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Forbidden music: Jewish composers suppressed by the Nazis

Michael Haas, author of Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis (Yale 2013), shares groundbreaking research on the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich and the consequences for music throughout the rest of the twentieth century. With National Socialism's arrival in Germany in 1933, Jews dominated music more than virtually any other sector, making it the most important cultural front in the Nazi fight for German identity. Because Jewish musicians and composers were, by 1933, the principal conveyors of Germany’s historic traditions and the ideals of German culture, the isolation, exile and persecution of Jewish musicians by the Nazis became an act of musical self-mutilation. The lecture includes music clips of the period.

Co-sponsored by Illuminations and Jewish studies.