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Settling Scores
German Music,
Denazification, &
the Americans,
1945–1953
david monod
The University of North Carolina Press

Chapel Hill and London

Settling Scores
∫ 2005
The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
This book was published with the assistance of
the William R. Kenan Jr. Fund of the University of
North Carolina Press.

Designed by Richard Hendel

Set in Galliard by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for

permanence and durability of the Committee on

Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the

Council on Library Resources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Monod, David, 1960–
Settling scores : German music, denazification, and
the Americans, 1945–1953 / by David Monod.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
isbn 0-8078-2944-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Music—Germany—20th century—American
influences. 2. Germany—History—1945–1955.
3. Denazification—Germany. I. Title.
ml275.5.m66 2005

780%.943%09044—dc22 2004029685

09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1
for michael kater
This page intentionally left blank
 contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xiii

Introduction 1

1 Preparing for Music Control 12

2 Facing the Music:

Denazification and Revolution, 1945 44

3 Reforming Music Culture, 1945–1946 96

4 Learning to Keep Quiet:

Wilhelm Furtwängler and the End of Denazification 128

5 From Major to Minor:

The Retreat from Reform, 1947–1950 167

6 Paying Guests:

American Artists in Cold War Germany, 1948–1953 205

Conclusion: A New Day in Beulah 253

Notes 265

Bibliography 303

Index 317
illustrations

The foyer of the Munich Staatsoper, 1945 25

Hans Rosbaud and the Munich Philharmonic 63
The Vienna Staatsoper, Auditorium and
Proscenium, 1946 80
Jerome Pastene, Newell Jenkins, and
Carl Or√ in Stuttgart, 1946 111
John Bitter conducting the
Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, 1947 120
Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 147
John Evarts lecturing in the Amerika Haus,
Augsburg, 1947 169
Audience at a Munich Philharmonic Youth
Concert, 1948 194
Sergiu Celibidache, Paul Hindemith, and
Carlos Moseley, Berlin, 1949 220
Everyman Opera Company production of
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Final Scene 238
Paul Hindemith, Mateo Lettunich, and
John Evarts, Berlin, 1949 248
acknowledgments

Two very di√erent military occupations imprinted themselves on these

pages. The first, which occurred a half-century ago, raised perplexing
questions about the American authority’s confusion over goals, rap-
idly changing priorities, diminishing commitments, di≈culties with
establishing legitimacy, and ambivalent successes. The second occupa-
tion, which occurred as this book was being written, helped me recog-
nize some of the answers to those questions. Music is not one of the
concerns of the American administration in Iraq, but it was an issue for
the occupiers in postwar Germany. The peculiarity of that concern is
what first drew me to the subject; my fascination with issues such as
the moral responsibility of the artist and the value of music as a com-
municator of ideas sustained me during my ten years of research; and
the frustration I felt watching America’s current engagement with oc-
cupation government stimulated and shadowed my writing.
The present has also impinged on this study in other, and more
pleasant, ways. I was tremendously fortunate to have been able to
interview a number of the men and women who had been involved in
the administration of music in postwar Germany. Talking to the sub-
ject of one’s research inevitably changes one’s perception of the archi-
val material, and I am glad that my own thinking was challenged,
grounded, and, I believe, humanized by the interviews. I admit to
having been captivated by the generosity, intelligence, and spirit of the
individuals I interviewed and, most important, having come to appre-
ciate their deep musicality. Music, I quickly realized, was not simply
the subject of their endeavors in Europe: the men and women I spoke
to could not have been administering mining or health care. Music
was something tangible for them, a social force with its own power
and culture and moral attributes. Though not uncritical of their fetish-
ization of music, I understand and respect it and even see it as strangely
ennobling. My great regret is that many of the individuals I spoke
with have not lived to see the publication of this book. My profound
gratitude to Carlos Moseley, Mateo Lettunich, Virginia Pleasants,
John Bitter, Edward Kilenyi, and Newell Jenkins for what they taught
me about Military Government, music, and themselves and to John
Boxer, Henry Pleasants, Suzanne Arco Heidsieck, Sir Georg Solti, and
Isaac Stern for their memories and reflections on music, their col-
leagues, and Germany.
I was also extremely fortunate in that all of the archives I ap-
proached, with the exception of the Or√-Zentrum in Munich, did
their utmost to facilitate my research. I am especially grateful to Becky
Colyer and Amy Schmidt at the National Archives in Washington for
their assistance over many years. I am also grateful to archivists at the
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; the Harry Ransom
Center; Yale University Archives; the Library of Congress Performing
Arts Division; the Dwight David Eisenhower Library; the Harry S.
Truman Library; the Oskar Diethelm Library of Cornell University;
the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute
at Ohio State University; the Washington State University Archive;
the Stadtarchiv Stuttgart; the Stadtarchiv München; the Staatsarchiv
Ludwigsburg; the former Stadtarchiv Berlin; the Landesarchiv Berlin;
the Institut für Zeitgeschichte; the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart; the
Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; and
the Akademie der Künste for making material available and for en-
suring that my visits would be memorable. Although the archivists I
dealt with in all of these places were unfailingly helpful, I must single
out Volker Viergutz and Klaus-Dieter Pett at the former west Berlin
Stadtarchiv who, recognizing the high cost of international travel,
allowed me to keep researching even on days when the archive was
o≈cially closed.
My research was supported by a major grant from the Social Sci-
ence and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by a number of
smaller awards from my home university, Wilfrid Laurier. I am also
grateful to the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst for a Ger-
man Study Grant and to the German Historical Institute, Washing-
ton, for inviting me to spend a memorable summer at the German-
American Center for Visiting Scholars. Wilfrid Laurier University also
awarded me a Book Publishing Grant, which assisted in the final prep-
arations of the manuscript.
While I was researching this book a number of people—some of
whom I still hope to meet in person—took the time and trouble to send
me information and documentation. Much of this material had taken

x | Acknowledgments
them years to accumulate, and without their generosity it would have
remained well beyond my reach. The Knappertsbusch biographer,
Kazuhide Okunami, provided me with valuable documents regarding
the conductor’s denazification; Claudia Maurer Zenck supplied me
with an amazing collection of her notes on new music performances in
Berlin; W. Howard Cotton Jr. sent me a package dealing with the first
music chief in Bavaria, Harry Bogner; Jean Massud dispatched a stack
of War Department photocopies pertaining to the New York Field
O≈ce; David Farneth gave me a bundle of material from the Weill-
Lenya Research Center on Otto Pasetti; and Reuben Silver shared his
memories of his former colleague, Benno Frank. I was also privileged to
have enjoyed the hospitality of Jeremiah Evarts and his family, who
allowed me to live in their home while I studied the remarkable and
moving diary and memorabilia of John Evarts. I am grateful to Carlos
Moseley for sending me copies of the letters he wrote home in the late
1940s; to John Bitter for allowing me access to his scrapbooks; and
to Mateo Lettunich, Carlos Moseley, Virginia Pleasants, John Bitter,
Newell Jenkins, and Jeremiah Evarts for allowing me to reproduce their
personal photographs.
Because I was sure I had used up my share of good fortune during
the researching and writing of this book, I did not expect a smooth
passage through the publication process. I am so pleased to have been
proved wrong. The sta√ at the University of North Carolina Press is
a terrific bunch: courteous, intelligent, and professional. The manu-
script went through its various appraisal and editorial stages with star-
tling e≈ciency. One could not want a more supportive or knowledge-
able editor than Chuck Grench or a more warmly enthusiastic person
fielding one’s questions than assistant editor Amanda McMillan. With
green pen and sharp pencil, Brian MacDonald did a superb job of
copyediting the manuscript, and Ron Maner, UNC’s managing editor,
guided the book and me through the stages of publication with little
fuss and a great deal of positive encouragement.
A large number of friends and colleagues also shared their expertise
and advice and read portions large and small of the manuscript. The
book would have been infinitely poorer without the time and knowl-
edge they brought to that task. I am grateful to Joan Evans, Celia
Applegate, Toby Thacker, Elizabeth Koch Janik, Je√ry Diefendorf,
Thomas A. Schwartz, Michael Kater, Boris von Haken, Carol Gruber,
Michael H. Gray, George Urbaniak, Paul Monod, Michael Sibalis,

Acknowledgments | xi
and Guido Heldt for their comment, criticism, and cheer. To Toby, a
special thank-you for sorting out so many of the research questions I
could not solve; our email correspondence is now something of a
military government archive in itself. Michaela, Adam, and Emma
endured months of my absences on research trips and tolerated, with-
out too much complaining, my monopolization of the computer. Mi-
chaela also put up with endless questions regarding German grammar
and endured (still endures) a burgeoning list of undone household
jobs. I am so grateful to you for your laughter and conversation and
hugs and for the privilege of having such a close and loving family.
Finally, this book is dedicated to Michael Kater, whose support was
crucial to its completion. Michael’s willingness to sponsor a newcomer
in his field placed me in vital and early contact with an exceptional
community of scholars and invaluable sources of funding; his archival
knowledge (and private archive) filled in the blanks in my research,
and his scholarship served as a model for my work. Michael’s sense
of history is personal, immediate, and alive; he hauls it up from
the archives and engages his audience with it provocatively and vig-
orously. What a pleasure it has been to experience his enthusiasm and
to take directions from his intellectual compass. This book is a partial
thank-you.

xii | Acknowledgments
abbreviations

absie American Broadcasting Station in Europe

acc Allied Control Council
ascap American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
bpo Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
cdu Christlich-Demokratische Union
(Christian Democratic Party)
cic Counter Intelligence Corps
csu Christlich-Soziale Union (Christian Socialist Party)
gdb Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnenangehöriger
(theater workers union)
gema Gesellschaft für musikalische Au√ührungs
(copyright society after 1949)
hicog O≈ce of the High Commissioner for Germany
icd Information Control Division
iia International Information Administration
ill International Lending Libraries
isb Information Services Branch
jcs Joint Chiefs of Sta√
kpd Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands
(Communist Party of Germany)
mg Military Government
nsdap Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi Party)
omgb O≈ce of the Military Government Bavaria
omgus O≈ce of the Military Government United States
oss O≈ce of Strategic Services
owi O≈ce of War Information
pad Public A√airs Division
pwd Psychological Warfare Division
pwe Psychological Warfare Executive
rias Radio in the American Sector
rkk Reichskulturkammer
(Chamber of Culture in the Third Reich)
sa Sturmabteilungen (‘‘Storm Sections’’ of the Nazi Party)
sed Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands
(Socialist Unity Party of Germany)
shaef Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
smad Sowjetische Militäradministration Deutschland
(Soviet Military Government in Germany)
spd Socialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Socialist Party)
ss Schutzsta√el (‘‘Defense Squad’’ of the Nazi Party)
stagma Staatlich genehmigte Gesellschaft zur Verwertung
musikalischer Urheberrechte
(copyright board prior to 1949)
swncc State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee
ToK Tarifordnung für die Kulturorchester
(orchestral pay scale regulation)
usfa U.S. Forces Austria
usfet U.S. Forces European Theater
usis U.S. Information Service

xiv | Abbreviations
Settling Scores
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction

As president of the American Society of Composers, Authors

and Publishers (ascap), which licensed works and collected royalties
on behalf of composers and music publishers in the United States,
Deems Taylor felt he had to respond. The implication, after all, was
that his organization was helping the enemy. And so he chose to ad-
dress the biggest audience he could: listeners to his regular intermis-
sion commentary for the Sunday radio broadcast of the New York
Philharmonic. What he couldn’t understand, he told listeners on 22
February 1942, was how Erika Mann, daughter of the novelist Thomas
Mann, ‘‘whose father’s books are being burned in Germany,’’ could
advocate censorship over here. If people didn’t want to listen to Ger-
man performers, Taylor argued, that was fine; but they mustn’t smash
their records: ‘‘[I]t’s a Nazi technique. . . . Don’t imitate those barbar-
ians.’’ He then focused on Richard Strauss, the best known of Ger-
many’s living classical composers, whom Mann had recently declared
was ‘‘putting his genius at the disposal of the enemy’’ by ‘‘conducting
for storm troopers,’’ while Americans ‘‘sheepishly’’ listened to his mu-
sic and ascap collected the U.S. royalties that it would hand over to
him at the cessation of hostilities. Art, Mann insisted, should not take
precedence over politics: after all, if Hitler’s pictures were really good,
would that justify exhibiting them during the war in American art
galleries? Taylor’s defense was to try to separate the composer from his
work and to insist that, while Strauss might be a bad man, his work
was still worth hearing. Why ban Strauss’s music? ‘‘[W]e’re not fight-
ing music, we’re fighting Germany, Italy and Japan.’’ If the democ-
racies were to prevail, he continued, they had to practice the kind of
civilization they were defending and that meant renouncing the tactics
of the enemy. He quoted with approval the conductor Bruno Walter’s
recent comments on Strauss: ‘‘I detest him as a person, and I abhor
everything for which he stands,’’ but he ‘‘is a genius, and some of his
works are masterpieces. I cannot in all honesty boycott masterpieces
because I detest their composer.’’∞
The problem Taylor, Mann, and Walter were addressing is still
relevant to our appreciation not just of midcentury German music but
of the cultural expressions of all those whose values we find repugnant.
During the early years of the Cold War, many people in the West felt
they should not listen to the works of Dimitri Shostakovich because he
was thought to be a model Soviet composer; some today cannot bear
the hallucinogenic novels of Céline, a French fascist, while others re-
main disturbed by D. W. Gri≈th’s films because the director was a
white supremacist. Today, it has to be admitted, assertions such as
Walter’s that the composer and his work must be kept separate seem
somewhat trite, for ours is a time when the politicization of the arts
and the identification of producer and product are increasingly taken
for granted. Contemporary Western culture, which genders the gaze
and deconstructs the racial and social foundations of the artistic canon,
which sees a Coke can and a Chagall as equally significant message
carriers, and which has to debate whether a crucifix floating in urine is
art or obscenity, has become less hospitable to people like Taylor and
Walter and their idealistic assumptions concerning the value of art in
itself and for its own sake.
But if time has been on Erika Mann’s side, Taylor’s view still serves
to check the prejudices that so easily accompany her perspective. Art
may no longer rise pristinely above the context of its production (or its
reception), but whether out of nostalgia or for the sake of openness
many still cherish the hope that it might do so. Moreover, as his-
torians, we need to recognize not just the importance of Taylor’s view
but also its audacity. Amid wartime hardship’s terrible vindictive-
ness (for while the Americans in February 1942 had yet to engage the
Germans, their forces were being overwhelmed in the Pacific), Taylor
spoke in favor of tolerance and liberality. He did not approve of mu-
sicians who chose to perform in Nazi Germany—and he followed
Mann in singling out the pianist Walter Gieseking—but he continued
to feel that their art could give pleasure and enlightenment to Ameri-
cans. Although Taylor can be criticized for pretending music was non-
political and for accepting the artistic genius of an enemy people, his
defense of free speech at a moment of xenophobia, war, and fear re-
mains commendable.
What Taylor lacked, however, was an actual plan for how to be

