The Ian and Mildred Karten Memorial Lecture - 'German orchestras, the Volksgemeinschaft and the persecution of the Jews, 1933-1945' Event

German orchestras, the Volksgemeinschaft and the persecution of the Jews, 1933-1945

This lecture examines the ways in which antisemitism manifested itself in German concert life during the Nazi era. Drawing on a wide variety of examples ranging from prestige civic institutions such as the Munich Philharmonic Orchestras to small provincial theatre orchestras, it examines how the social practice of the symphony concert became inflected with the racist agendas of the National Socialist movement. It also notes, however, the presence of other social and political logics in operation in the concert hall, and argues that the underlying forms of bourgeois sociability centred on this space remained largely intact, providing a site on which forms of social distinction were maintained despite the social egalitarianism of the regime.

Speaker Information

Neil Gregor, Professor of Modern European History at the University of Southampton, has published widely on the economic, social and cultural history of modern Germany, including Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich (1998) and Haunted City: Nuremberg and the Nazi Past (2009), both of which won the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History, and How to Read Hitler (2014). His work has been translated into various languages. He is currently writing a book on orchestral life in Nazi Germany.