Gesammelte Werke

Chamberlain's
Grundlagen des
19.
Jahrhunderts.
The book had the blessing of the Bayreuth circle and Chamberlain, as an old man, welcomed enthusiastically the National Socialist movement.
    The pedigree Wagner-Chamberlain-Rosenberg is more than just historical accident. Not only can we discover many elements of rubber-stamped Nazi doctrine in Wagner's theoretical writings, but we can also spot them, which is more important, throughout Wagner's works in more or less flimsy allegorical disguise. The whole plot of Wagner's
Ring
suggests some kind of a gigantic Nazi frame-up, with Siegfried as an innocent, lovable Teutonic hero who, just by chance, conquers the world and ultimately falls victim to the Jewish conspiracy of the dark dwarfs and those who trust their counsel.
    Incidentally, it is ironical enough and not without deeper significance that even the downfall of Hitler is presaged in this metaphysical master plan. We may well say that the whole pan-German movement, consummated by Nazis, bore within itself an inkling of the doom it spelled, not only upon its foes but also upon itself. This inkling is not of an entirely irrational nature, but is tinged with an insight, however inarticulate it may have been, into the ultimate hopelessness of German imperialism within the given constellations of world power politics. No clear-sighted observer of the early days of Nazism in Germany can have failed to notice an element of uncertainty and even despair underneath the drunkenness of victories celebrated before they were won. It is quite possible that the ruthlessness and cruelty of the Nazi regime, so utterly ununderstandable to other nations is partly determined by this deep sense of futility of the whole adventure. The Hitlerian statement that if his regime should ever collapse he would slam the door so that the whole world could hear it, is indicative of something much farther reaching than it seems to express. When we speak of the destructiveness of the German mind we have to understand this not merely psychologically but also politically, in terms of the desperate character of the whole gamble. The Germans permanently anticipated, as it were, the revenge for their own downfall. This may suffice as an example for speculations on the innermost secrets of Nazi mentality and Nazi reality as suggested by the Wagnerian work.
    A minute musical analysis of Wagner's works yields insight into the repressive, compulsory, blind and ultimately anti-individual way of his composing in a very concrete and tangible sense. His music itself speaks the language of Fascism, quite apart from plots and bombastic words.
    Yet, we should not overrate the importance of Wagner as a formative element of Fascism. Apart from the fact that his work contains forces entirely antagonistic to those which I mentioned, his actual influence in Germany was definitely on the decline. True, he helped to prepare the climate for Fascism with the generation of our parents. The imagery of his works doubtlessly soaked through innumerable channels into the unconscious of most Germans. However, his work itself had largely ceased to be a living force. This holds for the artists as well as for the public. Since about 1910, at the latest, there started a revolt of all composers of any independence and talent against Wagnerism and all it entailed. One may easily regard anti-Wagnerism as the common denominator of all the different schools that have sprung into existence since the beginning of this century. Concomitantly, Wagnerian philosophy lost its hold on the intellectuals. But what happened with the audience at large is perhaps even more significant. The lack of knowledge of the Wagnerian work among the younger generation in Germany was simply astonishing. The spiritual demands of the
Weltanschauungsmusik,
the exacting length of the
Musikdrama,
the spirit of high-fallutin' symbolism so incompatible with the positivist matter-of-factness spreading over the youth of the whole world – all this helped to bring Wagner into almost complete oblivion. His old Germans became associated with the idea of the »beaver« game. I can give you an example.
    In the winter term of 1932/33, immediately before Hitler took over, I had to conduct at Frankfurt University a seminar on Hanslick's treatise
On the Musically Beautiful
– which is essentially a defense of musical formalism against the doctrine of Wagner and the programmatic school. Although the seminar was focused on