Puppet of the Reich?

Wilhelm Furtwängler has long been seen as a symbol of Nazism. But, as Andrew Green explains, the conductor was a strong opponent of the regime

- Andrew Green

January 1933. Germany's head of state, President Paul von Hindenburg, grants the position of German Chancellor - equivalent to Prime Minister - to Adolf Hitler. The charismatic leader of the National Socialist (Nazi) party enjoys substantial support - although as yet by no means overwhelming - from the German population. Those who have been voting in their millions for the party see Hitler as the solution to a string of concerns and grievances: mass unemployment, governmental instability, fear of Communism, resentment at the humiliations written into the World War I peace treaty and more.

Installed as Chancellor, Hitler proceeds to focus ultimate power into his sole hands. Such a concentration of authority is vital, he insists, if Germany is to meet the daunting challenges it faces. When Hindenburg dies in August 1934, Hitler puts it to the German people in a plebiscite that he should himself be both Chancellor and President, under the title of 'Führer' ('Leader'). Over 90 per cent vote in Hitler's favour.

By this time, it was abundantly clear that the Nazi agenda required the ruthless excision of what was bizarrely imagined as the Jewish community's pernicious influence across German life, a project which inevitably gave rise to a virulent anti-Semitism in the field of music, where the Jewish contribution had long been immense. The nation's cultural ecosystem was to exalt specifically German values, culture and historic achievements above all others.