musicology iii reich

Musicology in the "Third Reich": A Preliminary ReportAuthor(s): Anselm GerhardSource: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Fall 2001), pp. 517-543Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jm.2001.18.4.517 .

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Volume XVIII ¥ Number 4 ¥ Fall 2001The Journal of Musicology © 2001 by the Regents of the University of California

517

Musicology in the ÒThird ReichÓ: A Preliminary Report*

A N S E L M G E RH AR D

In March 2000 the German Gesellschaft für Musik-forschung took up a topic that had largely been avoided by establishedmusicologists until the 1990s. The last few months have seen the publi-cation of the proceedings of an ÒofÞcialÓ conference that, in its mixtureof methodological arbitrariness and marked desire to excuse the aber-rations of German musicologists in the ÒThird ReichÓ at almost anycost, must be regarded as noteworthy. We must read, for example, thatthe Òromantic nationalism of the PolesÓ essentially provoked GermanyÕsand RussiaÕs irredentism, dooming Poland in 1939;1 must see the cul-tural plunder perpetrated by the Amt Rosenberg in the 1940s in viola-tion of international law reduced to the mere Òrequisitioning of Ger-man national treasuresÓ and explained as part of a Òdesire for revengefor 1914Ð18Ó;2 and must watch an internationally recognized musicalscholar, in the opening essay, shift principal responsibility for the intel-lectual corruption of musicology in the years after 1933 onto those who were not active at universities.3 In the face of this, it is not hard to

* This is a modiÞed version of an article that appeared in Ger-man as ÒMusikwissenschaft,Ó in Die Rolle der Geisteswissenschaften im Dritten Reich 1933–45, ed. Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Munich:R. Oldenbourg, 2002), 165Ð92.

1 Matthias Pape, ÒVersaillesÑWeimarÑPotsdam. Die nationalpolitischen Vorausset-zungen der Musikforschung im Dritten Reich,Ó in Musikforschung—Faschismus—Nationalsozialismus. Referate der Tagung Schloss Engers (8. bis 11. März 2000), ed. Isoldev[on] Foerster, Christoph Hust, and Christoph-Helmut Mahling (Mainz: Are, 2001), 30.See also my review in Musiktheorie 17 (2002), forthcoming.

2 Ibid., 28.3 See Ludwig Finscher, ÒMusikwissenschaft und Nationalsozialismus. Bemerkungen

zum Stand der Diskussion,Ó in Musikforschung—Faschismus—Nationalsozialismus, 4Ð5. For adetailed critique of FinscherÕs polemic, see my ÒMusikwissenschaft,Ó in Die Rolle der Geis-teswissenschaften im Dritten Reich 1933–45, ed. Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Munich: R. Ol-denbourg, 2002), 188Ð92.



the journal of mus icology

conclude that leading representatives of German musicology tend toexpress their discomfort with the history of their discipline more byglossing over matters and by setting off German against anti-Germanmisdeeds than by critical reßection.

But the conditions for serious discussions about the role of aca-demic musicology in the ÒThird ReichÓ have never been better. The ba-sic context can now be deemed tolerably well studied. Although the dis-cipline managed to fend off troublesome questions about the past of itsleading Þgures well into the 1980s, we now know much not only aboutthe organizational structure of music research, its connections to theÒyouth movement,Ó and the ethnomusicological research organized bythe SS-Ahnenerbe, but also about the careers of most university profes-sors. Aside from a number of projects in local history (among which Pe-ter PetersenÕs contribution to the history of the discipline at the Univer-sity of Hamburg is an early and excellent example of detailed archivalresearch),4 we can point to three publications of particular note. TheÞrst is an important volume of commentary by Albrecht DŸmling andPeter Girth that accompanied the reconstruction in 1988 of the DŸssel-dorf Entartete Musik exhibition.5 The second is Eckhard JohnÕs seminalcontribution to the history of the discipline in Freiburg im Breisgau,which appeared in 19916 and has since been supplemented by hisbroad overview on music research in the ÒThird Reich.Ó7 And the thirdis Pamela PotterÕs dissertation of 1991, which was published in an ex-tensively revised version as a book in 1998 and in German translationin 2000.8

This state of research is indeed hardly satisfactory across the board,as will be shown below, but it is nonetheless impressive. It thus seems

4 Peter Petersen, ÒMusikwissenschaft in Hamburg 1933 bis 1945,Ó in Hochschulalltagim “Dritten Reich”: Die Hamburger Universität 1933–1945, ed. Eckart Krause, Ludwig Huberand Holger Fischer, Hamburger BeitrŠge zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 3 (Berlin: D.Reimer, 1991), 625Ð40.

5 Albrecht DŸmling and Peter Girth, Entartete Musik. Zur Düsseldorfer Ausstellung von1938. Eine kommentierte Rekonstruktion (DŸsseldorf: Kleinherne, 1988).

6 Eckhard John, ÒDer Mythos vom Deutschen in der deutschen Musik. Musikwis-senschaft und Nationalsozialismus,Ó in Die Freiburger Universität in der Zeit des Nationalsozia-lismus, ed. Eckhard John, Bernd Martin, Marc MŸck and Hugo Ott (Freiburg [im Breis-gau]: Ploetz, 1991), 163Ð90; expanded repr. as ÒDer Mythos vom Deutschen in derdeutschen Musik. Die Freiburger Musikwissenschaft im NS-Staat,Ó Musik in Baden-Württemberg 5 (1998): 57Ð84.

7 Eckhard John, Ò ÔDeutsche MusikwissenschaftÕ: Musikforschung im ÔDritten Reich,Õ Óin Musikwissenschaft—eine verspätete Disziplin? Die akademische Musikforschung zwischenFortschrittsglauben und Modernitätsverweigerung, ed. Anselm Gerhard (Stuttgart: J. B. Metz-ler, 2000), 257Ð79.

8 Pamela M. Potter, Most German of the Arts: Musicology and Society from the Weimar Republic to the End of Hitler’s Reich (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1998).

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reasonable to take provisional stock of the situation. After a hard lookat many publications,9 including those named above, it seems to me im-possible not to conclude that a large majority of academic musicologistsat least offered their services, or even behaved in such a way that wemust wonder whether tactical opportunism was really their primary mo-tivation. On the contrary, there is much evidence to suggest a wide-spread sympathy for the new powers and a belief in the necessity of aÒnational revolution.Ó It is certain, though, that a diffuse nationalistcommitment to Germany is not ideologically identical to a National-Socialist worldview. However, most scholars did not discuss such Þnedistinctions publicly or privately, either before or after 1945.

The necessary data for a more comprehensive study are available,especially now that the relevant university archives are, for the mostpart, accessible. With respect to documentation, it is still necessaryabove all to make progress in three areas. First, fragmentary evidenceseems to suggest that the large encyclopedic project Die Musik inGeschichte und GegenwartÑa project that from the Þrst volume in 1949was a billboard for post-war musicology in the Federal Republic of GermanyÑhad at least points of contact with a lexicographical projectbegun under the aegis of the Hohe Schule led by the SS.10 Second, thecollaboration of academic musicologists with the Einsatzstab ReichsleiterRosenberg needs to be clariÞed with greater discrimination. In a bookthat is now much esteemed, though its research is worse than sloppy,the Dutch journalist Willem de Vries was able to document that Wolf-gang Boetticher participated in the plunder organized by the Ein-satzstab, something already known in outline.11 But Boetticher gained aÞxed university post only long after the war, and de VriesÕs ÒevidenceÓ

519

9 See also the selected bibliography in Gerhard, Musikwissenschaft—eine verspäteteDisziplin?, 23Ð30.

10 See Willem de Vries, Sonderstab Musik: Music Con�scation by the Einsatzstab Reichs-leiter Rosenberg under the Nazi Occupation of Western Europe (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Univ.Press, 1996), 79Ð84; Eva Weissweiler, Ausgemerzt! Das Lexikon der Juden in der Musik undseine mörderischen Folgen (Cologne: Dittrich-Verlag, 1999), 50Ð56. On the problems ofthese presentations, see my reviews in Musiktheorie 13 (1998): 266Ð69 and 14 (1999):372Ð74. This question played an essential role at the April 2000 conference; see LudwigFinscher, ÒZur Entstehungsgeschichte der EnzyklopŠdie ÔDie Musik in Geschichte undGegenwart,Õ Ó in Musikforschung—Faschismus—Nationalsozialismus, 415Ð33. As it turns out,the Òconnections between a project of Herbert Gerigk in 1939 and the MGG are un-proven,Ó as argued by Thorsten Hindrichs and Christoph Hust, ÒSchloss Engers, 8. bis 11.MŠrz 2000: Internationale Tagung ÔMusikwissenschaft im Nationalsozialismus und infaschistischen Regimes. KulturpolitikÑMethodenÑWirkungen,Õ Ó Die Musikforschung 53(2000): 310. Whether musicologists should accept a nebulous state of research as a posi-tive ÒfactÓ is, of course, very much a question.

