving such work to the Mainz publisher was totally unacceptable ‘due to its political past and its questionable behaviour during the first year of Nazi rule’.80 Gerigk was unable to override the Ministry in its decisions except in the case of Schott, whose agreement to publish the editions stalled. Somewhat later, at the beginning of 1939, plans were floated for a joint publication between various different companies, but this too was shelved. Eventually an agreement was concluded between Schünemann and C. F. Peters of Leipzig on 29 December 1939 for the publication of vocal and full scores of each opera, while Schünemann’s translations were also issued in libretto form by Reclam. Kurt Soldan was employed to provide the piano reductions, having already taken on this task for the same firm some years earlier when it issued the Mozart operas with Hermann Levi’s translations. It was surely a strange irony that Peters was the favoured publisher for these versions of the Da Ponte operas. Only a year earlier, in November 1938, the Nazis had begun the process of confiscating the assets of the company, which was owned by the Jew Henri Hinrichsen. By April 1939 Peters had been ‘aryanised’ and was in the hands of new proprietors.81 Rumours that new translations of the Mozart Da Ponte operas were being prepared inevitably leaked out to opera houses. Many were understandably anxious to know where they stood, particularly those who had planned new productions of these works for the 1939/40 season. For instance on 9 May 1939 the director of the Städtischen Theater in Leipzig wrote to the Reichsdramaturg asking for confirmation of future plans. He informed Schlösser that his company were preparing a new production of Così fan tutte in the Anheisser version, 79 MOZART AND THE NAZIS having previously performed the work in the Levi arrangement. Understandably, he wanted to know whether such effort was to be in vain. On 26 June 1939 he received definitive information from the office of the Reichsdramaturg that a new version of Così fan tutte was indeed to be forthcoming in the next year. In the meantime, the theatre was given the option of waiting for the new material or continuing to perform the opera in the Anheisser version.82 Taking the latter decision not only in Leipzig, but at other theatres offered a temporary boost for Anheisser’s translation. Furthermore, his arrangements were now more widely available throughout the greater German Reich, having recently been absorbed into the catalogue of the Viennese publisher Universal Edition.83 Meanwhile, Schünemann’s versions had to prove themselves in the theatre. Perhaps the authorities decided that an element of caution was required for the very first performance, since the premiere of Schünemann’s Don Giovanni was assigned to a provincial theatre in Osnabrück on 29 November 1939. Exactly one month later, however, his Così fan tutte was given a much higher profile, the first performance taking place on 29 December at the Dresden State Opera under Karl Böhm with Rudolf Hartmann as producer. Figaros Hochzeit in the Schünemann edition followed in January 1940 at the Hamburg State Opera under Eugen Jochum. Reviews of all three performances were entirely favourable. For example, the Zeitschrift für Musik, a journal which had always remained especially close to the Propaganda Ministry, carried highly sympathetic appraisals focusing in partic- ular on the outstanding qualities of Schünemann’s translations. According to the critic who was present at the Osnabrück Don Giovanni, Schünemann’s work ‘with its combination of certain folk-like phrases and a philological-musical fidelity to the urtext’ had all the promising prospects to outperform the attempts of his rivals and to put an end to the now unbearable chaos in this area’.84 Likewise, Ernst Krause, commenting on the Dresden Così, remarked that above all Schünemann had made a successful attempt to bridge the gap between the new popular renewals of Mozart’s style and the original spirit of the composer.85 Around the same period an endorsement by the producer Rudolf Hartmann that appeared on the 28 March 1940 in the journal Die Bühne, published alongside Schünemann’s article Der deutsche Mozart, was clearly designed to persuade theatre personnel to embrace Schünemann’s versions as soon as possible. Reflecting on the Dresden performance of Così, Hartmann emphasised that 80 ARYANISING MOZART The exceptional success of this performance was, not least, a joyful acknowledgement expressed by the audience and the press of Schünemann’s felicitous text version whose highest values lie in the extraordinarily careful and diligent way in which the entire revision of the libretto and the score is carried out. The most exhaustive knowledge of every variant of the urtext that ever existed as well as the exact examination of common traditions has led to the result that, paradoxically, much was preserved that has proved successful and has long been disseminated through tradition. Improvements, where necessary, have been employed in quite a personal way, but these passages, too, prove an unusual skill for the necessities of the living theatre, in such a way that the notorious difficulties of ‘text relearning’ for singers hardly made an appearance anymore even during the course of rehearsals.86 Such propaganda helped Schünemann’s cause and within months several major theatres had taken these versions into their repertory. With the Mozart anniversary year just over the horizon, the Propaganda Ministry was particu- larly determined to ensure that all opera houses in the Reich should have fallen into line as soon as possible. From the 1940/41 season onwards, earlier translations of Mozart were to be discarded in favour of the officially sanctioned versions by Schünemann, although not every theatre was able to fulfil this obligation immediately.87 As with Anheisser some years earlier, Schünemann acted as a persuasive spokesmen for his work. Reiterating the principles he had outlined in his programme note for the Osnabrück performance of Don Giovanni, he criti- cised in particular the efforts of his immediate predecessors such as Anheisser for missing the songfulness and musicality, the easy-going ‘singspiel’-like colour of the language and the popularity of expression in the original text. In an article published one year later in 1941, Schünemann expanded on this point, justifying his position in the light of the many alternatives that had recently been foisted on the public: In the last decade, it had become an unwritten fashion to arrange Mozart’s three Italian operas according more or less to one’s own ideas. Kapellmeisters changed notes and words, directors ‘worked out’ the scenic details and philol- ogists did the rest to attack the content and prove the grave errors and mistakes that were committed by those of an earlier generation. Babylonian 81 MOZART AND THE NAZIS language confusion had reigned supreme. During an audition, the newcomer asked: ‘Shall I sing the aria with the old text, with Roth’s, or Anheisser’s?’ To the astonished counter-question she replied that she had studied all three to be able to understudy her chosen role right away. What might [the role] look like inside such a head? Can an inner relation with the music really be assumed in such a case? Or, rather, didn’t the singer inwardly curse all arrangers?88 While inevitably blowing his own trumpet, Schünemann resisted the temp- tation to indulge in a spot of Jew–baiting, as Siegfried Anheisser had done. With any mention of Hermann Levi, he was necessarily obliged to remind readers of the conductor’s Jewish origins. Yet rather than inferring that sinister motives that had guided Levi’s translations, he preferred to argue the case against him on purely musical grounds: the Jew Hermann Levi. . . . was a man of considerable practical experience who had joined the Wagner movement in Karlsruhe and Munich. Wagnerian diction had become second nature to him in such a way that he simply bent and adjusted even Mozart’s recitatives to follow this stylistic pattern. Some parts were re-composed with added appoggiaturas and whole lines of notes, sacrificing every Mozartian feature to the principle of ‘speech melody’.89 Yet despite hiding behind the umbrella of scholarly purity in both defending and promoting his work, Schünemann was ultimately unable to escape the charge that his work was politically tainted. When Peters finally published the editions in the summer of 1941, a page in all three full scores carried the official seal of government approval with the statement that ‘This edition has been created by order of the Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda [Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda] and has been published in the war-year of 1941 to mark the 150th anniversary of Mozart’s death within the framework of the new edition under the supervi- sion of the Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen [Reichs department for musical arrangement] and the Reichsdramaturg.90 Further perusal of these scores is instructive. For example, the decision to place German text above the original Italian, reversing a procedure that had been unquestioned in previous publications, was surely a nationalist ploy designed to reclaim once and for all Mozart’s Italian operas as quintessentially 82 ARYANISING MOZART Da Ponte Levi Anheisser Meckbach Schünemann Voi, che sapete che cosa è amor, donne, vedete, s’io l’ho nel cor. Quello ch’io provo, vi ridirò è per me nuovo, capir nol so. Sento un affetto Pien di desir, ch’ora è diletto, ch’ora è martir. Gello, e poi sento l’alma avvampar, e in un momento torno a gelar. Ricerco un bene fuori di me, non so ch’il tiene, non so cos’è. Sospiro e gemo senza voler, palpito e tremor senza saper. Non trovo pace notte nè di, ma pur mi piace languir così, Voi, che sapete che cosa è amor, donne, vedete, s’io l’ho nel cor. Sagt, holde Frauen die ihr sie kennt, sagt, ist es Liebe, was hier so brennt? Was mir geschehen, ist mir so neu, kanns nicht verstehen was es nur sei? Sehnend Verlangen schwellt mir die Brust, freudiges Bangen leidvolle Lust! Durch alle Glieder strömt’s glühend, heiβ ach! und dann wieder werd’ ich zu Eis. In weiter Ferne winkt mir das Glück, doch will ich’s fassen, weicht es zurück. Ich seufz’ und stöhne, als wie im Traum, es quillt die Träne, ich weiβ es kaum, Bei Tag und Nacht durchwühlt mich der Schmerz und doch wie gerne trägt ihn mein Herz! Sagt nun ihr Frauen die ihr sie kennt. Sagt, is es Liebe, was hier so brennt? Euch, holde Frauen frag ich allein. Kann, was ich spüre Liebe wohl sein? Was mich beweget, euch sag’ ich’s frei; was hier sich reget ist mir so neu. Wünschen und Sehnen drängt auf mich ein, bald ist es Freude, bald ist es Pein. Bald faβts mich kalt an bald glühend heiβ, und nun schon wieder werd ich zu Eis. Jag, einem Gluck nach das fern zerflieβt, weiβ nicht, wer halt es, noch was es ist. Ich seufz’ und klage und will es nicht, zittre und zage und weiβ es nicht. Ruhlos im Leide quält sich mein Sinn, und doch mit Freude schmacht’ ich so hin. Euch, holde Frauen frag ich allein. Kann, was ich spüre Liebe wohl sein? Lieblichste Triebe, wenn ihr sie kennt, kennt ihr die Liebe, die in mir brennt. Was ich erfahre, nun zu euch spricht. Das Wunderbare ich faβ’ es nicht. Unwiderstehlich nimmt es mich ein. Bald ist es selig bald ist es Pein. Schauer ich fühle, muβ dann erglühn. Dann wieder Kühle streift mir den Sinn. Mich faβt ein Sehnen aus mir heraus, bin wie im Wähnen, kenn’ mich nicht aus. Wonach ich bange, weiβ ich ja kaum; was ich verlange ist wie ein Traum. Warum denn qual’ich mich allemal und bin doch selig in solcher Qual. Lieblichste Triebe, wenn ihr sie kennt, kennt ihr die Liebe, die in mir brennt. Sagt, holde Frauen, die ihr sie kennt. Sagt, ist es Liebe, was hier so brennt? Ich will’s euch sagen, was in mir wühlt, euch will ich’s klagen, euch, die ihr fühlt. Sonst war’s im Herzen mir leicht und frei, es waren Schmerzen und Angst, mir neu. Durch alle Glieder strömt’s glühend heiβ, ach, und dann wieder werd ich zu Eis. In weiten Fernen such ich das Glück, bis zu den Sternen heb ich den Blick. Seufzen und Sehnen bewegt die Brust, es flieβen Tränen mir und unbewuβt. Mir bringt nicht Freuden Tag oder Nacht, und doch dies Leiden selig mir macht! Ihr, die ihr Triebe, des Herzens kennt. Sagt, ist es Liebe, was hier so brennt? 9 Comparative German translations of the aria ‘Voi, che sapete’. 83 MOZART AND THE NAZIS German. Moreover, while Schünemann’s name appears on the title and inner page as editor and translator of the text, there is no mention whatsoever of Mozart’s librettist. In effect Schünemann and the Ministry of Propaganda had consigned Lorenzo Da Ponte’s contribution to the dustbin of history, at least until the end of the Third Reich. Tracing the drawn-out process whereby the regime ultimately settled upon an approved German translation of the Da Ponte operas certainly exemplifies the degree to which opportunism and internecine political rivalries coloured the cultural climate of the Third Reich. Yet it does not entirely clarify how effectively this tortuous affair fitted into the Nazi policy of aryanisation. Certainly the gesture of removing Da Ponte’s name from the title page of vocal scores, or from playbills advertising the performance of Mozart’s operas, could be deemed an effective way of writing out a Jew from any active participation in a German masterpiece. Yet it could also be argued that the claim of the various rival translators that their version achieved a greater textual fidelity to the original than their competitors merely served to put the spotlight back onto Da Ponte and to the brilliance of his writing. Furthermore, despite the extensive efforts to supersede Hermann Levi, there seems to be no tangible evidence to suggest that these new versions employ the German language in a more ‘Aryan’ manner. Indeed, by placing the translations by Levi, Anheisser, Meckbach and Schünemann of Cherubino’s aria ‘Voi, che sapete’ side by side, it is striking that in certain verses the officially approved Schünemann actually retains Levi’s text. (See p. 83) De-judification of other works by Mozart Although most of efforts expended upon aryanising Mozart during this period were focused upon the Da Ponte operas, any work that had a whiff of Jewish association was considered fair game for adaptation and rearrange- ment. In 1936, for example, Hans Joachim Moser completed a ‘Germanised’ revision of the text of Mozart’s early oratorio Betulia liberata. The original libretto by Metastasio, drawn from the Book of Judith, describes how she slaughtered Holofernes, commander of the Assyrians, and liberated the Israelites who had sought refuge in the mountain stronghold of Betulia. Believing that the oratorio could enjoy a new lease of life if it was divested of its Jewish connotations, Moser recast the libretto under the title Ildiko und 84 ARYANISING MOZART Etzel. In Moser’s version, the oppressed people are the Burgundians and they are liberated after Ildiko slaughters Attila the Hun on his wedding night.91 Moser’s motives for taking on such a project were largely driven by his eagerness to achieve rehabilitation and recognition in the eyes of the authorities after losing his post at the Berlin Academy of Church and School Music in September 1933 on the grounds of his half-Jewish ancestry.92 Furthermore, as he himself made clear, the decision to ‘adapt’ an obscure work by Mozart provided him with the necessary background experience for tackling the more pressing claims of the Old Testament oratorios of Handel – a task he was to undertake with some relish after his appointment in 1940 to the directorship of the Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen. But despite Moser’s good intentions, Ildiko und Etzel remained unpublished and made little impact. Although it received a first performance at the Flensburg Mozart Festival in March 1936, plans to relay the work to a wider audience on Hamburg Radio on 20 March were aborted after an alteration in the programme schedule.93 One other possible reason for the failure of Moser’s Ildiko und Etzel may have been connected to a ruling by Goebbels that had been issued in September 1934 in the Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer. The directive was highly critical of attempts to impose an arbitrary textual interference on works of the past. Judging by the hostile reaction accorded to the poet Hermann Burte, who recast the text of Bach’s Cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden as an ode to soldiers who had fallen in the First World War, such objections were still in force at the time Moser was unveiling his arrangement.94 Four years later, however, the climate of opinion with regard to such practices had changed, ironically as a result of the work of the Ministry of Propaganda and its establishment of the Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen. The main focus at this point was Mozart’s Requiem. Reviewing a new vocal score of the work in October 1940, Herbert Gerigk urged that future editions of the work should be divested of their original liturgical connections, with the Latin text replaced by a German translation.95 Coincidentally, a few months later, Hermann Stephani, Professor of Music at the University of Marburg, had gone some way towards meeting Gerigk’s suggestions by proposing to ‘cleanse’ Mozart’s Requiem of its Hebraic words. In a short article, whose publication in both Zeitschrift für Musik and Die Musik gave this idea a greater weight of authority, Stephani suggested that: 85 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Mozart’s Requiem, the deepest and most moving of all those masses dedicated to the memory of the beloved dead should not be suppressed because of a handful of passages in the text that are inappropriate to our age. The following revision is therefore suggested: ‘Te decet hymnus Deus in coelis’ (instead of ‘in Sion’), ‘et tibi reddetur votum hic in terra’ (instead of ‘in Jerusalem’), ‘quam tu credentibus’ (instead of ‘quam olim Abrahae’), ‘promisisti in sempiternum’ (instead of ‘et semini eius’), ‘Dominus Deus omnipotens’ (instead of ‘Sabaoth’)96 It should be emphasised that Stephani’s textual amendments were by no means universally adopted in all performances of the Requiem that took place from 1941 onwards. Wilhelm Furtwängler certainly had no truck with them, judging by the evidence of the programme book for his performance of the work which presents the words as set by Mozart at the final concerts of the 1941 Mozartwoche des deutschen Reiches in Vienna. But in Berlin they were enthusiastically espoused by the choral conductor Bruno Kittel, who regularly directed such repertory with Furtwängler’s Berlin Philharmonic. In the autumn of 1941 Kittel was contracted to make a recording of Mozart’s Requiem for Deutsche Grammophon with the Bruno Kittel Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic. The recording confirms that the text of the Requiem follows word for word the suggestions first outlined by Stephani.97 The adaptation of Mozart’s Requiem was almost certainly the last substan- tial work by the composer to have been subjected to ideological adaptation during the Third Reich. During the final years of the war, the emphasis shifted towards guarding Germany’s cultural heritage as the nation engaged in a bitter struggle for its very survival. Herbert Gerigk, editor of the journal Musik im Kriege and co-author with Theo Stengel of the Lexikon der Juden in der Musik, became the self-appointed custodian of this legacy. He invested a considerable amount of time and effort in masterminding the confiscation and enforced return to Germany of valuable manuscripts. These included many by Mozart that were formerly in the hands of Jews or had resided in libraries in the occu- pied territories. He also maintained a watchful eye over any further signs of unwarranted Jewish contamination of German music. In the spring of 1944, Gerigk alighted on a long-running musicological dispute concerning the authorship of Mozart’s Wiegenlied ‘Schlafe mein Prinzschen, schlaf ein’. At the end of the nineteenth century, Max Friedlaender had published an article which cited evidence to suggest that Bernhard Flies, a Berlin-based doctor and 86 ARYANISING MOZART music dilettante, rather than Mozart was the composer of the song.98 Friedlaender’s verdict was in fact upheld in 1937 by the Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein in the third edition of the complete Köchel catalogue. Yet after consulting the 1873 Musikalisches Konversations Lexikon, Gerigk discovered that Flies was of Jewish descent. Suspecting a conspiracy on the part of the Jews to try and pass off a popular work by Mozart as one of their own, Gerigk provided his own explanation as to how its authorship could have been wrested from Mozart: We must assume that a copy of the song fell into Jewish hands and that [Flies], an amateur musician eager for admiration, simply had a few copies of the song printed in his name. Until now repeated complaints from leading Aryans about Friedlaender’s view were strikingly ineffective because Jewish ‘scholars’ tried with suspicious and unfounded zeal to ridicule the arguments submitted in Mozart’s defence. For example, the Jew Alfred Einstein, the editor of the famous Köchel index of Mozart’s music, definitively classified the lullaby as a misappropriation in 1937. Once again the time has come to reverse the efforts of Judea and to give Mozart due credit. As this song has rightfully become one of the musician’s most popular melodies, the people clearly have demonstrated their support for Mozart.99 In one of the final issues of Musik im Kriege to have been published before Goebbels’s proclamation of ‘Total War’, Gerigk continued his belligerent campaign against the dangers of Jewish infiltration of German musical master- pieces. This time the target was the standard violin concerto repertory and the continued reluctance of soloists to dispense with performing long-established cadenzas, the majority of which had been composed by Jews. A recently unearthed radio recording from 1944, in which violinist Walter Barylli and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Clemens Krauss played Mozart’s Violin Concerto in D K218, substantiates Gerigk’s concerns, with the soloist opting to perform Joseph Joachim’s cadenzas in the first and final movements. Attacking such a practice as reflecting a ‘shameful lack of national pride and dignity’, Gerigk invited contemporary composers to produce worthwhile alternatives for the concertos of Brahms and Mozart to supplant any continued allegiance to Joachim or Carl Flesch.100 By this stage, however, nobody was sufficiently zealous to take up Gerigk’s challenge. 87 CHAPTER 5 THE MOZART DIASPORA I dreamed that the gentiles crucified Mozart and buried him in a pauper’s grave. But the Jews made him a man of God and blessed his memory. I, his apostle, ran all over the world, converting everyone I met, and whenever I caught a Christian I made him a Mozartian. (JACOB GLATSTEIN)1 Whether or not the Yiddish poet Jacob Glatstein was fully aware of the lengths to which the Nazis went in attempting to detach the composer from any contamination with the Jews, there can be little doubt that his poem ‘Mozart’ presents a very provocative image. Written in 1946, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the first two verses of the poem invoke a powerful metaphor, drawing a chilling parallel between the death of Mozart and the destruction of European culture during the Second World War. Glatstein observes a world in which the forces of evil, represented by the Christian gentiles, crucify everything that symbolizes the true beauty of European culture, of which Mozart is its greatest exponent. Only the Jews can become the exclusive guardians and advocates of this cultural heritage. To what extent refugees from Nazi Germany would have subscribed wholeheartedly to Glatstein’s rather extreme position remains debatable. THE MOZART DIASPORA Nonetheless, a large number may well have acknowledged Mozart as perhaps the greatest exponent of a ‘high culture that was not language dependant’, and as someone with whom they could retain a ‘continuity of identity’ while in exile.2 The great scientist Albert Einstein, for example, maintained the strongest allegiance to Mozart throughout his life. A keen chamber music player, he discovered the composer’s violin sonatas at the age of thirteen, and the experience seems to have opened up a world of purity and inner beauty that transcended his own humdrum existence as a teenager. Voluntary exile from Germany in the 1930s failed to dampen his commitment to the composer. So while Bach and Mozart were ‘aryanised’ in Nazi Germany, they continued to be played by German Jews such as Einstein as part of their cultural heritage.3 Albert Einstein’s life-long affinity for Mozart provides a useful starting point for reflecting on the special qualities that enabled this composer, above almost any other, to sustain and nourish those who had left Germany as victims of Nazi oppression. That Mozart held an unchallenged position in the musical canon of the countries to which German exiles moved, was obviously significant. Furthermore, in attempting to re-establish their careers outside Germany, exiles were not faced with the challenge of having to make a special case for promoting his music, as was the case with later composers such as Mahler and Schoenberg. Perhaps the structural and aesthetic beauty of Mozart’s work provided a kind of therapy for the traumas of displacement, a panacea far removed from the harsh realities of the contemporary situation. Equally important was the perception of Mozart’s personality and cultural outlook as a representative of the Enlightenment and as a humanitarian. These factors took on extra degree of significance for exiles, not least because the values of tolerance and dignity were being abused by the Nazis who sought to portray Mozart in rather different terms. The following two chapters look at the ways in which these exiles connected with Mozart. In the first, the theme of a Mozart Diaspora is explored primarily through a discussion of cultural organisations and music festivals in which exiled performing musicians from Nazi Germany took a leading role. The second focuses on the efforts and achievements of displaced writers and musicologists to enhance knowledge and understanding of Mozart outside the orbit of the Third Reich. 89 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Mozart in the Ghetto: The Jüdischer Kulturbund and Figaros Hochzeit It seems ironic that one of the earliest manifestations of the Mozart Diaspora actually took place inside Nazi Germany. A staged performance of Figaros Hochzeit opening in Berlin in November 1933, almost ten months after the Nazis seized power, became the first opera to have been performed by the Jüdischer Kulturbund (Jewish Cultural League). Spearheaded by a group of idealists including Dr Kurt Singer, the recently dismissed assistant director of the Städtische Oper in Berlin, the theatre critic Julius Bab, Berlin’s chief rabbi Leo Baeck, the former conductor of the Mannheim Opera Joseph Rosenstock, producer Kurt Baumann and economist and journalist Werner Levie, the Jewish Cultural League was established by the Nazis to enable Jews to continue working in the cultural sphere despite being deprived of their employment opportunities in Germany’s theatres and opera houses. It also provided an exclusively Jewish audience with cultural sustenance at a time when German Jews were undergoing the constant trauma of officially engi- neered boycotts and racial persecution. Singer was given the job of persuading the Nazi authorities of the viability of the Jewish Cultural League. Despite some initial hesitancy on the part of the regime, the organisation was sanctioned in June 1933 by Hans Hinkel, who was then Commissar for the Prussian Ministry of Science, Education and Art. A memorandum of agreement between Singer and Hinkel, drafted on 7 July 1933, established the conditions under which the Kulturbund could operate, namely that all its members had to be Jewish, that performances were to be given to exclusively Jewish audiences who had paid seasonal subscrip- tions, that all programmes had to be approved by the regime at least one month in advance, and that any advertisements or announcements about its activities would only be placed in the Jewish press. The summer months of 1933 were spent recruiting professional actors and musicians, while the small Berliner Theater in Charlottenstrasse was leased for the Jewish Cultural League’s exclusive use. As plans for its opening season were unveiled, the organisation published its first monthly letter in October 1933. The central message, linking the various declarations included in this bulletin, promised that a peaceful co-existence between German and Jewish culture could be achieved, and that members of the Jewish Cultural League should be able to perform the classic repertory with which all Germans, 90 THE MOZART DIASPORA irrespective of racial origin, had grown up. Julius Bab underlined this sentiment eloquently: This German culture in its classical form, as we have welcomed it, has always been an open gate to the entire world, a way to the whole of humanity; and in this very sense we, as German Jews, want to and have to enshrine it, if we want to escape the inwardly dangerous return to the Ghetto . . . for this reason, the classical creators of Germany and the world, Lessing and Goethe, Shakespeare and Molière, Mozart and Beethoven will continue to be essen- tial for our theatrical experience. The theatre that we are creating will be a Jewish one but, at the same time, a German one; it will flourish from this very double root of existence, which nurtures us as German Jews, and from which we cannot be separated as long as we live.4 An indication of the organisation’s aims can be gleaned from the choice of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s play Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise) and Mozart’s Figaros Hochzeit that were to open its first season. As a plea for religious tolerance, the Lessing, ‘written in a true spirit of brotherhood during the Enlightenment and dedicated to the dramatist’s Jewish friend, the philoso- pher Moses Mendelssohn’, was produced in an audacious manner.5 Although the programme book respectfully asked the audience to refrain from indulging in political discussions in or near the theatre, the decision to present Nathan alone on stage in the final scene, rather than emphasise a sense of harmonious unity between Christian, Jew and Muslim, provided a telling commentary on the isolation that was currently facing Germany’s Jews. At first glance, Figaros Hochzeit, produced by Kurt Singer with Heinz Condell as stage designer and Joseph Rosenstock as conductor, must have seemed more remote from the immediate concerns of its Jewish audience than Lessing’s play. Nonetheless, its selection cannot have been completely uninten- tional. Besides reflecting a triumphantly successful example of the fruitful creative partnership between the composer and his Jewish-born librettist, the opera, at least in its original incarnation, represented a challenge to the estab- lished order, attacking authoritarianism and making a plea for equality, liberty and fraternity. Hinkel and the Nazi censors responsible for sanctioning the performance may have been unaware of its subversive undercurrents, merely regarding the work as an entertaining and diverting comedy.6 91 MOZART AND THE NAZIS The extent to which audiences at Figaro picked up on these resonances remains unclear, judging by the reviews of the opera that appeared in the Jewish press. Apart from praising the qualities of the performance, most critics naturally chose to emphasise the specifically Jewish elements that contributed to Mozart’s work. Writing in the Gemeindeblatt der Jüdischen Gemeinde zu Berlin, Ludwig Misch made pointed reference to the Jewish provenance of Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, as well as the modern German translation of the text by Hermann Levi.7 An anonymous writer in the Jüdische Rundschau commended the Jewish Cultural League for ‘not letting us down’ by ensuring that a ‘Jewish Figaro should be a proper Figaro that does honour to our name. As Jews, we look at every great artwork with reverence, we absorb it and take pleasure in it, we attest our gratitude through the artistic seriousness with which we engage with it and with which we tackle its production and performance.’8 Although the non-Jewish German press was forbidden from discussing the Jewish Cultural League’s Figaro, a review of the production by Herbert F. Peyser appeared in the New York Times. The article was one of very few published in a foreign newspaper to have reported on the activities of the Jewish Cultural League in any detail. Providing observations that for obvious reasons could never have been publicly expressed in Germany at that time, Peyser alerted his readers to the torrid circumstances under which the organ- isation was allowed to operate. It had existed ‘by the sovereign permission of the Hitler despotism. Its workings are hedged about by hairbreadth rules and drastic conditions the slightest infraction of which would mean instant disso- lution’. At the same time, it sought to minister to the spiritual and intellectual necessities of those Jews who still feel that their destinies are inextricably bound up with Germany, who have never ceased to look upon it as their fatherland and who continue to think of its culture as wrought into the living fibre of their being. It aims to nourish them on that same artistic, scientific and philosophic fare to which, through the centuries, they have felt a proprietary right equal to that of other Germans.9 Peyser resisted the temptation to comment in detail about the quality of the performance, merely suggesting that it was ‘carried out along the intimate lines of a chamber opera rather than on the broader, more dynamic scale, with 92 THE MOZART DIASPORA lavish musical and scenic resources’, and that the excellent teamwork and musical standards compared very favourably with the best he had recently heard in German opera houses. Although Kurt Singer’s production used a ‘liberal and witty use of that type of stylization which Nazi Germany had latterly cursed out of existence’, the critic noted that the humour of the piece was not as sharply defined as it could have been, attributing possible psycho- logical grounds for this rather muted approach. More revealing, perhaps, were his concluding remarks which confirmed the extraordinary reception accorded to the performance, even though his allusion to a Christian metaphor in describing an exclusively Jewish event seems curiously out of place: The spirit of the performance found its counterpart in the demeanour of the audience. There was true cordiality, and scarcely an aria went unrewarded with applause. Yet something in the manner and in the tranquil dignity with which that gathering listened to the unfoldment of Mozart’s divine comedy presently became inexplicably but incredibly affecting – something of a spirit that somehow called in mind a congregation of early Christians at worship in the catacombs. And when the opera ended and one emerged on the street, the sight of the crooked cross and the thud of the Storm Troopers’ boots seemed more than ever odious.10 The success of the Figaro performances, which ran throughout November and December, encouraged the Jewish Cultural League to form a permanent opera company (Kulturbund Oper) and contemplate adding further works to their repertory. In February 1934, the Kulturbund Oper took its Figaro production to Breslau in February 1934 where, according to a report filed in the March 1934 issue of the Kulturbund deutscher Juden Monatsblätter, the company managed to overcome the problems of transferring their production from a small intimate theatre to one housing nearly 1700 seats.11 At the end of the Kulturbund Oper’s first season, Kurt Singer outlined his plans for the coming years, making it abun- dantly clear that he had every intention of featuring more Mozart. Die Zauberflöte was very much in his sights, and in 1935 he also submitted a proposal to the Propaganda Ministry to stage Così fan tutte.12 Unfortunately, neither of these projects was to come to fruition since Hinkel became increasingly preoccupied with the need to chip away at Singer’s freedom of choice in the repertory that he wished to feature. As the Manchester 93 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Guardian reported on 27 June 1935, it had become a ‘thorn in the flesh’ for the Nazis that the ‘Jews had created among themselves such an atmosphere of purely German culture’.13 Hinkel retaliated by making the demand that that the Jewish Cultural League should in future confine its activities to performing works by Jews or foreigners, and that ‘Aryan’ composers such as Mozart were to be strictly off-limits. The intensification of cultural apartheid gathered pace in Berlin over the summer of 1935. After concluding an agreement with the State Secret Police that they should be more vigilant in monitoring its activities, Hinkel told a press gathering that those holding responsibility in the Jewish Cultural League ‘may now show what they can do for their racial comrades. We shall not disturb them if they do not meddle in our German cultural life . . . Germany and its great cultural possessions belong to Germany.’14 After such a public declaration, there was little chance of Hinkel sanc- tioning the performance of further Mozart operas by the Kulturbund Oper. The final dress rehearsal of Così fan tutte had already taken place in November 1935 before the Nazi authorities — much to Singer’s dismay — forbade the production altogether. The ban was seized upon by those opposed to the Nazis abroad as a further evidence of the erosion of Jewish civil liberties. For example on 10 November, the anti-Nazi Czech Social Democratic weekly Neuer Vorwärts carried the banner headline ‘Jews are no longer allowed to play Mozart’, while the Manchester Guardian on 16 November described the removal of the opera as indicative of the ‘peculiar malignant meanness of the Nazi mind’.15 Although Hinkel had thwarted Singer’s plans to put on more Mozart in Berlin, his proscriptive policies were applied with far less rigour outside the German capital. Thus in April 1936 the Frankfurt section of the Jewish Cultural League featured a staged performance of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Hans Wilhelm Steinberg as conductor, following this in November of the same year with Die Zauberflöte under Richard Karp.16 Even in Berlin a concert performance of Figaro with piano accompaniment at the Joseph-Lehmann-Schule in May 1936 seems to have taken place without Hinkel’s intervention.17 Yet the capacity of the Cultural League to make decisions as to its future repertory and direction was to be increasingly restricted over the following year. If Hinkel had not made his intentions perfectly clear in earlier directives, a more specific course of censorship was forthcoming. On 14 May 1937 Hinkel issued an order banning the 94 THE MOZART DIASPORA Jewish Cultural League from performing Beethoven, Mozart and plays by Goethe.18 The screw was further tightened after the Anschluss with the Austrian-born Haydn and Schubert being added to the list of composers that could not feature in the Jewish Cultural League’s programmes. Naturally, such sanctions only applied to public performance, since the Ministry of Propaganda did not have the power to prevent individual Jewish musicians from coming together in their homes to perform works by these composers. Yet from 1937 onwards, the private performance of a Mozart chamber work by Jews in Germany was effectively an illegal activity which could have carried the risk of severe penalties had it been discovered by the police.19 While Jews were being denied the right to perform Mozart in public in Nazi Germany, those who had left the country and chosen to settle in Palestine were appropriating the work of the same composer in order to establish their own sense of identity. In 1935 Hermann Swet reported in the Pariser Tageblatt on a remarkable concert given on 22 April in the amphitheatre of Mount Scopus by a student choir (the combined forces of the Jerusalem Academic Chorus and Choir of the YMCA) and a dilettante university orchestra under the direction of Karl Salomon, a pupil of Max Reger, who had left Germany in 1933. The work to which they had devoted their attention was Mozart’s 1771 biblical oratorio Betulia liberata with an original text by Metastasio, performed on this occasion under the title of Judith in a Hebrew translation that was made by the Amsterdam-based eighteenth-century poet David Franco Mendes.20 It would be tempting to suggest that political motives played a significant role in this performance, just as they did one year later in rather different circumstances when musicologist Hans Joachim Moser sought to revive Betulia liberata in Nazi Germany with an entirely new aryanised text. Certainly one could draw parallels between the oratorio’s plot, in which Judith frees the Israelites from the Assyrian-occupied town of Betulia, and the struggle during that period to assert an indigenously Jewish cultural stance in British-occupied Palestine. Yet Swet’s article, entitled ‘Mozart at the Wailing Wall’ and published in an exile newspaper, did not allude to such matters. Rather, it praised Salomon’s pioneering efforts for presenting the composition probably for the first time in Hebrew, and highlighted the various moments in the score that seem to foreshadow Die Zauberflöte and the 95 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Requiem. The writer also commented, slightly less favourably, on a perform- ance by the short-lived Palestine Chamber Opera of Mozart’s Die Entführung, also in Hebrew translation. It was given at Jerusalem’s Cinema Zion in rather intimidating circumstances, with Sir Arthur Wauchope, the British high commissioner to Palestine, and other colonial officials ostentatiously making their presence felt by sitting in the front row of the auditorium. Nonetheless, Swet noted the morale-boosting impact of hearing this repertory even under such difficult conditions, adding that it was thanks to the efforts and influence of musicians who had emigrated from Germany to Palestine during the past two years that ‘one gradually gets to appreciate and love Mozart all the more’.21 Mozart in Paradise: the Glyndebourne Festival, 1934–1939 A few months after the Jewish Cultural League mounted its performance of Figaro, two leading victims of Nazi cultural policy were being enlisted to take artistic control of a new Mozart Opera Festival in England. It was to take place in the summer of 1934 at an opera house that had recently been built by the wealthy landowner John Christie, in the grounds of his country estate in Glyndebourne on the Sussex Downs. A lifelong fanatical opera-lover, Christie had been captivated by the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals, which he attended regularly during the late 1920s and early 1930s. In proposing to build an opera house on his estate, Christie was hoping to transplant something of the atmosphere of these two events to England, a country whose operatic tradition was distinctly moribund at that time. That the project turned into a serious artistic enterprise was largely as a result of his marriage to the soprano Audrey Mildmay in 1931. Christie’s initial idea had been to model Glyndebourne on Bayreuth and therefore feature works by Wagner. In a typically bold announcement, made to the British press in June 1933, he proposed to mount a performance of Die Walküre alongside Mozart’s Don Giovanni. For good measure Parsifal would be produced during the following spring, in time for Easter. Later offerings were to include Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel and Königskinder, both being staged during the Christmas period in 1934.22 It is possible that the political situation in Germany, particularly the Nazi appropriation of Bayreuth in the summer of 1933, dampened Christie’s enthu- siasm for promoting Wagner at this particular juncture. More likely, however, 96 THE MOZART DIASPORA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 10 Glyndebourne in the 1930s. was the gradual realization, largely as a result of Audrey Mildmay’s good sense, that the intimate opera house he had built would be far more suited to Mozart than to Wagner. Yet by the autumn of 1933 there seemed little serious prospect of his idea being realised, not least because few members of the British musical establishment were taking Christie’s proposals seriously. The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, the most obvious musician to take charge of the Festival, had dismissed the idea as pure folly, even refusing to enter into direct discussions with Christie. The sequence of events which eventually brought German conductor Fritz Busch and producer Carl Ebert to Glyndebourne for the first Mozart Festival in May and June of 1934 can be briefly summarised. Busch had been the principal opera conductor in Dresden until the SA staged a demonstration against his tenure which resulted in his resignation from the post and his 1933 departure 97 MOZART AND THE NAZIS from Germany to Switzerland, together with his violinist brother Adolf. Despite various attempts to lure him back to the fold, Fritz Busch steadfastly refused further cooperation with the Nazis and was actively seeking employment else- where. Given his considerable reputation, there was no shortage of offers from abroad, and Busch had already negotiated an annual season at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, to begin in the summer of 1934. When, in November 1933, Fritz Busch was first mooted as someone who might be interested in Christie’s idea, the conductor was understandably reluctant to break his contract in Argentina, and therefore had to decline Christie’s initial invitation. Fortuitously, a financial crisis at the Teatro Colón caused him to change his mind, and in January 1934 he tentatively agreed to take charge of the first Glyndebourne Festival. In the circumstances, the decision might have seemed rash, given that negotiations with Christie had been largely undertaken through a third party, and that there was no way of verifying the seriousness or viability of Christie’s proposals. Because of the severely limited amount of time before the proposed festival was due to open, Busch found himself in the enviable position of being able to dictate the exact terms under which he would come to Glyndebourne – an unprecedented situation for a displaced musician during this period. The first demand he made was that Christie should hire an opera producer. Max Reinhardt, another victim of Nazi persecution whom Christie would have known from his work in Salzburg, might have taken on the job had the finan- cial rewards been more lucrative. But Busch’s first recommendation was Carl Ebert, director of the Städtische Oper in Berlin up to the first months of 1933 when he too was removed from his post by the Nazis. Like Busch, Ebert also secured a contract in Buenos Aires, and he had already forged a formidable collaboration with the conductor during the 1932 Salzburg Festival production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The prospect of renewing their successful partnership resulted in Ebert unhesitatingly accepting the job. It was made clear from the start that Busch and Ebert would retain complete artistic control of the Festival, including auditioning the soloists, while financial matters were to be handled by Christie. A further suggestion, formally estab- lished in 1936, was the appointment of a General Manager whose responsibility would be to engage the best available singers. Once again, Busch and Ebert were able to recommend the ideal candidate, Rudolf Bing, a Viennese-born Jew who 98 THE MOZART DIASPORA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 11 Opera director Carl Ebert, conductor Fritz Busch and general manager Rudolf Bing discussing their performances at Glyndbourne in the late 1930s. had worked under Ebert both in Darmstadt and Berlin, and had also been dismissed by the Nazis. For the moment, Christie’s initial declaration that he would stage Don Giovanni was shelved, Busch and Ebert recommending instead that they feature six performances of two other Mozart operas, Figaro and Così fan tutte. These two operas remained the mainstay of Glyndebourne up to 1939. Die Zauberflöte and Die Entführung aus dem Serail were added to the repertory in 1935, with Don Giovanni in the following year. Discussions now turned to the orchestra. For the sake of making financial savings, Christie proposed that the operas be accompanied by the smallest possible forces, with one string player to a part – an idea that was rejected out of hand by Busch, who suggested that the members of the famous Adolf Busch 99 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Quartet could be hired to lead the string sections. In the event Busch’s plan was to be overruled. Labour laws of the period made it very difficult to sanction the possibility of foreign orchestral players joining forces with their British counterparts, and the Musicians’ Union’s demand that the orchestra consist exclusively of home-grown talent was accepted. As a partial compen- sation for being unable to offer the Busch String Quartet employment at Glyndebourne, Christie agreed to amplify the first Mozart Festival in 1934 with two extra orchestral concerts, the first of which featured Adolf Busch performing Mozart’s A major Violin Concerto K219. Busch’s brother-in-law Rudolf Serkin (also a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany) performed the Piano Concerto in C major K467 a few days later. The triumvirate of Busch, Ebert and Bing established a working regime which was at that time unique in British musical life. Singers were hired on merit, irrespective of their nationality, and came from all parts of Europe. They were contracted to attend a solid fortnight of intensive rehearsals before the operas were