“We Take Care of the Artist”: The German Composers’ Meeting in Berlin, 1934

(“We take care of the artist”: The German Composers’ Meeting in Berlin, 1934)

Kurt Atterberg worked as a music critic for Stockholms-Tidningen, one of the largest dailies in Sweden at the beginning of the twentieth century. Its political affiliation was liberal[3] until 1956 and Social Democrat thereafter.[4] My investigation of the paper’s reporting on Nazi Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, as part of which I sampled and read some hundred articles, showed that the writers of Stockholms-Tidningen usually avoided criticism of, or reported positively about, the events in Germany. There were, however, also a few critical articles (see also Blomberg 2003: 25). National Socialist language—words or concepts that were frequently used in National Socialist contexts—was used in all Swedish dailies, including Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, and Göteborgs Handels-och Sjöfartstidning. This was partly due to the fact that direct references were being made to German-language texts, or that attempts to translate German material as accurately as possible often involved some transfer of the text to Swedish (Brylla 2005: 117). Linguist Charlotta Brylla has argued that, in dealing with the use of National Socialist language in Swedish newspapers, one can detect three main strategies:

1. The direct quote [Det okommenterade citatet]. National Socialist speeches were retold as accurately as possible without commentary. Examples of this strategy are found, for example, in Dagsposten.
2. The direct quote with journalistic commentary [Citatet med referatmarkering]. This was used in many dailies, among them Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Nya Dagligt Allehanda, and Stockholms-Tidningen. Here the quotes are embedded in reporting, contextualized through a journalist’s simple annotation, for example, “Hitler strongly criticized” or “Hitler emphasized.”
3. An editorial/journalistic commentary on an event/speech [Det kommenterade referatet]. Here the original was not quoted but described in an analytical and often critical context. This sort of commentary was most common in papers that were critical of Nazi Germany, as for example Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, Dagens Nyheter, Eskilstuna-Kuriren, and Social-Demokraten (Brylla 2005a: 207, cf. also Almgren 2005: 62–63).

Clearly, the types of quotes and reports published can provide insight into an author’s and the paper’s approach to National Socialist messages.

This essay incorporates this kind of analysis, departing from an examination of Atterberg’s published article about the Composers’ Meeting that took place on February 18, 1934, in the University Assembly Hall and Philharmonic Hall in Berlin, and then comparing his account with those from three German papers. My purpose is not to demonstrate whether or not Atterberg had a naïve or incorrect perception of the Composers’ Meeting, or whether or not he saw through the plans of National Socialism; rather, my intention is to investigate different narratives of the Composers’ Meeting in Swedish and German contexts.

Stockholms-Tidningen published Atterberg’s article “Droit moral och internationellt utbyte av folklig musik. Tyska tonsättares strävan” (Droit moral and international exchange of folklig music) on March 10 of the same year. Atterberg had been invited to the meeting by Richard Strauss.[5] The trip was financed by the Swedish government’s support of Atterberg’s attendance of the premiere of his opera Flammendes Land in Braunschweig on February 17, the day before the Composers’ Meeting.[6] That the Swedish government was interested in the events at the meeting in Berlin is clear from a confidential report that Atterberg sent to the State Department on February 28, 1934. The report is very similar in style to the article I am analyzing here.[7]

In the article, written after his return, Atterberg described in detail who had attended the meeting, what speeches were given, and the content of the music-political program. Atterberg described a rise of music in Germany and the beginning of a new era. According to his report, the Composers’ Meeting was characterized by enthusiasm and progress. German composers’ and politicians’ aim to support “music for the people” and oppose “ultramodern music” was apparent at the meeting and welcomed by Atterberg:

The enthusiasm for the supposed upswing of musical life is clear in these quotes and throughout the entire article. Atterberg’s fascination comes into view: he enjoys “the sight of the hall, filled with a fairly unique audience,” and describes the event lightly with the metaphor of “flying banners.” He describes the opening as the beginning of a new epoch in music life, staged by the ones in charge as a “manifestation.” Using such words of concord as “united,” “only one,” and “unity,” and the parallel construction, “For the first time. . . . For the first time,” he emphasizes harmony and a new unity through unification, a rhetorical strategy displaying coherence, solidarity, and common interests. It is also an example of discontinuity. A positive change is stressed: music has at last received a prominent role, and earlier divisions have been overcome. Music’s new role in society is also shown through the prominent people who were invited, namely “almost everybody who Germany could parade.” Music has, according to Atterberg, gained value through the joint engagement of prominent composers and politicians. The naming of famous people is a strategy of authority, and legitimizes the new musical culture: since “important” figures are present at the Composers’ Meeting, musical life is in good hands and finally receiving the prominence that many composers and musicians had long craved. The choice of wording also illustrates an extensive confidence that the authorities will manage their task in a professional way.

Atterberg also explains the concept of droit moral in the article, a concept that would become important during the following years. According to Atterberg, droit moral implied the artist’s ideal exclusive conceptual rights.[9] It would prevent the “destruction” of musical works. As an example of the latter he mentions Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride. This opera, “the Czech nation’s pride and jewel,” was to become a film. “With the knowledge of these film makers’ psyche” the filming was, according the Atterberg, seen as an attempt at “vandalization” in Czechoslovakia, and the production was banned. The production was then moved to Germany, where there were no laws assigning the artist’s “conceptual rights.” Atterberg received this information from Julius Kopsch, who was also present in Berlin. According to Kopsch—and Atterberg agreed—strong measures were necessary to prevent the “vandalization” of music. As an example, Atterberg mentioned an American publisher that specialized in “the jazzification of classical masterworks and distributed its publications across the entire world.” He had “heard and seen how the Pilgrim Chorus had been jazzed to at the Royal.”[10] From this example it follows that droit moral signified a protection against the making of modern arrangements without the permission of the creator. By using the concept of vandalizing as a topos of catastrophe, a threatening picture is painted, namely that modernism’s more powerful, “destructive” impact on musical life must be effectively limited.

Atterberg expressed enthusiasm that German composers were finally unified and collectively wanted to fight this threat. But, according to Atterberg, not only German but also global common laws were necessary in order for the fight to be effective: “But a conceptual protection for the artist becomes empty if identical rules are not adopted in all countries. The collective and unified generation of German composers is now aiming for the adoption of such rules.”[11] Again, Atterberg emphasizes unity as connected not only to a defined nationality, but to a specific generation. From the earlier mentioned names, it becomes clear that he refers to men born towards the end of the nineteenth century, who had achieved important positions in musical life and in politics. These were also the agents during the Composers’ Meeting and it was their works that were performed.

The speech described in the greatest depth in both German papers and Atterberg’s report was that of secretary Funk, who appeared as a representative of the Nazi government. Atterberg begins his account of Funk’s speech as follows:

Atterberg begins his summary of Funk’s speech with a direct quote with journalistic commentary: “He then began pointing out...,” which I understand to be aiming at a style of neutral reporting. He then recounts the speech with a few added comments—for example, about the ultramodern. “The people should live in art and art in the people” is a direct quote. Through the entire article, Atterberg’s reporting oscillates between direct quotes and the direct quote with journalistic commentary. Atterberg tries to contextualize Funk’s speech for his Swedish readers by explaining what is not explicitly stated. There are no critical comments in the article.

“Real art” is defined as having “sprung from the people”—“art” and “the people” are connected—by contrast with “ultramodern’ art, which has “lost the firm ground of the people.” “Ultramodern” art is connected to “uncontrolled liberalism” with “its downward pulling tendencies” and “desecrating mental work.” Liberalism was a word with negative connotations within the National Socialist movement and was used to describe a lack of order and discipline that, according to the National Socialists, was due to an increased level of individualism and egoism. Liberalism was often connected with the Weimar period and the failure of democracy. Art not originating from the people is described as rootless and destructive. The negative attributes of “unregulated,” “downward pulling,” and “desecrating”—as opposed to the positive folklighet—emphasize polarization in order to contrast the situation of art before and after the National Socialists’ assumption of power: while art’s situation before 1933 seemed dark, now everything would improve. The new government would save “real art.”

In Atterberg’s narrative, non-genuine art is connected to the “ultramodern,” a link not explicitly stated in the German reports, in which the negative development of the musical life is attributed to the chaos that had existed under the previous government. Moreover, in the German reports, the connection of art to Germanness is significantly more emphasized than in Atterberg’s description. Those reports talk about German art and German music, and the musicians are labeled as the most German of artists. Music and Germanness are joined, something that is not done to the same extent in Atterberg’s report.

Specifically, it becomes clear that Atterberg has translated the German word Volkstum with folklighet: folklighetens mark [the soil of folklighet] is the translation of der Boden des Volkstums.[12] In National Socialist vocabulary during the Third Reich the German word Volkstum took on a racial element: “race” and the folk were connected. The concept folk experienced a semantic shift during this period. Folk was a positively-charged concept and implied among other things a group of people who shared a culture and a language. To a large extent, there were no biological components until the beginning of the nineteenth century. But towards the end of the nineteenth century, a notion spread of folk as a “race community” [rasgemenskap]. National Socialism was highly influenced by ideas of folk as an expression of “blood” and “race,” a concept that became part of the official language in Nazi Germany.

Atterberg’s translation of Volkstum as folklighet conceals the National Socialistic content from his Swedish readers. It is not apparent how Atterberg himself understood the folk concept, whether he considered “folk” primarily as a unity of culture and language or as a unity of race. Here he remains vague. But because the importance of Germanness in the speech is not made visible, Nazi Germany’s aim of retaining the privilege of interpretation on musical matters is also not made visible. But perhaps Atterberg wanted to emphasize the international aspect for his Swedish readers.

Atterberg continues his report from the speech:

This paragraph begins with a direct quote with journalistic commentary: “. . . as his first thesis of importance he declared. . . . ” A certain degree of irony is possibly apparent here: it is not until now that Funk states anything important. Atterberg does not ascribe the same importance to Funk’s earlier and more theoretical elaborations on music and art; he is interested in the practical music-political issues. The direct quote emphasizes the importance of the message: now “the government” should “become the benefactor for art and the artists”; it wants to take everybody under its wings.

This section of the speech is recounted in a different way in the German articles. Something that is mentioned in several German accounts and not in Atterberg’s article is the following section of Fritz Stege’s report:

Here the symbiosis between art and folk is explicitly connected with National Socialism. In a different German account these thoughts are further extended:

Not only are art and folk connected in these statements, but also folk and Germanness. The idea of art as having a mandate for expressing the “German spirit,” of being anchored in the people’s steadfast roots (im Volkshaften wurzele) implies a notion of a national “soul,” common to all Germans, that should be expressed in art. Only “under these conditions” should the German state support the artists. All artists are excluded who could not be considered as expressing “the German spirit.” What “German spirit” referred to is not made explicit.

In Atterberg’s report of the speech the reader gets the impression that the German state will take care of all artists with no exceptions and no demands: “In our time there are no benefactors any longer. The government must therefore become the benefactor for art and the artists.” Phrased that way, the demand for art’s expression of Germanness becomes invisible. Instead the statement is coupled with ultramodernism’s threat against the artists. In this context, the message might well be that the German state takes good care of all artists in order to combat the ultramodern and its consequences. Atterberg continues his report of the speech:

According to Atterberg’s account, the German government intervened in and repaired the composers’ earlier conflicts. However, Atterberg does not refer to any concrete examples of “governmental intervention”—note how the passive sentence constructions “been made to disappear” and “been united” lack agency—which means that a Swedish reader did not receive any concrete information about how the governmental intervention had been put in place.