11 Vries, Sonderstab Musik. See also the detailed review by Michael Walter, in H-Soz-u-Kult 1999 (http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensio/buecher/1999/WaMi1b99.htm).




of eager work done by university professors to steal art from occupiedterritories is hardly conclusive. None of his proofs touches on anythingthat went beyond such activities as help with the catalogues of musicalsources in public and non-plundered libraries. Third, it would be ofgreat interest to know more about the background on professorial ap-pointments and decisions about research funding between 1933 and1945. With such knowledge, it would be possible to judge to what ex-tent decisions about personnel were politically directed, and by whichcircles.

But even more than in the realm of documentation, we must im-prove our knowledge of the subject matter and principal preoccupa-tions of germanophone music research before and after 1933. If oneagrees with Helmuth Plessner that Òthe ability of research to resonatewith National-Socialist politics and ideologyÓ is one of the most disturb-ing phenomena in the history of German scholarship (a thesis sup-ported by recent studies),12 then it would be of great interest to recon-struct the presuppositions of a kind of musicological research thathardly needed to adapt itself to furnish a resonant sounding board forthe radicalized ideas of the new regime. A precise investigation into thecareers of individuals, into the history of the organization of institu-tions (like the State Institute for German Music Research [Staatliches In-stitut für deutsche Musikforschung], reorganized in 1935), and above allinto the reciprocal relationship between individuals and institutionscan go beyond current research only if the years before 1933 are exam-ined in at least as much detail as the 12 years of the regime of terrorthemselves.

Of course, a comfortable approach that remains within the bound-aries of the discipline will not sufÞce for an investigation into the his-tory of musical scholarship focused on content. If we do not takeproper account of the strains of Weltanschauung and philosophy at thegeneral level, and do not make comparisons with neighboring disci-plines (especially history and the scholarly studies of the various arts),we can hardly arrive at convincing results. Future researchers will con-front a major reading assignment, and they cannot limit themselves to afew generally known titles such as SpenglerÕs Der Untergang des Abendlan-des or to the trivialities of Dilthey reception in the humanities recordedby Potter.13 They must be open to interdisciplinary issues and to issuesin the history of changing mentalities. Such openness has never been

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12 Helmuth Plessner, ÒEinfŸhrung 1959,Ó in Die verspätete Nation. Über die Ver-führbarkeit bürgerlichen Geistes (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1959), 12. See Otto GerhardOexle, Ò ÔZusammenarbeit mit Baal.Õ †ber die MentalitŠten deutscher Geisteswis-senschaftler 1933Ñund nach 1945,Ó Historische Anthropologie 8 (2000): 1Ð27, esp. 4Ð6.

13 See Potter, Most German of the Arts, 166Ð68.



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front and center in the discipline of musicology, and it was repressedeven further in West German musicology during the second half of the20th century.

All this is still a dreamed-of goal. Until now, scholarship has hardlytaken account of such issues, and even this preliminary report must becontent to review the details known about the ÒexternalÓ careers of im-portant musicologists. For this reason, the following four case studieswill be used to develop questions for further discussion. The questionsrevolve as much around the methodological problems of a disciplinaryhistory focused on careers as around the requisites for research morestrongly focused on content.

Heinrich Besseler

Heinrich BesselerÕs sympathies for the ÒNew GermanyÓ must havebeen apparent to any unprejudiced observer, even if Þrst allusions tothem in 1970 provoked a bitter outcry among his students and otherrenowned members of the discipline.14 As one of the few universityteachers in the Þeld of musicology, Besseler was a party member, thoughonly after 1937. And he was one of only a handful of musicologists notto be further employed after 1945 by his university, the Ruperto Carolain Heidelberg, which had appointed him in 1928 at the age of 28 tosucceed Hans-Joachim Moser.

At least since Helmut HeiberÕs synthetic presentation of everydaylife in universities we have known that BesselerÕs engagement with theÒThird ReichÓ went beyond the accommodation typical of the time, andall indications are that an ongoing investigation of BesselerÕs Þles by ayoung musicologist at Heidelberg will conÞrm this picture.15 BesselerÕsconspiring role as an informant on the activities of colleagues at inter-national conferences is particularly unappetizing, as is his message to the Reich Ministry of Education [Reichserziehungsministerium] in early1935 that his colleague Johannes Wolf had Òalways had very close relations to those circles that the emigrants of today comprise.Ó16

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14 See Clytus Gottwald, ÒMusikwissenschaft und Kirchenmusik,Ó in ÒBericht Ÿber dasSymposium ÔReßexionen Ÿber Musikwissenschaft heute,Õ Ó ed. Hans Heinrich Egge-brecht, in Bericht über den Internationalen Musikwissenschaftlichen Kongress Bonn 1970, ed.Carl Dahlhaus et al. (Kassel: BŠrenreiter, 1971), 663Ð72.

15 Thomas Schipperges, ÒDie Akten Heinrich Besseler,Ó announced in Schipperges,ÒBesseler, Heinrich,Ó in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Allgemeine Enzyklopädie derMusik, 2nd ed. (Kassel: BŠrenreiter, 1997Ð), Personenteil, vol. 2, col. 1520.

16 Personal Þles of Wolf in the archives of the Reichserziehungsministerium at theBerlin Document Center; quoted from Helmut Heiber, Universität unterm Hakenkreuz, TeilI: Der Professor im Dritten Reich. Bilder aus der akademischen Provinz (Munich: K.G. Saur,1991), 236.




On the other hand, Besseler apparently exploited the opportuni-ties available to him, even in 1934, to facilitate examinations for thoseof his doctoral students classiÞed as ÒJewish,Ó and, as late as 1938, toguarantee the publication of their dissertations. This is hardly an ex-plicitly antagonistic act against the regime, but rather evokes the dic-tum attributed to Karl Lueger: ÒIt is for me to determine who is a Jew.ÓYet it did cause Besseler some trouble, and it was, along with other suchbehavior, the subject of a party trial that Besseler himself requested. To-gether with other more or less diffuse accusationsÑaccusations thatHerbert Gerigk, director of the Amt Musik in the Amt Rosenberg, took itupon himself to disseminate17Ñsuch matters were decisive in BesselerÕsremoval as director of the Denkmäler edition Das Erbe deutscher Musik,in 1939.

Despite a ground-breaking study by Laurenz LŸtteken, we knowmuch less about the ideological foundations of BesselerÕs research.There is still no study that addresses not only the institutional historybut also the content of his research, and above all its hidden effects af-ter 1945. A volume of collected essays I edited tried to improve the situ-ation by consciously focusing on the time before 1933 and on the continuities in his völkisch research on music.18 Its conclusions are, how-ever, too provisional not to declare openly that the need it addressedcontinues undiminished.

The same applies to LŸttekenÕs important attempt to examineBesselerÕs ahistorical methodology. In BesselerÕs approach, Òthe musicof the past is interesting only insofar as its study is both called for andsupported by musical life as a whole, not because it possesses any intrin-sic value.Ó19 LŸtteken sees Òone of the central conceptual tropesÓ ofBesseler, a man interested above all in the Middle Ages and the earlyRenaissance, in the fact Òthat music, a kind of anthropological constant,can only properly be comprehended as an Erlebnis.Ó20 Because of theuncertain state of research, LŸtteken avoids unequivocal evaluations ofBesseler. Any judgments would, of course, also have to take into ac-count that German historians of the Middle Ages attempted in the1920s and 1930s to Þnd evidence of a Òthoroughly concrete epistemicorder,Ó and that the idea of a Ònew Middle Ages,Ó an idea traceable to

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17 See Potter, Most German of the Arts, 158.18 Cited in n7.19 Laurenz LŸtteken, ÒDas Musikwerk im Spannungsfeld von ÔAusdruckÕ und ÔEr-

lebenÕ: Heinrich Besselers musikhistoriographischer Ansatz,Ó in Musikwissenschaft, ed.Gerhard, 223.

