Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis

by Michael Haas

  The Final Solution was still a few years away and, despite the hardships endured by Jewish musicians and composers, what lay in store did not become apparent until the annexation of Austria and its ensuing flood of refugees, sending countries around the world into panic at the thought of the potential consequence of millions of homeless European Jews. In the expanding Reich, wanton arrests, pointless beatings and bully-boy sadism were rife. The Nazis claimed that this was all an attempt to persuade Jews to leave. By this point, most would willingly have done so had they had the connections or the money, or even had they been allowed to take what little money they had with them; punitive taxes imposed by the Nazis meant that emigrating Jews arrived penniless at their eventual destination. The exile that Walter Braunfels rightly identified as ending his creativity as a German composer would do exactly that to most of the others who fled. Those who stayed risked internment, slave labour and, ultimately, horrors that were unimaginably worse.

  CHAPTER 11

  Exile and Worse

  In accordance with the appropriation regulation of 22.01.1041 B.No. 10341/38, all financial holdings of Egon Israel Wellesz and his wife Emilie Sarah née Stross last resident at Vienna, 19th District, Kaasgraben 38, have been confiscated on behalf of the ‘German Reich’ Arbeitsgruppe 9.

  Assets-registry, 03.03.1941

  Aryanisation documents housed at Vienna's Widerstandsarchiv relating to Egon and Emmy Wellesz

  …More than once I envied my Jewish friends who seemed to be able to find relatives at the right time and in the right places. But Jews have two or three thousand years’ experience of persecution, whereas we have had to learn about such things quickly and with considerable effort.

  Ernst Krenek, Im Atem der Zeit

  So what should I do as an émigré from 8:00 every morning, other than compose? […] The greatest source of inspiration for an émigré is […] the torturous power of boredom that forces him to gaze at himself for twelve hours. That's productive power.

  Hanns Eisler in conversation with Hans Bunge, 5 May 1958

  Escape: Destination, Unknown

  In a letter to Erich Korngold dated 6 December 1934, Ludwig Strecker of the music publisher Schott confirms that with the new situation in Germany, the firm is not in a position to take on the composer's new opera Die Kathrin: ‘Only yesterday, Furtwängler, Kleiber and Hindemith have resigned from all of their posts and they stand accused of being “too Jew-friendly”. Fall's operettas, even Offenbach and Mendelssohn, are being boycotted these days and not even works by Kreisler are allowed to be broadcast on the radio.‘1 When, four years later, Otto Witrowsky wrote to his brother-in-law Julius Korngold on 15 August 1938 to inform him of their progress in leaving Austria, he made the humorous aside that a new history of the Jews was being written with the title ‘From King David to Affidavit’.2 To the cynical, the Austrian version of this ‘history’ would have been more accurately and less humorously titled ‘From the December Constitution of 1867 to the Affidavit of 1938: 71 Years of Delusion’. The subtitle for the German edition would have read ‘62 Years of Delusion’ as Jewish emancipation arrived four years later (1871) only to be removed five years earlier (1933) than in neighbouring Austria.

  By 1938, nearly every Austrian and German Jew was concerned with finding an affidavit somewhere, somehow, from someone. Only with a document guaranteeing that somebody in America would cover financial costs could one obtain one of the coveted ‘quota’ or ‘non-quota’ visas to enter the country. Under the so-called quota-scheme, a certain number of immigrants, based on current numbers of any given ethnic community already resident in the United States, were allowed entry. Under the ‘non-quota’ scheme, a smaller number of immigrants were given permission to stay as a result of political or religious persecution. Entering merely with a common visitor's visa would mean deportation or arrest once the visa had expired or if the visitor had taken up any kind of employment. Despite the offer of a professorship at New York's New School for Social Research, Hanns Eisler and his wife Lou entered the United States with a visitor's visa and found themselves one step away from the police with arrest warrants being issued at one point. They were legally barred from re-entering the US from Mexico where they had to return continually in order to renew their entrance applications. Only after an official at a remote crossing (ignorant of the Eislers’ status) issued a visa that permitted them to enter the US and to work were their problems resolved – until Ruth Fischer denounced her two brothers five years later (see Chapter 7).

