ABSTRACT
In May 1955, the Federal Republic was restored to full nominal sovereignty when the Occupation Statute lapsed. At the same time it became a member of NATO. In March 1954, the German Democratic Republic was granted the rights of an ‘equal peoples’ democratic state’ by the Soviet Union. The question of how the wartime Allies might have viewed German music in 1955 is complicated, and it should be said, largely hypothetical. The reconstructed musical culture of the Federal Republic was, in many ways, all they could have hoped for. There had been no resurrection of anything resembling Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry or the Reich Music Chamber. The goal of internationalising German music was also hugely successful. At the professional level, German performers and ensembles were once again an important part of the concert scene in the capitalist West.
