Gesammelte Werke

the Arts
    By talking about the legacy of National Socialism within the artistic life of Europe I do not intend to dwell on Nazi terror, or the annihilation of many artists and intellectuals in the conquered countries, nor on the administrative measures by which the Nazi regime has put every cultural activity into the service of the totalitarian setup. What we are concerned with is the after-effect of the Fascist era and its significance for America rather than the actions and crimes of the regime itself. Our attention is focussed on those traces of the Nazi spirit which threaten to survive or to resurrect at a given opportunity. In order to understand these traces we have to cope with what might be called the spirit of Fascism, the structural changes which it has brought about throughout European society rather than with administrative measures which may be remedied. It should be said, however, that there is one aspect in crude reality which is beyond repair, namely the mass murder of intellectuals perpetrated by the Nazis, particularly in such countries as Poland. We do not yet know the extent to which intellectual and artistic groups in great parts of Europe have been liquidated. We do know, however, that the systematic drive carried out by the regime against all potential centers of intellectual resistance will leave its imprint upon the future. It is likely to result in a vacuum the impact of which on the whole cultural life cannot be foreseen. Though I am fully conscious, however, that, what National Socialism has done to art, is above all murder, I shall discuss today some less obvious aspects of the situation which seem to me of particular relevance, since they did not result from arbitrary actions of political gangsters but rather from developmental tendencies which are so deep-lying, that we may say that they have not only been brought about by National Socialism but are among its causes as well. In order not to lose ourselves in too vast a field I shall concentrate on the fate of
music
which I had an opportunity to study most closely. I wish to emphasize, however, that music serves here merely as an example for much broader sociological aspects, not as an end in itself.
    The idea that there are certain cultural trends which both belong to the presuppositions and to the effects of Fascism dictates the topics with which I have to deal. I shall first say something about the climate for Fascism in Germany as it showed itself throughout musical life in pre-Hitler days and I then shall point to some of the more obstinate effects of Hitlerism throughout the musical sphere. I am under the impression that we shall be able to understand the structural relationship between Fascism and culture the better the more deeply we are aware of the cultural roots of some of the most terrifying anti-cultural phenomena of our time. It would be naive to assume that the indisputable destruction of German musical culture has been brought about solely by a kind of political invasion from the outside, by mere force and violence. A severe crisis, economic no less than spiritual, prevailed before Hitler seized power. Hitler was, in music as well as in innumerable other aspects, merely the final executor of tendencies that had developed within the womb of German society.
    However, one can very well differentiate between artistic and philosophical phenomena which tend toward Fascism by them-selves, and others which were claimed by the Nazis more or less arbitrarily, mainly on account of their prestige value. Moreover, one can clearly distinguish between names to which the Nazis paid only lip service, such as Goethe and Beethoven, and others who represent ideas which are the lifeblood of the Fascist movement, mostly comparatively obscure figures such as Ernst Moritz Arndt or Paul de la Garde.
    Nobody can escape the awareness of the deep interconnection between Richard Wagner and German supra-nationalism in its most destructive form. It may be good to recollect that there is an immediate link between him and official Nazi ideology. Wagner's standard-bearer and son-in-law, the Germanized Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, was one of the first writers who combined aggressive pan-Germanism, racism, the belief in the absolute superiority of German culture, – or you may rather say of German Kultur – and militant anti-Semitism. The Nazi bogus philosopher Alfred Rosenberg has confessedly borrowed most of his theses from