Music in Nazi Germany, like all cultural activities in the regime, was controlled and "co-ordinated" (Gleichschaltung) by various entities of the state and the Nazi Party, with Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and the prominent Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg playing leading – and competing – roles. The primary concerns of these organizations was to exclude Jewish composers and musicians from publishing and performing music, and to prevent the public exhibition of music considered to be "Jewish", "anti-German", or otherwise "degenerate", while at the same time promoting the work of favored "Germanic" composers, such as Richard Wagner, Ludwig van Beethoven and Anton Bruckner. These works were believed to be positive contributions to the Volksgemeinschaft, or German folk community.
The Nazis promoted Aryan ideologies through heavy censorship and cultural control, blacklisting Jewish compositions, banning specific concert hall performances, and controlling radio content in order to promote nationalism through cultural unity. By controlling the mediums of communication, the Reich Chamber of Culture was able to dictate public opinion in regards to musical culture, and reaffirm their hegemonic beliefs, promoting "Aryan" works consistent with Nazi ideology.
Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels famously decreed radio to be "the most influential and important intermediary between a spiritual movement and the nation, between the idea and the people". He put much effort into the exploitation of radio technologies and its ability to reach the German populace regardless of their socioeconomic status. To this end, a low-cost "people's receiver" () was introduced.
Background
The nineteenth century introduced a change in economic circumstances in Germany. The rise of industrialization and urban expansion introduced a new marketplace for music. Individuals were able to participate within the music culture as small social clubs and orchestras were easily able to purchase sheet music and instruments. Out of this developed an extensive network of music among German citizens. This spawned more localized concert halls and orchestras, greatly increasing the circulation of both Jewish and non-Jewish compositions.
When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in Germany, it stepped in to control these cultural music products as part of its general policy of Gleichschaltung or "co-ordination". In a speech made in 1935, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proclaimed the goals of the Nazi control of German music. Music, he said, should be German, it should be , or linked to the volk, the German nation, and it should express the soul of Germany, . Unfortunately how to interpret these Romantic goals was left up to each of the competing authorities, who wondered if one key was more "Nordic" than another, and what was the Jewish influence on music. As one modern author summed it up: "They wanted neither a simple return to nineteenth-century Romanticism nor a continuation of Weimar avant-garde but also no experimentation."
Nazi control of music Influence of Hitler
As with most other aspects of the governance of the Third Reich, the personal views and preferences of Adolf Hitler played a significant role in the Nazi control of music. Hitler's normal modus operandi was to create overlapping and competing agencies within both the Nazi Party and the German state apparatus, and allow the heads of those agencies to "work toward the Führer". Hitler would either make his preferences known, or, if he did not, the agency leaders would make assumptions about what they were, and then — usually without specific orders or guidance from Hitler — they would gear their decisions to what they believed he wanted. The overlapping of the various competencies would often lead to conflicts, which would then be brought to Hitler for ultimate settlement. Hitler, however, did not like to make these decisions, and often let the situations fester for long periods before he either made a snap decision, or one choice had become the most obvious one to select. This was the case in the realm of music, where Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg and Goebbels were pitted against each other, and their somewhat differing goals and ideological viewpoints often lead to conflicts. Usually, after the creation of the Reich Chamber of Culture, Goebbels had the upper hand, but at times Rosenberg would prevail, or at least manage to disrupt Goebbels' plans.
In regard to music, Hitler had definite views as to what was acceptable and what was not. He was passionate about the music of Richard Wagner, but denounced most contemporary music — which featured atonality, dissonance, and disturbing rhythms in many cases influenced by what Hitler referred to as "nigger jazz" — as being "degenerate" and elitist. Soon after Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, contemporary music concerts, as well as Modernist and Expressionist scenic design and staging of operas were cancelled, and the music of Alban Berg, Hans Eisler, Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, Kurt Weill, and other formerly prominent composers, as well as Jewish composers such as Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Jacques Offenbach and even George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, were no longer programmed or performed. At the beginning, this was not the result of a coordinated centralized program, but were uncoordinated spontaneous actions by local Nazi officials "working towards the Fuhrer", and generally reflected Hitler's often-expressed views on music.
