Classical Music Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Okay, like the mod said, let's continue our discussion about Wagner and nazis...

80K views 851 replies 54 participants last post by  mmsbls 
#1 · (Edited)
This is the place for it, right? Come on, let's have some posts! I don't wanna get banned again, or end up like Paul Best, the little boy who played too close to the railroad tracks.

So what's wrong with pointing out that Wagner and Hitler came from the same flawed Germanic social matrix, without having to "prove" it?

While Wagner didn't literally claim that Germans were superior to all other people, it is apparent that he felt that way on a cultural level. All his art was made within that culture.

I don't recall Wagner ever having said that some other culture was superior to Germans, do you? Can you provide any quotes, or any concrete evidence of this?
 
#194 ·
Throughout his life the number 13 was significant. He was born in 1813 and the year of his birth adds up to 13. He had 13 letters in his name 13. Wagner left school aged 13. He wrote 13 operas. He was banned from Germany for political reasons for 13 years. He died on February 13th.

And hence his obvious connection to Schoenberg! :D
 
  • Like
Reactions: Forsooth
#196 ·
I think Wagner's "anti-semitism" was of a different kind than the nazis. I think we need to explore exactly what this is. Has anybody actually read Wagner's essay?
 
#198 · (Edited)
As for Wagner's anti-semitism being of a different kind than that of the Nazis:

In the first place, then, the general circumstance that the Jew talks the modern European languages merely as learnt, and not as mother tongues, must necessarily debar him from all capability of therein expressing himself idiomatically, independently, and conformably to his nature.

One of those further lies, for example, is in connection with the language spoken by the Jew. For him language is not an instrument for the expression of his inner thoughts but rather a means of cloaking them. When talking French his thoughts are Jewish and when writing German rhymes he only gives expression to the character of his own race.

One of those is by Hitler, one by Wagner. I'd find it difficult to tell the difference.
 
#204 ·
Understanding others' use of language can be problemative even between native speakers of the same tongue - especially here at TC!
Yes, but that's not my point. I'm criticizing the immigrant comprehension of English, and saying it is lacking, especially for technical or poetic purposes.

[/QUOTE]But that is no excuse for what follows. For example:[/QUOTE]

Is Wagner complaining about a guttural quality, or sounds which produce sprays of saliva?

As a native English-speaker, I find the rolling r's in Spanish to be irritating. In fact, it's irritating to hear such chatter, which rolls on and on at a fast clip.

Wagner just doesn't like the sound of it. Can't he have an opinion?
 
#209 · (Edited)
Yes, but that's not my point. I'm criticizing the immigrant comprehension of English, and saying it is lacking, especially for technical or poetic purposes.

Is Wagner complaining about a guttural quality, or sounds which produce sprays of saliva?

As a native English-speaker, I find the rolling r's in Spanish to be irritating. In fact, it's irritating to hear such chatter, which rolls on and on at a fast clip.

Wagner just doesn't like the sound of it. Can't he have an opinion?
No. Because if you think he's making an aesthetic judgment about the sound of Jewishness, I'd ask you what the hell you were on about. Is the point that all Jews speak Yiddish and he dislikes the sound of Yiddish? Or is it that he's saying that being Jewish makes whatever sounds you make sound awful (clue: it's the latter). He's not complaining about rolled 'r's or sprays of saliva. He's saying that you will naturally abhor the sound of the Jew because they are different. Though they speak German, French or English, they won't speak or think or be inspired by it as a native would, because they are foreign.

So, no, he's not allowed to have an opinion which is prima facie non-sensical (you're seriously telling me that someone born in German in 1850 can't speak utterly native German by 1880ish, without sounding "Jewish"?)

If his opinion was, perhaps, that he regretted Jewish ghettoisation that meant swathes of Jews couldn't speak German properly, then, that might be a fair opinion to hold and express. But he's not saying that. He's saying that a Jew born in Berlin (say) amongst wealthy folk, who speak nothing but Hoch-Deutsch, doesn't sound the same as a "true German" who meets all the other criteria. The one will sound awful (and think "Jewish" and thus cannot be part of German culture), whilst the other can.
 
G
#211 ·
Actually, this is an absurd thread, has nothing to do with music and seeks to explore an unacceptable concept: that there are degrees of anti-semitism. There aren't, only degrees of the actions and consequences arising from hatred of Jews.

Give it a rest.
 
#213 ·
And I think this is exactly the point I've made elsewhere. But it's not an absurd thread per se, and it has a lot to do with music, if only because a significant contributor to musical culture was profoundly anti-semitic.

It's a problem that needs to be faced squarely, I think. Especially if you love The Ring and abhor the anti-semitism. It's definitely a problem that needs airing.

But I agree with you. RW's antisemitism isn't particularly different in quality from AH's. They just had different conceptions of what was possible by way of enacting their anti-semitism.
 
#217 · (Edited)
^^^ I think it’s an extremely personal matter. Not too long ago I also shared a somewhat similar view that it’s better to ignore Wagner’s personality and love the music. At some point I realised how much more there is to his works which can only be understood through Wagner’s life and personality. Reading Donington’s Jungian analysis of the Ring was eye-opening. I have shared this in other threads as well but it seems that Wagner directed a lot of his inner being into producing the operas. He managed to project his morals much more efficiently onto his works than his own life. Sachs is the one of clearest examples of an extremely moral and reasonable character who was created by Wagner.

Wagner’s art in general deals with much deeper fundamental matters than politics or antisemitism and understanding his character can enhance one’s appreciation of his work immensely - that’s my own impression and experience. This infamous essay was only one of very many essays he wrote. Wagner also wrote some which can give lots of deep insight into the way he viewed his art. Antisemitism is, in my opinion, a bit overemphasised when we talk about Wagner’s music - it was only one of very many elements of his multifaceted personality. I have not seen a single argument which would give undeniable proof that any of his antisemitic views “leaked” into his works but this has been argued extensively in this and other threads already. It’s not worth discussing again, I think.

Wagner was not the only composer with antisemitic views but they became much more controversial because he decided to write them down and the connection with Nazis and Hitler only further emphasised them. I think that hadn’t Hitler liked Wagner, he’d be a much less controversial composer.
 
#218 · (Edited)
^^^ I think it's an extremely personal matter. Not too long ago I also shared a somewhat similar view that it's better to ignore Wagner's personality and love the music. At some point I realised how much more there is to his works which can only be understood through Wagner's life and personality. Reading Donington's Jungian analysis of the Ring was eye-opening. I have shared this in other threads as well but it seems that Wagner directed a lot of his inner being into producing the operas. He managed to project his morals much more efficiently onto his works than his own life. Sachs is the one of clearest examples of an extremely moral and reasonable character who was created by Wagner.
Yes, the Donington's a good read and I like your summarisation of it in relation to the morality in the operas. But I'm not going to let Sach's pass without quoting the closing of the Meistersingers:

Beware! Evil tricks threaten us:
if the German people and kingdom should one day decay,
under a false, foreign rule
soon no prince would understand his people;
and foreign mists with foreign vanities
they would plant in our German land;


Taken on its own and out of the context of the opera, that could almost sound like a passage from Jewishness in Music.

