Fascism

Music and Fascist Ideology

The most obvious examples of fascism occurred in Germany and Italy. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini established fascist regimes along with some other minor countries that were ruled by fascist governments, introducing an alliance referred to as the Axis powers, which was one of the two main sides during World War II.

The importance of music within these regimes has been widely discussed, and it is generally agreed that music was used as a propaganda tool. The first step taken was toward a centralization of affairs that had to do with music. In 1931 the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Chamber of Music) was established as one of the branches of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture) that was run by Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda for Hitler's regime. The Reich Chamber of Music regulated the music-business world and musicians had to prove their Aryan descent in order to be able to join this organization. Thus, Jewish musicians were excluded and the music industry was controlled through central procedures. The first president of the Reich Chamber of Music was the composer and conductor Richard Strauss, and Wilhelm Furtwangler was vice president. Both resigned upon different incidents. Strauss was accused of continuing to work with the Jewish writer Stefan Zweig, and Furtwangler was forced to resign because he defended Paul Hindemith after Joseph Goebbels's remarks that the composer was an “atonal noisemaker.”

Among the duties of the Reich Chamber of Music was to prove the supremacy of German music institutions over those of other nations. This had resulted in a series of collaborations with some countries that seemed to be potential allies in the years to come. One example of this was an exchange of operatic programs between the Greek and the German states in 1940, when World War II had already commenced but had not yet extended to Greece. At that moment, Greece was ruled by Ioannis Metaxas, a dictator who was enforcing a milder and more tolerant though obviously fascist rule in Greece. Within the bounds of this cooperation, the Frankfurt Opera House presented for the first time Richard Wagner's Ring of Nibelungen cycle in Athens. The exchange program also involved the performance of Manolis Kalomiris's opera The Mother's Ring in the Volksoper Berlin under the direction of Carl Moeller.

After Horst Wessel, a commander of the Storm Division of Hitler's shock troops, was murdered in 1930 by a communist, he became an instant martyr for Nazi party officials. The song he wrote also immediately became a symbol of the Nazis.

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