2 | Introduction
liberal and tolerant. Mann’s position had clear political ramifications:
ban the cultural products of the Third Reich and seize the assets of its
citizens. Taylor’s had only negative ones: do nothing and let the public
decide. He did not condemn those people who stopped listening to
German music because they were uncomfortable doing so, but that
was as far as he would go; even ascap, he insisted, could not appro-
priate the royalties of enemy composers, although he did advocate first
using them to compensate American artists who were not receiving
payment for works of theirs that might have been performed in oc-
cupied Europe. But decency of Deems Taylor’s kind has always been
more of an attitude than a plan for action.
Fortunately for both Taylor and Mann, they did not have to make
policy or implement regulations; they were able to debate the issues
without really sorting out how to put their views into practice. The
same was not true, however, for the o≈cers who had to assume control
over the arts in Germany once Hitler’s Reich was defeated. Suddenly,
American bureaucrats were confronted with the very real problem of
what to do with an arts sector that had made peace with the most
repulsive regime imaginable. They had to judge who was guilty and of
what and to what extent, and they had to decide if the Germans should
be given the chance to listen to the same music that had entertained
them through fascist tyranny and war. They had to remove Nazi con-
trols from cultural life and to chart a new relationship between the
artist and society. Moreover, once they determined what constituted
artistic freedom, they had to design laws and appoint people capable of
maintaining it. At the most basic level, they had to take a stand in the
debate between Taylor and Mann and to put their beliefs into action.
This study deals with the results of their endeavors in the American
occupation zone in western Germany. It documents the complex, con-
fused, and often contradictory e√orts of the American authorities to
punish musicians for the things they had done in the Third Reich
while establishing the foundations of a democratic cultural life. The
conflict between the American occupiers’ two goals—punishment and
freedom or, put another way, control and democracy—is the central
theme of this work. What this study shows is how di≈cult it was to
establish freedom within the context of military rule, to democratize
the arts while controlling them, and to find a usable middle ground
between Deems Taylor and Erika Mann.
The culpability of the artist working under tyranny was unques-

Introduction | 3
tionably the most complicated and contentious of all the problems
those supervising Germany’s cultural sector addressed. Even at the
time it was a question that provoked fierce debate. Most of the promi-
nent musicians who remained in the Third Reich had made deplorable
choices, even if one can today understand the expectations, fears, and
weaknesses that made them do so. Those Americans who pushed for a
complete denazification of German artistic life—through the removal
from public performance of all those artists who had compromised
with Hitler—had sound reasons for desiring a cultural revolution. But
it was naive of the occupation authorities to feel that culture should or
could be completely ‘‘purified,’’ and the radical denazifiers’ drive to
ostracize all those tainted by fascism was simplistic and bound to fail.
In fact, their heavy-handed e√orts at revolutionizing German music
had the unfortunate e√ect of encouraging artists to obliterate their
own past by lying about what they had done. While this enabled
German music to recover rapidly from the shock therapy of denazifica-
tion, it also perpetuated myths concerning music’s unpolitical nature,
the innocence of the artist, and, worse, the fundamental incompatibil-
ity of Nazism and Kultur. Only now, with the death of almost every-
one who enjoyed a notable career in the Third Reich, are the myths
being punctured. And this reversal, in so many ways, comes too late.
This book is not devoted to naming names or exposing lies; other
scholars have undertaken that important task.≤ Rather, my interests lie
in exploring the debate over what should have been done with Ger-
many’s tainted generation of musicians and its debased culture. As a
work of history, it confronts the moral questions not in their abstract,
as Mann and Taylor debated them, but as they were dealt with at the
time by American o≈cers working in Germany with restricted re-
sources, competing objectives, and imperfect knowledge. Without
denying that the decisions the occupiers made were often poor ones, as
a historian, I am interested in what led people to make them and in the
consequences of their actions. The book asks readers to confront the
question of the culpability of the artist, but it wants them to do so in
the context of a time and a place and to understand what was possible,
what was known, and what was thought then to be right.
This study of music politics under American occupation, however,
does not deal with the type of twentieth-century music that the United
States has dominated. For a variety of reasons, wartime planners de-
cided to leave popular music alone and to make classical music the

4 | Introduction
focus of postwar controls. The ramifications of that decision were far-
reaching. Instead of being instruments of Americanization—pressing
swing and boogie-woogie on the Germans and manipulating mass
tastes—Military Government (mg) personnel were agents of reedu-
cation. The American music o≈cers in Germany were not there to sell
their own popular culture but to reform German Kultur: the high
culture of the educated classes. The Americans, who came from a
society in some respects even more segregated—in a cultural sense—
than Germany’s, took for granted the distinction between high and
low culture even if they realized the terms had a particular resonance
in Europe. For Germans, Kultur was part of the national identifica-
tion. Where Americans often looked to business, scientific, or political
leaders, such as Lincoln or Ford or Edison, when thinking about who
they were, the Germans tended to refer to artists and philosophers: to
Beethoven and Bach and Goethe.≥ Because American policy makers
understood this, they made classical music one of the targets of their
reeducation e√orts.
Understandably, for all its intrinsic interest and cultural signifi-
cance, music control remained one of the least important elements in
military government. For postwar planners in London and Washing-
ton, music paled in significance next to such administrative nightmares
as feeding the German population, collecting reparations, demobiliz-
ing the army, rebuilding the education system, and reforming the
economy. And yet, while considered unimportant within the broader
context of occupation policy, music control dealt with moral issues of
equal complexity to those confronting decartelizers and educators. As
a result, its career mirrored that of most of the U.S. administration’s
larger sections. All of the units involved in reorientation, whether they
dealt with journalism, theater, book publishing, education, or film
making, experienced a similar trajectory. All began by wiping clean the
slate: closing schools, shutting down theaters and movie houses, and
stopping presses. Operations were then resumed under new German
management, using personnel whom the Americans had screened to
ensure their political cleanliness. At the same time, in the late sum-
mer of 1945, the Americans launched a major purge of cultural per-
sonnel and imposed blacklists of Nazis, militarists, and nationalists.
During the winter of 1945–46, after the first wave of the purge was
completed, American supervisors put specially chosen artists, educa-
tors, and journalists to work creating a democratic culture; domestic

Introduction | 5
film producers were the last to be rehired, in early 1946. Then, in the
spring, things began to come unstuck. In March 1946, by order of the
military governor, denazification was returned to German control, and
many of those whom the Americans had blacklisted were cleared by
the Spruchkammern, or local denazification courts. The newly elected
Land and municipal governments then moved to reappoint these re-
cently cleared people to their former jobs and to shunt aside those
whom the Americans had installed. Briefly, in the fall of 1946, some of
the cultural divisions fought back and a second purge followed, but it
was short-lived. By early 1947, military government had ordered a
winding down of controls, and American influence was being sharply
curtailed. In fact, the year saw a transition in policy from rule to role
modeling as mg dictated that its remaining personnel should influence
Germans by example and advise rather than control. The accelerating
conflict with the Soviets over the latter half of 1947 only added a
further dimension to the new task: that of convincing the Germans
that the Americans and not the Russians were their friends. The tran-
sition was gradual and uneven, but by 1948–49 all of the cultural
divisions had been themselves reoriented to the task of winning Ger-
man loyalty and support. Denazification, which had been a diminish-
ing concern of Military Government for two years, was quietly put
to rest.∂
The brevity of America’s controlling season and the suddenness
with which it was transformed into something altogether di√erent and
more familiar (the containment of communism) make understanding
its impact especially challenging. For historians, the occupation period
rests indecisively in twentieth-century west German history between
the compelling blackness of the Nazi Reich and the chromium bright-
ness of the economic miracle. It has been generally seen as a transi-
tional time when, depending on how critically one approaches the
subject, Germany’s past was either mastered or suppressed. Because
the Americans put a quick end to denazification—and there is an un-
fortunate tendency in the literature to see the foreigners who handed
responsibility over to the locals as somehow more culpable than the
German Spruchkammern that actually did the deed—some historians
accuse them of allowing the crimes of the Third Reich to be white-
washed. Time here is often foreshortened, and mg’s interest in closing
its own book on Nazism is attributed to its desire to get on with the
job of Americanizing German business or fighting communism. His-

6 | Introduction
torians who feel a new Germany did emerge after 1945 also see the
occupation period as an in-between time: it either laid the ground-
work for what was to follow or temporarily obstructed its develop-
ment. Military Government is particularly significant to these scholars
because it helped embed capitalist and consumerist values, though
some find this a happier development than others.∑
The indefinite status that has been accorded the occupation period
can be justified, in part, by the confusion it encompassed. The decision
makers appeared to have no long-range plans and goals or to have
issued insu≈ciently detailed short-term guidelines. Multiple huge
American bureaucracies—the War Department, the State Depart-
ment, the Treasury—had fingers in the German pie, and the O≈ce of
the Military Government (omgus) itself generated a vast quantity of
poorly organized paper but little in the way of consistent policy. Critics
of Military Government generally point to the contradictory lines of
authority and the confusion over directives to explain why the whole
thing was such a mess. In fact, some have suggested that the best one
could say for omgus was that it phased itself out reasonably quickly.
Others use an even sharper point and suggest that Germany became
a democracy partly because the locals had to exercise their political
rights in order to battle the oppressive and incompetent Americans.∏
So dominant has this negative assessment become that it has forced
those wanting to defend the idea of a positive American influence on
Germany to look below the policy level and study local interactions
and attitudes. Today we are left with the muddied image of overall
policy failure combined with the success of a grass-roots, unplanned
Americanization and democratization.π
Underlying these various interpretations regarding the importance
and impact of the U.S. occupation is the debate over continuity and
change in German history. Those who deplore the survival of tradi-
tional German values in the 1950s, the authoritarianism of the coun-
try’s political culture and the continuing power of its prewar elites,
tend to criticize the Americans for not having done more to revolu-
tionize the country. Others, who see a new society under construction
in the postwar period, point to the subversive influence of American
GIs, American movies, and American values. Conservative Germans,
they point out, may have regained control and resisted these trends
for a time—condemning the relations between American soldiers and
German girls, lamenting the popularity of rock ’n’ roll, and regulat-

Introduction | 7
ing against changing gender relations—but eventually even they were
forced to assimilate a postwar world of American design. Germany did
change, according to this interpretation, but its transformation was
gradual and not fully achieved until the 1960s.∫
In recent years, some scholars have argued against the dichotomiza-
tion of continuity and change in postwar German history. They have
suggested that the conservative restoration and the new ‘‘American-
ized’’ values were connected (not opposed) and that real societal
change could only have been achieved without America. They point
to a brief moment in 1945–47 when the elements of a truly new
and homegrown democratic Germany began to assemble themselves.
These ‘‘golden hunger years’’ were marked by the appearance of au-
thentically democratic and antifascist political movements, an artistic
awakening, and a spiritual rebirth. One writer has likened this Stunde
Null to the rousing of a long-slumbering princess, while another has
written of a rising ‘‘historical movement that had at last brought en-
lightenment, emancipation and a radically questioning discourse to
this belated nation.’’ But to these historians, the moment soon passed,
a victim of the Cold War’s quickening. mg authorities were unwilling
to accommodate true democracy, the conflict with the Soviets allowed
the old elites to rise like scum to the surface, and American popular
culture swept in, obliterating the fragile cultural renaissance and turn-
ing Germany into a caricature of the United States.Ω
This book is designed to build upon, modify, and add to the sub-
stantial edifice that now constitutes occupation studies. It too has at its
heart the question of continuity and change after 1945 and addresses
such issues as the long-term contribution of Military Government, the
e≈ciency of the American administration, and the centrality of the
policy shift from denazification to anticommunism. The following
chapters argue that, in the cultural field, mg did have a lasting impact
on Germany, though they also suggest that the Americans’ most posi-
tive contribution was in promoting structural changes in arts admin-
istration and in subtly a√ecting certain values. I do not find any signifi-
cant shift in musical tastes, despite mg’s e√orts to promote a new
repertoire, nor do I find that denazification was handled e√ectively or
omgus run e≈ciently. Further, while this study shows that a modest
cultural regeneration was observable in the classical music sector in
1945–47, unlike most historians, who depict it as occurring despite the
boorish occupiers, I argue that it was in large measure due to the

8 | Introduction
policies and actions of the American o≈cers and the people they ap-
pointed to guide the country’s regeneration. Moreover, and more con-
tentiously, this book suggests that the postwar cultural reawakening
was largely possible because of the truly revolutionary and transform-
ing impact of denazification. In fact, it was the decision to end Ameri-
can control over denazification that allowed more traditional musi-
cians to regain their positions within cultural life and first turned art
back on a more conservative axis. One year after the end of radical
denazification, the crippling e√ect of currency reform completed the
reactionary drift, destroying whatever elements of experimentation
remained in the mainstream by emptying the concert halls and opera
houses. In the music field, concertgoers no longer wanted to pay to
hear pieces they did not recognize or to see unknown performers. So
far as classical music’s repertoire and artistic personnel were concerned,
currency reform and the Spruchkammern together propelled a conser-
vative restoration.
This study o√ers a more positive assessment of the American oc-
cupation than is common in the scholarly literature. mg did make
an important contribution to the musical arts in Germany, even if its
most obvious successes were short-lived. Much more could have been
achieved. Denazification, as it was initially conceived, would have
transformed German music life over time, but it was curtailed too
soon and so badly that its ultimate impact was overwhelmingly nega-
tive. Moreover, the program was implemented so crudely that, even if
it would have worked over time, it would have been at the expense of
other important undertakings and policies and at great cost to many
innocent people. In the cultural field, omgus’s failure to find a middle
ground between the hard-peace and soft-peace advocates meant that
neither side was able to achieve as much as it might. The confusion
within mg, a result of the conflicting lines of authority, poor organiza-
tion, and rapidly changing policies, was a major factor in weakening
the e√ectiveness of the occupation. In other words, it was not anti-
communism that derailed the e√ort to transform Germany but the
failure of Military Government itself to decide on goals and methods.
In view of this, the Americans’ modest achievements in the musical
field were somewhat remarkable.
I tell the story of classical music’s reconstitution in postwar Ger-
many in six chapters organized thematically and (to a lesser extent)
chronologically, the main body of which can be grouped into three