Wagner's art in general deals with much deeper fundamental matters than politics or antisemitism and understanding his character can enhance one's appreciation of his work immensely - that's my own impression and experience. This infamous essay was only one of very many essays he wrote.
I think that's like saying 'at least Mussolini made the trains run on time'!

Yeah, he wrote lots of things. One of the things he wrote was utterly inhuman and disgusting, and the fact that he only wrote it once doesn't excuse him.

Wagner also wrote some which can give lots of deep insight into the way he viewed his art. Antisemitism is, in my opinion, a bit overemphasised when we talk about Wagner's music - it was only one of very many elements of his multifaceted personality.
And Hitler was a vegetarian and liked dogs. I don't think your argument has much substance to it.

I have not seen a single argument which would give undeniable proof that any of his antisemitic views "leaked" into his works but this has been argued extensively in this and other threads already. It's not worth discussing again, I think.
I haven't paid attention to all those other threads. I can only say that I was under the impression that Mime, Beckmesser and so on were, at least in part, anti-semitic caricatures.

Wagner was not the only composer with antisemitic views but they became much more controversial because he decided to write them down and the connection with Nazis and Hitler only further emphasised them. I think that hadn't Hitler liked Wagner, he'd be a much less controversial composer.
I don't disagree with that, actually. I still don't think that excuses Wagner's antisemitism -and claiming other composers were antisemitic, so Wagner's antisemitism was really OK is, I think, technically called "whataboutery"
 
#219 · (Edited)
I think the "absolutist" view of antisemitism is flawed, because it can vary according to circumstances and time. During Wagner's time not as many Jews had assimilated, such as Mahler later on. Mahler himself said he couldn't relate to the orthodox Jews he observed (in his letter to Alma). Mahler was so assimilated that his very identity could no longer relate to being Jewish.

Wagner seems more irritated by the failure of Jews to socially assimilate during his time. Figures like Mahler came later. Hitler's antisemitism is more about race, and physical traits, regardless of the exceptions who had assimilated. The more jews intermarried and mingled, the more their "Jewishness" got watered-down, and softened genetically.

I think Schoenberg was totally assimilated, totally German in identity, and desperately wanted to be part of the great Germanic/Wagnerian/Brahmsian tradition, but his lingering Jewish physical traits (balding head, etc) were what was used to reject him socially. So he had to leave, as Mahler did, betrayed by his own country.

Personally, I've decided to consider Wagner seriously, with a recent purchase of the complete Ring, and I want some perspective on his "antisemitism" that is not 'fundamentalist' and absolutist. Another reason I disagree with the absolutist view is because, whether we acknowledge it or not, all humans are racist.

Whether this racism is conscious (acknowledged as a universal human trait) or not can depend on if one is part of the "status quo" or majority who take identity for granted (most white people), and those who are of a minority or identify strongly with certain identity aspects: gender, sexuality, race (blank, Asian, Hispanic), orthodox Jews, white supremacists, and other strongly-defined identity associations.

These other strongly-defined identity associations tend to make these groups more sensitive to the idea of racism, though in most cases they see themselves as victims.
Thus, everybody on both sides needs to acknowledge their own racist nature. All humans are racist; it's how we deal with it that matters. And this means talking openly and flexibly about it, and ourselves.
 
#221 ·
I think the "absolutist" view of antisemitism is flawed, because it can vary according to circumstances and time. During Wagner's time not as many Jews had assimilated, such as Mahler later on. Mahler himself said he couldn't relate to the orthodox Jews he observed (in his letter to Alma). Mahler was so assimilated that his very identity could no longer relate to being Jewish.

Wagner seems more irritated by the failure of Jews to socially assimilate during his time. Figures like Mahler came later. Hitler's antisemitism is more about race, and physical traits, regardless of the exceptions who had assimilated. The more jews intermarried and mingled, the more their "Jewishness" got watered-down, and softened genetically.
Blimey. It's good to know that if they "intermingle and intermarry", this dreadful Jewish trait can be "watered down".

But in any event, Wagner didn't write "I do wish the Jews would integrate more", but "No matter how well they integrate, they think Jewish thoughts and cannot imbibe as native the culture in which they find themselves".

You're saying that Mahler would have disagreed with Wagner on this, since he (Mahler) didn't think Jewishly any longer after having been assimilated for so long. But Wagner would have said, 'you're fooling yourself Gustav. No matter how much you assimilate, you will never be part of this culture'.

I think Schoenberg was totally assimilated, totally German in identity, and desperately wanted to be part of the great Germanic/Wagnerian/Brahmsian tradition, but his lingering Jewish physical traits (balding head, etc) were what was used to reject him socially. So he had to leave, as Mahler did, betrayed by his own country.
OK, bloody hell! A balding head is now a Jewish physical trait?!

I don't have a lot to say in regard to that, other than that you're expressing things which are just as disgusting in their stupid levelling of individual traits into "jewish" and "non-jewish" as Wagner perpetrated in the first place. Only you don't have the glorious works of music genius to excuse yourself with.

Personally, I've decided to consider Wagner seriously, with a recent purchase of the complete Ring, and I want some perspective on his "antisemitism" that is not 'fundamentalist' and absolutist. Another reason I disagree with the absolutist view is because, whether we acknowledge it or not, all humans are racist.
You are now equating antisemitism with racism. Whilst anti-semitism can be regarded as a form of racisim, it's not equivalent to it, and the stating of equivalence is to diminish the peculiarly nasty aspects of anti-semitism.

Whether this racism is conscious (acknowledged as a universal human trait) or not can depend on if one is part of the "status quo" or majority who take identity for granted (most white people), and those who are of a minority or identify strongly with certain identity aspects: gender, sexuality, race (blank, Asian, Hispanic), orthodox Jews, white supremacists, and other strongly-defined identity associations.

These other strongly-defined identity associations tend to make these groups more sensitive to the idea of racism, though in most cases they see themselves as victims.
Thus, everybody on both sides needs to acknowledge their own racist nature. All humans are racist; it's how we deal with it that matters. And this means talking openly and flexibly about it, and ourselves.
I don't agree with your premise, and therefore not with your conclusion.
 
#225 · (Edited)
Similar accusations have been made against H. L. Mencken, but I have known people who actually knew Mencken personally. He had many Jewish friends in his circle, and his views were a mixture of generally negative view on what was seen by some as Jewish dominance of cultural and financial matters, as a kind of faceless cabal, and friendly thoughts about individuals he knew who just happened to be Jewish. I know people who have black friends, but are still clearly very racist in their attitudes and comments. These things can be exceedingly complicated, and we do no one any favors in over simplifying them and dividing the world into good guys and villains.
 
#227 ·
I agree it's complex. We know he was fond of Jewish conductors and so on, whilst also despising Jewish composers (especially if they were more successful than himself in Paris, for example).

I agree we shouldn't paint him in one colour, and that their are nuances in all people and how they form and give expression to their feelings.

I only got into this thread specifically to address whether Wagner's strand of antisemitism was different in kind from that of the Nazis, though, not to declare that Wagner was a goody or a baddy.
 
#246 ·
What idea. I have no idea what bone you're trying to pick.

