You see, Dieter, this rather foolish gesture, this student hoax, is destined to be my sole act of resistance. I didn’t kill Hitler. Or save Mozart. But I do have the feeling that I did my duty. I just wanted to stop a voice being silenced. One voice out of many thousands, but a voice which, if it had been stifled, would have killed the music in me. And all music.
A whole oratorio is affected by the absence of a single chorus member. It sounds false in spite of the sound of the orchestra, the resonance of the tenor. The gap screams. The absence can be heard in spite of everything. Like a piano with one key missing. There is no music by default.
The Talmud says that when a man saves one soul, it is as if he had saved the whole world. I haven’t saved anyone’s soul, not even my sister’s, or Sapperstein’s. Have I even saved mine?
Not yet. I have one last task to undertake. If I have the courage. This is almost certainly the last letter I will write to you. I can only wish you a long life, a good life, and one in which you never abandon your dreams. Even if, in order to realize them, you have to turn everybody against you. I enclose a copy of the famous score. To amuse you. And in the hope that you too will sing it, in my memory.
I love you.
Dad
Saturday 20 July 1940
Stefan still angry. But I don’t think he has any intention of informing on me.
Quite tired since the concert. I’m trying to recover my strength.
Monday 22 July 1940
The little old man’s bed is still unoccupied. In the other wards, the beds recently vacated have also remained empty. The sanitarium doesn’t seem to be admitting any new patients. Wounded soldiers, on the other hand, arrive every day.
I get down to writing my last article as a music critic, but I have no spare paper to make a fair copy. And I don’t want any prescription sheets. One of my neighbors in the ward has promised to buy me some the next time he goes into town.
Tuesday 23 July 1940
Stefan came. He looked embarrassed. He just gave me a brief nod and started dismantling the old man’s bed. I didn’t dare speak to him, but another patient asked him what he was planning to do with it. Stefan replied that he was taking it down to the second floor along with all the other unoccupied beds from the third floor. For the soldiers. There are so many of them that some will have to sleep in the corridors.
Thursday 25 July 1940
These days the nurses just rush in, hastily hand out medicines, and rush out again. The meals are becoming more and more liquid, gruel, mash, soft cheese. They are already cold by the time Stefan brings them up. We have to take the food in bowls to those who can no longer get out of bed. The dirt is piling up. It’s unbearable, especially in the toilets. No more toilet paper, only old newspapers. Which I don’t read.
And to think I was in the Mozarteum a mere week ago! It feels more like ten years. I’ve kept my ticket in the pocket of my pajamas. To be sure I didn’t dream it. That old Jewish tune is still nagging at me. I try to hum Bach or Schubert, but that damned little song comes back to attack me as soon as I fall silent. Especially at night.
Friday 26 July 1940
My neighbor brought me some letter paper. It was all he could find. I try to make sure my handwriting is legible. I already have three copies ready. I need five in the hope that at least one magazine will agree to print my article. Which ought to cause a sensation. It’s an open letter to the gauleiter, although signed with a false name, in which I protest at the choice of pieces in the second concert. Yiddish music! Klezmer violin! And our soldiers joining in, right there in the Mozarteum! How shameful for the festival, for Salzburg, for the whole of the Reich. If the Americans find out about it, they’ll laugh their heads off. Maybe they’ll turn it into a Broadway musical! We might as well play Mahler while we’re about it. Or Mendelssohn!
Saturday 27 July 1940
Concert at the Festspielhaus. Extracts from Wagner operas. Quite pleased to be confined to bed. Hard to breathe.
Sunday 28 July 1940
False alarm. A fit of choking. As it’s Sunday, a patient went to tell Stefan who brought me some hot tea mixed with schnapps. I could only get down one or two mouthfuls.
Stefan stayed with me, sitting on the edge of my bed. He gave me a cloth because I was coughing a lot and needed to wipe my mouth. He washed my forehead with warm water. It felt good, having him take care of me. Having him break my solitude. And then the attack passed.
Stefan left late in the afternoon. He rolled the cloth into a ball and ran out in a hurry. But I could see that the cloth, which he had under his arm, was stained with blood.
I’m exhausted. Dazed. As if someone had punched me in the face.
Monday 29 July 1940
Stefan came with the doctor, who examined me for a long time. He didn’t need to deliver his diagnosis. He gave me an injection as a matter of form.
Closing concert of the Festspiele. Beethoven’s Eighth, more Wagner and, to finish, a symphony by Brahms. I don’t remember which one. I think it’s Furtwängler who’ll conduct the Philharmonic.
Blood on my pajamas.
Tuesday 30 July 1940
I remember the army, my first leave, before the fighting intensified. It was in spring. Mother took me to a lovely tearoom. I was proud to be wearing my uniform. She asked after Fritz Jürgen, a school friend who was serving in the same battalion as myself. I didn’t want to lie. Fritz had fallen in the early days of the war. On a mine-clearing patrol. So I answered with this stupid sentence, this pure cliché: “For him, the war is over.”
I think Stefan came to see me while I was asleep. When I woke up, I found a piece of saveloy and two slices of bread in a paper bag. I gave them to my neighbor.
Wednesday 31 July 1940
Lovely day. From my bed, I can see the tops of the trees swaying gently in the breeze.
Friday 2 August 1940
Received rent.
Salzburg was a mecca for Nazi cultural life and a symbol of the influence of the Reich.
None of the musicians and conductors mentioned in Otto’s diary ever made a stand for freedom of expression or gave the slightest aid to their persecuted colleagues. After the war, they all enjoyed the unreserved admiration of the world’s music lovers.
Today, Salzburg remains one of the capitals of music and art. And the Festspiele still takes place every summer.
Saving Mozart Page 9