NAZIS AND CULTURE

1. NAZIS AND CULTURE • Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, supervised all of Germany’s intellectual and cultural activities • Including music

2. NAZI AESTHETIC • Music should be consciously German • Should not contain foreign influences • It should appeal to the masses • Familiar, tuneful, easy to understand, and serious • Nazi views on music were narrow-minded

3. NAZI POLICY • Nazis despised musical modernism • Especially the music of Jewish composer, Arnold Schoenberg and his disciples • To the Nazis, modern music appealed to elite, cultured audiences and was difficult to understand • Above all, Nazis wanted to remove all Jewish influence from German music

4. ANTI-JEWISH POLICIES • Nazis denied employment to Jewish musicians in German concert halls, opera houses • Allowed anti-Semitic musical propaganda to flourish • Prohibited Jews from holding teaching jobs at musical conservatories • Denied Jews membership in German musical organizations

5. A LITTLE LEEWAY • Nazis allowed Jews to form their own cultural organizations • But the concerts they put on were closed to the general public • Only Jews could attend • Not allowed to perform German works • Felt that Jews would contaminate these works

6. WHAT NAZIS LIKED I • German folk songs • German classical music • Especially music by the “three B’s” (Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, sometimes Aton Bruckner is added to this group) • Also music by Handel and Wagner

7. WHAT NAZIS LIKED II • Clear melody • Consonant harmonies • Steady rhythms • Goal-oriented • Noble, serious tone • Traditional instrumentation • Should not contain foreign influences • Such as jazz instruments or syncopated rhythms

8. FIRST SOUND CLIP • Symphony No. 5 • Beethoven • Style characteristics: • Classical orchestration • Heavy use of strings • Strong, incisive rhythms • Very serious

9. SECOND SOUND CLIP • “Ride of the Valkyries” • Richard Wagner • Style Characteristics • Strong rhythms • Like Beethoven • Take-charge, forward march, battle music • Very serious

10. “DEGENERATE” MUSIC • Name taken from the title of a 1938 exhibition in Dusseldorf • Organized by Goebbels • Translation of the German word “entartete” • Exhibition was a crusade against certain types of music that the Nazis deemed destructive • Consisted of photographs and portraits of specific composers and crude propaganda • Also recordings on gramophone records

11. WHAT THE NAZIS DIDN’T LIKE • Jazz • Other American popular music • Fox-trot and Charleston • Modern, experimental music • Any music written by a Jewish composer

12. NAZIS REALLY HATED THIS STUFF • Nazis especially hated modern, experimental music • Because they believed it was primarily developed by Jewish composers • But this was not true for two reasons • This music was cultivated by such non-Jewish composers as Bela Bartok • Some Jewish composers did write traditional music

13. CHARACTERISTICS • Dissonant harmonies • Clashing, ugly • Atonal • Not tuneful or lyrical • Texts of music are often negative and concern hallucinations and nightmares • Overall effect is shocking, uncomfortable

14. SOUND CLIP 3 • “Nacht” from Pierre Lunaire • By Arnold Schoenberg • About how the moon can drive people crazy • Music is ugly but it reflects the times and the attitude of the intelligentsia

15. SOUND CLIP 4 • Bela Bartok • Despised Nazi policies on music and was forced to flee Hungary • “Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta” • 1938 • Style Characteristics • Dissonance • Unusual instrumentation • High range of instruments • Music was used in soundtrack of “The Shining”

16. NAZI TREATMENT OF MODERN COMPOSERS • Their works were censored and banned from concert halls • Most were sent to camps or forced to emigrate • Many had a hard time making a living in the U.S. • Bartok forced to flee to US in 1940 and lived in New York just above the poverty line • Schoenberg lost teaching job in Berlin and settled in California. • Had short-term teaching jobs at UCLA and USC

17. NAZI IDEOLOGY AND MUSIC I • Was narrow-minded and repressive • Only “German” music by German composers could be heard and played • Considered any foreign influence as a threat to the purity of German culture • Hated any Jewish influence • And therefore isolated Jewish music activity • Removed all Jewish works from concert programs • Prohibited collaboration between Jews and “Aryans”

18. NAZI IDEOLOGY AND MUSIC II • Nazis espoused music that was tuneful, pleasing, and that had strong, vigorous rhythms • And therefore abhorred much modern music • Because it was harsh and unmelodic • Thought it was subversive, difficult to understand, and written largely by Jews • even though much of it was actually written by non-Jews such as Richard Strauss

19. FLAWS Nazi ideology on music was full of inconsistencies and contradictions • There was no such thing as pure German music and Jews and non-Jews alike wrote modern music