You're saying that Wagner's antisemitism that wanted to rid Germany of Jews isn't "the same thing" as wanting to kill all Jews?

I've already acknowledged that point.

The bit you don't seem to get is that it's not a long bow to draw to get from the one to the other. In Wagner's mind, the conditions for the extermination of the Jews are already present: they are different, they are less than us, they can never be part of us. The rest is just technology and time.
 
#249 · (Edited)
I still have no idea what argument you think you've made that I've already lost. I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about at this point. You could at least elaborate. But feel free to walk off with the ball, if that's what you prefer.

Edited to add.

I have gone back and re-read all your posts, and I assume that you're referring to "I think that there is a huge difference between the idea of forcing people to leave a country and actually killing them."

I've explained precisely how I think the one bleeds into the other (requiring only time, a world war, and the emergence of a stong nation state with a government which understands it can intervene in the life of its people and the economy): the fundamental requirement of either case, being the thinking of them as 'other' and 'less than', already being present in Wagner's conception of the Jews.

You, however, have merely asserted that the two are different. I see no posts arguing that point, just restatements of it as if it's obvious and un-arguable.

Edited again to add:
I missed your post (perhaps a timing issue) in which you wrote "A closer comparison might be that if you are going to rob someone's house, you might as well kill them while you are at it (which is silly)"

That is an argument, not an assertion, so it deserves consideration. The problem with any of your examples is one of lack of time and development between the two situations. I crash a car; I think it appropriate to push said car off the bridge. Ridiculous comparison! Then: I rob a house; I kill the guy whilst I'm at it... Clearly a silly comparison to make! I agree that saying the one implies the other would be ridiculous, because in these examples, both crimes are immediate actions, separated by no time or socio-economic or personal development at all. So of course they are non-sensical situations.

A better example, I would argue, would be: why do the police get very, very interested in cases of animal cruelty? Because they know that torturing animals is indicative of a potential psychopath and a psycopath is quite likely to go on to commit serial killing. Here, we have one criminal commiting one type of crime which eventually and over time develops into another type of crime.

My argument is not that Wagner was a Nazi, in other words, just as little Bobby Cat-Killer, isn't a serial murderer.

But the one can develop into the other, because the underlying psycopathy that allows the crime in either case is already present (in the case of anti-semitism, it's the ability to regard the Jew as not fully deserving of the rights and protections that you yourself are entitled to).
 
#258 · (Edited)
^ Wagner didn’t ever, as far as I know, propose to kill Jews or get rid of them by force. He also had religious and philosophical views which talk against such theory. What I can say is that Wagner seemed to view Jewishness as a sort of negative quality which could be abandoned. Wagner thought that Jews can redeem themselves from their Jewishness. That’s a disturbing viewpoint as well but it’s less extreme than viewing Jews as inherently inferior. Wagner’s solution was that all Jews should abandon their Jewishness (not be killed as someone during the 20th century thought).

(I’ll add a more thorough explanation in near future because I’m currently using my phone which is somewhat ineffective :).)
 
#261 ·
...Wagner seemed to view Jewishness as a sort of negative quality which could be abandoned. Wagner thought that Jews can redeem themselves from their Jewishness. That's a disturbing viewpoint as well...
Oh, come on, that's not disturbing, just irritating! I wish my nephew would stop listening to rap music, doing "gang" hand gestures, and wearing super baggy shorts with his underwear showing.
 
#276 ·
Interesting thread, which I discovered just now. And I already have crossed swords with the usual suspect on this matter very regularly.

Apart from all the rude denials and ridiculisations by the usual suspect in early posts, I also see all kinds of subtleties in replies. But I didn't go through all 275 posts, so I might as well repeat earlier standpoints.

To me, it is crystal clear. R.Wagner has paved a platform for the rude unpolished nazi's and their extremist leader to be accepted by the German establishment, which led to the systemic holocaust.

The clear connection of Wagner's heritage with anti-semitism was made or enforced by Wagner's widow Cosima and his English posthumous daughter-in-law Winfred, who was parachuted into the Wagner family by her own parents by marrying the openly gay Siegfried Wagner and delivering the necessary heirs and falling in love with the (suspected gay) A.Hitler and introducing him as the sweet uncle Adolf to her kids and of course introducing him and his nazi-movement to Bayreuth. We will never know if the nazi's had come so far in actually executing their plans if Wagner had not created his pilgrimage. But the fact that he did, already says something about his totalitarian and megalomaniac ideas, as does his musical heritage.

Of course, there were (and still are) many racists all over the world. In the 1930's, you would find them in Germany, Russia, UK, USA and virtually each country. But Germany of course has taken it to the utmost extreme as racism was never so broadly and systemic established and executed.

It is of course absurd to discuss the 'fact' if Wagner has actively participated in the holocaust or not. He was long dead before it actually started. But the holocaust was the ultimate result of something that the Wagners absolutely have helped grow and florish and get accepted. The frequent ridiculisations throughout this entire thread are truly appalling and utterly stupid. There was a crystal clear connection between the Wagner family and the nazi's, based on anti-semitism. The nazi's could never have executed their systemic genocide without the broad acceptance of the German establishment and Bayreuth was an essential platform for the meeting of minds and acceptance of the executioners.

To this day, Wagner's music undoubtedly still is a code and symbol for racists, neo nazi's and secret anti semites all over the world. This of course does not mean that anyone who appreciates Wagner's music, automatically has similar sympathies. But Wagner's music will never be completely free from these associations. Well-deserved, I would add.
 
#278 ·
To me, it is crystal clear. R.Wagner has paved a platform for the rude unpolished nazi's and their extremist leader to be accepted by the German establishment, which led to the systemic holocaust.
I won't go that far. It is clear that RW was an antisemite -but he wasn't the first, and he definitely wasn't the last. But it isn't apparent to me that this means Wagner "paved a platform for the nazis".

As I've tried to covey in earlier posts, I believe antisemitism is different in nature to "mere" racism, because its 'solution' points in a particular direction: removal of Jews from your vicinity. Racists might huff and puff at their coloured neighbours, and they might move to a whiter neibourhood in response (they tend not to think that shooting the coloured neighbours is an option); or they might express a desire for 'repatriating the *******' and so on -and they'll tend to huff and puff a bit when the government fails to introduce such a scheme (but they tend not to think that building a backyard gas chamber is an option). But the point about racism is that the "danger" is obvious and apparent: they look different from you. So, the problem is self-containing: if you see them coming, you can cross the street and avoid them.

Antisemitism, however, whilst potentially starting from the premise that they look weird, with little black boxes on their head, hook noses, and curly hair coming out of big felt hats, very quickly migrates from a concern about "The Jew" to a concern about "jewishness" -a "trait" that can lurk in people who look and sound exactly as you do. (And note that Wagner didn't write "Jews in Music", but "Jewishness in Music"). From there, it's a tiny step to 'geneticism': that Jewishness represents a genetic deficiency and threat to 'the race'. And we all know where that thinking leads.