From the German articles it becomes clear that the organization referred to was the National Organization for German Composers (Berufsstand der deutschen Komponisten), as part of the RMK and STAGMA (Reichsmusikkammer and Staatlich genehmigte Gesellschaft zur Verwertung musikalischer Urheberrechte). These were National Socialist organizations with obligatory membership; in order to practice one’s profession, each artist had to be a member. Jewish artists were excluded by an “Aryan clause.” These exclusions disappear in Atterberg’s article, along with the idea of compulsory membership. Instead the split among composers is contrasted with their unification under Richard Strauss, who thus acquires the status of a hero (cf. Kargl 1997: 43). Strauss is the one who worked for many years for artists’ rights and the one who unified the artists. Again, unity is emphasized. I would like to label this mode of speech as a discourse of unity, since the speech of a new unity and unification was central in National Socialist texts, contrasting these with earlier conflicts (divisions)—among others, in the Weimar Republic. The politics of unity was also referred to as Gleichschaltung (making the same), which implied that the Nazi regime banned all organizations that did not adapt to the politics of National Socialism—as, for example, when they refused to implement the “Aryan clause.” On the contrary, conforming organizations, including the National Organization of German Composers, could expect governmental support.

Strauss is described as the link between Germany’s musical life and the government. Again, Funk’s speech receives a comment, as Atterberg writes: “It is a fact that Strauss is an unselfish leader of German musical practitioners: from the composers to the unemployed music engravers, from choral societies to the piano manufacturer, in short, of everything.”[16] Strauss is also described as an ideal agent for German musical life. The narrative about Strauss as a benefactor for others is a rhetorical strategy emphasizing unselfishness, a description of a man who is always available and who acts without any thought of personal gain. The critique of individualism was central in the national discourses of the 1930s: the individual should by free will subordinate him- or herself to the needs of the nation and the people. Such notions also existed during the same period in the Swedish Social Democrat concept folkhemmet (literally, “the people’s home”; or, the nation for the people), according to which one should behave in “solidarity with society” and subordinate one’s needs to the common good (Frykman and Löfgren 1985:137). Exactly the same idea occurs in Atterberg’s comments: Strauss first appears as an individual, and is described later as one who subordinates himself to the collective. But other accounts do not support this picture of the artist providing unconditional help to his colleagues. Although Strauss nurtured those who shared his musical taste, he opposed colleagues who had adapted a more modern style than the one he advocated (Splitt 1987).

German articles about the Composers’ Meeting also portray Strauss as a hero: he is labeled the Reichführer (State Leader) of the composers, nominated by the government, which has “fought for decades” against division among composers.[17] The statement can also be interpreted as meaning that Strauss is the personification of the ideal national realization of the musical life. Atterberg’s and the German reporting are similar on this point; however, some of the racist attributions in the German texts disappear when transferred to a Swedish audience.

Figure 1. Richard Strauss speaking at the German Composers’ Meeting in Berlin on 18 February 1934.

(Photo from Richard Strauss Institute, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, used with permission.)

Several of the foreign guests gave speeches at the Composers’ Meeting. Atterberg spoke on behalf of Sweden, Carol Bérard for France, Adriano Lualdi for Italy, and Wilhelm Kienzl for Austria. In Atterberg’s article, and in the German articles, the speakers are mentioned by name but the speeches by Funk and Strauss are given most attention. Atterberg describes himself in his article as a representative for the Nordic countries rather than for Sweden. One reason for this was that he had been asked to represent Norway and Denmark as well, since their representatives (Sverre Hagerup Bull and Peder Gram) were unable to attend. The Finnish representative was Yrjö Kilpinen.[18] Atterberg is likewise mentioned by the German writers as a representative for Sweden and for “den skandinavischen Norden.”[19] “Norden” (The Nordic Countries) was a commonly used term for the modern Scandinavian countries during the 1930s in Germany (Leiska 2005: 69–80), and its use emphasized the relationship between the Nordic countries and Germany.

According to the German reports, the foreign guests spoke as representatives for their respective composers’ organizations, and distributed greetings from those who were positive to the idea of cooperation with the new regime.[20] These foreign appearances are represented in the German articles as examples of the German composers’ successful international collaborations.

