Music in the Shoah: Timeline


1940 : Berg still in Austria

Music in Time

1929


  • 1939- Alred Rosenberg, Nazi founder, organizes Kampfbund fur Deutsche Kultur, or th e"Combat League for German Culture" whose aim os to rescue Germany from degenerate culture including pornography, the Jews, Bolshevism, the press, atonal music and modern influences like the Bauhaus. Concerts staged, but the Kampfund, or KFDK never gains permanent footing because mostly governed at local level. RMK (Music 'Union' of Reich) declares the goal of erasure of Jewish Arts/Humanites.

    • 1933
  • 1933-100,000 Musicians are registered in Germany, about 1/2 devoted to the Classical Arts.
  • - Bruno Walter, Director of Leipzig Symphony, had concerts cancelled, declared, "threat to public order".

    As early as 1933, Hitler takes office, declares contemporary music, especially atonality, degenerate.

  • 1933-Members of the Berlin Philharmonic receive a 40% Salary cut
  • -1933-38: Top conductors receive about 60,000 marks a years, which by 1938 will increase to 200,000 among the very best and sought after. This is in part due to vacancies left by Jewish artists.
  • - Goldschmidt and Ebert dismissed from State Opera House in Berlin because of Jewishness. Project "Hahnrei" abandoned. Turns to clandestine performances, intending to join the Israeli Philharmonic (then, Palestina Orchestra)
  • 1933, April 20th: Hitler's Birthday Performances by those who will form KFDK; a turning point for the establishment of Wagnerian influence and eminence in the Reich.
  • - 4-12-33 "Culture Chamber Legislation" : corollates with 1st Nazi Party Manifesto on Art: Deutsche Allgemaine Zeitung: Art must be totally utilitarian, for State purposes. Task of the Artist is to " Combat sick & make way for 'healthy " @
  • 1933-by now, 1/5 of all German Musicians belong to the Nazi Party.
  • 1933-Kurt Von Shirach, Baldur's father, is made head of the Wiesbanden Theatre. His daughter, Rosalind and beau, devout party members establish a cell of Nazi control at Berlin German Opera.
  • 1933-Hindemith notes that while the Nazis can only push party membership in music so far, , he says, "the people they are now digging out are all complete mediocrities." Later, due to Goebbel's influence, Party membership becomes an advantage, but cannot save poor musicians.

    • 1934

  • 1934-35 British Jazz Musician, Jack Hylton required to pay 1/4 of earnings to Reich if he wishes to tour Germany. Money is to go to unemployed German Musicians. Goldschmidt: "Variation on a Palestine Shepherd Song"- Piano
  • - Richard Straus, head of RMK thanks Hitler on behalf of German Musicians, for what he describes later as his "enormous" work in declaring musical Reich standards. Primary standard is that Music must have national purpose, and harmony must never be atonal, or without tradition chord theory. Beauty in harmony is to be promoted which are in accord with carnal Reich ideals.

    • 1935

  • 1935-RMK leader, Richard Strauss outlines the qualifications of a Reich Music Director: "good ears, he had to be able to play the piano well, he had to understand the art of singing and he had to comprehend the dynamics of modern opera [especially Strauss']"4 Strauss' purposeful avoidance of Nazi Party criteria and a later veiled protest would result in his resignation.
  • 1935-"culture Orchestras " proliferated, assigned to labor/trade unions, the Wehrmacht which came this year under Hitler's control: the aim was to employ Reich Musicians for the purpose of 're-germanizing' Germany at all political-social levels. "Culture Orchestras" heralded a definitive turn back to Classic German Music with no Jewish or other Western influence.
  • - Anti Jewish protest at Staatstheatre Berlin, when Goldschmidt, already deposed as director is found to be author of Wilhelm Meister: Goering orders it suppressed but it is performed with only author's name suppressed. Goldschmidt interoggated by Goebbels, but because of Goebbel's musical interests, Goldschmidt is warned only to leave counntry. All Manuscripts left with German friend are lost in bombing later in war.
  • 1935-February: Musician's Ball held at Four Seasons Hotel in Munich, funds unemployed musicians.
  • Goebbels funds 'Kunstlerdank", a welfare fund focused on unemployed artists and musicians, heralding a further interest of the State in support and control of artists.
  • 1935-38 Otto Klein unable to find work as a musician despite his reknown. He uses the time to compose "Atlantis" a thinly veiled protest against tyranny in Utopia.
  • 1935-Hitler bans dedications of musical pieces to the Fuhrer, to avoid too many 'politically expedient' pieces and musicians trying to politically gain favor and rank and appointments.

