Almost half of the musicians in the Vienna Philharmonic during World War II were members of the Nazi party, and 13 members were driven out for being Jewish or married to Jews.
The world famous orchestra on Sunday published details for the first time about its conduct during the Nazi era after a team of historians was given full access to its archives. The report, currently published only in German on the Philharmonic’s website, came after accusations of a cover-up by the ensemble.
Austria is due to mark the 75th anniversary of its annexation by Nazi Germany on Tuesday.
The historians also confirmed that the orchestra honored a senior member of the Nazi party decades after the end of the war. Baldur von Schirach, a Nazi governor who oversaw the deportation of 65,000 Viennese Jews, was awarded a “Ring of Honor” in the late 1960s, after he was released from Spandau prison in Berlin.
The report identified Helmut Wobisch, a trumpeter who was a member of the Nazi party, as the man who gave Schirach the ring, which was a replacement for one given to him in 1942. Wobisch became a member of the Waffen SS, the Nazi party’s fighting force, and yet he was so successful in hiding his past after the war that he managed to become the orchestra's director in 1953 and even won praise from Leonard Bernstein, the Jewish conductor.
In all, 60 out of 123 members of the Vienna Philharmonic belonged to the Nazi party in 1942 – a much higher percentage than in the broader Austrian population. Only 10 players had to leave the orchestra as a result of their Nazi affiliations after 1945; two returned.
Of the 13 musicians driven out of the orchestra for being Jewish or married to Jews, six died in concentration camps, others were deported, none returned. Another 11 players who were married to Jews lived under constant threat of being expelled, the report says (though the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler was said to have stepped in on their behalf). Some Jewish members also managed to escape.
There are details too on how the orchestra's famous New Year’s Concert began as a Nazi propaganda tool. The concert, which today is broadcast to an audience of more than 50 million in 80 countries, was planned to help promote Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’ desired image of Vienna as a city of “culture, music, optimism and conviviality.”
The orchestra has kept silent about its past for decades. Its chairman, Clemens Hellsberg, wrote a 1992 history titled Democracy of Kings, which was later criticized for not detailing the orchestra’s Nazi links. He has since said that he did not have all of the available documents when he wrote the book.
The report was supported by the orchestra, which commissioned it in the face of mounting criticism on the Internet earlier this year. It was conducted by three historians led by Oliver Rathkolb, a history professor at the University of Vienna.
Weigh in: Has the Vienna Philharmonic been sufficiently transparent? Will these revelations affect your appreciation of their performances? Please leave your comments below.
Photo: Baldur von Schirach at the Nuremberg Trials (in second row, second from right) (Wikipedia Commons)
Comments [22]
I am a Wagnerian romantischer heldentenor and on my fourth solo concert at the Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall, an ALL-WAGNER "WAGNER: THE EPIC AND THE LYRIC," I sang Wagner's Lullaby "Schlafe mein Kind" in that 3 hour long solo concert that so intrigued the audience that they called out for an encore. The Lullaby is so different from Wagner's other works and so melodically beautiful as to rival Brahms' Lullaby, that its reason for being is known to be his own experience as a parent. My singing of Wagner's lullaby "Schlafe mein Kind" was on Thursday, May 28th, 1998 at 8 PM. Long ago at JUILLIARD we students learned of the calming effect of music on the fetus in the womb. HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY !!! If there is one person in anyone's life that all of us love and owe so much of our past and future to it us our moms. Communities and nations on the grand scale that treat the female with equality and respect her abilities to contribute in any job, business or profession and to participate on an equal basis with the males in religion, politics and all matters, those communities and nations ARE THE CIVILIZED ONES. My mom Celia was a lawyer and at her 90th birthday my brother Dr. Ben Lane, a nutritional optometrist, had arranged with the New York Academy of Optometrists at an annual meeting at a famous catering establishment to set aside a room to celebrate her birthday on that very day for a concert which I sang. BEN JONSON, the famous playwright of VOLPONE [I sang the world premiere of the GEORGE ANTHEIL opera VOLPONE based on JONSON's play] wrote the lyrics for DRINK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES and dedicated it to his amour whose name was CELIA. That selection was one popular in our family's menu of choice songs. The concert was an hour long and included Foster's BEAUTIFUL DREAMER, Berlin's ALWAYS, Andrew Lloyd Webber's MEMORY from his Broadway musical CATS and Sigmund Romberg's WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM, all of which were favorites of my mom's. She was an accomplished lawyer, skier and mountain climber and accompanied my dad and brother on our vacation trips skiing, skating and climbing. She lived to reach 95 years, an inspiration to many born on May 22, 1903. Wagner's birthdate , May 22nd 1813, could that partially explain my wagnerian heldentenor? (sic !) In Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium I sang Wagner's complete Wesendonck Lieder in both my ALL-WAGNER concerts on Sunday, JUNE 18th, 1995 and Thursday, MAY 28th, 1998. I am the director of the Richard Wagner Music Drama Institute. Here are my websites where one may download, free, my singing of 37 out of the 100 selections that I have sung in four solo concerts at the Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall by going to Recorded Selections: www.WagnerOpera.com, www.ShakespeareOpera.com and www.RichardWagnerMusicDramaInstitute.com.