In one instance, Hitler himself complained about these local efforts. After Adolf Busch, a violinist, conductor, and composer, was forced to leave Germany, he said "It is really a shame that we do not have gauleiter in Dresden who knows anything about the arts. ... Busch would have been the best German conductor. But [Gauleiter] Mutschmann wanted to put old party comrades in the orchestra so as to introduce the National Socialist spirit." As a music aficionado who did not want Germany to lose talented musicians, Hitler was, in fact, less doctrinaire about the personal political backgrounds of musicians than were many Nazis, such as Rosenberg. For instance, Hitler's fondness for the operettas of Franz Lehár took precedence over the negative facts about the composer discovered by Rosenberg's investigation. The same occurred with the partly Jewish Johann Strauss: Hitler's enjoyment of Strauss' compositions removed any impediments to their being performed, although Goebbels took steps to make sure that Strauss' heritage never became public knowledge.
Hitler also lashed out at those Nazis who would ban Mozart's The Magic Flute because of its Masonic theme, or wanted to suppress Christian religious music, which he deemed to be part of "the German cultural patrimony". He also was willing, in the interest of foreign policy, to relax the general requirement of "Germanness" in concert music, allowing Italian operas, even Modernist ones, to be performed, and the music of Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály and sometimes even those of the Hungarian anti-Nazi Bela Bartók. Foreign policy considerations entered into the decision to allow the works of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius to be performed, and performances of works by Russian composers dating from before the October Revolution, such as Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov were sanctioned. Even Igor Stravinsky fell in and out of official favor.
Hitler's direct, personal involvement in musical matters was generally limited to appointing conductors and awarding the title of "Professor" and other music-related honorifics, approving grants for both institutions and individuals, and ruling on the use of certain compositions such as the "Badenweiler March" — which could only be played in his presence — or the "Nibelungen March", which he deemed appropriate only for formal Nazi Party occasions. He also set the approved tempi for the "Deutschlandlied", the national anthem, and the "Horst-Wessel-Lied", the Party's anthem and later the co-national anthem. In most other instances, as was typical for Hitler, he allowed his paladins a free hand.
It was Hitler's goal that music in Germany should be as important as he imagined it was in ancient Greece, and should serve the public good. Thus composers should write music that was aesthetically pleasing to most people, and the state should make that music available to the people. Such music would also help promote the state by providing its credibility, both culturally and politically, and distract the world from the Nazi street terrorism which was helping to create the totalitarian Führer state. Despite Germany being, in general, a sophisticated musical culture, the "co-ordination" () of German music took less effort than any of the other arts, with fewer non-Jewish musical personalities choosing to emigrate into exile. It was also a factor that once Hitler took power, he showed less interest in music than he did on controlling painting and sculpture. In those fields, ideologically impure artists were sometimes threatened with being sent to a concentration camp. Ideologically suspect composers were, for the most part, allowed to continue writing music, and even at times managed to see them performed, unlike suspected painters and sculptors who had their works and material confiscated.
Nazi agencies
Competing Nazi entities separately claimed control of all musicians and publications of musical material, each hoping to eventually become the administration of all culture, including music, in Nazi Germany. Alfred Rosenberg, who saw himself as the Party's chief ideologue, played a key role in the early days before Hitler came to power, spawning many sub-organizations such as the Party's Militant League for German Culture (). This organization had departments for music, cinema, visual arts, and radio. In hopes of strengthening "suppressed" Aryan artists and eliminating "degenerate" artists, such as Jewish and jazz artists, Rosenberg's institutions published many inflammatory brochures warning citizens of non-German nationalist music. His institution funded Aryan musicians and even went as far as to disrupt concerts, threaten Jewish performers and intimidate audiences. These practices were the beginning of the overarching political intervention of concert halls and orchestras of the 19th century.
In March 1933 Hitler appointed Joseph Goebbels to be the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. It was Goebbels' intention to have his ministry take control of all German culture, but he ran up against Rosenberg's already-existing Party infrastructure. Fortunately for him, Rosenberg's activist stance had caused considerable disruption, which had become politically inconvenient for Hitler. This allowed Goebbels to convince the Führer to sign a decree creating the Reich Chamber of Culture () on September 22, 1933, with Goebbels as president. Within the Chamber were divisions for each of the arts, including the Reich Chamber of Music (), to which all musicians and composers were required to belong if they wished to work; those rejected were effectively professionally banned. Goebbels used the Chambers not only to regulate the arts, but also to improve pensions and get rid of unqualified and untrained artists. The ministry controlled the Chambers through the senior artists involved, who ran them on a daily basis. By 1937, the Reich Chamber of Music had 95,600 members.
Goebbels v. Rosenberg