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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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Of course. You, too. Like everyone else in this goddamn country.
I've remembered something else...
Yeah?
Furtwngler sent Hitler a telegram for his birthday.
He did?
One of your people told me.
One of my people?
Yes. A corporal. US Army. A Jew. He said he'd seen the telegram in the Chancellery.
Sonofagun. We'll find the corporal and we'll find the telegram.
But I need documentary proof. You know of anything like that?
No. But that's why we hated him. We admired him as a conductor but we all hated him too because he didn't have to join the Party and yet he had a better life than any of us. He didn't have to go and deliver a report after every trip abroad. He got everything from them, everything. He was filthier than any of us Party members.
There's a rumour... I don't know if it's true or not... but ask him about von der Null.
Never heard of him, who is he?
Edwin von der Null. Music critic. He gave Furtwngler terrible reviews while he raved about Herbert von Karajan.
Who's he?
Also a conductor. Very brilliant. Young. Von der Null called him 'The Miracle von Karajan'. Furtwngler was outraged and they say he had von der Null conscripted into the army. The same thing happened to another critic. True or not, it's not such a bad idea. Critics give you bad reviews, you have them sent to the Russian front. But if you really want to get Furtwngler, ask him about Herbert von Karajan.
The Miracle Kid.
Yes, yes you may notice that he cannot even bring himself to utter his name, he... he refers to him as K.
And ask him about his private life.
His private life?
I want you to understand why you're here. You're automatically banned from public life under Control Council Directive No 24. We're here to look into your case before you appear in front of the Tribunal for Artists of the Denazification Commission. You understand that?
I have already been cleared by a Denazification Tribunal in Austria.
What they do in Austria doesn't interest me one little bit. Okay? I have your questionnaire here, Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Furtwngler, born Berlin, January 1886. Orchestral conductor. And you say here you were never a member of the Nazi Party.
That is correct.
Could you tell us about being made a Prussian Privy Councillor. How did that happen to a nonParty member?
I received a telegram from Hermann Goering informing me that he had made me a Privy Councillor. I was not given the opportunity either to accept or refuse. After the dreadful events of November 1938, the violent attacks on the Jews, I stopped using the title.
What about VicePresident of the Chamber of Music, you used that title didn't you? But then I suppose you had no choice there either, because I suppose Dr. Goebbels just sent you a telegram saying, Dear Mr. VicePresident.
I don't think Dr. Goebbels sent me a telegram. I was simply told. In a letter, I believe. I don't remember exactly.
Goebbels and Goering were sure heaping honours on you. One makes you a Privy Councillor, the other makes you VicePresident of the Chamber of Music, and you weren't even a member of the Party, how do you explain that?
Well, there was a constant battle between Goering and Goebbels as to which of them would control German culture. I was simply a pawn. Anyway, I resigned from the Musikkammer at the same time I resigned as Musical Director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1934.
Then why did you conduct at one of their Nuremberg rallies?
I did not conduct at at the rally, I conducted on the evening before the rally.
That sounds like the small print in one of our insurance policies, Wilhelm. And what about April 19, 1942? The eve of Hitler's fifty third birthday, the big celebration; you conducted for Hitler, didn't you? Was that in keeping with your view that art and politics have nothing to do with each other?
That... that was a different matter, I... I was tricked.
How come?
Could I have a glass of water, please? Please, Fraulein?
I made no deal!
I don't buy that.
It's the truth.
I keep hearing you helped a lot of Jews to escape. How did you do that?
I don't remember in detail, there were so many.
Did you call someone you knew?
I may have, as... as I said, I simply don't remember.
Let me me help you, then. You picked up the phone and made a call 'Hello, Adolf? Wilhelm speaking. Listen, old pal, there's a Jewboy musician I want you to help. He needs a permit to get to Paris.'
Or maybe you called Goebbels or Goering? You were so close you were in the same shithouse as them.
May I ask a question?
Sure.
When will my case be heard by the Tribunal?
Your guess is as good as mine.
I need to work. I need to make my living. I live off the generosity of friends...
Tough, tough!
Then why is it, please, that another conductor who was actually a member of the Party, who used to play the Horst Wessel before his concerts, has already been cleared and is working again while I have to wait and wait and wait?