    • 1936

  • 1936-Richard Strauss who was appointed head of RMK, earns 80,000 marks in '36, as top earner. Goldschmidt expatriates to London, teaches Music
  • Valentin Grimm, a clarinetist appointed part-time to Hamburg Pops Opera, receiving only 185 marks. Many other Musicians were unemployed.

    • 1937

    1938

  • -"Entarte" (Degenerate) Musik Exhibition: Principles and policies of "acceptable music" and unacceptable music outlined and exhibited: All Atonal composers and Jewish composers banned including greats such as Mendelssohns (Abraham, Felix, and his sister), Mahler, and Schoenberg and 12-tone row school.
  • -"Our Town is Burning" by Gebirtig. Widely popular song of resistance in Killing Centers & Ghettos.
  • -"Brundibar" written by Krasa, later performed in Terezin. Thinly masked defiance against the Reich's Tyranny.

  • 1938-One Third of the vienna Philharmonic are now registered National Socialists [nazi party members]. Cells such as this here and in Germany increase Nazi control of the Musical arts.
  • - Hindemith leaves Germany in voluntary exile to Switzerland. RMK declares Hindemith degenerate.
  • -Robert Stolz, Composer makes aliyah to Zurich as Austria declared as 'not in existence'. German Copyright Agency, STAGMA told him to return or lose copyrighted material: London agent circumvents blackmail.
  • 1938-The Anschluss, or annexation of Austria, provides an expansion in jobs for Reich Musicians. Jews who had in the 1933 cultural purge fled to Vienna and surrounds faced a second aliyah and loss of positions.
  • 1938-Goebbels, ever a patron of the Arts establishes a base pay for "Culture Orchestras" which from this point on greatly improves the living conditions of employed Musicians. Five competency classes are established, and salaries and pensions are written into German law.
  • 1938-Wolfgang Stumme, Shirach's music director for the Hitlerjugend marks the clear 'nazification' of Music when he states: that German music is an antidote "to dangerous poison threatening the blood."4 -

    • 1939

  • -Membership in RMK required for any Public Performance, hence eliminating Jewish Public Performance.
  • -Rosenberg (Martin) deported to Sachsenhausen Killing Center. Organized clandestine Jewish Choir.

    • 1940

  • - RMK Registry Finalized: Jews on list spotted for deportation.
  • -Hindemith comes to US after several visits previously.

    • 1941

    1942

  • - Mordecai Gebirtig, Author of "Our Town is Burning" dies at Nazi hands in Krakow.
  • - Victor Ullman deported to Terezin 9-8-42. 22 Works, including "Emperor of Atlantis" (not performed until 51 , and "Joan of Arc (Operas). With Krasa, most famous of Terezin Composers.
  • - The Jewish Choir at Sachsenhausen deported to Auschwitz, all die in gas chamber, including Rosenberg.

    • 1943

  • - P. Kaplan dies in Bialystok Ghetto, Composer.
  • - "Heil Sachsenhausen": Sachsenhausen concentration camp, 1943 Lyrics: Aleksander Kulisiewicz & Music: M. Miksne ("Madagaskar," 1938) noted in USHMM archives
    • -

    1944

  • - Pavel Haas, Terezin Composer, dies in Auschwitz 10-17-44.
  • -Victor Ullman murdered at Auschwitz 10-44
  • Goldschmidt appointed as Music Director of BBC German Broadcasting where he broadcasts the "contraband" music of the Jews, banned in Germany to German territory./ By end of the war 22 members of Goldschmidts family, and all early music gone.

    • 1945

  • - Broydo, K. Concert Director in Vilna Ghetto deported to Latvian Killing Center, dies of drowning in Baltic Sea at hands of Nazis.
    • © Elizabeth K. Best PhD; Shoah Education Project (Web)
    FOOTNOTES

    Photo Adapted from: "Conductor": xxxx.