Politically and artistically the NAZI -linked membership in Austria and Germany opera companies and orchestras is condoned, but now not accepted for its immorality, was considered essential to those during and immediately before World War 2, as the individuals own concern over their own employment.
HATE is the latest prominent ingredient in theatrical productions on stage and in film and in political campaigns and muck-raking publications and Tv and radio programming. HATE and VIOLENCE appeal to those seeking excitement from sensationalism and catastrophic explosive forms in nature as tsunamis. volcanic action, floods, snowstorms, dust storms and the like and bloody battles and car wrecks and contact sports such as wrestling which usually APPEARS, but ISN'T for real, yet satisfies the venal mindsets. Too many stage directors seeking self aggrandizement by doing the outrageous populate even our most respected opera houses and live theater establishments Although Wagner was an extreme radical antisemite, TANNHAUSER nowhere expresses anything but a Roman Catholic concern for redemption which the Pope refused TANNHAUSER, but his virtuous lover Elizabeth by her sacrifice in her own death achieved for him. The composer Wagner had a Protestant mother and a Jewish father, LUDWIG GEYER, whom the child WAGNER adored. Nonetheless, his competitiveness and professional protocol approach ruled against his own reason and intellect and produced a contemptible blind scorn, a major blemish that thwarted a true view of others. The Germany of today views its ancestral NAZI predecessors as the villains they were. . I am a Wagnerian heldentenor, an opera composer, "Shakespeare" and "The Political Shakespeare" and director of the Richard Wagner Music Drama Institute. Here are my websites where one may download, free, my singing of 37 out of the 100 selections that I have sung in four solo concerts at the Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall by going to Recorded Selections: www.WagnerOpera.com, kennethbennettlane.com, kennethlane.org, www.ShakespeareOpera.com and www.RichardWagnerMusicDramaInstitute.com. Roles that are represented in my singing to be heard on my websites are: Tristan, Siegfried, Goetterdaemmerung Siegfried, Lohengrin, Parsifal, Siegmund, Walther von
Stolzing, Rienzi, Federico, Florestan and, in oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus.
I agree entirely about the vulgarity of the New Year concert. In light of this discussion, its worth reflecting on the politics of its representation.
As a Jew, I am not surprised. However, I feel that if I would ban any Nazi past performer, or Antisemite, I would have to ban too many bigots around. There are many (Chopin, Burl Ives, etc). For me, the night the Berlin Philharmonic played Hatikva, the Israeli National Anthem, in Jerusalem was a night of triumph. The Orchestra that played for Hitler, now played for me, in my Capital, My national Anthem. Antusemites will alway come and go, the music will triumph.
What a surprise! Viennese Nazis! And I thought they were "invaded"!
I suppose that Kurt Waldheim was President as late as the 1990s should have given us a heads up.
Hopefully they will put an end to that vulgar New Year's Day concert.
Support of totalitarianism should never be excused whether or not "great music" was performed.
Well, I admit that perhaps my analogy was not the best, but my point is that we should not let our appreciation of great music be affected by the political views of the performers.
Is that last analogy a sound one? What if a prestigious American orchestra turned out to have been a supporter of Al-Qaeda?
To Carol from NY:
You are exactly correct! Our own country has done some things that we can't be proud of. Should people refuse to listen to recordings of American orchestras just because the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or invaded Iraq? That seems pretty ridiculous to me.
