Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, 14th JUNE, 1933. NAZI AND THE ARTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 14 June 1933, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, 14th JUNE, 1933. NAZI AND THE ARTS.

The rise of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany has had home unfortunate repercussions in the sphere of the arts. Not long ago, the cables announced that Max Reinhardt had been forced to resign his position at the Deutsches Theatre and to leave the country, on account of his Jewish blood. Even at Salzburg, in Austria, he did not feel safe (for Salzburg is a border town), and consequently proceeded to Vienna. No man has done more for the German theatre than Reinhardt. In fact, between 1900 and 1920, the history of the German stage was summed up in the personal development of Reinhardt as a producer. In music, the eminent conductor, Bruno Walter, has been ejected from his position as conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra at Leipsig, and prevented from giving concerts he proposed to conduct in Berlin and Frankfurt. Wilhelm Furtwangler is said to have interceded for him, but in vain. Walter had to leave Germany. While resting at Semmering, in Austria, he received an invitation to conduct the Coneertgebouw Orchestra at Amsterdam, in the absence through illness of Mengelberg. So that Germany’s racial campaign against artists is to other countries’ ultimate gain. So it will be in countless other cases. At Dresden, Fritz Busch, the musical director and chief conductor at the Saxon State Opera, has been forced out; and so has Gustav Breeher, who occupied a corresponding position at the Leipsig Opera. When Herr Busch took his place in the orchestra pit for a ( performance of “Rigoletto,” a group of Nazist in the front seats shouted loudly, 11 Out with Busch! ’ ’ and maintained an uproar until Busch withdrew. In Berlin,. Professor Carl Ebert has been removed from his post as superintendent of the Municipal Opera) and two oF his conductors have also been discharged. At the State Opera there have been numbers of dismissals, including that of Juergen Fehling, who is recognised as being one of the finest producers in Germany at the present day. It will be interesting to see how all these changes affect the course of German music and art in general. One thing is certain. In ruthlessly pruning away non-German elements in the artistic activity of the country, Herr Hitler and his followers are depriving the arts of an extremely vital and important element. All true art has a national flavour; but it can never become the servant of political or nationalist fanaticism.