Great Conductors of the Third Reich是一个很具争议的纪录片.
记载的是Furtwangler, Bohm, Blech, Karajan, Knappertsbusch, Krauss, Schillings在纳粹时期的艺术活动.他们是不是纳粹的帮凶还是无辜的艺术家?
A major review from Gramophone
by David Mellor, QC [Queen's Counsel]
"I'm generally not much into music videos. Films of concerts by artists of our time leave me cold, the visual image unnecessary and often distracting. The opportunity to glimpse artists of a bygone age can be quite another matter, and if well done, utterly compelling, as was undoubtedly the case with both of the 'Art of Conducting' videos (Teldec, 4/95 and 2/98), and the recent biopics of David Oistrakh and especially Sviatoslav Richter (Teldec, 8/98). In this very special category I also put one of my American purchases, the Bel Canto Society's 'Great Conductors of the Third Reich: Art In the Service of Evil'.
"The recent debate over Arthur Koestler has focused attention once again on whether we should damn an artist's work because he himself behaved antisocially or even criminally.
"So far as musicians active in Nazi Germany are concerned the pendulum has swung away from condemnation in recent times, perhaps too far. Michael Kennedy's recent biography of Richard Strauss exonerates him of Nazism, and for good measure, one distinguished reviewer, Hugh Canning, writing in the Sunday Times was happy to exonerate Karajan as well. Would he have done so, so readily I wonder, if he had seen what was for me the quite shocking sequence on this video of the young Karajan conducting the [Prussian Staatskapelle] in occupied Paris, just after the invasion, and in front of an array of leading Nazis and military men? This was plainly a massive propaganda exercise, given the presence--we see her greeted at a Paris railway station with full honours--of the awful Winifred Wagner, though she at least had the courage of her convictions, and continued to proclaim her admiration for Hitler long after it ceased to be advantageous to do so. Karajan conducts like a man possessed, lank black hair flopping, an entirely different impression from late Karajan, trance-like, eyes closed, hand movements minimal. Musically all very compelling, but the inescapable conclusion is that Karajan is glorying in it all, willing and able to milk the Nazis for all he could get out of them, the moral dimension of conducting in the aftermath of a particularly bloody invasion entirely absent. And presumably the barely 30-year-old conductor got his chance because others more fastidious turned it down.
"Karl Böhm and Clemens Krauss were even more involved with the Nazis than Karajan. Böhm, perhaps because of his less flamboyant personality, escaped much in the way of censure for his repeated use of the Hitler salute before concerts. He was a strong supporter, in private and in public, of National Socialism, claims Frederic Spotts, respected author of the history of Bayreuth, in his accompanying booklet.
"After the Karajan snippets, the most troubling section for me is a film made of Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in the A.E.G. factory in April 1942. This is more disturbing by far than Furtwängler's appearance, also shown, at the Hitler birthday concert later that year on a stage decorated with two huge swastikas. We know from biographers that Furtwängler never gave the Nazi salute, and that he tried to be out of town when occasions like Hitler's birthday led to invitations he would rather avoid. I'm also happy to accept that that handshake with Hitler that evening, so often used against Furtwängler in America, was unavoidable.
"But the A.E.G. film is troubling because it is so very carefully staged, almost an art film, and certainly not a spontaneous record of a concert. Furtwängler and his orchestra are presented without artifice in a striking performance of the Meistersinger Overture, but the cutaways are so carefully managed and lit that they must have required the most careful direction. Old, horny-handed sons of toil are beautifully arrayed on top of factory equipment, listening with rapt attention. Young blonde 'master racers' are seen in earnest concentration. There's even a few of the wounded, bandages to the fore, equally engrossed. This is a propaganda film par excellence, purporting to show a brave stoical people doing what needed to be done, inspired by their great musical heritage, laid out before them by the preeminent musician of the day. I wonder to what extent Furtwängler knew that he was being exploited for such purposes. If he even glimpsed one minute of the film he can't have been left in any doubt whatsoever.
"Knappertsbusch, too, performs in a hall decorated, though more discreetly this time, with Nazi impedimenta. His is an interesting case. As a Kna addict I have always accepted the explanation that he was removed from Munich in 1936 because the Nazis regarded him as unsound, moved to Austria, and after the Anschluss in 1938 came out with the memorable Kna-ism, 'Now they have re-conquered me.' After the war he refused to conduct at festivals with his Munich successor, Clemens Krauss, a well-known Nazi, and told admirers not to put signed photos of him next to 'those [expletive deleted] Nazis X & Y.'