presented to the public. Another requirement was that Mozart’s operas would be sung in their original language – hardly a radical expectation nowadays, but far less common in the 1930s. Surprising though it may seem, some singers were actually making the acquaintance of Da Ponte’s text for the first time. The stringent conditions which Busch and Ebert applied to the Glyndebourne system worked to everyone’s advantage. With some singers learning the text from scratch, Busch and Ebert were able to bring an extra degree of freshness to their interpretations. They placed the greatest emphasis on team-work and creating the genuine feeling of an ensemble company in which no singer was allowed to predominate. The atmosphere generated by the spirit of cooperation between singer, musician, producer and conductor was so unique that within a relatively short space of time it was possible to achieve an unusually high degree of musical and dramatic cohesion, a point admirably confirmed by Busch’s son Hans some fifty years later: Glyndebourne, coming as it did after Busch’s nightmare with the Nazis, was nothing short of paradise: working in idyllic surroundings, under ideal conditions, and being able to achieve the Gesamtkunstwerk [total work of art] he had dreamed of in a genuine ensemble spirit where everyone aimed at serving but one master – the composer.23 100 THE MOZART DIASPORA Of course, despite the assembly of a strong cast and a comprehensively drawn-up schedule of rehearsals, an inevitable air of uncertainty surrounded the opening performance on 28 May. The critic Richard Capell summed up the mood accurately in an extended article published in the July/August 1934 issue of the Monthly Musical Record: The audience which assembled for the opening performance . . . was prepared for pretty well anything but the complete achievement which presented itself. The descriptions had suggested the project of a day-dream, but the reality was found to be all that had been promised and more . . . And the charmed audience could not get over wondering at an English country gentleman who chosen this way to spend his money, instead of building racing stables . . .24 Moving on from the concept of Glyndebourne to the actual music, Capell once again reflected upon the initial doubts as to whether it would be possible to do adequate justice to Mozart’s work: There was at first a good deal of scepticism or, at any rate, not specially sanguine expectation in the air, but all this soon melted under the rays of Figaro – a Figaro that was soon admitted to be irresistible. Indeed the performance was delightful and even exquisite; and that of Così fan tutte, the next night even surpassed it in solidity of accomplishment.25 After attending these first performances, Capell felt that Glyndebourne had already managed to score a decided advantage over Munich and Salzburg in their performance of Così. He applauded in particular the decision to sing Mozart in Italian rather than adopt the ‘provincialism’ of continental counter- parts who insisted on retaining the German translation. Busch was praised as a tower of strength for his musical direction whilst Ebert was highly commended for carrying out the role of operatic producer more thoroughly and responsibly than anywhere else in England. While all the ingredients had been in place to make the 1934 Festival an unqualified success, the decision to repeat the whole event the following year served to place Glyndebourne more securely on the musical map. An impor- tant ally in this respect was Fred Gaisberg, a producer at the Gramophone 101 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Company, who had long harboured the idea of making the first complete recordings of Mozart’s mature operas. On 23 March 1934 he had already contacted Fritz Busch to wish him success for the forthcoming Festival, but also to signal his strong interest in the possibility of recording the Glyndebourne performances for posterity.26 Gaisberg’s confidence in the musical outcome of the new project was confirmed after he attended perform- ances of Figaro and Così during the first weeks of the Festival. Accordingly, on 6 June, he made a trial recording of excerpts from Figaro which would only be distributed to the artists. The results were so successful that Gaisberg signed an agreement with Christie and Busch to record the complete Figaro and Così the following year. The Glyndebourne production of Don Giovanni was subse- quently recorded in 1936. Given their high purchase price, each opera being spread over a large number of 78rpm discs and divided into three separate albums, sales figures were surprisingly good. On 13 January 1936 Gaisberg reported to Rudolf Bing that 1,300 sets of the first Figaro album had been sold, with 600 sets each of the second and third albums.27 Without doubt, these buoyant sales figures had been prompted by the uniformly positive reviews of the 1934 and 1935 Festivals that emanated from daily newspapers and specialist music journals. It is significant too that Glyndebourne was deemed to be of sufficient cultural importance to warrant a leading article in The Times, which sought to place the idealism of Glyndebourne in the context of the situation elsewhere: The operatic bloom of Covent Garden is fading, to be followed by the luxu- riant foliage of the ballet; but there is another garden in which the finest flowers of the art are cultivated and which will be in full summer splendour until the end of June. It is a real Sussex garden where, if summer will only come and stay put, lovers of Mozart’s melodic blossoming can come out between the acts to enjoy other airs laden with the scent of flowers. . . . A romantic setting indeed, but let no one think that romantic accessories are used to cover any lack of artistic gravity. Our columns both last year and this year have borne ample witness to the exquisite poise of the Glyndebourne productions of Figaro, Così fan tutte and Die Zauberflöte . . . Each one is what the Germans call neu einstudiert under the experienced direction of Herr Fritz Busch and Herr Carl Ebert, formerly collaborators at Dresden. They bring together singers from every musical country in Europe and not 102 THE MOZART DIASPORA least from this musical country of our own. An orchestra of English players is so finely tempered an instrument that Signor Toscanini, who paid a visit to Glyndebourne a week or so ago, expressed admiration for its quality, indeed for the whole ensemble. It is an artistic combination scarcely to be matched anywhere in the modern world. No one knows better than Signor Toscanini or Herr Fritz Busch the extent to which artistic enterprise in the great opera houses of Europe is cramped to-day by national prejudices, political inhibitions, and economic limitations. Here in the middle of the Sussex downs is a spot where only the artistic ideal counts.28 The Times went on to praise John Christie for his enthusiasm and vision in creating something of that ‘fellowship of all the artists that Wagner foresaw and nearly planted at Bayreuth’. Rightly he had begun with Mozart ‘because Mozart is everybody’s property’ and ‘by achieving a perfect Mozart . . . other perfect things can come to life there’. Finally, Londoners were urged to establish the Glyndebourne habit before continental neighbours would begin to realize the unique opportunity which the Mozart festivals offer and crowd them out of opportunities to attend the Festival. Yet fears about the possibility of foreigners crowding out British visitors to Glyndebourne were somewhat groundless. Given that the whole project was masterminded by two prominent artists who had defied the Nazi regime, there was little chance of drawing special attention to its achievements in the German press.29 On the rare occasions when any discussion of Glyndebourne was warranted, as in an article published in the November 1937 issue of Die Musik, it was considered fair game to mock the festival as a typically regret- table manifestation of the socially exclusive attitudes to the arts that were seen as endemic in Britain at the time: In the Sussex countryside, not far from London, amidst an idyllically fenced- off parkland, something typically English has occurred. A wealthy art lover has built himself a theatre cultivating Mozart operas. By now it has become the Glyndebourne Sunday Opera Club, which sees itself as the counterpart of the Salzburg Mozarteum and is currently under the management of a German kapellmeister and director. As far as its admission fees and audi- ence are concerned, it is very much an affair of the exclusive gentry. This would support the viewpoint of many observers of England that the upper 103 MOZART AND THE NAZIS classes guard real art and then pass it on to the people. Undoubtedly an appreciation of culture that is centuries old has rendered the educated Englishman more susceptible to cultural assets, which he regards as decora- tive additions to life, just like he needs floral arrangements and commissions of grand paintings for the adornment of his home. Art has apparently remained the servant of wealth, a privilege and decoration just like the inci- dental music that enriched the garden plays of Elizabethan times.30 Whereas the Nazi journal derided the ethos of Glyndebourne, the theatre critic Alfred Kerr, whose writings had been burnt by the Nazis in the summer of 1933, offered a very different view. In his opinion, Glyndebourne repre- sented one of the genuine standard-bearers for German art in exile: What the musician and master-organiser Fritz Busch is gloriously offering to the admiration of England is prime German art . . . One has to stress the Germanness of this art . . . because German art in exile is tending the flame here: because it preserves the undamaged splendour of the German name which in today’s chaos of vulgarity and bleakness is in danger of being lost – ever since paltriness calls itself Germanness, ever since the lust to torture calls itself progress and ever since gang robbery calls itself destiny.31 Mozart in the Maelstrom: The Salzburg Festival, 1933–1937 Given the centrality of Mozart to both the Glyndebourne and Salzburg Festivals, it was naturally tempting for British writers to draw parallels between the two events. Perhaps they were encouraged to make such compar- isons by John Christie, whose vision for Glyndebourne had originally been inspired by his visits to Salzburg. But in fact the differences between the two events were just as significant. Although Busch and Ebert had been prominent cultural victims of Nazi proscription and never made any secret of their abhorrence of the regime, they remained determined that politics should not in any way pollute the atmosphere in Glyndebourne, their prime objective being to serve Mozart’s music. In contrast, for all Salzburg’s noble desire to place artistic issues over and above any other concerns, its geographical posi- tion near the German border and the increasingly volatile situation in the Austrian Republic meant that it was almost impossible for its activities not to 104 THE MOZART DIASPORA become embroiled in intense political controversy, particularly in the period from 1933 to the Anschluss. In some respects this controversy had surfaced even before the Salzburg Festival established itself in the 1920s as an important event in the cultural calendar. The debate originated prior to the First World War at a time when a reaction against the decadence of contemporary urban culture generated a longing in certain artistic circles to return to nature and to a kind of rustic idyll. With its beautiful surroundings and strong Mozartian heritage, Salzburg seemed to be the ideal place in which to promulgate such values. Indeed, this desire to promote Salzburg seemed to intensify once hostilities broke out, though there was little consensus amongst those with vested interests as to the actual shape such a Festival might take. During the second decade of the twentieth century, two different groups emerged, each with contrasting agendas. On the one hand, there was a powerful nationalist faction led by the lawyer Friedrich Gehmacher, who facilitated the building of the Salzburg Mozarteum concert hall, and the Viennese music critic and writer Heinrich Damisch, founder of the Wiener Mozart-Gemeinde in 1913. Regarding themselves as the modern-day ambassadors of a Mozart tradi- tion, their objective to was to erect a Festspielhaus, on the lines of Wagner’s Bayreuth, dedicated to the ‘ideal’ cultivation of Mozart’s music. The other group, led by the internationally renowned theatre director Max Reinhardt and the writers Hermann Bahr and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, envisaged a more inclusive package. Mozart would still take centre stage, but his genius would inspire a programme of spiritual beauty through a mixture of operas and plays, comedies and musicals, and popular productions as well as ancient religious works by an assortment of authors, playwrights and composers. If the aesthetic outlook of both groups remained somewhat conservative, Reinhardt, Bahr and Hofmannsthal rejected the cultural parochialism of the nationalists whilst remaining strongly committed to preserving Austria’s territorial autonomy and distinctly Catholic identity.32 When the first Salzburg Festival opened in 1920, the cultural ideals of Reinhardt, Bahr and Hofmannsthal prevailed over those of Damisch and Gehmacher, and would continue to do so for the next seventeen years. But while for strategic and pragmatic reasons Gehmacher managed to reach some kind of accommodation with his rivals, Damisch remained an implacably hostile opponent of the whole project. In 1917, he had already expressed strongly entrenched anti-Semitic objections towards Reinhardt, 105 MOZART AND THE NAZIS suggesting that his cultural agenda was motivated by purely materialistic intentions and was financed with the aid of cultural speculators.33 Damisch would continue this campaign of attrition during the 1920s through his position as cultural editor of the Deutschösterreichische Tageszeitung, the most stridently pan-Germanic and pro-Hitler newspaper in Austria. One example of his attempted meddling took place in 1922. During a serious financial crisis which badly affected the Festival, Damisch proposed that more racially acceptable Richard Strauss would be better suited to acting as a figure- head for the Festival’s attempts to raise money than the Jew Reinhardt.34 However, Damisch’s demands, and those of an increasingly vociferous group of local Nazis, were to prove less immediately significant than the growing inter- national prestige that the Salzburg Festival enjoyed during the 1920s, and the corresponding financial benefits to the city that resulted from an increasing number of tourists that attended the event. This situation changed dramatically after Hitler came to power in 1933. The new regime outlined a series of measures which were deliberately designed to destabilise the Austrian regime and damage its already fragile economy. As the Salzburg Festival had always attracted considerable income from a large influx of tourists, it was one of the most obvious targets in Hitler’s sights. In fact in the months before the Festival opened in the summer of 1933, several incidents took place in or near the city that were intended to frighten off visitors. These included a bungled break-in at a power station, an attempt to deprive Salzburg of its electricity supply; a series of strident pro-Nazi demonstrations that were broken up by the police, and the daubing of a huge swastika smeared with tar and petroleum which was set alight on one of the mountains surrounding the city.35 With the relationship between the two regimes becoming ever more frac- tious, the Austrians passed a law banning the Nazi party and any political demonstrations of support for their cause.36 But the Germans retaliated with a much more potent weapon. On 1 June a tax of 1,000 Reichsmarks was imposed on any of their nationals intending to cross the border and visit the Festival.37 Naturally the management of the Salzburg Festival were alarmed by this development since they were heavily dependent upon German visitors, who made up between 40 and 50 per cent of their audience. Accordingly, they expressed the hope that the Austrian Government would make good any losses suffered by the absence of the Germans and redouble its efforts to encourage more visitors from abroad.38 106 THE MOZART DIASPORA Fortunately, by the time the Festival opened at the end of July an intensified publicity campaign, which included placing a large number of advertisements in the international press, had induced a greater influx of foreign visitors.39 But despite these efforts, overall numbers were still reduced, the German contingent declining drastically from 15,681 in 1932 to only 874 in the following year.40 A further source of concern was the continued attempts by the Nazis to disrupt the Festival. On the opening day, for example, two German flying units appeared over the city and dropped large quantities of leaflets over the cathedral square as a crowd of tourists was attending a concert of military music. Highly inflamma- tory in tone, the leaflets attacked the Austrian regime and incited Nazi sympa- thisers in Austria to declare a tax strike and withdraw their savings from the country’s banks.41 More acts of sabotage engineered by local Nazis were to follow in the ensuing weeks, as well as the high-profile withdrawal, presumably under pressure from the regime, of a number of German artists, including the composer Hans Pfitzner and singers Sigrid Onegin and Wilhelm Rode, both of whom had been engaged to appear at the Festival.42 Neither tactic, however, succeeded in causing the organisers to cancel or alter their programme. Throughout this crisis, the management of the Salzburg Festival tried to deflect attention away from their difficulties, remaining committed to the principle that at all costs art should not be contaminated by political pressure. It was a principle that they would adhere to in the following years, even though Nazi agitation was a constant threat. Yet in 1933 the organisers were unable to contain the spontaneous burst of sympathy and support from the audience that greeted the great Mozartian Bruno Walter as he mounted the rostrum to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic, in a programme which included some arias from the Mozart’s little known opera Zaide sung by the soprano Lotte Schoene. Walter had enjoyed an important association with the Festival, having made his debut in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale in 1925. He returned with Mozart’s Die Entführung and Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus in 1926, then again with Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte in 1931. By 1933, as has already been observed, he had become a high-profile victim of the Nazis, having been dismissed from his conducting position at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and forced to leave Germany. Under these circumstances, his appearance at the Festival had added significance, inspiring a public demonstration of loyalty to the Austrian cause, and by implication a rejection of Nazi harassment. Significantly, Walter’s concert and 107 MOZART AND THE NAZIS the ecstatic audience response were deemed of sufficient topical importance to make the front page of the New York Times. Under the headline ‘Salzburg Idolizes Bruno Walter Ousted by Nazis as “Non-Aryan” ’, Frederick Birchall described in vivid terms the extraordinary atmosphere generated by this concert: Applause greeted Herr Walter the moment he entered and walked to the conductor’s desk. He had seemed to hesitate just a trifle, as if he wondered how he would be received. From his native Germany in the last few months there had come to him mostly abuse. Last night, when applause from every part of the Mozart Auditorium met him, it almost seemed to surprise him. But from the moment that he raised his baton, there was no doubt as to the effect, upon the conductor, the orchestra or the audience, or the situation created by the propaganda that has sacrificed German art to German politics. Never in Salzburg has a conductor performed his task with greater inspiration, never has an orchestra responded more nobly and never has an audience received the result with greater acclaim. After each number there was long and fervent applause. At the end of the concert Herr Walter had to return again to the platform and bow his thanks. He brought with him Frau Schoene to share it, for she, too, had sacrificed a brilliant career on the German concert stage to the Aryan shibboleth of National Socialism. Bouquets were carried to her and the crowd pelted the singer and the conductor with roses.43 Although Walter wisely refrained at that time from making any public declarations of his abhorrence at the actions of the Nazis, there can be little doubt that in mounting a new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the designer Oskar Strnad and director Karlheinz Martin for the 1934 Salzburg Festival, he was taking a stand against the cultural situation in his native country. Particularly significant in this context was his decision to break with previous traditions in Salzburg by insisting that the opera be sung in Da Ponte’s original Italian. Whether or not this was a deliberate conscious move, it could certainly be viewed as some kind of commentary on the activities of the Nazis, who were to make increasingly strenuous attempts to relegate and diminish Da Ponte’s contribution to Mozart’s operas. In 1937 the critic Paul Stefan, writing a full-length study of Don Giovanni, expressed special 108 THE MOZART DIASPORA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 12 ConductorBrunoWalter’sappearancesattheSalzburgFestivalbetween1933and1937 became a symbol of anti-Nazi resistance. gratitude to Walter for his bravery in performing the Da Ponte text in Italian, and to Strnad for his expressive scenery which, particularly in the Sextet, seemed to him to mirror the violence, insecurity, and chaos of the contemporary situation.44 Walter’s Don Giovanni in 1934 was so successful that it featured in the Salzburg programme in each of the following three years. In 1935 Die Entführung was added to Walter’s Salzburg repertory in an equally admirable production which confirmed the conductor’s special affinity for Mozart. As a gesture towards Da Ponte, Walter introduced the first performance in Italian at Salzburg of Figaro in August 1937. Although the international cast, which included singers from Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Finland and Hungary, did 109 MOZART AND THE NAZIS not show a uniform grasp of Italian, Herbert Peyser, writing in the New York Times, commended Walter for this innovation, adding with an obvious jibe at the Nazis that ‘Figaro in the usual German given week in and week out in German and Austrian theatres, is at best only half Figaro’.45 In spite of the very public demonstrations of loyalty to Bruno Walter from Salzburg Festival audiences, the conductor maintained a dignified silence when it came to expressing his opinions regarding the activities of the Nazis. In contrast, his colleague Arturo Toscanini, the other conducting pillar of the Salzburg Festival during this period, was not prepared to be so reticent. In 1933 he had broken his engagement at the Bayreuth Festival in protest at its appropriation by the Nazis, and had personally cabled Hitler to condemn the regime’s anti-Semitic policies.46 The following year he went to Salzburg and from 1934 to 1937 conducted operas and concerts which attracted huge audi- ences. But his relationship with the authorities remained volatile and, on a point of principle, he refused point-blank to have any association with musi- cians who had sought favour with the Nazis. In 1936 he threatened to leave altogether when he discovered that the Austrian and German governments were preparing to exchange broadcasts between the Salzburg and Bayreuth Festivals, but with the special proviso that Bruno Walter’s performance of Don Giovanni would not be relayed to Germany owing to the conductor’s Jewish origins.47 On this particular occasion, Toscanini’s threats were sufficiently strident to scupper the plan altogether. With Bruno Walter in charge of the Mozart opera repertory, Toscanini tended to focus his attention on other composers. However, in 1937 he tried his hand at Die Zauberflöte and attempted an interpretation that would purge the work of what he regarded as its excessively Germanic overtones. The international cast featured a number of singers proscribed by the Nazi regime, including the Jewish bass Alexander Kipnis and the Czech soprano Jarmila Novotna, and the production by Herbert Graf attempted to preserve some of the pantomime spirit of Schikaneder’s fairy-tale. Critical response to the performance, however, was decidedly mixed, some members of the audience voicing the opinion that they were listening to Il Flauto Magico rather than to Die Zauberflöte.48 By November 1937 the programme for the next year’s Salzburg Festival was already published. Among his proposed repertory, Toscanini was to conduct Die Zauberflöte, while Walter would add Così fan tutte to the other two Da 110 THE MOZART DIASPORA Ponte operas. Neither conductor took up their engagements, however, because of the political crisis in Austria during the first months of 1938 which culminated in the Anschluss. While working in New York during February, and less than a month before Hitler’s armies advanced over the German border, Toscanini announced his resignation from the Festival. Rejecting pleas from Bruno Walter, among others, to reconsider his position, he decided that the proceeds from the concert that he was to give at Carnegie Hall on 4 March would not, as was originally intended, be devoted to the Salzburg Festival, but be divided among unemployed musicians in New York and the Verdi rest home for aged and destitute musicians at Milan. In a state- ment to the press, he declared his intention to proceed to Palestine after the New York concert, where he would conduct the orchestra that had been formed with his support and which was largely made up of German Jewish refugees.49 Walter’s situation was more complicated. In February 1938 he had been persuaded to renew his contract with the Vienna State Opera and was looking forward to his forthcoming engagements at the Salzburg Festival when news of Austria’s capitulation reached him as he was on tour in Amsterdam. Realising that once again he would be forced to leave what was now the German Reich, he cancelled his arrangements to appear at Salzburg on 14 March. A month later Jean Zay, the French Minister of Education, published an article in the newspaper Paris-Soir (21 April) stating that he had invited both Walter and Toscanini to establish an equivalent festival to Salzburg in France, possibly sited at Saint-Germain[-en-Laye], Versailles, Vichy, Orange or the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.50 Walter apparently approved the offer, but the plan came to nothing because Toscanini had not confirmed definitively that he would participate.51 No doubt Walter’s willingness to help launch a French Salzburg contributed to the offer of French citizenship which he and his wife received in September 1938. During the intervening months, however, Walter was to face more difficulties with the Nazis, further justifying his decisions to resign from Salzburg and to refuse to return to Vienna. In May 1938, for example, The Times reported that the German authorities had refused permis- sion for singers from the Vienna Opera to take part in a performance in Brussels of Mozart’s Die Entführung at which Walter was to have been the conductor, on the pretext that he had broken his contracts in Vienna at and the Salzburg Festival.52 Then in September 1938, he was summoned by a Viennese 111 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Civil Court to pay back 80,600 Reichsmarks on the spurious grounds that he had evaded tax while working at the Vienna State Opera.53 The Mozart diaspora during the war – performances in the United States and Great Britain With the departure of Bruno Walter from Salzburg, Fritz Busch remained the only prominent anti-Nazi to have continued an intensive programme of Mozart operas, which featured at the Glyndebourne Festivals of 1938 and 1939. However, after the outbreak of war in September 1939 the plans for the 1940 programme, which would have also included a new production of Bizet’s Carmen, were aborted. Busch and Ebert were nonetheless in demand in polit- ically neutral countries. The Intendant of the Royal Opera House in Stockholm had attended the Busch/Ebert production of Così fan tutte at Glyndebourne and was so impressed with the quality of the performance that he invited conductor and director to mount the opera in his own theatre. The Stockholm performances were to take place in early 1940, but without Carl Ebert, who had accepted the opportunity to direct opera in Ankara. Replacing Ebert was Fritz Busch’s son Hans, who had acted as the great producer’s assis- tant for some years. Although Hans Busch’s operatic debut took place under rather unusual circumstances, the performance of Così fan tutte was a huge box office success and proved to be something of a landmark as the first foreign opera in the Royal Opera House’s history to have been presented in its original language.54 After the Stockholm performances, Busch and his family were forced to leave Europe on account of the worsening political situation. Over the next few months they travelled huge distances from Copenhagen, where Fritz was conductor of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, via Moscow to South America, eventually finding their way to the United States in December 1940. At this juncture, Fritz and Hans Busch began to outline plans for a new kind of opera company which would be founded in New York. Their model was undoubtedly Glyndebourne, whose artistic principles they hoped to transplant to America. Enlisting the support of the Christie family, the project came to be known as the New Opera Company and started its activities at the end of 1941. In view of its success in Stockholm, Busch proposed that Così fan tutte should be featured alongside Verdi’s Macbeth for the New Opera Company’s 112 THE MOZART DIASPORA first season. But whereas in Glyndebourne Busch and Ebert had established the ideal working conditions to ensure a popular success for Mozart’s ensemble opera, in the United States it was more difficult to generate the same ambience, particularly given the considerable tensions in personnel that surfaced during the rehearsals.55 Besides this, the American public was largely unfamiliar with and somewhat unresponsive to Mozart’s opera. It is indicative of the work’s neglect in the United States that the Metropolitan Opera performed it for the first time in a run of twelve performances during the 1920s, and that the opera was only revived there in 1951. Under these circumstances, and despite Fritz Busch’s outstanding musical direction, the New Opera Company’s Così fan tutte, staged at the 44th Street Theater in October 1941, received a far less enthusiastic reception than may have been expected. Two problems surfaced from the outset. According to John Pennino, the opening ‘was as much a social event as a musical one’.56 On a practical level, ticket prices were twice as expensive as at the Metropolitan Opera. Besides, for Mozart lovers, the Met’s long-established Figaro, running concurrently with the New Opera Company’s Così, seemed a far more attrac- tive proposition. Critical evaluation of the New Opera Company’s Così was mixed. Olin Downes, writing in the New York Times, praised the performance for ‘many points of exceptional spirit and beauty’, but argued that the action did not have the ‘finesse required for this score’.57 Virgil Thomson, in the New York Herald Tribune, was far less charitable, making snide remarks about the stage design which in his opinion ‘looked like nothing so much as the entrance to a beauty parlor . . . the red interior which might have been a ladies’ rest room in a provincial picture theatre’.58 Artur Holde, reviewing the performance for the exile newspaper Aufbau, was more philosophical, reflecting upon the difficulties of transplanting a distinctly European cultural experience to the United States: The New York audience at premieres is, generally speaking, not an ideal audi- ence for the intimately dramatic art of Mozart. Even in this performance, people arrive late without concern; they leave the theatre early with the same insouciance; they greet their friends in the middle of a scene. The early depar- ture of many may partly have originated from a dramaturgical sin of omission; several numbers of the second act which delay the course of the narrative and moreover do not belong to Mozart’s most compelling inspirations should have 113 MOZART AND THE NAZIS been cut. This was all the more necessary as the production lost its appealing tension and stringent drive towards the end.59 As at Glyndebourne, Fritz Busch had laid down conditions that the management of the New Opera Company could not interfere in artistic matters. But whereas John Christie had the good sense to realise the limits of his expertise, the directors of the New Opera Company were less willing to allow Busch such latitude and made decisions with which he could not agree. Within months Busch withdrew from the whole enterprise, although the New Opera Company continued to operate until 1947. While it may have proved impossible to recreate the spirit of Glyndebourne at the New Opera Company, the performing traditions established in Salzburg proved somewhat easier to transport over the Atlantic to the Metropolitan Opera House. There were probably two reasons for this. First and foremost, some of the principal artists engaged by the Metropolitan Opera during this period were exactly the same as those that had worked together in Salzburg. Among the most important were the producer Herbert Graf, who had collab- orated with Toscanini on the 1937 Zauberflöte, and Bruno Walter, who had worked with Graf in Salzburg on a production of Die Entführung. The connections also extended to the choreographer Margarete Wallmann, who had served under Walter at the Vienna State Opera, and Erich Leinsdorf, Bruno Walter’s conducting assistant in Salzburg. A second reason for the relative success of the Metropolitan Opera’s ventures can be attributed to a highly sympathetic public, many of whom were already familiar with the qualities of the artists that had been engaged during this period. As is evident from the unusual prominence given to the Salzburg Festival’s activities in such newspapers as the New York Times, American tourists were increasingly visiting the Festival in the mid-1930s, thereby helping to offset the severe financial problems that would have resulted from the boycott imposed by the Nazi regime. Perhaps, as Harald Waitzbauer argued, the pres- ence in particular of rich American Jews in Salzburg was also motivated by the desire to express some kind of ‘inner-Jewish’ solidarity with those persecuted by the Nazis and to signify a protest against the Hitler regime.60 In surveying the wartime repertory on which Herbert Graf and Bruno Walter worked together at the Metropolitan Opera, the special emphasis on Mozart is noticeable. Yet Walter was very keen not to be exclusively associated 114 THE MOZART DIASPORA with this composer and actually made his debut in the opera house on 14 February 1941 with Beethoven’s Fidelio – a particularly poignant choice given Walter’s own personal history and the opera’s themes of freedom from oppression, undying love and triumph over adversity.61 The other operas that he conducted were Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera and La Forza del Destino. Nevertheless, between 1941 and 1945, Walter conducted a total of 47 performances of Mozart as compared to 18 of Verdi and 13 of the other composers. He began his Mozart performances on 7 March 1941 with Don Giovanni in a production by Herbert Graf which featured Salzburg favourites Ezio Pinza (as Don Giovanni) and Jarmila Novotna (as Donna Elvira). Following this came Graf ’s new production of Die Zauberflöte on 11 December with émigrés Novotna as Pamina, Alexander Kipnis as Sarastro and Friedrich Schorr as The Speaker. It was a performance that drew unstinting praise from Virgil Thomson, who particularly commended Walter for his pacing of the work and clear balancing of sonorities. Graf was also acclaimed for ‘the care for produc- tion detail’, which alongside the musical strengths had given the performance ‘a general harmony and an integrity that are not easy qualities to achieve in a repertory theatre’.62 Given the timing of the Zauberflöte premiere, which coincided with the anniversary month of Mozart’s death and took place only four days after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, at the very moment when Germany and Italy declared war on the US, it is perhaps significant that Walter and Graf made the decision to present this most German of the composer’s operas in a new English translation made by Ruth and Thomas Martin, both of whom had been frequent visitors to Salzburg during the 1930s. Coincidentally, during the final stages of the rehearsal period for Die Zauberflöte, some prominent singers at the Metropolitan Opera managed to make headline news by declaring their revulsion at the contents of the speech in honour of Mozart that was delivered by Reichsleiter Baldur von Schirach at the Mozartwoche des deutschen Reiches in Vienna.63 As well as the protest of the singers, the Mozart anniversary in America offered further opportunities to promote a view of the composer different from that promulgated by the Nazis. The exile journal Aufbau reported on a Mozart Festival at Westminster Choir College in Princeton organised by the Czech émigré scholar Paul Nettl, in which the musicologist delivered a 115 MOZART AND THE NAZIS lecture entitled ‘Mozart and the Western world’. The concert programme also featured Bronislaw Huberman as soloist in the D major Violin Concerto K218 and assorted performances of Ave verum corpus and the Requiem as well as a Mozart exhibition organised by the Metropolitan Opera Guild featuring rare Mozart autographs and first editions.64 On 17 January 1942, the Committee for the Preservation of Austrian Art and Culture in the U.S.A. held their own Mozart celebration in Carnegie Hall, with Otto Klemperer conducting orchestral works in the first half of the programme, followed by a new arrangement of Der Schauspieldirektor by Don Wilson and Felix Guenther, featuring singers from the Metropolitan Opera with émigrés Felix Wolfes as conductor and Leopold Sachse as producer.65 In December 1942, Bruno Walter returned to the Metropolitan Opera to give his first performance there of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, with Graf once again as producer. The performance received a mixed response, although in view of America’s intensified involvement in the war, it is worth noting the remarks of Howard Taubman, the critic of the New York Times, who commended both conductor and producer for resisting the temptation to play the opera for ‘easy laughs’: ‘as a result, its warmth, loveliness and enduring humanity shine through to cheer a grim world’.66 A further performance of Don Giovanni during the same month prompted Artur Holde, writing in Aufbau, to reflect more widely on the interaction between Austrian and American culture that was taking place during this period: Bruno Walter conducted Mozart in the Salzburg Festspiele . . . ‘that’s the kind of reparations I like’, said a misty-eyed American who sat behind me to his daughter. And this humane expression of the highest artistic culture now spreads its treasures here, treasures which will enrich future generations. For the style with which Walter interprets Mozart, as personal and in a certain sense inimitable as he is, will be exemplary also in this country for times to come.67 In the latter years of the war Walter continued to perform all three Mozart operas at the Metropolitan Opera, but because of growing tensions with the opera management and pressure of concert engagements elsewhere, the conducting of these works was increasingly handed out to others. Significantly, many of those who replaced Walter at the podium were also 116 THE MOZART DIASPORA refugees from Europe, including George Szell, Erich Leinsdorf and Paul Breisach, the Austrian-born pupil of Heinrich Schenker and Franz Schreker, whom Walter would have known from his work at the Berlin Städtische Oper. Judging by the cosmopolitan nature of the personnel who were engaged by the Metropolitan Opera during the war, it seems clear that the New York musical scene remained extraordinarily receptive to the talents of émigré musicians who were forced through political circumstances to leave Europe. In sharp contrast, those refugees from Nazi Germany who came to Great Britain were far less fortunate. Limited by the country’s strict labour laws and the vested interests of organisations such as the Incorporated Society of Musicians, they had to contend with the fear, expressed in the higher echelons of the British musical establishment, that indigenous musicians would be put out of work if the newcomers’ careers were allowed to flourish in their adopted country. Under these difficult circumstances, the resilience of refugee musicians was remarkable, and the musical activities that emanated from the various cultural organisations that served the interests of the exile community (Freier Deutscher Kulturbund [FDKB] and Free Austria) were varied and stimu- lating. By coincidence, one notable example of their enterprise involved Mozart and the reconstruction of his unfinished opera L’oca del Cairo (The Goose of Cairo). Before the war this opera, conceived in the period between Die Entführung and Figaro, had been published in an arrangement by the Italian composer Virgilio Mortari and received some performances at Salzburg in 1936. The Austrian musicologist Hans Ferdinand Redlich, who worked for Universal Edition in Vienna until his emigration to England, felt that Mortari’s version lacked a proper understanding of the Mozartian style, and accordingly prepared an alternative arrangement which attempted to be more faithful to the composer’s original intentions. The fruits of his research on the opera were published in an article that appeared in a Swiss music journal in 1939.68 A vocal score and orchestral parts would no doubt have been published had Universal Edition not fallen into the hands of the Nazis in April 1938. Nonetheless, Redlich’s version secured a performance on Radio Beromünster in March 1939. Redlich was naturally keen to further the reputation of his Mozart reconstruction in England and submitted an article on the opera to the newly established Music Review to enable the work to become better-known in 117 MOZART AND THE NAZIS intellectual circles.69 On a more practical level, he gathered together a group of unemployed refugee musicians in the early months of 1940 to form an opera company so that the music could be rehearsed with the hope of securing a public performance. An act of generosity enabled him to use a hall with a piano in Hampstead where the rehearsals could take place. Once Redlich, the producer Jan van Loewen and conductor Frederick Berend were satisfied that the performance was of professional standard, they offered their services to the British Red Cross as their contribution to the national war effort. Sadlers Wells Theatre was accordingly booked, and three perform- ances of L’oca del Cairo by their company took place between 30 May and 1 June 1940. Five days before the scheduled first performance, The Times published a detailed and sympathetic article about the whole enterprise. In order to stimulate audience interest, the anonymous author, who had spent a morning at a piano rehearsal in Hampstead, declared that the opera had ‘been excel- lently cast and served to convince the writer of the first-rate quality of the undertaking’. He added: If it is nothing more, L’oca del Cairo is a might-have-been over which it will be well worth while to spend an hour, especially with the knowledge that to do so is to help a cause which all have at heart.70 Whether or not the author of this article and that of the review of the opera, which appeared in the 31 May issue of The Times, were the same person, Redlich was once again praised for his reconstruction which was worthy of ‘occasional performance’. On the other hand, although the singers ‘were all conversant with Mozart’s style’ and their ‘acting was viva- cious’, the piece did not sparkle as it should owing to ‘anaemic playing from the orchestra’ and a lack of co-ordination between those on stage and the conductor, not to mention faulty ensemble and occasional lapses in intonation.71 Perhaps it would have been unrealistic to expect the performances of L’oca del Cairo to reach standards that matched those of a long-established opera company. A further irony, which would not have escaped either the performers or the audience who were present at Sadler’s Wells, was that this well-meaning gesture on the part of the refugees, an act that reflected obvious devotion to 118 THE MOZART DIASPORA Mozart and gratitude to those who had accepted them into the country, took place at a particularly difficult moment. Barely a fortnight before L’oca del Cairo was introduced to the British public, parliament had passed an act which gave the authorities powers to round up all Germans as enemy aliens and place them in internment camps. Given that many of the musicians’ colleagues had already been interned, the final chorus of the opera, acclaiming the fall of tyranny and affirming the capacity of true love to rise above adversity, must have sounded unbearably poignant. 