So what I'm trying to say is that Wagner didn't pave the way for anyone, but antisemitism, by its nature, inevitably points to pogroms, massacres, property expropriation, expulsions. And, if you live in the mid-20th Century, with experience of chemical engineering, mass slaughter on the battlefields of Europe, and governments getting significantly involved in the lives of their citizens, you can organise things a little more efficiently and come up with Auschwitz.

Short version: Wagner didn't pave the way for Auschwitz to happen; but antisemitism inevitably led there. And Wagner was an antisemite (but so were a lot of people, not that that excuses him any).

The clear connection of Wagner's heritage with anti-semitism was made or enforced by Wagner's widow...
I won't engage with that part of your argument. What Cosima or her children and grandchildren did or didn't do isn't pertinent to what Richard got up to.

Of course, there were (and still are) many racists all over the world. In the 1930's, you would find them in Germany, Russia, UK, USA and virtually each country. But Germany of course has taken it to the utmost extreme as racism was never so broadly and systemic established and executed.
Again, racism doesn't lead to those sorts of extremes. Only antisemitism does.

It is of course absurd to discuss the 'fact' if Wagner has actively participated in the holocaust or not. He was long dead before it actually started.
We agree!

But the holocaust was the ultimate result of something that the Wagners absolutely have helped grow and florish and get accepted.
That's where I part company with you. Richard gave expression to something lots of people thought. It brought him quite some notoriety, not approval or applause (such that he had to tone-down the final paragraph of the essay when it was republished in the 1869 period, lest re-publishing in its original form damaged his, by now, considerable reputation). I don't think he helped antisemitism grow or flourish particularly: he merely gave "intellectual" expression to something which was already quite common.

The frequent ridiculisations throughout this entire thread are truly appalling and utterly stupid.
Again, I agree. The apparently seriously-stated expression of the idea that Schönberg's bald head is a 'Jewish trait' was quite appalling, really. Or the idea that RW was only complaining about Eastern European Jews who looked "different", so that makes it OK... Jeez, Louise!

There was a crystal clear connection between the Wagner family and the nazi's, based on anti-semitism. The nazi's could never have executed their systemic genocide without the broad acceptance of the German establishment and Bayreuth was an essential platform for the meeting of minds and acceptance of the executioners.
And I don't disagree with the idea that the Nazis needed 'cultural approval' to cement their hold over society. But that's irrelevant to a discussion about Richard Wagner, since he was 50 years dead by then. I get much more antsy about the likes of Carl Orff and Herbie Karajan in this context than I do about Wagner.

To this day, Wagner's music undoubtedly still is a code and symbol for racists, neo nazi's and secret anti semites all over the world. This of course does not mean that anyone who appreciates Wagner's music, automatically has similar sympathies. But Wagner's music will never be completely free from these associations. Well-deserved, I would add.
To be honest, I don't move in racist or antisemitic circles so I'm not sure if your first statement is true. The antisemites I see on TV news reports are usually young, skin-headed, mind-numbingly prone to violence, surprisingly pot-bellied for their age... and universally appear to have an intellect the size of a peanut, so I'd be quite honestly surprised if they had the wherewithal to even being to appreciate the first 30 seconds of anything written by Wagner!

I can listen to Wagner without any antisemitic associations (apart from maybe Mime; and I get a bit itchy at the end of Meistersinger when Sachs goes off on his Glorious German rant). But it's definitely an effort to do so. One has to sort-of consciously forget the composer, even though you never really can. But that might just be me.

I think anyone who mentions Wagner and thinks him no different from, say, Mozart, Bach or Brahms is definitely missing a serious point about him, though.
 
#277 · (Edited)
^ You simply cannot say that Richard Wagner is to be held accountable for whatever stuff Wagner’s family has done and supported. As I have written extensively in this thread - there’s no reason to think that Wagner would have supported holocaust because his semi-religious, semi-philosophical thoughts condemned even killing and eating animals. You also cannot say that Wagner is responsible for how his works has been misinterpreted and misused by Nazis. Wagner saw his works as representation of the highest Art not as some political propaganda. Give me one quote from Wagner’s works or writings where he says explicitly that the works are representative of German superiority and are meant to convey anti-semitic stereotypes.

Hitler fell in love with Wagner when he was a teenager and I deeply doubt that at that time he thought about governing the world. There is also no proof, as far as I know, that Hitler had ever even read Wagner’s infamous essay. The fact that Hitler liked Wagner, like he liked Lehar and Bruckner, doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been simply because he liked him musically. Claiming that holocaust wouldn’t have happened without Wagner imo overestimates his significance and influence. There was a huge amount of artists and people who shared similar antisemitic views as Wagner did. I see no reason why Wagner should be viewed as the man who singlehandedly enabled the whole Holocaust to happen and who created the racial theory (which he, as I proposed earlier, didn’t even support!). Had Hitler used Verdi similarly as he did Wagner, we might be discussing Jewish stereotypes in Il Trovatore instead of Ring. I’m willing to discuss these as we have done in this thread with AB, because Wagner’s work being anti-semitic cannot be neither proved nor disproved, but just stating such things is not fruitful.

I deeply doubt that a significant amount of Neo Nazis or racists know anything about Wagner or have heard a single work he has written. Making such statements based on no facts or proof is not reasonable in my opinion.
 
#279 · (Edited)
^ You simply cannot say that Richard Wagner is to be held accountable for whatever stuff Wagner's family has done and supported. As I have written extensively in this thread - there's no reason to think that Wagner would have supported holocaust because his semi-religious, semi-philosophical thoughts condemned even killing and eating animals. You also cannot say that Wagner is responsible for how his works has been misinterpreted and misused by Nazis. Wagner saw his works as representation of the highest Art not as some political propaganda. Give me one quote from Wagner's works or writings where he says explicitly that the works are representative of German superiority and are meant to convey anti-semitic stereotypes. . . .
We also simply cannot say that Wagner had extremely objectionable social ideas (which he clearly did), and that it means his music is somehow inherently tainted. (Obviously things are slow if this ridiculous thread is still going.)
 
#284 ·
I'm not sure if this will work, because I've never tried linking to a PDF before. But here goes anyway.

View attachment Judaism in Music.pdf

I got fed up with awfulness of that translation a lot of us were referring to before. So I did my own.

I think as a result the last paragraph or two cease to be quite the puzzle they appeared to be. Börne attempted to find redemption, but couldn't. Instead, he came to realise that only by our redemption (i.e., the redemption of the "true" Germans) could he ever hope to find redemption amongst a true Volk.

So, for the Jew to become human in community with us, he needs to stop being a Jew, and regenerate himself through the difficult work of self-annihilation. And fundamentally, the Downfall of the Jew is required.

Anyway, if the PDF stops being available here, it's available from my website.
 
#285 · (Edited)
I'm not sure if this will work, because I've never tried linking to a PDF before. But here goes anyway.

View attachment 142633

I got fed up with awfulness of that translation a lot of us were referring to before. So I did my own.

I think as a result the last paragraph or two cease to be quite the puzzle they appeared to be. Börne attempted to find redemption, but couldn't. Instead, he came to realise that only by our redemption (i.e., the redemption of the "true" Germans) could he ever hope to find redemption amongst a true Volk.

So, for the Jew to become human in community with us, he needs to stop being a Jew, and regenerate himself through the difficult work of self-annihilation. And fundamentally, the Downfall of the Jew is required.