20 Ibid., 218.



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Novalis, found particular favor after 1933.21 Meanwhile, the assess-ments made in 1994 in the last appraisal of Besseler will continue toecho: Òpolitical opportunistÓ22 and Òpolitical chameleon.Ó23

Further pursuing LŸttekenÕs investigations, my thesis is that thisevaluation is not correct. The brilliant early writings of the 1920s, alongwith statements in letters of the 1930s, reveal that Besseler was ascholar deeply inßuenced by his friend Heidegger, that he propagatedvölkisch and communal ideology with full conviction, and that he left notraces of any attempt to distance himself from National Socialism. (Itmust be remembered however that Besseler, like every other at leastmarginally intelligent person of the time, did not Þnd every brutality ofthe regime to his taste. In a letter of 7 May 1937, he permitted himselfthe luxury of designating the ÒGerman jingoism of the pushy and su-perÞcial ÔconformistÕ [gleichgeschaltet] sortÓ as a Òfacade and fashionÓthat Òwould pass.Ó24) Thus, on 17 May 1937 he wrote to his colleaguein Basel, Jacques Handschin, about his magnum opus, Die Musik des Mit-telalters und der Renaissance (still esteemed today), but also about otherwork Òwritten long before 1933Ó such as the Òbiological-ÔvölkischÕ inter-pretation of the 15th century or of the Italian breakthrough around1590Ó:

It is entirely impossible for me to separate such historical events fromtheir vital base (Volkstum and race). The unity of ÒlifeÓ as a bodily-spiritual-mental condition is convincing here as it is perhaps nowhereelse. This unity and integrity of life is, however, the central philosophi-cal problem of National Socialism. I believe that this is recognized fartoo little outside of Germany. Rather, people are content to believe thatGerman scholars are merely dimwits and characterless ByzantinesÑan easy way to fend off unwanted debates! Do you really believe thatNational Socialism would really appeal to us beyond the politicalrealm if its weltanschaulicher kernel did not contain a mode of thoughtthat is simply appropriate [gemäß] and convincing to us?25

In his brilliant Habilitation lecture of 1925, Besseler, just 25 years old,had already developed the Òweltanschaulicher kernelÓ of his personalmode of thought, a mode inßuenced by Heidegger. Amalgamating a

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21 Oexle, ÒZusammenarbeit mit Baal,Ó 10, 19Ð20. See also Otto Gerhard Oexle,ÒDie Moderne und ihr Mittelalter. Eine folgenreiche Problemgeschichte,Ó in Mittelalterund Moderne. Entdeckung und Rekonstruktion der mittelalterlichen Welt, ed. Peter Segl (Sig-maringen: J. Thorbecke, 1997), 307Ð64.

22 Martin Geck, ÒSo kann es gewesen sein . . . so mu§ es gewesen sein . . . Zum 25.Todestag des Musikforschers Heinrich Besseler,Ó Musica 48 (1994): 244Ð45.

23 Hans Eppstein, ÒEin Nachtrag zu H. Besseler,Ó Musica 48 (1994), 353.24 LŸtteken, ÒDas Musikwerk,Ó 233n79.25 Ibid., 233.




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concept of experience as Erlebnis borrowed from Dilthey with the völkisch-tinged ideology of the community typical of the Òyouth movement,Ó Besseler gave the Òcommonly practiced [umgangsmäßig]modes of hearingÓ and thereby the communal auditory experience anÒabsolute precedence above the autonomous [eigenständig]Ó mode ofhearing. In the Þnal analysis, what was at stake were ethical Òhierar-chies of value.Ó26 He explicitly disqualiÞed the bourgeois concert thathad survived from the 19th century as aesthetically and ethically oflittle value, just as he implicitly did for the individual, meditative expe-rience of music. In view of the unconditional terms of BesselerÕs argu-ments, this cannot be separated today from our knowledge of a totali-tarian terror carried out under the sign of a Ònational community[Volksgemeinschaft].Ó

The very person who argued from the far right wing of the old wilhelmine political spectrum, Hans-Joachim Moser (on whom more below), called sharp attention to the hidden risks of such theses. In abrutal polemic of 1926 he espied a Òvaguely bolshevist outlookÓ inBesselerÕs argumentation, Òin which the masters from Beethoven to R.Strauss are more or less signs of a rotting bourgeoisie, and in whichonly the fetishistic value of Ômusic as magicÕ is allowed to blossomfully.Ó27 Although Moser did take back the Þghting word ÒbolshevistÓ inthe exchange that followed,28 one can clearly see here the positions of,on the one hand, a nationalist Bildungsbürgertum, and on the other, of a new approach to music history inßuenced by the Òcrisis of his-toricism.Ó29 MoserÕs swaggering bombast may cause discomfortÑevenin a relatively circumscribed debate, he could not pass up the opportu-nity to attack Jewish composersÑbut we cannot simply dismiss his cri-tique of ideological concepts that later reappeared as part of the National-Socialist rancor against the bourgeoisie. As brilliant as many ofBesselerÕs ideas still seem today, it is dismaying to see how easily this

26 Heinrich Besseler, ÒGrundfragen des musikalischen Hšrens,Ó Jahrbuch der Musik-bibliothek Peters [32] 1925 (Leipzig: C. F. Peters, 1926), 35Ð52; also in BernhardDopheide, Musikhören, Wege der Forschung 429 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge-sellschaft, 1975), 48Ð73; quoted here from Besseler, Aufsätze zur Musikästhetik undMusikgeschichte, ed. Peter GŸlke, Reclams Universal-Bibliothek 740 (Leipzig: Reclam,1978), 43.

27 Hans-Joachim Moser, ÒZwischen Kultur und Zivilisation der Musik,Ó DeutschesMusikjahrbuch 4 (1926): 30.

28 Hans-Joachim Moser, ÒErwiderung,Ó Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 8 (1926): 380.Moser reacted here to a long footnote in Heinrich Besseler, Studien zur Musik des Mittelal-ters. II. Die Motette von Franko von Köln bis Philipp von Vitry, 145Ð46n2. Heinrich Besselerhad the last word, however, in a reply without title, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 8 (1926):381.

29 Ernst Troeltsch, ÒDie Krisis des Historismus,Ó Die neue Rundschau 1 (1922):572Ð90.



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gifted stylist sacriÞced the freedom of the individual, won with such dif-Þculty over the course of modernity, and how recent scholars, inßu-enced by the events of 1968, have admired such positions without duereßection.30

Incidentally, Kurt Huber seems to have embraced a similar valuesystem with totalitarian potential. Huber was außerordentlicher professorof philosophy in Munich as of 1926, but in the late 1930s was activeabove all in folk-music research. After entering the Party in 1940, hejoined the ÒWhite RoseÓ resistance group and was executed in Munichon 13 July 1943. HuberÕs bravery and the fact that here was at least onemusicologically active university professor who protested against theterror without consideration for life or limb make it difÞcult to speakjudgmentally about the contradictions in his behavior. Yet if we lookcritically at his writings, we must conclude that even Huber Òwith hisGerman jingoism and his ideas about the biological conditioning of hu-man beings, about a culture based on loam and soil, and about a Führer-oriented national community [Volksgemeinschaft], in fact supported thevery ideology from which only Nazi fascism could grow.Ó31

Friedrich Blume

While Besseler must be regarded as one of the most charismaticand talented musicologists of the 20th century, Friedrich Blume, sevenyears BesselerÕs elder, is an irritating example of a scholar whoseachievements as an original researcher are at variance with his inßu-ence as an organizer. As with most of his musicological colleagues,Blume never joined the Party. He was, however, something of a virtuosowhen it came to the act of balancing spoken collaboration, cautious dis-agreement, more or less hidden distancing, and power-conscious imple-mentation of his own views.

BlumeÕs monograph of 1939 is still a sticking point today, a bookwith the title Das Rasseproblem in der Musik that grew out of a lecture atthe DŸsseldorf Exhibition and that was reprinted in 1944. Just tochoose the subject was to lend credibility to a mode of research thateven Blume could not seriously have believed to be harmless, even if he

525

30 See Geck, ÒSo kann es gewesen sein.Ó31 Peter Petersen, ÒWissenschaft und Widerstand. †ber Kurt Huber (1893Ð1943),Ó

in Die dunkle Last. Musik und Nationalsozialismus, ed. Brunhilde Sonntag, Hans-WernerBoresch, and Detlef Gojowy (Cologne: Bela, 1999), 128Ð29. In view of this nuanced judg-ment, it is difÞcult to understand why Petersen elsewhere sees it necessary to construe anopposition Òbetween a value-neutral concept of race [attributed to Huber] and a norma-tive oneÓ (119), or to dismiss HuberÕs Òexhortation to Ôreturn to the true GermanicFŸhrer-stateÕ Ó as a Òtactical statementÓ (114).




did insist in 1949 that those who possess Òenough sense for the GermanlanguageÓ must Òknow what it meant in 1938 when one spoke of a raceproblem.Ó32 Nonetheless the author expended considerable rhetoricalenergy on emphasizing the methodological difÞculties and the unsatis-factory results of previous work on the subject. Especially after 1945,benevolently inclined readers could with some reason interpret this as ascantily disguised aloofness from National Socialist ideals. Despite allunease with BlumeÕs virtuosic display of scholarly recklessness, even themost critical reader must admit that although the 86 pages of this bookoften bluster on about the preeminence of ÒNordic creativity,Ó33 thereis not a single sentence that could be read as a concrete anti-Semitic re-mark. This must be seen in relation to the near epidemic of attacks oncomposers such as Mendelssohn-Bartholdy or Meyerbeer that appearedin most musicological writings between 1933 and 1945.