119 CHAPTER 6 ‘TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC’ EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART Mozart was of course, revered by all, but for Jewish musicians this great figure may have possessed special significance as the embodiment of a universalist musical tradition that was of great moral significance, taking no notice of petty national or religious differences among men. (EZRA MENDELSOHN)1 The high regard in which Mozart was held among Jewish musicians was never projected with greater intensity than during the Third Reich. At a time when open-mindedness and compassion were being systematically defiled by the Nazis, it was all the more necessary to proclaim Mozart as a humanitarian, a force of moral strength and a cultural icon that transcended national and reli- gious boundaries. With good reason, therefore, the composer became a particularly potent symbol for displaced writers on music committed to coun- tering Nazi propaganda which, through wilful manipulation and misinterpre- tation, had attempted to pervert his legacy. In 1941, the year that marked the 150th anniversary of Mozart’s death, the émigré musicologist Paul Nettl persuasively articulated this position in an essay published in the New York Times. Presented under the banner headline ‘Music and Spirit of Mozart Held to have no Kinship with Nazis’, Nettl’s article distanced the composer from any tangible affinity with a Nazi world-view: the music of Mozart is true humanitarian music, filled with the emotions of mercy and love, principles not included in the Nazi credo. And therefore this music is eminently democratic, pre-eminently outside the pale of the world which pretends to be a bearer of the culture that in reality it is destroying.2 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART In many respects Nettl’s contention that Mozart’s music is both ‘humani- tarian’ and ‘eminently democratic’ echoes the sentiments of other displaced writers that chose to focus their attention upon Mozart during this period. Although diverse in their interests and expertise, most found common ground in presenting an interpretation of Mozart that was diametrically opposed to the stridently nationalist stance adopted by the Nazis. None, however, would prove to be a more eloquent and wide-ranging spokesman for the composer than the musicologist and critic Alfred Einstein. Alfred Einstein and the Third Edition of the Köchel Catalogue Alfred Einstein’s achievements as a Mozart scholar prior to 1933 – in partic- ular his important edition of Don Giovanni published in 1931 – have already been discussed in Chapter 1. Though widely acknowledged as a musicologist Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 13 Alfred Einstein, unquestionably the leading Mozart scholar during the 1930s and 1940s. 121 MOZART AND THE NAZIS of outstanding stature, Einstein was denied the appointment of an academic post in a German university on account of his Jewish origins. Compelled to earn a living primarily as a music critic writing reviews for the Berliner Tageblatt, Einstein nonetheless exerted considerable influence in the musico- logical world during the final years of the Weimar Republic, in particular through his role as editor of the journal Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft. Soon after the Nazis came to power, Einstein lost his positions with both the newspaper and the journal and left Germany for good in July 1933. Over the next six years he lived in England and Italy, working on several research projects, and completed a book on Gluck which was translated into English by Eric Blom in 1936. In 1939 Einstein moved permanently to the United States where he took up a professorship at Smith College, the first time in his career that he had achieved due recognition in the university sector as a scholar.3 Before his arrival in the United States there were severely limited opportu- nities for Einstein to secure sufficiently viable employment opportunities as a scholar and writer to support himself and his family. Nonetheless, the years from 1933 to 1939 proved extraordinarily fruitful in terms of his research, especially with regard to Mozart, whose music he served with a seemingly insatiable degree of energy as a bibliographer, writer and editor. Among the Mozart projects that remained closest to his heart was his completion of the third and much expanded edition of the Köchel Catalogue of Mozart’s Works, which was eventually published in 1937. Einstein had secured the commission for this venture from the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf & Härtel in 1929, having taken over from Bernhard Paumgartner, the director of the Salzburg Mozarteum, who felt unable to devote the time to making the necessary revisions for the catalogue. It was fortunate indeed that Einstein was resident in Berlin during this period as he had direct access to the precious Mozart manuscripts that were assembled in the State Library and to the collection of the Berlin-based antiquarian dealer Leo Liepmannssohn. Einstein’s duties as a critic led him to review concerts in several German cities and also in Austria, thus allowing him the opportunity of consulting other libraries which held important Mozart autographs and first editions. A visit in 1932 to the private library in Frankfurt of the indus- trialist Paul Hirsch whose Katalog einer Mozart-Bibliothek (Catalogue of a Mozart Library), originally published in 1906 in honour of the composer’s 150th birthday, was particularly useful in tracing the publishing history of 122 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART Mozart’s works. It also provided the catalyst for an important collaboration between the two men that would take place after they both had left Germany. As it turned out, Einstein’s departure from Germany did not disrupt his goal of fulfilling his commission and completing the Köchel revisions as quickly and efficiently as possible. There was much goodwill among his inter- national musicologist colleagues, who were keen to assist him with his research. Furthermore, librarians from the United States, Sweden and Russia provided him with photocopies of Mozart autographs and scores that he would not have been in a position to see first-hand. Putting to good use his time spent in England, he was able to peruse material both in the British Library and at Cambridge. In addition, while in Italy Einstein was given access to important Mozart sources in Florence and Bologna. During the winter of 1935/36, he concluded his work with an extended stay in Vienna, scrutinizing the archives of the National Library.4 The result of Einstein’s endeavours was a major work of Mozart scholarship which vastly expanded Köchel’s original catalogue of 1862 from 551 pages to 984, adding 49 further pages for an extended introduction. Yet there remained a huge question mark as to whether Breitkopf & Härtel would be prepared to honour their contract and publish Einstein’s work. After all, from 1933 onwards all publishers had been obliged to follow Nazi directives forbidding any further issue of books authored by Jews. Apart from contra- vening Nazi racial policy, another stumbling block to the revised Köchel catalogue appearing in print was Einstein’s own vociferously hostile position towards the country he had left in 1933. Always a man of forthright opinions, the exiled writer did not hold back from expressing his opposition to the cultural outlook of the Nazi regime. In October 1933, the month he settled temporarily in London, Einstein wrote an article entitled ‘Politics and art: How music fares in the new Germany’ for the Daily Telegraph. Opening with the statement that ‘the way of art is properly independent of politics, and this is particularly true of music’, Einstein argued that despite their bluster, the National Socialists had not managed to change anything in the realm of music as Hitler and Goebbels remained ‘indifferent’ to any great creative musical spirit in Germany’.5 A similar line of argument appeared in another article, ‘The present state of music in Germany’, which featured in the November 1933 edition of the Musical Times. Here Einstein described the abuses of the Nazi movement as encouraging ‘the arrival of mediocrity which thinks its 123 MOZART AND THE NAZIS opportunity has come, and before which more enlightened spirits must yield’. He condemned the ‘naïve confusion between purely material nationalism and the true meaning of the word’ as postulated by the Nazis. Whereas Mozart was ‘one of the great messengers of humanity’ (a theme to which Einstein was to return four years later), the ‘Germany of to-day has lost a home, even in music’.6 The response from the Nazi press to Einstein’s comments was predictably venomous. In an editorial that appeared in Alfred Rosenberg’s journal Die Musik in May 1934, both the author and the Musical Times were taken to task for publishing such material: With Dr Alfred Einstein, the former music critic of the Mosse publishing house, London has received the ‘greatest of all European music critics’. Everybody who has ever met Einstein personally in Berlin or Munich . . . knows that he was an outspoken enemy of all Aryan art. He disliked violently every Christian from the outset, while praising every Jew regard- less of their achievements. The London music journal The Musical Times had little better idea than to enthusiastically sanction no other than this music-Jew to write the leader article on the front page of one of its volumes on contemporary musical life in Germany. It is superfluous to quote more specifically from this pamphlet, because the grubby disposition of the author is obvious in every line.7 Yet while Die Musik targeted Einstein as an enemy of the regime, there were others in Germany that continued to recognise his achievement. Among his musicologist colleagues, Friedrich Blume acknowledged Einstein’s expertise and help in the introductory prefaces he had contributed to the Eulenburg miniature scores of the Mozart piano concertos which appeared from 1933 onwards. In 1936 Kurt Soldan did likewise in a new publication of Mozart’s piano works that was issued by Peters Edition.8 Even in the heightened anti-Semitic climate of the Third Reich, it was one thing to endorse Einstein within the preface to a musical score, and another to sanction the publication of a hugely important musicological work bearing his name. Breitkopf & Härtel was clearly placed in a quandary over the whole matter. Legally the firm may have felt obliged to honour their contract with Einstein, and it was not keen to suffer financially from abandoning its 124 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART publication. Besides, Breitkopf’s foreign agents had already whipped up considerable interest in the catalogue. For example, an advertisement featured in the June 1936 issue of the Musical Times announced its imminent publica- tion, offering readers exceptional terms for advance orders that would be received before the end of the month.9 From such evidence, it seems likely that Einstein’s book must have already been in the press by the middle of 1936. Yet publication was delayed for over a year, presumably because Breitkopf had to wait some time before securing permission from the authorities for the book to be issued. In fact, according to his post-war testimony, Hellmuth von Hase, a director of the publishing house, had to lodge a personal appeal to the President of the Reichsmusikkammer Peter Raabe before it could be released.10 After Einstein’s revised Köchel catalogue was eventually published, Alfred Rosenberg’s music expert Herbert Gerigk chastised Raabe for having bowed to pressure from the Leipzig publisher. It seemed grotesque to him that the interests of a Jewish émigré could have been promoted in the Third Reich in this way.11 Nonetheless, despite Gerigk’s objections, the catalogue’s publica- tion seemed to pass by almost unnoticed in Nazi Germany, being greeted by a wall of silence from almost all German musicologists. Evidently none of the leading music journals in the country were prepared to review the Köchel catalogue, and Breitkopf & Härtel pragmatically refrained from placing any advertisements announcing its availability in Germany. Indeed the firm appears to have gone to extraordinary lengths to disregard Einstein’s contri- bution altogether. In the May 1937 issue of the trade magazine, the Mitteilungen des Verlages Breitkopf & Härtel, a three-page article announces the imminent publication of the third edition of the Köchel catalogue, but fails to mention Einstein anywhere in the text.12 While German musicologists maintained a public embargo on discussing the Köchel/Einstein catalogue, the writer was at least able enjoy stunning crit- ical accolades for his work elsewhere. With characteristically deadpan humour, Einstein prepared the ground for this response with a witty article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 2 May 1936. Einstein opened his essay by trying to draw a distinction between a thematic catalogue of music and that of other catalogues, which must be accounted in the author’s opinion ‘the most tedious books of their kind’ since the art of writing was invented. After introducing readers to the complicated genesis of the first edition of Köchel’s 125 MOZART AND THE NAZIS catalogue, Einstein acknowledged the enormous advances in our knowledge of Mozart that had been made by French, German and English specialists during the first thirty years of the twentieth century, suggesting modestly that his assembly of ‘all these contributory labours’ might form ‘perhaps the basis for fresh Mozartian research’. He concluded his article with the claim that the catalogue affords ‘a reflection or an outline of the most pure, most wonderful, the most consistent creative achievement known to the history of the musical art’.13 Once the catalogue was published in May 1937, it received extensive coverage in the non-German musical press. In a review which appeared in Music & Letters, Cecil Oldman declared the work to be ‘an exemplary piece of scholarship: the work of a man who is equally qualified as historian and musi- cian, and is as skilful in drawing conclusions from his facts as he is industrious in accumulating them’. 14 Noel Straus, writing in the New York Times, was even more enthusiastic: ‘Long anxiously awaited, the new Köchel more than fulfils expectations, representing the invaluable results of a stupendous amount of research and labour on the part of its compiler’.15 But perhaps the most grati- fying comments for the author came from Einstein’s long-trusted German colleague Georg Göhler, the only musicologist remaining in his native country who had the courage and conviction to praise the book in print, albeit in the international journal Acta musicologica. Whilst detailing some reserva- tions regarding Einstein’s methodology, Göhler nonetheless eloquently praised his overall achievement: All things considered, the new Köchel is a musicological event, for which one has to thank Einstein’s comprehensive knowledge and unstinting efforts as well as the publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel, who has provided the opportu- nity and external circumstances for this new edition. It is the grand result of international academic collaboration. Einstein is perfectly justified to quote Spinoza’s ‘ordo et connexio’. Without ‘ordo et connexio’, there is no scholar- ship, no history. International musicology will make sure that no part of it will be lost.16 Never one to rest on his laurels, Einstein took particular note of the detailed reviews by Mozart scholars which appeared in highly reputable musicological journals. Acutely aware of the inevitable omissions and ambiguities in a 126 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART book of such detail and complexity, he was grateful to his colleagues for offering expert advice and for providing him with important bibliographical additions. For these reasons he continued to unearth new material for the catalogue well after its publication. By 1939 he had assembled a sufficiently large number of revisions to justify the printing of a fourth edition of the Köchel catalogue. Yet there was absolutely no question of Breitkopf & Härtel publishing such a volume, given the problems they had already experienced with the project in the mid-1930s. Furthermore, once war broke out and Einstein had left Europe for good, the prospect of these revisions ever being published seemed even more remote. That they appeared was largely due to a combination of persistence and encouragement from his friend Paul Hirsch, who had brought his precious music library from Germany to England in 1936, and to the selfless dedication of Geoffrey Sharp, editor of a newly estab- lished British journal entitled the Music Review which began publication early in 1940. Sharp’s journal, which featured an article by Paul Hirsch on early Mozart editions in its first issue, was an unusual venture and almost unique in British musical journalism at the time for its extensive promotion of articles by exiled musicologists and critics.17 This reputation, confirmed in a 1942 article in The Times which referred to the editor having made his journal ‘the home of Continental criticism dispossessed.’ It resulted in Sharp being particularly amenable to Hirsch’s suggestion that the Music Review might be the ideal forum for the publication of Einstein’s revisions.18 The surviving correspondence in the Hirsch Papers at the British Library shows that Einstein readily agreed to the idea and waived Sharp’s offer of payment for his work with the words ‘your offer is one of many kindnesses for which I am indebted to England and English friends. I shall never forget this and shall never be in a position to reciprocate.’19 The first instalment of Einstein’s revisions was published in the fourth volume of Music Review at the end of 1940 under the title ‘Mozartiana und Köcheliana’ and ran to 30 pages of closely printed text. Considering that publi- cation took place at the time when many German refugees had been interned as enemy aliens (a fate that Hirsch himself was unable to avoid, albeit for a limited amount of time), it is remarkable that Sharp agreed to present Einstein’s material in its original language. Highly sensitive to the controversy that might have arisen from this decision, Einstein hoped that readers would not be 127 MOZART AND THE NAZIS ‘surprised that the supplement should appear in German in an English periodical’ , or should not ‘take exception to the fact’. He further explained that This course of action has been adopted merely to avoid incongruity between the supplement and the main work, and to permit the retention of the same abbreviations and other bibliographical references. My original intention was to prepare only a few typewritten copies of the supplement and to present them to a few libraries where they would be readily available to students, but when the editor of The Music Review kindly offered to place his pages at my disposal, I gratefully welcomed this opportunity of ensuring its wider circulation.20 Fortunately for both Einstein and Sharp, there was no obvious backlash against the appearance of the first part of Einstein’s supplement in German, an anonymous reviewer in The Times merely commenting that ‘since Dr Einstein is now debarred from publishing his supplement through the German publishers, Mr Sharp’s undertaking must be regarded as an act of disinterested public service’.21 One year later, the same newspaper was slightly more forth- coming, commenting that in having decided to publish the Einstein supple- ment, the Music Review had salvaged ‘a fragment of the shattered European scholarship in music’.22 After the first part of Einstein’s supplement appeared in the Music Review, a further six instalments followed between 1941 and 1945.23 At the end of the war, Sharp had every intention of bringing together these various sections and offering the supplement in a single publication, once he had received the final section of Einstein’s revisions. But Einstein was no longer willing to contribute to the Music Review, having taken great exception to a passage in an article by Cecil Gray which appeared in the 1944 issue. Amidst a flurry of barbs against recent musical development, Gray had been injudicious enough to have made anti-Semitic slurs regarding the ‘enormous influx of Central European refugees, largely of Jewish extraction’ which had flooded the home market so that it had become ‘the happy hunting-ground of a rout of commercial spec- ulators and profiteers’.24 Despite apologies from Sharp that he did not wish to cause Einstein undue distress, he was nonetheless unprepared to condemn Gray on the basis that writers in his journal were entitled to express their personal opinions. Einstein denied being personally offended by Gray’s 128 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART remarks, but merely regarded them as a cause for regret. He wrote to Sharp on 17 June 1945 that ‘Hitlerism in Germany began exactly with remarks like that; and if they are possible in a democratic country even before V-E Day was achieved, the five and more years of “blood, sweat and tears” are, in my opinion, wasted’.25 Although the Music Review published a further article in 1946 by Einstein on the first performance of Mozart’s Die Entführung in London, the author refused to change his mind and withheld the last installment of the Köchel supplement. One year later, Einstein’s supplement, together with the complete catalogue, was duly published by J. W. Edwards of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Einstein’s writings on Mozart, 1933–1945 Einstein’s reputation as one of the foremost Mozart scholars of his generation would have been assured simply on the basis of his Köchel revisions. But it should also be remembered that while working on this project, Einstein was no less active as a writer, producing many articles on Mozart and others, exploring the plethora of musical subjects that aroused his curiosity. The variety of publi- cations in which his essays appeared – including the Monthly Musical Record, Musical Times, Revue de musicologie, Acta Musicologica, Music & Letters, Daily Telegraph and the Radio Times – gives a good indication of the range and scope of his enquiry and his ability to communicate directly to both a specialist and non-specialist audience.26 One little-known article Einstein wrote in 1938 on Mozart deserves some comment partly because of the journal in which it was published. In September 1937, the exiled novelist Thomas Mann and the writer Konrad Falke founded the anti-fascist periodical Mass und Wert which was published in Zürich with the subtitle Zweimonatsschrift für freie deutsche Kultur. In its opening number, which contained an excerpt from his novel Lotte in Weimar, Mann underlined his aim that the journal should present articles that discussed serious cultural issues but remained untarnished by political dogma. Although music was not one of the subjects addressed in the first issue of Mass und Wert, it should be noted that Mann’s famous and controversial lecture on ‘Richard Wagner und Der Ring des Nibelungen’ appeared in its third issue, in January/February 1938. For the journal’s fourth number, in March/April 1938, 129 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Einstein contributed an eleven page article entitled ‘Mozart und die Humanität’ (Mozart and Humanity) which was featured alongside essays by Hermann Hesse, Louis de Broglie and Maximilian Beck. The culturally enlightened readership to which Mass und Wert was addressed enabled Einstein to reflect more widely on Mozart than might have been possible in a specialist musicological journal. So the article considers in some detail Mozart’s relationship with the Jews and his Freemasonry which, according to Einstein, reached the highest form of humanity in the opera Die Zauberflöte. Einstein mostly refrained from commenting directly upon the Nazi distortions of Mozart that were being formulated in Germany, but made a notable exception with regard to the denigration of his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte on racial grounds: Neither Mozart nor anyone else for the next one hundred and fifty years has cared that this clever poet was Jewish. But a state which takes its Weltanschauung so monotonously seriously has to be consistent and therefore ostracise and dispose of these three operas for the sake of their librettist. And it is an error in reasoning, a deficiency of instinct that this state has as yet failed to do the same with Beethoven, too, whose Fidelio, whose symphonies, quartets, sonatas are also works and acts of humanity.27 Given the extent to which Einstein had involved himself with Mozart during the 1930s, thanks to his passionately held belief that of all great musi- cians Mozart was the only one in which ‘universality is truly evident’, it seemed only a matter of time before he would try and collate all his thoughts on the composer in the form of a book.28 While Einstein was resident in Italy in 1938, he actually received an invitation from an Italian publisher to write a monograph on Mozart, but rejected the suggestion in protest against the rising tide of anti-Semitism that was blighting the country at the time.29 Once in the United States, however, Einstein was able to realise this project through a commission from the New York branch of Oxford University Press. The resultant study, entitled Mozart: his Character, his Work, amounts to a series of essays rather than a more conventional survey of the life and works. Completed in 1944 and published the following year, it maintains its place as one of the most lucid and stimulating books ever written on the composer, 130 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART having enjoyed extraordinarily widespread dissemination over a period of sixty years.30 Einstein’s Mozart expands upon the theme of the ‘humanitarian’ composer which he had already explored in his article for Mass und Wert. As he explained in the Preface, his intention was not to ‘retell in all its details the story of Mozart’s life’, but rather ‘draw as sharply defined a picture as I could of his character and of the personalities and events that exercised a decisive influence upon it’. Likewise, the works that he discusses ‘are not described, but characterised from the point of view of their time and – as far as possible – of our relation to them’. In placing his writing within the context of some recent examples of Mozart literature Einstein noticeably avoids paying tribute to the work of any German or Austrian scholars, citing a special indebtedness to the books by the French scholars Théodor de Wyzewa and Georges de Saint-Foix.31 The section of Einstein’s Mozart which exposes a position that would have been diametrically opposed to the Nazis appears in a chapter entitled ‘Patriotism and Education’. In the first four pages he contests Nazi arguments about the composer’s degree of political engagement and his declared German nationalism. The author’s opening sentence, suggesting that ‘Mozart was not interested in politics’, immediately reflects an unequivocal challenge to those in Nazi Germany who were trying hard to politicise the composer. According to Einstein, there was not a trace of servility in Mozart and ‘as an example of modern democratic man’ he retained neither respect for, nor attachment to, any ruler or patron.32 Einstein tackled the issue of Mozart’s German patriotism by suggesting that the composer was so widely travelled that he saw not only ‘beyond the frontiers of rank’, but also those of country. He acknowledged that Mozart could ‘on occasion become a German patriot’ and even quoted some sentences from the famous letter of 1785 to Anton Klein that became so pervasive in Nazi literature on the composer. However his ‘patriotic exclamation’ fortunately did not prevent him from composing Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. ‘Just as fortunately’, Mozart never composed a patriotic German opera, as was the case with Ignaz Holzbuaer in his Günther von Schwarzburg, and he notably abandoned plans to set the libretto to another nationalistic subject, Kaiser Rudolf von Habsburg. In this respect Mozart’s ‘supernational human Germannness’ was far removed from the 131 MOZART AND THE NAZIS ‘cheap German chauvinism of some of his contemporaries’.33 Exploring Mozart’s discussion with his father, Leopold, of certain noteworthy occur- rences, Einstein drew particular attention to a subject on which both father and son wholeheartedly agreed: a strong ‘aversion to militarism’. Citing several examples in their correspondence of a total abhorrence towards such tendencies, Einstein wondered ‘what would the Mozarts, father and son, have said of the militarised nineteenth and twentieth centuries, militarised because of the incurable stupidity of this race méchante!’34 Einstein’s Mozart editions and the collaboration with Paul Hirsch on the ‘Ten Celebrated String Quartets’ As well as writing extensively about Mozart, Einstein was also involved in editing the composer’s works during the 1930s. In 1936, for example, the Viennese publishers Universal Edition brought out his reconstruction of the Rondo for Piano and Orchestra K386 in full score and in an arrangement for two pianos. Einstein made the discovery of this previously unknown work, composed around the same time as Die Entführung aus dem Serail, largely on the basis of the incomplete autograph score that he had consulted in the British Museum and other isolated pages which were deposited in the Sibley Music Library in Rochester, New York. In reconstructing the work, Einstein had to orchestrate some bars where the autograph manuscript had been lost. Yet the only alteration to Mozart’s text that he had made was to extend bar 238 to twice its original length, so as to mirror the procedure the composer had adopted in an equivalent passage earlier in the work.35 Einstein presumably secured the contract with Universal Edition for the publication of the Rondo during his extended visit to Vienna between 1935 and 1936. Another Viennese contact with whom he established a working relationship at the same time was the publisher Herbert Reichner, one of whose specialities was reproducing facsimiles of composers’ autograph manu- scripts. During the final years of the Austrian Republic, Reichner issued three such publications especially devoted to Mozart. In one of these, Alfred Einstein provided a three-page commentary on the Lied Das Veilchen K486 on the basis of the autograph manuscript, owned by the novelist Stefan Zweig. 132 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART Among the other works of Mozart edited by Einstein during this period were the Flute Quartet K285a, issued by the refugee publisher Max Hinrichsen in London in 1937, and the ‘Two Entr’acte Pieces’ from König Thamos, published by Music Press (New York) in 1940. A more musically controversial venture, to which he added a supporting preface, was a Cello Concerto in D major, published by Schirmer in 1941. Interest in this entirely spurious composition resides in the fact that it resulted from collaboration between refugees from Nazi Germany.36 Arranged by the émigré conductor George Szell for the great cellist Emanuel Feuermann, who had requested a major eighteenth-century work to add to the limited number of cello concertos in the repertory, it was assembled from two different sources. The outer movements were derived from the D major Flute Concerto K314, while the central Adagio was a transcription of the Adagio from the Divertimento K131. Fully aware that such a practice was likely to offend purists, Einstein strongly defended the transcription. His arguments for supporting the attempts ‘of an enthusiastic admirer of Mozart and true musician to remedy the absence of a genuine cello concerto by Mozart’ rested on three incon- trovertible pieces of evidence. First, Mozart had treated the cello in a much more niggardly fashion than other instruments. Second, the composer himself had no qualms about recasting his own works for different instruments, and finally Einstein pointed to Mozart’s decision in 1783 to insert a new slow movement in a violin concerto by Viotti. As far as Einstein was concerned, ‘the “new” cello concerto is pure and unadulterated Mozart’.37 In contrast, no special pleading on the part of Einstein was required for his edition of the ‘Ten Celebrated String Quartets’ which was secured in collabo- ration with Paul Hirsch and published by Novello in London in 1945. Thanks to the deposit of the Hirsch Papers in the British Library, it is possible to follow the protracted progress of this joint project through the surviving correspondence between Einstein and Hirsch. These letters are revealing for a number of reasons. Besides engaging in some detail on various musical and textual issues regarding Mozart, they offer personal insight into the problems facing those exiled from Germany, not least the increasing bitterness felt particularly by Einstein towards his former colleagues whom he believed had betrayed him and demonstrated moral weakness when it came to their rela- tionship with the Nazi government. As has already been observed, the relationship between Einstein and Hirsch developed after Einstein visited Hirsch’s library in 1932. Both men 133 MOZART AND THE NAZIS shared a consuming passion for Mozart, Hirsch not only assembling a vast collection of early editions of the composer’s works for his library, but also actively enjoying performing his chamber works as an amateur violinist. The suggestion that they might collaborate on producing a reliable modern edition of the Quartets must have surfaced after Einstein had left Germany in 1933. On the 24 March 1934, writing from Frankfurt, Hirsch sent Einstein, who was then resident in London, photographs of various Mozart autographs including string quartet drafts, adding to his letter that he found the idea of producing an edition of the ten Quartets, or at least the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, ‘quite marvellous’. While adamant that his own press, which had issued a limited number of special music editions in the past, was not in a position to take on such a project, Hirsch offered in the first place to approach the publishers Bärenreiter with the idea.38 In a further letter to Einstein dated 6 April 1934, Hirsch promised to speak with their mutual colleague Professor Johannes Wolf about their proposed new edition of the Quartets, hoping once again that Bärenreiter would be willing to publish the work. One year seems to have elapsed before Hirsch could report any further developments on the project to Einstein. On 17 March 1935 Hirsch told Einstein that he had now made contact with Karl Vötterle of Bärenreiter and that they had discussed the possibility of awarding Einstein a fee of between 500 and 1000 Reichmarks for his work, which would include the preparation of a score and parts as well as a detailed critical commentary. Yet amidst the rising tide of anti-Semitism, the likelihood of a German publisher actually signing an agreement for a publication which had been realised through the efforts and initiatives of two prominent Jews seemed increasingly remote.39 Besides, Hirsch sensed that if he wanted to preserve his precious collection of scores, he too would have to leave Germany. Hirsch’s plans to leave Germany for England were hatched over a period of months. With the help of his wife, who carefully wrapped up each item, he managed to take his library out of the country in several train wagons, succeeding at the same time in duping the Nazi authorities as to the enormous value of the collection. On arriving in Cambridge, he proudly wrote to Einstein on 13 September 1936 that since the third edition of Köchel Catalogue had not yet been published, any bibliographical reference made to 134 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART material in the Hirsch collection should indicate that his Music Library, formerly in Frankfurt, was now to be found in Cambridge. Soon after he arrived in Cambridge, Hirsch began to make contacts with British music publishers, hoping that they would prove more responsive to his proposal than Bärenreiter. Under the circumstances, it seemed perfectly logical to approach in the first instance those Hitler refugees who had already settled in London and were working in music publishing. Initial enquires to Dr Adolf Aber, who had left Germany in 1936 to join Novello, seemed very promising. In fact on 4 December Aber wrote to Hirsch in response to his proposal that he ‘would be overjoyed’ to hire Einstein as the editor of a score of Mozart Quartets.40 Yet the project dragged on for many years, and the prevarications took their toll on Hirsch’s health. Although Einstein had effectively finished the edition by November 1938, no formal agreement between Novello, Hirsch and Einstein was established for the publication until 1943. In the interim Hirsch had tried to persuade Max Hinrichsen to take it on. But Hinrichsen proved unreliable, firstly promising to issue the scores and then blaming the wartime paper shortage crisis as an excuse for reneging on his agreement. A further potential setback was the announce- ment that the violinist André Mangeot was preparing his own edition of the Mozart Quartets. As with the Einstein/Hirsch edition, it was also based on the autograph manuscripts in the British Museum, and would be published in New York by Schirmer. Despite all the anxieties caused by these obstacles, Hirsch was not prepared to relinquish his cherished idea. Determined that their edition would see the light of day, he submitted the text of Einstein’s written introduction for publication in the Music Review in 1942.41 This strategy seems to have paid off, since it galvanised Novello into securing a definitive agreement with Hirsch. In a letter to Richard Capell dated 7 January 1939 Hirsch confessed that ‘it has for many years been my hope to be able some day to have published these Ten Quartets which I love more than nearly anything else’, working in collab- oration with a ‘first-class authority’ such as Einstein.42 When their joint efforts at last saw the light of day in 1945, after a period of eleven years and against the background of the defeat of the Nazis, both Hirsch and Einstein felt an understandable sense of satisfaction. 135 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Otto Erich Deutsch and Paul Nettl, two Mozart scholars Next to Alfred Einstein, the Austrian musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch could justifiably claim serious consideration as a ground-breaking Mozart scholar during this period. Deutsch studied the history of literature and art at the Universities of Vienna and Graz, and in the early part of his career between 1909 and 1912, he worked as an assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Institut der Universität Wien. After the First World War he eked out a meagre living as an independent scholar and critic in Vienna, was awarded the honorary state title of Professor in 1928 as a tribute to his ground-breaking research on Schubert, and was hired by the wealthy Dutch music bibliogra- pher and collector Anthony van Hoboken to manage his private library from 1926 to 1935.43 Following the Anschluss Deutsch’s experiences were particularly traumatic. As a Jew, he was stripped of his citizenship, forbidden to take any form of employment and harassed by the Gestapo. Initial attempts to obtain a library post in the United States came to nothing, despite letters of support from many distinguished academic colleagues, and by the time sufficient funds had been raised to enable him to take up a position at the New York Public Library at the end of 1939, Europe was at war. In desperation Deutsch managed to secure a grant from the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning in London, which enabled him to acquire a temporary visa to England with the eventual hope of moving to the United States. Deutsch duly arrived in London in July 1939 and settled in Cambridge, where he was fortunate enough to renew his acquaintance with Paul Hirsch.44 With the outbreak of war, however, his plan to move to the United States had to be aborted. Deutsch was to suffer further ignominy the following year after he was interned on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien.45 Yet despite all these difficulties and his failure to secure a permanent salaried post, Deutsch remained in England for the next eleven years before returning to Vienna in 1952. After internment he managed to resume his work as a scholar, pursuing detailed research on Schubert, Handel and Mozart, much of which was to bear fruit in the scrupulously detailed documentary biographies of these composers which were published between 1946 and 1966.46 136 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART Deutsch’s interest in Mozart had developed alongside his pioneering work on Schubert. During the early 1930s he explored specific bio-bibliographical aspects of the composer in two important publications. The first of these, jointly authored with Cecil Oldman, concerned published editions of Mozart’s music produced during the composer’s lifetime. This article appeared in the 1931/32 issue of the Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft and acted as a particu- larly valuable scholarly resource for Einstein’s revisions of the Köchel catalogue.47 Almost at the same time, Deutsch researched Mozart’s relation- ship to Freemasonry in the 1932 booklet Mozart und die Wiener Logen: zur Geschichte seiner Freimaurer-Kompositionen (Mozart and the Vienna Lodges: On the History of his Masonic Compositions). He followed these in 1936 with a jointly edited publication with Bernhard Paumgartner of Leopold Mozart’s Briefe an seine Tochter (Letters to his Daughter). Just before he left Austria, Deutsch acted as editor and annotator to two beautifully illustrated facsimile editions issued by the Viennese publisher Herbert Reichner: Drei Lieder für den Frühling (K596–K598), which was published in Spring 1937, and an edition of Mozart’s own handwritten catalogue of his works, Verzeichnis aller meiner Werke: Faksimile der Handschrift, issued in 1938. Although the latter publication was initially issued in a limited edition of only 200 copies, the document and Deutsch’s accompanying essay were deemed of sufficient topical significance to warrant detailed reviews in The Times and New York Times.48 As a scholar whose work, according to his British colleague Alec Hyatt King, was ‘dominated by his passionate concern for fact and visual illustration on the basis of truth in musical history’, Deutsch could not allow Nazi distor- tions of Mozart to pass unchallenged.49 His intensive knowledge of Mozart’s relationship with Freemasonry meant that he was prepared to marshal all his formidable knowledge to dispute any attempt to misinform the public on this matter. Inevitably he was particularly exercised by the anti-Masonic propa- ganda peddled by Mathilde Ludendorff and her circle. In 1933 he had written an article in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung strongly challenging Ludendorff ’s allegation that Schubert’s early death had been hastened by poisoning admin- istered by his fellow Masons.50 In May 1937 he published a more extended attack on Mathilde Ludendorff for persisting with the conspiracy theory in her book Mozarts Leben und gewaltsamer Tod that Jews and Freemasons 137 MOZART AND THE NAZIS had brought about Mozart’s early demise. Given the political sensitivities of publishing such material less than a year before the Nazis occupied Vienna, it is perhaps not surprising that the article appeared anonymously in the periodical Sturm über Österreich, though Deutsch’s authorship was fully acknowledged in 1942 when it was reprinted in English translation in the journal the Music Review.51 Despite his attack upon Mathilde Ludendorff, Deutsch was careful not to openly condemn his non-Jewish Austrian musicologist colleagues for selling out to the Nazis. However when the opportunity arose, he could not resist employing his legendary wit against those that had driven him out of his native country. In a letter to the Editor of Music & Letters in 1941, Deutsch sketched out the history of Haydn’s Toy Symphony (now attributed to Leopold Mozart), which during the eighteenth century was known as the ‘Berchtesgaden Symphony’ on account of this being where wood-carved toys and musical instruments for children were made. Since his readers were perfectly aware of the Nazi associations with Berchtesgaden, Deutsch added pointedly that ‘it may happen that one day Haydn’s “Toy Symphony” will be played as a kind of “Farewell Symphony” at Berchtesgaden. If so, who would not wish to hear the “Berchtesgaden Symphony” on the spot, and perhaps to blow his own little trumpet or pipe in it?’52 Although Deutsch was not targeted with the same venom as Alfred Einstein by the Nazis, he nonetheless was subjected to the ignominy of anti- Semitic slurs in the Neues Mozart Jahrbuch (1941–43). Every time any refer- ence was made to his research, his name was always followed by the letter J (Jew) in brackets. Furthermore, a new edition of the Mozart handwritten thematic catalogue, published by Doblinger in 1943, was preceded by a short introductory essay by the editor Erich Müller von Asow which, although relying heavily on the important forensic research of the document that had been undertaken by Deutsch in 1938, fails to acknowledge his predecessor’s contribution to such scholarship. This situation was unfortunately not recti- fied when the publication was reprinted in 1956. Another Hitler refugee who pursued parallel research to that of Otto Erich Deutsch into Mozart’s relationship with Freemasonry was Paul Nettl. Nettl had emigrated to the United States in 1939, following the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia, and had taken up an academic post at Westminster Choir College. The former director of music in the German section of Czech Radio, 138 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART he had been based in Prague where, during the 1930s, he published two important books on Mozart: Mozart und die königliche Kunst: Die freimau- rerische Grundlage der Zauberflöte (1932) and Mozart in Böhmen (1938), both touching on areas of Mozart research (Freemasonry and the composer’s devo- tion to the Czechs) that for obvious reasons were ideologically sensitive for the Nazis. These themes dominated Nettl’s writing on Mozart during the first years after his emigration. A good example is the article entitled ‘Mozart and the Czechs’ which was published in the July 1941 issue of Musical Quarterly. Opening with a description of the Prague Music Festival in 1937, which cele- brated the 150th anniversary of the first performance of Don Giovanni, Nettl reminded readers that during the composer’s lifetime, it was solely the people of Prague, a city which ‘breathed an certain air of freedom’, that understood the ‘full greatness of the work of Mozart’s last years’.53 The article provides a substantial analysis of the influence on Mozart of his Bohemian contempo- raries, as well as Mozart’s own profound impact on the younger generation of composers such as Tomásˇek. Nettl concludes that here was ‘a classic example of cultural interdependence and reciprocal influence existing between the German and Czech peoples as it exists among others – an example we do well to remember in these times’.54 This reference to the German Occupation of Nettl’s homeland, particularly at the conclusion of an academic article, is a reminder that of all émigré musicologists Nettl was one of the most trenchant in highlighting the misleading cultural propaganda that was being peddled by the Nazis. Like Alfred Einstein, Nettl used a variety of different publications to get this message across.55 For instance, two of his articles which appeared in the New York Times were specifically directed towards deriding the Nazi interpretation of Mozart’s work. Writing on Figaro on 25 February 1940, Nettl demolished the notion, which he had recently read in a German newspaper, that Figaro was the most German of Mozart’s operas. In a single paragraph he exposed the absurdity of this statement: Mozart was an Austrian, his librettist was a Venetian Jew, the source of Da Ponte’s libretto was ‘the most French of comedies’, and ‘the locale was Spain’. Furthermore, Nettl reminds us that the opera was written for Italian, Irish and English singers. Although it was ‘of course first presented in Vienna, its world reputation proceeded from the Czech capital Prague, where Figaro was 139 MOZART AND THE NAZIS greeted with wild enthusiasm’. On the other hand, in Vienna ‘it had been misunderstood and suppressed. This, then, is the story of the German Figaro.’56 On 21 December 1941, as the United States was drawn into the war, the New York Times published Nettl’s second article on Mozart. Here he took a broader view of the Nazi appropriation of Mozart’s music, posing the question as to which of the composer’s works could still be performed in German countries following a strict application of National Socialist ideology. Quoting the lines ‘No thought of revenge is known in these sacred precincts’ from Die Zauberflöte, he suggests that the opera, ‘intrinsically an act of homage to the principles of Masonry, to tolerance and humanity’, could surely not count as a ‘profitable doctrine for Nazis’. The conclusion he draws is that in fact only a third of the composer’s output could have survived in this particular environment: Everything Mozart wrote for the churches would have to be omitted. For surely no real National Socialist should listen to words and sounds praising the Lord on high, a God of love and of fraternal feelings, a God embodying the highest forms of humanity. The Gestapo official who has just condemned an innocent hostage to death will feel queer at the words of the Requiem ‘Quid sum miser tunc dicturus, quem patronum rogaturus?’ . . . . The vision of the Last Judgement which came to Mozart a few hours before his own death, this trembling before the majesty of the end, this tragic expression of humility and human weakness in the cosmic strains of the ‘Dies Irae’, what a contrast to the philosophic concepts of a master race!57 Annette Kolb’s Mozart (1937) The novelist Annette Kolb explored Mozart from a somewhat different angle to that of Einstein, Deutsch and Nettl. In comparison to their work, her bio- graphical study of Mozart, printed in Vienna in 1937 by Bermann-Fischer Verlag, made no pretence of scholarly accuracy. Nonetheless, it was one of the most popular books on the composer published outside Germany during this 140 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART period, and considered of sufficient importance to have been translated almost immediately into both French and English. No doubt its wide appeal among émigrés was prompted to a certain extent by Kolb’s position as one of the leading representatives of German Exilliteratur alongside such figures as Thomas Mann, who later portrayed her as the character Jeanette Scheurl in his novel Doktor Faustus. Though not of Jewish origin, her dual national iden- tity, as the daughter of a Bavarian landscape gardener and a Parisian-born pianist, caused her to adopt a staunchly pacifist attitude during the First World War and to become a prominent supporter of the League of Nations during the 1920s. Vociferous in her opposition to the growing power of the National Socialists, she left Germany for Paris when the Nazis came to power, and subsequently moved with great difficulty to New York in 1941, after the fall of France. Kolb’s literary output from the mid-1930s includes an invaluable personal reflection on the cultural atmosphere of the Salzburg Festival, which she attended from 1934 to 1937, and a poignant farewell to Austria, both essays published together under the title Festspieltage in Salzburg und Abschied von Österreich by the Amsterdam-based firm of Albert de Lange in 1938. Yet her main effort during this period was directed towards her Mozart biography. It formed the culmination of a long-standing affinity and fascination with the composer whom she admired above all other cultural figures of the past. Her intention was emphatically not to place Mozart’s work into some kind of musicological perspective, but rather to re-emphasise her utopian view of the composer and the heroic sacrifices he made in order for his art to survive. These sacrifices, Kolb argued, placed Mozart in the role of a libertarian challenging the established order: he anticipated – ahead of his time in this respect too – that sublime concep- tion of freedom that was to sweep Europe from France like a roaring wind. True, he was a priori raised above such things as groups, parties, ideologies and illusions. It is because his intellectual qualities never obtruded that we so rarely mention his intelligence. He had, however, seen through the hollow mechanism of our earthly existence, which denied him all the opportunity of self-fulfilment. The fact that he was to leave it so rich a legacy, the world did not take into account. In everyday life, only the petty problems of the moment 141 MOZART AND THE NAZIS count, whereas the most precious instrument that perhaps the world has ever known was allowed to fall to pieces, and not a voice was raised in protest.58 Although these remarks suggest an attempt to present Mozart as a cultural phenomenon transcending party political ideology, there is little doubt that Kolb’s text was understood as an attack on the Nazis. Following consistently with her courageous decision to place a footnote at the bottom of her autobi- ographical novel of 1934 Die Schaukel (The Swing) that ‘today in Germany there are a small group of Christians who are conscious of their debt of gratitude towards Jews’, (a tribute to the lifelong support she received from her Jewish publisher), Kolb is particularly sympathetic towards Lorenzo Da Ponte, who was being systematically written out of contemporary German studies.59 According to her, Da Ponte had ‘an eternal claim on our gratitude for the services he rendered to Mozart. He was fully alive to real greatness, was possessed of exceptional critical faculties, and instinctively recognised Mozart’s genius.’60 As for Mozart’s Germanness, Kolb once again counters Nazi claims of any virulent nationalism, drawing the somewhat different conclusion that at heart he remained a pacifist. He was, although he did not probe into the matter, for self-analysis was a thing utterly alien to him, the timeless human being par excellence, the eternal pioneer. In taking up his stand against Italian music, which had already degenerated, he acknowledged himself a German composer. His later inci- dental remarks on this theme were unconscious reservations. There are widely differing conceptions of what is meant by German, but both he and Goethe were typical Germans, if in a class apart. We know how far Goethe felt himself to be a citizen of the world and how he advocated an unprejudiced attitude in national matters; and we know also what Mozart felt about militarism even before such a thing can be said to have been known. He was a pacifist before ever the term pacifism existed. And we have already said what a worthy exponent the watchwords of the French revolution, before they were even coined, before the Terror debased them, had found in him.61 At the end of her book, Kolb reflects upon Mozart’s demise and the dire conditions under which he produced his music. Provocatively she even 142 TRUE HUMANITARIAN MUSIC:EXILED WRITERS ON MOZART speculates on how he might have fared in the modern world, though her conclusions are by no means comforting: in Mozart, the world possessed not only a musical miracle, but the most sensitive and vulnerable instrument that has perhaps ever existed. And yet to him was given the lot of a common, humble mortal, and whilst he was quite aware, it abandoned him to dire poverty, to its bondage, its privations and hardship . . . For Mozart salvation came too late. He too had no idea of how to deal with money, how to manage his affairs . . . He was too fine to swagger, far too genuine to try to impress, far too noble not to take his neigh- bour seriously. His world killed him. The way in which it suffered him to depart is merely a symbol of the fate it meted out to him. Has the world grown any better? What security would it offer him now? What would he be today? A war-cripple perhaps. And tomorrow? Things, it is true, turn towards the light, but this world knows no awakening. Let us seek salvation in beauty, in goodness, in the spirit. Let us take refuge in these suns that shine upon us.62 If Kolb’s study of Mozart was largely dismissed by specialists on account of its lack of scholarly enquiry, it was received very positively in other circles.63 The Socialist politician Walter Fabian, for example, commended her for an ‘endearing, enthralling and unforgettable book’ which had enhanced ‘our love and understanding for Mozart’ and had given us the ‘strength to fight for a better world’.64 Likewise, the writer Jean Giraudoux, contributing a short preface to the French translation of her book, admired Kolb’s capacity to depict all the doubts, joys and sorrows of the souls touched by Mozart, those Mozartian souls who are still to be found wandering about here and there on this earth, in big ships, in little English hotels, in Munich drawing rooms – we shall all be moved by her presentation, the most sensitive we have ever had, of the composer’s life. An emotion which, as we read her, deepens our conviction that Mozart was German through and through, that the Germany he created began to disappear with him, and that it is idle to play Mozart in a country where that which is Mozart, that is to say, liberty, candour and joy, is lost.65 143 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Perhaps the ultimate signal as to the powerful impact of Kolb’s work took place after her enforced departure from Europe in the early 1940s. With the unveiling of the Liste Otto — the official list of books banned under the German Occupation named after Otto Abetz who was the German ambas- sador to occupied Paris — Kolb’s Mozart was one of a limited number of books on musicians by non-Jewish authors to have been proscribed by the occupying Nazi authorities in France.66 144 CHAPTER 7 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA FROM THE ANSCHLUSS TO THE END OF WORLD WAR II In the Third Reich . . . one need not worry about the fate of classical music, for devotion to the great products of art ranks as one of our most principal virtues, and loving care for their works is among the most desirable tasks to be undertaken by all cultural authorities of the state, the city, and the party. In this context, Mozart becomes not only eternal, but he will live eternally. (WALTER ZELENY)1 Despite some of the controversies relating to Mozart which surfaced during the first years of Nazi rule, the composer only became the object of more concentrated exploitation at the highest levels of the Party after 1938. Undoubtedly the turning point was the absorption of Austria into the German Reich in March 1938, and the realisation that Mozart could be used as powerful cultural weapon with which to promote the concept of a Greater Germany. Absolutely central to this process was the Nazification of Salzburg, Mozart’s birthplace, and the politicisation of the Salzburg Festival. In Chapter 5 Nazi attempts to subvert the Salzburg Festival between 1933 and 1937 were examined alongside the dismissal of Bruno Walter and Max Reinhardt following the Anschluss.2 The enforced withdrawal of these leading personalities was naturally received with a great deal of dismay in the British and American press. Yet the citizens of Salzburg greeted the prospect of a newly constituted Festival under Nazi control, and the return of Mozart to his ‘German homeland’, with joy and excitement. A performance of Mozart’s Coronation Mass K317 in the Cathedral conducted by organist Joseph Messner, four days after Hitler’s triumphant entry into Salzburg on 6 April, captured the euphoria of the moment. Messner announced to the congregation that the MOZART AND THE NAZIS Gloria would be consecrated as a prayer of thanks for the tremendous exploits of ‘our wonderful leader Adolf Hitler’.3 In the months immediately following the Anschluss there was considerable discussion regarding the future direction of the Salzburg Festival. For Otto Kunz, writing in the Salzburger Volksblatt, it was self-evident that Mozart should assume a focal position in unifying, reconciling and renewing the German nation: As the embodiment of solemnity and clarity Mozart should also now become truly of and for the people . . . Mozart festivals must again be true festivals of the German spirit . . . Salzburg must be the place for the most comprehensive celebration of the master’s works, a place of reverence and a place of elevation, accompanied by the very German resonance of the land- scape in which it is performed.4 Kunz was probably aware that by the time he drafted his article, the initial plans for the 1938 Festival had already been unveiled. With the enforced change of personnel the programme was altered, though not to Mozart’s benefit. For example, of the four operas originally promised for 1938, only Don Giovanni and Figaro were retained. Curiously, neither of these works was chosen to open the Festival, that honour being bestowed upon Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler and staged in the presence of Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess. Ignoring the fifty percent reduction in the number of his operas, a poster advertising the 1938 Festival focused on the centrality of Mozart to the whole event, with the composer depicted as the god Apollo standing watch over the town of Salzburg and its notable buildings. Since Apollo traditionally signifies harmony, order and reason, the representation of Mozart as a Greek god seemed particularly apposite to the Nazis. After all, according to their propa- ganda, these were the very elements that were now firmly in place since Austria had returned to the homeland. Another tangible manifestation of the degree of political patronage attached to the 1938 Salzburg Festival was reflected in a lavishly produced Festschrift. Featuring a silhouette of Mozart embossed on its cover, the opening pages paraded full-length photographs of Hitler and Goebbels, the latter prefaced by a statement from the Propaganda Minister proclaiming 146 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA the ‘revival of the German festival in Salzburg’ as a sign of ‘the immortality of Mozart’s genius and the imperishability of the forces from which he arose’.5 A further article outlining Salzburg’s cultural mission was directed to foreign visitors. Emphasising once again the revitalised German provenance of Salzburg, which had experienced ‘its greatest day in history with the home- coming to the Reich’, it promised to ‘lead visitors from Germany and from everywhere in the world to the sacred halls of art, to remove them from everyday life, to fill their souls with this pure, sublime joy that only true art is capable of providing’.6 Although Nazi propaganda stressed the uniquely Germanic character of the 1938 Salzburg Festival, a few aspects of the programme were not immedi- ately overhauled. For example, the two Mozart operas were still to be given in the original Italian. The justification for retaining this practice was directed primarily towards emphasising the burgeoning alliance between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany – a factor deemed more important than the necessity to repudiate a policy that had been initiated by Bruno Walter, or the potential embarrassment of highlighting the Jewish authorship of the libretti. It was in this spirit of mutual collaboration that a mixed cast of German and Italian singers featured in both operas, and that for the performance of Figaro a German conductor (Hans Knappertsbusch) worked in tandem with an Italian producer (Guido Salvini). A second feature of the Festival programme that survived in 1938 was the significant role allotted to sacred music. To what extent this reflected a desire on the part of the Nazi administrators to reach out to the Catholic Church remains unclear; one should note however that the performance of Mozart’s Requiem under Joseph Messner in Salzburg Cathedral was dedicated to the memory of the 140 Nazis who had died during an abortive coup in July 1934. Commenting on a performance of the C minor Mass K427 in St Peter’s Church, organized under the auspices of the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) movement, Otto Kunz also sought to distance Mozart’s work from its liturgical connections, preferring to highlight qualities in the music that were deemed appropriate to the political climate of the period: The storms of the present day have impregnated this music through its virile and fighting spirit and its great heroic character. This is no Mozart with a 147 Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 14 1938 Salzburg Festival Poster in which Mozart is depicted as the God Apollo (Salzburg Festival Archive). 148 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 15 Embossed front cover of the Festschrift published in conjunction with the 1938 Salzburg Festival. The following pages feature full-length photographs of Hitler and Goebbels. 149 MOZART AND THE NAZIS bowed head, no bigoted Mozart whispering his prayer; this is Mozart facing the Lord, a young German man full of strength, with a humble heart, yet with pride and a will to be, a Mozart being the servant of God and his own master at the same time.7 Yet all the inflated propaganda, not to mention the morale-boosting visits of Hess and Goebbels, and the carnival atmosphere created by the throngs of uniformed Bund Deutscher Mädel and Hitler Youth that adorned Salzburg’s streets, could not rescue the Festival from financial disaster. Ticket sales for performances of Don Giovanni and Figaro, for example, amounted to roughly a third of the amount taken the year before.8 Such a drastic reduction in income could be explained away by the notable absence of foreign visitors to the Festival. But an eye-witness account, published in the New York Times, highlighted a further miscalculation on the part of the authorities: The German press announced vehemently that finally Salzburg would be free of foreign capitalism and snobbery and that the new low prices would enable all music-loving natives to hear the best in music. But the majority of visitors from the ‘alt Reich’ were so charmed by the wonderful countryside and by the Austrian mountains, so long denied to them before the Anschluss, that many of them never set foot inside the Festspielhaus, preferring to tour the lake country, or to go on to Vienna.9 Even before the Festival was in full swing, Goebbels had come to the conclu- sion that the inclusion of Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Die Meistersinger may have been a tactical mistake which diluted the primacy of Mozart. As discussions on the planned repertory for the 1939 Salzburg Festival unfolded over the coming months, the Propaganda Minister raised his concerns with Hitler. On 6 November he reported in his diary that the Führer had decided that in future no further Wagner performances would be allowed at Salzburg. From now on, the Festival’s main focus would be orientated towards Mozart and Richard Strauss.10 Two months before the opening of the 1939 Festival in August, the Mozarteum was elevated to the status of a Staatliche Hochschule für Musik with the conductor Clemens Krauss appointed its director. At a formal ceremony on 150 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA 14 June Education Minister Bernhard Rust delivered a speech invoking ‘the purity and creative strength of Mozart’s achievement’ as the guiding principles for the enhanced opportunities that would now be provided for music educa- tion. For his part Krauss vowed ‘to lead the institution entrusted to me . . . with all the reverence that we artists feel in this city, where Mozart studied as a pupil, in deep humility for Mozart’s genius and for the forward-thinking and august master and artist, Adolf Hitler’.11 The ceremony also heralded the rejuvenation of the Zentralinstitut für Mozartforschung under its new director Erich Valentin, a recently appointed lecturer in music and cultural history at the Mozarteum.12 Although established in 1931, the Institute only secured a more high- profile presence with the ambitious and versatile Valentin at its helm. At its first meeting, held in front of a distinguished group of Mozart special- ists, Valentin drew up extremely ambitious future plans. These included a projected new complete edition of Mozart’s works and the planned publica- tion of a Neues Mozart-Jahrbuch intended as a permanent successor to the old Yearbook, which had enjoyed a rather brief existence under the stewardship of Hermann Abert and Rudolf Gerber between 1923 and 1929.13 The 1939 Salzburg Festival was one of the last important musical events to have taken place in the German Reich before the invasion of Poland. Far less ambitious in scope than in the previous year, it nonetheless served two useful propaganda purposes. First of all it acted as a further signal to the outside world of the strengthening alliance between the Germans and the Italians. This was reflected not only in the continued adherence to performing Mozart’s Da Ponte operas in Italian, but also with the inclusion of operas by Verdi and Rossini in the programme. Hitler also made his first visit to the Festspielhaus on 9 August to hear the first performance that season of Don Giovanni under Clemens Krauss, and to inspect the newly designed sets for the entrance foyer to the building by Benno von Arent. Reporting on the occasion, the Salzburger Volksblatt noted that Hitler’s presence in the theatre represented both a ‘declaration of faith in Mozart’s genius’ and an acknowledgment of the cultural achievement of ‘our Italian guests’.14 The second objective of the 1939 Festival was to create an atmosphere of unbounded cheerfulness that served to deflect attention away from the 151 MOZART AND THE NAZIS increasingly fraught political situation in Europe. Whereas in the previous year, international visitors by and large had boycotted the Festival, this time foreign guests were welcomed, particularly those sympathetic to the regime. Some of these were accorded special hospitality, as was the case with a hundred British visitors from the fascist organization The Link.15 In his report on the 1939 Festival for the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung Roland Tenschert elaborated upon the special atmosphere which surrounded the performances and the impact of Mozart’s genius in bolstering the evidence of German–Italian political solidarity: The predominant mood was cheerfulness, the kind of cheerfulness that results from the character, the landscape, and the history of the city and the land of Salzburg. Since Salzburg unites North and South so paradigmatically in all its character, the programme primarily featured the works of German and Italian masters. The genius loci Mozart is after all the decisive mediator here. Not because the music of this composer would not feel German and think German, but because it widely employs Italian forms and some of its most significant works are bound to Italian texts. Almost equally divided, the works of German and Italian masters formed a group around the centre, Mozart, whose roots lie in German and Italian soil.16 After the outbreak of war, Goebbels temporarily abandoned his proprieto- rial interest in the Salzburg Festival. Thus for 1940 a more modest affair was devised under the title Salzburger Kultursommer, essentially a series of orchestral concerts featuring the Vienna Philharmonic, which took place in July. In the following month the series ‘Mozart-Musik in Salzburg’, which ran from 2–25 August, provided the opportunity for the Mozarteum Orchestra under its conductor Willem van Hoogstraten to take the limelight with a series of twelve orchestral, chamber and choral concerts covering a much wider and more varied range of Mozart’s output than had normally featured at the Festival. Concurrently, Erich Valentin convened a Conference of the Zentralinstitut für Mozartforschung at the Mozarteum from 22–24 August, with a number of the papers from Mozart specialists subsequently appearing in 1941 in the first volume of the Neues Mozart-Jahrbuch.17 Among the most topical subjects was Ludwig Schiedermair’s ‘Mozart und die Gegenwart’ (Mozart and the Present). Its final paragraph contained an appeal exhorting 152 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA German Youth to carry forward Mozart’s heritage, preserving ‘this most precious cultural legacy solicitously and through it gain strength and raise their own morale’.18 Preparing to honour Mozart Although they were by no means the only political party in European history to have realized the huge propaganda value that could accrue from exploiting anniversaries of prominent cultural icons of the past, the Nazis were particularly adept at turning such occasions to their own political advantage. Only two weeks after seizing power, Hitler made a special journey to Leipzig for the purpose of celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Wagner’s death. It was a high- profile gesture designed to align the new regime to the great composer, and the link was further reinforced during the summer of 1933 when Hitler’s appear- ances at the Bayreuth Festival were turned into something akin to a political rally. Two years later, the musical celebrations that commemorated three German composers, Schütz (350th anniversary of his birth), Handel and Bach (250th anniversary of their births) bore the clear imprimatur of the regime. In February 1935 at the Handel Festival in Halle, Alfred Rosenberg, the Party’s chief ideologue, delivered a speech in honour of the composer which was followed by a midnight torchlit ceremony reportedly attended by Hitler.19 More modestly organised musical anniversaries ensued in the following years involving Bruckner (40th anniversary of his death in 1936) and Beethoven (110th anniversary of his death in 1937). The experience of overseeing such events paved the way for what was to prove to be the most comprehensive musical celebration to have been undertaken by the regime: the 150th anniver- sary of Mozart’s death, which fell in 1941. There are several reasons for the almost unprecedented intensity with which the Nazi regime manipulated this particular anniversary. First, as is already evident from Schiedermair’s paper, Mozart’s youthful genius was regarded as a significant beacon of German greatness and a morale-boosting symbol for the nation’s young conscripts. A second factor was undoubtedly the universal accessibility of Mozart’s music and the emphasis the Nazis placed upon its völkisch (populist) qualities. Thirdly, Mozart was deemed perhaps the ideal emotional link between the home and the war front. When the war was going successfully, as in the early part of 1941, the scale of Mozart 153 Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 16 Front covers and title pages of some of the numerous books on Mozart issued in Nazi Germany during his anniversary year. MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA celebrations could be regarded as an accurate barometer of the cultural virility of the German nation. Later in the year, after the attack on the Soviet Union, the focus on Mozart was cynically orientated in two different ways. On the home front, cultural celebrations acted as a deliberate distraction from and obfuscation of the deprivations suffered as a result of the war effort. At the same time, Mozart served as a powerful rallying cry to the soldiers, his music placed in direct opposition to the ‘barbarism’ and ‘Bolshevik tendencies’ of the East. In essence, therefore, Mozart was presented as an important symbol with which the Germans sought to preserve the very fabric of Western civi- lization. An early indication of the importance the regime attached to the Mozart anniversary year came with the feierliche Sendung (solemn broadcast) on German Radio on 26 January by Heinz Drewes, director of the music section in the Propaganda Ministry. After presenting a retrospective on Mozart’s life and work, Drewes announced that Goebbels had urged the musical commu- nity in the Reich to devote its energies during the year towards commemo- rating ‘the greatness of this truly divine genius and the beauty of his works’.20 Goebbels’s remarks sent out a powerful signal that the Mozart celebrations should be all-pervasive and involve the whole nation. Publishers responded to his call with a plethora of scores and new books on the composer, a significant number of which were orientated towards a popular readership.21 But the most tangible evidence of the high profile given to Mozart in 1941 was a profusion of music festivals, which were spread out throughout the year and involved almost every metropolitan centre in the Reich. Special efforts were expended in those places which held some kind of historic connection with the composer during his lifetime. Obviously Salzburg, the city of the composer’s birth, played an omnipresent role, with a constant stream of commemorative events scattered throughout the year. But ultimately it was Vienna that hosted the most ambitious and extensive celebration of Mozart’s art – a huge week-long international festival under the joint patronage of Goebbels and Baldur von Schirach, which took place between 28 November and 5 December. The Mozart Year in Salzburg On the same night as Drewes’s broadcast, Salzburg opened the Mozart year with a gala performance of Die Zauberflöte in the Landestheater. Guests from 155 MOZART AND THE NAZIS the Berlin and Munich State Operas were assigned some of the leading roles, with Käte Heidersbach as Pamina, Julius Patzak as Tamino and Ludwig Weber as Sarastro. Friedrich Rainer, the Gauleiter of Salzburg, sought to bring a national dimension to the occasion with specially invited guests from the Party, SS and Wehrmacht in attendance.22 The following day marked the 185th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, and Rainer commemorated the occasion with a special morning ceremony in the Mozarthaus which once again involved the Party. After Martin Bormann had laid a wreath on behalf of the Führer in the room where Mozart was born, Erich Valentin stepped forward to play the composer’s first composition, the Minuet in G major K1, on Mozart’s keyboard. The celebration concluded with a performance of the slow movement of the Flute Quartet in D major K285. Throughout proceedings the Wiener Figaro reported the presence of two members of the Hitler Youth who stood guard in the building ‘as a symbol of the strong bond that existed between young Germany and the composer’, a connection that was reinforced during the afternoon with an orchestral concert in the Mozarteum attended by the entire school population of Salzburg.23 Another musical milestone for Salzburg took place four months later on 23 April. Having already been granted the status of Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in 1939, the Mozarteum was further honoured in its centenary year with elevation to the position of Reichshochschule für Musik. Once again, Education Minister Bernhard Rust travelled to Salzburg for the formal cere- mony and, as he had done two years earlier, delivered an address in praise of the institution. Rust’s speech, summarised in the journal Wiener Figaro, opened with a review of the progress achieved by the Mozarteum since the Anschluss. Special tribute was paid to the management for having procured suitably qualified lecturers and pupils under difficult circumstances. Quoting Adolf Hitler’s dictum that ‘national art could not thrive unless it lives amongst the people’, Rust bestowed particular accolades upon the citizens of Mozart’s birthplace ‘where music exists everywhere’. He felt confident that through the combined inspiration of Mozart, ‘the music powerhouse of the German people’, and Adolf Hitler, ‘the son of your country and Germany’s greatest leader’, the future success of the Mozarteum was assured. During his speech Rust confirmed Hitler’s intention to set aside sufficient funds for the publica- tion of a new complete edition of the composer’s works.24 156 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Spurred on by Rust’s endorsement of the Mozarteum, some of its foremost professors committed themselves during the summer months of 1941 to an intensive promotion of the themes ‘Mozart in relation to our Youth’ and ‘Mozart in the Nation’. With the objective of bringing Mozart closer to the people, four special projects were established. Under the title ‘Das Erlebnis Mozart’ (The Mozart Experience) pianist Elly Ney gave several lecture-recitals focusing on his keyboard works. The Hitler Youth composer Cesar Bresgen mounted a programme entitled ‘Der gesellige Mozart’ (The convivial Mozart), working primarily with a vocal group and wind players. Educationalist Fritz Jöde offered ‘Der volkstümliche Mozart’ (The popular appeal of Mozart), a programme featuring secular vocal music, operatic arias and the ‘Hunt’ Quartet K458. Finally, the Mozarteum Orchestra brought performances of Mozart works to several outlying villages under the banner ‘Der unterhalt- same Mozart’ (The entertaining Mozart). Inspired by all this intensive promo- tion of Mozart, the local Gauleiter decided to add the name Mozart to the local Spielschar (Song and dance group) of the Hitler Youth. This honour was bestowed on the Spielschar after six days of military cadet manoeuvres as a signal that Germany’s youth was ‘committed to fight for a new and compre- hensive cultivation of Mozart’s art’.25 Meanwhile, plans for the 1941 Salzburg Festival, scheduled to take place from 2–24 August, were already at an advanced stage. From the outset Goebbels had taken an active role in shaping the character of the programme. One important change was to designate Salzburg into a Kriegsfestspiel (War Festival), instructing that between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers from the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS and the Organisation Todt should be given priority attendance. The presence of so many soldiers represented ‘a gesture of grati- tude from the nation for the sterling achievements of those fighting on the war front’. Furthermore, the Festival reflected a vindication of Hitler’s command that art and science ‘should continue to be fostered emphatically even in the midst of war, and that the home front should sustain the enthusiasm of its intellectual forces so that it was fully prepared for the glory of victory’.26 Another change to the 1941 Festival was its more aggressively nationalistic character. At a time when German forces were heavily engaged in the Siege of Leningrad, it was deemed appropriate to replace performances of Don Giovanni and Figaro in Italian with the now officially sanctioned German translations by Georg Schünemann of Da Ponte’s text. Alongside Karl Böhm’s 157 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 17 A wounded German soldier being given a ticket by a fellow soldier at the 1941 Salzburg Festival. new production of Die Zauberflöte, which emphasised the fairy-tale and heroic aspects of the score whilst obfuscating all references to Freemasonry, the objective was to make the operas more understandable to soldiers.27 When the Festival opened, Goebbels was naturally on hand to greet the soldiers that thronged Salzburg’s streets. Following in the footsteps of Martin Bormann earlier in the year, the Propaganda Minister paid special homage to Mozart by laying a laurel wreath in the room where the composer was born. Later on the same day, he attended a performance of Die Zauberflöte. Reporting on both events in his diary, Goebbels praised the opera as a ‘unique perform- ance, exemplary musically as well as with regards to stage production and design’. Noting the huge presence of soldiers, wounded men and workers in the auditorium, he commented on the radically different image the theatre presented to the outside world than in the previous festival in the summer of 158 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA 1939, when Germany was ‘on the brink of the outbreak of the European crisis’. Yet while Goebbels honoured Mozart’s musical genius, regarding it as a special treat to hear the Vienna Philharmonic perform Die Zauberflöte with ‘such a silky brilliance’, he wondered whether the citizens of Salzburg would have felt better about themselves if they had actually experienced war at first hand. As he wrote in his diary, ‘after the war, I believe it will be regarded as more honourable to have stood in the midst of battle than on its sidelines’. 28 If there was an element of contempt behind these remarks and perhaps an allusion to the difficult struggles of the Nazi propaganda campaign against the Festival before 1938, it is worth noting that Goebbels never set foot again in Salzburg. Clearly the 1941 Festival had served its prime purpose of refreshing the morale of Germany’s soldiers, and more pressing matters with regard to the war resulted in him relinquishing any further interest in shaping its future direc- tion. In September, Clemens Krauss was appointed artistic director for the 1942 Festival. The appointment secured the blessing of the Propaganda Minister, who held high hopes for Krauss to develop a Salzburg style of performance that would remain distinctive from that of Vienna State Opera.29 At the same time, Goebbels was doubtless aware that by distancing himself from the whole enter- prise there was a possibility of Krauss striking out on a more individual artistic path than the one that he would have favoured. This is certainly borne out by the subsequent festivals in 1942 and 1943. Although Krauss continued the policy of opening up performances to soldiers, the war wounded and workers in the armaments industry, his decision to engage Walter Felsenstein as the producer of a new Figaro marked a something of a departure. Staunchly inde- pendent in outlook, Felsenstein had no truck with ideological complicity, and refused to pander to the vanities of singers, instead placing much greater emphasis on plausible theatrical representation. Although the 1941 Festival marked the climax of the Mozart Year in Salzburg, it was followed by other events that attracted national interest. Between 30 September and 4 October the Zentralinstitut für Mozartforschung convened a further Mozart conference. As in their meeting of the previous year, the conference mixed formal ceremonies, including the obligatory wreath- laying ceremony at the Mozarthaus, with a series of papers which once again brought together most of the leading Mozart scholars in the Reich. Among the more noteworthy presentations was one from Robert Haas which looked forward to the challenges that would face editors of the projected complete 159 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Mozart edition promised by Hitler. Rudolf Steglich also stimulated considerable interest in a paper on the sound ideal of keyboard music from Mozart to Schubert. In featuring practical demonstrations on two fortepianos by Streicher and Graf, Steglich anticipated the intensive study in performance practice of the late eighteenth century that would flower after the war.30 If a number of the Mozart projects in Salzburg during the summer months had been orientated towards bringing German youth closer to Mozart, the emphasis in the autumn was directed towards the family. The climax to such activity was the Tag der Hausmusik on 18 November – an event which was marked with a special commemorative ceremony in the Mozarthaus featuring a special address by Peter Raabe, President of the Reichsmusikkammer. Appropriated after 1933 by the Nazis as a permanent fixture in the musical calendar, the Day of Hausmusik had served to revive a tradition of domestic music-making that had fallen out of fashion earlier in the century. It also exploited Nazi concerns for bolstering the image of the family, supporting the character-building aims of the Hitler Youth and alleviating some of economic difficulties faced by the music industry in the wake of economic depression of the 1920s.31 After the outbreak of war, Hausmusik took on a different political dimension as a demonstration of internal resolve. As Baldur von Schirach remarked at the commemoration ceremony for the Day of Hausmusik in Vienna on 18 November 1940, the motto for maintaining such activity during this period was to demonstrate that not only was home music-making important even during the war, it was also important because of the war. ‘When music resounds at home, when our sons leave to serve in the forces to secure a definitively lasting peace’, von Schirach added, ‘we are fighting for the one thing that has . . . made its way into the world – for German culture’.32 From 1940, the organisers of the annual Day of Hausmusik decided to pay special homage to the work of one of the great German composers. After Schubert was featured in 1940, the focus for the next year was on Mozart.33 Music publishers were particularly active in scrutinising Mozart’s output for suitable examples of Hausmusik. Peters in Leipzig issued the booklet W. A. Mozart in der Hausmusik, edited by Irmgard Engels, which provided a list of suitable works for domestic performance. Die Hausmusikstunde, another Peters publication, included a series of Mozart pieces presented in an extraordinarily flexible series of arrangements (piano duet, violin and piano, 160 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA two recorders or violins, two violins and cello, three violins and cello, three violins and piano, string quartet, voice and piano, three voices and piano or three melody instruments). The Musikblätter der Hitler-Jugend followed suit by incorporating five special Mozart arrangements in its long-running series.34 At the commemorative ceremony for the Day of Hausmusik in Salzburg, in which a previously unknown sonata for piano duet (K19d) received its first public performance, Peter Raabe delivered an emotional address in honour of the composer. Standing in rapt contemplation in the ‘holy surroundings’ of the room in which Mozart was born, he claimed that ‘we are made more aware than ever that Germans had been blessed with a unique appreciation and talent for musical art and that the German people have the clarity, strength, energy and enthusiasm to overcome everything that fate has imposed on them . . . In the midst of the hardship of our time, in the midst of the weight of battle, we feel close to him, we feel at one with his quest for purity, and are blessed by his powerful presence’.35 The Mozart Year in Germany Although Salzburg may have hosted the most diverse and sustained sequence of events connected to Mozart during the Anniversary Year, almost all the major metropolitan centres in Germany made special efforts to honour the composer in 1941. Inevitably, celebrations were more intense and extensive in places which could claim some kind of historical connection to Mozart. In Augsburg, the city where Leopold Mozart was born, Mozart celebrations lasted throughout the year. Monthly orchestral and chamber concerts were matched by a very ambitious programme for a relatively modest-sized theatre of staging all of Mozart’s mature operas.36 The first large-scale ‘Mozart’ city to mount a festival was Munich, its Mozart Festwoche taking place from 3–13 May. The programme, sponsored by local Nazi officials, offered an impressive variety of concerts encompassing all aspects of Mozart’s output and a special exhibition of original documents drawn from libraries in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin and Vienna. Sacred music was included, though the performance of the C minor Mass K427 at the Odeon Theatre, rather than in a church, represented a conscious decision to present the work in a secular light. 161 MOZART AND THE NAZIS In the special programme book issued with the Festwoche, the organisers boasted about the capacity of the city to mount such a large-scale festival at this particular moment in history. They argued that despite the fact that Germans were fighting on the battlefields, the nation as a whole still could find the time to listen to the work ‘of the eternally wise’. Intended to act as a ‘mediator for the incomparable correlation between German strength and German mind’, the Munich Mozart Festwoche was conceived in ‘honour of and as an expression of gratitude to the composer’, and in anticipation of ‘an era of courageously attained peace that would build temples to all its heroes’.37 Other places that presented Mozart celebrations in the summer months included Jena, Mainz, Osnabrück (a festival of Mozart’s chamber works in early May), Schwetzingen (a Mozart cycle at the Schloss Theater in June, fulfilling Goebbels’s declared objective of turning Schwetzingen into a theatre exclusively devoted to performing Mozart), Tilsit (May) and Würzburg (June). Frankfurt paid homage with a complete cycle of Mozart’s operas from Idomeneo to Die Zauberflöte presented in chronological order of composition over a period of three weeks. But even Frankfurt’s ambitious programme was upstaged by Leipzig later in the year with a well-nigh comprehensive coverage of his entire operatic output over a period of four months. The survey began with performances of Bastien und Bastienne, Les petits riens, Il re pastore and Die Gärtnerin aus Liebe (the latter two operas performed in the German translation of Siegfried Anheisser under the baton of a very young Rudolf Kempe) culminating in Die Zauberflöte on 11 January 1942. By and large, most German cities waited until the late autumn before launching their Mozart festivals, a decision presumably prompted by the desire to place their homage to the composer as close as possible to 5 December, the date of his death.38 Almost all celebrations followed a similar pattern juxtaposing concert and operatic performances with commemorative speeches. In Hamburg, for example, festivities were spread over a period of three weeks with numerous concerts, opera performances, lectures and an exhibition of theatre artefacts and early scores. Particular emphasis was placed on a new stage production of Don Giovanni featuring a young Hans Hotter in the title role and given in the recently approved Schünemann edition. In the programme book to the Festival, Hans-Wilhelm Kulenkampff intimated that its performance would act as a necessary corrective to 162 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 18 Programme book for Hamburg’s Mozart-Gedenktage featuring a performance of Così fan tutte for the NS–Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude. the Herman Roth translation which had been mounted in 1936 to such heavy criticism. Kulenkampff also drew attention to Hamburg’s recent Die Zauberflöte which reinvigorated the opera in the true sprit of a mythical fairy- tale. It had banished memories of an earlier production in September 1934 in which the Masonic elements of the work were evidently too prominent.39 As the city was falling victim to a stream of Allied bombardments during the evenings, all opera performances were held in the early afternoon to obviate the need to evacuate the theatre. In a mood of defiance, soprano Erika Rokyta, performing the early Motet Exsultate, jubilate K165, inserted the first words of the German national anthem ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!’ into the vocal line of its final movement as a replacement for Mozart’s original ‘Alleluja’ (with its obvious Hebraic associations). It remains unclear whether other singers presenting the work adopted Rokyta’s politically compromised textual alteration during this period.40 Although Hamburg could call upon vast cultural resources and a thriving musical tradition, the small Silesian town of Liegnitz (Legnica), with an 163 MOZART AND THE NAZIS estimated population of only 80,000 inhabitants, mustered a comparably impressive range of events for its Mozart celebrations from 30 November to 8 December. The week comprised four operatic programmes (Zauberflöte, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni and a triple bill of Der Schauspieldirektor and the ballets Der Liebesprobe and Les petits riens), four orchestral concerts including one for the Hitler Youth and BDM, and the Requiem. At the opening cere- mony, musicologist Ernst Bücken delivered a commemorative speech entitled ‘Mozarts world-historical mission’ which was followed by a rare outing for the Hymne an Deutschland (Max Friedlaender’s 1933 arrangement of the first chorus from König Thamos), and, more curiously, the Masonic cantata Dir, Seele des Weltalls K429. Despite its limited musical resources and the huge variety of repertory on offer, the Mozart celebrations in Liegnitz appear to have been a considerable success, managing to bolster morale at a turning point during the war. Reportedly an audience of over a thousand attended the performance of the Requiem. As Otto Rudnick remarked in the Zeitschrift für Musik, ‘whether they were performing church music, theatre works, symphonies, concertos or chamber music, Liegnitz’s various auditoriums were always sold out. This offered conclusive proof that the appreciation for Mozart’s art was still thriving, and that the leading musical forces in Germany’s hardest battle were prepared to render unanimous homage to his great genius.’41 The Mozart Year on German Radio Having frequently extolled the value of broadcasting as a powerful instrument of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels naturally ensured that during this anniver- sary year Mozart’s work would be given due acknowledgement with the same intensity on the radio as in the nation’s concert halls and opera houses. As well as providing regular broadcasts of his most famous works throughout 1941, Grossdeutscher Rundfunk devised two series of Mozart broadcasts which were orientated towards capturing the distinctive cultural climate in wartime Germany. The first cycle consisted of ten programmes which were aired during the summer months between June and August under the title ‘Mozart als Schöpfer von Unterhaltungsmusik’ (Mozart as the creator of entertainment music). The idea for such a series may well have come directly from Goebbels. 164 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Since the beginning of the war, the Propaganda Minister had spearheaded a change in music broadcasting policy. Since it offered a better distraction for the population at large from the stresses and strains of the war, entertainment music was now to be regarded far more favourably than serious music. Fortunately, Mozart’s output was sufficiently large and varied in character to enable radio producer Bruno Aulich to devise effective programmes, juxta- posing serenades, divertimenti and German dances, with vocal canons and songs, all of which succeeded in presenting the composer in lighter mode.42 Yet the charm and effectiveness of these programmes were undoubtedly overshadowed by a much more elaborate project which dominated the airwaves in the autumn. This was a fully-fledged chronological survey of Mozart’s life and works, conceived in fourteen separate hourly broadcasts, that was transmitted on Grossdeutscher Rundfunk between 7 September and 7 December. Although the German broadcasting authorities had already demonstrated a special interest and considerable acumen in devising large-scale broadcast cycles, for example the Wagner/Houston Stewart Chamberlain series from 1934 or the complete Bruckner Symphonies in 1936, this second Mozart series was far more ambitious in its range and scope. Apart from securing the services of some of Germany’s most distinguished conductors (Richard Strauss, Böhm, Furtwängler, Kabasta, Keilberth, Knappertsbusch, Krauss, Schuricht and von Zallinger), not to mention a roster of fine orchestras and soloists, the programmes offered two distinctive departures from earlier broadcasting practice. First, in tracing the develop- ment of Mozart’s life in the context of the music that he wrote, the producers hit on the innovative idea of transmitting broadcasts of certain works from the buildings in which they had been first performed. Second, the programmes were organised in such a manner that they placed Mozart in a European dimension. Bolstering early German success during the war, some programmes were broadcast from occupied cities such as Paris and Prague which the composer had visited during his lifetime, while a further one from Milan enabled the Italian broadcasting authorities to demonstrate the fruits of close cultural cooperation with its staunchest ally. Had ambitions to bomb England in 1940 resulted in the country’s capitulation to the Germans, the series might well have included a programme from occupied London in celebration of Mozart’s visit there in 1764 and 1765. 