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Though not on the "official" list, a number of others fled Hitler's Germany to find a home in Hollywood, including Franz Waxman and Hans J. Salter (who later had his revenge by scoring HITLER).
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Thanks, Dana, I thought that page with photos was the complete list.
Of course, we all know how Waxman being attacked by street thugs was the last straw which persuaded him to emigrate.
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Though not on the "official" list, a number of others fled Hitler's Germany to find a home in Hollywood, including Franz Waxman and Hans J. Salter (who later had his revenge by scoring HITLER).
If you check through the list Regie posted you will indeed see "Franz Wachsmann" and also Franz Waxman (listed as a pseudonym) among the blacklisted Jewish composers. They were of course one and the same person! Waxman fortunately had departed in advance of the Anschluss but still had membership in the organization.
Salter is also on the list (credited as Hans Julius Salter) right under Felix Salten (author of Bambi). Other familiar names include Werner Richard Heymann (who scored several Lubitsch pictures), Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau and Rózsa's regular orchestrator Eugene (Eugen) Zador.
At least they were lucky enough managing to emigrate which I guess the majority of the others were not able to do. Which means that they probably belong to the six million.
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To you, John, I extend the same thanks I gave to Dana. As I said, I didn't know there was more list...
(When I originally met Hans, interviewing him for Cinefantastique and posterity, the first question I asked him was "What does the J stand for?")
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If you check through the list Regie posted you will indeed see "Franz Wachsmann" and also Franz Waxman (listed as a pseudonym) among the blacklisted Jewish composers. They were of course one and the same person! Waxman fortunately had departed in advance of the Anschluss but still had membership in the organization.
Where? I find several article references to Waxman under Search the Website, but I'm not finding his name in the main list. What am I missing?
"Anschluss" customarily refers to the German annexation or occupation of Austria in 1938. So I don't think you can connect it with Waxman, who lived in northern Germany and left in 1933.
The link to the entire list is somewhat hidden within the text. Here is the direct link (hope it works):
http://orel.pmhclients.com/images/articles/AKMSTAGMA_Blacklist_City_of_Vienna_Library_Shapreau.pdf
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If you check through the list Regie posted you will indeed see "Franz Wachsmann" and also Franz Waxman (listed as a pseudonym) among the blacklisted Jewish composers. They were of course one and the same person! Waxman fortunately had departed in advance of the Anschluss but still had membership in the organization.
Where? I find several article references to Waxman under Search the Website, but I'm not finding his name in the main list. What am I missing?
"Anschluss" customarily refers to the German annexation or occupation of Austria in 1938. So I don't think you can connect it with Waxman, who lived in northern Germany and left in 1933.
True enough that Waxman was of German birth and lived in Germany until the time he departed for Paris (and on from there to Hollywood) in the 30s, but either there were two prominent Jewish composers named Franz Wachsmann (AKA Franz Waxman) in circulation in that time and region, or the one we know and love was in fact associated in some way with the Austrian copyright society whose Jewish members were the subject of the blacklist discussed here. I don't know for a fact that this association existed, but it seems to me more unlikely that there were two of them than that it's the same guy. This Wachsmann guy, whoever he was, and whether or not he was a resident of Austria then or ever, had membership in the organization at the time the Nazis came to power in Austria (i.e., the Anschluss). Hopefully that is a bit clearer...
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We hear of musicians who were oppressed by the Nazis and became great film composers.
But were there any former Nazis who went on to become notable film composers after the war?
Their musical education and vocabulary would likely have been much the same as their blacklisted european contemporaries.
It is close to impossible to tell whether any of the major film composers were Nazis or not. Just the fact that they were not Jewish and didn't leave Germany doesn't automatically make them Nazis just as the fact that they were not known to be active supporters automatically makes them innocent.
To the best of my knowledge none of the major composers were ever accused of being Nazis unlike some actors, writers and especially directors. Those who were accused generally denied that accusation. Veit Harlan, writer-director of the infamous Jud Süss, claimed that he was forced to work on that film (for which he was prosecuted after the war for crimes against humanity even though the case was later dismissed as far as I remember). That was the general line of defence for basically anyone who was involved in the movement.
After the war all artists had to through denazification where you had to be cleared of any major involvement before you got a work permit. For the US occupational forces the clearance office for film people was led by noted film journalist Siegfried Kracauer who soon wondered how Hitler was able to stay in power when everybody he interviewed was opposing him (while being forced to follow orders, of course). The only time he was surprised during his tenure was when he interviwed Thea von Harbou, the ex-wife of director Fritz Lang and screenwriter for most of his films. Because Kracauer admired her work with Lang (including Metropolis, M, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) he was suggesting to her that she should use that defence, too as she was involved in the writing of several propaganda pictures. To which she replied that she could not do that because she was a Nazi and was not forced to write those screenplays. Kracauer had to refuse her clearance but said that she was probably the only honest person he met in Germany at that time.
Once film production in Germany was resumed which did not happen before 1947 all major film composers seemed to be able to continue working just as before which implies that none of them had major problems with clearance.
As far as quality of German movie music is concerned, well that's another matter. While there were some brilliant song writers like Theo Mackeben or Peter Kreuder the quality of dramatic scores im my opinion was not particular high. The scores for dramatic films seem terribly heavy handed while the scores for comedies (generally written by the songwriters themselves) were generally little more than instrumental versions of the songs which inevitably had to be in any comedy even when they were not musicals.
In my opinion only two composers of that era distinguished themselves. One was Georg Haentzschel who wrote a magnicent score for the epic 1943 fantasy Münchhausen. The other was Franz Grothe who was essentially a song writer but was also capable of writing dramatic music as well. He did his best work was after the war though (Ich denke oft an Piroschka [I often think of Piroschka] in 1955 and Das Wirtshaus im Spessart [The Inn at Spessart forest] in 1958).
Even after the war there were only a few composers of note like Hans-Martin Majewski, Rolf Wilhelm or Martin Böttcher. For the most part German film music remained undistinguished. The same has to be said for German films of that era with only a few directors (Helmut Käutner, Wolfgang Staudte, Erich Engel, Kurt Hoffmann and very few others) trying to rise above the mediocrity of the general output.
Before Hitler came to power Germany was one of the leading film nations in the world which produced some of the most innovative and influential films ever made. While I might get the actual percentages slightly wrong it has been said that by exclusing Jews German film lost 40 % of its actors, 60 percent of its directors and 80 % of its writers. It never recoverd from that loss.
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double post - sorry
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Posted: |
Sep 1, 2014 - 5:10 PM
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By: |
Regie
(Member)
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The Para-Ufamet studio, run by Max Pommer, made some extraordinary films. (A brilliant documentary was made about it over 20 years ago, narrated by Kenneth Branagh.) Indeed, Hitchcock was hugely influenced by German Expressionism from between the wars. Theirs was a vigorous, intelligent and adventurous film aesthetic. But without the Jewish diaspora American (and French and British) cinema would never have developed the way it did. Think of American film without Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder!!! Impossible.
My favourite film from Germany remains G.W. Pabst's "Pandora's Box", with an absolutely stunning performance by Louise Brooks. Secondly, "The Blue Angel" (made in 2 versions simultaneously - English and German) and the astonishing Emil Jannings. Astonishing, I say!!
As to whether Nazi composers made the grade, I do not know. But Wilhelm Furtwangler, the great German Conductor, spent the remainder of his career defending himself against accusations that he was a Nazi party member. There's an article about him in that link from the Orel Foundation.
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