How does creativity thrive in the face of fascism? How can a highly artistic individual function professionally in so threatening a climate? This is a detailed study of the often interrelated careers of eight outstanding German composers who lived and worked amid the dictatorship of the Third Reich: Werner Egk, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Carl Orff, Hans Pfitzner, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. This book weighs issues of accommodation and resistance to ask whether these artists corrupted themselves in the service of a criminal regime — and if so, whether this is ... More

How does creativity thrive in the face of fascism? How can a highly artistic individual function professionally in so threatening a climate? This is a detailed study of the often interrelated careers of eight outstanding German composers who lived and worked amid the dictatorship of the Third Reich: Werner Egk, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Carl Orff, Hans Pfitzner, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. This book weighs issues of accommodation and resistance to ask whether these artists corrupted themselves in the service of a criminal regime — and if so, whether this is evident in their music. He also considers the degrees to which the Nazis politically, socially, economically, and aesthetically succeeded in their treatment of these individuals, whose lives and compositions represent diverse responses to totalitarianism.