Introduction | 9
substantive sections. The first chapter introduces some of the prob-
lems the Americans faced in Germany in 1945 and shows why the
occupiers’ directed their e√orts at ‘‘serious’’ (as opposed to ‘‘commer-
cial’’) music. The next two chapters deal with the high tide of Ameri-
can influence in 1945–46. The first looks at the activities of those who
adopted the Erika Mann approach—radical and punitive denazifica-
tion—while the next focuses on those Americans who resisted censor-
ship and pushed for modest reform rather than revolution. The second
substantive section, also composed of two chapters, traces the gradual
easing of mg control and the return of German authority over the arts
in 1946–50. Chapter 4 concentrates on the ending of the denazifica-
tion program, and chapter 5 deals with the way the retreat from revo-
lution together with the currency revaluation constrained e√orts at
reform. The third substantive section (chapter 6) deals with the pe-
riod after 1947 when American attention shifted from transforming a
culture that had produced Nazism to encouraging German resistance
to communism. In the music field, Cold War tensions manifested
themselves primarily in the e√ort to convince the Germans that the
Americans, exemplified by touring U.S. artists, were ‘‘just like them.’’
The book closes with a brief discussion of the impact of the occupation
on German music life through a critical evaluation of the new Bay-
reuth Festival of the 1950s, an institution that symbolized both Ger-
man music’s corruption and its regeneration.
In sum, although the American cultural o≈cers were deeply di-
vided and lacked clear policy guidance, they did push through im-
portant structural reforms and encouraged new thinking about the
freedom of the arts and how to ensure them. Their failure to reach
consensus in the debate between Deems Taylor and Erika Mann hurt
their e√orts, but it did not prevent them from doing valuable work.
Many of the reforms they implemented took root and provided the
structural foundations for a more democratic and liberal administra-
tion of cultural life. Less successful were their attempts to broaden
hidebound tastes by importing American compositions and touring
American performers. Most Germans continued to regard America as
su√ering from severe Kultur-deprivation, and few went out to hear the
artists who visited. Still, even here, a few seeds of change were planted,
and not only in new music centers like Darmstadt. Further, although
the Americans’ steel-plated denazification program survived just a
few months, it did have a powerful e√ect on Germany’s artists. Most

10 | Introduction
of those who had enjoyed prominent careers in the Third Reich felt
threatened enough to want to black out all memory of their Nazi-era
selves. In multiple ways this development was unhealthy, but it helped
create the image, fiction though it was, that the postwar arts were
clearly and cleanly separate from the prewar—an illusion that, for all
its subsequent costs, helped the Federal Republic move ahead and
allowed marvelous music to sound again.

Introduction | 11
 1 Preparing for Music Control

For John Bitter it began in silence. A former intelligence of-

ficer attached to the 4th Armored Division, Bitter had come to Berlin
three months after Germany’s surrender as a new addition to Amer-
ica’s Military Government. Disgorged from a c-37 at Tempelho√ air-
port with a jeep and three other soldiers, Bitter headed north, eager for
a look at the remains of Hitler’s Berlin. Unable to proceed around
military roadblocks or along rubble-congested streets, the GIs circled
west of the administrative center and north of the Tiergarten park.
Although it was growing dark, Bitter hoped to get a view of the city
and climbed onto what was left of a wall. ‘‘I’ll never forget this,’’ he
recalled, ‘‘because this was in Moabit, an old industrial part of Berlin.
There was not a sound. I’ll tell you, for a musician to hear absolute
silence is very odd. There is always some tone. You will hear the fan or
the air conditioner or the wind or something and airplanes pass by. But
here, not a sound. No lights. And it was like a moonscape.’’∞
A few days before, instead of going back to his job as conductor of
the Miami Symphony Orchestra, Major Bitter had volunteered to join
the American Military Government and remain in Germany. Telford
Taylor, a friend of his from college days at Yale who was heading
the team assembling material for the Nuremberg trials, had recom-
mended him to one of his colleagues, General Robert McClure, the
commander of the Psychological Warfare Division (pwd). On the
lookout for men with fluency in German and expertise in specialized
cultural fields, McClure approved his appointment.≤ And so the kind,
doughy-faced American arrived in Berlin as a member of one of the
more peculiar elements in Germany’s postwar military administration:
the music control branch of the Psychological Warfare Division.
Part of an omnibus field unit that included Theater and Film, the
branch John Bitter joined was charged with the duty of coordinating
the denazification of German musical life and reorienting it according
to democratic principles. His job was to serve as a kind of sentinel
watching over the birth of artistic freedom. As a music o≈cer, Bitter
was to ensure that no works endorsing fascist or militarist ideals were
performed, that compositions suppressed in the Third Reich (such as
Mendelssohn’s) were restored to the concert hall, that artists cele-
brated by the Nazis were blocked from further performances, that the
influence of the state in the cultural sector was minimized, and that
German audiences were taught that the music of other nations and
cultures was as valid and worthy as their own. Music control aimed at
creating a rupture in German cultural history by shattering the public’s
sense of superiority in Germany’s musical achievements and by pro-
moting performers and works that had been neglected or banned un-
der Nazi rule.
In undertaking all of these tasks, music o≈cers in the American
occupation zone were participating in a massive undertaking whose
goal was to obliterate the culture of Nazism and reorient German
thinking. This was considered necessary because pwd planners be-
lieved they had to eliminate the forces that made Germany such a
warlike and expansionist power. They considered the notion, popular
at the time in Germany, that the Third Reich’s atrocities and the war
were caused by a small group of Nazis much the same as the country’s
e√ort in 1919 to deny its war guilt. ‘‘A repudiation of Nazism,’’ a
shaef Joint Intelligence Report concluded in July 1945, ‘‘is one of the
ways in which the average German can avoid [an] unpleasant feeling
and the only fault they acknowledge is that they once trusted Hitler
and add that they can hardly be blamed for failing to see how things
would turn out.’’≥ Forcing the Germans to accept their collective re-
sponsibility for the crimes of Nazism was considered essential for
the country to achieve a more peaceful future. ‘‘Our goal,’’ President
Truman’s secretary informed the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, is to
‘‘teach the Germans a lasting lesson by treating them as a defeated
nation and pariah.’’ This, however, depended on the occupation forces’
ability to compel the defeated to accept that Nazism was simply the
latest manifestation of their own innate aggression and chauvinism
and that peace would only come to Europe once the Germans re-
formed their character.∂ In order to achieve this, wartime planners
prepared for the control of all aspects of German cultural expression:
film, theater, museums, literature, radio, and newspapers. The idea
was that if the Allies could supervise the news and entertainment me-

Preparing for Music Control | 13

dia for long enough, prevent expressions of German patriotism and
intolerance, and bombard the population with democratic and guilt-
inducing messages, in time the country would be reformed.

why classical music?

For most of the war, it had been the job of the U.S. O≈ce of War
Information (owi), rather than the U.S. Army, to engage the enemy
in cultural warfare, which it did by broadcasting messages from its
London studios into the occupied countries. Here the idea of using
the media to change German attitudes was first explored. As Virginia
Pleasants, who worked for owi’s American Broadcasting Station in
Europe (absie), remembered, ‘‘we scoured London for people with
languages, because all kinds of expatriates [had] fled to England, and
for GIs who spoke a foreign language. They would come and make
short talks: morale building or information, something like that. . . . It
was really propaganda, you know, because the announcer would say:
‘Here is somebody who speaks a dialect,’ but in reality he was a GI.’’∑
As part of its radio campaign, owi sent music banned or disfavored
by the Nazis and performances by American ensembles, both classical
and popular, over the airwaves. Popular music—‘‘the best of boogie-
woogie and the baritone of Bing Crosby’’—dominated owi’s trans-
missions, composing almost 50 percent of its broadcast time, but clas-
sical music was also prominently featured. In fact, absie had initiated
its overseas transmission with a Stephen Foster tune played on the
banjo followed by a Toscanini recording of Beethoven’s Seventh Sym-
phony. These two dimensions—the popular and the serious—were
each considered important to the war e√ort. In addition to attracting
audiences with varied musical tastes and boosting morale among Eu-
rope’s subject people, they were intended to show the Germans that
the United States was a vital and enviable musical superpower. The
American composer Roy Harris, who headed owi’s music program,
emphasized that the agency had a two-pronged mission in Europe:
first, ‘‘to show the interest, appreciation, understanding and activity in
the performance of the music of the European nations as it is practised
in this country. The second part concerns the development of a native
music.’’∏ In e√ect, those in occupied Europe would gain hope and the
Germans despair on learning that U.S. bands could not only play
Brahms and Beethoven but also really jump and stomp.
owi’s o≈ces were once described as a ‘‘palace of culture, wisdom

14 | Preparing for Music Control

and swing,’’ and it seems fitting that the three categories were itemized
separately. Although Harris was sympathetic to popular idioms, and
the head of absie’s music division, Marc Blitzstein, was a composer
who explored the middle ground between popular and classical forms,
the agency kept its musical o√erings carefully segregated: culture and
swing were presented as separate sound worlds, at di√erent times of
day, and in dissimilar formats. And while it was popular music that
filled up the day and later evening, the prime-time broadcast hours
were largely devoted to ‘‘the Music of the Great Masters.’’ The implicit
rank ordering of owi’s musical propaganda was echoed in the press,
and it was always the popular idiom that the critics who doubted the
value of owi’s broadcasting ridiculed. ‘‘Occupied Europe dances
while the American taxpayer pays the bills,’’ snarled one hostile press
report in early 1945, while another mocked, ‘‘[A] German who can’t
be cured by hot jazz or Harlem rhythm will bear watching. . . . It is the
world’s tragic misfortune that the owi music division didn’t start
operating on Hitler and Himmler several years ago.’’ Interestingly
enough, there was little or no press criticism of the broadcasting of
classical music, a reflection of both the reluctance of the American
intelligentsia to recognize the artistic value of the popular idiom and
the inadequacies Americans still felt in presenting their homegrown
culture to Europeans. Most Europeans, they felt, looked down on
Americans as uncultured, a view substantiated by the country’s popu-
lar music. Many in the American establishment were vaguely embar-
rassed by owi’s support for a music they found primitive. Even Roy
Harris occasionally betrayed doubts, as when he told the press that he
thought the most enthusiastic foreign audience for jazz broadcasts
might be found among ‘‘many of the tribes of the Pacific.’’π
Despite the symbols of equality Americans cherished, their music
culture was deeply stratified. Classical music recordings and broadcasts
had a sizable audience, which included large numbers of working-class
immigrants, and conductors like Toscanini and Stokowski and soloists
like Heifetz and Rubinstein were real celebrities. Indeed, as the popu-
lar columnist George Marek remembered, the audience for serious
music in the United States had been growing in the interwar years:
‘‘[A]s more homes were equipped with radios, more people listened to
symphonic broadcasts. As more people listened, more orchestras took
to the air. Attendance at concerts leaped to a new spectacular high.’’ But
while classical music did have a widening public, the fine arts establish-

Preparing for Music Control | 15

ment in the country remained centered in the East Coast and was
presided over by such influential arbiters of taste as the newspaper
critics Virgil Thomson and Olin Downes. In the late nineteenth cen-
tury, concertgoing had become, for the a∆uent, an emblem of their
status and a mark of cultivation. Their financial support maintained the
country’s musical institutions. Well-to-do Americans often measured
their sophistication in terms of their su√usion in European culture,
and they believed (as did elite Germans) that classical music had an
enlightening e√ect. Listening to serious music, it was suggested, made
one a better, more cultured and more spiritually alive person.∫ Views
such as these had, by the mid-twentieth century, become part of classi-
cal music’s image, despite the e√orts of many contemporary composers
and musicians to challenge their rather hidebound associations. Conse-
quently, although many people enjoyed classical music, it had a reputa-
tion for being high-brow, educational, and somewhat stu√y.
Prevailing attitudes to the classical repertoire helped shape re-
sponses to and the image of popular music in early twentieth-century
America. Even though many well-to-do people enjoyed commercial
music and jazz had a sizable audience among the young white-tie
crowd, its associations were hardly refined. American race prejudices
were central to popular music’s construction and the black origins of
jazz made it and its o√shoots seem unclean and base. If classical music
was considered uplifting, popular music was connected in its public
imagery with drink, drugs, sex, and miscegenation. Its defenders ar-
gued that it was all good fun and pure entertainment, but this too,
with the commercialism it implied, tended to debase its coinage.
In the 1930s, Tin Pan Alley had been legitimized somewhat by the
crooners—such as the pipe-smoking, golf-playing Bing Crosby and
the debonair Fred Astaire—and jazz had achieved a measure of re-
spectability thanks to the e√orts of Paul Whiteman, who led his or-
chestra (not band) with a baton, but popular music continued to
su√er comparison with the status-enhancing classical sound. If the
boundaries segmenting American culture were starting to become
more fluid, and if a new midbrow terrain was emerging on the turf
occupied by the popular classics, Broadway musicals and swing, tradi-
tional associations continued to dominate tastes. As a result, owi
had a much harder time convincing American critics that its boogie-
woogie broadcasts were as important as its classical programming.

