Wagner’s Influence on Nazi Ideology

The Führer’s admiration for Richard Wagner’s music and his racially charged writings laid the cultural foundation for National Socialist ideology. Wagner’s views on the Jewish people, expressed with shocking clarity, became a tool for reshaping German identity and, by extension, the narrative surrounding Mozart’s legacy.

Wagner’s Anti-Semitism and Its Consequences

Wagner claimed that the Jewish people, who, as he noted, had “a God of their own,” were marked by a repulsive appearance regardless of their European nationality. According to him, Jews were “incapable of living” and could “never possess the art of sound.” He observed, with a chilling foresight, that Jews needed to redeem themselves “through self-annihilation.” Wagner’s essay Judaism in Music was not, as some claim, the epilogue of anti-Semitism in a cultural-political sense, but rather its origin.

Personal Cruelty and Tyranny

Wagner’s behavior was tyrannical, marked by cruelty towards individuals like Levi, the son of a rabbi, whom he attempted to coerce into baptism. When Levi begged to be excused from directing Parsifal, Wagner’s sadistic, calculated response mirrored the cat-and-mouse games that philosopher Adorno would later describe.

The Evolution of Wagner’s Racial Ideology

The composer’s anti-Semitism evolved into the “ominous biological racism of his late Bayreuth period,” a strain that grew within Germany until 1945 and extended to the interpretation of Mozart. Mozart was exalted for his supposed Aryan and Dinaric characteristics. For over three decades, Wagner incited hatred against Jews and foreigners. In his 1881 work Know Thyself, he proposed ideas that foreshadowed Hitler’s “final solution”: “Only the Jews remain without hope of salvation.” For Wagner, the Jew, the “demon of man’s ruin,” could never be racially improved; no matter whom they married, “a Jew would always be born.”

The Viennese School and Its Exclusion of Jewish Composers

The so-called “Viennese classicism” reflected the narrow, xenophobic, racist, and pan-Germanic views of the small bourgeois class. In the programs of the “First Viennese School,” there was no place for Jewish composers, aligning perfectly with Wagner’s vision of Judaism in music. The racial purity guaranteed the quality of performances. People were convinced of “the greatness of the musical tradition,” “the enormous German contribution to world culture,” and “the wealth of the Germano-centric popular repertoire,” while simultaneously being stirred to defend their traditions against foreigners.

Antisemitism in German Folk Music

Amid the trinitarian music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (HMB), distinctly antisemitic völkisch songs emerged, designed to transmit the “authentic Germanic feeling.” Youth events concluded with Anton Wilhelm Florentin von Zuccalmaglio’s (1803-1869) “Kein schöner Land,” an anthem embraced by early National Socialists.

Economic Crisis and Cultural Propaganda

The spirit of Richard Strauss, as evoked by Damisch, intertwined with the melodies of Roßbach’s Spielschar at the early Mozart Festivals in Salzburg until the economic crisis of 1929, when cultural activities dwindled. The Berliner Philharmoniker was forced to merge with the little-known Berliner Symphoniker, becoming the official ensemble of the German Reich, spreading Nazi ideology on a larger scale.

The 175th Anniversary of Mozart: A Nationalist Rebirth

Mozart’s 175th birthday celebration became the much-anticipated moment for national resurgence. His music was used to reinforce a sense of unity feared to be lost, even as groups like the Spielschar Ekkehard tried to maintain it through the streets with anti-Semitic songs and Mozart’s Lieder.

The 1931 Festival and the Reinvention of Mozart

At the 1931 Festival, Mozart’s music was cloaked in internationalism, cosmopolitanism, and universalism, which concealed a singular interest: Germany. Mozart’s work, considered timeless, was labelled “übernational” (supranational) rather than “international.” It was, in reality, an expression of German identity, perceived as so profound and privileged that only the German people could achieve the absolute through the art of sound.

German Musicology and the Illusion of Universality

According to Guido Adler (1855-1891), the father of German musicology, and Robert Hirschfeld (1857-1914), Mozart’s cosmopolitanism was ironic, as it too was a form of Germanocentrism. For composers like Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951), Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), and Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), the achievements of so-called “pure music” were the tangible evidence of a transcendent universalism confined to German culture. They believed that the works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms could set precise standards for evaluating all other compositional techniques.

The Nazi Celebration of Mozart in 1941

The irony reached its peak when the Nazis celebrated the 1941 Mozart Jubilee in Vienna, with enthusiastic participation from figures such as Richard Strauss (1864-1949), Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954), and the entire German musicological community. The Viennese portrait of Mozart as the great Aryan coincided with the claims made by exiled composers Kurt Weill (1900-1950) and Arnold Schönberg in America during the 1940s. While the Festival took place in Vienna, these emigrant composers were convinced that they, not others, were the legitimate German heirs of Mozart.

The Marginalization of Alfred Einstein

In 1931, Alfred Einstein published Don Giovanni for Eulenburg editions in Leipzig, expressing in the preface his hope that the work would foster “a new spiritual sense of music” and serve as an example to Germans to keep their distance from philosophical interference. However, his prophecy failed: the academic establishment, driven by the antisemitism of those same philosophers, ultimately denied him employment opportunities at the university level.

The Crisis and Oscar von Pander’s Perspective

In the same year, Oscar von Pander (1883-1968) reiterated in Münchner neueste Nachrichten that Mozart’s unique style was unparalleled for its precision and emotional purity, despite Mozart’s composition in over sixty different styles with inconsistent results. Pander’s suggestion to hold up Mozart as a model for contemporary German composers seemed the ideal paradigm during those devastating economic times.