Third Reich

Question 1

Kampflied

Answer 1

Fighting song with simple lyrics, catchy tunes. Direct means of communicating propaganda

Question 2

Uses of music (2)

Answer 2

1. Consolidating power and control

2. Advancing Nazi racial goals

Question 3

Consolidating power and control

Answer 3

Mass song and rallies, youth organisations, parades

Question 4

Horst Wessel Lied

Answer 4

Nazi anthem about Nazi member killed in 1929 street fight. Became party anthem

Question 5

Radio

Answer 5

Radio usage greatly increased as 1930s continued, and newspapers, public pageantry and film also used to spread Nazi ideology

Question 6

Advancing Nazi racial goals

Answer 6

National pride in music, German romantic composers used same Germanic mythology Nazis played on: anti-Semitic writings on Wagner
Focus on Germanic gods
Strong link between nationalism, German past and music

Question 7

Types of purged music

Answer 7

Cabaret, jazz and swing - believed to be Jewish and Negro conspiracies
Classical music purged of innovations associated with Jews and Communists (music of the period tended to be modern and experimental, not using classical key signatures, which was associated with them)

Question 8

RKK (general)

Answer 8

Reichskulturkammer.

All 94K professional musicians had to join.

Similar organisations for literature, film, press and radio existed too

Qualifying tests used to stop foreigners, then Jews, then the Roma from being musicians

Question 9

Depression and cinema

Answer 9

Due to depression and introduction of sound to the cinema, live musicians were no longer needed, so less jobs, so easy excuse to remove problem groups

Question 10

RKK 1938

Answer 10

November 1938: RKK purged Jews from the RKK as a means of removing Jewish music and history

Question 11

RKK 1939

Answer 11

All works by Jewish composers banned August 1939

Question 12

RKK Inspections

Answer 12

RKK inspected music areas to check everyone had a card from the RKK saying they would play.

Intimidated people who had the cards to remind them they had power

Question 13

Dusseldorf 1938

Answer 13

Degenerate music exhibition, followed by one in Munich which showed modernist avantgarde art previously banned

Question 14

‘Negro culture’

Answer 14

Idea that Negro culture and Jews corrupted German women

1930 - Nazi interior minister of state of Thuringia banned ‘Negro culture’ including jazz band and drum music, which stayed until Nazi party lost state’s election in 1931

Question 15

Ban on saxophone: why

Answer 15

Saxophones and syncopated rhythms not suitable for marching due to ‘swing’, so said to be corrupting and stopping Germans from exercising discipline

Saxophones also considered symbol of sexual permissiveness (swinging hips while playing)

Question 16

Ban on saxophones: success?

Answer 16

German instrument manufacturers complained, so instead attacked the way black musicians used saxophone

In practice, banning of jazz left to provincial governors and not banned by central government

Question 17

Measures against jazz

Answer 17

Many provinces made laws against jazz 1938-9 around time of Kristallnacht
Banned jazz on radio October 1935, but could not ban jazz records immediately (foreign contracts, dependency on currency)
Semi-official harassment - Hans Bruckner of Das Deutsche Podium
All records by non-Aryan artists banned April 1937, but could still be bought surreptitiously or smuggled in

Question 18

Das Deutsche Podium

Answer 18

Newspaper that exposed Jewish musicians so many were beaten (some to death) even though there were no laws against them performing
Increased after US entered war Dec 1941

Question 19

Swing Kids subculture

Answer 19

People who dropped out of youth organisations, dressed quite provocatively and listened to swing music
Officials tried to break up Swing Kids subculture in Hamburg

Question 20

Music by enemy states

Answer 20

All records from enemy states or containing performances by enemy musicians banned Feb 1942, anyone caught listening could be sent to a concentration camp
US used Jazz and Swing to lure people in to listen to propaganda/news
Glenn Miller played for US troops, and was also broadcast to Germany - interviewed about how great it was that they could play/listen to whatever they wanted, even though Italian/German copyright was banned in US as it gave country money, or if it had the language as then it was nationslistic

Question 21

Jazz substitution

Answer 21

‘New German Dance Music’ to fulfil same function as jazz, but without non-Aryan elements
Golden Seven founded 1834 - swing band
Jazz-like music allowed on German radio to prevent Germans listening to Allied stations during war, but was not called jazz
‘German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra’ 1942
‘Charlie and his Orchestra’ 1940 - swing band played on English-language radio directed at UK, used to emphasise anti-Semitic Nazi ideology but played by Jewish and black people

Question 22

‘Spiritual Resistance’

Answer 22

Victims of Nazism deriving emotional comfort and support through singing
Victims asserting solidarity in music as survival mechanism

Question 23

Gilbert and (later) Kater

Answer 23

Evidence of music about misery and inequality
Some people being exploited by their own (e.g. other Jews in ghettos)
Wrong to assume that music was immune to processes of politicisation and corruption

Question 24

Ghettos: general

Answer 24

Justified to prevent spread of disease, combat Jewish profiteering, separate Jews from Poles
Over half a million people died in ghettos, over 400 ghettos existed in Nazi-occupied Europe, some for months, some for years

Question 25

Ghettos: music

Answer 25

Jews held concerts and theatre performances in ghettos
Used to make sense of their experiences
Partisan movement (armed resistance) used songs
Songs about social stratification, inequality and moral degradation, and how some Jews in ghettos did better than others because they had more money

Question 26

Music in prisons

Answer 26

As a form of torture - forced singing at roll call
SS allowed prisoner orchestras, although only a small number of prisoners given this privilege
Poles not allowed to sing in public as German political prisoners did, as they tended to be darker
Helped SS keep order and compliance, would give orchestra singers better food and clothes, and allow them in groups instead of constantly being switched
In death camps, orchestras forced to play at executions, work units marching in/out, and prisoner arrivals

Question 27

‘Ghetto Swingers’ at Theresienstadt

Answer 27

Model camp to show to Red Cross, sick and injured prisoners frequently deported elsewhere
Prison orchestra

Question 28

Sachsenhausenlied

Answer 28

Song authorities at Sachsenhausen forced prisoners to write and then sing at roll calls
Controversies about it - Karl Wloch (one of its authors) said it reflected determination of anti-fascist spirit

Question 29

Zog nit keyn mol

Answer 29

Never Say you are walking the final road

‘Never say that there is only death for you’