Of course, the potential if not intended ambiguity of BlumeÕsÒclever book in which the author virtually ridicules his Nazi sponsorsÓ34

did not escape convinced National Socialists. A doctoral student inHamburg by the name of Max Singelmann, also an SS-Unterscharführer,subjected BlumeÕs study to a harsh critique in his dissertation. The cri-tique now seems inevitable given SingelmannÕs aggressive National-Socialist perspective.35 What is surprising is the consequence of the col-lision between two such positions. Blume had the audacity to seize therole of attacker in this situation, and to see to it that not the doctoralstudent but his advisor, the worthy Party member Wilhelm Heinitz, Òre-ceive a formal reprimand from the Reich Ministry of Education [Reichs-erziehungministerium] for the presumptuous and arrogant critique of acolleague through the pen of a student.Ó Even the rector of the Univer-sity of Hamburg opined that Òit cannot be allowed that the presumptu-ously and arrogantly stated critiques of a doctoral student be declaredÞt to print.Ó In sum, the Ministry spoke its disapproval and had it notedin HeinitzÕs personal Þles.36

This astonishing result testiÞes to the considerable inßuence of thedynamic Kiel professor in the formal and informal networks of aca-

526

32 Letter from Friedrich Blume to Arthur Mendel of 13 April 1949. Cited fromHans Lenneberg, ÒEditorial: A Personal Aside on a Discouraging Subject,Ó Journal of Musi-cological Research 11 (1991): 150n3.

33 Friedrich Blume, Das Rasseproblem in der Musik. Entwurf zu einer Methodologie musik-wissenschaftlicher Rasseforschung (WolfenbŸttel: Kallmeyer, 1939), 65.

34 To cite the evaluation of Lenneberg, ÒEditorial,Ó 148.35 See Max Singelmann, ÒZur Erforschung lebensgesetzlicher VorgŠnge aus der

Musik und ihre Bedeutung fŸr die GegenwartÓ (Ph.D. diss., Hamburg Univ., 1940); seefurther Petersen, Musikwissenschaft in Hamburg, 635Ð36.

36 Ibid.



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demia. In 1939 he took on a task that at the time must have been con-sidered highly honorable: to prepare a three-page report on musicol-ogy for a volume dedicated by ÒGerman scholarship . . . to the FŸhrerand Chancellor of the Reich on his 50th birthday.Ó Even here we Þnd acareful distance from clear National-Socialist positions when referenceis made to Òthe great problem of Germanic continuity that, along withthe similarly tangled question of the relationship between music andrace, might form in the near future an organized Þeld of German musicalresearch.Ó37 On the other hand, Blume adapted his entry to his spon-sors more than his colleagues did. Aside from Blume, the only scholarin the humanities to preface the name of his discipline with the wordÒGermanÓ was the art historian Wilhelm Pinder. For all his attempts atnuance, Blume envisioned in the Þrst paragraph Òa National-SocialistmusicologyÓ that can Òonly start from the vital core of German music,and that then lays further rings ordering the more removed problemsaround this core.Ó38

One arrives at similar conclusions when one critically reads a lec-ture given in Dresden on 20 February 1944 on ÒThe Essence and De-velopment of German MusicÓ (Das Wesen und Werden deutscher Musik).Despite the shortage of paper and the considerable cutbacks in thepenultimate year of the war, the pamphlet was still published before theyear was out. As was probably unavoidable at the time, especially in alecture series on Die Kunst des Reiches, it begins with a pathetic tremolo,arguing that Òthe times that threaten existence have tended to awakenthe greatest powers in human beings.Ó39 In view of the bestialities of theregime, which in February of 1944 no observer could avoid seeing, thiswish can hardly be called sincere. Blume strives to reßect Òon the foun-dationÓ of the ÒbeingÓ of the German people, and above all to ask whatÒthis ÔGermannessÕ in musicÓ is, of whose existence Òwe are all deepdown passionately convinced,Ó and beyond that quite explicitly what isÒthe German calling.Ó40

It is natural to recoil from such soggy rhetoric, but in all fairness itmust also be pointed out that Blume calls the self-evident foundationsof a common historical narrative into question with surprising self-conÞdence. ÒIn music,Ó writes Blume, the national Òorigin of a type orgenre, a form or a technique is of little relevance,Ó for Òmusic is to sucha high degree transferable that it is like no other form of expression of

527

37 Friedrich Blume, ÒDeutsche Musikwissenschaft,Ó in Deutsche Wissenschaft. Arbeitund Aufgabe, ed. Bernhard Rust (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1939), 18. Emphasis added.

38 Ibid., 16.39 Friedrich Blume, Wesen und Werden deutscher Musik (Kassel: BŠrenreiter, 1944), 5.40 Ibid., 7, 14. Emphasis in the original.




the human spirit. . . . Each and every people has borrowed somethingfrom the other and has reÞned what was borrowed. Points of contactand overlaps are no exceptions, but rather the rule.Ó41 Accordingly, heexplicitly throws out the Òmusic-historicalÓ equation of ÒGermanÓ andÒFlemishÓ and, with respect to the 16th and 17th centuries, speaks ofÒintereuropean literature.Ó42

In addition to his critical distance from prevalent opinions, Blumechooses and evaluates his repertoire in an utterly singular manner.MozartÕs opera Così fan tutte stands next to Die Zauber�öte, despite theÒfrivolityÓ which had been carped upon long before know-it-alls discov-ered the Jewish heritage of the librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte.43 Further,not only is GluckÕs name nowhere to be seen, but there is not even theslightest mention of Richard Wagner. For a lecture given in 1944 onthis topic, this can only be characterized as eccentric. Nonetheless, wecannot let the claim stand unanswered that Blume, in his distance fromÒthe ofÞcial Nazi music propaganda,Ó was guided by Òhis adherence tostrictly scientiÞc principles,Ó as a reviewer in a British journal in 1947wished to have his readers believe.44 After all, it is all too apparent thatBlume was inßuenced in a thoroughly unscientiÞc manner by the samenationalist ideas that the National Socialists had taken so naturally astheir own. Blume did not even recoil from the use of the concept Òprov-idence,Ó which had long lost its innocence through HitlerÕs abundantuse. ÒNot only have we been sent by history into battles with others, notonly are we beset from without more strongly than any other people,but providence has bequeathed us with the strength for these roles,Ó soÒthat we have been equipped to bestow achievements upon the world.In their highest forms (and in particular in their most speciÞcally Ger-man forms), they stand without a doubt over those of other peoples.Ó45

Vulgarized Hegelian concepts, alongside citations from GoetheÕsFaust and his late poem Urworte. Orphisch, have to shoulder the weightof the claim for the Òworld dominationÓ of German music, whichBlume argues with a hubris that far exceeded the normal levels of the 1920s.

In this forward development, German music always takes the last andhighest place, within individual periods as within the whole. If onelooks down at the whole of history, German music stands at the end-

528

41 Ibid., 9Ð11.42 Ibid., 14Ð15.43 Ibid., 23.44 Richard Freymann, Review in Music and Letters 28 (1947): 279Ð80.45 Blume, Wesen und Werden, 16Ð17. Emphasis in the original.



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point of the European musical culture. . . . In this sense, it has ful-Þlled the last and highest advance of humanity in the realm of musicto this point.46

BlumeÕs activities before and after 1945 will continue to pose riddles, especially as long as the relevant Þles in the university archivesat Kiel remain inaccessible. Nonetheless, we cannot overlook the self-conÞdence with which a veteran of World War I who never joined theParty made his presence felt in the two monograph articles sketchedhere. His self-conÞdence may have stemmed from the various inßuen-tial leadership positions he took on. In 1939, after Besseler had fallenfrom favor, Blume took over the directorship of the Denkmäler editionDas Erbe deutscher Musik, a project of large proportions, as well as theeditorship of the journal Deutsche Musikkultur. In 1942 he became chairof the ideologically important Neue Schütz-Gesellschaft. And sometimebetween 1942 and 1944 he managed to claim the directorship of thelexicographical project Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. However,he did not manage to bag the prestigious professorial chair in Berlinmade vacant by Arnold ScheringÕs death in 1941. The Leader of theRegional TeachersÕ League [Gaudozentenbundsführer] spoke out explic-itly against a Òpersonality . . . whose main achievement is in the realmof Lutheran church music.Ó In a highly contested appointment pro-ceeding that ended only in 1946, another reproach in the same reportproved even more damaging for Blume. He had been mixed up Òin theplagiarism affair between the Riemann-Lexikon . . . and the Abert-Lexikon,an unparalleled incident in German academic life.Ó47 (This accusationwill be discussed below in connection with Alfred Einstein.)