16 | Preparing for Music Control

 If owi had di≈culty establishing the propagandistic importance of
popular music, it had even greater problems convincing the army that
it should play any role at all in the upcoming campaign for Europe.
owi’s great limitation, as U.S. ground forces began engaging the en-
emy, was that as a civilian agency it had no connection to Eisenhower’s
headquarters (shaef) and no mandate to operate in combat areas.
owi, together with the American secret service agency, oss, had ini-
tially demanded and financed, in September 1942, a liaison unit, the
Information and Censorship Section, that was attached to shaef.
The new section’s job was to keep the two civilian administrations
aware of the army’s needs and to help direct their propaganda e√orts,
press releases, scores of war correspondents, and secret service opera-
tions to military purposes. As the new unit would be coordinating
both British and American propaganda e√orts, the promotion of Rob-
ert McClure, former military attaché at the embassy in London, to the
section’s command made a good deal of sense. As McClure explained,
the job of the various leaflet writers, radio and press correspondents,
and censors under his command was to disseminate propaganda ‘‘de-
signed to undermine the enemy’s will to resist, demoralize his forces,
and sustain the morale of our supporters.’’ McClure’s untidy unit was
first employed in a combat situation in Morocco, but it was in Sicily
where, he believed, it really proved its value by helping to break the
morale of the Italian troops.Ω
In early 1944, with the prospect of an invasion of France nearing,
Eisenhower approved the creation of a new division, with greater
autonomy from the civilian agencies and with more military asso-
ciations. The new Psychological Warfare Division was to assume re-
sponsibility for ‘‘all psychological warfare activities against the enemy
and all consolidated propaganda activities in liberated countries.’’ Al-
though the division, under McClure’s command, continued through
the first half of 1945 to operate largely through civilian-controlled
channels, distributing owi pamphlets, transmitting over the Ameri-
can Broadcasting Station, and employing former owi o≈cials in its
senior positions, it was slowly militarizing its ranks by recruiting sol-
diers with language and technical specializations. These activities
geared up in the winter of 1944–45 when the decision was reached to
make pwd, rather than owi or another civilian agency, responsible
for media control and censorship during the military occupation phase

Preparing for Music Control | 17

in Germany. As a result, by April 1945, the psychological warfare
functions of owi were gradually ‘‘dropped in the ashcan,’’ although its
influence continued to be felt for some time to come.∞≠
Headquartered in Paris, pwd began in February 1945 to train per-
sonnel to run Germany’s information and entertainment sectors. Ini-
tially, the new division would control the press, radio, and entertain-
ment industries, but the full range of its responsibilities still had to
be specified. In January, shaef drew up Military Government Law
191 which prohibited all film, theatrical, and musical entertainment
in Germany that was not authorized by the military administration
through the issuance of a license. Two months later, pwd composed its
own plans for a three-phase psychological warfare o√ensive in Ger-
many. According to initial planning, the army was going to occupy
Germany for only a short time and had to be prepared to ‘‘pack up on
24 hours notice.’’ pwd therefore recognized the need to establish rapid
controls over German media services to be followed by a lower-level
surveillance phase that could be continued under State Department au-
thority over the long haul. In phase one of the occupation, pwd would
issue propaganda to demoralize enemy combat units and broadcast
orders to civilians in occupied areas. It was also charged with assem-
bling information regarding potential insurrections, encouraging anti-
Nazi sentiment, and easing German fears regarding the occupation. In
phase two, pwd was to get the production of newspapers under way,
initiate radio transmission, and lay the groundwork for a licensing
system. In phase three, Germans whom the division had vetted regard-
ing their political allegiances would be allowed to assume respon-
sibility for the various information services under pwd’s supervision.∞∞
The entertainment industry was to receive precisely the same treatment
as the radio and print media, although at this point no one had yet
defined what ‘‘entertainment’’ was supposed to mean.
Several factors, however, were combining to narrow the scope of
pwd’s understanding of entertainment. In the first place, pwd began
seconding personnel with experience in arts administration from owi,
the most important of whom were drawn from America’s East Coast
establishment. The first chief of the Radio Section was Davidson Tay-
lor, the former head of classical-music broadcasting at cbs, and his
deputy was Sam Rosenbaum, a wealthy Philadelphia lawyer and vice-
president of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. The first chief of
the Entertainment Section was the eminent stage and film producer

18 | Preparing for Music Control

John Krimsky, another owi o≈cial who before the war had produced,
among other classic films, Three Faces of Eve and Emperor Jones, as well
as the New York premier of the Three Penny Opera. The division’s
London-based cultural expert, who participated in the discussions
with the British over what aspects of German culture to control, was
Warren Munsell, who prior to enlistment had been the producer for
the New York Theater Guild and who, among his many credits, had
managed the Boston and New York premiers of Porgy and Bess.
These men appear to have shared the general American belief in the
di√erence between ‘‘legitimate’’ and ‘‘popular’’ entertainments. Mun-
sell’s Theater Guild, for example, was a self-conscious promoter of
art theater. Born as an experimental playhouse in Greenwich Village,
the guild moved uptown shortly after World War I and developed
a subscription-based program dominated by such European authors
as Shaw, Ibsen, and Strindberg. American dramatists, like Rice and
O’Neill, did find a place in the guild’s repertoire, but Europeans were
always its centerpiece. By the end of the 1930s, the guild had estab-
lished itself as the premier art theater in New York and as the fashion-
able alternative to Broadway’s commercial entertainments. Munsell
and his colleagues promoted the idea that drama and show biz were
antithetical forces, and they underlined their contempt for the Great
White Way by describing themselves as members of the ‘‘legitimate
theater.’’ Not surprisingly, then, when Munsell was asked to partici-
pate in allied planning discussions regarding German theater and mu-
sic, he accepted the distinction made by his British colleagues between
classical music and ‘‘pure entertainment.’’ Military Government, the
planners concluded, needed to concentrate its attentions on propagan-
dizing allied achievements in the European repertoire as the Germans
would get ‘‘their fill of light music and jazz’’ from the British and
American troops. As another cultural a√airs o≈cial announced, pwd
could best attack Nazi sentiments in the music sector by showing the
Germans that Americans could sing Wagner better than they. There
was no need to promote U.S. achievements in the more commercial
media, for ‘‘popular music manages to find its own way. Nobody
thought that America didn’t have popular music. . . . But serious music
was another matter.’’∞≤
Developments in America’s international cultural mission served to
reinforce these views. In early 1945 the Roosevelt administration de-
cided to wind up owi’s operations and transfer its overseas branch to

Preparing for Music Control | 19

the Department of State. The plan was to merge owi’s European
operations with the State Department’s cultural a√airs branch, the
International Information Agency (iia), and create a new organiza-
tion to be known as the U.S. Information Service. usis would take
over the propaganda e√ort in liberated countries and, it was assumed,
replace pwd when the army relinquished control over Germany to the
Department of State. If pwd would oversee the initial phase of re-
building the defeated’s cultural life and purging it of Nazi influences,
usis’s job would be long-term reeducation through a promotion of
the cultural achievements of the democracies. This was a continuation
of State Department programs that had hitherto aimed at creating
international capital for the United States by advertising its cultural
achievements through visiting lecturers, touring exhibitions, and the
establishment of lending libraries. Under its music program in Latin
America, the iia operated twenty libraries holding classical music
scores and books, and it sent one or two consultants a year on tour to
lecture on American music. Although the agency began, in the mid-
1940s, to distribute recordings of American folk music, it had no pop-
ular music program. Because pwd planned to surrender its cultural
operations to usis, it was closely tied to the civilian agency. In fact,
until July 1946 the division continued to receive policy instructions
and supplies from the Department of State rather than the army. This
was why pwd had, from the outset, adopted owi /iia’s goal of work-
ing to ‘‘destroy long-standing and unfortunate impressions held by
Europeans that American cultural achievements are well behind the
nation’s industrial development.’’ The Nazis, explained Edward Bar-
rett, owi’s overseas director, ‘‘have been telling Europeans that Amer-
ica is backward, barbaric, decadent, and is not to be included among
the progressive, civilized nations of the world.’’ To fight this, ‘‘the
United States must busy itself convincing Europe that America has a
culture.’’∞≥
Clearly, culture was becoming a more important concept in post-
war planning than entertainment. The conviction within the various
policy-making circles was that it was the serious cultural media, the
legitimate theater and the classical music sectors, that needed atten-
tion, rather than the commercial arts. Popular music, like Broadway
theater and comic books, was not considered a ‘‘cultural’’ achievement
so much as a business success. Its influence would flow through com-
mercial activities and not at the cost of taxpayers.

20 | Preparing for Music Control

 From the perspective of long-term reorientation, it was in many
ways unfortunate that the Allies adopted this position. Fighting the
battle to reorient German culture on a terrain which that country had
long dominated disadvantaged the occupiers from the beginning. By
1945 the Americans were already leaders in the popular cultural field,
and pwd disregarded that advantage. But given the cultural divide in
America itself and the views and backgrounds of the people involved,
the decisions they made were unavoidable ones. After all, the psycho-
logical warriors argued, those Germans who listened to popular music
had already demonstrated their willingness to break with their coun-
try’s traditional chauvinism and accommodate North America. It was
the committed cultural elitist, the believer in the preeminence of Ger-
man Kultur, whose intolerance pwd really had to combat. And so
culture became the primary operating concept, even if music had yet to
be singled out as a particular target of pwd control.
Music first attracted the attention of pwd in October 1944, when
American forces liberated Luxembourg and the division came into
possession of one of Europe’s most important and centrally located
transmitters, a 150,000-album record collection, and intact recording
and broadcast studios. The radio station, while serving listeners in
liberated areas, also had the capacity to broadcast into much of western
Germany, making it a powerful propaganda weapon. The Luxem-
bourg government hoped the station would one day be returned to
its control and was particularly concerned with saving its celebrated
radio orchestra. Through owi Lend Lease funds were secured to keep
the musicians working, but pwd determined what they would play.
Davidson Taylor, whose primary concern was with breaking German
morale, directed the station to broadcast recorded music by the finest
allied orchestras, to have the Radio Luxembourg orchestra perform
with American and British conductors and soloists, and to spotlight
the works of non-German composers. In order to assist in this mis-
sion, Rosenbaum, who was placed in charge of the station, recom-
mended the transfer to pwd of an intelligence o≈cer he knew in the
101st Airborne, a fellow Philadelphian, Edward Kilenyi.
A pupil of Ernö Dohnányi, Kilenyi was an exceptionally gifted
pianist who had enjoyed an impressive concert career prior to his
induction in 1942. An elegant, nonobtrusive, gently sarcastic young
man, Kilenyi was conservative in both his attitudes and his musical
preferences. Although his father (an eminent music teacher) had for a

Preparing for Music Control | 21

time taught George Gershwin, Kilenyi had no taste for jazz or popular
music. The presence of Rosenbaum and Kilenyi, both of whom were
classical in their musical tastes, helped shape Radio Luxembourg’s
broadcast policy and influenced pwd’s thinking about music control.
In particular, the people Rosenbaum assembled at Radio Luxembourg
became lobbyists within pwd, pressing the importance of music in
German entertainment and urging policy guidance on its postwar con-
trol. Their e√orts were aided by the fact that on Davidson Taylor’s
insistence and with owi’s support, pwd was assembling a library
of scores and recordings that was overwhelmingly classical in content.
By June 1945 the division had collected enough classical recordings by
allied artists to fill 160 broadcast hours but only 60 hours of popu-
lar music.∞∂
Although pwd’s involvement in Radio Luxembourg meant that its
classical music stock was steadily rising, as late as mid-February 1945
the Entertainment Section still claimed not to know the extent of its
job in Germany. Finally, in early March 1945 McClure responded to
the combined voices from Paris and Luxembourg and asked for input
into whether the division should undertake the specific control of
music. By the end of the month, the Psychological Warfare Executive,
a British committee that was developing plans for the occupation,
had heard a report on Nazi influences in German classical music
life. Warren Munsell, attending the pwe meeting as an American liai-
son, relayed the report to pwd. On the basis of his London notes,
Rosenbaum compiled a ‘‘Draft Guidance on [the] Control of Music,’’
which was submitted to McClure in April 1945. By May the necessary
changes had been implemented, and the former Entertainment Sec-
tion had been reconstituted as a Film, Theater, and Music unit with
three separate branches under a single chief. McClure’s headquarter
sta√ then amended, to include music, the standard control instructions
prohibiting the dissemination of information and art ‘‘associated with
Fascism, the nsdap, Pan-Germanism or any of the German Armed
Forces,’’ forbidding the employment of people who have been ‘‘noto-
rious or active Nazi[s] or ardent Nazi sympathizers,’’ and outlining
conditions for the licensing of artists. In May, Davidson Taylor was
appointed first chief of the new section.∞∑
Between October 1944 and April 1945, the momentum of events
and the prejudices of people had worked a trick on entertainment and
transformed it into classical music, film, and the legitimate theater.

