Ray Mizui

Aquamarine Group

The Music and Art of Nazi Germany

The censorship of the arts and usage of propaganda through music by the Third Reich
during World War II was another attempt by Adolf Hitler to control the people living in Nazi
Germany, limiting their outside knowledge of the world.
For most of the German people, music was just not another form of art- it was influential
and powerful, and to be taken very seriously. Under their regime, however, all the music
produced had to fit a certain standard, which had limited the creativity of some artists. In
addition to the specific requirements, Joseph Goebbels censored and dismissed many of the
musicians who were deemed unfit, as he and the Third Reich went on a quest to purify the
German music world from degeneracy, and return it to its mythic Germanic-ness
(holocaustmusic.ort.org/). Nazi Germany did just that, with the passage of the Law for the Reestablishment of the Civil Service (April 7, 1933). This led to the widespread dismissal of
Jewish conductors, singers, music teachers, and administrators the two most important
composers at the illustrious Prussian Academy of Art were dismissed
(holocaustmusic.ort.org/), foreshadowing what would happen in the coming years.
During the reign of Nazi Germany, Hitler and Goebbels both believed that the three
composers that represented good German music (fcit.usf.edu) were Anton Bruckner, Ludwig
van Beethoven, and Hitlers personal favorite, Richard Wagner. Wagners anti- semitic views
had a quasi-religious effect on Hitler (telegraph.co.uk), as his insistence on pure Aryan race in
Nazi Germany came from Wagner. Wagner himself was against the Jewish people, as he had

Ray Mizui
Aquamarine Group
written an essay called Das Judenthum in die Musik (Judaism in Music), which openly attacked
Jewish composers and stated that the Jews poisoned public taste in the arts (fcit.usf.edu). He
has been a very controversial music figure for many years, as his music has been banned from
Israel since 1938.
Along with music, many other forms of art were either censored or outright frowned
upon in Nazi Germany. American authors, such as Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair
Lewis, were banned and not to be read. Further, on the night of May 10, 1933, the Nazis raided
bookstores and libraries across Germany to burn the books they thought should not be read by
Germans (www.ushmm.org). More than 25,000 copies of books were burned that night across
bonfires. Some of the works were by Jewish authors, including Albert Einstein.
The censorship of the arts and use of propaganda by the Third Reich was vital to keep the
German people to believe Adolf Hitlers ideology of the pure Aryan race. The music used by the
Nazis during World War II inspired soldiers and civilians to unite together for Nazi Germany.