  Gertrude Zeisl, wife of the composer Erich Zeisl, managed to lay her hands on a New York phone book and wrote to every Zeisl or Zeisel she could find, eventually locating a plumber named Morris Zeisel who agreed to provide her family with the necessary documentation. When Morris disappeared, they were helped by an equally unfamiliar and unrelated Arnold Zeissl from Milwaukee. They were lucky but had worked hard to make their luck. In truth, though, every individual had his or her own story. Probably the only generalisation that can be attempted is that by 1938 everyone wanting to leave Europe wanted to end up in America. If they landed in Britain or France, it was viewed as a purely temporary measure. A fair number of unlucky individuals went east to the Soviet Union, where many would fall victim to Stalin's purges in the late thirties and again in the early fifties. By the time of Austria's annexation in 1938, it was clear to the rest of the world that there would be a massive number of refugees to accommodate. How this was handled remains a matter of ethical debate to this day.

  The World Braces Itself for a Refugee Crisis

  By April 1933, British officials alerted by the Home Secretary Sir John Gilmore – who had raised matters at a cabinet meeting on 5 April – became concerned that though there were numbers of Jews arriving from Nazi-occupied Europe who were well-qualified professionals, there were others who were destitute.3 At this point, Jewish charities stepped in to cover the expenses incurred by German Jews without the financial means to support themselves. From 1933 to 1938, Jewish refugee organisations in the United Kingdom, alongside the Home Office, managed a controlled entry of Jews from Nazi Germany. The Home Office insisted that refugees register with the police on arrival but that refugee charities, such as the Jewish Temporary Shelter and the Jewish Refugee Committee headed by the stockbroker Otto Schiff, meet the costs of what was assumed to be transit immigration.4 In contrast to France, there were no visa requirements and the British government left it to Jewish charities to shoulder the immigration costs of refugees. It was assumed that given the restrictions placed on transmigrants, such as leave to stay for only short periods without the right to work, most would soon move on, generally to the USA.5 A few wished to remain in Europe in the anticipation that the ‘Brown Bolshevism‘6 would eventually run out of steam and sanity would return. From April 1933, a new restricted visa policy was set in place that offered refugees a visitor's visa, limited to a single month with a clause that forbade employment of any kind. Estimates of how many Jews could arrive came from British Jewry's weekly newspaper the Jewish Chronicle, which reported that of the 4,000 refugees who arrived between March 1933 and October 1934, four-fifths were German and most were doctors, lawyers, academics, accountants and other professionals.7 It was during this interim period, while refugees were organising further onward travel elsewhere, that Jewish charities guaranteed support.8

  An additional difficulty emerged, since it was not immediately clear who counted as a Jew. Those who were defined as ‘Jews’ by Hitler and his regime were by no means Jewish according to the definition understood by the various charities or even the Jewish Refugee Committee. Hitler's view of Jews as a ‘foreign race’ was thus in stark contrast to the conventional, confessional definition held by charities. Jews who had left the religious community through conversion or conviction, or who were born in mixed marriages where the mother was not Jewish, were technically not Jews according to strict religious definitions. As far as Hitler and his Reich were concerned, someone born of, say, a convert
ed half-Jewish mother and a converted or non-practising Jewish father was still a full Jew with three ‘racially’ Jewish grandparents (one from the half-Jewish parent and two from the converted Jewish parent), despite the fact that it was highly improbable that this person, or anyone in his or her immediate family, had ever been near a synagogue. Though Germans who converted to Judaism without any previous Jewish ancestry were counted as full Jews by the Nazis, few orthodox Jews would recognise them as such.

