Читать книгу Two Worlds of Music - Berta Geissmar - Страница 15

Table of Contents

That spring, as usual, the Berlin Philharmonic had an extensive1933 foreign tour in prospect, the first during the Nazi régime. It was to take us through several German towns, then to France, and finally to Switzerland, and was to begin on April 22, 1933.

At the outset of the Hitler régime all foreign travel had been banned and a special exit permit had to be secured before the Nazis allowed anyone out of the country. When it was agreed, in principle, that the seven Jewish members would remain in the orchestra, and that I was to retain my post, I assumed that there would be no obstacle to getting my passport validated.

In Berlin the Ministry of the Interior handled such matters. I gave Furtwängler’s passport and my own to an “intermediary,” one of those indispensable persons recognized by the Nazis but not beyond helping non-Nazis. I asked him to attend to the permits because I knew he was friendly with the Minister’s aide de camp, who with his wife was propriety personified. The only thing incompatible with their virtuous attitude was their constant demand for free tickets for the opera, and the Philharmonic concerts. Hitler had allegedly prohibited these requests for complimentary seats by ministerial officials and their friends, but the practice continued worse than ever.

To this authority my man turned. He came back quickly, very embarrassed. “What’s the matter?” I asked him. “Any new trouble?” He would not say at first, but finally, with great reluctance, he came out with: “I do not know how to put it, but the Nazis want to know whether you and Furtwängler ...” He was embarrassed, but I was not. With a good conscience I could reassure the Nazis. My friend disappeared again, and soon returned with the passports validated. My exit permit was granted on his guarantee that I was not the conductor’s mistress. The knowledge that work and friendship, and these alone, were the link between Furtwängler and myself frequently upheld me during this humiliating period.

The spirit of unrest brooding over the capital in those days was reflected and even exaggerated in the provinces. Every day reports came in of interference in every sphere of life by the new Party officials. Second-rate people, under some pretext or other, managed to insinuate themselves into every institution, and former chiefs were simply dismissed by the Nazi “cell” which after a long underground existence now came into the open. What happened in the field of municipal government, banks, universities, and hospitals is common knowledge; absolute chaos reigned in the musical world. The field of music where, even in normal times, competition and exaggerated egotism played a big part, became a network of intrigues.

Germany and Austria had always been alive with musical controversies, but how different the nature of the disputes in the old days! There was the Wagner-Brahms controversy in which even the famous surgeon, Billroth, fulminated against Wagner and strongly supported Brahms. How bitter was the Wagner-Verdi controversy, how passionate the battles about composers like Bruckner, Reger, Mahler, or Strauss. How devotedly did the Bach and Handel Societies work! With how much enthusiasm was chamber music cultivated by amateurs! How really profound and earnest was the interest in music then! But that side of things did not matter to the Nazis. Under cover of the “race-theory,” objective discussion of differences of opinion vanished.

The innumerable concert societies, some, like the Leipzig Gewandhaus, with a century-old tradition, suddenly found their work threatened. Their committees generally consisted of highly educated idealists who gave their services to the good cause. Now each committee member was scrutinized as to his ancestry—nothing else mattered.

Concert agencies, too, were menaced unless they chose to forestall the compulsory “Gleichschaltung” by voluntarily liquidating themselves!

The authorities deemed it advisable to announce that conditions would be “legalized,” that there was no intention of throttling free competition, and that the free work of concert agencies would be regulated and protected. That, however, was obviously only to gain time. As a matter of fact, the new intermediary controlling bodies resulted in such over-organization that every concert program and every anticipated engagement had to be submitted to the authorities. Free activity was stifled.

The position of artists was naturally also unsettled. The status of those who were in state employment was soon to be defined through the new Civil Servants’ Law. But what would happen to the prominent soloists, the conductors, the chamber music associations, the composers, and foreign artists? Who would be permitted to perform? Who could be engaged? Most artists living in Germany were so deeply rooted that they did not contemplate emigration, they preferred to wait for things to clarify.

Schnabel, for instance, an Austrian and therefore out of reach of the law, stayed on at first; Adolf Busch, the great, exceedingly popular German violinist, immediately cancelled all his engagements in Germany, because the Fighting League for German Culture had exhaustively scrutinized the ancestry of his second violinist, and had declared untragbar his collaborator of many years, Rudolf Serkin, the famous pianist. Lotte Lehmann refused to sing in Germany any more. Bruno Walter had canceled his last Berlin concert, and Richard Strauss had taken his place. Storm Troopers, it was rumored, had threatened to create a disturbance in the Philharmonie if Walter conducted. He well knew that the Nazis were capable of manufacturing public opinion, if it suited them, and when a request for protection for his concert was flatly refused, he naturally preferred to cancel it. Subsequent events proved him right. In Leipzig, where he was director of the Gewandhaus, nothing happened at first, but shortly after the inauguration of the Third Reich in March 1933 he arrived for his rehearsal one day to find the Gewandhaus closed to him—the Gewandhaus Direktion had been defeated in their fight against the authorities in Saxony, who were especially ferocious.

