Freies Musikzentrum e. V.

München

Freies Musikzentrum e.V. • Ismaninger Straße 29 • 81675 München

Music and NS
»Münchner Kontrapunkte«

»The educational ideal of the new state is, as its political ideal, totality«
Erich Valentin, 'Musikgeschichte als Bildungsfaktor' 1935, cit. E. Klee 'Kulturlexikon zum III Reich'

»People, German people, who up to now, be it with the justification that music could be beneficial
only for a select few, be it by the wrong organisation of the musical industry, have been deprived of
all the noble values which are the personal property of all Germans without exception, have gotten to
know the miracles of the great […] The unity of art and politics, of music and nation: here it is!«
Erich Valentin, 'Musik und Volk', Völkischer Beobachter Wien, Nr. 171, 4. September 1938

In 1953, Valentin became Professor of the Munich University of Music, 1963-72 he was its Director.

»The 'supranational‘ language of music […] becomes a bridge between nations, a spiritual ligament
that twines around the millions of Europe […], ties them together in a […] community of fate«
Waldemar Rosen, Foreign Advisor, Ministry of Propaganda, 'Jahrbuch der deutschen Musik', 1943

»Today I don't do this anymore, but some years ago –: When I was down a bit, not depressive, but
down somehow, then I always automatically sang Nazi songs; and immediately all was firm and
straight again … It has been a good medicine for me. Because these songs have been injected into
me like a drug. You know, when you take heroin, it remains a whole year in your bloodstream. And
when you have been brought up under the Nazis, these Nazi songs remain twenty, thirty years in
your head.«
Tomi Ungerer in an interview with Judith Prieberg-Mohrmann for 'Hessischer Rundfunk' at January 6th,
1981. The interview was never broadcasted because it was held to be »too denuding«. (Fred K. Prie-
berg, 'Musik im NS-Staat‘)

An argument for action

This paper tries to present an argument for a long-term international musical project whose aim is to
use the Nazi past not only as starting point for a deeper understanding of the political dimensions of
music for the sake of our present and future, but to contribute to healing and reconciliation, to the ef-
fort of coming to terms with said past as well.

Freies Musikzentrum e. V. München • gemeinnütziger Verein • VR 9654 • Geschäftsführer Felix Büchner

Telefon +49 (89) 41 42 47 40 • Fax +49 (89) 41 42 47 60 • fbuechner@freies-musikzentrum.de
The setting: It's our turn

It's time for a fresh start. We need a new effort to come to terms with the past.

The past is not over. Until today, we, all of us, whether the descendants of Nazi victims or perpetra-
tors, are still suffering in many ways seen and unseen, from the vast catastrophe of the Holocaust. Our
children continue to bear this burden too, as will generations to come.

Past generations struggled with the task of coming to terms with the Nazi past. Whatever the results,
we should be grateful and learn. But now it is time for the next generation to undertake a new ap-
proach, to take a new road; winding and meandering maybe, up hill for sure, but still a road that helps
to bring about a common future for all the people still suffering from one common, past cause.

Our generation as a whole needs to realize that the entire work has to be done again. This is felt not
only in this country – as was clearly shown in the play »Third Generation« (a co-production of the
Habimah Theatre Tel Aviv and the Schaubühne Theatre Berlin; March 2009 in Berlin), where young
Israeli, Palestine and German actors, divided by their history, yet united by their age, attempt a joint
progress towards the ends of a common future.

One might say, the work has to be continued, not done again; we claim that this, in the end, comes to
the same thing. The time will surely come when we will have to step aside and let our children tackle
this task, with their means. But for now, it's our turn.

The consequences that have been handed down the generations are different from the ones that ex-
isted 30 or 60 years ago. The people are different; the knowledge, the means, the limitations; and
the problems themselves are different – since the consequences have fathered fresh consequences
over and over again. This includes to some extent the Israel - Palestine conflict where we all, specifi-
cally including Germans of today, have the duty to do our utmost to find, and put into action, effective
ways to contribute to a peace process.

If we fail to do so, the fourth generation, already with waning or no interest, will not come to realize
that some day it will be their turn. If we do not show results, results that matter today, how can we
expect them to continue tomorrow?

This is nothing new: It is a description of the transgenerational process of handing down a problem so
big that no one alone is able to cope with it. One works on it as much as one can and then bequeaths
it onto the next of kin – who will have to tackle it afresh.

So, in fact, this is nothing ground-breaking, it is a simple thing.