  The British central government and the Jewish charities agreed that it was best not to emphasise the fact that the refugees pouring out of Nazi Germany were largely Jewish out of fear of inflaming anti-Semitism, which had briefly got out of control after the First World War, exacerbated by the Morning Post and The Times publishing articles on the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a mendacious bit of ant-Semitic counter-intelligence ‘leaked’ by Russia's Tsarist police.9 The British Union of Fascists (BUF) under Oswald Moseley was growing in popularity and by the mid-1930s had some 16,000 members, though it claimed membership to be as high as 50,000.10 Authorities were still mindful of the Battle of Cable Street of 4 October 1936, followed by London's East End pogrom along the Mile End Road. The BUF even enjoyed the support of the tabloid Daily Mail, with its proprietor, Lord Rothermere, writing an editorial in 8 January 1934 entitled ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’.

  To the British Foreign Office, Jewish persecution was seen as an obstacle to Anglo-German relations and it was wiser not to publicise the problems Jews were having in Germany. Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister from 1937, accepted German anti-Semitism as ‘a fact of life’ but was unhappy at its extreme manifestations, and feared that public debate could be damaging to commercial, social and cultural relations between the two countries.11 He was inclined to believe the official line coming out of Berlin that, by not formally sanctioning the Jewish boycott of 1 April 1933 or the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, far greater bloodshed would have ensued.

  Commercial considerations were an important issue and resulted in the British government taking the decision to downplay Nazi brutality towards Jews. In April 1933, the British directors of Anglo-Persian Oil (today known as British Petroleum or simply BP) dismissed all German Jews in its German sales subsidiary; still fearing potential loss of German sales, all non-German Jews were then dismissed, including Jewish Britons.12 The Foreign Office's determination to cultivate deeper Anglo-German relations with the holding of a football match between the two countries in December 1935 was equally questionable. But the decision that it be held in White Hart Lane, the home stadium of Tottenham Hotspur – a club that was (and is) predominantly supported by Jewish Londoners – was recklessly provocative. With an attendance of 9,500 predicted, tensions rose between the Home Office, concerned that there would be civil disturbances should the game proceed, and the Foreign Office who saw the match as a crucial step towards maintaining good Anglo-German relations. It ultimately took place with only minor incidents. Jewish refugees even stepped in to earn much-needed cash by conducting tours of London in German for visitors from Hitler's Reich. Meanwhile Lyons and Co., branded by the Nazi publication Der Stürmer as ‘a Jewish enterprise that all good Germans should avoid’, provided the catering. The visitors offered the Hitler salute before the anthems and swastikas were waved throughout the game. The home team won 3–0 – a predictable result.13

  British government policy at this time stands in contrast to the United States, which had its strict quotas. British policy was still undefined and allowed individual officials to make case-by-case decisions. These were largely sympathetic, as can be deduced from the relatively small number of entry refusals. From 30 March 1933, Harwich officials enforced certain refusals, but reversed them as soon as support guarantees could be obtained.14 Such policies allowed for a greater degree of flexibility than America's quota system. Nevertheless, by 1938, officials were considering new measures that would go against prevailing public opinion – still largely sympathetic to the plight of Germany's Jews. With the annexation of Austria, visa requirements were enforced, and with Vienna operating as a provincial capital rather than a national seat of government, its embassies had been turned into much smaller consulates with reduced staff. As a result, desperate Austrians, now considered Germans, often had to queue for days for an appointment, while Nazi hooligans openly harassed them on the street. This method, though painfully slow, allowed British officials to preselect Austrians for immigration before their arrival in Britain. With the recognition of the legality of Austria's annexation in April 1938, only well-connected Austrians with excellent qualifications and access to foreign funds were being accepted, accounting for the high profile of émigré Austrians in Great Britain – especially in music, the arts and sciences – despite their proportionately small number.

