In May 1938, as part of the first Reich Music Rally, Hans Severus Ziegler assembled in Düsseldorf an exhibition of "Degenerate Music" (). Ziegler, the manager of the national theatre in Weimar, was inspired by the tremendously popular "Degenerate Art Exhibition" which had been presented the year before in Munich. The exhibition featured sections on Jewish composers and conductors, modernist and atonal music, jazz, and other subjects. Ziegler positioned the show as presenting examples of Cultural Bolshevism, saying at the opening ceremony: