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The Racial Thinking of Richard Wagner
Director
of the Graduate Division De
Paul University School of Music Philosophical
Library, New York, 1950 The Racial Thinking of
Richard Wagner (pdf, 15 mb) The
author is hostile to National Socialism yet provides an interesting
interpretation of its genesis in the aesthetics of German classical music and
in the influence of Richard Wagner. The following is the introduction to the
book.
The Wagner literature
is already so voluminous that any new addition must particularly justify
itself. It may come as a surprise to many musicians as well as laymen that
Wagner did much thinking on race at all; this by itself would warrant the
present study. But there are more important justifications. It is the
author’s belief that up to the present, Wagner’s racial tenets have not been
clearly understood either in their content or their influence. Since the
implications of these tenets have been made manifest only within the past
decade, any previous appraisal must necessarily prove wanting. Finally, it is
only in the recent past that an objective scientific investigation of race
and racial factors has been established. In the light of such investigation
we are not only justified, we are compelled to consider those tenets of
Wagner which are based on or derive from his theories of race. The controversy
originally excited by Wagner’s music has become a matter of past history; by
a consensus of popular and educated opinion Wagner has been accorded a place
among the most important composers. Any reappraisal of his music at this time
would be warranted only on the basis of a radical reassessment of facts and
opinions, of a revaluation in terms of a marked change of taste (a possible
metamorphosis, but by no means an immediate probability). Wagner’s music
represents a culmination and the close of a period, a century, and even an
art-form. For with him, the opera as Music-Drama does not begin it concludes.
At some future date the form may be revived, but from the standpoint of
composition, opera as music-drama has been an almost dormant form for the
past half century. It is self-evident that no completely achieved
style-structure, be it the Fugue of Bach, the Symphony of Beethoven or the
Music-Drama of Wagner can ever be reproduced as a creative pattern. This is
not to say that the fugue, symphony or music-drama are exhausted forms; what
is meant is that specific stylistic aspects of these forms are not recurrent
except in more or less pedantic imitations. But if Wagner’s art
from the standpoint of the music-drama as a form, leads to a kind of cul-de-sac,
there is one aspect of his writing and thinking which, partly continuing and
partly initiating a number of associated beliefs, has exerted a pronounced
and profound influence not only on musical judgments but on the social
thought of the Western World, in the broadest sense of the term: this aspect
is his racial thinking. Both in his own time and later, the direction of
Wagner’s thinking, the content of his ideas were not too well understood and
even less appreciated in their total implications. As we shall see, Wagner
himself, in one instance, turned away from an action that merely implemented
and made concrete one of the measures for which he had been clamoring. It is
only when ideas which seemed to be discrete and dissociated aesthetic
theories, therefore “harmless,” “impractical,” “artistic,” not really
connected with “real life” suddenly, explosively, tragically become manifest
in overt action, that any accurate notion of what they were, to begin with,
becomes at all possible. To come directly to the
point Wagner’s racial flunking culminates and reaches its apogee m Hitler,
Goebbels, Rosenberg and the Third Reich. Under no circumstance is it
suggested that Hitler and Nazi Germany owe their existence to Wagner. But
only in Fascist Germany and not until then, do the racial tenets of Wagner
finally achieve their logical destination and conclusion. Consequently, no pre-Hitler
appraisal of Wagner’s thinking could be entirely accurate or sufficiently
comprehensive, and no evaluation of his ideas that did not take into
account their concretion in Nazi culture and behavior could be valid. Some
individuals have a vague notion of Wagner’s racial concepts, from a chance
reference, or a cursory familiarity with the composer’s anti-Christian or
anti-Semitic bias. But comparatively few have gone to either the German
original or the Ellis translation of Wagner’s collected writings. The writer
has come upon library copies of both the German and English versions, which,
after some fifty years of apparent circulation, still had uncut pages. It may
seem that these uncut pages might indicate a lack of interest in or influence
of Wagner’s writings; this is a mistaken impression. One has but to reflect
on how comparatively few people have actually read Gobineau or Karl Marx, and
then compare this factor with the enormous influence of these writers.