Except that it is a lot of work. It requires energy, vision and dedication; at the same time it calls for a
whole lot of humility. We need not explain why. As Brian Klug has said: »It is an imperative. For, if
this work – slow, hard, painful, dangerous, uplifting, demoralizing, rewarding, liberating – does not
continue to progress, what hope is there for the generations to come? There is work to be done.«

The entire effort has to be carried out in many fields. Music is the field where we can contribute our
share, so here we focus: Coming to terms with the musical past; for our generation and the next.

Our goal: Reconcile with the musical past, evolve the musical future
Nazi Germany in its comparatively short span of existence managed to usurp music by functionaliza-
tion so thoroughly that music as an animated element of culture was practically destroyed: only what
served a specific purpose was allowed to exist.

The first reaction after the war – to remove music out of the political sphere altogether – may be par-
tially understood as a backlash against that functionalization. And after 1945, there were many peo-
ple acutely motivated to promote the notion of music as pure art.

»Münchner Kontrapunkte« Seite – 2 –

»There was no zero hour. This is an invention of certain historians. Everything went on as before,
only with more or less marked disguise. A good example is Karajan’s lie about his joining the
NSDAP.«
(Fred K. Prieberg in an interview with Tilman Jens for »3sat« at March 9th, 2005)

This part of the past is not over and is has dangerous consequences, which is why we need to act.

Until today, it is the widely prevalent perception, that music, specifically classical music, is pure art,
has no place, must not have a place in politics: Music is apolitical.

Moreover, music is believed to be inherently good. It builds bridges between the Nations, it conveys
universal messages of human understanding and it brings about peace: Music cannot harm.

But this is wrong. No other cultural expression equals music in its power to move, motivate and con-
vey – whatever it is designed to convey. In consequence, no other art form has been, at different times
and places, so thoroughly functionalized by the manipulative powers of repression and destruction,
by all forces that stand against the very idea of humanity in their quest for absolute domination. While
this is true for most dictatorships, past or present, the Nazis set a breathtakingly cruel and complete
example (whose specific dimensions we will outline in more detail in the next section).

This example shows clearly that, in reality, music is a very political element of culture, possibly even
the one with the biggest power to move people.

However, the contrast between public perception and reality is so big and has been hardly noticed for
such a long time, that it can be likened to a psychological repression at the scale of an entire society.

Nearly every day, we read phrases like »Music builds bridges«, written by the most educated people,
agreed by nearly everybody – while we ought to know that music does not bring about peace and
understanding; instead, it has the potential to do so – just as it has the potential to do the exact op-
posite.

This fundamental misapprehension is no longer acceptable and we need to progress. Otherwise we

remain helpless in front of any »repeat performance«, because the basic mechanisms which the
Nazis put to their use work for everybody at any time. To counteract, they must be publicly understood.

If we believe that the values of freedom, democracy and respect for human dignity are not to be taken
for granted, but to be worked for constantly, then we need to realize in full that there does exist a
musical arena where those same values are at stake. And we need to recognize that in this arena work
has to be done over a long time, in the form of a concentrated, well-structured effort.

Without real work we will stand helpless – intellectually and practically – when confronted by attacks
on our values that occur in the field of music, be they conducted subtly or openly, consciously or not.

Without this, we forgo important chances to understand and counteract fresh threats to our societies
by groups that again functionalize music for their political aims – for example today's many neo-Nazi
rock bands.

Today, this work has still not been done to an acceptable extent. Not only did the Nazis set a cruel and
complete (and thus instructive) example, but the consequences of that era are still very much alive.

Therefore, an integral part of this project is to give back a voice to the many silenced composers,
musicians and singers of the time, be they Jewish or not; then to expand the focus from that starting
point towards the post-war reception of music in Israel and Germany – the »new« forms as well as the
»old« ones – including Jazz which had been widely defamed as »Entartete Musik«.

Other consequences are visible in the musical taboos and bans that exist in Germany and Israel. For
example, in the reception of Wagner's music (keeping in mind that while Wagner himself was anti-
Semitic, his music is not); in the fact that German folk songs and music – formerly an evolving part of
popular everyday culture in this country – have been frozen or else have nearly vanished altogether; in
the fact that in Germany in the classical area, a similar situation exists in that »new (classical) mu-
sic« plays a very small role; and in many other ways.

»Münchner Kontrapunkte« Seite – 3 –

In order to progress, we need to focus on music in all of its many societal and political contexts, study
the musical Nazi past in all its dimensions, and fully explore the aspects and mechanisms of func-
tionalization in music.

While the next section of this paper will come to the dimensions of the past and their reflections into
the present in more detail, some further general words seem in order.