Anyway, if the PDF stops being available here, it's available from my website.
Thanks! Must have been lots of work but the PDF works well. I can see the last paragraph more clearly now as well. There's one thing about your translation - "Manhood" might have a more specific meaning but I'm not sure yet. He gives it a specific meaning and contrasts it with (redeeming) Womanhood in at least one of his essays. I'll see if I find any interesting information about that. Wagner used "feminine" and "masculine" as deeper philosophical concepts and he might be doing in this essay as well. What does the original German word mean which you've translated "true people" but the other one translated "genuine Manhood"?
 
G
#290 · (Edited)
I don't think Wagner 'literally' paved the way for anything - unless he was into laying patios and paths.

More seriously, I didn't read NLAdriaan's posts as holding RW personally responsible for the acts committed after his death, but wonder if his central point is that Wagner was a leading member of a culture that felt anti-semitism was acceptable and his contribution to that acceptance in German society can be seen as paving the way towards what came later.
 
#292 ·
I don't think Wagner 'literally' paved the way for anything - unless he was into laying patios and paths.

More seriously, I didn't read NLAdriaan's posts as holding RW personally responsible for the acts committed after his death, but wonder if his central point is that Wagner was part of a culture that felt anti-semitism was acceptable and his contribution to that acceptance in German society can be seen as paving the way towards what came later.
Valid point.

Antisemitism was widespread in Germany throughout the nineteenth century; it didn't require Wagner to come out in favour of it to make it 'acceptable'.

Bear in mind that in the 18th Century, in Prussia, Frederick II saw the passing of laws which restricted the number of Jews and banned them from marrying. In Austria at around the same time, Jews were only permitted to have one son. I'm not sure what happened if you popped out a second! I doubt they cast it into the river, but I imagine there would be financial and civil penalties to pay. Anyway...

Antisemitism in the Germanic countries had a long and proud tradition, therefore. It was beaten back by the Enlightenment, but resurged in the middle of the 19th Century thanks primarily to (1) Zionism and (2) German Unification. As the Jews pushed more and more for a Zionist homeland, there was an increase in the sense that the Jews should go "back" to their own country. But as Jews got more organised politically to make these Zionist claims, so there was also a general and increased sense of 'conspiracy theory' about their activities. If they were getting organised, it probably wasn't good for those of us who aren't Jews, etc etc.

German Unification took a long time to come about (it had been talked about since the end of Napoleon), and Jews were regarded as one of the primary obstacles to it happening: Jews would naturally prefer 20+ bickering little kingdoms, rather than 1 powerful one, because that way they could exploit -and profit from- the chaos.

Of course, outside Germany, we have the Dreyfus affair and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, both non-German mirrors of the developments in Germany's antisemitic feelings.

So: "Was Wagner part of a culture that felt anti-semitism was acceptable": yes, very much so.
But: "Was his contribution to that acceptance in German society [helpful] in paving the way for what came later": no. Not really. His was one voice amongst many, and when he first wrote his Jewishness in Music pamphlet in 1850, he wasn't a particularly prominent or eminent composer anyway.

Besides, the general reaction to his re-publishing it in 1869 was one of 'he's off his rocker' or 'pretty disgusting'. It didn't win him friends or influence people, basically. Mostly, it was just ignored.

Wagner's "problem" is really two-fold. First, for anyone that loves his music, his is a repugnant personality, and largely (but not only) because of his antisemitism.

Second, he had a devoted fan in one Adolph Hitler. That's not his responsibility, and Wagner's antisemitism didn't really influence Hitler one way or another. Hitler loved Wagner's Teutonic myths and heroes more than his antisemitism (it's fairly well established, for example, that Hitler couldn't have read Jewishness in Music, since it wasn't reprinted until 1913 or so, and even then in tiny numbers).

And whilst it's true that Hitler had the overture to Rienzi played at the start of Party Rallies in Nuremberg, it wasn't because of any antisemitism, but (as Hitler himself put it): "[it is the story of] an innkeeper's son, [who] persuaded the Roman people to drive out the corrupt Senate by reminding them of the magnificent past of the Roman Empire. [When I listened] to this blessed music as a young man in the theatre at Linz, I had the vision that I too must someday succeed in uniting the German Empire and making it great once more."

So, Hitler and the Nazis would have come about and done quite nicely had there never been a Wagner.

The second point there is, I think, the easiest one to deal with. Hitler probably wasn't aware of much of Wagner's antisemitism; it wasn't what attracted him to the music anyway; and out of all the Nazi leaders, it was only really Hitler that was the mad-keen fan.

The first is, for me, much the bigger problem to deal with (as I've mentioned to you before). How does one square away glorious music written by an 'inglourious basterd'! NLAdriaan's "it's a guilty pleasure" is probably the most concise and agreeable response to that I've seen!
 
#291 · (Edited)
It's a complex and emotion-laden subject to be sure. When reading his essays, its important to remember that just because Wagner put his opinions down in print does not necessarily mean that they were honed and rationalized. Quite the contrary actually, he was never a very good writer and he was very poor with rational argument. This goes hand in hand with his personality -- he was a highly emotional man, and Wagner possessed very little in the way of a self-censor mechanism; he was quick to anger, quick to tears, quick to laughter, quick to frenzy. And his anitsemitism was largely based on paranoiac fear and exaggerated perceived differences between Jews and other Germans. I think Jacob Katz, professor emeritus of Jewish educational and social history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is closer to the mark when he writes that we must not assume that Wagner's attitude was fixed once and for all. "Wagner was far from being bound to a system of thought or from aiming at one. His creative power was devoted to the realization of artistic plans, while his ideas...original as they might seem, lack disciplined composure and consistency." They were, says Katz, hardly more than "inspirations of the moment, often expressions of the transient phases of his intellectual development, and sometimes emotional reaction to events and experiences."

The fact that "Jewishness in Music" an incredibly contrived essay is demonstrated by the fact that Wagner's own attitudes and opinions outright contradicted it. Despite claiming in the essay that Jews were incapable of creating great art, he always thought highly of the Jewish composer Halévy's opera La Juive and wrote than Halévy's music "issues from the inmost and most puissant depths of human nature." In a diary entry Cosima wrote "At lunch he remarks on the beauties of La Juive, the Passover celebrations, the final choruses, also the final first act, and says it contains the best expression of the Jewish character." He also acknowledged his admiration for and made several comments about the virtues in Mendelssohn's music. He even called the Hebrides overture "truly masterly". And of course he used a story by the Jewish poet Heinrich Heine as the basis and inspiration for The Flying Dutchman. I think the contradictions can be largely explained by the observation that "Jewishness in Music" is in large part a specific attack on the composer Meyerbeer, whose opera's Wagner found to be frivolous entertainment and came under his disdain because they were commercializing an art form that he absolutely cherished. The essay is really a very bad attempt at elevating the argument about Meyerbeer's operas being bad, concocting a theory that it wasn't possible for Meyerbeer to create great art because of his Jewish ancestry and because he was attempting to work in a great tradition that he was an outsider to. It is probably no happenstance that it was written just as he was preparing to begin his grandly conceived Ring cycle. His heroes, Beethoven and Mozart, had been gone for decades, and he saw a degeneration in musical taste. While he did not blame the Jews for the decline, he saw them as profiting from it, and deplored the new music in which second rate composers, especially Meyerbeer, were taking the lead. More likely than not, he feared that after writing his great magnum opus there would be no audience for it.

