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Another major musician whose qualified cooperation with the Nazi regime left an enduring stain on his reputation was Wilhelm Furtwängler, the brilliant musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic and the State Opera. Although, like Strauss, he was contemptuous of the Nazi authorities, he consented to become vice president of the Reichsmusikkammer and to stay at his posts in Berlin after Hitler came to power. His expressed reason for staying was to preserve the values of German culture in a perilous time, but he also knew that if he left he was unlikely to find such prestigious posts anywhere else in the world. To his credit, he used his prestige to protect a number of Jewish musicians in the Philharmonic, most notably the con-certmaster Simon Goldberg and the cellists Joseph Schuster and Gregor Piatigorsky. As the Nazis’ harassment of Jewish musicians grew, Furtwängler wrote a protest letter to Goebbels, who oversaw the Philharmonic, complaining about the regime’s anti-Semitic campaign as it applied to music. The grounds for his complaint, however, were pragmatic rather than ethical. “Quotas cannot be placed on music,” he wrote, “as they can be for bread and potatoes. If nothing worth hearing is given in concerts, the public will just stay away. For this reason, the quality of music is not merely a matter of ideology. It is a matter of survival.” He went on to argue that if the Nazis’ campaign against Jewry focused only on those artists who were “rootless and destructive,” and who sought to profit “through rubbish and empty virtuosity,” the fight would be “justified.” Furtwängler’s protest was hedged enough that Goebbels ordered it printed in the Vossische Zeitung on April 11, 1933. This allowed the minister to convey an illusion of openness without conceding too much ideological ground to a prominent artist who happened to be Hitler’s favorite conductor.

Wilhelm Fürtwangler and Richard Strauss, 1936

Convinced that he enjoyed immunity because of his relationship with Hitler, Furtwängler continued to protest against the regime’s cultural dogmatism. In July 1933 he expressed regret over the treatment of Schonberg because the composer was prized by “the Jewish International as one of the most significant musicians of the present.” Making him into a “martyr” would only harm the image of Berlin abroad, he argued.

There was no question of reinstating Schonberg, and the Nazi authorities simply ignored Furtwängler’s intervention. But they could not turn a blind eye to the conductor’s defense of another musician on the Nazis’ blacklist, Paul Hindemith. On March 12, 1934, Furtwängler conducted the premier of three symphonic excerpts from Hindemith’s opera Mathis der Maler, which brought howls of protest from the nazified press. Alfred Rosenberg denounced the music as kitsch and insisted that the composer, who was married to a Jewess, was unfit to belong to “the highest art institutes of the new Reich.” Further performances of Mathis were banned. Furtwängler defended Hindemith in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, insisting that no one had done more for the international prestige of German music than this young composer. Many Berliners obviously agreed, for on the evening that Furtwängler’s article appeared the audience at the State Opera gave the conductor an extended ovation when he stepped to the podium. Göring, who was in the audience, interpreted the ovation as a challenge to the regime. Seeing an opportunity to strike at Goebbels, who admired both Furtwängler and Hindemith, Göring informed Hitler about the demonstration. Despite his appreciation for the conductor’s artistry, Hitler ordered the press to attack Furtwängler. He also insisted on his resignation from the vice presidency of the Reichsmusikkammer. In response, the maestro resigned all his posts and threatened to move to America. Unwilling to lose him, Hitler had Goebbels inform him that if he left he would never be allowed to return. Furtwängler backed down, even issuing a statement that henceforth he would not interfere in the Reich’s cultural policy, which he conceded should be made “solely by the Flihrer . . . and by the expert minister appointed by him.” The conductor resumed his post at the Berlin Philharmonic and in 1936 became musical director of the Bayreuth Festival.