165 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 19 Special programme booklet ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sein Leben und Schaffen’ transmitted by Grossdeutscher Rundfunk, Autumn 1941. Opening appropriately with a broadcast from Salzburg and concluding with one from Vienna, the fourteen programmes charted the course of Mozart’s life in the following sequence: 7 September 14 September 21 September 28 September 5 October 12 October 19 October 26 October 2 November 9 November 16 November 23 November Salzburg Milan Salzburg Mannheim Paris Munich Vienna Vienna/Salzburg Vienna Vienna Prague Vienna Mozart the child Mozart in Italy Salzburg period of serenades Ardour in Mannheim Ignored in Paris The Munich Idomeneo The Vienna Entführung Friendship with Haydn Around the time of Figaro Symphonic perfection The Prague Don Giovanni Farewell from buffa and seria 166 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA 30 November Vienna To Die Zauberflöte 7 December Vienna Requiem aeternam An indication of the significant propaganda value attached to the Mozart Series can be gleaned from the special booklet which Grossdeutscher Rundfunk published in conjunction with the broadcasts. The preface, written by the Reichsintendant Dr Heinrich Glasmeier, draws upon the familiar theme of equating the soldier securing Germany’s borders with the defence and preser- vation of German art and its intellectual values. These values were being assid- uously promoted in the current series of programmes which ‘convey the vibrant strength and victorious serenity of Mozart’s ever-youthful musical composi- tions to millions of listeners’ and would aim to ‘give strength and energy to the German people in their battle for the future’.43 That the war underpinned the whole project was also evident from a memorandum from a radio official regarding the Mozart series which compared German cultural achievements favourably to those of the enemy: England’s most dangerous warmonger, Churchill, claimed in one of his hate-filled speeches that Germany was lacking so much in its own culture that it could not do without Shakespeare! Well, the German honours great intellects from other cultural areas – but he by no means needs them! Too great is his own wealth of many centuries. And thus, even in fourteen programmes from Mozart’s world alone only a very small fragment of his immortal works rises in front of the nation. Richly rewarded with the most magnificent cultural wealth, they sound into the tirades of hatred of close- minded peoples, signs of ever-lasting greatness and expression of the German character, proud, serene, true, and profound!44 Reviewing the Mozart broadcasts in the Zeitschrift für Musik, Erich Valentin was fulsome in his praise for the whole enterprise, describing it as ‘as the most beautiful and dignified performances of the Mozart Year’. His remarks are also noteworthy for recognising that the principles adopted in such a series might serve to strengthen the case for more focused broad- casting of serious music during the war: The concept that these works are again ringing out from the place of their origin or their first performance communicates to the listener such a deep 167 MOZART AND THE NAZIS impression, which no open mind could refuse. Out of this series of transmis- sions . . . a new form of musical broadcasting could be made to evolve which would be in the position to remove the odium of the sad and the heavy from the concept of serious music. The Mozart cycle has proved that it is possible, by combining the work of Art with reality, by means of a lively and clear commentary – to present the gift of a vivid experience to even the unpre- pared as well as the prejudiced listeners.45 The Mozartwoche des Deutschen Reiches in Vienna The final two broadcasts of the German Radio’s Mozart cycle were trans- mitted from Vienna during the Mozartwoche des Deutschen Reiches, the festival that was designed to form the climax to the anniversary year. In almost every respect Vienna’s contribution to the Mozart anniversary eclipsed all other celebrations in terms of the scale and diversity of its programmes. Furthermore, whereas all other cities in the Reich were content to present one festival devoted to Mozart, the Vienna Mozartwoche offered audiences two festivals that were running concurrently. One, entitled the Reichsprogramm, served the whole nation; the other, designated as the Wiener Programm, was intended for the citizens of Vienna. Both, however, enjoyed the joint patronage of Propaganda Minister Goebbels and the Reichsleiter of Vienna and former Hitler Youth leader, Baldur von Schirach. To provide a more permanent memorial of this auspicious event, the Viennese journal Die Pause produced a 104-page book in connection with the Mozartwoche. The publication, which featured twenty-five essays on many aspects of Mozart’s life and work from a host of Germany’s leading musicologists, composers and performers, was prefaced by a special poem, ‘An Mozart’, written by Josef Weinheber. As an introduction, Goebbels provided a few pompous sentences underlining the timely political signifi- cance of the Mozartwoche: The greatest musical homage that was ever brought forth to honour a genius has occurred in the war year 1941 in Vienna. While Europe is preparing to take on a new political character and the foundations of the future are being fought over by weapons, the German nation and its friendly allies are honouring one 168 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 20 Front cover of the special commemorative book celebrating the Mozartwoche in Vienna, December 1941. of the greatest unifiers of all nations whom the world has ever produced. They thank him through the festive representation of his blessed music. The future of our people and those of Europe are bound together by this great German creator of music in whose memory these Mozart celebrations will signal the 169 MOZART AND THE NAZIS everlasting value of humanity. Out of the mixture of relaxation and serious knowledge, which filled Mozart’s being, there arises a future for us, an endowment which we are obliged to honour and to nourish.46 With sixty-seven different events compressed into one week, the city authorities, working in conjunction with the Ministry of Propaganda, appeared to have spared no effort or expense in bringing together many of the nation’s finest performers. Evidence of the considerable sums of government money expended upon the whole enterprise (estimated to be in excess of 350,000 RM) can be gleaned from the surviving documents housed in the Bundesarchiv in Berlin, which demonstrate that the regime was still having to deal with the settling of outstanding bills up to 1944.47 In musical terms, the programme was unusually lavish. Although Vienna may not have matched Leipzig’s achievement of performing a substantial proportion of Mozart’s operatic output, six operas involving three different companies, each with a star-studded cast, were staged at the Staatsoper. Mozart’s two German operas framed the programme. First came the Vienna State Opera’s Die Entführung under Karl Böhm, with Irma Beilke, Erna Berger, Anton Dermota and actor Curd Jürgens. On the penultimate night Die Zauberflöte was staged in a joint collaboration between the Berlin and Vienna State Operas in Gustaf Grundgens’s production, conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, with Erna Berger, Helge Roswaenge and Paul Schöffler taking some of the principal roles. In between these two works were the Bavarian State Opera’s Così fan tutte conducted by Clemens Krauss and the Vienna State Opera’s Don Giovanni (Knappertsbusch) and Figaro (Böhm), all performed in the newly approved translations by Georg Schünemann. As discussed in Chapter 1, the sixth opera featured Richard Strauss conducting a revised version of his 1931 arrangement of Idomeneo. Although the Ministry of Propaganda were fully aware that Lothar Wallerstein, a Jew and former producer at the Vienna State Opera until the Anschluss, had collaborated with Strauss on this project by supplying the composer with an adaptation and German translation of the original libretto, the organisers of the Festwoche were prepared to forego a strict application of racial policy for the sake of Strauss’s participation in such a prestigious musical occasion. Yet to circum- vent any potential controversy over the inclusion of this work, Wallerstein’s name simply did not appear in the programme book. 170 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 21 Joint declaration by Goebbels and von Schirach published at the beginning of the commemorative book of the Mozartwoche. As well as the opera performances, the Reichsprogramm offered audiences the opportunity to hear soloists such as pianists Edwin Fischer, Wilhelm Kempff and Wilhelm Backhaus, violinists Georg Kulenkampff and Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and conductors Karl Böhm, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss and 171 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 22 (Above and opposite page) Advertisements detailing the extremely comprehensive programmes that were devised for the Mozartwoche in Vienna. Wilhelm Furtwängler in a series of orchestral and choral concerts. Chamber music concerts at the Palais Pallavicini, the Palais Lobkowitz and the Rittersaal der Hofburg included string quartet and wind serenade programmes and, 172 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. perhaps most enterprisingly, performances of the Rondo in A minor K511 and the Trio in E major K542 on period instruments. An exhibition formally opened by Heinz Drewes, the Music Director of the Propaganda Ministry, at the National Library traced Mozart’s creative output in surviving contemporary documents. The Wiener Programm may not have boasted such a glamorous line-up of musicians but the repertory was just as wide-ranging, with a similar spread of orchestral and chamber concerts. The Volksoper, for example, offered consecutive evening performances of Die Entführung, Die Zauberflöte and Figaro during the first three days. As a reminder of the political context 173 MOZART AND THE NAZIS within which the festival was taking place, it should be noted that the final performance of Die Zauberflöte at the Volksoper on 5 December was offered exclusively to members of the Wehrmacht and to those working in the armaments industry. With so much emphasis being placed upon Mozart’s youthful genius, it was entirely appropriate that one of the opening events of the Wiener Programm in the Musikverein should have been an orchestral concert for the Hitler Youth. In fact, the majority of the city’s schoolchildren were already primed for such an event: during the autumn, the Vienna branch of the Reichmusikkammer had published a brochure which featured a comprehensive diary of the Mozart celebrations (totalling some 319 different events) that were scheduled to take place in every primary and secondary school in Vienna’s twenty-six districts between October and December 1941. The document not only provides details of some of the repertory that was to be performed at specific schools by local Viennese musicians, but also includes a prescribed listening list of Mozart’s works, arranged according to age group, to be presented to classes during the school year.48 Apart from its focus on youth, the Wiener Programm also attempted to make Mozart accessible to as wide a spectrum of the population as possible. One of the two concerts organised in conjunction with the NS Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude organisation featured a programme entitled ‘Der heitere Mozart’ (The merry Mozart), with popular favourites such as operatic arias and Eine kleine Nachtmusik with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and a choreographed staging of some of the German dances. Another evening event entitled ‘Unser Mozart’ (Our Mozart) devised by the novelist Luise Bachmann featured a sequence of arias, lieder, chamber works, a children’s choir and three tableaux from Mozart’s life. To balance these more populist presentations, the Wiener Programm also reached out to the academic community. The four-day Mozart-Kongress that took place at the Academy of Science and the Palais Pallavicini was jointly organ- ised by the Academy’s President Heinrich Ritter von Srbik and the director of the Wiener Mozart-Gemeinde, Heinrich Damisch. As in Salzburg a few months earlier, practically all the leading Mozart scholars (Schiedermair, Haas, Müller von Asow, Gregor, Orel, Engel, Steglich, Valentin) were in attendance to deliver papers. Amidst this plethora of familiar Mozart authorities, there was at least one token gesture towards the scholarly community outside the German Reich 174 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA through the participation of Adolphe Boschot, the distinguished French musicologist, who presented a lecture that explored the musical relationship between Mozart and Berlioz.49 One feature that distinguished the Vienna Mozartwoche from all the other Mozart festivals in Nazi Germany during 1941 was its international atmos- phere. This dimension was certainly not created by the participants who, with the exception of Boschot, were familiar home-grown figures, but rather by the audience, which included a large contingent of specially invited international guests. In the initial plans for the Mozartwoche, outlined by Heinrich Damisch during the early months of the war, considerable emphasis had already been placed on securing support and cooperation with a wide range of musical personalities from politically neutral countries.50 However, by the time the Mozartwoche programme was finalised two years later, the regime saw the event as offering a much more ambitious opportunity, enforcing international political alliances at a time when Germany’s armies were engaged in a bitter campaign on the Russian front. Accordingly, a number of events were graced by demonstrations of solidarity from diplomats and ambassadors. At the opening ceremony of the Mozart- Kongress, for example, speeches of support were read out by delegates from Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland and Turkey. Inevitably the presence of so many foreigners was exploited by the newspapers. Three days before the opening of the Mozartwoche the Völkischer Beobachter reported that Goebbels had extended invitations to over three hundred foreign guests: conductors, composers, soloists, musicologists and around fifty journalists. In addition, transport, cultural and foreign ministers, as well as the diplomatic corps from the Axis countries, would be present.51 Four days later, the same newspaper provided a more detailed list of the some of distin- guished guests that attended the opening ceremony.52 As a tribute to the interna- tional contingent at the Mozartwoche, the Neues Wiener Tagblatt devoted one of its pages to a series of signed statements mainly from non-German personalities which outlined their own particular response to Mozart.53 The charm offensive launched by the Propaganda Ministry to woo foreign guests, in order to lend greater credibility to the cultural achievements of the regime and bolster German reputations abroad, seems to have paid off hand- somely, particularly in occupied Paris. A report drafted by Robert Bernard in the music periodical L’information musicale, written on behalf of the large 175 MOZART AND THE NAZIS French delegation in attendance at the Festwoche, was extravagant in its praise for the hospitality and cordiality that had been shown to everyone.54 Reminding French readers of the ‘far-reaching impact of this festival, the breadth and significance of which remain unprecedented’, Bernard drew atten- tion to the ‘unerring spontaneity and courtesy extended to us by the people of Vienna’. The warmth of their welcome, he wrote, served as a ‘reassuring friend- ship upon which any future European order will need to be constructed’: Whether it was from the words of Dr Goebbels . . . and Baldur von Schirach . . . or from private conversations with representatives of all the political and social elite, or from the atmosphere created by the crowds of people, we were struck by the concerted determination of the German nation to elevate artistic and spiritual values and protect them from the harm of earthly strife. In the present circumstances, it is only fair to record the unparalleled success achieved through the immense energy and hard work invested in the festival, which amounts to a kind of moral victory in the face of all manner of difficulties.55 The most widely reported aspects of the Mozartwoche, however, were neither the music programme nor the considerable influx of foreign visitors, but the speeches on Mozart that were delivered by the festival’s two Nazi patrons, von Schirach and Goebbels. Von Schirach’s speech, at the opening ceremony on November 28, was delivered in front of the assembled ambassa- dors, army chiefs and party dignitaries in a flower-bedecked Grosser Konzerthaussaal with a specially designed W[olfgang] A[madeus] M[ozart] logo placed at the back of the hall. It was sandwiched between performances of the Overture to Don Giovanni and ‘Jupiter’ Symphony by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Karl Böhm. The full contents of von Schirach’s speech may be found in Appendix 1. His opening remarks give a good indication of his intentions. In welcoming so many foreign guests to the Mozartwoche, he claimed that a common creative destiny existed between Germany and the other nations of Europe. This afforded him the opportunity to attack the cultural sterility of Great Britain and the United States, countries which, he argued, were driven by Imperialist and Bolshevist intentions. Furthermore, in order to justify such an elaborate celebration of Mozart’s genius at this particular moment in time, von Schirach 176 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA sought to present a tangible connection between the Mozartwoche and the struggle that was currently taking place on the Russian front: There is therefore no conflict for us between the exploits of the grey heroes who, in the grim cold of the east, as soldiers of the bravest army on this earth, are discharging their duty, and us who, in the homeland protected by those brave men, are performing the life’s work – or rather: the work of eternal life – that is associated with the concept of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This, too, is a celebration of the frontline, more than a festive event of theatre and concert hall. Commemorating Mozart we avow the essence of our art. In war, however, the invocation of his spirit is a deed in the spirit of the fighting soldiers. He who draws his sword for Germany also draws it for him!56 The speech made the front pages of several newspapers. For example, it was featured in the Völkischer Beobachter on 29 November under the headline ‘Wir rufen die Jugend zum Krieg für ihre Kunst’ (We summon the youth to war for their art) with a complete transcription of von Schirach’s words repro- duced in the inside pages. In certain local newspapers such as the Neuigkeits Welt-Blatt, headlines regarding the speech were assigned larger typescript than the news that the German army and air force had broken through Soviet military positions in Rostov. Von Schirach’s speech prompted a particularly hostile response in the United States. Only a week before the attack on Pearl Harbour, prominent artists of the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York issued a joint state- ment condemning his remarks. As reported in Christian Science Monitor, the German-born soprano Lotte Lehmann stated that ‘art and music can never develop in a country in which hate and persecution prevail’. French-born American soprano Lily Pons echoed Lehmann’s objections, declaring that ‘Mozart, if he were alive today, would be the first to cry out in protest against an ideology which subscribes to...an encouragement of brutality and intolerance’. 57 An entry in Joseph Goebbels’s diary on 26 November informs us that the Propaganda Minister had drafted his Mozart speech the previous afternoon, though it is clear from his remarks that the problematic situation on the Eastern Front had somewhat deflated his enthusiasm for the task: 177 MOZART AND THE NAZIS In these days, when one is pressurised and burdened by a thousand other worries, one would rather occupy oneself with other problems, than – of all things – a Memorial Speech for Mozart. But even that has to be so. The cultural life is an effective spur to me to persevere further in the heavy battles we have already won and in which we shall still have to succeed.58 This disenchantment seems to have intensified after Goebbels had travelled to Vienna on 3 December to deliver his Mozart speech at a Kulturpolitische Kundgebung at the Staatsoper the next afternoon. His diary entries for the following day expressed increasing discontent with the unreal ‘atmosphere in Vienna – its citizens particularly chastised for giving the impression that they were unconcerned about the huge sacrifices which the soldiers on the Eastern front were making on their behalf – and underlined the simmering tensions with Baldur von Schirach, who was attempting to forge a cultural programme that was independent of Berlin.59 Nevertheless, for all his private misgivings, the speech seems to have gone down well with the assembled audience and inspired a further bout of head- lines in various newspapers.60 Advancing onto the podium of the Staatsoper after the Vienna Philharmonic performed the Overture to La Clemenza di Tito, Goebbels returned to the themes that had already been outlined by von Schirach in his address at the opening ceremony. In particular, he commented again upon the appropriateness of delivering a speech in honour of Mozart in the light of the current situation: The question might be asked whether a state-run festivity, such as is being offered to him on the 150th anniversary of his death, can stand up before the enormous happenings of our days. Our hearts tell us that we can answer this question affirmatively . . . His music rings out every evening over homeland and front. It is part of what our soldiers are defending against the wild assault of Eastern barbarism.61 In Goebbels’s opinion, there was little contradiction between the world of sound in which Mozart lived and worked, and the hard and threatening world that ‘we were now experiencing’. Both eras shared the same destiny of attempting to transform chaos into discipline and order. Emphasising 178 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 23 JosephGoebbelsdeliveringhisMozartspeechattheStaatsoperinVienna,4December 1941. Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 24 Goebbels visiting the newly restored Figarohaus in the Domgasse Vienna, 5 December 1941. 179 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Mozart’s profound links with the people, Goebbels continued: ‘A master of the most perfect musical form, he does not confine himself to writing music for the privileged classes or the connoisseurs of artistic music; he is a people’s artist in the best sense of the word.’ Finally, Mozart fulfilled the great mission of art: ‘to raise the spirits of a tormented humanity and remove it to a better world’.62 After his speech Goebbels attended a performance of Die Zauberflöte in the company of Nazi luminaries such as von Schirach, Seyss-Inquart, Gauleiter Hanke, Gauleiter Rainer, the Hungarian finance minister Remenyi-Schneller, Benno von Arent and many guests from Party and the Wehrmacht. He remained in Vienna for the Mozart anniversary day, visiting the restored Figarohaus in the Domgasse, which had been formally opened by von Schirach a few days earlier, and attending a performance of the Requiem under Wilhem Furtwängler. Baldur von Schirach had argued in his speech that the performance of the Requiem would act not only as a mourning for the death of Mozart, but also as a tribute to every person killed in action. Goebbels disagreed with his rival. While acknowledging the profound impact of the music over the assembled audience, he wrote in his diaries that he would forbid any further radio broad- casts of the Requiem. Such a work, he suggested, could not offer comfort to people in the current climate and would only serve to depress them further: ‘At present we need heroic death music, but not a work that has a Christian or even Catholic message.’63 The Requiem was preceded by an elaborately choreographed Party ritual designed to pay formal homage to Mozart on the anniversary of his death. Captured on film and featured in the weekly propaganda newsreel Deutsche Wochenschau, the ceremony was shown throughout the German Reich and the occupied territories. It took place in front of the Mozart monument on the Albertinaplatz next to St Stephen’s Cathedral. A soldier stood guard as a memorial flame was lit on top of the monument which had itself been decorated with swastikas and a golden wreath inscribed with the letter M (for Mozart). The square, thronged with people, was decked with swastikas and the flags of nineteen different states. It was an extremely festive scene, undoubtedly enhanced by the order from von Schirach that the residents of Vienna should erect flags in Mozart’s memory on all the buildings in the city so as to ‘express their gratitude to this most brilliant and multi-faceted genius of music’ and to bestow on him ‘the honour which was denied to him when 180 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 25 Mozart-Huldigung at the Albertinaplatz Vienna, 5 December 1941. he was carried to his grave, lonely and deserted’.64 At the stroke of midday a distantly placed trumpet choir intoned the March of the Priests from Die Zauberflöte as von Schirach strode towards the Mozart monument and memorial flame to lay a wreath in the name of the Führer. With his right arm raised in salute, von Schirach stood for a minute’s silence as a mark of respect.65 Further wreaths were then placed in front of the memorial. The sequence began with those from the Nazi party hierarchy (Goering, Goebbels and von Schirach), General Streccius of the Wehrmacht and the Gauleiter of Salzburg, followed by wreaths from Hungary, Italy, Japan, Spain, Slovakia and Manchukuo and the ‘Mozart’ cities of Salzburg, Mannheim, Paris and Prague. 181 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Argentina, Sweden, Turkey, Brazil, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Croatia, Romania, Denmark, Finland, Thailand, Chile and representatives from the foreign press provided the final wreaths. Then, as the Völkischer Beobachter reported, all the bells of Vienna’s churches rang over the city ‘in praise of a national immortal.’ Finally, ‘fanfares derived from Die Zauberflöte resounded over the square on which the population of Vienna had gathered under national flags to pay homage to Mozart.’66 One day after the hordes of visitors to Vienna had departed the city, Heinrich Damisch and the Wiener Mozart Gemeinde organised a private memorial ceremony for Mozart at St Marx cemetery, where the composer was reputed to have been buried. In many ways it was a fitting close to an extraor- dinary festival which Damisch had first helped to set in motion in 1939. But if the Mozartwoche represented the climax of the Mozart anniversary celebra- tions, Damisch was also concerned that it would not remain a unique event. In the commemorative programme book for the Mozartwoche, he had proposed the introduction of a five year Mozart-Lustrum. This was conceived as a kind of cultural Olympiad with music and music-theatre very much in the foreground and the composer acting as an ideal model for German youth. Through the work of such organisations as the Mozart-Spielscharen of the Hitler Youth and various music and music-theatre touring companies, he envisaged a time when the Mozart movement and its inherently German spirit would penetrate deeply into the entire nation’.67 Judging by performance statistics, these aspirations were already being realised. By the 1941/42 season Mozart’s music had already attained an almost unprecedented level of popularity. He had leapfrogged Verdi, Wagner, Puccini and Lortzing as the most frequently heard opera composer in the Reich with an almost fourfold increase in the number of productions since the first years of the Nazi regime. Although Verdi and Puccini relegated Mozart to third place for the 1942/43 season, his operas were still performed almost twice as much as at the beginning of the war.68 Damisch’s other suggestions for the promotion of Mozart proved less feasible. Following up on the idea he had first postulated before the founding of the Salzburg Festival, he envisaged the creation of an opera house modelled on Bayreuth that would dedicate itself exclusively to the performance of Mozart. He called for the instigation of a new complete edition of the composer’s works, together with a corresponding ‘people’s edition’ that would 182 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA retail at a much cheaper price. Damisch urged that there should also be further Hausmusik adaptations, Mozart competitions and scholarships, regular Mozart exhibitions of manuscripts, instruments and relevant pictures, more books and magazines about the composer, practical rearrangements of neglected stage works and a newly aryanised revision of the Köchel catalogue (to replace the one that had been undertaken by Alfred Einstein and published in 1937).69 Much of Damisch’s extensive wish-list remained unrealised. For example, despite the promise of a generous subvention from the regime, no tangible progress was made on a new complete edition of Mozart’s music. Nonetheless, the work of the Zentralinstitut für Mozartforschung in Salzburg continued largely unabated until its indefatigable director Erich Valentin was drafted to the Eastern front. Among its publications were two further volumes of the Neues Mozart-Jahrbuch, both edited by Valentin. The 1942 Yearbook included two chapters that were closely tied to the contemporary ideological climate. The first of these was Heinrich Ritter von Srbik’s ‘Mozarts Erleben des politis- chen Antlitzes Europas’ (Mozart’s experience of the political face of Europe), based on the paper which the historian had delivered at the Vienna Mozart Congress in December 1941. It was a rather contrived essay attempting to situate the composer’s outlook within Srbik’s notion of a Gesamtdeutschland – a loose conglomeration of independent enclaves that existed in the confines of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. The second, by the racial theorist Walther Rauschenberger, entitled ‘Mozarts Abstammung und Ahnenerbe’ (Mozart’s lineage and ancestral heritage), has already been cited in Chapter 2; it amplified in greater depth some of the research already carried out into Mozart’s racial background by Erich Schenk. These contributions, alongside more conventional musicological essays, represented, according to Erich Valentin, a modest demonstration of the creative strength of the home front in its struggle to establish order over chaos.70 Another project involving the Zentralinstitut was an edition of Mozart’s Letters, edited by Erich Müller von Asow. Von Asow’s work was intended to supersede the earlier somewhat incomplete collection edited by Ludwig Schiedermair in 1914. Two volumes out of a planned four were published in Berlin in 1942 alongside three fascinating portfolios that included facsimiles of several hundred Mozart letters. These collectors’ items were printed directly from emulsion-treated glass plates on fine paper and folded to match the 183 MOZART AND THE NAZIS originals in size and shape – an extremely costly and time-consuming process. Without doubt Germany’s changing fortunes during the war, as well as the sheer expense that was incurred for presenting Mozart’s material in this lavish manner, must have hindered further progress on the edition and no further volumes appeared. In the meantime, von Asow brought out a publication in 1943 that conflated Leopold Mozart’s catalogue of his son’s work up to 1768 with the much better-known Verzeichnis aller meiner Werke compiled by Wolfgang Amadeus of the compositions he had written after February 1784. Von Asow provided a short commentary to this material which was heavily indebted to the pre-war facsimile edition by Otto Erich Deutsch, who was currently in exile in England. Yet not only did von Asow fail to acknowledge Deutsch, but he also avoided imparting the somewhat embarrassing informa- tion that this precious document was no longer in German hands. Bought by Stefan Zweig in 1935, it had been taken out of Austria after the author left the country to settle first in London and then in Bath.71 Mozart propaganda after 1941, and a Mozart film Having exploited Mozart for propaganda purposes during his anniversary year, it was almost inevitable that the regime would turn to other cultural figures of the past to boost the morale of the nation after 1941. Nonetheless, Goebbels would surely have been heartened that the message of his Mozart Speech was still having some impact on the Eastern front some eight months later. A report from a serving officer which was published in the Salzburger Landeszeitung during the 1942 Salzburg Festival reinforced the inspirational impact of hearing Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte while engaged in battle: The fighting front line has held out and occupied the exit position for a renewed attack. Our small broadcasting troupe had switched off its trans- mitter and we prepared weapons, equipment and armaments for the ensuing days of fighting. A misty summer evening, however, found us gathered around a fire, and one of the Comrades was twisting the knobs on the radio receiver so as to bring the voice of our homeland into our circle of men. Living in the rocky Tundra amidst the Asian hordes and beneath the bullet- raked tanks, burst armoured wagons, stinking corpses of the horses and 184 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA smashed human bodies, it was then that we were moved by the ceremonial sounds of the trombone in Die Zauberflöte and by the bitter sadness of Pamina which filled an unforgettable summer’s night. The Salzburg master reminded us soldiers anew what we were defending . . . Salzburg truly radi- ates light into the hard hearts of warriors and newly ignites the spirit of war in them.72 In fact Goebbels had not entirely exhausted the propaganda value of asso- ciating Mozart with the German war effort. Among the projects which he was eager to bring to fruition was a new film on the life of the composer. Wen die Götter lieben (Whom the Gods Love) was first shown in Salzburg on 5 December 1942. It was commissioned from Wien-Film, a semi-autonomous studio established by the Nazi regime in December 1938 which served the dual function of producing material that would bolster the notion of a greater German Reich while providing the public with the kind of escapist fare that had always been particularly associated with Vienna. A distinguished group of artists was associated with the project. Karl Hartl was the producer, Eduard von Borsody created the screenplay on the basis of a novella by Richard Billinger and Edmund Strzygowski, and the musical arranger Alois Melichar directed the Vienna Philharmonic, which performed a generous selection of Mozart’s work for the soundtrack. On screen were several film stars that were very familiar to German audiences, notably Hans Holt as Mozart, Winnie Markus as Constanze, Walter Janssen as Leopold Mozart, and Curd (Curt) Jürgens as Emperor Joseph II. Wen die Götter lieben charts the course of Mozart’s life from the moment he leaves Salzburg on his journey to Paris and his subsequent meeting with the Weber sisters in Mannheim. Following the death of Mozart’s mother and his return from Paris to Salzburg, the main portion of the film focuses on his move to Vienna, where he writes the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail, marries Constanze Weber, rekindles his early infatuation for her sister Luise (Aloysia) while staging Don Giovanni, and succumbs to an early death after receiving the commission from a shadowy patron to compose the Requiem. In one purely fictionalised sequence near the end, Mozart meets the then- unknown Beethoven who improvises passages from his ‘Moonlight’ Sonata. Goebbels was delighted with the film, which he saw privately for the first time at the end of November 1942. He wrote in his diary that the dialogue and 185 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 26 Magazine poster for the Mozart biopic Wen die Götter lieben (1942). 186 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA direction had achieved an extraordinarily high standard. In the same entry he indulged in a little self-congratulation that his constant haranguing of film- makers to work harder for the cause had reaped such impressive rewards. A second viewing, three days after its premiere, was also noted in his diary. Not only did this help to clarify some sections that he had not grasped the first time round, but it also confirmed his initial impression that the film was ‘of totally excellent quality’.73 The Reichsfilmkammer endorsed Goebbels’s enthusiastic response to Wen die Götter lieben, rating the film as being ‘staatspolitisch und künstlerisch besonders wertvoll’ (exceptionally worthwhile on both national political and artistic grounds).74 Yet it remains questionable whether the film actually served a useful purpose as political propaganda. Certainly, the issue has not been fully resolved by post-war scholars writing about the role of the cinema during the Third Reich. Linda Schulte-Sasse postulates that Wen die Götter lieben should be ranked among a number of so-called ‘genius’ films released during the 1940s, the most famous being Herbert Maisch’s Friedrich Schiller–DerTriumph eines Genies (1940). Many of these films were produced as part of a concerted effort to boost public morale as a form of ‘ideological rearmament at a time of war’. In this respect they reflect National Socialism’s ‘biologistic celebration of leader, genius or personality’, projecting into the past a struggle which implic- itly affirms the National Socialist present as having surmounted the ‘instru- mentalised’ world with and in which genius had to cope.75 The focus in these ‘genius films’ on cultural figures from the eighteenth century was a deliberate reflection upon the decay of the Enlightenment, a period when the loss of faith in art’s direct social effect generated the aesthetic of genius that continues to structure the Western popular mystification of art. In an alternative reading, Robert von Dassonowsky challenged the categori- sation of Wen die Götter lieben as a ‘genius film’. He concedes that Mozart shared certain traits of Germanic genius with such figures as Schiller, arguing that both men were rebel heroes battling against forces that did not understand their greatness. Yet unlike Schiller, Mozart ‘composed for, against and regard- less of the authority that he attempted to manipulate and which could not deal with him’. In Hartl’s film, he suggests, Mozart’s transcendence is reflected in his art rather than in a heroic life, and this is substantiated by the distinctly flawed personalities of the main protagonists. Thus Hans Holt’s ‘slightly effeminate 187 MOZART AND THE NAZIS portrayal of Mozart dispels any notions of the creative German superman or even of a cliché masculine hero’, while Winnie Markus’s Constanze ‘is anything but the model for proper German womanhood’, being ‘untalented in the kitchen, vain about her appearance and coquettish’.76 As well as its anti-heroic characterisation, according to von Dassanowsky, the dialogue in Wen die Götter lieben contains some remarks that could be construed to reflect nostalgia for the old order of the Hapsburg dynasty and even challenge the notion of German cultural supremacy. Such gestures, however, seem discordant with the pan-Germanic aesthetics which would have been required from a film company that had been established after the Anschluss. At the same time, there are number of elements in the film that are clearly contrived to match the prevailing Nazi ideology. Dassanowsky overlooks small details such as the deliberate substitution of the Jewish Da Ponte with the Aryan Süssmayr (highlighted in Chapter 4), focusing his attention in particular on the closing section where the dying Mozart struggles to orchestrate his Requiem. It should be noted here that there is a deliberate avoidance of any reference to Christianity. No priest is summoned to admin- ister the Last Rites in the deathbed scene and Mozart imagines himself being welcomed to heaven by the descending Queen of the Night from Die Zauberflöte rather than by a Christian deity. Finally, Mozart’s death is depicted in heroic terms. Evidently, to portray his burial in a pauper’s grave and the lack of concern from the court and the public at the composer’s fate would not have seemed appropriate for the home front.77 Some weeks after the premiere of Wen die Götter lieben, Germany suffered a drastic reversal of fortune with huge losses of manpower at the Battle of Stalingrad. These circumstances generated a rather different appropriation of Mozart’s legacy. Whereas at the zenith of German military success the composer was used as a source of inspiration for the coming victory, his achieve- ment was now invoked as offering some kind of salvation in the light of defeat. Such references were made explicit in an article entitled ‘Der Musikant Gottes’ (The Musician of God) published in the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter on 31 January 1943, in which it was argued that Mozart’s music not only found its greatest resonance in the German people but conveys ‘an artistic experience which lifts it out of the horrors of daily life into light and blessed heights’.78 One year later, as the situation deteriorated further, references to Mozart took on a more belligerent character. In an article published by the journal 188 MOZART PERFORMANCE AND PROPAGANDA Wiener Figaro only months before Goebbels’s declaration of Total War, the concluding remarks of Ludwig Werba were particularly defiant: Wolfgang Amadeus, the bombs and phosphorous streams of the enemy airmen, the cannon missiles and tanks have destroyed many a score of yours . . . They have ravaged the small sheet holder boxes owned by music-studying girls, as well as the store houses of the great publishing firms. Yet you remain immortal on the stage and the concert platform, and you will never disappear from the annals of the spirit, like the people who brought you forth and in whose lap you were placed by the Creator. You and Germany are perfection, and they will exist as long as by the will of God, a sun shines upon this Earth.79 189 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L The last notes of the overture to Don Giovanni faded away. The hall 2 thundered with applause. It wasn’t exactly his kind of music – Mozart was 3 too sweet, too delicate, too restful. But Mozart was connected with Prague, 4 and no other music would do for the opening of the Rudolfinum. . . . Mozart 5 was still German music, even if it was full of Masonry and God knows what 6 else, and this was a German concert hall, after all, where German music 7 would ring out forevermore. Czech politicians would never open their dirty 8 mouths here again. 9 (JIRˇÍ WEIL)1 20 1 As well as exploiting Mozart to boost morale on the home front, his 2 work was also manipulated to serve the interests of German cultural 3 expansionism in the occupied territories. Yet the ways in which this manipu- 4 lation was effected depended to a large extent on the particular country 5 or region under German control. In the former Czechoslovak Republic, 6 for example, Mozart’s work was used to bolster the notion of German 7 cultural hegemony. This remained a relatively straightforward matter in the 8 Sudetenland. But in Prague, Mozart appeared to serve both the interest of 9 the ruling German authorities and that of the oppressed Czech population. 30 It seems that Nazis pursued a more flexible attitude in allowing the subjugated 1 Czech musicians, as well as those serving the German-imposed musical 2 institutions, to perform Mozart. This position, articulated in a memorandum 3 which was sent to Hitler in August 1940 from Karl Hermann Frank, secretary 4x of state to the Reichsprotektor von Neurath, suggested that although 5 the Czechs remained racially poor cousins of the Germans, with the 36L passage of time they could be ‘Germanised’. The promotion of Mozart Folio CHAPTER 8 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM among Czechs might thus have served as a very positive historical example of 1 the way in which their cultural and intellectual life could be shaped by the 2 occupying forces.2 3 To the North-East, in occupied Poland, where the musical fabric 4 was totally destroyed after the invasion, the Nazis pursued a far more 5 ruthless cultural policy. Working on the premise that the native population 6 was racially inferior to its Eastern European neighbours, the Poles were 7 forbidden to play any meaningful part in the Mozart celebrations except as 8 lowly servants in the orchestra founded by the Governor of Poland, Hans 9 Frank. 10 The manipulation of Mozart took on a somewhat different role in the occu- 1L pied countries in the West. Here much emphasis was placed on effecting 2 active collaboration between the ruling authorities and compliant figures in 3 the musical world of the particular nation under occupation. A generously 4 funded propaganda machine swung into action, using Mozart both as a 5 means of healing wounds and creating a sense of rapprochement through 6 stressing shared values and common goals. The most effective organisations 7 to pursue such a policy were the German Institutes established in a number 8 of cities during 1940. Their brief was to work unobtrusively to meet the 9 needs of the occupied nation, while always demonstrating the cultural 20 superiority of the Germans. A further dimension to their activity was mani- 1 fested particularly in France, where there was a concerted attempt to woo the 2 intellectual elite, believing that others would follow the example of the 3 educated classes.3 4 A third area, briefly discussed in this chapter, looks at the use of Mozart 5 as a symbol of diplomatic contact with nations allied to Germany—a factor 6 that has already been mentioned with regard to the Axis in shaping the 7 programme and personnel that participated in the 1939 Salzburg Festival. 8 This overt demonstration of solidarity was taken a stage further in subsequent 9 cultural events, most notably at the Vienna Mozartwoche. The presence of a 30 substantial international delegation at such an event was regarded as a 1 demonstration of moral and political support at a particularly critical 2 moment during the war. In most cases, the hospitality of the Germans was 3 reciprocated in the countries that paid their respects to Mozart with their own 4x anniversary celebrations. However, Germany’s allies did not necessarily 5 accept wholeheartedly the Nazi construction of the composer. 36L 191 Folio 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L ‘Meine Prager verstehen mich’ – Prague, the third Mozart City The mutual admiration that developed between Mozart and the people of Prague has been much documented, and remains a source of pride for the city up to the present day. After attending a highly successful performance of Le nozze di Figaro at the Estates Theatre on 17 January 1787, the composer was overwhelmed by the adulation he received. As he stood to acknowledge the applause, he uttered the words ‘meine Prager verstehen mich’ (My people of Prague understand me) – an assertion that has become ingrained in the city’s cultural history.4 In the same year, Mozart and Da Ponte received a commis- sion to compose Don Giovanni especially for Prague, its world premiere in October 1787 achieving equal success to that of Figaro. Veneration for Mozart in Prague survived all changes in musical fashion through the centuries and seems to have transcended the division between the Czech majority and the ethnic Germans (35 per cent) that made up its popu- lation at the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918. In 1906, during the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Eusebius Mandyczewski reported in the Musical Times that in Prague, ‘Czechs and Germans, though politically bitter enemies, tried to outvie each other in paying homage to the Master’.5 Performances of Don Giovanni were staged concurrently in the German and Czech theatres, and there were count- less concerts of Mozart’s work given by the Philharmonic Society, the Conservatorium, various chamber music institutions and choral societies. Despite Mandyczewski’s claims about the fierce rivalry between Czechs and Germans in Prague, during the early years of the Czechoslovak Republic the two ethnic groups managed to sustain an atmosphere of constructive co-existence as far as musical activity was concerned. Although tensions were never far below the surface, a more sensitive issue at this time was the rela- tionship between Czechoslovakia and Austria. After having suffered under the yoke of Austrian domination for centuries, the newly independent Czech state was particularly resolute when it came to retaining its own identity and self-determination. In particular, any interference in cultural affairs from its former rulers would be vigorously challenged. This explains the furore that resulted from a legal ruling on 1 August 1925, which, through the will of Mrs Emma Popelková, led the International Mozart Foundation in Salzburg to claim the ownership of Bertramka, the suburban home in Prague of Mozart’s Folio 192 MOZART AND THE NAZIS MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM friends Franz and Josepha Duschek, where the final bars of Don Giovanni had 1 been composed. 2 Although the ownership of a historic building, especially one that had 3 fallen into a state of disrepair, might have seemed a trivial basis for inciting a 4 dispute between the two countries, the authorities in Prague clearly felt such 5 a strong emotional attachment to Bertramka that they were prepared to chal- 6 lenge the claim. The International Mozart Foundation responded by agreeing 7 to sell the building back to the city of Prague for the considerable sum of 8 343,000 Czech crowns. Such an exorbitant demand caused outrage among the 9 Czechs, and this feeling was further inflamed when it was discovered that the 10 funds Salzburg would recoup from the sale would be used merely to effect 1L structural alterations to the Mozarteum.6 2 Nonetheless, there was an overriding desire to return Bertramka to the City 3 of Prague. This prompted the formation of the Prague Mozart Society in 1927 4 which began the task of raising the necessary funds to buy back the building. 5 Fortunately, thanks to a loan secured from the Prague Municipal Savings 6 Bank, the Mozart Society managed to become the owners of Bertramka in 7 January 1929. With generous help from many contributors and sponsors, not 8 least the patronage of President Tomásˇ Masaryk, the Society was able to begin 9 its reconstruction of the villa. 20 Masaryk’s patronage of events such as a benefit concert given by the Czech 1 Philharmonic Orchestra on behalf of the Mozart Society in December 1931 2 helped to raise some of the funds that were necessary for offsetting the enor- 3 mously high interest payments that had inevitably accrued from financing the 4 loan to purchase Bertramka. Such support at the highest levels of government 5 was also regarded as a political gesture designed to cultivate the impression 6 that the citizens of Prague, as opposed to those of Salzburg, were to be 7 regarded as the true guardians of Mozart’s heritage. 8 One person who strongly shared this sentiment was Václav Talich, the prin- 9 cipal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. In fact, Talich felt 30 emboldened to honour Mozart as a national hero, almost in the same way as 1 DvorˇákandSmetana.AweekorsobeforeaspecialconcertattheEstates 2 Theatre on 9 January 1937, which was designed to celebrate the 150th 3 anniversary of the composer’s first triumphant visit to Prague, Talich admitted 4x to his colleague Hubert Dolezˇil that his aspirations for Mozart actually went 5 beyond placing Prague on a level with Salzburg as a Mozart city: 36L 193 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 Even we in Prague have a full right to count Mozart as one of ours and, as 2 regards the artistic continuity, we have a right decidedly greater than that of 3 his own native town.7 4 5 Talich’s ambitions were realised ten months later in October 1937 at a week- 6 long festival in the Czech capital honouring the 150th anniversary of the 7 world premiere in Prague of the opera Don Giovanni. Naturally, the climax to 8 these celebrations, which included a series of orchestral, choral and chamber 9 music concerts, was a new production of the opera conducted by Talich which 10 was staged at the very theatre where it had been first performed. 