Now obviously, because Wagner was not only a composer but an important public figure, he has to take his fair share of blame for helping to contribute to the antisemitic climate of the time. I don't think anyone even seriously debates that point. However, I think it's necessary that we make an attempt to understand the nature of his antisemitism and put his statements in their proper context; not only the context of the time but the context of his life. Because so often with Wagner things are exaggerated, a sense of context is lost, and many don't even know what it was exactly that Wagner wrote that was so inflammatory in the first place. Many might be surprised to know that though a prolific writer, only two of his essays deal specifically with Jews. In the second, "Know Thyself", written two years before his death, he suggests a reawakening of the German instinct: "As however, we have been obliged to discard all idea of its being a purely racial instinct, we might perhaps search for something higher: a bent...of far nobler origin and loftier aim...the spirit of the purely human." He suggests that answers to German uncertainty can be found "not in ourselves, but in the truly human." Germans, he says should look with pride on their ancestry, but with "unclouded eye," and should be "able to rightly estimate those foreigners, and value them according to the spirit of true humanity indwelling in their work. For the sterling German instinct asks and seeks nothing but this purely human."

Unfortunately, it seems that Wagner, being as self-centered as he was, never considered the practical application of his antisemitic diatribes in the real world. When the representatives of the antisemitic movement that arose in the 1870s came in hopes that they could claim Wagner as a famous herald of their doctrine, and asked him to sign a petition to the Reichstag protesting the recent grant of full rights of citizenship to Jews, twice he refused explaining that such actions were not really his style, that he preferred to just write, and to leave such mundane things to others. But the damage was already done, and not only did he have to live with the repercussions of it, his legacy suffers from it. Nonetheless, it's impossible to get any real sense of who he really was and what he stood for by resorting to hyperbole and caricature. It's hard, for example, to reconcile the image most people have of him with this letter written by his close friend, the conductor Hermann Levi, to Levi's father who was a rabbi and who expressed concern at getting to know a famous antisemite:

"You certainly could and you should like Wagner. He is the best and noblest of men. Of course our contemporaries misunderstand and slander him. It is the duty of the world to darken those who shine. Goethe did not fare any better. That he bears no petty antisemitism like a country squire or a protestant bigot is seen by the way he treats me, Rubinstein, the late Tausig whom he loved dearly…Even his fight against what he calls 'Jewishness' in music and modern literature springs from the noblest of motives. I am convinced that posterity will learn what we who are close to him know already: that in him we had just as great man as a musician. I consider myself very lucky to be working with such a man and I thank God for it every day."

Wagner had an unbelievable amount of disdain for the Jews, in his mind an impersonal specter, a demonic monolith that haunted his world, its tentacles penetrating his native culture. He perceived that group to be alien and inimical to his goal in life: the acceptance of his grandly achieved artwork, whose roots grew from Germanic soil.

On the other hand are his many personal relationships and friendships with individual Jews. Because of the emotions and disgust springing from any hint at antisemitism in most people's minds after the Holocaust, Wagner's personality is not often a subject of reasoned analysis. The discovery of any such prejudice colored every aspect of the miscreant's character. If you were antisemitic, you were a bad person. And the vehemence of Wagner's writings was such that not the slightest ***** in that encasement of racial hatred can be acknowledged by most writers; any seeming act of genuine friendship between Wagner and a Jew must be seen only as one of cynical manipulation on the part of the composer. But this simply isn't true. Wagner could be quite charming, generous, and warm; just as he could be selfish and irritable. Like most people. As Michael Tanner says in a recent interview:

"Wagner was, in most respects, an extremely nice man. He was a wonderful father and very anarchic, whereas Cosima wanted the children brought up strictly. Wagner believed in giving them their freedom and romping around and so forth. People who knew Wagner were completely charmed, including people who thought they were going to be hostile to him. Nietzsche was prepared to be charmed by him but when he met him was just bowled; he wrote to a friend that he was the most delightful, witty, fast-talking person. In small gatherings, he kept everybody entertained and was wonderful. He had such supernatural energy, he was just brimming over the whole time. People couldn't believe how entertaining he was."

Some of Wagner's greatest friendships and partnerships were with Jews. He and the Jew Samuel Lehrs were kindred artistic spirits, both struggling and destitute when they met. Wagner called that friendship the most beautiful of his life. Men like Carl Tausig and Heirich Porges were almost like sons to him, and he mentored them and brought them under his wing. Others like Joseph Rubinstein lived in his household like members of his family. Jewish artists and performers like Hermann Levi were intergral in helping bring his artistic visions to life.

Here are the thoughts of another Jew that knew Wagner intimately. A Russian artist named Paul von Joukowsky, who was very close to the family and lived with them for periods of time:

"No one who has not known Wagner in the intimacy of his home can have any idea of the goodness of his nature, his childlike lovableness. Frau Wagner was right when she compared him to the child with the orb whom St Christopher carries across the stream; he was a child in spirit, with a whole world within him."
 
#293 · (Edited)
I think that's an impressive summary of the situation, and I only quibble at minor points, as follows:

Despite claiming in the essay that Jews were incapable of creating great art, he always thought highly of the Jewish composer Halévy's opera La Juive and wrote than Halévy's music "issues from the inmost and most puissant depths of human nature." In a diary entry Cosima wrote "At lunch he remarks on the beauties of La Juive, the Passover celebrations, the final choruses, also the final first act, and says it contains the best expression of the Jewish character."
I don't find that a contradiction, though. The essay says that the Jew will only be able to write music that is based on Jewish life, and that 'this means only things which, by some approximation or other, resemble the peculiarities of Jewish music". So, Halévy's opera called 'The Jew', incorporating -or depicting- music from Jewish religious ceremonies is exactly what Wagner predicted in his essay would be possible for a Jew to write. It doesn't contradict Wagner's assertion that they can't write proper Germanic music at all, it seems to me.

But it's a minor issue.

Your bit about the real reason for the essay was Wagner's resentment of Meyerbeer's commercial success is very true.

"You certainly could and you should like Wagner. He is the best and noblest of men. Of course our contemporaries misunderstand and slander him. It is the duty of the world to darken those who shine. Goethe did not fare any better. That he bears no petty antisemitism like a country squire or a protestant bigot is seen by the way he treats me, Rubinstein, the late Tausig whom he loved dearly…Even his fight against what he calls 'Jewishness' in music and modern literature springs from the noblest of motives. I am convinced that posterity will learn what we who are close to him know already: that in him we had just as great man as a musician. I consider myself very lucky to be working with such a man and I thank God for it every day."
My only quibble here is that, whilst undoubtedly true, it doesn't help any. He's like the "some of my best friends are gay" person who denies homophobia. Wagner could say, 'my problem is with Jewishness in music, not Jews in Germany', and he could well have meant that, but it's very difficult to draw a line when you think like that. The nobility of his motives in wanting to restore 'true German' music, nor his ability to say 'some of my best friends are Jews' doesn't buy him a pass.