In the past decades, some new, helpful sciences have evolved. Amongst other important »tools« that
are today at our disposal there is psychology, including the relatively recent music therapy as the
branch of the psychological science that studies, and puts to use, the interactions between music
and man.

Another tool is – music itself. With the broad public in view, limiting our work purely to studying
music would mean falling short of our aims. When music is at the centre of our attention, what better
means are there to convey the perspectives of this comprehensive project than music itself? By doing
so, we will »use« music ourselves, fully conscious of the political dimension of music – use it to
make audible, to make felt, to move, to reach out.

All the perspectives of music cannot, of course, be transported by musical means only. Other means
we want to employ encompass lectures, talks, exhibitions, symposiums, publications and theatre.

This is the long-term goal of this project:

Promote a much deeper understanding of the political dimensions of music for the sake of our present
and future; at the same time, to contribute to healing and reconciliation, to the effort of coming to
terms with the past.

The dimensions:
Remembrance, documentation … and beyond

The recollection of the NS crimes and the remembrance of their victims are becoming increasingly
difficult because the distance from the events is growing, day by day. The actual facts are fading from
the spotlight. Contemporary witnesses, able to tell about the time before 1945, are becoming rare.
For many, the inner distance to the NS time is increasing as well. This can be ascribed in no small part
to a interference of (public) memory by instrumentalisation, functionalization and relativization.
The stiff bodice of a ritualized culture of remembrance prevents »true« concern, which amounts to
more than the sentiment of a moment, but instead asks for an active debate about the mechanisms of
the NS regime – which partially are working until this day.
In this sense, the scientific documentation and the process of coming to terms with the NS era must
never be an end itself; they need to allow and invite personal empathy and at the same time sharpen
the analytical view for the larger problem.

Music, NS … and Munich

Why should music be at the centre of our work? It’s not that there will be any spectacular discoveries,
as when old Nazi bunkers are excavated; the challenge lies in exposing other fundamentals of Na-
zism: music is always part of the encompassing history. Each and every musical phenomenon is part
of a specific fabric that is constituted by the economic and social conditions, the ruling powers and
public regulations, the involvement and role apprehension of the respective protagonists.
Furthermore music, more than any other art, is able to influence our emotions directly – an entirely am-
biguous property.
In our work we shall relate music directly to the mechanisms of the NS and thus to extinction and ex-
clusion, conditioning and aesthetic configuration. The musical structures, processes and events and
the possibilities for their representation are similarly multi-faceted. This specifically includes the
areas of musical culture that are either overlooked from the usual view from above or are being inten-
tionally excluded from the panorama.

»Münchner Kontrapunkte« Seite – 4 –

For Munich, the city of art and the former »Capital of the Movement« – rather a paradoxical mix – the
»Münchner Kontrapunkte« are designed to open multiple views into the past as well as into the pres-
ent and the future. Starting from the documentary perspective, they cover vertical and horizontal di-
mensions and lead to multiple categories for a comprehensive musical project.

Jewish music
music of Jewish composers

Exclusion Music and
working-class movement
middle classes
Identity
new music
»New« music

Music and
inner emigration
outer emigration
Exile

Music and KZ music as torture
musical resistance

Conditioning
Extinction

State and »entartete« music
»artige« (well-behaved) music

Music reactionary modernisation
modernised reaction

Nation and
cultural identification
ideological infiltration
Music

War and
Aesthetic configuration mobilisation
transcendence
Music

»Münchner Kontrapunkte« Seite – 5 –

Music and Identity

The Nazis needed only twelve years to completely rewrite musical history. Decrees, bans and
»laws« effectively excluded Jewish as well as politically-unwanted musicians and »modern«
composers from the musical life of the NS nation. Quickly, they found their opus defamed as
»entartet«, their interpretive power as denigrated as their pedagogical work.
Thus it is imperative to integrate at least the defamed opus into today's musical life as far as
possible.
The aim is not to »redress« (Habermas), but no longer to deprive those works of the critical
judgement and the aesthetic discussion of a democratic general public.

Music and Exile

In the face of the “real and present danger” after 1933, for most Jewish and/or critical musicians
the only viable road was emigration (e. g. Hanns Eisler, Arnold Schönberg). Those who remained
in Germany were forced to adjust to the political situation. Some retreated into inner emigration
and clandestinely practiced composing as an act of opposition (Karl A. Hartmann). Those who
continued, or wanted to continue, to be part of the public musical life, often wavered between
active participation in, (pre-emptive) following of and chumminess to the NS cultural politics.
Each of these stances and biographical paths leaves traces in the compositions; traces which
need to be sounded out in this context.