"So far so good. The truth, though, may be more complicated. Fred Spotts claims that Knappertsbusch was removed from Munich, in so many ways Hitler's favourite podium, for musical reasons, not political ones. 'Hitler considered Kna inept both as an opera manager and as an operatic conductor...Hitler dismissed him as a 'military band leader'", Spotts comments.
"However, later, says Spotts, Hitler relented, and Knappertsbusch conducted at Nuremburg party rallies, and at birthday celebrations, which, as I say, Furtwängler always tried to avoid. There is no doubt that Knappertsbusch gave concerts extensively with the Berlin Philharmonic in the latter half of the war after his rehabilitation (a number of these performances are to be found on Tahra and elsewhere), and his anti-Nazi credentials emerge from all this quite badly damaged.
"Does all this matter? I think it does. It won't stop me listening to discs of these great artists, but like Thomas Mann, I will continue to muse about why they could not find better things to do than glorify the Third Reich through their art. And my opinion of them as people is inevitably diminished.
"This video, by the way, is not judgemental. There is no commentary. The films speak for themselves, and most eloquently. We are also allowed a long hard look at Max von Schillings (1868-1933) who died not long after Hitler appointed him President of the Prussian Academy of Arts, but not before he had expelled many Jews and liberals--including Schoenberg, Franz Schreker and Thomas Mann. Glimpses, too, of Leo Blech (1871-1958) whose distinction in the service of Berlin opera meant he was the only Jew permitted to perform openly in Germany in the early years of the Nazis, something he was apparently quite happy to do until on his return from a visit to Riga in 1937 his re-entry to Germany was blocked at the border.
"The musical standards throughout this video are always excellent, and often outstanding. But that, alas, is not what you end up thinking about. A must-see for anyone interested in this turbulent period."
In Defense of Furtwängler
The following was written by a Berlin Philharmonic first violinist, Richard Wolff:
“In the Nazi era, what lengths [Furtwängler] went to in trying to save our Jewish members, half-Jewish members, and the partners of mixed marriages! In spite of all his desperate efforts, he did not succeed in keeping the Jewish members, but he did succeed in making it possible for the others to remain. My wife was Jewish. When my son wanted to marry, Furtwängler ran from pillar to post to obtain the official consent necessary. ‘Dear Wolff,’ he said to me, ‘your son belongs to us too!’”—from the very stimulating The Furtwängler Record by John Ardoin
Furtwängler in His Own Words
From a letter Furtwängler wrote to Goebbels:
“If the fight against Jewry is directed chiefly against those who are themselves rootless and destructive, who seek to impress through trash and sterile virtuosity, this is only correct.
“The struggle against them and the spirit they personify—and this spirit also has its German devotees—cannot be waged vigorously and thoroughly enough. But when this attack is directed against real artists as well, it is not in the best interest of our cultural life. Real artists are very rare, and no country can afford to renounce their services without great damage to its culture.”
From Furtwängler’s article “The Hindemith Case”:
“It is certain that no composer of the younger generation has done more for the recognition of German music in the world than Paul Hindemith. Besides, it is impossible to predict what importance Hindemith’s work may one day have for the future. But then, that is not the question which is up for debate. Far more than the specific case of Hindemith, it is a general principle with which we are dealing....And about that we must be utterly clear: in view of the terrible and universal dearth of truly productive musicians, we simply cannot afford to do without a man such as Hindemith.”
From Furtwängler’s closing remarks in his deNazification trial:
“I knew Germany was in a terrible crisis; I felt responsible for German music, and it was my task to survive this crisis, as much as I could. The concern that my art was misused for propaganda had to yield to the greater concern that German music be preserved, that music be given to the German people by its own musicians. These people, the compatriots of Bach and Beethoven, of Mozart and Schubert, still had to go on living under the control of a regime obsessed with total war. No one who did not live here himself in those days can possibly judge what it was like.
“Does Thomas Mann [who was critical of Furtwängler’s actions] really believe that in ‘the Germany of Himmler’ one should not be permitted to play Beethoven? Could he not realize, that people never needed more, never yearned more to hear Beethoven and his message of freedom and human love, than precisely these Germans, who had to live under Himmler’s terror? I do not regret having stayed with them.”
The above quotations are from The Furtwängler Record by John Ardoin.