His activities after the war also show Blume more an effective andpower-conscious organizer than an original researcher, more a summa-rizing lexicographer than an innovative scholar. It is clear that such unquestioned and unquestionable qualities in the realm of managing a scholarly discipline do not imply a closed relationship to deÞnite ideological preferences.

46 Ibid., 18.47 Letter from Willi Willing to Erhard Landt of 18 June 1941. Cited from Burkhard

Meischein, Ò ÔDer erste musikwissenschaftliche Lehrstuhl Deutschlands AkademischeRochaden.ÕÑVorgŠnge um die Nachfolge Arnold Scherings 1941Ð1946,Ó in Musikforschung—Faschismus—Nationalsozialismus, 228. See also Potter, Most German of the Arts, 300.




Hans-Joachim Moser

Born in 1889 in Berlin, Hans-Joachim Moser managed to attainprofessorial honors only during the 1920sÑan interim period beforeBesseler was appointed to the University of HeidelbergÑand again inthe short time between the end of the war and the birth of the GermanDemocratic Republic. Nonetheless, it is worth looking brießy at his ca-reer. His list of publications, already extensive during the Weimar Re-public, leaves one little choice but to designate this proliÞc writer as theleading disseminator of rabid nationalist views in music historiography.MoserÕs fat Geschichte der deutschen Musik in three volumes, which ap-peared in 1920 and reached a Þfth printing before the Weimar Repub-lic was out, is still hard to stomach today on account of its decidedvölkisch and nationalist views. And its outspoken xenophobia and rejec-tion of modern trends led to countless contradictions in method.48

In 1933 Moser lost his position as Director of the Staatliche Akademiefür Kirchen- und Schulmusik in Berlin-Charlottenburg (this will be dis-cussed below), and after his attempts to return to academia failed, he was forced to work freelance until, in 1940, he landed the Ònice lit-tle jobÓ49 of General Secretary of the Reich Department for MusicArrangements [Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen] in GoebbelsÕs Propa-gandaministerium. Although Moser naturally did not hesitate after 1945to pose as a victim of the regime on account of his discharge in 1933,50

we must not lose sight of the fact that his activity for the Ministry can byno means be called apolitically scientiÞc. Rather, his task was systemati-cally to Òde-JewifyÓ [entjuden] the texts of several Handel oratorios, aswell as of all of SchumannÕs Heine Lieder, and thereby to contribute tothe destruction of Jewish traditions, if in this case ÒonlyÓ intellectually.

There is considerable evidence that though he had been in his ownwords a ÒParty Member since 1936,Ó51 Moser was anything but a con-vinced National Socialist. Yet even before 1933 he expressed such ag-gressive nationalist and anti-Semitic views that it is difÞcult not to seehim at least in this respect as a precursor to the destructive potentialand disdain for humanity that was let loose after 1933. The importantethnomusicologist Curt Sachs, who in 1933 lost his position as außeror-dentlicher professor at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin be-

530

48 Ibid., 206Ð8.49 Letter from Hans-Joachim Moser to Fritz Hartung of 11 April 1941. Cited from

Meischein, Ò ÔDer erste musikwissenschaftliche Lehrstuhl,Õ Ó 236.50 Pamela M. Potter, ÒTrends in German Musicology, 1918Ð1945: The Effects of

Methodological, Ideological, and Institutional Change on the Writing of Music HistoryÓ(Ph.D. diss., Yale Univ., 1991), 287.

51 Letter from Hans-Joachim Moser to Fritz Hartung of 11 April 1941. Cited fromMeischein, Ò ÔDer erste musikwissenschaftliche Lehrstuhl,Õ Ó 238.



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531

cause of his Jewish heritage, underlined this point with all clarity in aletter to Moser. In the bitter judgment written from New York, wherehe lived at the time, he also expressly included many other Germanmusicologists who now wanted to resume contacts with him.

These men do not see that there is a straight line between thestaunchly nationalist man and the executioner of Auschwitz, even ifthey are separated by a few posts. . . . Even you, like so many otherscholars, helped to prepare the mentality that Þnally led to theslaughterhouses and gas chambers of the national concentrationcamps. . . . Only when the German learns to love his home withoutbellowing about the German soul and German humanity in every-oneÕs ears, only when he realizes that nationalist exhibitionism is novirtue but a vice, only then can there be peace, for Germany and forother countries.52

Alfred Einstein

Of the four researchers individually presented here, Alfred Einsteinwas the eldest, born in 1880, thus 9 years before Moser, 14 beforeBlume, and 20 before Besseler. He studied with Adolf Sandberger inMunich, the city of his birth, though for anti-Semitic reasons (naturallyonly revealed in private correspondence) Sandberger never allowed thepromising student to reach the stage of the Habilitation.53 Held backfrom a university job, Einstein devoted himself to private research activities, above all to the widely inßuential Zeitschrift für Musikwis-senschaft. He was its editor from its inauguration in 1918 until his dis-charge in September of 1933, and in addition wrote music criticism forthe Münchner Post and from 1927 to 1933 for the Berliner Tagblatt. Hisintroduction to the Þrst volume of the Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaftshows a clear national predilection,54 though the sovereign stylist nevergave in to excesses comparable to those of Moser or Blume.

Although Einstein was never able to obtain a university position be-cause of rampant anti-Semitism, he was of considerable importance formusicological journalism of the 1920s and 30s, and it is not just for the

52 Letter from Curt Sachs to Hans-Joachim Moser of 9 April 1949. Cited from Pot-ter, Most German of the Arts, 339.

53 See Pamela M. Potter, ÒDie Lage der jŸdischen Musikwissenschaftler an den Uni-versitŠten der Weimarer Zeit,Ó in Musik in der Emigration 1933–1945. Verfolgung—Vertreibung—Rückwirkung. Symposium Essen, 10. bis 13. Juni 1992, ed. Horst Weber (Stuttgart: J. B. Metz-ler, 1994), 61Ð62.

54 See Alfred Einstein, ÒGeleitwort,Ó Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 1 (1918/19):3Ð4.




quality of the work he produced in Italian and American exile that heshould be counted among the most important German musicologists ofthe 1930s.55

When considering EinsteinÕs position in German musicology, onecannot let an extremely unpleasant case of plagiarism go unmentioned.The events are of no musicological importance, but do elucidateBlumeÕs failure to receive the Berlin appointment and EinsteinÕs in-creasing bitterness and exclusion from the musicological community.In Stuttgart in 1927, Hermann Abert, together with his studentsFriedrich Blume and Rudolf Gerber, published an Illustriertes Musik-lexikon. In numerous articles, it noticeably paralleled Hugo RiemannÕsMusik-Lexikon, the 10th edition of which Alfred Einstein had recentlyseen to press. As Hermann AbertÕs literary estate is in private hands andinaccessible, and as the records of a civil suit Þled in 1927 by EinsteinÕspublisher do not survive, we must exercise caution in evaluating the im-plied accusations of plagiarism. This is especially the case with refer-ence works, where the line between clear plagiarism and the use of gen-erally available data is more difÞcult to draw than it is with strictlyacademic publications. But from recently discovered records of AbertÕspublisher, it is clear that the publisher saw his chances in court asnonexistent, and, after a defeat in the Þrst court case, agreed withoutdelay to an extremely unfavorable settlement.56 The fact speaks vol-umes. Even though Einstein did not advertise the results of the clash inscholarly circles, Blume seems to have borne a grudge against him forthe painful exposure, as one can see in exchanges from the 1950s (dis-cussed below). Even Moser was involved in the affair, having attemptedin an external evaluation to counter what would seem to be well-founded accusations of plagiarism, though by no means to BlumeÕs satisfaction.

Common Ground

The four cases brießy outlined here have conspicuous features incommon. Certainly one of the greatest talents of German musicology,Besseler was never advanced to ordentlicher professor in Heidelberg,even though his personal Þles are full of indications pointing in that

532

55 See Pamela M. Potter, ÒFrom Jewish Exile in Germany to German Scholar inAmerica: Alfred EinsteinÕs Emigration,Ó in Driven into Paradise: The Musical Migration fromNazi Germany to the United States, ed. Reinhold Brinkmann and Christoph Wolff (Berkeley:Univ. of California Press, 1999), 308.

