Silenced Voices — Music Banned by the Nazis
Viktoria Hertling

On November 15, 1936, three years after Hitler came to power, the New York Times reported in a brief item that the statue of Felix Mendelsohn, which stood in front of the Gewandhaus — the prestigious German concert hall in Leipzig — had been destroyed. This violent action by the Nazis clearly signaled that from now on music by composers of Jewish faith or tradition would no longer be performed in opera houses and concert halls. The great compositions of Felix Mendelsohn, Salomon Sulzer, Jaques Offenbach, Gustav Mahler, Max Bruch, Arnold Schönberg, and many others were to be forever silenced throughout the Third Reich and Nazi-occupied Europe.

Along with this prohibition came the systematic expulsion of Jewish musicians from concert halls and opera houses. The banishment of “Jewish music” actually began in early March 1933, just six weeks after Hitler’s seizure of power. Bruno Walter, one of Germany’s most beloved and renowned conductors, had just returned to Berlin after a successful concert tour in the United States. Walter was informed that “certain difficulties” would arise should he decide to follow through with his scheduled guest appearance in the Leipzig Gewandhaus. The local Nazis had threatened to disrupt his concert — possibly by using explosives.

By that time, a number of prominent German intellectuals and artists had already opted for exile and had left the country. The writers Heinrich Mann and Bertolt Brecht, and the movie star Marlene Dietrich were among the early exiles, even though they were not Jewish. But the majority of Germans believed that National Socialism would be short-lived; and they hoped for a quick return to political normalcy.

In Leipzig, in spite of the threats, the management of the Gewandhaus decided to go ahead with Bruno Walter’s concert. But a few hours before the doors opened, the Saxon Ministry of the Interior banned the performance. In his memoir, Theme and Variations, Walter recalls that as he walked back to his hotel, he gazed at the “noble edifice,” of the Gewandhaus, “whose entrance had for so many years been appropriately adorned by the statue of Felix Mendelsohn. I fetched my luggage from the hotel … and rode to the station. … Saddened by what had happened and apprehensive of what might be in store for me, I went back to Berlin.”

A few days later, Walter was to conduct a concert in Berlin’s Philharmonic Hall. Again, he was “advised” — this time by Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda — to cancel the performance in order to avoid “unpleasant occurrences.” What the Nazis meant by that, the world was to find out a few days later, on April 1, 1933.

On that day, the Nazis boycotted Jewish stores, defaced the storefronts of Jewish-owned businesses, and publicly blackmailed those who continued to shop in stores owned by Germans of Jewish faith. The world was stunned but did not intervene. Most politicians hoped that the “problem” was a temporary one and would eventually “evaporate.” But things only got worse. On May 10, 1933, the Nazis staged a public burning of books by such authors as Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Heinrich Heine, Thomas Mann, Ernest Hemingway, and Helen Keller.

From that point on, each week and each month brought further anti-Jewish decrees. Thousands of civil servants, lawyers, prosecutors, university professors, journalists, physicians, actors, and filmmakers were affected. Eventually, Jews were robbed of their livelihood and their right to be German citizens. Focusing here on just one professional group — musicians — we can note that between 1933 and 1939 more than 1500 soloists, conductors, concert masters, singers, members of orchestras, and musicologists were expelled from stages and teaching positions throughout Germany and Austria because they were Jewish. Many simply left, shielding themselves from the hostile climate.

The ramifications of this forced migration were enormous. Europe lost thousands of its best artistic and intellectual minds. For the United States, however, a country that provided refuge to many of the persecuted, the arrival of European intellectuals and artists meant a tremendous enrichment. The distinguished cultural elite made a decisive mark on American institutions of higher learning, and redefined them in terms of research and teaching. Fields such as education, publishing, psychology, science and technology, architecture, social science, filmmaking and the arts flourished as the European émigrés left their imprint. These disciplines would never be the same again.

But though this process was of decisive benefit to the United States as a whole, for the individual émigré, being in exile often meant a marked decline in social status and a serious loss of identity. Only the most prominent and illustrious among them — such as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Marc Chagall, Bruno Bettelheim, Walter Gropius, Rudolf Serkin, Erich Leinsdorf, Lotte Lehmann, Otto Klemperer, Franz Werfel, Bruno Walter, and the Nobel laureate for literature Thomas Mann, were able to assume commensurate standing in the United States. The majority of the newly arrived émigrés faced a well-meaning, but largely untutored, public that was unaware of the recognition they had enjoyed in Europe. “How do you spell your name?” — one of the most frequently-asked questions — was to Bertolt Brecht a painful reminder that in the United States he no longer belonged to the cultural elite.