1L The 1937 Prague Mozart Festival afforded the perfect opportunity for the 2 Czech nation to demonstrate to the outside word its ‘full right to count Mozart 3 amongst ours’. No doubt the national appropriation of the composer was 4 deemed particularly vital for the country’s self esteem when set against its 5 increasingly fragile existence during this period. It was most powerfully mani- 6 fested in the performance of Don Giovanni, which was given in a new Czech 7 translationbyLudeˇkMandauson28October,thedaythatmarkedthenine- 8 teenth anniversary of the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic, before 9 President Benesˇ and an internationally invited audience. As Herbert F. Peyser 20 reported in the New York Times, interest in the performance was ‘extraordinary 1 and the audience, which completely filled the old playhouse, was unusually 2 brilliant and representative’.8 3 Further evidence of the national importance attached to honouring Mozart 4 was provided by a series of commemorative events during the Festival 5 that celebrated the composer’s relationship with Prague. Perhaps the most 6 important of these was the unveiling of a restored memorial plaque on the 7 house in the Coal Market (Uhelny ́ trh) where Mozart had lived. An exhibition 8 of Mozart memorabilia at the Old University was another notable occasion. 9 It featured the autograph manuscript of the overture to Don Giovanni, 30 which had been loaned by the Paris Conservatoire as a gesture of diplomatic 1 goodwill. The insurance premium for transporting the score to Prague, orig- 2 inally estimated in the region of five million Czech crowns, was lowered after 3 delicate negotiations. Nonetheless, Czech attachment to the music Mozart 4x had composed in Prague was so great that the organisers of the exhibition 5 were still prepared to spend a considerable amount on securing such a 36L precious item.9 Folio 194 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM During the same year as the Prague Mozart Festival the Czech musicologist 1 Paul Nettl completed his book Mozart in Böhmen (Mozart in Bohemia). 2 He was hopeful that this work would help to restore ‘the spirit of the past’ in 3 which Germans and Czechs celebrated the composer as ‘their master’ in an 4 atmosphere ‘of harmony and reconciliation’.10 Nettl would no doubt have been 5 heartened by the active role played by the German population in the Prague 6 Mozart Festival, and that the German Theatre’s productions of Die Entführung 7 and Die Zauberflöte had elicited enthusiastic critical response. An even more 8 positive sign was the gesture from the staff and students of the German Music 9 Academy of Prague in dedicating a performance of Mozart’s Requiem to the 10 memory of President Masaryk, who had died in September 1937. 1L Yet Nettl’s plea for tolerance and reconciliation was to be put under severe 2 strain by the increasingly ill-tempered relationship between the Czechoslovak 3 Republic and the Third Reich over the Sudetenland. The dispute spilled over 4 into the musical sphere during 1937 with a series of provocative actions from 5 both countries. For instance, in the spring the Czech government issued a ban 6 on the distribution of the books Die Musik im dritten Reich and Kulturwille im 7 deutschen Musikleben by Peter Raabe, President of the Reichsmusikkammer, a 8 decision that caused indignation on the part of the Germans.11 The Germans 9 retaliated by stirring up local feelings in the Sudetenland and openly lending 20 their support to Sudeten Music Festivals which were established in the towns of 1 Reichenberg (Liberec) and Teplitz (Teplice).12 In such circumstances, the inter- 2 national welcome of the Prague Mozart Festival was not extended to guests 3 from the German Reich, and it is notable that the December 1937 issue of 4 Zeitschrift für Musik carried only the most cursory critical report of the 5 programme.13 6 During 1938 the musical press in Germany intensified their propaganda 7 campaign against the Czech regime, taking every opportunity to lend moral 8 support to the Sudetenland. Mozart was dragged into the conflict through the 9 widespread dissemination of the historical novel Die Krönungsoper (The 30 Coronation Opera) by the Sudeten-born writer Hans Watzlik. First published 1 in 1935 but reprinted several times to reach a production run of more than 2 120,000 copies by 1944, Watzlik’s work reconstructs the composer’s last visit 3 to Prague in 1791 in conjunction with the production of his penultimate 4x opera, La clemenza di Tito. Reviewed highly favourably in the German press 5 as a book that could be ‘warmly recommended to both Mozartians and 36L 195 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 Germans’, the model for Die Krönungsoper was Eduard Mörike’s famous 1856 4 novella Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag (Mozart’s Journey to Prague).14 Where 5 it differed from its predecessor was in its political content, which affirmed a 6 strong belief in the German provenance of the Sudetenland, and in a common 7 heritage shared by the peasant communities of the Bohemian Forest and those 8 of Bavaria and Upper Austria. In Die Krönungsoper, Mozart becomes the 9 mouthpiece for Watzlik’s outlook from the moment he sets foot outside 30 Vienna and makes his way through the Bohemian countryside to Prague. In 1 one notable scene Mozart chides his assistant Süssmayr for being bewildered 2 by the different language spoken by a local peasant girl so relatively close 3 to the Austrian capital. He reassures him with the words that they are ‘hardly 4x in the middle of Timbuktu’, and that one ‘can still recognise the songs of 5 the birds and the church bells’. While Süssmayr still remains sceptical, 36L Mozart asserts his belief that ‘Bohemian violins and horns all sing in a 27 Front and back cover of Hans Watzlik’s Mozart novel Die Krönungsoper (1935). Folio 196 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM clear German’, and that ‘all the towns in the region are primarily German, 1 especially Prague’.15 2 It is hardly necessary to speculate on the response to Watzlik’s novel, partic- 3 ularly among the Czechs. Suffice it to say that such material could only have 4 served to provoke an increasingly strained relationship between the German 5 and Czech communities in Prague, following the Munich crisis and the 6 German annexation of the Sudetenland in October 1938. These tensions were 7 mirrored in the situation that faced the Mozart Society. In June 1938 its 8 membership was divided roughly as three-quarters Czech and a quarter 9 German. Yet by the end of the year, most of the Germans were no longer 10 active.16 The enforced closure of the German Theatre in Prague on 26 1L September, as a result of both political pressure and financial difficulties, was 2 a further blow to any prospect for future peaceful coexistence. 3 Any possibility of reconciliation was nullified on 16 March 1939 when 4 Hitler’s troops entered Prague and established the Reichsprotektorat of 5 Bohemia and Moravia. Although Jews and anti-Nazis were rounded up and 6 arrested, musical life continued, albeit under very straitened circumstances. 7 After a period in which he had focused his energies almost exclusively on 8 Czech music, Talich returned to his beloved Mozart for the Prague Musical 9 May Festival, the forerunner of the Prague Spring Music Festival, with a 20 performance of Die Zauberflöte on 10 May at the National Theatre. According 1 to post-war accounts, Talich’s decision to perform this work, as well as 2 Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, was deliberate – an attempt to reflect ‘a glorifi- 3 cation of goodness’ in the face of evil.17 4 Judging by the very public activities of Talich two months after the 5 Occupation, the Germanification of cultural life in Prague was not proceeding 6 with quite the rapidity demanded by Hitler. Perhaps one stumbling block 7 was that only 3.5 per cent of the population of the Reichsprotektorat was of 8 German origin.18 Nonetheless, Nazi intentions were made perfectly clear by the 9 closing of the Czech parliament in the Rudolfinum, the building being returned 30 to its former function as a concert hall, and by the organisation in June of a 1 German Cultural Week in Prague. Under the patronage of Reichsprotektor 2 Konstantin von Neurath, the festival featured three operas, five concerts, six 3 lectures, three authors’ readings and seven exhibitions. Mozart and his strong 4x connection with Prague proved, however, to be the most prominent focal point 5 for the whole event. Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, writing in the Christian 36L 197 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 Science Monitor, singled out the performances of Figaro, at the Estates Theatre, 2 and Don Giovanni, at the reopened German Theatre, as the highlights of 3 the week.19 4 Since this was the first large-scale cultural festival to have taken place under 5 the auspices of the Reichsprotektorat, the organisers were keen to engage 6 performers with some geographical connection to the region. For the Mozart 7 opera performances they secured the services of conductor Franz 8 Konwitschny, while using productions by the late Alfred Roller, primarily on 9 the basis that both men originally hailed from Moravia. However, since the 10 German Theatre company had disbanded the previous year, it was impossible 1L to present either work with an entirely home-grown team. All the principal 2 roles had to be imported from Munich and Vienna, as was the chorus, 3 brought in directly from the Vienna State Opera. The orchestra, drawing 4 most of its members from players at the former German Theatre and 5 Sudetendeutsche Orchester Reichenberg, was renamed the Sudetendeutsche 6 Philharmonische Orchester for the purpose of the German Cultural Week.20 7 Charged by the Ministry of Propaganda with the task of ‘guaranteeing the 8 future of German music in Prague’ somewhat later in the summer, its title was 9 subsequently altered to Deutsche Philharmonische Orchester Prag (German 20 Philharmonic Orchestra Prague).21 1 As well as the new name for the orchestra, the Ministry of Propaganda 2 initiated further changes soon after the German Cultural Week. Although 3 Konwitschny’s Moravian origins may have deemed him suitable to become 4 the permanent German music director in Prague, this post was assigned to 5 Joseph Keilberth, music director in Karlsruhe. Summoned to Prague to take 6 over the German Philharmonic Orchestra, Keilberth worked alongside Oskar 7 Walleck, the former Intendant at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, who 8 was charged with the task of establishing a permanent German theatre 9 company in Prague. Born in Moravia and of partial Czech descent, Walleck 30 was an ardent Nazi, promoting ‘German colonial interests above all to enter- 1 tain and educate the natives’.22 Almost immediately, he set about confiscating 2 several Czech-speaking theatres and turning them into German houses. In 3 December 1939 the Reichs Ministry awarded these new institutions a subsidy 4x of two million Reichsmarks, the German Theatre in Prague remaining the 5 most prominent and greatest drain on funds with an annual budget averaging 36L around 1.6 million RM.23 Folio 198 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 28 Magazine advertisement for the film Eine kleine Nachtmusik first screened in German- occupied Prague in 1939. 36L 199 Folio 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 During this period of upheaval, Mozart’s relationship with Prague 2 remained a potent weapon of German imperialism. Earlier in the year, Tobis 3 Film in Berlin and director Leopold Hainisch had begun work on Eine kleine 4 Nachtmusik, a biopic of the composer’s visit to the Czech capital in 1787 5 which culminated in the triumphant premiere of Don Giovanni. Based loosely 6 on Mörike’s Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag, the screenplay by Rolf Lauckner 7 sought to preserve the uniquely German character of the narrative and its 8 main protagonists. Accordingly, Lauckner removed references to any charac- 9 ters of Czech origin in Mörike’s original, replacing Mozart’s friend and muse 10 Josepha Duschek, who inspired him to complete the opera, with the new role 1L of the Countess Eugenie, played with a decidedly Bavarian accent by Heli 2 Finkenzeller. 3 Eine kleine Nachtmusik was given its screen premiere on 18 December 1939 4 in Prague. It was considered a sufficiently important milestone in the cultural 5 life of the capital to be awarded the honour of being the first new German film 6 to be shown in the city since the establishment of the Reichsprotektorat. The 7 film was widely acclaimed throughout the Reich as a highly effective and 8 timely piece of escapism. However, Lauckner’s removal of the character of 9 Josepha Duschek appears not to have warranted any comment, and is unlikely 20 to have been noticed by a contemporary audience without a detailed knowl- 1 edge of Mozart’s life.24 2 In contrast to the unreal enchanted world depicted in Eine kleine 3 Nachtmusik, the Mozart Society of Prague was soon to feel the harsh impact 4 of growing interference from the occupying forces. Throughout 1939 the 5 Society’s committee was apparently able to carry out its duties without 6 external pressure, but conditions changed on 5 January 1940 after the office of 7 the Reichsprotektor ordered its chairman, Jaroslav Patera, to force the resig- 8 nation of Czech committee members regarded as untrustworthy, and replace 9 them with those of German nationality. Among those that were made to 30 resign, the engineer Bohumil Libánsky ́ was subsequently arrested and later 1 died at Mauthausen concentration camp.25 2 Although Patera continued to work on behalf of the Mozart Society, the 3 Reichsprotektor personally approved the appointment of a new German 4x chairman. Patera was also handed a document informing him that the assets 5 of the Society would be transferred to the headquarters at Salzburg on the 36L grounds that the ‘communal ownership of culture by the German nation Folio 200 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM requires that all constituent parts of the same character should be combined 1 and centralised’. All Mozart societies would therefore be ‘ideologically joined 2 with the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg regardless of where they are situ- 3 ated. This ruling applies to Mozart societies in the whole world, even in 4 England’.26 5 Ironically the order to ‘co-ordinate’ the Mozart Society reaped certain bene- 6 fits, especially for Bertramka. The building, renamed the Bertramhof, under- 7 went an intensive renovation programme with a substantial outlay of 884,249 8 crowns spent on reconstruction and paying off the remaining mortgage to the 9 Prague Municipal Savings Bank. This action suited the Germans particularly 10 well, as they could portray themselves as enlightened benefactors who had 1L relieved the building of its crippling debt and restored the Mozart shrine to 2 its former glory. Furthermore, despite the dismissal of the Czech committee, 3 the conditions imposed on Patera were not quite as stringent as might have 4 been expected. The Mozart Society was obliged to pay the Salzburg 5 Mozarteum 75,000 crowns only in the unlikely event that they might have to 6 sell Bertramka, or pass it on to a new owner; despite the declared intention to 7 co-ordinate and centralise Mozart organisations under the umbrella of 8 Salzburg, the authorities never got round to transferring its assets to the 9 Reich.27 20 According to Patera’s post-war commentary, it seems that for the most 1 part the Germans were largely unconcerned about the Bertramka. Only when 2 it suited them, during the anniversary year of 1941, did they actively exploit 3 the hold their financial commitment had given them over the building. By 4 and large they seem to have given Patera a free hand in instigating repairs and 5 alterations, in setting up visits and in continuing to explain the history of 6 the place to Czech sightseers. Patera claimed that his stewardship 7 of Bertramka, despite the continuing suspicion he aroused from the authori- 8 ties, resulted in the Germans visiting the building very infrequently. 9 Nonetheless, the Mozart Society was forbidden to publish any of its material 30 in Czech, and its house journal Briefe vom Bertramhof was printed only in 1 German.28 2 The division between musical activity organised by the Germans and 3 Czechs came into the sharpest focus during the latter part of 1941. On 4x 25 September Hitler appointed Reinhard Heydrich to take over as acting 5 Reichsprotektor from von Neurath, who was regarded in some circles as being 36L 201 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 too lenient towards the Czechs. Coming from a musical background (his 2 father Bruno was a composer and Wagner epigone), Heydrich seized the 3 chance to instigate a more proactive support of German culture, in particular 4 music. As he told Martin Bormann, his aim was ‘quietly to strengthen 5 German influence in every possible way and deprive Czech people of their 6 national consciousness’.29 At the same time, Heydrich’s deputy Kurt Hermann 7 Frank emerged as an increasingly powerful influence, reflecting an almost 8 ‘perverse hatred of anything Czech’, and acting ‘with an unprecedented degree 9 of duplicity’ towards Prague’s citizens.30 10 Heydrich’s appointment coincided with the preparations to celebrate the 1L Mozart anniversary in Prague. As a prelude to a week-long music festival 2 planned for the last few days in October, the Reichsproketorat announced on 3 16 October the issue of four special postage stamps in honour of Mozart. 4 Although the German Reich was to devise its own stamps for the anniversary, 5 those issued by the Reichsprotektorat had their own unique design empha- 6 sising the composer’s special relationship with the Czech capital. The stamps 7 were supplied in tandem with a charity stamp of equal monetary value, the 8 supplementary charge being made payable to Führer’s Cultural Fund. A 9 picture of the Estates Theatre in Prague during the period of the first perform- 20 ance of Don Giovanni graced the lower-value stamps in brown and green. The 1 charity stamps carried the name W.A. Mozart, the title of the opera Don 2 Giovanni, a reproduction on two staves of the first two bars of its overture, and 3 the date of its first performance in Prague. The two higher-value stamps in red 4 and blue offered a more conventional design featuring a portrait of the 5 composer, while a spinet bedecked in wreathes and jewels, together with the 6 dates of Mozart’s birth and death, were imprinted on the charity stamps.31 7 On 23 October, the day that the Mozart stamps went on sale, the German 8 daily newspaper Der neue Tag revealed the programme for the forthcoming 9 ‘Mozartfest in Prag’. Playing a principal role was the German Philharmonic 30 Orchestra under its conductor Joseph Keilberth. They were to perform 1 primarily in the Rudolfinum, the former Czech parliament, with repertoire 2 that by and large held some tangible connection with the region. Thus the 3 opening concert, on 26 October, included the Symphony in F major K43, 4x which the 11-year-old Mozart composed in Olmütz (Olomouc), while later 5 orchestral programmes featured the aria ‘Bella mia fiamma’ K528, composed 36L for Josepha Duschek in February 1787, and sung on this occasion by Folio 202 Mähren in 1941 in honour of Mozart. 9 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 29 Two specially designed postage stamps issued by the Reichsprotektorat Böhmen und 8 10 Munich-based soloist Felicie Hüni–Mihaczek, as well as the ‘Prague’ 1L Symphony. Apart from these concerts, the highlights of the week were a grand 2 re-opening of Bertramka, and three performances of Don Giovanni in a new 3 production by Oskar Walleck in the Estates Theatre. The first, on 29 October, 4 marked the 154th anniversary of the premiere in Prague. It was closed to the 5 public, tickets being reserved exclusively for members of the Party, 6 Wehrmacht and state functionaries.32 7 The 1941 Prague Don Giovanni could not have provided a more stark 8 contrast to the 150th anniversary performance four years earlier. In 1937 the 9 opera was sung in Czech, performed exclusively by Czech singers and orches- 20 tral musicians, and staged in front of a glittering international audience which 1 included the Czech President. Four years later, the audience was made up of 2 Nazi functionaries and soldiers, with Heydrich and Frank and their wives 3 occupying the swastika-bedecked boxes alongside senior army officers, the 4 director of police, and high-ranking members of the SS, SA and the Party. A 5 lavishly illustrated 62-page souvenir booklet was published to mark the occa- 6 sion, the words ‘in commemoration of the world premiere on 27 October 1787 7 in the Estates Theatre’ emblazoned on its front cover. The booklet included 8 extended excerpts from Mörike’s Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag and E. T. A. 9 Hoffmann’s Don Juan, together with poetry by Grillparzer and quotations from 30 Mozart, Goethe and Wagner. Significantly, no acknowledgment in the 1 programme was made of Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Neither was the 2 audience informed that at the world premiere the work was not sung in 3 German.33 4x Apart from the notable support of the Nazi hierarchy at the Don Giovanni 5 performance, the only other event during the Mozartfest which prompted 36L 203 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 a significant political presence was the ‘reopening’ of Bertramka. SA 2 Brigadierführer Dr Kurt von Burgsdorff opened the formal ceremony by 3 offering personal greetings from Heydrich. He praised the efforts of the 4 German committee of the Mozart Society for having restored the building to 5 its former glory by following the principle that in ‘our National Socialist 6 Germany, it is a special duty of honour to preserve the memory of its greatest 7 sons and thus bring them closer to the hearts of the German people’. 8 Burgsdorff failed to acknowledge the efforts that had already gone into the 9 restoration of Bertramka before the Mozart Society had been forcibly 10 Germanised.34 1L In one of the last series of reviews written for Der neue Tag before he was 2 drafted into the army, critic H. H. Stuckenschmidt provided very detailed 3 commentaries on the Mozart Festival. He described the astonishing degree of 4 reconstruction that had been carried out in Bertramka, particularly to the 5 room in which Mozart worked on Don Giovanni, and praised the various 6 concerts, commending the bravura contribution of Keilberth in particular.35 7 The critic was even more effusive when it came to the performance of Don 8 Giovanni. In contrast to Mandaus’s production in 1937, Walleck had opted for 9 a far more traditional approach, strongly inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann, 20 focusing on the tragic and demonic aspects of the plot and leaving far less 1 room for comic relief in the scenes involving Leporello. Since there were no 2 suitably qualified German singers in Prague to undertake the principal roles, 3 soloists from opera houses in Berlin, Munich and Vienna were once again 4 imported. Given that Walleck had engaged some of the finest and most ex- 5 perienced singers in the Reich, the performance could hardly go wrong. The 6 combination of Keilberth’s dynamic conducting and fluent recitative playing 7 (on the piano rather than harpsichord) with Walleck’s production, and the 8 appealing stage sets of Frank Schultes ‘reached a level which would be the 9 envy of many cities outside Prague’.36 30 The climax to the Mozart celebrations in Prague was not, however, the 1 performances of Don Giovanni, but the unveiling of the Mozart monument in 2 front of the Rudolfinum that took place two months later on 5 December. 3 Mirroring equally pompous rituals held on the same day in Salzburg and 4x Vienna, the occupying forces exploited the occasion for a massive gathering 5 of the Party faithful. In order to increase the number of people that would be 36L present, children were allowed time off school. The authorities announced Folio 204 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM a change of name for the square outside the Rudolfinum on which the 1 monument would be erected. Formerly Smetana Square, it was henceforth to 2 be known as Mozartplatz.37 3 The ceremony, orchestrated as a grand theatrical spectacle, attracted a large 4 crowd, including members of the political elite, the army, police, SS, SA, 5 National Socialist Motor Corps, Reich Labour Service, Hitler Youth, BDM 6 (Bund deutscher Mädel), and the Pimpfe (10- to 13-year-old members of the 7 Hitler Youth) in their brown and blue winter uniforms. Many were holding 8 swastika-emblazoned flags which swayed in the wind. Just before midday, the 9 crowd stood in reverential silence listening to the tolling of the bells of 10 St Nicholas Church, followed, after a slight delay, by the bells of the other 1L major churches throughout the city. Then a commando announced the arrival 2 of Heydrich’s deputy Kurt Hermann Frank, who was to give the memorial 3 address. A guard of honour greeted Frank, and as he strutted towards the 4 podium, the Music Corps of the Regiment SS Deutschland played the March 5 of the Priests from Die Zauberflöte.38 6 Frank’s speech contained the predictable diet of nationalist rhetoric as well as 7 a somewhat selective overview of Mozart’s achievement. In this respect it was 8 not substantially different from the addresses given by Baldur von Schirach and 9 Goebbels in Vienna. Thus Frank portrayed Mozart as an ‘honest and sincere’ 20 German, and claimed that National Socialists were particularly attracted to his 1 music for its volkstümlichkeit, which was accessible even to those who were not 2 musically gifted. Repeatedly emphasising the composer’s profoundly happy 3 experiences in Prague, Frank declared that the current inhabitants took special 4 pride in standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with Salzburg and Vienna as a true 5 Mozart city, particularly at a time when German soldiers were fighting on the 6 Eastern front to preserve the culture which they held so dear: 7 8 To fulfil our German duty today we must show our love and admiration for 9 the Master in a special manner and with a special gesture. We are doing this 30 today with a mark of honour set in stone. The memorial which will be 1 created by the hands of a German artist in this place – in the heart of Prague, 2 may be a symbol for the eternal Heimatsrecht (right of domicile) which 3 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart found in this city . . . May it herald 4x the irrefutable faith of Germanness in Bohemia and Moravia for all the 5 future!39 36L 205 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 After Frank stepped down from the podium, it was the turn of the Kreisleiter 2 Konstantin Höss to take centre stage and read out the words on the document 3 that would be placed place in the foundation stone of the Mozart monument: 4 5 Amidst the powerful struggles of our period, while the brave soldiers of 6 our incomparable German Wehrmacht stand watch over St Petersburg, 7 Moscow and the [River] Don in the victorious fight against Bolshevism, the 8 deadly enemy of all culture, this foundation stone for the Mozart Memorial 9 was unveiled on the orders of the Reichsprotektor in Bohemia and Moravia 10 by the Mozart Society of Prague. May it convey to future generations, our 1L devotion to the eternal creations of German culture, even during the times 2 of the fight for the survival of our nation, and be a significant sign of the 3 sincere appreciation which we, citizens of Prague, hold for the master and 4 for his indestructible work. Prague, 5 December 1941.40 5 6 As the document was solemnly lowered, a trombone quartet intoned 7 Mozart’s Ave verum corpus from the balcony of the Rudolfinum. After reading 8 out greetings from the Führer, the ceremony closed with the singing of the 9 German National Anthem. 20 Although Der neue Tag reported the Mozart memorial as a purely German 1 event in which the Czech citizens of Prague played no significant part, it should 2 be noted that film footage of the unveiling of the Mozart monument, and a 3 similar memorial ceremony held earlier in the day in Bertramka, featured in the 4 Deutsche Wochenschau 589 (17 December 1941), also included a brief clip of the 5 Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Rafael Kubelík performing the Overture 6 to Die Zauberflöte. Those responsible for producing this film presumably felt it 7 necessary to feature such material in order to demonstrate to the outside world 8 that the German occupying forces were not hindering the capacity of the Czechs 9 to continue their musical activities. Yet in reality this was far from being the case. 30 In particular, conductor Václav Talich came under tremendous pressure to 1 accommodate to the new order. After the war, he defended his actions during 2 this period, arguing that his main priority had always been to preserve the work 3 of the National Theatre at all costs: 4x 5 It was not so difficult to begin with, but as the pressure grew in proportion 36L to the exercise of the ever-greater influence of Frank, the noose was Folio 206 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM becoming tighter and tighter, and I, in my endeavour to maintain the status 1 quo, was being leaned on to make compromises which I would scarcely have 2 allowed myself to make as an individual, and which before my own 3 conscience I could only regard as a sacrifice for the sake of the community 4 as a whole.41 5 6 Despite the restriction of his artistic freedom, Talich was still able to 7 honour Mozart with a special anniversary concert in the National Theatre on 8 16 December 1941 which featured Mozart’s B flat major Symphony K331, the 9 recitative and rondo Ch’io mi scordi di te K505 and the Requiem. The same 10 programme was repeated as part of the Prague Musical May on 27 May 1942 – 1L on the very day that Czech activists assassinated Heydrich. 2 In the opera house Talich also continued to programme Mozart. On 3 4 December 1941 he conducted a revival of Zauberflöte, with a similar cast to 4 that of 1939. A further twelve performances were given in the National 5 Theatre during 1942. In the following year, it was the turn of Figaro in a new 6 production by Josef Munclinger, which was first staged on 21 April. The opera 7 played to full and enthusiastic audiences for a further twenty performances up 8 to the end of 1943. Illness prevented Talich from conducting Don Giovanni 9 on23November1943,hisplacebeingtakenbyRudolfVasˇata.Finally,on 20 6 February 1944 Talich gave the first of three performances of Zauberflöte, the 1 last one taking place on 15 February. By this stage, however, regular operatic 2 activity in Prague was becoming increasingly restricted owing to the exigen- 3 cies of Total War. 4 A few weeks before he was assassinated, Reinhard Heydrich had overseen 5 the repertory plans for the Prague Musical May Festival, proposing somewhat 6 cynically that German and Czech culture should come together through the 7 joint celebration of the music of Mozart and Dvorˇák: 8 9 Music is the creative language of those who are artistic and musical, the 30 medium of their inner life. In times of trouble it is an alleviate helper to 1 the listener and admonisher in great times of struggle. But not least is 2 music the everlasting manifestation of the cultural workings of the German 3 race . . . In this sense the Prague Music Festival is a contribution to the 4x struggle to master the present and is intended as a foundation for a healthy 5 musical life in the future.42 36L 207 Folio Folio 208 MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 Yet for the Czech citizens of Prague, the music of Mozart hardly repre- 2 sented ‘the everlasting manifestation of the cultural workings of the German 3 race’. Rather, in the words of Jan Neˇmecˇek, he was reckoned to be 4 5 almost a domestic composer and would have been played even without any 6 diktat from the German officials, at a time when German composers to a 7 certain percentage had to be represented in the repertoire. Mozart needed 8 no propaganda and remained one of the favourite composers. He did not 9 bear any imprint of Greater German conceit or chauvinism.43 10 1L 2 3 During the 1920s and 1930s Brno remained the city with the largest propor- 4 tion of German-speaking inhabitants in the Czechoslovak Republic. 5 Although the community was much reduced in numbers from its pre-1918 6 position, in which 70 per cent were German, musical activity nonetheless 7 thrived in both communities. As in Prague, there were separate German and 8 Czech theatres with their own orchestras and choruses. Yet relations between 9 the Germans and Czechs remained strained. While some accommodation 20 was made with the Czech ruling authority, the Germans were only sanctioned 1 limited use of the municipal theatre, and had to perform most of their 2 productions in an inferior and less well-equipped building. After 1933 and in 3 the wake of a difficult economic environment, the burgeoning resentment the 4 Germans felt towards Czechs was strongly exploited by the Nazis. The 5 German community was urged to rally behind its theatre in a demonstration 6 of national solidarity. 7 In cultural matters, the struggle between democratic and nationalist forces 8 came to a head in 1938, with the latter prevailing. After the Munich agree- 9 ment, the Germans took over the running of the city, regaining control of 30 the municipal theatre, and forcing the Czech Regional Theatre to move to a 1 less salubrious building. The new Intendant, Theodor Anton Modes, 2 appointed with the strong support of Konrad Henlein’s Sudeten German 3 movement, chose to open the first season of the ‘liberated theatre’ on 4x 6 December with Figaros Hochzeit, and this was followed by other core German 5 repertory that had formerly been promoted in the city. Two months earlier the 36L occupying authorities had also established a new orchestra in Brno, carrying on Brno/Brünn – Mozart and Moravia MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM the tradition established previously by the Philharmonic Orchestra. Uniquely 1 for the Protectorate, it bore a title with direct political implications, being 2 known as the Kreissymphonieorchester (Regional Symphony Orchestra) of 3 the Brno NSDAP. Nikolaus Janowski, a Brno-based poet and composer of the 4 operetta Mädchen aus dem Osten, was appointed its principal conductor.44 5 During the Mozart anniversary year, the Czech Regional Theatre honoured 6 the composer with six performances of Idomeneo, which opened on 25 7 February. A planned new production of Don Giovanni, scheduled to open on 8 14 November, was cancelled after the German authorities ordered the closure 9 of the theatre and handed over its director and principal conductor to the 10 Gestapo.45 Meanwhile, the Germans paraded their loyalty towards Mozart 1L with a stream of musical events which culminated in a Mozart Week in 2 December, organised under the auspices of the NSDAP.46 The programme 3 book justified direct Party involvement in such an occasion on the basis that 4 Mozart was a ‘revolutionary in a positive sense and undeterred by indignities 5 disappointments and material and spiritual poverty, carried out his work to 6 the end with the heroic consequence of a genius fulfilling his German 7 mission’.47 8 The musical events of the Mozart Week featured the two music institutions 9 that had been established by the Nazis, as well as two orchestras from Austria, the 20 latter reflecting the large contingent of former Austrians that had settled in Brno. 1 Following the emphasis on youth that had been heavily promoted in Salzburg 2 and Vienna, proceedings opened with a Mozart-Gedenkfeier der Hitler-Jugend 3 on 3 December in which Janowski and the Kreisssymphonieorchester played the 4 ‘Jupiter’ Symphony. The Brno German opera contributed to the Festival with a 5 special performance of Die Zauberflöte on 5 December, but in keeping with a 6 Party-organised Festival, no place could be found for the performance of 7 Mozart’s sacred music.48 8 Although Brno could not claim a historically important relationship with 9 Mozart on the scale of Prague, much was made of the composer’s brief visit to 30 Moravia and his appearance in Brno on 23 December 1767, where he stayed 1 as a guest of the brother of the Archbishop of Salzburg. As happened in 2 numerous other cities in occupied Europe that Mozart visited during his brief 3 life, it was deemed appropriate to cement the very fleeting relationship 4x between composer and city with a formal ceremony on 7 December which 5 was held in the new town hall. After an address by the Viennese pedagogue 36L 209 Folio Folio 210 MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 Dr. Friedrich Glaeser, a memorial plaque was unveiled at 4 Krapfengasse 2 (Koblizˇná ulice), the house where Mozart stayed during this period. 3 In the summer of 1942 Brno appointed a new Intendant, Fritz Gerhard 4 Klingenbeck, to take charge of the theatre. Klingenbeck intensified relation- 5 ships with the Viennese, secured many engagements for German artists from 6 all over the Reich, and shifted the emphasis more towards operetta, thereby 7 attracting larger audiences. Yet by 1944 the war caught up with the German 8 theatre and the 1944/45 season never materialised. Some performers managed 9 to escape to Austria while others were transported for forced labour. In any 10 case the post-war expulsion of the German community put an end to its 1L artistic contribution to Brno. In retrospect, therefore, despite its heavily laden 2 political implications, the 1941 Mozart Festival may well have counted as the 3 most ambitious musical event to have taken place in the Moravian capital 4 during the period when it was under German Occupation. 5 6 7 8 Installed as the Governor of Poland in October 1939, Hitler’s lawyer Hans 9 Frank used culture as an effective smokescreen for diverting attention away 20 from the brutal subjugation of Poles and the slaughter of Jews that began 1 almost immediately after the Occupation. Frank sought to inflate his status as 2 a ruling politician by turning Krako ́w, the city which he made his headquar- 3 ters, into a ‘forward-looking post of a German cultural world power’.49 A 4 passionate music lover who was friendly with both Richard Strauss and Hans 5 Pfitzner, Frank was particularly concerned to exert a strong influence on 6 musical life in the city. In July 1940 he founded his own orchestra, the 7 Philharmonische Orchester des Generalgouvernements, supervising all its 8 programmes and openly declaring his objective of making it ‘absolutely the 9 leading orchestra in the East’.50 The orchestra drew most of its personnel 30 from Ukrainian and Polish musicians, an ironic state of affairs given Frank’s 1 contemptuous view of the Poles. However, the major positions in the 2 orchestra, including the leader and principal conductors, were occupied by 3 Germans, with the Munich-based Hanns Rohr appointed General Music 4x Director.51 5 With generous financial support from the Propaganda Ministry, Frank also 36L opened a German Theatre in Kraków in September 1940. Like its counter- Mozart in occupied Poland and further East MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM parts in the Reich, the German Theatre proposed to offer a repertory that 1 included both spoken and musical works. Yet, for the first season there were 2 insufficient personnel to perform operas, so these were given by visiting 3 companies including the Vienna State Opera whose performance of Die 4 Entführung aus dem Serail in October 1940 was regarded as one of the undis- 5 puted highlights of the year.52 From September 1941, however, a permanent 6 opera group was established. Although strong emphasis was placed on 7 performing German repertory, surviving statistics demonstrate that in its 8 three seasons, the operas that enjoyed most frequent performance were those 9 composed by Italians (Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni and Leoncavallo). Mirroring 10 Frank’s own personal antipathy towards the composer, no Wagner opera was 1L staged, whilst the most popular ‘German’ work was Mozart’s Figaro, which 2 had 21 performances.53 3 Following the practice initiated throughout the Reich, Hans Frank was 4 naturally eager to make his own distinctive contribution towards honouring 5 Mozart’s work during the anniversary year. Although historical sentiment 6 could not be used as a justification for mounting a Mozart Festival in Poland, 7 since the composer never set foot in the country, this did not deter Frank 8 from devising an extensive programme designed to appeal to the substantial 9 number of Germans who were now stationed in the region. An announce- 20 ment in the Warschauer Zeitung on 19 November sketched out the plans 1 under the title ‘Mozarttage der Generalgouvernements’. To ensure maximum 2 publicity, the festival was deliberately timed to begin on the week of 8 3 December, some days after the end of Vienna Mozartwoche. Furthermore, 4 all letters sent from occupied Poland during December were to be stamped 5 with a specially designed postmark bearing the words ‘Mozart Tage Krakau 6 8 – 14.12.1941.’54 7 Although Kraków would remain the focal point for celebrations, Mozart 8 concerts were scheduled to take place elsewhere during the week in the 9 General Government region including Warsaw, Radom, Lublin and Lemberg 30 (Lviv), the last city having been captured by the Germans only in June 1941, 1 at the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union. Programmes for 2 the Mozarttage der Generalgouvernements were carefully co-ordinated to 3 take place in several different towns and involve visiting artists from the 4x Reich, often working in conjunction with the Philharmonische Orchester des 5 Generalgouvernements and soloists contracted to the German Theatre. This 36L 211 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 partnership was deemed to serve two functions: to stress connections with the 2 homeland; and to lay the foundations of a special regional identity and secure 3 a popular reputation for local artists. 4 Proceedings got off to an auspicious start with an orchestral concert of 5 Mozart and Reger (Mozart Variations) performed in Kraków on 8 December 6 in the presence of Frank in which his orchestra, conducted by Rohr, partnered 7 violinist Siegfried Borries, national prize-winner at the Reichsmusiktage in 8 1939, in the Violin Concertos in D major K218 and A major K219. Reviewing 9 the concert with considerable enthusiasm in the Warschauer Zeitung, Gerda 10 Pelz was anxious to dispel notions that the world had become oversaturated 1L with Mozart celebrations, particularly after the events in Vienna and the many 2 broadcasts over the radio. On the contrary, all the evidence pointed to an 3 increasing desire to hear more of Mozart’s music. For this particular region of 4 the Reich to have ignored such a call would have gone ‘against the cultural will 5 of the General Government.’55 6 Yet for all Frank’s ambitions, the Mozart celebrations in Kraków were 7 hardly a match for those organised in Prague or even Brno. Perhaps because 8 the German theatre had rather limited resources, it was not in the position to 9 perform a complete Mozart opera, opting instead for a more light-hearted 20 evening that mixed ballets (Les petits riens and a choreographed version of 1 Eine kleine Nachtmusik) with a few operatic arias. Similarly popular fare 2 was offered at another vocal concert, performed in the ominously named 3 Theatre of the SS and Police, and the Festival included the obligatory propa- 4 gandist lecture ‘Mozart’s German message’ delivered by Erich Valentin at the 5 Institute of German Work in the East. Mirroring the Vienna Mozartwoche, 6 the programme reached its climax with a performance of the Requiem 7 in which a large choir from Katowice joined forces with the Philharmonische 8 Orchester under the direction of the organist Fritz Lubrich. Judging by 9 the review published in the Warschauer Zeitung, the Requiem made a 30 particularly powerful impact, the choir singing with ‘unbelievably full 1 volume’ and Lubrich managing to extract every ounce of expression from 2 the music.56 3 With the exception of the Requiem, the five Mozarttage events in Warsaw 4x largely replicated those that took place in Kraków, but those organised in 5 Lemberg assumed a special significance given that the recently captured 36L capital of Galicia was regarded by the Nazis as the last European City on the Folio 212 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Eastern front. Reviewing the opening concert, which took place in the local 1 casino and was given by the Berlin Staatsoper quartet and the Munich-based 2 harpsichordist Julia Menz, Albert Dorscheid emphasised that ‘while the 3 avenues for future cultural development had already been arranged in other 4 districts so that there is scope for a spiritual German life, the conditions in 5 Galicia and its capital Lemberg are still in their first phase’. Dorscheid added 6 that ‘perhaps one could not celebrate more deeply and sincerely this German 7 musician Mozart as out here in an environment in which less than half a year 8 ago, Bolshevist concepts of art held sway’.57 9 By coincidence the poet and playwright Eberhard Wolfgang Möller, on his 10 way back from the Eastern front, made a special appearance at this opening 1L concert and gave an impromptu speech in honour of the composer with a 2 decidedly topical focus. Following the arguments postulated by von Schirach 3 and Goebbels at their Mozart speeches in Vienna, Möller related the brave 4 and lonely struggles that Mozart faced during his life to the present conflict, 5 declaring the composer to be a ‘soldier of art’ – a transformation of the Mozart 6 concept ‘as we recognise it today’.58 7 On the whole, reviews of the Kraków Mozart-Tage that appeared in the 8 Warschauer Zeitung made only fleeting references to the political 9 and military backdrop against which the festival was taking place. Nearer 20 the front in Lemberg, however, such realities could not be so easily ignored, 1 as the concluding concert in the city’s Mozart festival demonstrated. The 2 programme, given by a chamber orchestra of music students from the Berlin 3 Hochschule für Musik under its director Fritz Stein, was scheduled to take 4 place in the Aula of the Lemberg Polytechnic in front of an audience which 5 was largely made up of wounded soldiers anxiously waiting to be transported 6 home. Such circumstances can hardly have been conducive to an appreciation 7 of Mozart, especially as the soldiers were presumably present under duress. A 8 further barrier, reported by Werner Schröter in the Warschauer Zeitung, was 9 the evident tiredness displayed by the players from Berlin who had already 30 travelled a great distance in poor weather to reach Lemberg. Yet predictably 1 the spirits of the soldiers rose dramatically when the largely female orchestra 2 entered the auditorium, and Stein had broken the ice with a few chosen 3 words. Schröter attributed this transformation of atmosphere not merely to 4x the welcome presence of the opposite sex, but also through a shared sense of 5 enjoyment of Mozart’s music.59 36L 213 Folio Folio 214 MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 For the remaining years of the Occupation, there would be no particular 2 focus on Mozart in Poland over and above any other German composers. 3 However, Mozart’s art was later appropriated as a rallying point and morale- 4 booster for Germans serving further East. Early in 1944 the journal Wiener 5 Figaro published a review by Erik Werba of a performance of Mozart’s 6 Requiem that had been broadcast by Sendegruppe Ostland. Given in the pres- 7 ence of 1,200 soldiers and ‘cultural pioneers of the Eastern Front’ in the 8 German Theatre of the East in Minsk on 12 December 1943, the performance 9 was described by Werba as ‘a celebration of light at a time of gloomy dark- 10 ness’.60 The ‘gloomy darkness’ to which Werba referred was the increasing toll 1L of German war dead in Byelorussia, to whose memory Mozart’s masterpiece 2 was dedicated. Werba would probably have been unaware that the previous 3 week had seen a still-gloomier darkness, with the last transport of Jewish chil- 4 dren from Minsk to the death camps at Auschwitz. 5 6 7 8 After German troops entered Paris in June 1940, the occupying forces began 9 the process of asserting absolute authority over daily life in the French capital. 20 To this end, the Propaganda-Staffel, an adjunct of Goebbels’s Ministry of 1 Propaganda, was established, its brief being to take control over the press and 2 cultural affairs. But cultural issues also became the domain of Otto Abetz, 3 appointed by Ribbentrop to the post of German ambassador to Paris in 4 August of the same year. Although Abetz promulgated a ruthless policy of 5 racial purification, liaising with the German police and the Gestapo on such 6 projects as the seizure of valuable art collections owned by the Jews and the 7 proscription of unacceptable literature, he was more concerned than 8 Goebbels to work towards fostering an atmosphere of constructive coopera- 9 tion between the two nations. 30 As a committed Francophile, Abetz was particularly keen to woo the 1 French intellectual elite to the Nazi cause. In September 1940, he inaugurated 2 the Institut Allemand (German Institute) at the Hotel de Sagan, the former 3 seat of Polish embassy, and appointed Dr Karl Epting, an expert in Romance 4x literature, as its director. Over the next four years, the Institut Allemand 5 would play an important role in brokering the process of rapprochement 36L between the French and the Germans. Under Epting’s zealous leadership, the Mozart in France MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Institut unveiled an ambitious programme of events which demonstrated 1 a commitment towards emphasising the classics of German culture and 2 ‘making the most of reputations and tastes long established’.61 3 The music of Mozart undoubtedly ranked as one of the ‘classics of German 4 culture’ which could act as a seductive weapon of rapprochement between the 5 two countries, not least because its appeal transcended national boundaries. 