Germany, with her deeply rooted, traditional musical life, was suddenly no longer in a position to protect this precious part of her culture. Musical life, like so much else in Nazi Germany, was annexed by the Party, to serve political ends and propaganda, and was rife with nepotism. Music, for its own sake, seemed at an end. In spite of the many great German artists and the big funds allocated to orchestras and opera houses, artistic life had ceased to be untrammeled and spontaneous. Hitler himself admitted in a private conversation that for him art was never “art for art’s sake” but always had to serve a purpose.

Furtwängler watched the developments with consternation and dismay, but he was firmly convinced that it could not last. He was on good terms with the Government; he represented one of their few assets abroad. Although he was criticized by the Nazis for not immediately “aryanizing” his orchestra, he was treated with consideration and respect, and so was confirmed in his feeling of security. He risked opposition, was frank, and was no diplomat. He believed then that it would be easy for him to persuade those in power to mend their ways. He was in a strong position, and had innumerable adherents in the Reich. Many hopes were concentrated in him.

As soon as the interferences with and encroachments on musical institutions began, he received masses of reports and desperate appeals for help. And to everyone who wrote to him about their troubles, he promised the help he thought was his to give. Heads of concert associations arrived, artists begged for interviews and advice. Dismissed opera directors and broadcasting officials appeared to implore his aid. The files dealing with these cases were a moving document of the early days of Nazi tyranny.

Furtwängler began to submit to the authorities individual cases that he deemed important. His requests were always most civilly received, but were passed from one person to another. Though he spoke to high government officials and was always promised an immediate settlement, the fulfillment of the promises was either cynically ignored or sabotaged by some underling. It did not take long to learn that even the Minister was helpless if the subordinate bodies disagreed. Nevertheless, Furtwängler was untiring in his efforts. He passed day after day in attempts to contact officials and their staffs. All this was nerve racking to a sensitive artist. Once, when a minister who had asked him to telephone at a certain hour was still unavailable at the fourth attempt, Furtwängler angrily banged his fist through a window and hurt his hand.

The distress of everybody affected by these conditions grew, and chaos and disruption became widespread. Furtwängler was tormented. He saw that something had to be done to stem the current. He knew, too, that the whole of intellectual Germany was behind him in his endeavors. For several days he shut himself up and wrote a statement on the neutrality of art and the freedom of achievement, which he issued in the form of an open letter to Dr. Goebbels (April 12, 1933). He took up the case of his Jewish colleagues and urged the right to choose artists with absolute freedom. He declared that the function of art and the artist was to unite and not to sever, and that there was only one ultimate line of demarcation, that between good art and bad. He added that “the contemporary world of music, already weakened by the world depression and the radio, can stand up to no more experiments.”

“When this fight is directed against the real artist, it is against the interests of culture as a whole,” he wrote. “It must, therefore, be said plainly that men like Walter, Klemperer, and Reinhardt must be enabled to have their say in Germany in the future. I say again: Let our fight be against the reckless, disintegrating, shallow, destructive spirit, but not against the real artist, who in his own way, however his art may be appraised, is always creative and thus constructive.

“In this spirit I appeal to you in the name of German art lest things happen that can never be righted.”

The press was already muzzled by Goebbels. Without his consent nothing could be published. It was one of the little Propaganda Minister’s cleverest maneuvers to accept this letter of Furtwängler’s as being of topical interest. I think that he purposely published it to gain credit for a tolerance which would give him time for future action. Goebbels himself wrote a reply, and published it on the same page as Furtwängler’s letter.

On careful reading, that reply proved thoroughly dishonest. Beyond the rash assertion that “politics, too, is an art, and what is more, the highest and most comprehensive art of all” and that, accordingly, those who took part in modern politics felt themselves to be artists—beyond that—he set up the thesis that only art which was rooted in the people could be good. What he really meant by “rooted in the people” he wisely left unsaid. His theories that art had to be responsible, “potent,” and militant, were equally senseless.

“Real artists are rare,” he continued, “and they have to be encouraged, but,” he argued circuitously, “they have to be real artists.” He promised that they would be heard in Germany, in the future, too, and that every real artist would have a field of “unhampered activity.” It was all nonsense, of course. Goebbels knew all too well that since the valuation of an artist depended on his race there could be no question of “unhampered activity.”

In spite of the artificiality of Goebbels’ reply, the atmosphere was somewhat eased by the exchange of letters.

The effect of Furtwängler’s article was enormous. It was printed in papers all over the world and Furtwängler was inundated by congratulations, telegrams, and letters.

Furtwängler was relieved to have been able to say what he wished; he had given expression to the opinion of the majority, and supported a principle that was of vital necessity both to himself and to the whole German nation. He hoped that things would gradually revert to normal and sound instincts prevail before too much had been destroyed.