Types of Music Banned During the Shoah1

  1. Jazz, Blues & American [sic]"Negro" Music3-4

    Jazz was seen as degenerate and lacking form. Jazz and Blues were also seen by the Nazis as associated with "Negro" music, who were seen as racially inferior to the Aryans. Ironically, though, there was a band called Charlie's Orchestra under the sponsorship of the Reich which was to be used in propagandizing the West. Jazz was seen as degenerate partly because of the Nazi's perception that American Jews were behind the music. It was also equated with low-morals, the most objectionable type was swing. Those caught at 'swing' parties could be incarcerated in Nazi Germany as it was seen as corrupting youth.5

  2. All Music of Jewish Origin
    (e.g. Mahler, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, etc.)1,3-4

    All Jewish Art was immediately censored and segregated as soon as the Nazis took office. In 1933, immediate restrictions went into place removing Jewish professors and artists from University and government offices. A Reichsmusikammer, or Reich Music Chamber was established for the

  3. American Popular Music3

    American popular music was seen as perhaps not degenerate, but superficial and unworthy. American songs were often parodied by the Germans, for example "Stormy Weather" was rewritten into a song about Churchill beign incompetent.

  4. All Music with English Words3

  5. All Music with no Melody and Only Rhythm3

  6. All 12-Tone-Row Music (e.g. Schoenberg) & Atonal Music1-4

  7. Music Deemed Demoralizing to War Cause 3

  8. All Music not in Line with Reich Views and Morale3

Note 1Mozart's Requiem was censored on Radio for this reason [date]; declared too somber and having the possibility of demoralizing the German people.
1Art & the Holocaust
2Music in Terezin
3Boelke, Ed.: The Secret Conferences of Goebbels;

4Baker, Ed.Baker's Biographical Encyclopaedia of Musicians: G. Schirmer, Publ. 1965; 1984.;

5Charlie and his Orchestra Swing music as Nazi propaganda; on Kessler's Interesting Thing of the Day
6Sturm und Swing