Did Karajan join the Nazi party twice or not? My previous understanding has been that he joined the party in 1933 in Salzburg (membership number 1607525) and again in 1935 in Aachen (membership number 3430914), although Karajan later maintained that he had first joined in 1935. In 1933, the Nazis were far from holding power in Austria, so it seems unlikely that such a very early membership in the Nazi party was done solely to advance Karajan's musical career? Indeed, there are letters from Karajan's youth where he makes anti-Semitic comments, and he also "belonged to an ultra-nationalist, pan-German youth group in Salzburg" (according to the article "Historian Probes Conductor Von Karajan's Nazi Past", by Rachel Hirshfeld). Therefore, such "ultra-nationalist" political ties and racist views against Jews in his youth, along with Karajan's joining of the party not once, but twice (& very early on, initially), do suggest the probability that Karajan may have held strong Nazi sympathies.
Yet, Richard Osborne claims that the 1933 membership wasn't an actual joining of the Nazi party, he writes:
"What are the facts? First, though Karajan was nominated for membership in the as yet unbanned Party in Salzburg in April 1933, he did not collect his card, sign it, or pay his dues, though the registration itself (no. 1607525) got onto the files and crops up in many memoranda and enquiries thereafter. Secondly, he did not join the Party on 1 May 1933 despite prima-facie evidence to the contrary. In the first place, the membership number 3430914 is too high to belong to that date. The highest number issued before the freeze on membership, which lasted from May 1933 to March 1937, was 3262698. During the freeze, however, various functionaries, diplomats, and others were issued cards bearing an NG, or Nachgereichte, designation. These cards were, by convention, backdated to the start of the freeze: 1 May 1933. Karajan's Aachen membership was an NG card, and its number accords with batches issued in 1935, the year Karajan had always identified as the one in which he was asked to join the Party." ("Conversations with Karajan", Oxford Univ. Press, 1991.)
I'm not sure I entirely understand this paragraph. So, Karajan was "nominated" for the party in 1933 in Salzburg, but never paid his dues or collected his card, or signed it. Does that mean his nomination was done entirely without any connection, request, or personal interest on Karajan's part? If so, then who nominated Karajan in 1933 and why? under what circumstances? Of course, I understand that Karajan's 1935 membership card was "NG" & was backdated to May 1, 1933, but that still doesn't explain the circumstances under which Karajan was "nominated" in 1933, and why? that is, whether or not the nomination was done at Karajan's request?
Can anyone answer this question?