page_title: Reichsmusiktage
section_title: "Degenerate music" exhibitions
hierarchical_section_title: Reichsmusiktage / "Degenerate music" exhibitions
caption_attribution_description: English: Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, erbaut für die Industrie- und Gewerbeausstellung Düsseldorf im Jahr 1902, Grundriss Entwurf Albrecht Bender, Fassade Entwurf Eugen Rückgauer, Fassaden.jpg
context_page_description: The Reichsmusiktage took place from 22 to 29 May 1938 in Düsseldorf. They were an event of the propaganda in Nazi Germany and were under the patronage of Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels had originally planned an annual return of the Reichsmusiktage. These were held again in May 1939, but ceased to exist after the beginning of the Second World War.
context_section_description: As part of the Reich Music Days, an exhibition was opened on May 24, 1938, in the Kunstpalast at Ehrenhof in Düsseldorf, under the name "Degenerate music", which followed on from the "Degenerate Art Exhibition" that had previously taken place in Munich in 1937. The main person responsible for the exhibition "Degenerate Music" was Hans Severus Ziegler, one of the earliest followers of Adolf Hitler and since 1935 general director of the Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar.
  This exhibition publicly denounced music that did not fit into the National Socialists' worldview, especially the works of Jewish artists. As in Munich before, deterrent examples of "degenerate music" were presented at this exhibition in Düsseldorf. In more than 50 display cases, one could see not only books, scores and stage sets, but also photographs and disparaging caricatures. In addition, at the push of a button it was possible to listen to excerpts from recordings of the denounced works.
  In addition to musicians, the exhibition also denounced musicologists, music directors, music critics, music teachers and conductors, and described their works and writings as "degenerate". Both "non-Aryan" personalities such as Alban Berg, Arnold Schönberg or Kurt Weill as well as "Aryan" musicians such as Paul Hindemith, who was married to a Jewess, and Igor Stravinsky from Russia were ostracized.
  The exhibition was on show in Düsseldorf until 14 June 1938 and was then shown in Weimar, Munich and Vienna. There was no accompanying catalogue, only the opening speech by Hans Severus Ziegler in the Düsseldorf Kunstpalast, which was printed as a brochure. On the front page of this brochure a black jazz saxophonist was shown as a caricature. What was provocative about it was, on the one hand, the deliberately overdrawn face, in contrast to the musician's clothing, tailcoat and top hat, and, on the other hand, the red Star of David, which was emblazoned in the buttonhole instead of a carnation. The National Socialists chose this fictitious figure as the symbol of the exhibition and also of the entire Reich Music Days 1938 as the epitome of degeneracy. The caricature is reminiscent of the black musician Jonny, the title figure from Ernst Krenek's opera Jonny spielt auf, against which NSDAP members had already protested before 1933.
caption: Düsseldorfer Kunstpalast (1902)
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