Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the connections between music and politics in Germany in the ten-year period between the defeat of Hitler’s ‘Third Reich’ in 1945 and the formal ending of the Allied occupation in 1955. It focuses on efforts to promote or censor music considered to have political meaning or influence, and to favour or disfavour individual musicians on grounds of their political affiliations, real or supposed. The book deals primarily with music as part of the ‘re-education’ project of the occupiers, and the second half with the evolution of musical culture in a divided Germany. It is concerned, therefore, with the intentions of the wartime Allies, and their twofold aspiration of ‘denazifying’ German music and creating something new in its place.