20. DISTORTED VIEW OF HISTORY • Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn rediscovered music of German composer, J.S. Bach • Nazis tried to “Aryanize” Handel’s oratorios • Claimed he really wanted to write oratorios based on Nordic legends but his English audiences did not know about them • Also erased Jewish words from Handel’s texts Handel

21. MUSIC IN THE CAMPS • Many camps allowed music • Auschwitz-Birkenenau • Terezin • Also had theatrical productions, lectures, poetry readings, and sports activities • The Warsaw, Lodz, and Vilna ghettos

22. TEREZIN • Had greatest number of musical organizations • Because it was “model” camp designed to show outside world that Jews were treated well • just a stopping off place for victims going to the extermination camps • Because a large number of prominent Jews were sent there • Including famous musicians and members of intelligentsia • Because it was huge • Had space needed to mount musical productions

23. TEREZIN: THE REALITY • 140,000 people sent to Terezin between 1941 and 1945 • 33,000 died there from disease • 87,000 sent to Auschwitz • Where 95% of them perished

24. WHY MUSIC? • Way of keeping inmates calm • Viewed as creative outlet for inmates • Nazi view was “let them have their fun—tomorrow they are going to die” • Therefore allowed instruments and sheet music to be smuggled in

25. TYPES OF CAMP MUSIC • Auschwitz had two symphonic orchestras • One for men and one for women • Warsaw ghetto had an orchestra • Terezin had a jazz band called “Ghetto Swingers” • Marching bands • Chamber music ensembles • Variety shows, caberets, choruses, operas • Music education for children

26. TREATMENT OF CAMP MUSICIANS • Were lucky compared to other prisoners • Excluded from manual work • Resented by other prisoners • But did not have lives of luxury • Half-starved and always in fear of SS dismantling their ensembles and sending back with other prisoners

27. REASONS FOR CAMP MUSIC • To show that the musical style of camp music was often experimental • Contained dissonance and foreign influence • To show that much of this music was personal • Depicted life in the camps and feelings of intense pain, hopelessness, and sadness

28. OLIVIER MESSIAEN • Wrote “Quartet for the End of Time” in 1941 • One of France’s most prominent young composers • Born in 1908, died in 1998 • Was not Jewish but was a devout Catholic • Joined army in 1939 • Captured by Germans has he was trying to escape on old bicycle • Imprisoned in Gorlitz, Silesia

29. MESSIAEN AGAIN • Quartet was written while Messaien was in prison • Scored for four instruments • Violin, cello (only had 3 strings), clarinet, and piano • First performed on January 15, 1941 to an audience of 5000 prisoners • Eight movements to the piece

30. SOUND CLIP 5 • Movement 2 is a musical depiction of death and the afterlife • Two parts • End of the world as we know it • Depicted as a cataclysm • Eternity • Sounds spooky • No sense of progression

31. KAREL BERMAN • Jewish Czech composer born in 1920 • Sent to Terezin in 1943 • Already an established singer, conductor, and composer • Later sent to Kauffering and then Auschwitz • Wrote “Suite for Piano” between 1938-1945 • Autobiographical • Not recorded until 1984 • Eight movements

32. SOUNDCLIPS 6, 7, 8 • FAMILY HOME • Starts off and ends tuneful and childlike • Middle is more intense and expressive • AUSCHWITZ CORPSE FACTORY • Starts of soft, then picks up to be very harsh and ugly (sounds barbaric and monstrous) • Contains factory elements: musically repetitive, mechanical, and heartless • TYPHUS • Inspired by typhus outbreak in April 1945 which left prisoners under strict quarantine for two weeks • Music sounds erratic

33. SUMMARY I • Musicians in camps were ordered to play certain styles of music • Like band and symphonic music • Were not allowed to play German music • Because Nazis felt they would contaminate great German masterpieces

34. SUMMARY II • There is not one type of original music written at the camps • Experimental music dominated • But some, like Gideon Klein, wrote old-fashioned music • Most wrote experimental music that gave an autobiographical depiction of life in the camps • Such as Karel Berman and Olivier Messiaen

35. SCHOENBERG • Never imprisoned in a camp but has left us one of the moving and emotional reenactments of the prisoners last moments • “A Survivor from Warsaw” • Composed in 1949 • Based on accounts of the Nazi’s treatment of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto

36. LAST SOUND CLIP • Essentially a traumatic story • Sounds as if the speaker has half-forgotten the events • He is obsessed by what has happened to him • Recalls the Nazi’s brutal screaming • Ends with a chorus of men singing “ShemaYisroel,” the command to love God as they are put to death