I don't know, he wasn't my case. Why did you escape to Switzerland just before the war ended?
It was because I learned that the Gestapo was about to arrest me.
Why were they going to arrest you?
I believe it was because of another letter I'd written to Goebbels lamenting the decline of musical standards due to racial policies.
You didn't complain about the racial policies, just about the musical standards, is that right?
So, how did you learn that the Gestapo was out to get you?
During an enforced hourlong interval because of a power failure at a concert here in Berlin, Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments, said to me, 'You look very tired Dr. Furtwngler, you should go abroad for a while.' I knew exactly what he meant.
You sure knew a lot of people in high places.
It would be truer to say, I think, that a lot of people in high places knew me.
You were real close to all of them, to Adolf, to Hermann, to Joseph, to Baldur, and now Albert, So, let's hear the truth, let's come clean. What was your Party number?
If you are going to bully me like this, Major, you had better do your homework. You obviously have no idea how impertinent and stupid your questions are.
I have a list of names here, people in your profession, who got out in '33. Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Arnold Schoenberg, Max Reinhardt...
They were Jews, they had to leave. They were right to leave. I could not leave my country in her deepest misery. After all, I am a German. I... I stayed in my homeland. Is that my sin in your eyes?
See, David? He can't answer the question. I'll ask it again, Wilhelm, and don't give me any more airyfairy, intellectual bullshit!
Steve Arnold...
I've had enough of this, I'm leaving.
I've got to hand it to the British, David. You know what those guys are? Decent. Tell me, Herr Dr. Furtwngler, do you know Hans Hinkel?
Yes, a despicable human being. He was in the Ministry of Culture. His job was to get rid of Jews in the arts.
Yup, that's him, that's the guy. You know what else the little creep did? He kept files, close on 250,000 files. And you know what's in those files?
Certainly not, but I knew he had informers everywhere. Even in my orchestra there was someone
Who?
I wasn't told. I just knew it.
How?
I was warned.
Who warned you?
Goering. Because Hinkel was working for Goebbels.
What did Goering say?
He told me to be careful as one of Goebbels' men was watching me. He read a report on me everything I said was quoted word by word.
Oh boy, you're gonna love this. Take your time with this now. Those files contain the details of every working artist in this country. Those files are gonna tell us who joined the Party, who informed and who was helpful.
It is now nine o'clock precisely. I do not intend to be kept waiting again.
Don't talk to me like I was a second violinist. Go back into the waiting room. Miss Straube will come and get you when I am ready to see you.
If it's too hot, open your tie.
I wish to say something.
Go ahead, be my guest.
When I last saw you, I was unprepared. I did not know what to expect. In these past weeks, I have been thinking more carefully and making some notes. You have to understand who I am and what I am. I am a musician and I believe in music. I am an artist and I believe in art. Art in general, and music, in particular, has for me mystical powers which nurture man's spiritual needs. I must confess, however, to being extremely naive. I insisted for many years on the absolute separation of art and politics. My entire life was devoted to music because, and this is very important, because I thought that I could, through music, do something practical.
And what was that?
Maintain liberty, humanity and justice.
Gee, that's a thing of beauty, honest to God, a real thing of beauty. I'm going to try to remember that. Liberty, humanity and justice. Beautiful. But you used the word 'naive'. Are you now saying you think you were wrong? That art and politics can't be separated?
I believe art and politics should be separate, but that they weren't kept separate I learned to my cost.
And when did you first learn that when you sent the telegram? Was that the surrender signal, the waving of the white flag?
What telegram?
'Happy birthday, dear Adolf, love Wilhelm.' Or words to that effect. That sounds to me like you were dropping on your knees and saying, 'Okay, Adolf, you win. You're the number one man. Have a swell party.'
I have no idea what you're talking about.
The birthday greetings you sent to your old pal, Adolf Hider.
I never sent him any birthday greetings or any other kind of greetings.
Think carefully, Wilhelm... maybe not in your own name, but as Privy Councillor or VicePresident.
I don't have to think carefully. This is utterly ridiculous.
You won't find it because no such telegram exists.