  The British government continued even after 1938 to have Jewish charities deal with refugees in order to avoid the appearance of public money being spent on foreigners immigrating at a time of financial austerity, international uncertainty and an increasingly shrill tone in the tabloid press. Though the Daily Mail had dropped its open support of the BUF by 1934, it was still suggesting that Jewish refugees were economic migrants. Meanwhile, Lord Rothermere remained friendly with both Hitler and Mussolini. As MI5 papers released in 2005 show, Rothermere congratulated Hitler on his invasion of the Sudetenland and encouraged him to march into Romania.15

  The musicologist Alfred Einstein writing to Hans Gál from America in April 1940 explained how he viewed international reaction at the time: 'I certainly share your wish to see Hitler and his accomplices hanged, but I fear we shall have to wait quite a while as England has made its own job all the more difficult by spending the last six-and-a-half years filling its soup bowl so full that it now has to try carefully to spoon it out again. We just finished reading the book by Sir Neville Henderson [British Ambassador to Germany, 1937–9] regarding the failure of his mission in Berlin, and what comes across most strongly is that he and others truly believed the words of the Führer. If the entire world had not been morally paralysed, things may have turned out differently. I simply hope that the censor who is no doubt reading these lines agrees with me, since I just happen to be one of the many victims of this moral paralysis. Especially as America is afflicted by the same condition and hasn't yet realised … how high the stakes are for this country.‘16

  The Évian Conference

  Nevertheless, it was the Americans who proposed setting up an Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGC) to coordinate refugee policies. This was established in what became known as the Évian Conference, held at Évian-les-Bains on Lake Geneva, 6–15 July 1938, and involving 32 different nations. The establishment of the IGC was not particularly well received by the Chamberlain government as it was wary of potentially unwelcome consequences. Indeed, it was thought that the use of public money for the Jewish refugee crisis would ultimately exacerbate the situation. However, the British wanted to work with the Americans and welcomed this as an initiative towards closer cooperation.17 Even at this late stage – after the annexation of Austria and with the impending annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland – Jewish refugees, who vastly outnumbered all others fleeing Nazi Germany, were not being identified specifically as Jews for fear of anti-Semitism in host countries. This was even the case with the ‘Kindertransport’, officially the Refugee Children Movement (RCM), which saw many Jewish children brought up as Christians by well-meaning adoptive parents, unaware of the true nature of Nazi persecution. As long as refugee work was carried out by Jewish charities, the scale of the crisis could remain helpfully vague. Should official agencies, especially international agencies, become involved, this could make the problem more complex, and more perilous.

  The League of Nations remained sensitive to the danger of violent anti-Semitism erupting in countries with large Jewish populations such as Poland, Hungary and Romania. As it was, these countries had already approached the Council of the League of Nations
asking for aid in relocating their own Jewish populations. The countries of the IGC would be vulnerable to such requests, since Poland, Hungary and Romania would not be receptive to help being made available for the relocation German and Austrian Jews when they saw their domestic Jewish ‘crisis’ as being equally severe. Sir John Hope Simpson, Director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs’ Refugee Survey, argued that the threats of violence against Jewish populations were potentially greater in these countries than in Germany and Austria.18 It was therefore decided at the Évian Conference that Poland, Romania and Hungary should be persuaded against making petitions for IGC funding. Britain, however, was concerned that the USA would manipulate the situation so that government spending would eventually become necessary, indeed unavoidable. The view of Sir Warren Fisher – Permanent Secretary to the Treasury – was more proactive:

  The principal element is of course the Jews who are exposed to unspeakable horrors. It is clear that, however much we may sympathise, we cannot provide a solution of the terrible problem (which is not confined to Germany). […] (On a wholly lower plane of thought I may mention that this country has frequently been the gainer by providing refuge to foreigners highly qualified in various walks of life.) While, therefore, I would start in at the conference apparently square-toed about the American exclusion of Government Finance from any scheme of help, I think we should be well advised from every point of view – if not for reasons of humanity – to keep open minds (without avowing it) and be on the look-out for any opportunity of intelligent assistance (this of course won't help the majority of these poor people).