However, as in the case of Wagner, these authors exert their influence
through an exegesis by writers, scientists, politicians, and statesmen,
rather than through a direct effect on large numbers of readers. Many
individuals have been content with the modified or expurgated texts by
historians or editors who obviously wished to avoid the distasteful or the
controversial. Few outside of Germany have any notion of the scope, virulence
and intensity of Wagner’s social and racial tenets. Had these tenets remained
the peculiar property of Wagner and of his time alone, this study would not
have the meaningful significance it possesses for us of the present. In the racial outlook
of Richard Wagner we are confronted with concepts of “Volk,” language,
“Kultur,” anti-Christianity, anti-Semitism, anti-Mendelssohnism, that resolve
themselves into one complex, with reciprocal interrelationships all oriented
around music, yet extending into every aspect of life, German life in
particular. That music could provide such a focus, that considerations
fanning out from this center could so profoundly influence German thought, is
the result of its place in German life. For in that culture it was the most
highly developed art, and regarded with a jealous possessiveness. Nineteenth
and twentieth-century Germany represented one of our civilization’s most
highly developed cultures. Consequently, judgments rooted in music or music
aesthetics, particularly associated with the forceful self-righteous
propaganda of one who even in his own lifetime was acknowledged as a great composer,
exercised an effect not only national but literally world-wide in scope. One
factor which has contributed to the deep and wide-spread influence of these
judgments is that it seemed possible to take one or another of the Wagnerian
ideas, without necessarily subscribing to the whole package of assorted and
associated notions. Wagner was against so many different things that most
individuals could find at least one point of agreement with him. To these
individuals the concept “Wagner” represented the one point on which there was
some kind of mutual understanding or agreement. Such individuals could say
they agreed with “Wagner” by which they meant that aspect of Wagner’s
thinking with which they were in accord. Often, there existed an ignorance of
what the totality of Wagnerian thinking actually was. This becomes an
extremely important consideration in any explanation involving the spread and
continuity of Wagner’s racial tenets, for in the end all of his ideas were
accepted and propagated. Unquestionably, no one individual, excepting Wagner
himself, ever believed in all his various theories and hypotheses. Though
most people rejected some ideas while accepting others, eventually each of
his many theories found some advocate or some support in one quarter or
another. In this fashion, some
individuals have accepted Wagner’s appraisal of Mendelssohn, without being
aware of, or being affected by Wagner’s anti-Christianity. Or, some might
accept his anti-Christian tenets and reject his criticism of Mendelssohn. A
Protestant might be attracted by Wagner’s anti-Catholicism and yet not accept
his anti-Christian affirmations. Vegetarians might agree with Wagner’s
dietary theories, and animal lovers with his stand against vivisection.
Despite the fact that the ideas may seem separable in their respective
categories, they are inseparable in their interrelationship. Even
vegetarianism is mixed with attacks on the Old Testament and with
anti-Semitism. Wagner’s ideas do not each rest in a little receptacle, apart
from and independent of one another; they brush on one another, one
fertilizing the other, and each can only be understood in its proper relation
to the whole complex. That this interrelationship of music, culture,
religion, personalities, and social thought existed not alone in Wagner’s
writings, but was an active reality in the minds and hearts of later Germans
becomes increasingly evident and tangibly manifest in such work as
Rosenberg’s “Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts,” Grunsky’s “Wagner und
die Juden” and in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” Because the racial ideas which we
are considering neither began with Wagner nor ended with Hitler, we have an
added reason for considering them in relation to their origins, validity, and
effect. Were there no more to Wagner’s
racial arrogations and disparagements than a mere personal or temperamental
expression, the situation would not merit a consideration other than that of
a passing reference to a curious but not unprecedented instance; an example
of that kind of perverseness of genius that we are wont to dismiss with an
understanding smile and a tolerant nod as just another instance of how wide
of the mark the artist turned critic and political thinker might be. There is, however, a
unique quality here that is unprecedented not only in music history, but in
general history. The pattern created by the number and complexity of factors
and motives underlying Wagner’s racial thinking is an intricate one. As we
have suggested, were we dealing with something which occurred and remained in
the past, the inquiries involved, though interesting, would have a museum
aspect, of more limitedly academic than of current general interest. But the
attitudes involved are not merely “personal,” not of the dead past, and
certainly not “historical” in the sense of representing achieved and long
finished matters. In origin and effect, Wagner’s social theories represent a
phase of thought which is profoundly ingrained in the German concept. Many
individuals, musicians and nonmusicians alike, accept and promulgate these
theories with little notion of either their origin or their validity. The one
word, race, which should have been defined, was for almost a century taken
for granted; that which should have been proved was accepted as an axiom. The problem of Wagner’s
racial thinking has been approached in a somewhat cursory and peripheral
manner in most biographical and critical works. To the writer’s knowledge, no
intensive and exclusive study has hitherto been made of this important subject.