The difficulties émigré musicians faced in finding employment is poignantly expressed in a letter by the composer Arnold Schönberg — the most prominent representative of modern tonality. On February 26, 1940, Schönberg wrote from Los Angeles to his friend Adolf Rebner, who was himself trying to eke out a living in Cincinnati: “Dear friend, “ he says, “I am happy that you could escape hell. To be sure, after that anything is a kingdom of heaven — however little it looks like that. How much I would like to tell you that I could do something for you … But unfortunately, to my knowledge. … It has become rather difficult to procure positions. There are so many gifted people here, though few of your reputation and ability.”

Even Arnold Schönberg lacked the appropriate recognition and the contacts that could help him secure positions for his former students and associates. The following anecdote further underscores this point. “Ah, Mr. Schönberg,” one American lady is supposed to have exclaimed one morning when meeting the composer on the tennis court. “I know who you are. You are Ronny Schönberg’s father.” [Ronald Schönberg, the composer’s son, was an excellent tennis player]

Nazi Germany not only expelled its Jewish artists
and intellectuals; it also poisoned the intellectual intimacy and closeness of professional associates. In 1932, the German composer Richard Strauss had asked Stefan Zweig, the Austrian poet and novelist of Jewish faith, to write the libretto for his new opera, The Silent Woman. The ensuing relationship between the two men was, according to Zweig, most cordial and harmonious until Zweig learnt about Strauss having assumed the position of president of the official Nazi Reich Music Chamber. “To have the most famous musician of Germany align himself with them at so embarrassing a moment,” Zweig wrote in his memoir The World of Yesterday, meant an “immeasurable gain to Goebbels and Hitler.” Zweig reproached Strauss for his self-serving “art-egotism” that permitted him to remain “inwardly indifferent” and serve evil masters.

Zweig, however, never renounced his principles as a humanist and pacifist. He befriended some of the most important artists and intellectuals of his time — among them Sigmund Freud, Jane Addams, Maxim Gorky, Maurice Ravel, Arturo Toscanini, Romain Rolland, Sholem Asch, Franz Werfel, Ferucci Busoni, Bela Bartok, and Bruno Walter. The price for not courting fascists was high. Zweig faced the immediate loss of his reading public, as well as the loss of royalties from his publications. His most profound loss was that of his spiritual and cultural homeland.

By the time Zweig found refuge in Brazil from Nazi persecution, he considered himself too exhausted to begin a new career in a country whose roots he did not share. On February 22, 1942 — the day of his suicide — Zweig wrote his final lines: “After one’s sixtieth year, unusual powers would be needed in order to make another wholly new beginning. Those that I possess have been exhausted by long years of homeless wandering. … I salute all my friends! May it be granted them yet to see the dawn after the long night! I, all too impatient, go on ahead.”

This “dawn” took another three years to come. The literature that the Nazis tried to ban, the science they tried to suppress, the art they declared “degenerate,” and the music they tried to silence, belong to our most cherished expressions of popular and high culture. And while we pay homage to those who were forced into exile and who, out of desperation, ended their own lives, we also need to commemorate the fate of those who were unable to escape Europe, whose lives were cut short by the murderous force of the Third Reich. Millions of them died without their fate being known or their names being recited. This is yet another horrible way of “silencing.”

Among the many musicians whose voices were silenced are: the baritone and cantor Erhard E. Wechselmann — murdered in Auschwitz; the contralto Magda Spiegel — murdered in Auschwitz; Richard Breitenfeld, a member of the Frankfurt opera ensemble — murdered in Theresienstadt; James Simon, a student of Max Bruch — murdered in Auschwitz; and the composer Viktor Ullmann — murdered in Auschwitz. Ullmann was a student of Arnold Schönberg. As an inmate of Theresienstadt, Ullmann wrote the opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Emperor of Atlantis), a work which had its premier in New York in 1977.

Particularly heart-wrenching is the fate of Gustav Mahler’s niece, Alma Maria Rosé. A student of her father, Arnold Rosé, she was a renowned violinist in her own right. After the annexation of Austria in 1938, Alma Maria Rosé escaped to France. There she was interned and eventually deported to Auschwitz. The orchestra of young female musicians that she founded in Auschwitz is memorialized in Playing for Time, a book written by her surviving assistant conductor, the singer Fania Fénelon.

The special concert by the Argenta Quartet and Friends (November 15, 2001) at the University of Nevada, Reno is a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust whose musical voices were silenced. It is also a celebration of life and spirit, 65 years after the Nazis destroyed the statue of Felix Mendelsohn and began to ban “Jewish music.” The Argenta Quartet and Friends concert on November 15, 2001 will include music by Max Bruch, Ernest Bloch and naturally, by Felix Mendelsohn.
The concert also includes songs by the contemporary composer, Max Raimi, of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Many of Mr. Raimi’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by this orchestra, and we are deeply honored that he will be attending the concert.

(For additional program information and how to purchase tickets, please see our announcements in this newsletter)