56 See Robert Schmitt-Scheubel, ÒAbert, Blume, Gerber et alii und das plagiierteLexikon,Ó in Musikforschung—Faschismus—Nationalsozialismus, 79Ð87.



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direction. And even after 1945, there seems to have been no expresswillingness among other faculty members to work to retain their col-league, even though this could easily have been accomplished. It was,after all, in his Þles that Besseler had given himself generous discre-tionary powers in advising Jewish doctoral students. Two of these stu-dents thanked him with steadfast loyalty. Ernst Hermann Meyer, whohad survived in British exile, was appointed ordentlicher professor ofmusic sociology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, worked formany years as chair of the musicological advisory committee at theStaatssekretariat, and secured Besseler the support of the state culturalbureaucracy of the GDR. Edward E. Lowinsky, who emigrated to theUnited States in 1940, arranged for the bestowal of an honorary doc-torate from the University of Chicago in 1967. In addition, in spite ofhis pronounced ideological positions, Besseler had serious problemswith the National-Socialist establishment, as the Party court proceed-ings mentioned above testify (though its actual background is still notclear).

As for Blume, as discussed above, both his behavior in the clashwith Heinitz and his brilliant career after his appointment as ordentlicherprofessor in 1938 are only explicable if we assume that he had consid-erable weight in the mostly informal networks of academic organiza-tions. How else are we to regard the hypothesis, repeatedly advanced inrecent times, that Blume actually managed to deprive RosenbergÕsstaunch follower Gerigk of an extended dictionary project even beforethe war had Þnished?

By contrast, the academic establishment always limited Alfred Ein-stein to the role of private scholar without academic honors, thoughprofessional rivalry surely was at fault alongside the rampant anti-Semitism of such circles. Nonetheless, in view of unambiguous sourceinformation and the widespread disinclination among university pro-fessors to accept ÒJewsÓ as colleagues, EinsteinÕs obituary of 1952strikes one as odd. It was commissioned by Blume from Hans Ferdi-nand Redlich (another scholar forced into exile for racial reasons, em-igrating from Vienna to England in 1939), and it states that Òincom-prehensibly, the gates of German universitiesÓ were closed to theÒrising scholar of great stature.Ó57 It is even more disturbing when onerealizes that 12 years earlier, when the old accusation of plagiarism of1927 threatened to drag down his career, Blume did not hesitate tolook back and see a plot by a publishing company Òin Jewish handsÓ

533

57 Hans Ferdinand Redlich, ÒAlfred Einstein zum GedŠchtnis,Ó Die Musikforschung 5(1952): 350.




to defend its ÒJewish monopolyÓ with the help of an Òextremely cleverJewish lawyer.Ó58

Finally, Moser was discharged from his position as director of theStaatliche Akademie für Kirchen- und Schulmusik in Berlin-Charlottenburgfor reasons that are still not clear today. Similarly, the highly activefounder of the Cologne Institut für Musikwissenschaft, Ernst BŸcken, wasnever advanced to Ordinarius, and the Director of Music at the Univer-sity of TŸbingen, Ernst Fritz Schmid (a leading Mozart scholar after1945), was discharged at his own behest only two years after taking upthe position in 1937. While the published documents on BŸcken andSchmid say nothing, they are unambiguous with respect to Moser. Theenterprising man in his mid 40s was the subject of a disciplinary actionon account of a sexual escapade with a female student.59 What the doc-uments do not say, however, is that a denunciation had to precede theaction.

As so often in such matters, gossip is astonishingly well informedand hints that an assistant loyal to the Party consciously intriguedagainst Moser. Now of course we cannot give gossip the status of a his-torical documentÑa type of Òoral historyÓ practiced ad absurdumÑandwe must by all means ask the critical question about the veracity of thecheap sensational accusations against Moser. But something else is atstake here. A not unsubstantial number of conßicts as important as theyare difÞcult to understand must have been causedÑjust like many oftodayÕs conßictsÑby things of which we know absolutely nothing fromofÞcial documents.

Even today the academic community is not free of intrigues, espe-cially in a small Òorchid discipline,Ó and it takes little fantasy to imaginethe gruesome efÞciency of intrigue in a totalitarian system of terror, es-pecially one with competing circles of power. The decision alone tosend a scholar into military service or to classify him as ÒindispensableÓwas not just a question of career, but often enough of life itself. Onewonders for example why the Director of the Musicological Seminar atthe University of Leipzig, Helmuth Schultz, had to take up arms as earlyas 1943 (he was killed on 13 April 1945 near Zwickau) while the enter-prising Walther Vetter, an ordentlicher professor of musicology at the Reich University of Posen beginning in 1941, was called up only in Jan-uary of 1945 (unchallenged, he was later Ordinarius at the HumboldtUniversity in Berlin from 1946 until 1958). This is also my main criti-

534

58 Testimony of Friedrich Blume from 20 October 1940. Quoted from Potter, MostGerman of the Arts, 111.

59 Ibid., 339.



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cism of Pamela PotterÕs approach, which takes too little account of indi-viduals. In an academic community characterized by jealousy and resentment, many decisions that at Þrst glance may seem politically mo-tivated could easily be as much due to humanÑand all-too-humanÑfoibles.

This point seems so important to me above all because, in compari-son with other disciplines, academic musicology seems surprisingly little contaminated by ideology, with the exception of a few stands takenby Heinrich Besseler, Werner Korte, and Josef MŸller-Blattau. The lastwas a careerist with particular powers of intrigue. He actively sought thedischarge of his mentor, Wilibald Gurlitt, in Freiburg im Breisgau, tookan appointment at the Reich University of Stra§burg in 1942, and thenin 1952 regained professorial honors in, of all places, the Saar region,an area formally sovereign but in fact controlled by France.

Some Propositions

At this point I would like to summarize with a few propositions:1. Musicology is a small discipline and was even smaller in 1933

than it is today. At the time that the National Socialists took power in1933, there were permanently funded professorial chairs at only four-teen universities, often restricted to the status of an außerordentlicher ofÞ-cial and at times uniÞed with the job of university director of music. Asits status in the academic canon was not yet stable, even a half-centuryafter the Þrst professorial post was established, the discipline was espe-cially prone to intrigues and cartels of power. Thus, in spite of the situa-tion, personal loyalties were more important than political and ideo-logical ones; patriarchal teacher-student relations had more weight than factions born of internal clashes between rival groups within theNational-Socialist regime. Furthermore, these loyalties and relations al-lowed forms of control to continue almost unaltered and without inter-ruption. According to all oral accounts, for a long time this system hin-dered two of the most talented representatives of the generation bornaround 1930, Carl Dahlhaus and Rudolf Stephan, from developing careers commensurate with their capabilities. Only when the disciplineexpanded around 1970, bringing with it new departments, did suchcartels of power gradually lose their inßuence.

2. Musicology is a German discipline. Up through the 1930s, asidefrom a few marginal exceptions, the discipline was represented in uni-versities only in the three germanophone countries. Furthermore, eventoday, after the professionalization of academic musicology in theUnited States, the British Isles, France, Italy, and many other countries,there is a wide international consensus about an ominous claim of

535




leadership,60 the claim that Arnold Schoenberg characterized in 1921as the Òpredominance of German music.Ó61 A tradition of musicologicalscholarship that was Þrmly convinced of the preeminence of its own na-tional heritage did not need to accommodate itself in the Þrst place tothe German jingoism of the National Socialists. If we compare, for ex-ample, Theodor W. AdornoÕs canon with that of scholars like FriedrichBlume, not to mention Hans-Joachim Moser,62 it is clear that such viewswere independent of cultural origin and political preference. On thecontrary, scholars had perhaps more freedom of movement becausetheir national orientation could never seriously be doubted.

As this canon was linked not to traditions or to genres, but only togreat Þgures like Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms,Wagner, Bruckner, and (as of the 1920s) Heinrich SchŸtz, even con-crete references to the work of these ÒclassicsÓ could be preserved es-sentially unchanged after 1945. What had been stylized under theheading of a ÒFŸhrer principleÓ was now changed back into the tradi-tional forms of hagiographic historiography passed down from the 19th century. Of course, to have research interests beyond the ger-manophone canon could have devastating effects on oneÕs career inthe university. In Kšnigsberg in East Prussia, Herbert Gerigk completeda Habilitation thesis under Joseph MŸller-Blattau on Giuseppe Verdi,63

who to this day is seen in part as a Òhurdy-gurdy musicianÓ by the Ger-man Bildungsbürgertum.64 As a result, Gerigk never attained a universitypost, and it seems plausible that the aggressiveness with which he in-trigued against the academic musicological establishment as director of the Amt Musik in the Amt Rosenberg might be related to his blockedcareer.