Music and KZ

Listening to music and making music were part of the everyday life in the KZ – hardly consistent
with the traditional, idealized conception of music. Music often served the perpetrators as a
means to break their victims psychologically or physically.
On the other hand, music, as self-determined activity and thus as a means to cultural opposi-
tion, yielded hope and courage to the prisoners, or at least facilitated mental escape from the KZ
daily routine.
The various forms, functions and contexts of music and making music in concentration camps
are to be documented and analyzed; with a view beyond the camps, encompassing similar situa-
tions where music is practiced between bestiality and humanity.

»Münchner Kontrapunkte« Seite – 6 –

State and Music

The fact that music was given a central role in the NS may be motivated with the universal »ap-
plicability« of music. After the »Entartete Musik« had been swept out, chiefly those measures
were planned in the musical industry of the »Third Reich« that were apt to promote »arteigene
Musik« (music which is characteristic for a species, or here, race). These measures however
did not create »new« music in Goebbels' sense of a »steely romanticism«, but led to the wide-
spread appearance of »artiger« (well-behaved) music in demand by the masses, including the
ideological seizure of non-Nazi music (such as Beethoven, Bruckner) plus their labelling based
on biologistic criteria (»Music and Race«).
On the other hand, party enactments (of course with music as substrate) showed quite modern
features with their large repertoires of symbolic-expressive, choreographic, mass-
communicative and architectonic means of expression. Thus the NS frequently is both result and
expression of an encompassing crisis of modernisation at the same time – the fascist politicisa-
tion of music as »Nazification« here is only a particular form of politicisation and shows both
traditionalist and modernist features.

Nation and Music

Music for the people and music by the people – often not easily differentiated by aesthetical
means – their respective functions put them between cultural identification and ideological in-
filtration. Even if popular music principally was (is) particularly suitable for instrumentalization
by the reactionary-conservative part of the society, its role within the NS cannot be determined
unambiguously.
Especially the Bavarian folk music movement on one hand experienced an enormous boom (with
the slogan »Bavaria our home, Germany our homeland«), but on the other hand it had to submit
itself under the NS cultural propaganda. Many leading characters of the folk music scene ac-
cepted the new political situation and complied with the new circumstances (e. g. Cesar Bres-
gen, Tobi Reiser). Others recognized the consequences and withdrew – as for example Kiem
Pauli – or ultimately put up resistance (Kurt Huber).

War and Music

To mobilize an entourage by military music is customary down the ages – during the NS too, of
course. How the NS used music shows clearly that it does by no means follow only immanent,
aesthetic laws, but that it was instead a highly political matter, even »kriegswichtig« (of stra-
tegic importance). From 1939 on, the immediate effect of music onto the human mind was »op-
timized« by the NS and targeted primarily at the home front. War propaganda reached the
masses chiefly by broadcast radio, whose musical request programmes often served as a link to
and support element for the war front. In this context, music was not used as a crude incitement
to battle, instead it appears often as transcendence of war reality by evocations of better times in
the sense of solace and distraction (»There will be a miracle some day …«).

»Münchner Kontrapunkte« Seite – 7 –

Summary
While music has been a very important factor in the Nazi regime, the process of coming to terms
with this leaves very much to be desired.

Both for the aims of reconciliation and societal progress, it is high time to start a long-term pro-
ject that explores the manifold dimensions of music in its interaction with society and man; to
the end of making true progress possible by reaching out to the general public, including by the
means of music itself.

While Freies Musikzentrum e. V. alone would be unable to accomplish this project, it could part-
ner on an institutional basis with the NS Documentation Center Munich in this regard.

Preliminary working group

Prof. Dr. Dorit Amir, Professor for Music Therapy, Tel Aviv
Dr. Sonja Neumann, Musicologist, Munich
Dr. Monika Nöcker-Ribaupierre, Secretary General EMTC, Chair Freies Musikzentrum, Munich
Alexandra Senfft, Publicist, Hamburg
Felix Büchner, CEO Freies Musikzentrum, Munich
Prof. Peter-Michael Hamel, Professor for Composition and Music Theory, Hamburg
Dr. Brian Klug, Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy, Oxford
Prof. Moshe Zuckerman, Professor for History and Philosophy, Tel Aviv

Prof. Dr. Tonius Timmerman, Professor for Music Therapy Augsburg (pending)

Further contribuents include

Peter Stangel, Composer, Conductor, Die Taschenphilharmonie
Sonia Simmenauer, Impresariat Simmenauer (pending)

Authors
Dr. Sonja Neumann, Felix Büchner

»Münchner Kontrapunkte« Seite – 8 –