6 Besides, the French had cultivated a passionate interest in and enthusiasm for 7 Mozart, manifested most obviously in the recent intensive research from 8 French scholars Théodor de Wyzewa, Georges de Saint-Foix, Adolphe Boschot 9 and Henri Ghéon.62 It was an admiration that the Institut Allemand was keen 10 to exploit, and the anniversary year of 1941 afforded them the perfect oppor- 1L tunity to do so. In May 1941, for example, the Institut Allemand sponsored the 2 visit of the Berlin Staatsoper to the Paris Opéra. The company brought with 3 them two pillars of the German repertory, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem 4 Serail, conducted by Johannes Schüler, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde under 5 Herbert von Karajan. As Guy Ferchault reported in the journal L’information 6 musicale, both performances were received with tremendous enthusiasm by 7 the French public, and Ferchault thanked Epting and the Institut Allemand for 8 having organised the whole event.63 9 More ambitious in its scope, while offering a further tangible demonstration 20 of Franco-German collaboration, was the ‘Semaine de Mozart à Paris’ which 1 took place under the auspices of the Institut Allemand between 13 and 20 July. 2 The programme coincided with the unveiling of a plaque at the Hotel de 3 Beauvais, commemorating Mozart’s five-month sojourn there in 1778. Four 4 concerts were divided equally between French and German ensembles and used 5 a variety of performing venues, including the Great Courtyard of the Palais- 6 Royal and the Paris Conservatoire.64 The propagandist element was provided by 7 Erich Valentin who delivered the lecture ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, œuvre et 8 message’ with musical illustrations provided by the Salzburg Mozarteuem 9 Quartet, the ensemble subsequently touring towns in Vichy France with the 30 same repertory. The Mozart Week was brought to a close with a performance at 1 the Opéra-Comique of Les Noces de Figaro under Eugène Bigot. 2 The programme book that was published in conjunction with the Mozart 3 Week reflected a similar distribution of responsibilities between the two 4x nations. For the French, Jean-Louis Vaudoyer, general administrator of the 5 Comédie Française, contributed an article entitled ‘Mozart à Paris’. This was 36L 215 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 followed by a French translation of an unusually positive letter which the 8 composer wrote to his father on the 3 July 1778, describing his experiences in 9 Paris. To provide further evidence, if such was needed, for joint French and 30 German veneration for Mozart, the programme book also featured extended 1 quotations regarding the composer from seminal figures including George 2 Sand, Ingres, Stendhal, Goethe and Friedrich Melchior Grimm. 3 The main contributors on the German side were Heinrich Strobel and 4x Erich Valentin. Strobel, a former editor of the new music journal Melos 5 who had left Nazi Germany for Paris in 1938 primarily because of his socialist 36L leanings, was employed as music correspondent for Pariser Zeitung, where 30 (Above and opposite) Programme book for the Semaine de Mozart à Paris 13–20 July 1941 organised by the Institut Allemand. Folio 216 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 his writing often had a pro-German slant.65 Yet the notes he provided for the 3 three string quartets, performed in the context of Valentin’s lecture, as 4 a well as the article ‘Le Génie de Mozart’, are notable for their avoidance of 5 any obvious Nazi rhetoric, the latter preferring instead to emphasise the 6 composer’s ‘power of synthesis’ of different national styles.66 In contrast, 7 Erich Valentin’s ‘Le Mozarteum de Salzbourg, son histoire et sa mission’, took 8 a much more propagandist line, particularly in connection with the institu- 9 tion’s recent elevation into a Reichsmusikhochschule and its ambitious 30 educational objectives which sought to train the younger generation to under- 1 stand music within the context of its cultural, political and philosophical 2 sphere.67 3 Judging by contemporary reports, the Mozart Week was not only received 4x very enthusiastically by Parisian audiences, but also appears to have succeeded 5 in its objective of demonstrating the positive fruits of closer collaboration 36L 217 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 between the two nations. For Lucien Rebatet, writing in the collaborationist 2 newspaper Je suis partout, such a demonstration of friendly co-existence was 3 already self-evident: 4 5 There is no need, I hope, to dwell in this newspaper on the profound polit- 6 ical meaning of these performances from those at the Berlin Staatsoper to 7 the ones at our Opéra, of all of the reconciliations which they have already 8 more than symbolized.68 9 10 Guy Ferchault, writing in the L’information musicale, was no less effusive 1L than Rebatet in taking the opportunity both to praise the joint commitment 2 of German and French musicians who ‘contributed with equal fervour 3 fittingly to serve the Master of Salzburg’ and the cultural mission of the 4 Institut Allemand which had helped to generate ‘the participation of the best 5 artistic components of our respective countries’.69 6 There can be little doubt that these warm words, and those of Rebatet, 7 contributed in no small measure to an invitation for both men to join the large 8 French delegation that would attend the Mozart celebrations in Vienna in 9 December 1941. Many of the other delegates that travelled to Vienna were 20 drawn from the French Mozart Society which, at the request of Institut 1 Allemand, was reconstituted in August 1941 in order to establish much closer 2 links with the Salzburg Mozarteum. The Chairman of the Society was the 3 distinguished academic Adolphe Boschot, the only Frenchman invited to 4 speak at the Mozart Congress in Vienna, and the honorary committee 5 consisted of the director of the Conservatoire, the secretary-general of the 6 Opéra and a number of professors.70 7 The latter part of the year provided further opportunities for constructive 8 Franco-German demonstration of Mozartian collaboration. For example, the 9 fifth concert in German Radio’s Mozart cycle was recorded by Radio Paris, 30 then broadcast from Berlin on 5 October. In the programme, entitled ‘Ignored 1 in Paris’, the German conductor Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg directed the 2 Orchestre de l’Association Gabriel Pierné (the recently aryanized name for the 3 orchestra founded by the Jewish conductor Édouard Colonne in 1873) with a 4x group of distinguished French soloists performing the wind Sinfonia 5 Concertante K297b and the Flute and Harp Concerto K299. Departing from 36L the practice of other broadcasts in this series, German Radio refrained from Folio 218 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM publishing the names of these interpreters in the official programme booklet. 1 As the target audience for their broadcasts was the Germans, it should also be 2 pointed out that the accompanying notes issued in conjunction with the 3 transmission were noticeably less amicable with regard to the French, empha- 4 sising the opinion that in common with Wagner, Mozart’s problematic expe- 5 riences in Paris merely served to strengthen his burgeoning feelings of 6 German patriotism. 7 Compared to their Berlin colleagues, the cultural organisations of the occu- 8 pying forces in Paris were more concerned to sustain an atmosphere of 9 appeasement. Dr Fritz Piersig, appearing before the press to introduce the 10 ‘Grand Festival Mozart’, the Propaganda-Staffel’s contribution to the anniver- 1L sary celebrations which ran from 30 November to 7 December, preferred to 2 stress a shared appreciation of Mozart’s genius. Interviewed in the journal 3 Notre Temps, Piersig claimed that ‘only Mozart was fit to be the subject of such 4 universal admiration and had the right to be equally adored by both the 5 Germans and the French’. This was not, Piersig declared, because ‘Mozart was 6 not fundamentally German, but because he represents certain aspects of 7 the German soul and psychology to which the French are particularly 8 susceptible’.71 9 Piersig also questioned the need for his Mozart speech to have been trans- 20 lated phrase by phrase into French. This wariness regarding exact translation 1 was certainly justified by the programme book for the ‘Grand Festival Mozart’ 2 which covered far more pages than the more modest production of the 3 Institut Allemand. Although it featured the same accompanying essays (by 4 Ludwig Schiedermair, Erich Müller von Asow, Hans Joachim Moser, Kurt 5 Stephenson, Jacques Rouché, Paul-Marie Masson, Ernst Bücken and Adolphe 6 Boschot), the texts were presented in both German and French. In some cases, 7 however, there are significant differences between the original German and 8 the French translation. The most notable example appears in Hans Joachim 9 Moser’s essay ‘Mozart und die Nationen’ (Mozart and the nations) which 30 contains two additional paragraphs in French that are not in the German orig- 1 inal. These go out of their way to stress the constructive fruits of Mozart’s 2 sojourn in Paris (seemingly at odds with the composer’s difficult experiences 3 in the French capital) and in particular a shared cultural outlook which united 4x the French nation with the Axis countries. According to Moser, during his 5 lifetime Mozart managed to ‘unify Europe’s three musical nations in one 36L 219 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 harmonious trinity’. He cited as evidence the ‘positive’ experiences Mozart 2 received in Paris both as a musical prodigy and as composer of an ‘admirable’ 3 Symphony (K297) and the ‘delicious’ Keyboard Sonata in A major (K331), 4 and that the composer had created his first substantial operas as a homage 5 to Italy. Therefore Mozart’s case ‘represents a great lesson for the mutual 6 understanding between nations’. Citing ‘the pleasant softness and precision 7 of contours, the clarity of form, the smiling discretion and tactful economy 8 of its output’ as characteristics of Mozart’s music that are ‘loved and 9 admired by Germans as passionately as by the French’, Moser concluded 10 that this ‘veneration of Mozart the German, which both the French and 1L the Germans display, allows us to discern that these two peoples share a 2 common soul which we should not underestimate and which carries its own 3 reward’.72 4 In contrast to the Mozart Week, the programmes in the ‘Grand 5 Festival Mozart’ offered a far greater contribution from French musicians, 6 including such luminaries as conductor Charles Munch, violinist Jacques 7 Thibaud, pianist Alfred Cortot, the Quatuor Gabriel Bouillon and the 8 Trio Pasquier. Furthermore, two Mozart operas were performed in 9 French: Don Juan, in the translation of Adolphe Boschot, featured at the Opéra 20 under Henri Rabaud with the Bayreuth favourite Germaine Lubin singing 1 Donna Anna; and L’Enlèvement au Sérail (translated by Kufferath 2 and Solvay) under Roger Désormière at the Opéra-Comique. Writing in 3 the newspaper Le Matin on 1 December about her participation in 4 Don Juan, Lubin claimed a missionary zeal for returning Mozart to the 5 people: 6 7 We must make Mozart popular – both Mozart and the people deserve it. I 8 am reminded of the corruption, which has gradually accumulated, and 9 which distances him from this strong yet delicate art, in which one redis- 30 covers an inexhaustible, divine, consoling and exalting childhood. We have 1 to return to the people what it has lost: a feeling for the divine, for innocence 2 and for grandeur. We have been gradually debasing ourselves in favour of 3 realism and of nostalgic and Negro rhythms.73 4x 5 Out of a week which featured nine different events, the only exclusively 36L German involvement in the ‘Grand Festival Mozart’ was a concert from the Folio 220 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Chamber Orchestra Collegium Musicum Hermann Diener Berlin. Two 1 further concerts demonstrated more evidence of direct Franco-German 2 collaboration. First, the Bremer Domchor under Richard Liesche joined 3 forces with the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire (OSCC) 4 and a team of soloists of mixed nationality to perform the Kyrie and Gloria 5 from the Mass in C minor and the Requiem at the Trocadéro. Then on the 6 final evening, the Leipzig-based conductor Hermann Abendroth took charge 7 of the OSCC for a concert in which the only item by Mozart was the C minor 8 Piano Concerto K491 (with Hans Beltz as soloist). This provided the centre- 9 piece between two works that brought the Mozartian legacy into the twentieth 10 century, Philipp Jarnach’s Musik mit Mozart and Max Reger’s Variations and 1L Fugue on a Theme of Mozart. 2 With many of the collaborationist writers away in Vienna enjoying the 3 lavish hospitality provided for them at the Mozartwoche, critical opinion of 4 the ‘Grand Festival Mozart’, as reflected in L’information musicale, appeared to 5 be more measured in terms of the German contribution to the programme, 6 while the achievements of French musicians were praised to the skies.74 7 Georges Dandelot was by no means convinced by the decision to conclude the 8 Mozart celebrations with works by twentieth-century German composers that 9 had been inspired by the Salzburg master. While the French-born Jarnach was 20 commended for his refined textures and blended orchestration, Dandelot 1 found Reger’s orchestration disagreeable and monotonous, the Fugue in 2 particular suffering from the worst features of academicism and offering ‘very 3 little of interest’.75 4 Needless to say, this negative criticism of the Reger was not shared by Hans 5 Georg Bonte on the German side, reviewing the ‘Grand Festival Mozart’ for 6 the Zeitschrift für Musik. Bonte praised Hermann Abendroth for estab- 7 lishing such an instantaneous rapport with strings and wind of the OSCC, and 8 for bringing a colourfully rich profile to Reger’s work. But the main focus 9 of his article was to illustrate, for the benefit of a German readership, the 30 special qualities of lyricism and sentiment which French performers brought 1 to the interpretation of Mozart and to highlight the success with which such 2 events as the ‘Grand Festival Mozart’ had managed to break down cultural 3 barriers.76 4x There were further Mozart anniversary celebrations in 1941 throughout the 5 rest of France, though it remains unclear to what extent such events were 36L 221 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 turned into overt demonstrations of Franco-German solidarity, as was the 2 case in Paris. In Bordeaux, for instance, the 1941 Mozart Festival appears to 3 have taken place without any sign of political intervention, and would have 4 almost certainly ‘reflected a similar character had it taken place during peace- 5 time’.77 However, in certain parts of Vichy France, Mozart was used as a 6 symbol of defiance. For example, while the half-Jewish Reynaldo Hahn had 7 been forced to flee the French capital after the German Occupation, his pres- 8 tige as a Mozart specialist was so high that he appears to have been allowed, 9 albeit temporarily, to resume his career and to conduct a Mozart festival in 10 Marseille during June 1941.78 One year later in 1942 two Mozart festivals 1L took place in Marseille in the secluded surroundings of Montredon where 2 the artists Pablo Casals and Clara Haskil were seeking refuge from the 3 Germans.79 4 In his novel Le Silence de la mer, secretly published in Paris in 1942, 5 Jean Bruller, writing under the code name of Vercors, warned the French 6 public not to succumb too easily to the efforts of the occupying forces to win 7 them over. For Vercors, music was a particularly dangerous weapon in the 8 process of appeasement. Accordingly, in his novel the German officer who 9 occupies the house of an old man and his niece happens to be a former 20 composer whose dreams of securing brotherhood between the French and 1 German nations are shattered when he begins to realise that the true intention 2 of the German army is to exploit and ruin the country, rather than build 3 bridges. 4 Judging by the critical acclaim and the full attendance that greeted the 5 Mozart festivals in Paris, the French were reluctant to heed Vercors’s warning. 6 But it would be an over-simplification to suggest that the audiences who 7 flocked to events organised by the Propaganda-Staffel and the Institut 8 Allemand were taken in by the politics of collaboration. As Esteban Buch 9 argues with regard to the reception of Beethoven in occupied Paris, some 30 that attended these concerts used them merely as ‘a haven for aesthetic 1 pleasure where it was possible to retreat from the cruel outside world’, while 2 others might have allowed their love of Mozart’s work to satisfy a ‘thirst for 3 liberty or cause them to forget, albeit temporarily, their hatred of the 4x oppressor’.80 5 36L Folio 222 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Occupied Netherlands and Belgium 1 Mozart reception in the Low Countries during the 1940s presents a contrasting picture. Without doubt the Mozart anniversary celebration that took place in Amsterdam in December 1941 was a far less ostentatious event than those held either in the Reich or occupied Paris. An exclusively Dutch affair, the week-long series of concerts featured all-Mozart programmes given by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Eduard van Beinum and Willem von Otterloo. There was also chamber music, and a production of Figaro under Johannes den Hertog at the Stadsschouwburg brought the festival to a close. Opening proceedings at the town hall on 9 December, Mayor Edward Voûte welcomed the opportunity afforded by the occasion to emphasise the strong links that bound the Netherlands to the Salzburg master. Voûte used the familiar ploy of reminding his distinguished guests of the profitable creative results of Mozart’s brief sojourn in The Hague between 1765 and 1766. Somewhat later, on 19 November 1942, this connection with the city would be formally recognised when the occupying forces celebrated the unveiling of the German Theatre in the Netherlands with a performance of Don Giovanni, attended by Goebbels and Reichskomissar Seyss-Inquart who proclaimed the occasion to be one with increasing potential for German- Dutch cultural collaboration. During the Mozart Festival of 1941, however, German presence was less overt in the various ceremonies honouring the composer, with the notable exception of a meeting of the Niederländische- Deutsche Kulturgemeinschaft at the Amstel Hotel at which the director of German High School in Amsterdam proposed the inauguration of a Mozart Prize in the Netherlands.81 Somewhat out of step with other countries, occupied Belgium appears to have mounted its Mozart Herdenking in Vlaanderen (Mozart Commemoration in Flanders) in May 1942, rather than during the anniver- sary year. To what extent this was a deliberate decision on the part of the occu- pying authorities, as opposed to an administrative oversight, remains unclear. However, it is worth noting that the idea for the Mozart Herdenking stemmed from the Deutsch-Vlämische Arbeitsgemeinschaft, an organisation which had been established in 1935 under the auspices of the Reichspropaganda ministry. Statistical evidence reveals a steep increase in its membership from 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L 223 Folio Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L 31 PosteradvertisingtheopeningproductionintheDeutschesTheaterindenNiederlanden of Don Giovanni in The Hague, 19 November 1942. Folio 224 MOZART AND THE NAZIS MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 32 Poster for the Mozart Commemoration in Flanders, May 1942. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L 225 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 19,000 in November 1941 to 30,000 in March 1942, which suggests that the 2 organisation may have been far better equipped to deal with the logistics of 3 running a music festival in the middle of 1942 than at an earlier date.82 4 Whether or not such issues determined the period in which the Mozart 5 Herdenking was to take place, there is no doubt that the programme was 6 ambitious in its scale involving carefully coordinated concert and opera 7 performances and lectures that took place in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent 8 over the same week. Furthermore, whereas German influence was barely 9 evident in the Amsterdam Mozart-Feier, Flemish-German collaboration was 10 particularly intense during the Mozart Herdenking with visiting conductors 1L Hans Knappertsbusch directing the Belgian Radio Symphony Orchestra 2 (Brussels, 9 May) and Walter Beck of the Münster opera in charge of the 3 Ghent Opera Orchestra (Ghent, 4 May). Collaboration was also reflected 4 in the opera house with performances of Die Zauberflöte, conducted by 5 the ardent Nazi sympathiser Hendrik Diels and produced by Hanns Friderici 6 who was under contract at Heidelberg (Brussels, 6 May; Antwerp, 10 May), 7 while the Ghent opera’s performance of Die Entführung (Ghent, 3 May; 8 Antwerp, 7 May) was under the supervision of Beck and producer Hans 9 Strohbach. 20 The exclusively Flemish contributions to the Mozart Herdenking were 1 confined to the opening gala concert in Brussels on 3 May, which was 2 repeated in Antwerp five days later, and to two concerts of an assortment of 3 serenades and divertimentos from the Brussels Radio Chamber Orchestra 4 under Paul Douliez (Brussels, 5 May; Ghent 8 May). The Germans were 5 represented by the Strub Quartet of Berlin (Antwerp, 6 May; Ghent, 7 May; 6 Brussels, 8 May), a performance of Figaros Hochzeit by the German Theatre 7 in Lille conducted by Herbert Charlier and produced by Werner Jacob 8 (Brussels, 7 May) and three lectures: ‘Mozart der deutsche’ (Brussels, 4 May), 9 ‘Mozart und die deutsche Oper’ (Antwerp, 5 May) and ‘Mozarts Meisterwerke’ 30 (Ghent, 6 May) delivered by the University Professor of nearby Cologne, Karl 1 Gustav Fellerer. 2 In addition to the concerts, the Deutsch-Vlämische Arbeitsgemeinschaft 3 published a special Mozart number of their periodical De Vlag. Modelled in 4x layout, typescript and organisation on the publication that had been issued in 5 conjunction with the Vienna Mozartwoche, rather than on the Propaganda- 36L Staffel’s ‘Grand Festival Mozart’ in Paris, it included lavish illustrations of Folio 226 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Mozart productions in Ghent and Antwerp and an assortment of articles 1 in Flemish and German. Notable Flemish contributions included those 2 from Cyriel Verschaeve, the cultural political leader of the Flemish SS, whose 3 article ‘Mozart Germaansche Zingende Waarheid’ (Mozart’s Germanic 4 Singing Truth) articulates the author’s long-standing admiration for the 5 cultural achievements of Imperial Germany, Walter Weyler on ‘Mozart de 6 duitscher, een voorbeeld en een wegwijzer’ (Mozart the German, an example 7 and a guide) and Jan Hadermann’s ‘Mozart in onze gewesten’ (Mozart in our 8 regions). 9 Like the Mozartwoche publication, the foreword to Mozart issue of De Vlag 10 is prefaced by statements of support for the Mozart Herdenking from promi- 1L nent political figures: Goebbels, Flemish military chief Eggert Reeder and 2 Heinz Drewes, music organiser in the Propaganda Ministry. As one might 3 expect from a military man, Reeder was intent on contextualising the Mozart 4 Herdenking against the background of the war, ‘in order to defend culture to 5 spread its message as a unifying force’, whilst stressing the long-standing bonds 6 that he believed to have existed between Mozart and Flemish culture.83 This 7 latter theme was exploited with even more extravagant intensity by Drewes: 8 9 Flanders, the land where the boy Mozart received sincere admiration and 20 friendly reception. Flanders, the land to which Mozart bequeathed for more 1 than a century the resonance of happy impressions in concerts, opera 2 houses, churches and homes. Flanders acknowledges the Germanic basis of 3 its culture, as it will also in future and then be even more open to the promo- 4 tion of Mozart.84 5 Mozart and the Axis 6 7 8 In his report for the Zeitschrift für Musik on musical activity in Zagreb 9 during the 1941/2 season, Walter Graumnitz emphasised the intimate cultural 30 ties that had always existed between Germany and Croatia. He reminded 1 readers that a visiting German opera troupe had given performances in 2 Zagreb of Die Zauberflöte as early as 1803, and one of Don Giovanni in 1812, 3 and that after the ‘tangible rebuff from the German-hating Yugoslav authori- 4x ties’, the newly independent state of Croatia had ‘returned to old and valuable 5 traditions.’ Graumnitz added that ‘we can state happily and with pride that 36L 227 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 German cultural creativity has taken up the lead it deserves, which by the way 2 is not harmful to the lively cultural exchange between Croatia and other 3 countries such as Italy and Bulgaria’.85 4 This historical background serves to explain the importance of the Mozart 5 anniversary celebrations for reflecting the strength of friendship between the 6 two countries. No effort was spared to make the occasion one of the high- 7 points of musical activity in the Croatian capital, with the opera house, 8 orchestras, choirs, chamber ensembles and soloists coming together to put on 9 an extraordinary series of concerts stretching over four evenings. Although 10 technical difficulties prevented a scheduled performance of Die Zauberflöte in 1L the local opera house, an ‘unforgettable’ highpoint was a performance of the 2 Requiem under Lovro von Matacˇic ́, featuring soloists from the national opera, 3 which was preceded by a memorial address from Croatia’s leading composer 4 Jacov Gotovac.86 5 Croatia’s enthusiasm for honouring the composer was emblematic of the 6 desire among several Eastern European countries to reinforce their cultural 7 collaborative ties with Germany. Certainly the Mozart celebrations of 1941, 8 reported extensively in the pages of the Wiener Figaro, were spread over a 9 wide geographical area among many disparate nations, including Bulgaria, 20 Slovakia, Greece and Turkey. The journal believed that this activity reflected 1 the fulfilment of Heinrich Damisch’s much-cherished notion of a Mozart 2 Olympiad.87 Mozart also figured as a useful propaganda vehicle for visiting 3 Germans spreading their cultural heritage to friendly nations, a good example 4 being the Hamburg Opera’s visit to Bulgaria in 1943 where it performed Die 5 Zauberflöte and Die Entführung.88 In Romania, one instance of cultural coop- 6 eration between different national groups took place in 1941 when the 7 Volksdeutscher Bach Choir, drawn from the ethnic German population of 8 Kronstadt (Brasov), joined forces with the Romanian Radio Orchestra to 9 perform Mozart’s Requiem.89 30 The Wiener Figaro also reported in February 1941, during the period of 1 the Non-Agression Pact between Germany and Russia, that the Soviet 2 Union would make its own contribution to the Mozart anniversary celebra- 3 tions with the Moscow Opera planning to perform Die Entführung and Der 4x Schauspieldirektor.90 Whether these operas were staged, or still featured in the 5 repertory, after the German invasion in the summer of 1941, remains unclear. 36L Certainly in most respects, the cultural alliance between the two nations Folio 228 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM remained fragile, and was prone to misunderstanding and mutual suspicion. A 1 good example is reflected in the reception of the play Mozart by the Hungarian 2 dramatist Béla Balázs, best-known in musical circles as the librettist of Bartók’s 3 opera Bluebeard’s Castle. Exiled from his native country since 1933 and living 4 as a political refugee in the Soviet Union, Balázs had alighted on the composer 5 as a suitable subject for a new play completed in the late 1930s. His intention 6 was to portray Mozart as a humanist and libertarian who was downtrodden 7 and ruthlessly exploited by the aristocracy.91 Ironically the Soviet authorities 8 even proposed to stage Balázs’s play as a positive contribution to the strength- 9 ening ties with Nazi Germany, overlooking the problem that its anti-fascist 10 message and Balázs’s Jewish origins may not have occasioned a friendly 1L response from their temporary allies. In the event, the plan to put on Balázs’s 2 Mozart at Moscow’s Lenin Komsomol Theatre in the autumn of 1940 was 3 shelved, and the play only saw the light of day several years later.92 4 A worse fate befell Balázs’s film Mozart, which the author had based on his 5 play. The project had been mooted as early as 1936, with the London news- 6 paper The Observer suggesting that it would be ‘riddled with the usual Soviet 7 propaganda . . . [about] how the great musical genius of the eighteenth 8 century was abandoned by the nobility and was buried in a pauper’s grave 9 with only a stray dog following the wagon in which he was being carried 20 away’.93 In the event, it was another five years before work on the film began 1 in Odessa, at the start of 1941. Unfortunately, the materials and the negatives 2 were destroyed after the studio came under fire. Doubtless, the Germans were 3 unaware at the time that their actions had obliterated Balázs’s artistic enter- 4 prise, though had they known they may well have regarded this as a just retri- 5 bution for the playwright’s interpretation of the composer.94 6 Of all nominally independent Eastern European countries, none could claim 7 such a close geographical and cultural proximity to Mozart as Hungary, partic- 8 ularly given its former status as part of the Hapsburg Empire. After 1918, the 9 first demonstrable indication of its abiding admiration for the composer came 30 in 1924 with the establishment of a Mozart Gesellschaft in Budapest. 1 Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Hungarian musicologists expended a consid- 2 erable amount of energy writing about Mozart, and attempting to place his 3 achievement within a distinctly national framework.95 Although the musical 4x establishment remained resolutely anti-German in outlook, Mozart could not 5 be tarred with the same Teutonic brush as Wagner or Richard Strauss. 36L 229 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 Yet however much Hungarians might have claimed that they presented 2 an independent response towards Mozart, the political realities of the 3 burgeoning alliance between Hungary and Nazi Germany in the 1940s made 4 such a position less tenable. It is significant therefore that the 1941 anniver- 5 sary celebrations took place against a background of increasing cultural coop- 6 eration. A tangible demonstration of this development was the engagement of 7 guests from Vienna to appear in the cycle of Mozart operas mounted by the 8 Hungarian State Opera in November and December. On 13 December the 9 Ungarisch-Deutsch Gesellschaft oversaw the Hungarian National Museum’s 10 Mozart-Feier, an occasion was deemed to be of sufficient importance to 1L warrant the joint presence of András Tasnádi-Nagy, President of the Parliament 2 under the Hungarian National Socialists, and István Fay, the Minister of 3 Religion and Education. The speeches on the composer delivered by the 4 politicians served to satisfy both nationalities, Tasnádi-Nagy stressing the 5 greatness of ‘the German genius’, Fay opting to focus on the specifically 6 Hungarian connections to Mozart.96 7 If the Hungarians remained wary of Germanic domination of their musical 8 outlook, musicians working in Franco’s Spain seemed more prepared to cele- 9 brate the nationalist trends that were currently active in Nazi German criti- 20 cism and musicology. In this respect, the Spanish reception of Mozart was 1 undoubtedly shaped by the intensification of political alliances between Nazi 2 Germany and Spain immediately after Franco took power. This resulted in a 3 considerable number of German musicians gracing Spanish concert halls. 4 Particularly influential were the visits of the Frankfurt Opera, the company 5 appearing on a regular basis to perform Mozart at Barcelona’s Teatro Liceu 6 during this period. While the chosen repertory focused primarily on Mozart’s 7 Italian operas, these were sung in Barcelona in German translation.97 8 Furthermore, on the occasion of the Vienna Mozartwoche in 1941, two arti- 9 cles on the composer by German musicologists Fritz Brust and Karl Holl were 30 published in the Falange publications Arriba and Escorial.98 Adhering strictly 1 to Nazi orthodoxies, both writers emphasised to Spanish readers Mozart’s 2 Germanic origins, whilst attributing international influences in his music as 3 an expression of ‘German emotional profundity’ (Brust), or as ‘an emphasis of 4x his German essence’ (Holl). 5 The influence of this nationalist outlook can also be seen in the reports 36L written on the occasion of the Vienna Mozartwoche by two of the invited Folio 230 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM Spanish delegates, Federico Sopeña and the composer Joaquín Rodrigo. In 1 weighing up Mozart’s Germanness’, as opposed to his cosmopolitan tendencies, 2 Rodrigo, writing in Pueblo on 26 December 1941, slighted Italian composers by 3 stating that ‘the greatest of Italian musicians, with evident French influences, 4 appears to us in his true essence: the master of German Classicism. That is why 5 I do not think it is right to call Mozart an international musician’.99 Surveying 6 Mozart’s output in Arriba on 31 December 1941, Sopeña detected ‘a decisive 7 accent from the North in Mozart’s Fantasy in C minor for piano [K475] and Die 8 Zauberflöte’.100 Some months later, writing in the same publication on 18 April 9 1942, he even seemed to indulge in racial theories of music as developed by 10 Nazi musicologists by claiming that Mozart’s works based on Lorenzo Da 1L Ponte’s texts showed ‘an aesthetic imbalance which would have been greatly 2 improved if he had used texts by German poets instead’.101 3 However, there were other traits in the Spanish discourse about Mozart that 4 remained distinct from Nazi German influence, and these can be largely 5 attributed to the centrality of Catholicism in Franco’s ideology. In his reviews 6 of the Vienna Mozartwoche, for instance, it is notable that Sopeña warmly 7 thanked the Third Reich for having included a substantial amount of religious 8 music in the programmes. Sopeña particularly valued this aspect of Mozart’s 9 creative outlook regarding it as an expression of ‘clear and simple religious 20 feelings’.102 Likewise, in the magazine Radio Nacional J. Ignacio Prieto intro- 1 duced Mozart to his readers as ‘a true Christian and a devout Catholic’.103 2 Although there are occasional references to collaborative ventures between 3 Spanish and German musicians in the Nazi musical press, far more attention 4 was paid to the cultural relationship that had blossomed through closer ties 5 with Fascist Italy. It appears that while Mozart’s music had been played only 6 rarely in Italy in the 1930s, the 1941 celebrations stimulated a veritable renais- 7 sance in performances of his work. According to the Wiener Figaro, this resur- 8 gence of interest in the composer was directly stimulated by the Italian 9 Minister of Cultural Propaganda, and a decision by Fernando Previtali to 30 conduct fourteen hour-long Mozart programmes on the radio in March.104 1 The climax to this activity came on 3 and 4 December with the anniversary 2 performances of the Requiem, which took place in the Basilica di Santa Maria 3 degli Angeli in Rome under Victor de Sabata, with soloists Maria Caniglia, 4x Ebe Stignani, Beniamino Gigli, Tancredi Pasero, a choir of 300 and a much 5 enlarged EIAR (Ente Italiano per le audizioni radiofoniche) Orchestra made 36L 231 Folio Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L 33 Italy’s homage to Mozart reached its climax with a performance of the Requiem in the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome, 3 and 4 December 1941. Folio 232 MOZART AND THE NAZIS MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM up of leading musicians drawn from all the theatres around Italy. Performed 1 in front of a vast audience, including members of Italy’s political elite and 2 leading representatives from the Wehrmacht, this event could be regarded as 3 the Fascist state’s attempt to match the grandeur and extravagance of the 4 festivities in Vienna. There were of course significant differences of emphasis, 5 particularly that the performances had something of a religious connotation, 6 having taken place in a Catholic cathedral, and that the lavish programme 7 book included an article on Mozart’s sacred music by Giovanni Tebaldini, 8 which placed his achievement within a distinctly Italian context.105 9 Interestingly, neither the Catholic nor the Italian nationalist dimension was 10 picked up by Max Unger in his review for the journal Die Musik. Rather, 1L Unger appears to have been overwhelmed by the quality of the performance 2 which he regarded as ‘indescribably wonderful’ and by the effect of the huge 3 building ‘bathed in a sea of lights’.106 4 On the day before the first performance of the Requiem, Italy’s intellectual 5 elite gathered to pay homage to Mozart with a special ceremony at the 6 Accademia d’Italia on 2 December in the presence of Italian cultural minister 7 Giuseppe Bottai and Hitler’s ambassador to Italy, Hans Georg von Mackensen, 8 as a further manifestation of ‘increased partnership’ between the two nations.107 9 Yet the celebratory address, delivered by Arturo Farinelli, attempted to reaffirm 20 Mozart’s importance within Italian culture, drawing clear distinctions between 1 German and Italian ideological interpretations of his work. Although Farinelli 2 acknowledged Mozart’s place in the pantheon of German composers from Bach 3 and Handel to the two Haydns, his address focused most attention on Mozart’s 4 relationship to Italy and the Italianness of his art. Openly critical of a musico- 5 logical tradition that ‘detaches [Mozart] from the intellectual light, the 6 flame, the centre of inspiration that he found in our Italy, his second homeland’, 7 Farinelli stressed Mozart’s attraction to the Italian musical tradition both 8 indirectly (through the influence of Italophiles such as Johann Christian 9 Bach) and directly by studying works of the Italian masters.108 All the Italian 30 librettos employed by Mozart provided further proof of his inclination for 1 Italian music and his opera buffa works showed that he had absorbed Goldoni’s 2 spirit: 3 4x Italian art left powerful roots [in his soul] – roots that would never be uprooted. 5 [Italian art] was the one that harmonised with his spirit better [than the others] 36L 233 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 and gave his marvellous personality sparks of inspiration, smile and [moral] 2 support, as well as an Italianate physiognomy. Even in the [artistic] farewell of 3 the dying man – in the panting, sorrowful pages of the Requiem – a tender 4 recalling of Italy is evident. . . . How can one not recognise in [Mozart’s] very 5 personal style – [that is] in the melodic line, in the agility and clarity of rhythm, 6 in the spontaneous output itself, in the natural grace and in the aristocratic 7 fineness – a very close adherence to Italy? Truly, the gentle and sweet golden 8 [breeze] that blew from Italy seemed to cross the sky that opened up to him.109 9 10 By focusing on the Italian composers that had served as models for Mozart 1L and by claiming that Sturm und Drang ‘was not an exclusive privilege and 2 irrepressible feature of our German brothers’, Farinelli was also wholeheart- 3 edly embracing the nationalist views about the Italian provenance of Sonata 4 form, as preached by the Italian music historian Fausto Torrefranco in his 5 controversial book Le origini italiane del romanticismo musicale: i primitivi 6 della sonata moderna – a viewpoint that would have been strongly at odds 7 with German musicologists. A further indication of Farinelli’s distance from 8 the Germans seems to have been an implicit criticism of the Germans’ trans- 9 lations and modifications of Da Ponte’s libretti: 20 1 In opera, the language is a spiritual substance that cannot be disjoined from 2 the musical creation. We can still see clearly this today, when observing that 3 the Italian librettos of Figaro, Don Giovanni [and] Così fan tutte are replaced 4 by the Northern people with a more comprehensible German version.110 5 6 Although these nuances of emphasis shed light on the contrasting 7 approaches to Mozart, they still conform to a strongly nationalist rhetoric 8 which became ever more strident in the context of the war. During this 9 period, few who were living under such repressive political conditions were 30 prepared to raise their heads over the parapet and defend the autonomy of 1 culture and art. However, there was one prominent intellectual who made a 2 stand, particularly against the events organised by Fascist Italy and Nazi 3 Germany in honour of Mozart. In an article published on 10 August 1943, just 4x a few days before he escaped from Fascist surveillance and joined the Armed 5 Resistance, the critic Massimo Mila attacked the attempt by the Nazis and the 36L Fascists’ to employ the composer’s music as a way of bolstering their cultural Folio 234 MOZART SERVES GERMAN IMPERIALISM ties and confirming their intellectual superiority. He declared that ‘among so 1 much blaring of military bands and rolling drums [. . . and] in the middle of 2 so much aggressive bursting forth of overbearing personalities, Mozart is the 3 poor fragment of pottery crushed amidst the iron vases’.111 In contrast to the 4 political use made by the Fascists and the Nazis of Mozart’s music, which, 5 Mila believed had annihilated its aesthetic significance, the critic gave his 6 vision of how Mozart’s art should be performed and listened to when, after the 7 war, humanity would feel again the thrust of spiritual needs that were 8 oppressed during what Mila termed ‘the iron empire of violence’. Mila envis- 9 aged the creation of Mozart clubs – sanctuaries devoted to the independence 10 of the aesthetic realm where the only permitted activities would be musical 1L performances, discussions and readings about Mozart’s music, and where any 2 utilitarian activity, including eating and drinking, would be banned. It was a 3 utopian vision that sadly remained unrealised, even after 1945. 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L 235 Folio CHAPTER 9 EPILOGUE NAZI LEGACIES What is necessary, then, is to show the Germans that they have shamefully betrayed their greatest men, and particularly those in the field of music. . . . When the Germans once again really understand Mozart and Beethoven, their sense of universalism and internationalism will be awakened. (PAUL NETTL)1 At the end of the Second World War, newspapers and journals in the Allied countries were filled with all manner of suggestions as to the best ways in which the German people could be brought back into the civilised group of nations. In the area of music, the process of re-educating Germans to extirpate the most radical aspects of aggressive nationalism from their consciousness appeared on the surface to have reaped rapid and positive results. At the same time, as David Monod and Toby Thacker have recently highlighted, the Allied powers failed to implement a completely coordinated de-Nazification process with regard to German musical life.2 Despite being promoted during the Third Reich as effectively an honorary Nazi, Mozart largely escaped the ideological baggage that surrounded some other composers that had served the regime so well, the most obvious example being Wagner. No stigma was therefore attached to the continued performance of Mozart’s work. In essence, his music proved acceptable to all sides. For the post-war occupying powers, Mozart was universally recognised alongside Beethoven and Bach as a composer who spoke to everyone. At the same time, for the vanquished Germans, desperate to rebuild tarnished faith in their own musical traditions, Mozart’s greatness and humanity were able to transcend the horrors of Nazism. Many of the performers and musicologists most closely associated with Mozart, including those who had willingly served in politically EPILOGUE:NAZI LEGACIES compromised events such as the Nazified Salzburg Festivals or the 1941 Mozart celebrations in Vienna, managed to profit from this open-minded attitude. The majority emerged unscathed to reclaim their prominent positions in Austro- German musical life after 1945. Since there was no need for Mozart to be rehabilitated, many of the abuses that had recently been inflicted upon his music were soon forgotten. Many leading opera houses decided that henceforth the Da Ponte operas would be better served if they were performed in Italian, a practice that certainly helped to smooth over recollections of the immediate past. Furthermore, the absurd debates surrounding the Masonic dimension of Die Zauberflöte were quickly consigned to the dustbin of history. Continuities with the past For all the desire to expunge recent memories, certain Mozart projects promoted during the Nazi era re-emerged after the War. Prime examples included Georg Schünemann’s German translations and editions of the three Da Ponte operas, which had secured financial sponsorship and support from the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda. During the 1950s Schünemann’s work was once again promoted, with reprints from 1952 onwards of the piano reductions from the Leipzig branch of Peters, and published libretti issued by Reclam, also a Leipzig firm. Even the politically compromised written material Schünemann had written as a preface to the scores remained largely intact, the most notable revision being the excision of the bracketed abbrevi- ation Jd. (Jude) accompanying references to the work of Hermann Levi. Many years later, the full scores of Schünemann’s editions were reprinted by the New York publisher Dover, Don Giovanni appearing in 1974, Le nozze di Figaro in 1979, and Così fan tutte in 1983. Although these publications acknowledged their original 1941 copyright date, it is not surprising that the full page indi- cating the patronage of Goebbels and the Ministry of Propaganda, went unmentioned. Another Goebbels-inspired piece of Mozart propaganda resurfaced only a few years after the War, but in totally unexpected and artistically questionable circumstances. In 1948, the New York Times announced that Patrician Pictures, a company recently formed by former European producers George Moskov and Abraham Haimson, had completed an English language film on 237 MOZART AND THE NAZIS the life of Mozart which was to be known as The Mozart Story. Yet the film was not an entirely new production. Although twenty minutes of material had recently been filmed in the United States, the major part of the work was in fact a dubbed English version of Wen die Götter lieben, the Nazi wartime propaganda film from 1942. For obvious reasons, Moskov and Haimson misled the New York Times about the original date of the film, claiming that it had been made between 1945 and 1946. They were no less misleading on other matters, particularly their decision to cut forty minutes from the film in order to make room for newly-shot material introducing Mozart’s ‘bitter enemy’ Antonio Salieri. Moskov claimed, with no tangible evidence, that Salieri could not have been shown in the original Austrian version because of international politics.3 The synthesis of two entirely different bits of film in The Mozart Story, however, met with a distinctly cool response. According to the critic in the New York Times, The Mozart Story was a ‘dull, listless and involved tale’ and ‘the ill-starred eighteenth century genius’ emerged ‘an unconvincing and uninteresting figure’.4 The film’s lack of commercial success ultimately prevented a more detailed scrutiny of its original material. One relic from the Nazi past could not be shaken off so easily. The conspiracy theory surrounding Mozart’s death, postulated most vigorously by Mathilde Ludendorff during the 1930s before its suppression on the orders of Goebbels, was revived thanks to one of the extremist right-wing political groups that survived into the post-war Bundesrepublik. The myth was perpet- uated twenty years later through the work of Johannes Dalchow, Dieter Kerner and Gunther Duda, three authors with a medical background. For the next forty years, they published extensively and with dogged persistence on the subject.5 In contrast to Mathilde Ludendorff, Dalchow, Kerner and Duda approached the issue of Mozart’s death with a much more sophisticated level of scientific enquiry. Nevertheless, all three were members of the Bund für Deutsche Gotterkenntnis (League for the German understanding of God), an organization founded in 1937, outlawed after the fall of the Third Reich and re-established in 1951, with the aim of propagating Ludendorff’s views on race and religion. They remained strongly committed to furnishing further evidence to support her belief that the composer had been poisoned by the Freemasons.6 Mainstream musicologists interested in Mozart’s health subjected their writings to scrutiny from time to time, but remained sceptical as to their arguments. The most detailed appraisal of their work appeared 238 EPILOGUE:NAZI LEGACIES in the 1993 book The Mozart Myths by William Stafford. While Stafford commended all three writers for making a thorough appraisal of primary and secondary sources, he viewed their assessment of this material as ‘remarkably uncandid and unscholarly’.7 Although such criticism has served to margin- alise their influence, the sheer determination with which Dalchow, Kerner and Duda pursued their ideas appears unsettling, and raises the disturbing question of the extent to which a neo-Nazi strain still impinges upon post-war German Mozart scholarship. Other writers on Mozart proved far more flexible, and were prepared to modify their former views in the light of the changing political climate. Thus a number of books, published in response to the Mozart anniversary celebra- tions during the 1940s, managed to attain a longer shelf-life through judicious post-war revisions. One such work that went through this process was Bernhard Paumgartner’s biographical study of Mozart. Paumgartner had orig- inally completed his book in 1927, but the work was subsequently expanded in a second edition published in Berlin in 1940. After the war Paumgartner revised his book again, bringing out a new edition in 1950.8 Although Paumgartner was hardly a supporter of the Nazi regime, having been ousted from his position as director of the Salzburg Mozarteum in 1938, his expanded Mozart study of 1940 reflects the nationalist zeitgeist. The 1950 edition modifies this approach. Matthias Pape has highlighted a number of passages in the 1940 and 1950 editions which are particularly revealing in presenting the changing image of Mozart during this period. Especially noticeable in the post-war edition is the suppression of highly-charged words to describe Mozart’s sense of patriotism and his identification with the German soul. Thus, for example, in the 1940 edition (p.44) Paumgartner suggests that it was always Mozart’s innermost aspiration to ‘do honour to the whole German nation’ (quoting his letter of 1 May 1778 to his father), while in the 1950 edition (p.27) the passage is revised to argue that the composer was only intermittently imbued with this burning ambition. Likewise, in the 1940 edition (p.45) Paumgartner wrote that ‘Mozart’s Germanness reflected the uplifting awareness of the might of the German spirit that is not bound by national borders.’ In 1950 this has been changed to ‘Mozart’s patriotism reflected the humane awareness of the might of the German spirit that is not bound by national borders’ (p.28). Other changes between the two editions cited by Pape include passages that have been removed from the later version 239 MOZART AND THE NAZIS owing to the particular resonance of the words. Thus Paumgartner wrote in 1940 (p.421) that ‘the memory of Mannheim again touched his German soul deeply. In the lament about the sorry circumstances of the time, his grief transforms into a pure commitment of noble folk consciousness [edlen Volkbewuβtseins].’ However, in the 1950 edition (p.334), Paumgartner replaced this with a much shorter sentence arguing that ‘the memory of Mannheim again touched him deeply’, removing the reference to Mozart’s ‘German soul’ and deleting the rest of the passage.9 The Mozart diaspora in the post-war era: reconciliation and defiance The rapid suppression of the uncomfortable resonances which had been attached to the music of Mozart during the Third Reich, and the more open- minded atmosphere engendered by the occupying powers, undoubtedly made it easier for some members of the Mozart Diaspora to reach an element of reconciliation with the countries that had driven them out. Some re-established contact during the 1950s, the conductor Fritz Busch accepting conducting engagements in West Germany in 1951 and producer Carl Ebert securing his old position as a theatre administrator in Berlin in 1954. Bruno Walter experi- enced an emotional reunion with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in May 1948, and in the following year when he made his first post-war appearance at the Salzburg Festival conducting Mozart’s G minor Symphony and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. He returned four years later, and gave the Requiem in his farewell concert there during the Mozart bicentenary in 1956. Very few émigrés, however, contemplated returning for good. Otto Erich Deutsch was one notable exception. In 1952 he moved permanently back to Vienna from Cambridge. So great had been his reputation as a scholar in pre- Nazi Austria that he was welcomed with open arms. Apart from his indefati- gable research achievements with regard to Schubert and Handel, Deutsch continued to be one of the guiding lights in post-war Mozart scholarship until his death in 1967. He played a particularly important role in the evolution of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe from 1954 onwards, his major contributions to the project being two monumental books, Mozart und seine Welt in zeitgenössischen Bildern (1961) and Mozart: Die Dokumente seines Lebens (1961).10 He also collaborated with Wilhelm Bauer on the multi-volume definitive text of Mozart’s Letters, Mozart Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (1962–63).11 240 EPILOGUE:NAZI LEGACIES A more surprising gesture of reconciliation was reflected in the post-war activity of Paul Nettl. Although vociferous in his condemnation of Nazi abuses of the great masters, he continued to hold onto the view, as expressed in a 1945 letter to the New York Times, that Austro-German musicologists could never have genuinely subscribed to such fake doctrines.12 This presum- ably explains Nettl’s extraordinary decision to sanction the inclusion of chap- ters by Alfred Orel on Mozart and Vienna, Hans Engel on the composer’s orchestral music and Roland Tenschert on Mozart and the Church, in his book on Mozart published in Frankfurt in 1955.13 It is tempting to wonder whether Nettl, an authority on Mozart’s relationship to Freemasonry, had ever bothered to read Orel’s politically compromised and fiercely anti-Masonic Mozart books of 1941 and 1944, which tried to extricate the composer from such associations. One musicologist who remained defiant in his refusal to reach any kind of accommodation with post-war Germany was Alfred Einstein. This was particularly ironic given that his full-length study of Mozart, published in 1945 in English translation by Arthur Mendel and Nathan Broder and appearing in the original German from the Stockholm publisher Bermann- Fischer two years later, was, and continues to be, held up as a paradigm of German scholarship on the composer. Nevertheless, Einstein rejected all overtures either to return to Germany or to re-establish contact with musicol- ogist colleagues that had sought accommodation with the Nazi regime. Neither was he more conciliatory to those in Austria, refusing in the summer of 1949 to accept the honour of the Gold Medal from the International Society of the Mozarteum.14 The depth of his aversion to his former coun- trymen can be keenly felt in his withering post-war review of the 1943 Neues Mozart-Jahrbuch for the American journal Notes in December 1946. Not only does Einstein deplore the poor quality of scholarship reflected in the essays, but, as is evident from his final remarks, he is contemptuous of the principles which lay behind the book’s publication: Most significant is the last paragraph of the foreword. In the whole world, the publication of a book is the publication of a book, even in war time. In the Germany of 1943, it is a Zeugnis unseres unerschütterten and unerschütterlichen Kulturwillens – a testimonial of unshaken and unshakeable – well, how does one translate Kulturwille? It must be something like the opposite of bestiality.15 241 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Mozart, post-war Austria and the Nazi legacy – continuity and change In many respects the most salient change in the post-war reception of Mozart has been the shift away from the depiction of the composer as a German to one who is exclusively bound up with Austria. Since 1945 this symbiotic rela- tionship between artist and state has been manipulated on all levels, particu- larly as a means of boosting the country’s economy and its tourism, the most blatant exploitation taking place in 2006, the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Indeed so strongly do the Austrians guard the composer as one of their own that when Mozart was nominated in 2003 as one of the greatest Germans of all time in a competition organised by the German tele- vision station ZDF, the Austrian ambassador to Germany, Christian Prosl, protested vigorously about his inclusion. For him and his countrymen, Mozart was ineligible for consideration for this sort of competition because of his Austrian nationality.16 The rapidity with which Mozart was transformed from a Germanic icon into the most formidable representative of Austrianness invites speculation as to what extent there might have been common ground between the two brands of nationalism – an issue that touches on the broader question of how effectively post-war Austria managed to detach itself from its complicity in the crimes of Nazism.17 Certainly, in the months that followed the collapse of the Third Reich, there were some definitive attempts to break with the past. Heinrich Damisch, architect of the 1941 Mozartwoche, was forced to retire from his positions as director of the Wiener Mozart-Gemeinde and editor of the Wiener Figaro. Under the editorship of Erik Werba, the journal resumed publication with the declared ambition of wiping the slate clean. Among early signs that Werba had managed to draw a veil over the immediate past was an article by Egon von Komorzynski dealing with the constructive relationship between Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte – a topic that would have been regarded as taboo two years earlier.18 A further illustration of the need for the Austrians to rebuild their own sense of national identity can be reflected in the surprisingly rapid restoration of musical life in Vienna. Although the State Opera building had been bombed in March 1945, the desire to re-establish a regular opera season as quickly as possible proved irresistible, and it was strongly encouraged by the occupying powers. Accordingly, the Opera resumed operation in a different 242 EPILOGUE:NAZI LEGACIES Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic media. Please refer to print publication. 34 Playbill for one of the first post–war performances of Figaro, given in the Hermann Levi translation by members of the Vienna State Opera, 1945. theatre on 1 May 1945 with a performance of Le nozze di Figaro. The conductor on this notable occasion was Josef Krips, while subsequent performances were conducted by Anton Paulik. Krips had returned to Vienna in 1945, having been forbidden to work in Austria after the Anschluss on account of his partially Jewish descent.19 Although Mozart’s opera was sung in German, the company reverted to performing the work in the translation by Hermann Levi, a piece of information that was prominently displayed on the playbill. 243 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Outside Vienna, American troops had taken control of Salzburg on 4 May. Once again the occupying forces were anxious to restore morale among the local population, so plans were quickly set in motion to revive the Festival. On 12 August the first post-war Salzburg Festival opened with a reception for General Mark Clark and other high-ranking military officers. The programmes, performed largely to members of the armed forces, boasted one new opera production, Mozart’s Die Entführung conducted by Felix Prohaska, another conductor who had maintained distance from the Nazi regime. Reporting on the opening ceremony, the New York Times somewhat mislead- ingly suggested that the decision to restore the Mozart-centred festival had resulted ‘because during the period from 1938 to 1943, the year the festival was suspended, the programmes felt the censuring hand of Propaganda Minister Goebbels who limited the composer’s works sharply, even though Mozart met Nazi “Aryan” requirements’.20 In future years, there would be little need for such public declarations as the Festival gradually reasserted its own artistic identity. Nonetheless, the shadow of the Third Reich and the Festival’s role as an accomplice to Nazi cultural propaganda could not be banished so easily. A lengthy article published in November 1946 in The Times on the current situation in Austria declared perceptively that ‘nearly everyone in Vienna is determined that the immediate Nazi past is never to be restored, yet it may be a long while before the black circular patch on the red Austrian flag, which marks where the swastika was, has completely faded’. It went on to say that ‘the infection probably sank deeper than the people themselves are aware’.21 For years many Austrians wallowed in self-pity, wanting to present an impression to the outside world that they were the victims of the Nazis, rather than their accomplices. This refusal to face up to the past enabled certain figures, who had played an important role in supporting Nazi appropriation of Mozart after the Anschluss, to continue to exercise some influence over post-war cultural life in Austria, whilst others were even bestowed with the highest honours by the state. The historians Gert Kerschbaumer and Oliver Rathkolb have exposed these disturbing continuities in a series of meticulously researched publications.22 Kerschbaumer has focused in particular on the Austrian exploitation of Mozart as a symbol of nostalgia for the past glories of the Habsburg Empire, while also acting as a powerful weapon designed to marginalize experimental and critical art. In one devastating example, he demonstrates the chilling parallels in the 244 EPILOGUE:NAZI LEGACIES sacralised language that was employed by Baldur von Schirach in his speech of 28 November 1941 honouring the anniversary of Mozart’s death, and the very similar terms employed by the Salzburg Festival organisers in connection with the bicentenary of the composer’s birth on 27 January 1956.23 Individual figures who were able to proffer an ideological position that did not alter from the Nazi to the post-Nazi era included the writer Franz Karl Ginzkey, whose 1941 anniversary speech ‘Mozarts unsterbliche Sendung’ (Mozart’s immortal message) was reprinted almost verbatim four years later in his book Genius Mozart. In contrast, the musicologist and Mozart scholar Erich Schenk, appointed Chairman of the Austrian Academy of Science’s Commission for Music Research in 1946, contrived to doctor articles he had written between 1941 and 1943 in a collection of his writings that appeared near the end of his life in 1967, so as to conceal his former position as a Nazi sympathiser. Yet at the same time, Schenk maintained an openly anti-Semitic stance, for example in dealings with his colleague Otto Erich Deutsch, in his hostility towards Mahler, and in his refusal to sanction the idea of one of his postgraduate students under- taking a doctoral dissertation on the subject of Franz Schreker.24 Perhaps the most brazen example of post-war complicity concerned Heinrich Damisch, the retired director of the Wiener Mozart-Gemeinde. Although removed from public life, Damisch continued to write reviews, and worked in an honorary capacity for the Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg.25 More significantly, he was presented with the Gold Medal of the Mozartstadt Salzburg in 1956 and the Gold Medal for services to the Austrian Republic the following year. As Kerschbaumer highlights, it was both ironic and scan- dalous that Damisch, the author of the scurrilously anti-Semitic article ‘Die Verjudung des österreichischen Musiklebens’ (The judification of Austrian musical life), published in the journal Der Weltkampf three months after the Anschluss, could not only be described as ‘one of the most prominent cham- pions of Austrian cultural ideas’, but was also honoured by Salzburg in the same year as his arch-enemy Bruno Walter.26 There was also evidence that Damisch had remained unrepentant about his role during the Third Reich. During the early 1960s a book detailing the history of the Wiener Mozart- Gemeinde included an article by Damisch about the Society’s activities between 1914 and 1945. Looking back over the years of German occupation, Damisch wrote nostalgically about the ‘wonderful’ musical events that he had organised during that period.27 245 MOZART AND THE NAZIS A notable turning point in coming to terms with the dark resonances of the past took place in 1995, the year Austria celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Republic and its entry into the European Union. A concert and exhibition organized at the Vienna State Opera on 27 April exposed the insti- tution’s – and by implication Austria’s – compromises with Nazism. Interspersing a gala programme featuring music by composers banned by the Nazi regime, the actor Klaus Maria Brandauer read from Nazi texts that illus- trated the ‘brutality and absurdity of Nazi attitudes to Jewish composers and the Nazi appropriation of Mozart and other icons of the musical world to promote their propaganda’. These extracts, selected by Oliver Rathkolb, pointed to ‘the absurdities of Nazi censorship to which living and dead composers were sacrificed’, but also underlined the fact that ‘anti-Semitic polemics were rife in Austria’s musical world even before 1938, and that the Nazis found fertile ground to extend their campaign against Jewish members of that world’.28 Eleven years later, the position had shifted further: Mozart could be viewed by politicians as both an Austrian and a European. Whether by accident or design, Austria assumed its second stint US President of the Council of Europe during the first six months of the Mozart anniversary year in 2006. The opportunity to link the two events proved irresistible. Marking the handover, Chancellor Wolfgang Schlüssel invited European politicians to attend a conference in Salzburg entitled ‘The Sound of Europe’ in which dele- gates would try to ‘seek out and articulate the reasons for the unease many of Europe’s citizens feel . . . about the text of the Constitutional Treaty and to seek solutions, answers to the questions’. The Conference was timed to open on 27 January, the date on which Mozart was born 250 years earlier and, coincidentally, the 61st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army. In his opening address to the Council, Schlüssel urged his colleagues to consider both events as delineating diametrically opposite sides of the European identity. While the ‘true European genius’ Mozart reflected the paradisiacal expectations and vision of heaven, the hell of Auschwitz exposed the reality of failure, crime and evil. For this reason, he concluded that Mozart can provide some answers or help us find answers. He was born and lived at a time marked by dramatic changes: maybe this is something worth 246 EPILOGUE:NAZI LEGACIES remembering for Europe’s citizens today . . . Mozart himself travelled throughout Europe like a whirlwind during this period of change and made his mark on European history . . . Mozart already sensed the coming of the French revolution and at the same time gave the answer as to how to put things back in order. Not with weapons, but with music. In Die Zauberflöte, the pursuers and the military are halted, made to dance, by a magic flute.29 Unfortunately, Schlüssel’s exhortation that his colleagues should move towards thinking of Europe as ‘being more than a economic idea’, to ‘find a common cultural identity, reflect on what holds it together, where its borders lie, what are its objectives, its possibilities’, met with a rather inconclusive response. Even before his speech had been delivered, bureaucrats in Brussels reacted with a mixture of amusement and despair at Schlüssel’s idea of linking Austria’s composer to the European Constitution. One official even joked ‘that the only spirit of Mozart necessary for this constitution should be his Requiem’.30 Opening up old wounds It may not have escaped the notice of some Europhiles that Schlüssel’s desire to represent Mozart as someone who transcended borders with his music and was at home throughout Europe, did not meet with the wholehearted support of the Freedom Party (FPÖ), the junior partner in his coalition government. In December 2005, they had whipped up a storm over an advertising campaign mounted by the Czech Tourist Agency designed to boost the number of Austrian visitors to the country. Posters installed throughout Vienna carried the message ‘W. A. Mozart stayed in the Czech lands five times. What about you?’ Freedom Party spokesman Johann Herzog took great exception to the posters and demanded their removal. Such information, he argued, ‘distorted history and was an insult to Sudeten Germans who were expelled from the Czech Republic after World War Two . . . The Czechs are trying to create the impression that the Czech Republic always existed on its present territory. But Mozart never visited the Czech Republic. You could only say he visited Bohemia, and Prague was considered a German city at the time.’31 Although the Czech Tourist Agency held firm and refused to remove the posters, such an attack was bound to open old wounds over the border. 247 MOZART AND THE NAZIS Nevertheless, in his anniversary article ‘What did Prague mean for Mozart?’ published by the Czech Music Information Centre in April 2006, Tomislav Volek, the President of the Czech Mozart Society, refrained from mentioning the Freedom Party’s campaign. More worrying to him was the Germano- centric orientation of some relatively recent scholarly work on the composer. The main target for his criticism was Das Mozart-Lexikon, a 900-page tome edited by the distinguished Viennese scholar Gernot Gruber. Volek noted, with a mixture of outrage and irony, the absence of a dictionary entry on Prague as one of the cities that played an important part in Mozart’s life. This omission was deemed even more inexplicable given that the lexicon featured detailed articles not only on Salzburg and Vienna, but also on Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin and Mainz. Nor did the Mozart-Lexikon include a separate entry for Milan, even though three of the composer’s operas were premiered there. From such evidence, Volek argued, ‘we can reasonably conclude that we are dealing with a certain systematic historical distortion in a book produced by a German publishing house. Can it be that someone somehow wants to give readers the impression that Mozart is primarily a phenomenon of German-speaking lands, with a few episodes in Paris and London?’ Volek pointed an accusatory finger specifically against Gernot Gruber who had not yet got over ‘the habit of taking the embarrassingly politicised view of histor- ical facts that afflicted his earlier book Mozart und die Nachwelt (1985)’. Among the historical facts Gruber had distorted in this work was the claim that Mozart was an important factor in the fight against the Czech nationalist movement in Prague. He noted that ‘if a text like this had been written during the war, at the time of the Nazi Occupation of Prague, it would not be so surprising, but in 1985?’32 It should be pointed out that Volek largely exonerated his Austrian musicologist colleagues from displaying similar revisionist tendencies. For the majority of his fellow Czechs, the bitterness surrounding the Nazi appropriation of Mozart in Prague during the Occupation remains merely a distant memory. But another wound, linking the Nazis and Mozart to another former member country of the Warsaw Pact, looks unlikely to be healed for the foreseeable future. The dispute began as a result of two events: first, the Nazi destruction of Poland’s infrastructure and its artistic heritage at the outset of World War Two, and second, the large-scale evacuation of the precious collections of the Prussian State Library in Berlin, a necessary 248 EPILOGUE:NAZI LEGACIES response to the increasingly frequent British air-raids on the German capital. This programme, which began in 1941, scattered the library’s treasures throughout the German Reich, with many items hidden in mines, monas- teries and castles. Among the most valuable materials in the library’s collection were hundreds of autograph scores and music manuscripts by Mozart, Beethoven and Bach. The Mozart items numbered over a hundred autographs, a substan- tial proportion of the composer’s output, and included the complete manu- script of Die Zauberflöte, the last two acts of Le nozze di Figaro, one act of Così fan tutte, eleven symphonies (including the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony), the Mass in C minor and the Piano Concerto No. 27 K595. These were transferred to the East of Berlin, first to the castle of Fürstenstein, and later to the Benedictine Abbey in Grüssau. Fortunately, neither place was bombed by the Allied powers or by the advancing Red Army. However at the Potsdam Conference, held after German surrender in 1945, Grüssau came under the jurisdiction of Poland. Two government decrees of 2 March 1945 and 8 March 1946 speci- fied that ‘all property of the former German Reich would henceforth be taken over by the Polish state treasury’.33 For many years the Polish government remained tight-lipped about the music collection hidden in Grüssau, which was ultimately transferred to the Biblioteka Jagiellon ́ska (Jagiellonian Library) in Kraków. Enquiries about the whereabouts of this material and its possible return to Berlin were met with stony silence from the authorities who were more intent on maintaining secrecy as to its very existence. Much to the annoyance of the East German regime, negotiations for the exchange of cultural property between the two allied countries did not make much progress during the 1950s and 1960s, and did not result in the return to Berlin of any music manuscripts. The mystery of the missing collections from the former Prussian State Library became a topic of interest for writers in the West such as the American Carleton Smith and the British biologist Peter Whitehead. The British journalist Nigel Lewis even wrote a book on the subject entitled Paperchase: Mozart, Beethoven, Bach – the Search for their Lost Music.34 With such a large number of missing Mozart sources, the whereabouts of the autographs were also of deep concern to the editors of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe.35 Various unrelated events, including the publication of Lewis’s book in 1981, forced the Poles to break their thirty-year secrecy on the location of the music 249 MOZART AND THE NAZIS manuscripts. Another important milestone was the return in May 1977 of seven original scores from the Prussian State Library collection to Berlin – a response to the signing of a treaty of friendship and cooperation between Poland and East Germany. Among the scores brought back were Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Piano Concerto No. 3, and Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Mass in C minor and ‘Jupiter’ Symphony.36 This gesture proved to be an isolated event. After the reunification of Germany in 1990, the government made its first official enquires about the return of the collection. The Poles stalled, but talks were eventually opened and in 1997 the Jagiellonian Library placed some of the manuscripts on display for the first time. Attempts to persuade Poland to return further music autographs to Berlin, however, met with a persistent refusal. In 2007 negotia- tions hit a brick wall. The Poles were infuriated by an article by the German diplomat Tono Eitel which accused them of disregarding international law and described the manuscripts as ‘the last German prisoners of war’.37 Back came the retort that the German claims on cultural items offend Poles who remember how the Nazis plundered Polish artworks, burned libraries and systematically razed Warsaw to the ground. Central to the perception of the Germanic heritage was the idealisation of Mozart as a seminal figurehead of their culture. This fuelled the strong desire to reacquire the precious Mozart manuscripts as part of an enduring national legacy. Yet it is important not to underestimate the seismic scars left on Poland by the ravages of Nazi cultural policy and the destruction of war. Who can blame the Poles for refusing to hand over the manuscripts to their former oppressor? 250 APPENDIX I WELCOMING ADDRESS AT THE MOZART WEEK OF THE GERMAN REICH IN VIENNA AT THE INAUGURAL CONCERT ON 28 NOVEMBER 1941 BY REICHSLEITER BALDUR VON SCHIRACH [TRANSLATED BY EWALD OSERS] When, in January of this year, after thorough discussion with my colleague Walter Thomas and with Wilhelm Furtwängler, I submitted the plan of this Mozart Week to the Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, I met with enthusiastic approval and not only with material help for the execution of this project, but also with far-reaching intellectual and practical support. I would like therefore, at the very beginning of the Mozart Week, to express my warmest thanks to Herr Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Our common intention of concentrating all the efforts of the German theatre into a major achievement in the Mozart Week seems to have succeeded. The Vienna Opera for the first time reveals its great goal, an extraordinary goal considering the period in which it is attempted. We believed that we owed it to Mozart’s memory and to the reputation of German music, and above all to this ancient Reich city, to involve the leading conductors, directors and stage-set designers, and men and women singers in the execution of this Mozart Week. Moreover, different conceptions are intended to provide the visitors to these festive performances with a picture of the Mozart theatre in the Reich. Hence Berlin’s Zauberflöte, Munich’s Così fan tutte and Vienna’s Figaro. Vienna’s irrepressible artistic resurgence finds its expression in the Mozart Week. And it is not local patriotism, but something done for the glory of the MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 Reich, if such performances lend new lustre to the city which the Führer has 2 called a pearl in his eyes. What would German music be without Vienna, or 3 Vienna without music? The programme of Vienna’s cultural work in 1942 4 includes two events of far-reaching significance: 5 6 1) 7 8 2) 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 programme of a single German city, entitled us to ask what cultural achieve- 7 ments our enemies have to show to justify their claim to having seized the 8 leadership of occidental culture. A poor world that would depend on English 9 or American music! The cultural sterility of Great Britain and the United 20 States is proverbial. Although they attempt to control an ever-present sense of 1 inferiority by pretending to be fighting on behalf of human culture – we know 2 what is behind it. Bolshevism and the motivating powers of the British Empire 3 have one thing in common – sterility of the spirit. We, on the other hand, are 4 a creative nation, linked by common ideals with the other creative nations of 5 Europe. 6 Highly honoured visitors from abroad! The German Reich has invited you 7 to Vienna to commemorate Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so you may partici- 8 pate here, in the capital of German music, in the festival week held in honour 9 of Mozart. While expressing to you the Reich’s thanks for your presence, I 30 welcome you on behalf of the city of Vienna. Your presence signifies an inter- 1 national homage to the genius of music. The 150th anniversary of the death 2 of this great and beloved German becomes, through your presence, a feast day 3 of European culture. 4x We are always particularly aware of the common destiny of our nations 5 when we involve the spirits of those who, as the most noble figures of 36L their own nation, have become symbols of mankind’s art as such. This applies contemporary music in the spring, presenting the works of the most important living composers, primarily of the younger generation, and the 100th anniversary celebration of the Vienna Philharmonic. The latter will have the character of a European music festival. The manner in which this unique sound-body under the baton of inspired conductors creates the musical works of our great masters has been aptly called ‘creative reproduction’. Thanks to this art the Vienna Philharmonic is the foremost orchestra in the world today. Such a programme, proclaimed in the middle of a war as the musical Folio 252 APPENDIX I especially to Mozart, whose mission to the world I would express with the 1 simple statement that we seem to be cleansed, elevated and liberated by the 2 mere thought of him, for he possesses the fine ability of the European genius 3 of communicating to others something of his own moral strength. The rele- 4 vant nations of the European continent are standing up to the trials of this 5 war, against the spirit that always negates, with steadfastness and confident 6 faith not least because we were, right from childhood, given a symbol that, at 7 all hours of distress, fabulously fills ours eyes and ears. The sounds of Die 8 Zauberflöte ceaselessly penetrate our souls. No trial by fire that we would not 9 pass, being fortified by such magic strength! 10 There is therefore no conflict for us between the exploits of the grey 1L heroes who, in the grim cold of the east, as soldiers of the bravest army on this 2 earth, are discharging their duty and us who, in the homeland protected by 3 those brave men, are performing the life’s work – or rather: the work of 4 eternal life – that is associated with the concept of Wolfgang Amadeus 5 Mozart. This, too, is a celebration of the frontline, more than a festive event 6 of theatre and concert hall. Commemorating Mozart we avow the essence of 7 our art. In war, however, the invocation of his spirit is a deed in the spirit of 8 the fighting soldiers. He who draws his sword for Germany also draws it 9 for him. 20 Our art would not be valid if it were not valid for all time. Just that is the 1 significance of Mozart for the fighters of this war – that he is part of the 2 strength with which we can wage wars. The German soldier does not fight for 3 cotton and packets of shares. Neither are there any trusts for whose towering 4 skyscrapers he stakes his life. What he stakes is for a homeland whose most 5 wonderful creation nevertheless touches the sky. But it is works of the spirit 6 and the heart that he fights for and is victorious for. 7 Whatever we may hear here this coming week, the serene and the tragic, 8 it flows from our nature and seems to us a parable of our own substance. 9 We hear Mozart, but we mean ourselves; and thus his immortality and trans- 30 figuration, too, are a message to us all who, as questing individuals, fight and 1 fall, and rise, now and forever on the road of everything living towards the 2 eternal. 3 The Requiem that will ring out on 5 December will therefore mean for us not 4x only mourning for the earthly death of Mozart; every person killed in action 5 also in this war is mourned in it. But just as, after 150 years, the Requiem 36L 253 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 pronounces not so much death as immortality, so it does also for our dear ones 2 left on the field. They live in all sounds, as they do in all deeds. And the thought 3 of death is nothing but a shadow that has obscured their corporeal shape from 4 our gaze. Never was Mozart more alive than today. What a prospect for his 5 future that, 150 years after being placed in his grave lonely and abandoned, he 6 is thus present in all who are good. 7 The National Socialist government has, from the very first day of its func- 8 tioning, pursued a systematic fostering of the arts. Even though our adver- 9 saries time and again try to spread the lie that National Socialism is hostile to 10 the arts, the Movement’s seizure of power nevertheless marked the beginning 1L of generous cultural work. No government in the world, but also no German 2 government before us, ever invested such enormous means in the cultivation 3 of our traditional cultural heritage and contemporary artistic creation as 4 today’s leadership of the German nation. The fact that, in the train of the huge 5 spiritual changes brought about by our revolution, here and there some 6 phenomena have appeared in music, poetry or the representative arts that 7 tried to replace a lack of artistic creative power by solidity of attitude is irrel- 8 evant. In the long run only the extraordinary prevails and those who justify 9 their bad works of art by pointing to their good attitude cannot endure before 20 the German people. 1 The political movement that leads the Reich has never in its party 2 programme raised a demand for a party-linked art, for that would contradict 3 the idea with which it came to the fore. Every true work of art exists through 4 itself and has a national mission. It testifies to the people to whom it owes its 5 origin. That, if I may put it this way, is its tendency. The national value of a 6 contemporary painting does not depend on the number of SA men repre- 7 sented in the painting and national poetry in the sense of our Movement is 8 not the poetry of flags and fanfares that attempts to make up for its lack of 9 mood and form by high-sounding words. The same applies to our music. 30 Anyone who calls Goethe a Freemason and Die Zauberflöte a Masonic 1 opera is not taken seriously by our people, and rightly so. The nation’s great 2 art is entitled to protection as a national historic monument. What can be 3 more ridiculous than the attempt to give marks to the great ones of our spirit 4x and to examine whether they have in everything complied with the rules that 5 culturally reactionary philistines have laid down? Every great work carries its 36L own law within itself; it is always the expression of a lonely personality and, at Folio 254 APPENDIX I the same time, of the nation. The nation, however, is not only their time, not 1 only their contemporaries, but the timeless community of one blood and one 2 language enduring throughout all changes of taste and of changing views. 3 That is why there is no such thing as art for a time. 4 For the same reason Mozart means more to us today than he meant for his 5 contemporaries. And the more years will pass, the more he will belong to the 6 nation. There can be no doubt whatever that Mozart’s work in particular 7 proves that all true art is created against the opinions of its fellow men and for 8 the nation. Thus he is to us also an educator towards realisation of the essence 9 of all artistic achievements by a genius. It is not determined by the dogmas of 10 the professors of art history. These orient themselves by the yardsticks of the 1L past and the present. But that which belongs to the future determines its own 2 measure. 3 I believe I owe it to the youth of our nation, to whom I have always, in the 4 beautiful years of peace and in the hard ones of war, felt closely linked, to 5 prepare the way for them everywhere. In the realm of music, too, the road 6 should be cleared for them. In this, no criticism should worry them and no 7 objection confuse them. This realm is so great that it also has space for the 8 struggle of the young for their artistic expression. Who could not love these 9 young people with all their faults; who dares condemn them? They aspire to 20 the great and they also dare go for it. They are not after entertainment but 1 after elevation; and while millions may content themselves with the sounds of 2 Heinzelmännchens Wachtparade – we nevertheless owe it to the man in whose 3 honour we have assembled here today to serve art in his spirit for the sake of 4 art.1 This is no slogan of the past, but the credo of those for whom music is a 5 higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. 6 Just as Mozart did not descend to his contemporaries, but, over one and a 7 half centuries, raised us all up to himself, so we demand that art be a claim and 8 an obligation. Otherwise it has no mission. But thus it is, according to the 9 Führer’s will, a mission obliging us to fanaticism. 30 What we feel when we look at Greek temples or at early madonnas, or when 1 we hear the great music of our nation with Bach and Handel, Beethoven and 2 Mozart, Brahms and Bruckner, is nothing other than reverence before 3 creation and thus thanks to God. We Europeans have created in our art the 4x expression of our faith in immortality. And it is our pride as Germans that, 5 alongside the architects of the Acropolis, alongside Homer and Praxiteles, 36L 255 Folio 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1L 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4x 5 36L alongside Michelangelo, Dante, Rembrandt and the other great names that have sprung from the brother nations of our continent, we can stand up honourably with the multitude of creative spirits of our blood. One name rings out here today, but it speaks for Germany and means happiness for the whole world – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In his memory we have assembled. In his sign we call the youth of Europe to war for its art. Folio 256 MOZART AND THE NAZIS APPENDIX II ADDRESS FOR THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART AT THE VIENNA STATE OPERA ON 4 DECEMBER 1941 BY REICH MINISTER DR JOSEPH GOEBBELS [TRANSLATED BY EWALD OSERS] Your Excellencies! My fellow Germans! The supreme honour of a nation is to possess great sons and important men, to cultivate their legacy faithfully and attentively, to administer it, and on their memorial days to offer them the fame and the gratitude to which they may lay claim before history. For in their steep soaring flight they are, with eternal validity, representatives of the people and heralds of its immortal creativity. From them issues the radiant light and it is from their work that the world lives. A nation that forgets its great sons no longer deserves to possess any. By growing beyond their own nation by their national [völkisch] creativity they most powerfully symbolise the spiritual creative power of a nation and across the centuries provide proof of its perpetual youth and immortality. They, more than princes, kings or emperors, are the personifica- tion of a nation’s majesty. Their work proceeds from the grace of God and therefore far transcends epochs of the decline and rise of a nation. No one can, in the long run, escape the magnetic attraction of their spiritual and artistic legacy. They are the basic material of a nation’s ability to live. They endure and will never perish. If these words apply to any of the great sons of our German nation, then it is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the 150th anniversary of whose death we are MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 marking today and tomorrow in Vienna on behalf of the entire German people 2 with a deep bow before his immortal work. Where else in our history, in what- 3 ever field, has a name experienced such a comet-like rise, where else did it 4 stand, with undiminished strength, never fading in its brilliance, across three 5 centuries? With him one almost has the impression that a mysterious fate 6 immediately after his death brought him back, bodily, into the realm of insub- 7 stantial shades in order to make him appear all the more radiantly in his 8 immortal music, a music that is as young today as it was then. We do not even 9 know where he was laid to rest. Yet evening after evening his melodies resound 10 through the opera houses and concert halls of the entire world, lifting the 1L hearts of countless people in all countries and all continents. In tremulous joy 2 and wild pain they transport the souls of those thus made happy into a better 3 world, one that consists only of melodiousness and harmony. 4 Even at the hour that he was buried in a mass grave in Vienna he dealt out 5 his eternal riches to mankind. What sins the mighty and the rulers then 6 committed against him, the nation from which he sprang and whose ever- 7 lasting essence he, albeit unknowingly but all the more strongly, turned into 8 ringing sound, has made up to him again. Let no one search any further for the 9 essence of genius – here it lies before our eyes, pure and immaculate, with all 20 its mystical secrets. Creative procreative power from a superabundance of 1 inner visions, boundless joy in shaping them, disciplined and tamed by artistic 2 order, by energy and diligence, a life in perpetual poverty, but at the same time 3 creative work in perpetual richness – that is Mozart. 4 One has but to hear his name and music immediately rings out, deathless 5 tunes raise their golden arches, one lives as though raised by a magic 6 hand from the world of earthly ties into the light, clear and pleasing air of 7 his simplicity, the primitiveness of his artistic sensations, the subtlety of his 8 musical forms; as if sung by the voices of angels one hears the jubilation of his 9 choirs, the soft and seductive song of his violins and cellos, and the full and 30 supporting fundamental notes of his wind instruments. Nothing of this has 1 become old or even just historical in the 150 years since he departed from 2 humanity, leaving it only his music. His operas to this day dominate the 3 programmes of our theatres, just as if they had been written yesterday. His 4x symphonies ring out in our concert halls, as fresh as on their first day, and 5 time and again one finds his authorship confirmed by the printed programme. 36L His folk songs are sung by our young people today as they were then; they Folio 258 APPENDIX II might have been written by an itinerant singer as easily as by the greatest 1 musical genius the earth ever bore. Where has the nation ever bowed to 2 similar divine grace? 3 The question might be asked whether a state-run festivity, such as is being 4 offered to him on the 150th anniversary of his death, can stand up before the 5 enormous happenings of our days. Our hearts tell us that we can answer this 6 question affirmatively. For we do not need to lift him from the dust of oblivion. 7 His music rings out every evening over homeland and front. It is part of what 8 our soldiers are defending against the wild assault of eastern barbarism. It is 9 ours, more strongly than any other artistic work of the past or present, it has 10 become the property of the broadest masses of our people. 1L Perhaps this is one of the reasons why we are not aware of a contradiction 2 between the musical world in which he lived and worked and the hard and 3 crashing world in which we live and whose chaos we aim to convert to disci- 4 pline and order. The one is our destiny, the other is our longing. The one was 5 imposed on us, the other is the object of our secret hopes and desires. It is the 6 world of fulfilment, the world of harmony and eternal beauty. If art has the 7 task of lifting up the hearts of tormented humanity and transferring them to 8 a better world, if amidst a life of harshness and contradictions it is to show us, 9 or at least let us surmise, the ideal of blissful perfection – how great is then the 20 artistry of this genius! One would have to invent a new language to do justice 1 to it in words. 2 How proud are we all entitled to be at the thought that this name is ours! 3 Our nation gave birth to it and bears it to this day. It is his world in which we 4 live and it was our world that he lived in. How safe we feel in the simple 5 domesticity of the small apartment where he was born in Salzburg. With what 6 proud, almost familiar participation, we follow his rise, accompany him on his 7 travels to Paris, London and Italy, see him at the age of only thirteen as a 8 member of the musical academy in Bologna, discover him at age fourteen as 9 archiepiscopal Konzertmeister in Salzburg, suffer with him in his unsuccessful 30 struggle in Mannheim and Paris, move with him to Salzburg in 1779 and to 1 Vienna in 1781, where ten years later, on a cold and inhospitable 5 December 2 he closed his eyes forever, those eyes that were blessed to see eternity while 3 still on earth. 4x What artistic achievements lie enclosed between these dates! What 5 unimaginable musical concentration enabled this juvenile genius to produce, 36L 259 Folio MOZART AND THE NAZIS 1 within barely ten years, masterly works that seem to be prompted by an effort- 2 less, weightless, never-flagging inspiration! Forty symphonies, thirty-one 3 serenades, twenty-five piano concertos, eight violin concertos, twenty-six 4 string quartets, forty-two violin sonatas, as well as a multitude of vocal and 5 instrumental works flowed from his pen, along with his operas that decisively 6 determine the repertoire of our theatres to this day. It is almost as though a 7 god sat behind him in order to lend wings to his hand in view of his 8 impending end. 9 More than to anyone the dictum that being German means being clear 10 applies to his work. Mozart unites in himself the most beautiful aspects of 1L German nature. A master of the most perfect musical form he does not 2 confine himself to writing music for the privileged classes or the connoisseurs 3 of artistic music; he is a people’s artist in the best sense of the word. Who still 4 knows today that the tune of the song Üb immer Treu und Redlichkeit comes 5 from him? Its popular spirit lives in his entire music. Many of his arias have 6 passed into the full possession of our people. Mozart’s work falls into a time 7 of political and economic fragmentation of the Reich. Then the artist as a rule 8 lived far from state welfare and participation. No matter how highly he was, 9 at times, honoured in his lifetime, he ended almost unknown in order to enter 20 eternal life through his art. 1 Today the German nation bows before his genius, and with it the whole 2 world. His universal phenomenon represents the culture of the Occident on a 3 unique scale. He belongs to us, but equally he belongs to the world. 4 If today, on the eve of the 150th anniversary of his death, I make myself the 5 spokesman of the German nation, I speak simultaneously in the name of 6 cultural mankind. As a German he is at home everywhere and his tunes will 7 sing and ring as long as the light of the world shines. 8 There is nothing more beautiful on earth than sensing the operation of 9 divinity in the work of a grace-endowed person. With Mozart this supreme 30 pleasure is granted us in prodigal amplitude. Assuring him today of our 1 profound closeness and a gratitude streaming from all the chambers of our 2 hearts is, for us, not only an official duty but a human joy and satisfaction. He 3 belongs to us and will belong to us forever. 4x Tomorrow, when the bells ring out at the hour of his death over the city of 5 Vienna, to which he gave his best years, the whole musical world will be with 36L him. Only a few accompanied him when he was carried to his grave in Folio 260 APPENDIX II pouring rain. Yet he left us more than what was being returned to the womb 1 of his maternal earth: an immortal achievement that will outlast time. His 2 corporeality is gone, no one knows where his bones are bleaching; but his 3 music lives and will continue to live because it has found a place at the safest 4 spot where the sacred possessions of a nation can be preserved: 5 in the hearts of his people.