3. Musicology is a ÒlateÓ discipline. With respect to its study of coresources no less than to its institutionalization in academia, it is behindby decades, if not by an entire century, when compared with the disci-plines of history or literature. For this reason, the discipline resentedand distanced itself less from historicism than most other humanistic

536

60 See Anselm Gerhard, ÒÔKanonÕ in der Musikgeschichtsschreibung. Nationalisti-sche Gewohnheiten nach dem Ende der nationalistischen Epoche,Ó Archiv für Musikwis-senschaft 47 (2000): 24Ð25.

61 See Josef Rufer, Das Werk Arnold Schönbergs (Kassel: BŠrenreiter, 1959), 26.62 See Anselm Gerhard, ÒZwischen ÔAufklŠrungÕ und ÔKlassik.Õ †berlegungen zur

Historiographie der Musik des spŠten 18. Jahrhunderts,Ó in Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 24(2000): 52.

63 See Weisweiler, Ausgemerzt!, 17Ð19.64 See Anselm Gerhard, ÒEinleitung. Verdi-Bilder,Ó in Verdi Handbuch, ed. Anselm

Gerhard and Uwe Schweikert (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2001), 11.



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Þelds. Even Besseler, whose manifest ideologicization of medieval musiccan only be explained by a disgust with historicist methods, edited col-lections of musical sources after 1945, even though he was less thancareful and tended to follow his own hypotheses rather than source-critical methods.

For the very reason that the study of musical and theoreticalsources was and is of decisive importance in the self-understanding ofthe disciplineÑeven at the outset of the 21st century, the ÒfruitfulÓ edi-torial achievements of independent research institutes were still beingcompared to the Òquestionable narrowing of the horizonÓ in academicdepartments65Ña large part of musicological research was devoted toactivities that could be molded to the National-Socialist ideology only ina limited way.66 What musicologists who remained in Germany between1933 and 1945 could hardly have perceived as an advantage must havebeen seen as a stroke of good luck after 1945, as a way to continue busi-ness as usual without further disruption. In 1952 Friedrich Blume listedthe Òdownfall of the Staatliches Institut für deutsche MusikforschungÓ inBerlin, a pendant to the Reichserziehungministerium, as particularly egre-gious among the Òheavy blows dealt to German musicology by theevents of the war.Ó During its ten years in existence, this Òcenter of re-search developed an exceedingly diverse and productive activity,Ó whileÒGerman music scholarship has suffered an especially heavy reversalÓthrough its dissolution.67

Indeed, with the creation of the Foundation for Prussian Heritage[Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz] in 1957, this organization could bereestablished as the State Institute for Music Research [Staatliches Insti-tut für Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz]. Yet of far greater impor-tance for the development of the discipline in the second half of the20th century was a tendency, supported by Blume, to focus even in uni-versities on editorial tasks rather than on the discussion of historio-graphic methods appropriate to music history. Germanophone musi-cology all but ignored the American debate (more or less inauguratedby Hayden White) about historiography and the ÒpostmodernityÓ of the1990s.

537

65 Ludwig Finscher, Ò ÔDiversi diversa orant.Õ Bemerkungen zur Lage der deutschenMusikwissenschaft,Ó Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 47 (2000), 11 and 14.

66 Ideological handicaps beyond those concerning the choice of repertoire to beedited are only really evident in the collected works of Anton Bruckner begun in 1927.See Christa BrŸstle, Anton Bruckner und die Nachwelt. Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte des Komponistenin der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: M & P, 1998), 125Ð34 and 221Ð27.

67 Friedrich Blume, ÒZur Lage der deutschen Musikforschung,Ó Die Musikforschung 5(1952): 100.




4. Music as a conceptless art was not easily subsumed underÒracialÓ and ÒvölkischÓ concepts, or even measured by criteria of artisticand political necessity. Many tried to explain European music history bydrawing on the spirit of contemporary studies of race, but they oftenhad to admit to themselves the difÞculty if not the utter failure of theenterprise. As had Friedrich Blume, scholars could plausibly argue thatextensive research was still necessary in this area. It was a type of argu-ment that had great tactical advantages, and not just to secure betterfunding for a small and youthful Þeld.

To say this is in no way to excuse the behavior of people like Blume.Rather we could come to the opposite conclusion. They should havecapitalized more on the freedom of movement apparently open tothem. But in comparison with other disciplines it is noticeable that onlythose outside the university formulated overwhelmingly racist accountsof music history, and that they could not pass muster with their seem-ingly nationalist, if not to some degree National-Socialist, colleagues.

Continuities after 1945

It should be repeated that these conclusions can put a shine onnothing. Even those who would avoid the self-righteous moral zeal ofsome among the later generations cannot absolve their forebears: Musi-cologists active in universities, no less than their colleagues active in theAmt Rosenberg or in the Propagandaministerium, shared responsibility fora discourse of exclusion and völkisch terror both inside and outside thecountry. As stated at the outset, it should be a goal of research to recon-struct the responsibilities borne by individual scholars in connectionboth with Herbert GerigkÕs project to catalogue all musically activeÒJews,Ó and with the theft of art from the occupied territories.

However, only with evaluative restraint, along with the propositionslaid out above, can we understand how it was possible that germano-phone musicology in the two Germanys and in Austria could continuewithout difÞculty after 1945 where they had broken off their work before the Þnal collapse of the National-Socialist regime. HeinrichBesseler became the leading member of the Þeld in the Þrst ÒWorkersÕand FarmersÕ StateÓ on German soil. It was hardly necessary for him tomodify his denunciation of individual freedom, the foundation of hisapproach even in the 1920s, to be compatible with the ideology of de-mocratic socialism. Thus, a collection of essays published in Leipzig aslate as 1976 praised Besseler for his Òimpeccable logic of argumenta-tion and, with respect to scholarly ethics, a laudable clarity in the con-tour of his thought.Ó68 It is one of the many glaring ironies in the his-

538

68 Peter GŸlke, ÒVorwort,Ó in Besseler, Aufsätze, 5.



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tory of BesselerÕs inßuence that the author of this homage, one ofBesselerÕs last students, defected from the GDR a few years later.

By contrast, Friedrich Blume acted as an unchallenged autocratand reorganized musicology in the Western part of the country. From1947 until his retirement in 1962 he was president of the Gesellschaft fürMusikforschung, a society he founded, and until his death in 1975 wasthe sole editor of the monumental encyclopedia Die Musik in Geschichteund Gegenwart (which grew from the four volumes originally planned to seventeen). In addition to his overpowering clout at home, he playeda no less important international role, made substantially easier forBlume by numerous invitations to the United States.69 From 1958 to1961, Blume was president of the International Musicological Society,and after 1952 also the Þrst Président de la commission mixte of RISM, thelargest international collective undertaking in the Þeld of musicology.Using his political inßuence, Blume ensured that German musicolo-gists received a maximum of public funds primarily for highly tradi-tional philological projects, while the no less pressing discussion ofmethodological questions was left for another day. It was no longereven necessary to fend off new approaches with an emphatic stand, asBlume had done vis-̂ -vis the race teachings of staunch National Social-ists in 1939. They vanished of their own accord thanks to an unspokenfear of renewed ideological contamination as well as the evident successof philological projects in the era of the ÒEconomic Miracle.Ó

After six difÞcult years as an emigr� in Italy and England, AlfredEinstein made a late career for himself in the United States, where hetook up an academic position for the Þrst time in 1939 at Smith Col-lege in Northampton, Massachusetts. Although he continued to writein German, even today his books are often only available in English.For understandable reasons, the native of Munich wanted nothingmore to do with German musicology. He expressly forbade a biographi-cal article on his life and career in Friedrich BlumeÕs second lexico-graphical project after the affair of 1927, Die Musik in Geschichte undGegenwart. To BlumeÕs fortune, the publisher of the encyclopedia as-tutely realized that Òit would not be Einstein who would be blamedÓ forthe absence of such an article, Òbut rather Germany and in particularthe editor and the publishing house.Ó70 Thus, as cynical as it maysound, when Einstein died shortly before the volume in question wasedited for the last time, the tricky problem that Blume faced was solved

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69 I am grateful to Prof. Reinhold Brinkmann (Harvard University) for this point.70 Letter of Karl Vštterles to Friedrich Blume of 2 January 1952. Quoted from Ro-

man Brotbeck, ÒVerdrŠngung und Abwehr. Die verpa§te VergangenheitsbewŠltigung inFriedrich Blumes EnzyklopŠdie ÔDie Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart,Õ Ó in Musikwis-senschaft, ed. Gerhard, 361.