The German accounts of the ordering of the speeches give a view of how conscientiously the organizers had staged the Composers’ Meeting. Funk spoke first, as the representative of the government, and he concluded his speech with the celebration of Strauss, who then took over, to large applause. The last speaker was Wilhelm Kienzl from Austria, who was received “enthusiastically.” According to Fritz Stege’s and Peter W.’s reports, at the same moment that Kienzl appealed to the “German brotherhood,” a string quartet performed the German national anthem.[21] Here the National Socialist message of Austria’s forthcoming Anschluss to Germany was staged musically, and Kienzl symbolized Austria’s apparent longing to come home to the German Reich. By using a representative of the Nazi regime to open the Composers’ Meeting, and an Austrian to conclude the speeches, climaxes were created at the beginning and the end. Atterberg does not mention the musical staging of Austria’s “homesickness” in his article. Likewise, while the German commentators mention “Sieg-Heil”-calls and Hitler salutes during the celebration, Atterberg does not. Here, again, the impact of National Socialism on the event is not evident to Swedish readers.

After the opening ceremony, a conference was held at the Hotel Kaiserhof where attempts were made to consolidate the international musical exchange. Atterberg describes it thus:

Atterberg does not elaborate further on “the general audience,” and in the first sentence the subject “one” is an example of vagueness and anonymity. The reader does not find out concretely which music should be exchanged and who should make the choice. Atterberg’s suggestion to acknowledge musical progress was not welcomed, which Atterberg interprets as the result of fatigue with modernism.

The musical exchange was to be organized with the aid of the foreign guests present and, according to Atterberg’s description, there was agreement as to how this exchange should be structured. The guests were considered to be national representatives for their home states and were assigned authority to direct the musical selections in their respective countries, so that the “right music” was the target for the exchange.

The German authors do not mention this conference at all, or only very briefly. In the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung Robert Oboussier wrote that the Public German Music Society (Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein, ADMV) should contact the other European countries to promote “foreign folk-connected music” (die ausländische volksverbundene Musik).[23] The ADMV obviously assumed a main role in the music exchange. In Atterberg’s article this is portrayed as an offer from the German side: “The Germans had their ‘Allgemeiner deutscher Tonkünstlerverein,’ which was offered as an operational base.”[24] Generally Atterberg provides a more egalitarian description of the collaboration between the countries that would organize the musical exchange, although it is made clear in the German articles that the music exchange should be organized by Germany.

The opening ceremony of the Composers’ Meeting concluded with a large concert in Philharmonic Hall, with Goebbels as one of the honorary guests. Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted performances of works by Richard Strauss, Max von Schillings, Georg Schumann, Siegmund von Hausegger, Paul Hindemith, Paul Graener, and Hans Pfitzner.[25] These musicians were to have a great impact during the beginning of the Third Reich, and several of them became members of the new National Organization for German Composers.

The Composers’ Meeting was used extensively in Nazi propaganda. Sections of the opening ceremony were filmed and broadcast on radio. The National Socialist paper Völkischer Beobachter described it as an advancement of National Socialist cultural policies, and there was a great enthusiasm for the “The New Germany” (im neuen Deutschland).[26] “The New Germany” was a central National Socialist concept for the positive changes—in the eyes of the National Socialists—in German society after 1933 (cf. Brylla 2005: 127).

Atterberg chose the headline “Droit moral and international exchange of folklig music” for his article. In the German articles this music was described as völkische Musik, volksverbundene Musik (music close to the people), and Musik des Volkes (the music of the people): a music that would “emerge naturally” from the “individuality of a people.”[27] “Folklig music” was described in different ways by the German writers. Völkische Musik was a concept with clear race-biological connotations, while volksverbundene Musik and Musik des Volkes did not necessarily imply race. Here again appears the semantic shift in the concept of “folk” that was discussed earlier. Völkisch was a central National Socialist concept that defined different peoples by their biological racial characteristics. It also included a clear hierarchy of the different peoples in which the “German” and “Nordic races” were at the top (Geisler 2006:64, Almgren 2005:39ff.). Volksverbundene Musik or Musik des Volkes did not imply this component, per se, although the concepts could be charged with a race-biological content in the National Socialist context.