22 | Preparing for Music Control

Although music o≈cers would spend some of their time supervising
the cabaret and circus, their primary concern was with opera and ‘‘se-
rious’’ orchestral music. Dance bands and musicians performing in
clubs that served food or drink were specifically exempted from their
administration. Show business was allowed to follow its own course,
whereas culture came in for regulation and control. This approach was
in harmony with the one being developed by the public a√airs o≈cers
in the Department of State and owi, and it reflected the preferences of
the arts patrons and performers who now wore the uniforms of pwd
o≈cers. But the choice was in many ways a strange twist in strategy,
because the psychological warriors were neglecting the great num-
ber of Germans who preferred jazz bands to chamber ensembles and
crooners to symphonies. Some, such as the usfet liaison o≈cer in
Vienna, found the approach adopted a mistake. As he later remarked,
‘‘most American o≈cials didn’t have a feel for what younger Euro-
peans wanted. . . . they were interested in us as Americans, but we were
interested only in showing them that we were good Europeans.’’∞∏ As
a result, American confidence (which among pwd’s planners was
mingled with contempt) in the power of free enterprise and the influ-
ence of the GIs won out. Germany’s high-brow culture would be
reconstructed by design; its popular music would be reoriented by the
sheer force of America’s swinging sound.

music and nazism

By the time the decision was made to include classical music in the
reorientation program, American soldiers had already fought their
way into Germany. Despite this, pwd’s main planning documents—
mg Law 191 and the Information Manual—provided only the most
general information concerning the cultural profile of Nazi Germany.
pwd o≈cers knew that Nazism had contaminated cultural life and, as
soldiers, they anticipated the damage of war and the hostility of the
locals. But no instruction or preconception prepared them for the
multiple and daunting tasks they now faced.
What the Americans found was that most of the larger centers in
their zone, the south German Länder of Bavaria, Hesse, Württemberg
and part of Baden, had been destroyed by bombing and ground fight-
ing. Municipal services did not function, streets were impassible, bod-
ies decayed among the ruins, and there was no food or water or fuel.
Remarkable pockets of life—buildings that had miraculously avoided

Preparing for Music Control | 23

the bombs and fires—speckled the wreckage and most of the houses in
the leafy neighborhoods beyond the centers remained untouched. But
the destruction was nonetheless staggering and would take many years
to clean up. When he first toured Munich in April 1945, Edward
Kilenyi asked his German driver to show him Richard Wagner’s for-
mer house; he was taken past a pile of rubble. Three years later, one of
Kilenyi’s successors made the same request and was shown a big hole
in the ground.∞π
Because concert halls and theaters were mostly located downtown,
the American music o≈cers found almost all the larger ones bomb-
damaged, with Wiesbaden possessing the only fully functioning house
in the American zone. Everywhere, costumes and opera sets had been
destroyed or scattered, musical instruments lost or crushed in rubble,
scores burned, and companies and orchestras devastated by deaths and
dispersals. Most concerts in Germany ceased following Goebbels’s 20
August 1944 announcement of total war, and many of the major opera
companies and orchestras had not worked full-time for the last eight
months. Some organizations, such as the Berlin Philharmonic Or-
chestra, continued to perform at special concerts designed to boost
morale, but they did not run regular seasons. Several groups shut
down completely. Ordinary musicians with less celebrated ensembles
found themselves drafted into the army or serving in civilian defense
units; many were dispersed or wounded or killed. The disruption that
resulted was devastating and it was di≈cult after the war to find the
musicians to sta√ most of the larger ensembles. Not that there were
many places for them to play, even if they could be rounded up. Any
hall that survived with a roof over it was being used by the army as
shelter: in Munich, the seats on the balconies of the minimally dam-
aged Prinzregenten Theater had been ripped out to make room for
GIs to sleep; in Bayreuth, the Festival House was serving as a billet for
soldiers of the 11th Tank Division.∞∫
Nowhere was the destruction greater than in the Berlin John Bitter
toured in late July 1945. Ravaged by years of Allied bombing and
devastated by ten days of bitter street fighting at the end of the war, the
city had just endured two months of savage Soviet occupation. The
Red Army, which pummeled its way through Berlin in the last days of
April, only withdrew from the city’s western half on 11 July to make
way for the British, American, and, eventually, French troops. When
the Americans arrived, thousands of bodies still lay unburied and rot-

24 | Preparing for Music Control

The foyer of the Munich Staatsoper, 1945
(Photo courtesy of Jeremiah Evarts)

ting, clogging cracked sewers and subway tunnels and feeding the
proliferating swarms of rats and flies; the water was foul and contami-
nated, the streets narrowed by debris, the population starving. For
weeks, Soviet soldiers had ransacked the city, removing everything of
value and raping the terrified women they found hiding within the

Preparing for Music Control | 25

ruins. It was, according to Lucius Clay, commander of the American
military government, a city of the dead. As one of his o≈cers re-
marked, ‘‘there remains nothing human about it. The water is pol-
luted, it smells of corpses, you see the most extraordinary shapes of
ruins and more ruins and still more ruins . . . people in civilian clothes
among these mountains of ruins appears merely to deepen the night-
mare.’’ As late as 1949, an American visitor to Berlin observed, if ‘‘one
were let loose to walk on the surface of the moon, to trudge through a
lunar landscape of craters and jagged peaks, up-heaved against the
black of empty outer-space, perhaps one might begin to sense the
comfortless, forsaken quality of these pulverised sections of the city. All
life had crept out of those areas which take in the biggest part of the
city. No trees in the Tiergarten. The Siegesallee a cemetery of unburied
marble mutilations, only the Siegesäule bolt upright carrying its gilt
angel with uninterrupted audacity. The Reichstag, the Kroll Oper,
tangles of twisted girders, resembling empty bird cages. Beyond the
Brandenburg Tor, the blocks seem to be made of brown sugar that has
gone hard in lumps and streaks.’’ To this observer, it felt like a city
‘‘buried above ground’’ Blasted into a living death, it was a metropolis
‘‘hushed to a whisper.’’∞Ω No wonder John Bitter remembered his ma-
jor challenge as one of raising music out of the silence.
Reassembling the pieces of a disrupted art was the first job under-
taken by the music o≈cers. They had to secure halls for performances,
vet artists, and determine the terms on which music would be orga-
nized. Costumes and scores had to be gathered and a mechanism for
circulating them established. But the Americans also had to figure out
who was to take responsibility for hiring musicians, paying them, and
rebuilding the damaged theaters. Although the Länder and municipali-
ties continued to exist as organizational entities, they functioned with
local administrations appointed by the Americans and without intrin-
sic political authority. Because full German self-governance had been
terminated, the Americans had to determine the role that governments
would assume in cultural life. Unlike in the United States, where the-
aters were mostly privately organized and financed, in Germany they
were traditionally supported by public subsidies and their senior per-
sonnel were government appointees. As occupied Germany no longer
had wealthy patrons who could underwrite the costs of private organi-
zations, some form of government subsidy was accepted as necessary.
But an overweening state was perceived by the Americans in 1945 as

26 | Preparing for Music Control

one of their former enemy’s hereditary ailments. The Germans’ pre-
disposition to subordinate themselves to the will of the state, they
believed, largely explained their willingness to elect Nazis and accept
their tyranny. Allowing a government to reassert its financial and ad-
ministrative authority over the entertainment sector was therefore a
dangerous proposition. For German cultural life to be reconstructed
according to democratic principles, the power of the state in the arts
would have to be held in check by the rights of the public and the
freedom of the artists. Somehow, then, governments had to be brought
to accept the necessity of paying the piper without calling the tune.
In seeking to limit government authority over the arts, the oc-
cupiers confronted what they believed to be innate German predispo-
sitions. But they felt they had to persevere because they saw in the
Third Reich not primarily a ‘‘racial state’’ (whose first principle was
racial purification) but a bureaucratic behemoth. The Nazis had estab-
lished layer upon layer of bureaucracy within the arts, each held to-
gether by the desire to realize party purposes and every one of them
peppered with party loyalists. Musicians were strongly encouraged to
join Nazi cultural associations, and all were required to have mem-
bership in the regime’s professional union for musicians, the Reichs-
musikkammer, or one of its associated chambers. Everything from the
artists’ pension fund to the copyright association was coordinated by
the Propaganda Ministry to serve political goals. The Nazi state was
never all that rationally organized and its administrative structure was
byzantine, but the ideal that each part worked toward the center (the
Führerprinzip) was essential to its functioning. For the Americans,
then, eliminating party influence meant more than simply outlawing
Nazism; it entailed fostering a connection between the state and the
arts that rested on principles of decentralized authority and democratic
checks and balances. Only in this way, they believed, could the public
sector manage and fund music life without manipulating it for political
purposes.
Even as they grappled with the problem of democratizing the arts
bureaucracy, the music o≈cers had to ensure that specifically Nazi
influences were removed from the opera house and concert hall and
that party supporters and profiteers were punished. This was not easily
done because, as the Americans discovered, Nazi influence within mu-
sic life was pervasive. In the 1930s, the Nazis purged the entertainment
sector of Jews, utterly skewing its character. Jewish artists were segre-

Preparing for Music Control | 27

gated, ostracized, and driven out, and the works of Jewish composers,
even those central to the repertoire, were banned. Because the regime
su√ered severe international criticism for its actions, the maintenance
of artistic quality in a Jew-free arts sector became a focus of national
pride. Consequently, all those musicians who continued to perform in
Germany after the Jews were barred from appearing with or before
Gentiles were, in fact, accomplices in the crime of ‘‘Aryanization.’’ By
continuing to excel musically, they were legitimizing the Nazi claim
that ‘‘true’’ German art did not need the Jews.
Musicians could not but have known what the regime was up to in
this: they knew that Jews were being isolated and abused and mur-
dered, that anti-Nazis were disappearing, and that the Gestapo was an
instrument of torture and death. One could not really claim not to
have understood what the Nazis were about, even if awareness of the
ultimate extent of their genocidal depredations was limited. Certainly
Goebbels used the German musical canon as an advertisement for the
regime, and artists often heard their own talents used as an explanation
for the war. As Goebbels declared in an April 1944 radio address, ‘‘our
natural superiority makes us hated and disliked . . . [but the] hymns of
hate against the Reich . . . are only the stammerings of their [the
Allies’] inferiority complexes.’’ This was a view that the psychological
warriors found many Germans had assimilated: ‘‘[T]hey are fond of
finding comfort in times of misfortune in the thought that their mis-
fortunes are undeserved,’’ one report noted. ‘‘They are fond of asking
why it is that other nations so dislike them and giving the satisfying
answer that it is the tribute of envy to their universally recognized
excellence.’’≤≠
The di≈culty the music o≈cers now faced was one of deciding for
themselves the degree of guilt involved in the artists’ complicity in
the crimes of National Socialism. Should they hold to any extent re-
sponsible the violinist who occupied a position in an orchestra once
held by a Jew? Had that violinist not profited from the racial purge and
contributed to the normalization of life in this racially perverted state?
Even more critically, what should the Americans do with the conduc-
tor who led the ensemble, who performed before Nazis and accom-
modated himself to the racial remodeling of his orchestra? Was the fact
that many of the more prominent musicians helped ease the Jews out,
by writing letters of recommendation, or giving them money to leave
the country, to their credit or discredit?

28 | Preparing for Music Control

 The distressing truth was that the great majority of Germany’s lead-
ing non-Jewish musicians remained in the Third Reich and contin-
ued to enjoy enormous public acclaim. All of them continued work-
ing only because the government—in most cases, Joseph Goebbels’s
Propaganda Ministry—approved them for the posts they occupied.
Those musicians who enjoyed a rising salary, awards and prizes, and
the right to perform at special concerts before and for party o≈cials
did so because the regime recognized the value of their contribution to
the patterning of life under dictatorship. When these people traveled
abroad, whether to occupied countries or to Germany’s wartime allies,
they were touring with the permission of the Foreign Ministry and as
ambassadors of the regime. The repertoire they performed generally
conformed to Nazi ideological preferences: they did not play works by
Jews or by those modern composers whom party o≈cials deemed
‘‘degenerate,’’ nor did they include compositions by nationals of coun-
tries Germany was battling. Because little evidence exists of groups
actually having their programs censored, and some artists did quietly
continue to play proscribed works, the overall restrictions on the re-
pertoire seem to have flowed largely from the artists’ own fears that
they not overstep what they perceived to be o≈cial limits.≤∞ Conse-
quently, opera and orchestra directors, chamber musicians, and solo-
ists accepted the racial reconstruction of both performance life and
their repertoire even when not explicitly told to do so. As most of the
prominent soloists, directors, and conductors could have found work
outside the Reich—and here their options were greater than those of
ordinary choristers or orchestra members—their decision to remain
under the terms set for them by the Nazis suggests they should be held
more culpable. This, however, implied that people should be punished
simply for not giving up their jobs and emigrating for political or
moral or artistic reasons.
Collaboration was never an absolute. Some artists clearly accepted
the Nazis’ demands more fully and compliantly than others. The di≈-
culty for the occupation forces lay in tracing and measuring their be-
havior. When the war ended, the documentary evidence was scattered
and American o≈cials knew it would take months, if not years, to
recover and read. Much of the crucial evidence had also been de-
stroyed. People, of course, remained and they were remarkably willing
to talk, but could one rely on such oral evidence when judging collab-
oration without appearing to be engaged in a gestapo-like witch-hunt?

Preparing for Music Control | 29

One option would have been to close down all entertainment facilities
for as many years as it took to sort things out, but this was never
seriously considered. The army was the first to realize that a people
deprived of entertainment outlets and opportunities for cultural ex-
pression would be very hard to manage. And once again, would the
Americans not seem to be as exterminatory in their approach to Ger-
man culture as the Nazis had been in the territories they sought to
annex and repopulate? Germany would have to be purged in some way
but ideally without making the victors appear as brutal and insensitive
as the defeated had been.
Because theaters and concert halls had to be kept operating, an-
other solution was to bar from performance life only those people who
had chosen to actually join the party. Very few of Germany’s most
celebrated artists had done this, but some were Parteigenossen. Unfor-
tunately, while the cases of these party members might appear less
ambiguous, few of them really were. What the Americans discovered,
to their distress, was that most Nazi artists claimed they had had no
choice but to join, that they had been told they could not work or
succeed unless they joined. Most insisted that they never believed in
Nazi ideology, that they never did anything for the party, and that they
continued to work just as before. A majority of them professed to have
defied the regime all the time in little ways and to have done everything
they could safely do to help Jews and others demonized by the Nazis.
And many of those musicians who did join the party were young and
insisted they could not get ahead without a membership card. Should
the occupiers regard their actions sympathetically, or should their op-
portunistic bid for career enhancement be more harshly condemned?
Further, even the military governors knew that many artists who rose
to favor under the Nazis and made public statements supportive of
the regime never joined the party. Was it fair to punish the ‘‘nomi-
nal,’’ ‘‘opportunistic,’’ or ‘‘muß ’’ (those who felt they had no choice
but to join) Nazis and leave such strong supporters or profiteers
unpunished?
In addition to the myriad problems regarding individuals, the mu-
sic o≈cers had to deal with the critical issue of disengaging music cul-
ture itself from Nazi ideology. This was not just a matter of restoring a
censored repertoire. Members in some groups, such as the Berlin Phil-
harmonic or the Munich Staatsoper Orchestra received higher pay