once and for all. By editorial principle, all living musicologistsÑthoseso arch-extravagantly honoredÑhad been asked to write their own bio-graphical articles. After EinsteinÕs death, Blume could without scruplescharge a third person, Richard Schaal, to write the article on his formeropponent in the plagiarism case.71

Finally, Hans-Joachim Moser remained outside of university circles.After an interlude as ordentlicher professor at the University of JenaÑwhose abrupt end in 1949 still needs critical study72Ñhe acted as direc-tor of the Municipal Conservatory [Städtisches Konservatorium, previouslythe Stern’sches Konservatorium] in West Berlin. As did other colleagues,he tried to continue nationalist and völkisch approaches to researchwith light cosmetic retouching. As before, he tried to write for interestedmusical amateurs in the Bildungsbürgertum, but he did not take into ac-count that, as an outsider, he presented an easier target for criticismthan did his colleagues established in academic circles of power. Thus,a strange thing happened when his 1087-page book Die Musik derdeutschen Stämme appeared in 1957. Even in the preface the authorlamented Òthe ordeal of our present fateÓ and confessed freely that hisÒwork had occupied him almost constantly since 1937.Ó73 As he as-serted, he took his methodological bearings from Joseph NadlerÕs nowsomewhat infamous Literaturgeschichte der deutschen Stämme und Land-schaften74 in an explicit attempt to distance himself from the Òtheme ofÔmusic and race,Õ recently so fought over,Ó and to which his own bookstood Òin conscious antithesis.Ó75

Friedrich Blume must have felt under attack by this backhanded re-mark, as he allowed the following anonymous notice to be inserted inDie Musikforschung, the journal he had founded.

The board of the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung has decided not to re-view the book named above in the journal Die Musikforschung becauseit wishes to distance itself in every way from the remarks in the bookregarding Judaism.76

With good reason, Moser must have been surprised by this turn. Blumeused this unusual channel ostentatiously to parade the fact that West-

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71 Ibid., 361Ð62.72 See Potter, Most German of the Arts, 250.73 Hans-Joachim Moser, Die Musik der deutschen Stämme (Vienna: E. Wancura, 1957),

29.74 Ibid., 14.75 Ibid., 15.76 Anonymous notice, Die Musikforschung 10 (1957): 334. For further details on this

matter, see Potter, Most German of the Arts, 253Ð55.



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German post-war musicology had nothing more to do with its völkischand anti-Semitic past. In so doing, Blume reconciled himself to the factthat the declaration, for which he as president of the Gesellschaft derMusikforschung bore at least partial responsibility, stood in a tensive rela-tionship to the truth. For as much as one has to criticize MoserÕs idioticcompilation for its misguided methodological approach, and as muchas one has to recoil from MoserÕs ÒphilologicalÓ and not ÒpoliticalÓ useof the Òconcept of the German tribesÓ77 (which of course includedFlanders, the northern Netherlands, as well as all regions where ger-manophone minorities had once lived), there are no actual remarksabout Judaism to be found in this book. With good reason, one canraise oneÕs eyebrows that Moser classiÞes individual persons as ÒIs-raelite,Ó ÒJew,Ó ÒHalf-Jew,Ó or ÒHalf-IsraeliteÓ with insistent regularity,but we would search in vain for a coherent judgment of ÒJudaism.Ó Inpassing, he emphasizes the Òvivacity of the Prague JewryÓ (and more-over in a thoroughly positive manner);78 designates Arnold Schoenbergas a Òdecidedly Jewish master,Ó for whom he lacks Òthe ear to apply anystandard of judgmentÓ;79 introduces Ferdinand Hiller Òas a representa-tive of the pure Israelites of FrankfurtÓ; and writes of Walter Braunfelsthat Òas a Half-Jew, he will not be discussed with respect to the questionof the achievement of the people.Ó80

In their latent anti-Semitism, it is quite evident that such attribu-tions are racist, if not overtly so. But nowhere are these associations,tied with such painstaking neutrality to individual persons, bundled together into a more fundamental statement about ÒJudaism.Ó As re-pulsive as such blather is, it was unfortunately still a standard part of German writings on music of the 1950s.81 Other authors differentiatethemselves from Moser only in their greater skill in the ÒartÓ of anti-Semitic allusion, which should by no means be taken as neutral. Thusin Friedrich BlumeÕs Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, we can readin the article ÒDeutschland Ó by Rudolf Gerber (1954) that Meyerbeerwas Òin any case, prone to accommodate himself,Ó while ÒMendels-sohnÕs art showed a wholly unromantic unproblematic approach toformÓ and his Òexpression of feeling was objective and distanced, with a tendency toward pose and sentimentality.Ó82

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77 Moser, Musik der deutschen Stämme, 13.78 Ibid., 552.79 Ibid., 902.80 Ibid., 339.81 See Hans-Werner Boresch, ÒNeubeginn mit KontinuitŠt. Tendenzen der Musik-

literatur nach 1945,Ó in Die dunkle Last, 304Ð7.82 Rudolf Gerber, ÒDeutschland,Ó in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Kassel:

BŠrenreiter, 1949Ð86 ), vol. 3, col. 338.




To return to MoserÕs position in post-war musicology, it is in truthodd that in 1997, in the second edition of Die Musik in Geschichte undGegenwart, BlumeÕs tactic has been repeated. The entire responsibilityfor the dark side of ÒGerman musicologyÓ has been heaped solely onthis outsider. In the relevant sections of the article ÒMusikwissenschaft,ÓMoser is the only person expressly named.

Through his excessive emphasis on nationalist strains, strains that af-ter 1933 were coextensive and in cooperation with the ideology of theNational Socialists, the Þgure of Hans-Joachim Moser (1889-1967)should be viewed critically.83

The article addresses the network of problems discussed here only intwo further unconnected sentences, and thus glosses over them in anincredible manner.84 The Þnal judgment is, however, especially illumi-nating. In words of some reserve, it reveals again the degree to whichthis reference work, and with it a great part of German musicology ofthe late 20th century, appears committed to a continuity with the ÞrstMGG, a work for which Friedrich Blume had been responsible:

The extent to which the corruption by National Socialism also intel-lectually damaged West-German musicology after 1945 is open toquestion.85

(Translated by Keith Chapin)

University of Berne

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83 Andreas Jaschinski, ÒMusikwissenschaft. II. Grundri§ der Fachgeschichte,Ó inMGG, 2nd ed., Sachteil, vol. 6, col. 1807.

84 See Gerhard, ÒMusikwissenschaftÑeine verspŠtete Disziplin,Ó in Musikwissenschaft,ed. Gerhard, 5.

85 Heinz von Loesch, ÒMusikwissenschaft. III. Musikwissenschaft nach 1945,Ó inMGG, 2nd ed., Sachteil, vol. 6, col. 1815.



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ABSTRACT

Recent studies of musicology under the Nazi regime make it plausi-ble to reach some conclusions, drawing particularly on four case stud-ies: Heinrich Besseler, Friedrich Blume, Hans Joachim Moser, and (as acounterexample) Alfred Einstein. First, musicology is a small disciplineand in 1933 was even smaller, making it particularly open to intrigue.Personal loyalties were more important than political and ideologicalones; patriarchal teacher-student relations had more weight than fac-tions born of clashes between rival groups within the National Socialistregime.

Second, musicology is a decidedly German discipline: Into the1930s, it existed as a university subject largely in the three German-speaking countries. A tradition of musicological scholarship that wasÞrmly convinced of the preeminence of its own national heritage didnot need to accommodate itself in the Þrst place to the German jingo-ism of the National Socialists. On the contrary, scholars had perhapsmore freedom because their national orientation could never seriouslybe doubted.

Third, music as a conceptless art was not easily subsumed underÒracialÓ and ÒvšlkischÓ constructs. Many during the Òthird ReichÓ triedto explain European music history by drawing on the spirit of contem-porary studies of race, but they often had to admit the difÞculty if notthe utter failure of the enterprise. In comparison with other disciplinesit is noticeable that only those outside the university formulated over-whelmingly racist accounts of music history, and they could not passmuster with their nationalist or National Socialist colleagues.

Finally, university musicologists, no less than their colleagues activein the Amt Rosenberg or in the Propagandaministerium, shared responsibil-ity for a discourse of exclusion and völkisch terror both inside and out-side the country. Culpability must be investigated individually, but alook at the Þeld as a whole makes it possible to understand how after1945, musicologists in the two Germanys and Austria could without dif-Þculty resume work broken off before the Þnal collapse of the NationalSocialist regime.

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