The different labels for “folk-inspired music” constitute one example of how the National Socialists used “innocent, harmless words” on the one hand and charged words on the other. Charged concepts such as völkische Musik were used side by side with more neutral terms, such as volksverbundene Musik and Musik des Volkes, which in turn through this use assumed a charged, racial-biological content. The parallel use of concepts that at the same time were used in non-National Socialist and National Socialist contexts, the semantic shift between non-National Socialist and National Socialist concepts, characterized linguistic usage in the Nazi German totalitarian state. Language thus became an effective tool of dissemination, in that the use of “harmless” and yet “charged” expressions led people without any National Socialist connection to spread National Socialist concepts. For an observer like Atterberg, whose mother tongue was not German, the difference between the various concepts was probably even harder to perceive.

Atterberg translated all three terms, völkische Musik, volksverbundene Musik, and Musik des Volkes, as folklig musik (Almgren and Brylla 2005: 108, Geisler 2006: 64). The Swedish word folklig is still a word with mainly positive connotations—for example, meaning “natural,” “original,” and “simple.” At the beginning of the twentieth century, the concept was often used to describe an authentic national culture that was threatened with extinction and had to be saved by collecting “folk culture,” among other things (Frykman 1993: 140, Lilja 1996: 31). Many people in Sweden during the first half of the twentieth century considered a concern for folklig musik as a remedy against “foreign mass culture,” and an effective protection for “the preservation of Swedishness” (Ling 1979: 22, Bohman 1979: 56–57). When Atterberg translated völkisch as folklig, the National Socialist content of the term disappeared for his readers and it became a positively charged Swedish word.

This transformation shows that people like Atterberg, who were eager to preserve a national music and wanted to protect it against the impact of modernism, could perceive the exchange of folklig musik as a positive act for saving their own national “folk culture.” Germany’s wish for an exchange of music of “folkish character” with other countries also meant that other countries’ music would be protected against “the modernist threat.” From this perspective Nazi Germany performed a good deed in saving the domestic national—here being the Swedish—“cultural heritage.”

It is not clear from Atterberg’s texts how much he had adopted the race discourse of the time. He is vague regarding the relationship between race and national identity. He seldom writes about race, though much about Swedishness. He used the term “race” exclusively when describing the Jews. One possible explanation could be that the relationship between race and nation was so obvious in the contemporary conception that the terms were used interchangeably.

Both Atterberg and the German writers portray Germany as a model for opposition to modernist tendencies in musical life, and actively promoting better copyright legislation. According to their descriptions, Germany actively demoted modernist currents by prioritizing a “folk-based” national music, among others. At the same time Germany appeared as a state eager to improve the life situation of its artists, for example, by modernizing copyright law, by intervening in and preventing conflicts between copyright organizations, while at the same time creating new centralized organizations. From Atterberg’s account it is clear that he considered the centralization of musical life in Nazi Germany as a positive phenomenon since it remedied earlier conflicts and permitted decisions to be made much more quickly. An effective, modern bureaucracy had been established that promoted the “right” music. There is a clear ambivalence towards modernity (Bauman 1998): on the one hand, an aspiration to preserve the traditional “folk culture,” and on the other an aspiration towards renewal, through new legislation and new institutions.

The Composers’ Meeting was described both by Atterberg and in the German articles as a heroic departure. A new period in musical life was initiated and set in contrast to a past in which the authentic national had been under threat and the artist was a toy in the hands of the publisher and the entertainment industry. The descriptions of the Composers’ Meeting show the expectations that Atterberg and many other composers and conductors had of the Nazi regime’s music politics: the anticipation that an effective Germany could deal with rapid changes in musical life, and help other nations along the way. Germany’s apparent “success” in dealing with these changes led to a continuous collaboration between German politicians, composers, conductors, and musicians, along with many colleagues in other countries.