30 | Preparing for Music Control

than other musicians because of their importance to Nazi o≈cials. The
status of these groups, and of certain favored soloists, had been en-
hanced in Germany, but what should be done with this legacy of
Nazism? Should the rank ordering of organizations and people be con-
sciously reversed as a way of undoing Nazi influences? Should pay
scales be adjusted and an e√ort made to limit the careers of those
most revered in the Reich? And what should be done about a culture
that accepted the prominent place of the state and its apparatuses in
artistic life?
Disentangling Nazism also meant confronting the fact that music
had served propagandistic functions. It had been used to legitimate
Nazism by demonstrating the Third Reich’s continuity with Ger-
many’s past: the prominence of German performers and composers in
Western culture was promoted as evidence of Aryan superiority, and
Nazi veneration of a canon of eminent musicians was used as proof
of fascism’s connection with the nation’s glories. If the occupation
powers wanted Germany to make a fresh start, somehow postwar
German music had to be disengaged from its prevailing ideologi-
cal construction. Beethoven, for example, had been venerated in the
Third Reich as an Aryan titan, a visionary outsider, and a symbol of
virility, of revolutionary intensity, and of mastery through su√ering.≤≤
If this reading of what Beethoven’s music represented had embedded
itself in the popular imagination, how could one continue performing
his works without a≈rming values the Allies now hoped to excise?
Music, it seemed, would have to be released from the images and ideas
that encrusted it if it were to be reformed.
And then there was the problem of what to do with living compos-
ers whose works had been popular in the Third Reich. If the Allies
allowed the compositions of such people as Werner Egk or Carl Or√ to
be performed, were they not symbolically accepting the legitimacy of
the successes these artists had enjoyed in the Third Reich? Would they
be able to set contemporary German music on a new course without
relegating its current champions, who were perfumed with evil, to
history’s dustbin? The trouble was that if the music o≈cers banned
works by selected composers, they would be accused of doing what
the Nazis had done. This meant they had to find a way of forcing
German audiences to listen to music because it had been banned and
not listening to works the Nazis praised without appearing to be ty-

Preparing for Music Control | 31

rants themselves. Which raised a related issue: should they even iden-
tify a work as having a Jewish or non-German composer? Wasn’t that
just legitimizing the racial myth they otherwise denounced?
The endless questions reveal how terribly complex the issues facing
the occupation authorities really were. The Americans had to find
some method of controlling a foreign country in an evenhanded way;
they had to remove wrongdoers and set a new course without tarnish-
ing their own reputation as democrats; they had to resolve for them-
selves the di≈cult problem of whether an individual can contribute to
the public life of a totalitarian state without bearing a measure of
responsibility for the existence of that state; and, unlike most of us,
they had to find their answers under di≈cult and pressing circum-
stances. Not surprisingly, they reached no consensus on how to pro-
ceed. Many American o≈cers had been hardened by the war and were
convinced that the social and cultural forces that inclined the Germans
to support fascism had to be eliminated. Democracy, they believed,
could never take hold so long as the roots of the Nazi cancer survived.
Others believed that it would be impossible to persuade the Germans
to accept democracy if the Americans behaved like dictators. While
they accepted that Germany’s cultural life had to be trimmed of its
Nazi branches, they did not believe it was rotten to the core. Still
others took an even more moderate line, doubting that culture had
much to do with Nazism at all and suggesting that artists were too
unimportant for the occupation to bother with. In short, there was
little agreement on how to proceed with the result that each o≈cer had
to find his own way through the country’s tangled moral ruins.

a question of guilt
Because pwd was the vanguard of American reeducation e√orts,
and because it was civilian rather than military in origin, it was a
division with some unusual features. Unlike other mg personnel and
soldiers, pwd o≈cers were not bound by shaef regulations prohibit-
ing fraternization with Germans. As a result they were able, from the
outset, to develop close working relations with locals and to socialize
with them as well. Unlike other Americans, pwd o≈cers were not
prohibited from going to shows attended by German civilians. Adding
to these singular privileges, and to pwd’s image as the division that
went native, was the fact that its o≈cers were by and large German
speaking and were authorized to wear civilian clothes in public rather

32 | Preparing for Music Control

than uniforms. Finally, although its o≈cers were paid out of mg’s
budget, its supplies were obtained through a civilian agency, the De-
partment of State, and its operations were largely financed from reve-
nues derived from the sale of books and newspapers, from movie
tickets, and from radio subsidies contributed by the Länder. In the first
eight months of 1945 alone, the division raised over $2.5 million from
its retail operations—as much as it received from Congress—and this
encouraged its singular sense of autonomy within the Military Gov-
ernment administration.≤≥ That autonomy continued even after Au-
gust 1945, when pwd was dissolved and its operations assumed by a
new unit, still under McClure’s command, the Information Control
Division (icd).
icd remained, like pwd before it, a loosely managed organization
with McClure a distant commander who, though of firm convictions,
never tried to regiment those working under him. Even after it was
decided that the army would retain control over Germany for some
time, and planning for a transfer to the State Department halted, Mc-
Clure remained relatively aloof. He never attempted to resolve di√er-
ences within his peculiar command, possibly because he recognized
the di≈culty of harmonizing the views of the various artists, news-
papermen, professional soldiers, and corporate executives with whom
he worked. As he told his former deputy chief, C. D. Jackson, who had
returned to his job as vice-president of Time-Life, he was supervising,
by mid-1946, the biggest media enterprise in the world with authority
over 37 newspapers, 6 radio stations, 314 theaters and 642 cinemas,
and 237 book publishers: it was an odd job for a professional soldier!≤∂
But McClure’s remove from the field units meant that important pol-
icy questions within the division were never settled, which continually
disrupted its work. In particular, and despite his own feelings on the
matter, McClure never managed to prevent advocates of a soft peace
from influencing icd policies.
For an o≈cer charged with assuring German reorientation, it is
remarkable how little confidence McClure expressed in the popula-
tion. In his view, they had ‘‘ceased to be a civilized people,’’ and he
doubted whether there were very many ‘‘good Germans . . . waiting
for a chance to prove their democratic attitude.’’ As he really did not
believe that the licensing system would work, to the extent that the
Americans would not find the anti-Nazis needed to run the country’s
arts and information sectors, he adopted the pragmatic line that his

Preparing for Music Control | 33

 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
There is the general feeling that conditions will right themselves in
some way. Organisation is needed, he says, and is just as important
as disarmament. Education is the only salvation, not only of Russia,
but of the rest of the world. Socialism of the right sort will come
through proper education. We discuss my prospects of getting into
Russia. I want to see it. Wells tells me that I am at the wrong time
of the year, that the cold weather coming on would make the trip
most inadvisable.
I talk about going to Spain, and he seems surprised to hear that I
want to see a bull fight. He asks, "Why?"
I don't know, except that there is something so nakedly elemental
about it. There is a picturesque technique about it that must appeal
to any artist. Perhaps Frank Harris's "Matador" gave me the impulse,
together with my perpetual quest for a new experience. He says it is
too cruel to the horses.
I relax as the evening goes on and I find that I am liking him even
more than I expected. About midnight we go out on a balcony just
off his library, and in the light of a full moon we get a gorgeous view
of London. Lying before us in the soft, mellow rays of the moon,
London looks as though human, and I feel that we are rather in the
Peeping Tom rôle.
I exclaim, "The indecent moon."
He picks me up. "That's good. Where did you get that?"
I have to admit that it is not original—that it belongs to Knoblock.
Wells comments on my dapperness as he helps me on with my coat.
"I see you have a cane with you." I was also wearing a silk hat. I
wonder what Los Angeles and Hollywood would say if I paraded
there in this costume?
Wells tries on my hat, then takes my cane and twirls it. The effect is
ridiculous, especially as just at the moment I notice the two volumes
of the "Outline of History" on his table.
Strutting stagily, he chants, "You're quite the fellow doncher know."
We both laugh. Another virtue for Wells. He's human.
I try to explain my dress. Tell him that it is my other self, a reaction
from the everyday Chaplin. I have always desired to look natty and I
have spurts of primness. Everything about me and my work is so
sensational that I must get reaction. My dress is a part of it. I feel
that it is a poor explanation of the paradox, but Wells thinks
otherwise.
He says I notice things. That I am an observer and an analyst. I am
pleased. I tell him that the only way I notice things is on the run.
Whatever keenness of perception I have is momentary, fleeting. I
observe all in ten minutes or not at all.
What a pleasant evening it is! But as I walk along toward the hotel I
feel that I have not met Wells yet.
And I am going to have another opportunity. I am going to have a
week-end with him at his home in Easton, a week-end with Wells at
home, with just his family. That alone is worth the entire trip from
Los Angeles to Europe.
 XI.

OFF TO FRANCE

The hotel next day is teeming with activity.

My secretaries are immersed in mail and, despite the assistance of
six girls whom they have added temporarily to our forces, the mail
bags are piling up and keeping ahead of us.
In a fit of generosity or ennui or something I pitch in and help. It
seems to be the most interesting thing I have attempted on the trip.
Why didn't I think of it sooner? Here is drama. Here is life in
abundance. Each letter I read brings forth new settings, new
characters, new problems. I find myself picking out many letters
asking for charity. I lay these aside.
I have made up my mind to go to France immediately.
I call Carl Robinson. I tell him that we are going to France, to Paris,
at once. Carl is not surprised. He has been with me for a long time.
We decide that we tell nobody and perhaps we can escape
ceremonies. We will keep the apartment at the Ritz and keep the
stenographers working, so that callers will think that we are hiding
about London somewhere.
We are going to leave on Sunday and our plans are perfected in
rapid-fire order. We plunge about in a terrible rush as we try to
arrange everything at the last minute without giving the appearance
of arranging anything.
And in spite of everything, there is a mob at the station to see us off
and autograph books are thrown at me from all sides. I sign for as
many as I can and upon the others I bestow my "prop" grin. Wonder
if I look like Doug when I do this?
We meet the skipper. What does one ask skippers? Oh yes, how
does it look to-day for crossing? As I ask, I cast my weather eye out
into the Channel and it looks decidedly rough for me.
But the skipper's "just a bit choppy" disarms me.
I am eager to get on the boat, and the first person I meet is Baron
Long, owner of a hotel in San Diego. Good heavens! Can't I ever get
away from Hollywood? I am glad to see him, but not now. He is very
clever, however. He senses the situation, smiles quick "hellos," and
then makes himself scarce. In fact, I think he wanted to get away
himself. Maybe he was as anxious for a holiday as I.
I am approached on the boat by two very charming girls. They want
my autograph. Ah, this is nice! I never enjoyed writing my name
more.
How I wish that I had learned French. I feel hopelessly sunk,
because after about three sentences in French I am a total loss so
far as conversation is concerned. One girl promises to give me a
French lesson. This promises to be a pleasant trip.
I am told that in France they call me Charlot. We are by this time
strolling about the boat and bowing every other minute. It is getting
rough and I find myself saying I rather like it that way. Liar.
She is speaking. I smile. She smiles. She is talking in French. I am
getting about every eighth word. I cannot seem to concentrate,
French is so difficult. Maybe it's the boat.
I am dying rapidly. I feel like a dead weight on her arm. I can almost
feel myself get pale as I try to say something, anything. I am weak
and perspiring. I blurt out, "I beg pardon," and then I rush off to my
cabin and lie down. Oh, why did I leave England? Something smells
horrible. I look up. My head is near a new pigskin bag. Yes, that's it,
that awful leathery smell. But I have company. Robinson is in the
cabin with me and we are matching ailments.
Thus we spent the trip from Dover to Calais and I was as glad to get
to the French coast as the Kaiser would have been had he kept that
dinner engagement in Paris.
Nearing France, I am almost forgetting my sickness. There is
something in the atmosphere. Something vibrant. The tempo of life
is faster. The springs in its mechanism are wound taut. I feel as if I
would like to take it apart and look at those springs.
I am met by the chief of police, which surprised me, because I was
confident that I had been canny enough to make a getaway this
time. But no. The boat enters the quay and I see the dock crowded
with people. Some treachery. Hats are waving, kisses are being
thrown, and there are cheers. Cheers that I can only get through the
expression, because they are in French and I am notoriously
deficient in that language.
"Vive le Charlot!" "Bravo, Charlot!"
I am "Charloted" all over the place. Strange, this foreign tongue.
Wonder why a universal language isn't practicable? They are
crowding about me, asking for autographs. Or at least I think they
are, because they are pushing books in my face, though for the life
of me I can't make out a word of their chatter. But I smile. God bless
that old "prop" grin, because they seem to like it.
Twice I was kissed. I was afraid to look around to see who did it,
because I knew I was in France. And you've got to give me the
benefit of the doubt. I am hoping that both kisses came from pretty
girls, though I do think that at least one of those girls should shave.
They examine my signature closely. They seem puzzled. I look. It is
spelled right. Oh, I see! They expected "Charlot." And I write some
more with "Charlot."
I am being bundled along to a funny little French train. It seems like
a toy. But I am enjoying the difference. Everything is all changed.
The new money, the new language, the new faces, the new
architecture—it's a grown-up three-ring circus to me. The crowd
gives a concerted cheer as the train pulls out and a few intrepid
ones run alongside until distanced by steam and steel.
We go into the dining-room and here is a fresh surprise. The dinner
is table d'hôte and three waiters are serving it. Everyone is served at
once, and as one man is taking up the soup plates another is serving
the next course. Here is French economy—economy that seems very
sensible as they have perfected it. It seems so different from
America, where waiters always seem to be falling over one another
in dining-rooms. And wines with the meal! And the check; it did not
resemble in size the national debt, as dinner checks usually do in
America.
It has started to rain as we arrive in Paris, which adds to my state of
excitement, and a reportorial avalanche falls upon me. I am about
overcome. How did reporters know I was coming? The crowd
outside the station is almost as large as the one in London.
I am still feeling the effects of my sea-sickness. I am not equal to
speaking nor answering questions. We go to the Customs house and
one journalist, finding us, suggests and points another way out. I am
sick. I must disappoint the crowd, and I leap into a taxi and am
driven to Claridge's Hotel.
"Out of the frying pan." Here are more reporters. And they speak
nothing but French. The hubbub is awful. We talk to one another.
We shout at one another. We talk slowly. We spell. We do everything
to make Frenchmen understand English, and Englishmen understand
French, but it is no use. One of them manages to ask me what I
think of Paris.
I answer that I never saw so many Frenchmen in my life. I am
looking forward eagerly to meeting Cami, the famous French
cartoonist. We have been corresponding for several years, he
sending me many drawings and I sending him still photos from
pictures. We had built up quite a friendship and I have been looking
forward to a meeting. I see him.
He is coming to me and we are both smiling broadly as we open our
arms to each other.
"Cami!"
"Charlot!"
Our greeting is most effusive. And then something goes wrong. He is
talking in French, a blue streak, with the rapidity of a machine-gun. I
can feel my smile fading into blankness. Then I get an inspiration. I
start talking in English just as rapidly. Then we both talk at once. It's
the old story of the irresistible force and the immovable body. We
get nowhere.
Then I try talking slowly, extremely slow.
"Do—you—understand?"
It means nothing. We both realise at the same time what a hopeless
thing our interview is. We are sad a bit, then we smile at the
absurdity of it.
He is still Cami and I am still Charlot, so we grin and have a good
time, anyhow.
He stays to dinner, which is a hectic meal, for through it all I am
tasting this Paris, this Paris that is waiting for me. We go out and to
the Folies Bergère. Paris does not seem as light as I expected it to
be.
And the Folies Bergère seems shabbier. I remember having played
here once myself with a pantomime act. How grand it looked then.
Rather antiquated now. Somehow it saddened me, this bit of
memory that was chased up before me.
Next day there is a luncheon with Dudley Field Malone and Waldo
Frank. It is a brisk and vivacious meal except when it is broken up by
a visit from the American newspaper correspondents.
"Mr. Chaplin, why did you come to Europe?"
"Are you going to Russia?"
"Did you call on Shaw?"
They must have cabled over a set of questions. I went all over the
catechism for them and managed to keep the "prop" grin at work. I
wouldn't let them spoil Paris for me.
We escape after a bit, and back at the hotel I notice an air of
formality creeping into the atmosphere as I hear voices in the
parlour of my suite. Then my secretary comes in and announces that
a very important personage is calling and would speak with me.
He enters, an attractive-looking gentleman, and he speaks English.
"Mr. Chaplin, that I am to you talk of greetings from the heart of the
people with France, that you make laugh. Cannot you forego to
make showing of yourself with charity sometime for devastated
France? On its behalf, I say to you——"
I tell him that I will take it up later.
He smiles, "Ah, you are boozy."
"Oh, no. I haven't had a drink for several days," I hasten to inform
him. "I am busy and want to get to bed early to-night."
But Malone butts in with, "Oh yes, he's very boozy."
And I get a bit indignant until Malone tells me that the Frenchman
means "busy."
Then I am told that there is one young journalist still waiting who
has been here all day, refusing to go until I have seen him.
I tell them to bring him in. He comes in smiling in triumph.
And he can't speak English.
After his hours of waiting we cannot talk.
I feel rather sorry for him and we do our best. Finally, with the aid of
about everyone in the hotel he manages to ask:—
"Do you like France?"
"Yes," I answer.
He is satisfied.
 In Paris with Sir Philip Sassoon and
Georges Carpentier.

