ABSTRACT
The Bach year in 1950 provides us today with a lens through which to view many interlinked aspects of the two new states created in 1949, as both tried to define what it meant to be German after the catastrophe of the ‘Third Reich’. The Bach year also allowed Germans to define their cultural politics after the years of occupation. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, the former Allies stood back, and allowed their protégés to take the lead, giving tactful but distant support. The West German Länder jealously guarded their control of culture in the early 1950s, and the frequent calls for centralisation always provoked heated debate. Over the next few weeks, a small committee worked to put the flesh on the bones of this plan. This group was chaired by Bernhard Sprenger, an official from Hanover, and included Christhard Mahrenholz, chairman of the Neue Bach Gesellschaft, and a leading figure in the world of Protestant church music.
