Although in the Third Reich Richard Wagner was celebrated as the best German, and his music in the Bayreuth Festival contributed to demonstrate the high cultural level of the Nazi-regime not only to the Germans but also to the foreign audience, there ...
Although in the Third Reich Richard Wagner was celebrated as the best German, and his music in the Bayreuth Festival contributed to demonstrate the high cultural level of the Nazi-regime not only to the Germans but also to the foreign audience, there were critical voices against Wagner and his music. Some of the leaders of the Hitlerjugend regarded folksongs as the suitable music for young people. Philosophers who were adherents of Friedrich Nietzsche criticized persistently
Wagner's music as decadent, as well as Alfred Rosenberg who was one of the rivals for Joseph Goebbels in the field of culture politics. However, because of Hitler's love for Wagner their dissatisfactions could not be open shaped.
In this essay I have attempted to analyze the music politics of Hitler's
Germany in regard to three points; Firstly, as E. K. Bramsted asserted,
the music politics of the Nazis about Wagner-cult aimed also at "total
Validity"; secondly, the Nazis didn't invent their own art music tradition
for the purpose of Propaganda, but used and interspersed with the German
artful music of the past; Thirdly, the conflicts and dissensions among
the leaders of the Nazis' culture politic might not be understood as the
failure of their Propaganda. On the contrary, it could support the vitality
of the Nazis culture-movement.