Waldo Frank and I sit on a bench in the Champs Elysées and watch
the wagons going to market in the early morning. Paris seems most
beautiful to me just at this time.
What a city! What is the force that has made it what it is? Could
anyone conceive such a creation, such a land of continuous gaiety?
It is a masterpiece among cities, the last word in pleasure. Yet I feel
that something has happened to it, something that they are trying to
cover by heightened plunges into song and laughter.
We stroll along the boulevard and it is growing light. I am recognised
and we are being followed. We are passing a church. There is an old
woman asleep on the steps, but she does not seem worn and
haggard. There is almost a smile on her face as she sleeps. She
typifies Paris to me. Hides her poverty behind a smile.
Sir Philip Sassoon, who is the confidential secretary to Lloyd George,
calls the next day with Georges Carpentier, the pugilistic idol of
France, and we are photographed many times, the three of us
together, and separately.
I am quite surprised that Sir Philip is such a young man. I had
pictured the secretary of Lloyd George as rather a dignified and aged
person. He makes an appointment for me to dine with Lord and
Lady Rocksavage the next day. Lady Rocksavage is his sister.
I also lunch with them the next day, and then to a very fashionable
modiste's for some shopping. This is my first offence of this sort. I
meet Lady Astor, who is shopping there also.
It was quite a treat for me, watching the models in this huge,
elaborate institution that was really a palace in appointments. In
fact, it greatly resembled the palace at Versailles.
I felt very meek when tall, suave creatures strolled out and swept
past me, some imperious, some contemptuous. It was a studied air,
but they did it well. I wonder what effect it has on the girl's mind as
she parades herself before the high-born ladies and gentlemen.
But I catch the imperfection in their schooling. It is very amusing to
watch them strut about until their display is made, and then, their
stunt done, slouch back into the dressing-rooms sans carriage and
manner.
And then, too, I am discovered. This also causes a break in the spell
of their queenly stroll. They are laughing and at the same time
trying to maintain the dignity due to the gowns they are wearing.
They become self-conscious and the effect is ludicrous.
I am demoralising the institution, so we get away. I would like to
talk to some of the models, but it can't be done very well.
From there we go to a candy store, where I lay in a supply of
chocolates and preserved fruits for my trip into Germany the next
day. I am invited by Sir Philip to visit him at his country home in
Lympne, Kent, on my return from Germany.
That evening I go with a party of Dudley Field Malone's to the Palais
Royale in the Montmartre district. This is a novelty. Different. Seems
several steps ahead of America. And it has atmosphere, something
entirely its own, that you feel so much more than you do the
tangible things about you.
There is a woman wearing a monocle. A simple touch, but how it
changes! The fashions here proclaim themselves even without
comparison and expert opinion.
The music is simple, exotic, neurotic. Its simplicity demands
attention. It reaches inside you instead of affecting your feet.
They are dancing a tango. It is entertainment just to watch them.
The pauses in the music, its dreamy cadences, its insinuation, its
suggestiveness, its whining, almost monotonous swing. It is tropical
yet, this Paris. And I realise that Paris is at a high pitch. Paris has not
yet had relief from the cloddy numbness brought on with the War. I
wonder will relief come easily or will there be a conflagration.
I meet Doughie, the correspondent. We recall our first meeting in
the kitchen of Christine's in Greenwich Village.
It is soon noised about that I am here and our table takes on the
atmosphere of a reception. What a medley!
Strangely garbed artists, long-haired poets, news-sheet and flower
vendors, sightseers, students, children, and cocottes. Presently came
a friend whom it was good to see again and we fix up a bit of a
party and get into Dudley's petrol wagon, and as we bowl along we
sing songs, ancient songs of the music-halls. "After the Ball," "The
Man That Broke the Bank of Monte Carlo," and many another which
I had not thought of in years.
Presently the wagon becomes balky and will not continue. So we all
pile out and into a tavern near by, where we call for wine.
And Dudley played upon the tin-pan-sounding piano. There came
one, a tall, strange, pale youth, who asked if we would like to go to
the haunt of the Agile Rabbit. Thence uphill and into a cavernous
place. When the patron came the youth ordered wine for us.
Somehow I think he sensed the fact that I wanted to remain
incognito.
The patron was such a perfect host. Ancient and white bearded, he
served us with a finesse that was pure artistry. Then at his command
one named Réné Chedecal, with a sad, haunted face, played upon
the violin.
That little house sheltered music that night. He played as if from his
soul, a message—yearning, passionate, sad, gay, and we were
speechless before the emotional beauty and mystery of it.
I was overcome. I wanted to express my appreciation, but could do
no more than grasp his hand. Genius breeds in strange places and
humble.
And then the bearded one sang a song that he said the followers of
Lafayette had sung before they left France for America. And all of us
joined in the chorus, singing lustily.
Then a young chap did two songs from Verlaine, and a poet with
considerable skill recited from his own poems. How effective for the
creator of a thought to interpret it. And afterward the violin player
gave us another selection of great beauty, one of his own
compositions.
Then the old patron asked me to put my name in his ledger, which
contained many names of both humble and famous. I drew a picture
of my hat, cane, and boots, which is my favourite autograph. I
wrote, "I would sooner be a gipsy than a movie man," and signed
my name.
Home in the petrol wagon, which by this time had become
manageable again. An evening of rareness. Beauty, excitement,
sadness and contact with human, lovable personalities.
Waldo Frank called the next day, bringing with him Jacques Copeau,
one of the foremost dramatists and actors in France, who manages
and directs in his own theatre. We go to the circus together and I
never saw so many sad-faced clowns. We dine together, and late
that night I have supper with Copeau's company in a café in the
Latin Quarter. It is a gay night, lasting until about three in the
morning.
Frank and I set out to walk home together, but the section is too
fascinating. Along about four o'clock we drift into another café, dimly
lit but well attended. We sit there for some time, studying the
various occupants.
Over in one corner a young girl has just leaned over and kissed her
sailor companion. No one seems to notice. All the girls here seem
young, but their actions stamp their vocations. Music, stimulating,
exotic, and for the dance, is being played. The girls are very much
alive. They are putting their hats on the men's heads.
There are three peasant farmer boys, in all probability. They seem
very much embarrassed as three tiny girls, bright-eyed and red-
lipped, join them for a drink. I can see fire smouldering in their dull
faces in spite of their awkwardness in welcoming the girls.
An interesting figure, Corsican, I should say, is very conspicuous. A
gentleman by his bearing, debonair and graceful, he looks the very
picture of an impecunious count. He is visiting all the tables in the
café. At most of them he calls the girls by their first names.
He is taking up a collection for the musicians. Everyone is
contributing liberally. With each tinkle of a coin in the hat the
Corsican bows elaborately and extends thanks.
He finishes the collection.
"On with the dance," he shouts. "Don't let the music stop," as he
rattles the money. Then he puts his hand in his pocket and draws
forth a single centime piece. It is very small, but his manner is that
of a philanthropist.
"I give something, no matter how small; you notice, ladies and
gentlemen, that I give something," and he drops his coin in the hat
and bows.
The party progresses rapidly. They have started singing and have
had just enough drink to make them maudlin. We leave.
 XII.