Finally:

Because of the emotions and disgust springing from any hint at antisemitism in most people's minds after the Holocaust, Wagner's personality is not often a subject of reasoned analysis.
My only quibble here is a difficult one to assert, because it requires us to pretend that history didn't happen, but speaking for myself, I am fairly confident that I would have found the giant paint-strokes of antisemitism about Wagner a major impediment to me liking him whether the Holocaust had happened or not. I would (I hope) have deplored him in 1912 just as much as I did in 2012.

I liked what you wrote, though.
 
#311 ·
AbsolutelyBaching has a difficult task; he's trying to condemn Wagner as antisemitic, while at the same time completely removing him from responsibility in the later direction of Germany and nazis, as if one had nothing to do with the other. Apparently, he doesn't believe in cause and effect, or in overarching, far-reaching archetypes.

Actually, he sounds like a Wagnerite in disguise. :lol:
 
#312 · (Edited)
Look, if I had voted Republican in 2016, I think it fair to lay the responsibility for the subsequent disasters of the Trump administration at my door. But if I'd voted Republican in 1860, I'd have been voting for freeing the slaves (I'm simplifying the argument a little) and you'd have no right to curse me for Trumpism for having voted for Lincoln.

I don't therefore have a difficult task at all. I condemn Wagner as antisemitic, because he was. But in this he merely voiced a feeling that was common throughout Europe in the 19th Century, and has roots which go back millennia. That he voiced it is bad enough. He should have known better. And I condemn him unequivocally for doing so.

But I'm not going to blame him for what the Nazis did with their antisemitic feelings, since the one has nothing at all to do with the other.

Had Wagner stood out in German history for his antisemitism in the way that, for example, Bismarck stood out for his imperialistic nationalism, then the situation would be quite different. If he had been an 'intellectual beacon' for antisemitism; if he'd given it a quasi-philosophical underpinning, as Hitler was to do in Mein Kampf, then yeah: you could at that point pin the eventual developments in antisemitic practise on him.

But he didn't. He could barely articulate his own antisemitism as anything other than annoyance at the commercial success of Meyerbeer. There was no profound philosophy of antisemitism he invented or developed. He just gave pamphlet expression to (nasty) ideas that were fairly prevalent at the time.

And Hitler didn't develop his own antisemitsm from any Wagnerish prototype philosophy. He took exactly the same anti-Jewish feelings Wagner had expressed, combined them with a quasi-philosophy of 'Aryanism', and added a sprinkling of controlling the levers of state and an industrial-miliary complex... ingredients that Wagner himself never had access to.

So I don't have a problem, because whilst I certainly believe in cause and effect, I don't think Lincoln caused Trump. That bow is too long to draw!
 
#316 ·
Oh, this is becoming annoying.

Just a few things:
- Winifred would have been a nobody if she wasn't leading the Wagner-dynasty.
- R. Wagners ideology was troubled and vague and might as well be deemed absolute nonsensical, but he sure made continuous attempts to create an ideology, which contained aspects of Germanic nationalism and antisemitism
- A. Hitler: exactly the same
- So, R. Wagner and A. Hitler were in the same ballpark
- Of all actions of the nazi's, the holocaust was of course the most horrible, but they did a lot more than 'just' this. I guess it s possible to say that antisemitism wasn't the main cause of the nazi's.
- If any regime or person is supposedly left or right wing, is not of any significance. At the extremes, left and right meet in similar totalitarian and terrorist regimes.
- Antisemitism is all over the place throughout the ages. The pope ordering Crusades was the same as Hitler ordering the Endlosung. The level of industrialization, the location and efficiency was different, the basic idea was the same.
- In many countries, like for instance the UK and the US, you could find many antisemites. The nazi's could only be successful at their cause, because almost everyone cooperated in many countries. Jews who managed to flee to the US or the UK, didn't exactly receive a warm bath.

AB, what are you trying to twist? Why are you so desperately trying to prove that R. Wagner was a nationalist and an antisemite, but had absolutely nothing to do with the person who admired him and would take these vague ideas and the opportunity to order their specific execution??
 
#318 · (Edited)
AB, what are you trying to twist? Why are you so desperately trying to prove that R. Wagner was a nationalist and an antisemite, but had absolutely nothing to do with the person who admired him and would take these vague ideas and the opportunity to order their specific execution??
There's no twisting in pointing out the obvious: that Wagner's antisemitism and nationalism are complex issues on their own, and wholly seperate from Hitler's admiration for Wagner. Hitler was not "executing" Wagner's ideas, his own nationalism and antisemitism had their own origins that had nothing to do with Wagner. He was simply a great fan of Wagner's music dramas.
 
#320 ·
^ & ^^

Thx for your constructive reactions to my somewhat destructive remarks:tiphat:

I think however that our different views now become clear.

R Wagner was not original in his views and also not very intellectual. Nonetheless, my view is that Wagner stood for something, he was politically engaged. He tried to shape an ideology, be it not a very original one, which was based on nationalism and monstrous antisemitism. AB thinks there is no Wagner ideology, I think there is.

I think there is a Wagner dynasty with the object to conserve Wagners legacy. This was R Wagners own idea, to make sure he was not forgotten. Books are written about this troubled dynasty. It is beyond me how AB and OC keep reasoning that the connection between the ideas of Wagner and the loving personal connection between the Wagner dynasty and nazi leader and ideologist A.Hitler should be totally disconnected from Wagner himself, as he was not alive anymore. Is it because they cannot listen to the music anymore if they would accept the obvious? When Wagner said that Jews should be burned and about half a century later one of his followers starts organizing this, while playing Wagner's music, while being lovingly taken care of by the Wagner dynasty, you absolutely cannot defend that Wagner has nothing to do with this, because he was already dead. This part of reasoning to me sounds like twist and bend. It remains a choice to follow or condemn a controversial ideology or a religion. But it cannot be said that the spiritual leader of any ideology or religion has nothing to do with what his disciples make of it. Hitler himself probably didn't kill any Jew, but he damn well needs to be held co-responsible. The same goes for Wagner.

But we will probably never all agree on this.
 
#324 · (Edited)
^ & ^^

Thx for your constructive reactions to my somewhat destructive remarks:tiphat:

I think however that our different views now become clear.

R Wagner was not original in his views and also not very intellectual. Nonetheless, my view is that Wagner stood for something, he was politically engaged. He tried to shape an ideology, be it not a very original one, which was based on nationalism and monstrous antisemitism. AB thinks there is no Wagner ideology, I think there is.
But then you must say clearly what that ideology is. "Antisemitism and nationalism" isn't enough, for they are two concepts which almost all educated Germans absorbed. So if there's a Wagner ideology, you must say what it's precise nature is.

Secondly, I think you must say how it was propagated. Marx had Das Kapital; Hitler had Mein Kampf; what did Wagner have? Because Jewishness in Music definitely isn't it. It's not a coherent ideology; it's not a call to arms; it's not setting out a grandiose plan or a sweep of history. Don't get me wrong: it's unpleasant in the extreme, but it's not a manifesto for anything (other than to stop paying Meyerbeer quite so much).

