(April 4, 2016 at 10:37 am)abaris Wrote: The last stand he took was in 1933 when he tried to prevent jews being fired. In 1933 he became vice president of the so called Reichsmusikkammer, which answered directly to Goebbels. It is virtually undisputed that, together with Richard Strauss, he actively worked on jews not being allowed to perform in Germany.
At the same time, he already had a residence in Luzern and mainly lived there. An offer of the New York Philharmoics he refused to keep working in Nazi Germany. No, he certainly didn't see the irony. He was an opportunist of the first order. Needlessly so, since, as the offer for a position in New York proves, he was famous enough to work and perform virtually everywhere.
Looking up the Reichsmusikkammer, it looks like even there, he and the Nazis didn't see eye to eye. He only lasted a year. While he was still in the position, he actually tried to get Jewish musicians like Yehudi Menuhin, Arthur Schnabel, Arnold Schoenberg, and Carl Flesch, as well as the Jewish members of the Berlin Philharmonic to be recognised by the Nazis. Naturally, this worked out as well as one would have expected. Eventually, he resigned in late 1934 after performing a piece by "Degenerate" composer Paul Hindemith. He refused to join the Nazi party (honestly, more than I can say about some other conductors I admire), refused to conduct the Horst-Wessel-Lied, never did the Hitler salute even when it would have seemed unseemly, and never said or wrote "Heil Hitler," even when writing to Hitler. When the Nazis annexed Austria and put a Nazi flag on the Musikverein, he refused to conduct there until the flag came down. For the record, Strauss only lasted about a year longer before he collaborated with Jewish writer Stefan Zweig on an opera.
He claimed his reason for staying in Germany at the time was to protect German culture from the Nazis, and, honestly, it looks like his actions bore that out. Whenever possible, he did what he could to distance himself from the Nazis, but, of course, never did anything too overt.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.