Well, I and many of my friends protested greatly about going to war with Iraq, destroying homes and a country, killing civilians, men women and children, but what could I have done about it? What?
To Madison from Manhattan:
The Catholic Church was never pro-Nazi; in fact, the Catholic Church was among the first voices to speak out against the Nazis and their policies. Many Catholics, especially priests and religious, suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Pope Pius XII and the Church helped to save many Jewish people from the concentration camps, and after the war, the chief Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism, taking the Pope's given name, Eugenio, as his baptismal name.
And let's leave politics out of music!
These revelations are not surprising. Consider that the beautiful, historic churches in central Vienna contain many plaques commemorating one or another Austrian military battalion deployed during WW II! Evidently parishioners and clergy viewed them to be serving in the spirit of Jesus Christ ... totally appalling.
Talent, inspiration, creativity (and the rest) are in themselves residually political formations/formulations. My point, in part, is that regarding music as some kind of pure, transcendent, realm makes it available more than ever for political exploitation and deployment.
Peter Rawlings
Bristol UK
RobertBarroHrabia...
Catholics didn't suffer at all under the nazis because they were Catholics. Some,very few,suffered because they engaged in anti-nazi activity. The Catholic Church from early on was pro-Nazi. The Bavarian Centrist(Catholic) Party provided the necessary votes to create the position of Führer in the last free Reichstag election . Immediately afterwards, the Vatican became the first power on earth to give diplomatic recognition to this Führer- led Nazi regime.As for the Viennese,as someone said a long time ago, they've managed to convince the world that Hitler was German and Beethoven was Austrian.
This article fails to ask the question, "What is the future direction of the Vienna Philharmonic in light of this revelation?" OK, you were in bed with the Nazis. What are you going to do now? The past can't be changed but it can be learned from. Transparency will be acheived when the VP realizes that changes to its practices (for example, the hiring of musicians) must be made to separate itself from this checkered past.
Peter Rawlings from Bristol, UK, I honestly am bothered with what you said about music and polictics mainly because its true. But is it more about talent and character than music and politics.
This article fails to ask the question, "What is the future direction of the Vienna Philharmonic in light of this revelation?" OK, you were in bed with the Nazis. What are you going to do now? The past can't be changed but it can be learned from. Transparency will be acheived when the VP realizes that changes to its practices (for example, the hiring of musicians) must be made to separate itself from this checkered past.
Peter Rawlings from Bristol, UK, I honestly am bothered with what you said about music and polictics mainly because its true. But is it more about talent and character than music and politics.
I find this incredibly shocking and it certainly explains a lot about the orchestra today, which has only 6 women among its ranks, no Asians, blacks or Hispanics and little evidence that it's trying to change. I've long avoided their Carnegie Hall concerts because of their policies; now I wonder about even listening to their old recordings. If I put on Bruno Walter conducting Vienna in the 40s or 50s, it's now clear that I'm listening to a bunch of Nazis. Of course, those musicians are all dead but it still makes me uneasy to be celebrating their accomplishments today.
How can anyone honestly be surprised by these so called "revelations?" Didn't we always know? Really? And why this "transparency" now after 70 years? Is it because those who experienced the full impact of "Die Deutche Kultur" by the hands of an Austrian Fuhrer are long dead?
The over-representation of Nazi party members in the orchestra is significant: it serves to remind is that music and its performance cannot be free of politics and may even operate to cloak that reality.
Finally,the truth comes out!What else is hidden in O"sterreich?Lenny Bernstein brought MAHLER,back to Wein und die Welt!As a Jew living in New Brunswick,NYC area,am always apalled by the secrecy of nazis and their sympathsizers.Most Jews&Catholics in Hungary,Poland,Germany,&Austria, suffered incredibly!A tribute&recognition of these performers in way of a plaque with promenient leaders&officials of the government of O"sterreich/Austria and the city of Wien/Vienna should be in attendence, along with government officials from Israel and the living musicians and their families!FEAR&TERROR IS DEVASTING TO LIVE UNDER,FOREVER in OUR HEARTS
In the photo of the current VPO, I counted 6 "elected" women members. I wonder if that exceeds the number of Jewish members, if any.
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