So: nature of the ideology, please. And mechanism by which it was propagated.

I think there is a Wagner dynasty with the object to conserve Wagners legacy. This was R Wagners own idea, to make sure he was not forgotten.
Well, every father wants his children to preserve the family name, etc. If you know of anything unusual or sinister about Richard's desire for his name (rather than his art) to continue after his death, let us know what that might be.

Books are written about this troubled dynasty. It is beyond me how AB and OC keep reasoning that the connection between the ideas of Wagner and the loving personal connection between the Wagner dynasty and nazi leader and ideologist A.Hitler should be totally disconnected from Wagner himself, as he was not alive anymore. Is it because they cannot listen to the music anymore if they would accept the obvious?
Slow down a bit, because this is where you get all agitated and reason seems to fly out the door. For starters, what are these "ideas of Wagner"? And what is the connection between those ideas and the "loving personal connection between the Wagner dynasty and Hitler"?

No-one's denying the loving connection between Hitler and the Wagner dynasty. I'm on record pointing out Winifred called Hitler 'Our Holy Adolph' until the day she died, in 1980. And yes, the grandchildren called him 'Uncle Wolf'. So, I'm fine on the Wagner Dynasty <==> Hitler angle. Never denied it, indeed.

But since I don't accept there is a Wagnerite ideology, coherently explained and deliberatively propagated, what possible "connection" can there be between the dead Richard Wagner and those loving Hitler<==>Wagner Dynasty connections?

It's not because I wouldn't listen to the music any more if I thought Wagner had a hand in creating or supporting Naziism. It's that without the ideology, there's no possible 'bridging connection' between Richard and Adolph.

When Wagner said that Jews should be burned
Citation needed. Seriously: I know of no-where he says such a thing. Please point out where he said it and, preferably, the exact words he used. It is definitely not in Jewishness in Music

... and about half a century later one of his followers...
To be a follower, you have to have something to follow. Hitler had antisemitism in common with Wagner, but little else. He wasn't a follower of Wagner, but a mad-keen fan.

...starts organizing this, while playing Wagner's music...
Sorry, but citation is definitely required, because there is no outstanding evidence that Wagner's music was played at any of the extermination camps in the 1941-45 period. I've already mentioned this previously: there is documentation to demonstrate that it was played at Dachau concentration camp in the 1933-34 period. That was not a place where anyone was being killed or burned, but was a political re-education camp. I know it became something else later on, but they weren't playing Wagner by then, as far as actual evidence tells us.

...while being lovingly taken care of by the Wagner dynasty, you absolutely cannot defend that Wagner has nothing to do with this, because he was already dead.
But I absolutely can, because few of the clauses I've broken your sentences up into have any relation to actual history. Wagner didn't advocate the burning of Jews; Hitler wasn't a follower; and Wagner's music wasn't played at concentration camps. So apart from all of that, what's your point? I have nothing to defend, because you haven't established any of these elements as historic fact.

If it turns out you do have a citation for the 'Wagner said to burn Jews' comment, for example: I'll be the first to acknowledge the point and change my thinking accordingly. I will also concede the point if you have a reference to a Holocaust survivor's memoir where Wagner was played. I personally don't know of one, but we are all fallible researchers in our turn and I'm perfectly happy to be enlightened on the matter.

This part of reasoning to me sounds like twist and bend.
I'll politely warn you one more time to not make this a personal thing, please, because I'm sticking to known, testable historical fact. No twisting or bending required.

I get that you don't like the conclusions where my factual approach to this subject takes me. So, rather than accuse people of twisting or bending, how about you simply start at the beginning and explain precisely what Richard Wagner's philosophy or ideology was, and how he codified or set out that philosophy for others to follow.

And I'll make it even easier than that. You mention 'spiritual leaders of any ideology or religion always have something to do with his disciples' actions' -something I would agree with. So, Jesus had the gospels; Mohammed has the Koran; Marx has Das Kapital; Hitler, Mein Kampf. So my simple, genuine request to you is to simply tells me in what document(s) Richard Wagner laid out his 'ideology or religion'. If we nail that detail, everything else should follow, and it's quite possible I've missed one of his essays or other writings somewhere along the line, so you'd be helping me see more clearly if you were able to share that detail.

But until we can agree on what the 'Wagner Religion Texts' are, we can't agree further, because without knowing the source of this religion of which Hitler was such a disciple, I can't logically follow your trail from 1883 to 1933.
 
#326 ·
I forget the precise context, but I once had a particularly literate co-worker who objected to a manager who was trying to steal credit for a project with which he really was not involved. This co-worker had said "I will not play Von Bulow to your Wagner" and stormed out of the room. The manager asked me what this meant, and I had to explain it. It did not go over particularly well.
 
#327 ·
Good story!

I'm afraid I'm one of those people who cannot think on their feet that well, and always think later "if only I had said..." or "if only I'd remember that witticism..." etc. I'm impressed your co-worker had those details down pat in his head well enough to trot them out as part of casual conversation!
 
#328 · (Edited)
I believe that is what the French call l'esprit d'escalier (the wit of the staircase).

It was a good reference, but probably not very useful since it went entirely over the manager's head, until explained. It was probably fortunate that he was not required to explain it himself. (The co-worker was one of the few comrades of classical music in my years of employment.)
 
#347 ·
I read OC's thread about the 'burning' quote. It could well be that Barenboim (see link in my post above) means the same, but I don't know.

It occurs that in the lengthy thread, again the weight of Wagner's words are immediately downplayed. OC him/herself, as anyone, would say terrible things in private, which of course are not meant for the public eye and which are mere words alone and not meant to be executed etc.

Also, my image of the 'World of Wagner', is ridiculed as being bizarre (a friendlier way of putting it than usual pro-Wagner comments here at TC). Interesting is that the content of his libretto's is being considered 'art', which apparently means that you shouldn't take it seriously? Which means that if Hitler would have made a musical of Mein Kampf, it would be light amusement?

I know that anyone likes to distance himself from being associated with losers. Even Winifred Wagner denied her association with Hitler at the denazification trials, resulting in a successful appeal, where her punishment in first instance was waved. IMO, Wagner however was and always needs to be associated with the losers of WWII. Why I think so, is stated enough in this thread.
 
#350 ·
Also, my image of the 'World of Wagner', is ridiculed as being bizarre (a friendlier way of putting it than usual pro-Wagner comments here at TC). Interesting is that the content of his libretto's is being considered 'art', which apparently means that you shouldn't take it seriously? Which means that if Hitler would have made a musical of Mein Kampf, it would be light amusement?
I don't mean to make light of the subject-matter, but really: have you seen The Producers?

So yeah, if you make a musical out of Mein Kampf, it is in terrible bad taste... but is hilarious.

And the slightly serious point is: that's what music can do. It can send up the serious and hurl the mighty from their seats. It's why an opera libretto isn't a manifesto (think how the Italian nationalists suddenly found Il Pensiero to be a nationalistic hymn tune they could expropriate, when it was actually Verdi's equivalent of 'By the Rivers of Babylon').
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top