"Offers a clear introduction to a fascinating, yet little known,
phenomenon in Nazi Germany, whose very existence will be a surprise
to the general public and to historians. Easily blending general
history with musicology, the book provides provocative yet
compelling analysis of complex issues."
---Michael Meyer, author of "The Politics of Music in the Third
Reich"
"Hirsch poses complex questions about Jewish identity and Jewish
music, and she situates these against a political background vexed
by the impossibility of truly viable responses to such questions.
Her thorough archival research is complemented by her extensive use
of interviews, which gives voice to those swept up in the
Holocaust. "A Jewish Orchestra in Nazi Germany" is a book filled
with the stories of real lives, a collective biography in modern
music history that must no longer remain in silence."
---Philip V. Bohlman, author of "Jewish Music and Modernity"
"An engaging and downright gripping history. The project is
original, the research is outstanding, and the presentation
lucid."
---Karen Painter, author of "Symphonic Aspirations: German Music
and Politics, 1900-1945"
The Jewish Culture League was created in Berlin in June 1933,
the only organization in Nazi Germany in which Jews were not only
allowed but encouraged to participate in music, both as performers
and as audience members. Lily E. Hirsch's "A Jewish Orchestra in
Nazi Germany" is the first book to seriously investigate and parse
the complicated questions the existence of this unique organization
raised, such as why the Nazis would promote Jewish music when, in
the rest of Germany, it was banned. The government's insistence
that the League perform only Jewish music also presented the
organization's leaders and membership with perplexing conundrums:
what exactly "is" Jewish music? Who qualifies as a Jewish composer?
And, if it is true that the Nazis conceived of the League as a
propaganda tool, did Jewish participation in its activities amount
to collaboration?
Lily E. Hirsch is Assistant Professor of Music at Cleveland
State University.
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