Jacques Barzun and Friedrich Hertz, though concerning themselves with certain
aspects of this topic, have considered it in a somewhat limited fashion. Such
instances as the oblique references in W. A. Ellis’ biography of Wagner
(itself based on Glasenapp) or in the same writer’s references to the
translations of the Gesammelte Schriften, or even the quite frequent
allusions to Wagner’s racism in Newman’s excellent biographical works cannot
give one a proper sense of the significance and import of the composer’s
racial theories. Such an awareness can only come from a thorough
consideration of Wagner’s thinking in terms of its backgrounds, its contents,
and its influences. Concerning Wagner’s
attitude towards Mendelssohn, there are deeply personal motivations which
have most often been ignored or slighted. The remarks of Wagner in his
autobiography and in his letters provide the principal clues to his innermost
feelings in this matter, even when his words are contradicted by the known
facts. Writers have been well enough aware of certain external aspects of the
relationship, and the American critic, Finck, sensed the profound personal
perturbation of Wagner in his relation to Mendelssohn. But here, too, no
detailed study has been made, despite the fact that the various constituents
were clearly discernible and all that had to be done was merely to assemble
these constituents in order to achieve a complete pattern of thought and
behavior. Because of the
conflicting expressions in Wagner’s literary works, it is not surprising to
find the popular concept of Wagner’s Christianity inconsistent with the
actual facts. A sentence in one essay will seem to express not only a deep
Christian feeling, but even a tolerance for Catholicism, whereas a sentence
in another essay would seem to imply a final and immutable anti-Christian
attitude. Many still see in Parsifal an apparent reconciliation with
Christianity, and are unaware that it continues important lines of the “Ring”
myth within a series of transmuted symbols. The most confused
thinking, however, has resulted from the attempts to defend or attack
Wagner’s attitude toward Jews in general and Judaism in music in particular.
The possibility that, through Greyer, Wagner himself might have been of
Jewish extraction increased the intensity and rancor of the controversy. In
all the clamor, with often but a rampant emotionalism prevailing, the truly
basic questions were ignored: What is meant by “race”? Is there actually a
Jewish race? If not, what does being a Jew involve, and more particularly,
what are the cultural correlatives of the Jewish composer? Contentions and
conflicting opinions have merely served to engender more errors and
misconceptions. Lazare Saminsky and Charles V. Stanford find “inherently”
Jewish traits in Wagner’s music; Carl Engel and Barzun, on the other hand,
detect a predominant “Fascist” or proto-Nazi content. Richard Eichenauer,
racist music historian of the Third Reich, is somewhat troubled by the whole
problem, finally compromising by accepting some Wagnerian traits as purely
Nordic, while indicating others as instances of racial mixture. The most direct sources
of information concerning Wagner’s racial thinking are to be found in his
essays and polemics collected as the “Gesamrndte Schriften” and available in
English in the translation of W. A. Ellis. Except in such instances where I
felt that Ellis had missed an important shade or inflection, I have used this
translation. In these instances I referred to the original, or attempted my
own translation. Changes made by Wagner in various versions or editions of
his essays which have significance for this study have been indicated.
Besides the “Gesammelte Schriften” and Wagner’s autobiography, works which
contain valuable first hand information, such as Schemann’s “Erinnerungen an
Richard Wagner”, yielded important material. For biographical data I have
depended on Newman, Bekker, Wallace, Chamberlain, Glasenapp, Ellis and
Dannreuther. Critical and historical
works by contemporary German musicologists which reveal the particular
impress of Wagner are those of Grunsky, Moser, Eichenauer, and Mersmann. Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,”
Rosenberg’s “Mythus,” the Goebbels “Diaries,” and the critical works of
Kolnai, Gurian, Weinreich and Karl Barth provided the background for an
understanding of the cultural and philosophic basis of the Third Reich. Concerning the
scientific aspect of the race problem, I have based my conclusions on the
data of Klineberg, Boas, Kroeber, Ashley-Montagu, Hertz, Radin, Von Luschan,
Morgan, Hooton and Hogben. In order that each
department of this inquiry be kept dear, I have considered if best to
approach the subject from the viewpoints of (a) the sources of Wagner’s
racial thinking, as revealed by direct and circumstantial evidence; (b) its
expression in Wagner’s attitude towards Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, Jews in
general, and Christianity; (c) its effects on contemporary and subsequent
writers and thinkers; and finally, (d) an evaluation of his theories.
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