MY VISIT TO GERMANY

The train to Germany left so late in the evening that it was

impossible for me to see devastated France even though we passed
through a considerable portion of it. Our compartment on the train is
very stuffy and smelly and the train service is atrocious, food and
sanitary conditions being intolerable after American train service.
Again there is a crowd at the station to see me off, but I am rather
enjoying it. A beautiful French girl presents me with a bouquet of
flowers with a cute little speech, or at least I suppose it was,
because she looked very cute delivering it, and the pouts that the
language gave to her red lips were most provocative. She tells me in
delicious broken English that I look tired and sad, and I find myself
yielding without a struggle to her suggestion.
We arrive at Joumont near the Belgian frontier along about
midnight, and, like a message from home, there is a gang of
American soldier boys at the station to greet me. And they are not
alone, for French, Belgian, and British troops are also waving and
cheering. I wanted to talk to the Belgians, and we tried it, but it was
no use. What a pity!
But one of them had a happy inspiration and saved the day.
"Glass of beer, Charlot?"
I nod, smiling. And to my surprise they bring me beer, which I lift to
my lips for politeness, and then drink it to the last drop in pure
pleasure. It is very good beer.
There is a group of charming little Belgian girls. They are smiling at
me shyly and I so want to say something to them. But I can't. Ah,
the bouquet! Each little girl gets a rose and they are delighted.
"Merci, merci, monsieur." And they keep "merciing" and bowing until
the train pulls out of the station, which emboldens them to join the
soldiers in a cheer.
Through an opening between the railroad structures I see a brilliant
lighting display. It is universal, this sign. Here is a movie in this tiny
village. What a wonderful medium, to reach such an obscure town.
On the train I am being told that my pictures have not played in
Germany, hence I am practically unknown there. This rather pleases
me because I feel that I can relax and be away from crowds.
Everyone on the train is nice and there is no trouble. Conductors
struggle with English for my benefit, and the Customs officers make
but little trouble. In fact, we cross the border at three in the morning
and I am asleep.
Next morning I find a note from the Customs man saying; "Good
luck, Charlie. You were sleeping so soundly that I did not have the
heart to wake you for inspection."
Germany is beautiful. Germany belies the war. There are people
crowding the fields, tilling the soil, working feverishly all the time as
our train rushes through. Men, women, and children are all at work.
They are facing their problem and rebuilding. A great people,
perverted for and by a few.
The different style of architecture here is interesting. Factories are
being built everywhere. Surely this isn't conquered territory. I do not
see much live stock in the fields. This seems strange.
A dining-car has been put on the train and the waiter comes to our
compartment to let us know that we may eat. Here is a novelty. A
seven-course dinner, with wine, soup, meat, vegetables, salad,
dessert, coffee, and bread for twenty-eight cents. This is made
possible by the low rate of exchange.
We go to the Adlon Hotel in Berlin and find that hostelry jammed,
owing to the auto races which are being run off at this time. A
different atmosphere here. It seems hard for me to relax and get the
normal reaction to meeting people. They don't know me here. I have
never been heard of. It interests me and I believe I resent it just a
bit.
I notice how abrupt the Germans are to foreigners, and I detect a
tinge of bitterness, too. I am wondering about my pictures making
their début here. I question the power of my personality without its
background of reputation.
I am feeling more restful under this disinterested treatment, but
somehow I wish that my pictures had been shown here. The people
at the hotel are very courteous. They have been told that I am the
"white-headed boy and quite the guy in my home town." Their
reactions are amusing. I am not very impressive-looking and they
are finding it hard to believe.
There is quite a crowd in the lobby and a number of Americans and
English. They are not long in finding me, and a number of English,
French, and American reporters start making a fuss over me. The
Germans just stand and look on, bewildered.
Carl von Weigand comes forward with the offer of the use of his
office while I am here. The Germans are impressed with all this, but
they show no enthusiasm. I am accepted in an offhand way as some
one of importance and they let it go at that.
The Scala Theatre, where I spent the evening, is most interesting,
though I think a bit antiquated when compared with English and
American theatrical progress along the same lines. It seats about
five thousand, mostly on one floor, with a very small balcony. It is of
the variety-music-hall type, showing mostly "dumb" acts. Acts that
do not talk or sing, like comic jugglers, acrobats, and dancers.
I am amused by a German comedian singing a song of about twenty
verses, but the audience is enthused and voices its approval at every
verse. During the intermission we have frankfurters and beer, which
are served in the theatre. I notice the crowds. They go to the
theatre there as a family. It is just that type of an affair.
I notice the different types of beauty, though beauty is not very
much in evidence here. Here and there are a few pretty girls, but not
many. It is interesting to watch the people strolling during the
intermission, drinking lager and eating all sorts of food.
Leaving the theatre, we visit the Scala Café, a sort of impressionistic
casino. The Scala is one of the largest cafés in Berlin, where the
modernist style in architecture has been carried out fully.
The walls are deep mottled sea green, shading into light verdigris
and emerald, leaning outward at an angle, thereby producing an
effect of collapse and forward motion. The junction of the walls and
the ceiling is broken into irregular slabs of stone, like the strata of a
cave. Behind these the lights are hidden, the whole system of
illumination being based on reflection.
The immense dislocation of the planes and angles of the vault-like
ceiling is focused on the central point, the huge silver star or crystal
bursting like an exploding bomb through the roof. The whole effect
is weird, almost ominous. The shape of the room in its ground plan
is itself irregular—the impression is that of a frozen catastrophe. Yet
this feeling seems to be in accord with the mood of revellers in
Germany to-day.
From there to the Palais Heinroth, the most expensive place in Berlin
and the high spot of night life. It is conspicuous in its brilliance,
because Berlin as a city is so badly lighted. At night the streets are
dark and gloomy, and it is then that one gets the effect of war and
defeat.
At the Heinroth everybody was in evening dress. We weren't. My
appearance did not cause any excitement. We check our hats and
coats and ask for a table. The manager shrugs his shoulders. There
is one in the back, a most obscure part of the room. This brings
home forcibly the absence of my reputation. It nettled me. Well, I
wanted rest. This was it.
We are about to accept humbly the isolated table, when I hear a
shriek and I am slapped on the back and there's a yell:
"Charlie!"
It is Al Kaufman of the Lasky Corporation and manager of the
Famous Players studio in Berlin.
"Come over to our table. Pola Negri wants to meet you."
Again I come into my own. The Germans look on, wondering. I have
created attention at last. I discover that there is an American jazz
band in the place. In the middle of a number they stop playing and
shout:
"Hooray for Charlie Chaplin!"
The proprietor shrugs his shoulders and the band resumes playing. I
learn that the musicians are former American doughboys. I feel
rather pleased that I have impressed the Germans in the place.
In our party were Rita Kaufman, wife of Al, Pola Negri, Carl
Robinson, and myself.
Pola Negri is really beautiful. She is Polish and really true to the type.
Beautiful jet-black hair, white, even teeth and wonderful coloring. I
think it such a pity that such coloring does not register on the
screen.
She is the centre of attraction here. I am introduced. What a voice
she has! Her mouth speaks so prettily the German language. Her
voice has a soft, mellow quality, with charming inflections. Offered a
drink, she clinks my glass and offers her only English words, "Jazz
boy Charlie."
Language again stumps me. What a pity! But with the aid of a third
party we get along famously. Kaufman whispers: "Charlie, you've
made a hit. She just told me that you are charming."
"You tell her that she's the loveliest thing I've seen in Europe."
These compliments keep up for some time, and then I ask Kaufman
how to say, "I think you are divine" in German. He tells me
something in German and I repeat it to her.
She's startled and looks up and slaps my hand.
"Naughty boy," she says.
The table roars. I sense that I have been double-crossed by
Kaufman. What have I said? But Pola joins in the joke, and there is
no casualty. I learn later that I have said, "I think you are terrible." I
decided to go home and learn German.
As I am going out the proprietor approaches and very formally
addresses me: "I beg pardon, sir. I understand that you are a great
man in the United States. Accept my apologies for not knowing, and
the gates here are always open to you." I accept them formally,
though through it all I feel very comic opera. I didn't like the
proprietor.
I want to go through the German slums. I mention such a trip to a
German newspaper man. I am told that I am just like every
Londoner and New-Yorker who comes to Berlin for the first time;
that I want the Whitechapel district, the Bowery of Berlin, and that
there is no such district. Once upon a time there were hovels in
Berlin, but they have long since disappeared.
This to me is a real step toward civilisation.
My newspaper friend tells me that he will give me the next best
thing to the slums, and we go to Krogel. What a picture could be
made here! I am fascinated as I wander through houses mounted on
shaky stilts and courts ancient but cleanly.
Then we drove to Acker Street and gazed into courts and
basements. In a café we talked to men and women and drank beer.
I almost launched a new war when, wishing to pay a charge of one
hundred and eighty marks, I pulled from my pocket a roll of fifty
one-thousand-mark notes.
My friend paid the check quickly with small change and hustled me
out, telling me of the hard faces and criminal types who were
watching. He's probably right, but I love those poor, humble people.
We drove to the arbor colonies in the northern part of the city,
stopping at some of the arbors to talk to the people. I feel that I
would like to eat dinner here among these people, but I haven't
sufficient courage to persuade my companion, who wouldn't think of
it. Passing through the northern part of Berlin, I found many
beauties which, my friend let me know, were not considered
beautiful at all.
He even suggested that he show me something in contrast with all I
had seen. I told him no, that it would spoil my whole viewpoint.
It has been rather a restful experience, going through the whole
town without being recognised, but even as I am thinking it a
fashionable lady and her young daughter pass, and by their smiles I
know that I am again discovered.
And then we meet Fritz Kreisler and his wife, who are just leaving
for Munich. We have quite a chat and then make tentative
engagements to be carried out in Los Angeles on his next trip there.
I notice that the Germans seem to be scrupulously honest, or maybe
this was all the more noticeable to me because of genial and
unsuspicious treatment by a taxi driver. We left the cab many times
and were gone as long as half an hour at a time, and out of sight,
yet he always waited and never suggested that he be paid
beforehand.
In the business section we pass many cripples with embittered,
sullen looks on their faces. They look as though they had paid for
something which they hadn't received.
We are approached by a legless soldier beggar in a faded German
uniform. Here was the War's mark. These sights you will find on
every side in Berlin.
I am presented with a police card to the Berliner Club, which is
evidently a technicality by which the law is circumvented. Berlin is
full of such night-life clubs. They are somewhat like the gatherings
that Prohibition has brought to America.
There are no signs, however, from the outside of any activity, and
you are compelled to go up dark passages and suddenly come upon
gaily lit rooms very similar to Parisian cafés.
Dancing and popping corks are the first impression as I enter. We
are taken in hand by two girls and they order drinks for us. The girls
are very nervous. In fact, the whole night-life of this town seems to
be nervous, neurotic, over-done.
The girls dance, but very badly. They do not seem to enjoy it and
treat it as part of the job. They are very much interested in my
friend, who seems to have the money for the party. On these
occasions my secretary always carries the family roll, and they are
paying much attention to him.
I sit here rather moody and quiet, though one of the girls works
hard to cheer me up. I hear her asking Robinson what is the matter
with me. I smile and become courteous. But, her duty done, she
turns again to Robinson.
I am piqued. Where is that personality of mine? I have been told
many times that I have it. But here it is convincingly shown that
personality has no chance against "pursenality."
But I am beginning to get so much attention from my friends that
one of the girls is noticing me. She senses that I am some one
important, but she can't quite make it out.
"Who is this guy, an English diplomat?" she whispers to Robinson.
He whispers back that I am a man of considerable importance in the
diplomatic service. I smile benevolently and they become more
interested.
I am treating her rather paternally and am feeling philosophical. I
ask about her life. What is she doing with it? What ambitions? She is
a great reader, she tells me, and likes Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.
But she shrugs her shoulders in an indifferent and tragic manner and
says, "What does it matter about life?"
"You make it what it is," she says. "In your brain alone it exists and
effort is only necessary for physical comfort." We are becoming
closer friends as she tells me this.
But she must have some objective, there must be some dreams of
the future still alive within her. I am very anxious to know what she
really thinks.
I ask her about the defeat of Germany. She becomes discreet at
once. Blames it on the Kaiser. She hates war and militarism. That's
all I can get out of her, and it is getting late and we must leave. Her
future intrigues me, but does not seem to worry her.
On the way home we step in at Kaufman's apartment and have quite
a chat about pictures and things back in Los Angeles. Los Angeles
seems very far away.
I am invited to a formal dinner party for the next evening at the
home of Herr Werthauer, one of the most prominent lawyers in all
Europe and a chief of the Kaiser during the war. The occasion for the
dinner was to celebrate the announcement of Werthauer's
engagement to his third wife.
His is a wonderful home in the finest section of Berlin. At the party
there are a number of his personal friends, Pola Negri, Al Kaufman,
Mrs. Kaufman, Robinson, and myself.
There is a Russian band playing native music all through the dinner
and jazz music is also being dispensed by two orchestras made up of
American doughboys who have been discharged, but have stayed on
in Germany.
For no reason at all, I think of the story of Rasputin. This seems the
sort of house for elaborate murders. Perhaps it is the Russian music
that is having this effect on me. There is a huge marble staircase
whose cold austereness suggests all sorts of things designed to send
chills up the spine. The servants are so impressive and the meal
such a ceremony that I feel that I am in a palace. The Russian folk-
songs that are being dreamily whined from the strings of their
peculiar instruments have a very weird effect and I find food and
dining the least interesting things here.
There is a touch of mystery, of the exotic, something so foreign
though intangible, that I find myself searching everything and
everybody, trying to delve deeper into this atmosphere.
We are all introduced, but there are too many people for me to try
to remember names. There are herrs, fräuleins, and fraus galore,
and I find it hard to keep even their sex salutations correct. Some
one is making a long, formal speech in German, and everybody is
watching him attentively.
The host arises and offers a toast to his bride-to-be. Everyone rises
and drinks to their happiness. The party is very formal and I can
make nothing from the talk going on all about me. The host is
talking and then all get up again with their glasses. Why, I don't
know, but I get up with them.
At this there is general laughter, and I wonder what calamity has
befallen me. I wonder if my clothes are all right.
Then I understand. The host is about to toast me. He does it in very
bad English, though his gestures and tone make it most graceful. He
is inclined to be somewhat pedantic and whenever he cannot think
of the proper English word he uses its German equivalent.
As the various courses come the toasts are many. I am always about
two bites late in getting to my feet with my glass. After I have been
toasted about four times, Mrs. Kaufman leans over and whispers,
"You should toast back again to the host and say something nice
about his bride-to-be."
I am almost gagged with the stage fright that grips me. It is the
custom to toast back to the host and here I have been gulping down
all kinds of toasts without a word. And he had been sitting there
waiting for me.
I rise and hesitate. "Mr.—"
I feel a kick on the shins and I hear Mrs. Kaufman whisper hoarsely:
"Herr."
I think she means the bride-to-be. "Mrs.—" No, she isn't that yet.
Heavens! this is terrible.
I plunge in fast and furious. "My very best respects to your future
wife." As I speak I look at a young girl at the head of the table
whom I thought was the lucky woman. I am all wrong. I sit,
conscious of some horrible mistake.
He bows and thanks me. Mrs. Kaufman scowls and says: "That's not
the woman. It's the one on the other side."
I have a suppressed convulsion and almost die, and as she points
out the real bride-to-be I find myself laughing hysterically into my
soup. Rita Kaufman is laughing with me. Thank heaven for a sense
of humour.
I am so weak and nervous that I am almost tempted to leave at
once. The bride-to-be is reaching for her glass to return my salute,
though unless she thinks I am cross-eyed I don't see how she knows
I said anything nice to her.
But she gets no chance to speak. There is launched a long-winded
pedantic speech from the host, who says that on such rare occasions
as this it is customary to uncork the best in the cellar. This point gets
over in great shape and everybody is smiling.
I even feel myself growing radiant. I was under the impression that
the best had already been served. Didn't know he was holding back
anything. With the promise of better wine I am tempted to try
another toast to the bride-to-be.
 XIII.

I FLY FROM PARIS TO LONDON

The first night in Paris after our return from Germany we dined at
Pioccardi's, then walked up to the arches of the old gates of Paris.
Our intention was to visit the Louvre and see the statue of Venus de
Milo, but it only got as far as intention.
We drifted into the Montmartre district and stopped in Le Rat Mort,
one of its most famous restaurants. As it is very early in the evening,
there are very few people about—one reason why I picked out this
place, which later in the night becomes the centre of hectic revelry.
Passing our table is a striking-looking girl with bobbed blond hair,
shadowing beautiful, delicate features of pale coloring and soft,
strange eyes of a violet blue. Her passing is momentary, but she is
the most striking-looking girl I have seen in Europe.
Although there are but few people here, I am soon recognised. The
French are so demonstrative. They wave, "Hello, Charlot!"
I am indifferent. I smile mechanically. I am tired. I shall go to bed
early. I order champagne.
The bobbed-hair one is sitting at a table near us. She interests me.
But she doesn't turn so that I can see her face. She is sitting facing
her friend, a dark, Spanish-looking girl.
I wish she'd turn. She has a beautiful profile, but I would like to see
her full face again. She looked so lovely when she passed me before.
I recall that ghost of a smile that hovered near her mouth, showing
just a bit of beautiful, even, white teeth.
The orchestra is starting and dancers are swinging on to the floor.
The two girls rise and join the dance. I will watch closely now and
perhaps get another flash at her when she whirls by.
There is something refined and distinguished about the little girl. She
is different. Doesn't belong here. I am watching her very closely,
though she has never once looked my way. I like this touch of the
unusual in Montmartre. Still she may be just clever.
She is passing me in the dance and I get a full view of her face. One
of real beauty, with a sensitive mouth, smiling at her friend and
giving a complete view of the beautiful teeth. Her face is most
expressive. The music stops and they sit at their table.
I notice that there is nothing on their table. They are not drinking.
This is strange, here. Nor are there sandwiches or coffee. I wonder
who they are. That girl is somebody. I know it.
She gets up as the orchestra plays a few strains of a plaintive
Russian thing. She is singing the song. Fascinating! An artist! Why is
she here? I must know her.
The song itself is plaintive, elemental, with the insinuating nuances
that are vital to Russian music. The orchestra, with the violins and
'cellos predominant, is playing hauntingly, weaving a foreign exotic
spell.
She has poise, grace, and is compelling attention even in this place.
There comes a bit of melancholy in the song and she sings it as one
possessed, giving it drama, pathos. Suddenly there is a change. The
music leaps to wild abandon. She is with it. She tosses her head like
a wild Hungarian gipsy and gives fire to every note. But almost as it
began, the abandon is over. With wistful sweetness, she is singing
plaintively again.
She is touching every human emotion in her song. At times she is
tossing away care, then gently wooing, an elusive strain that is
almost fairylike, that crescendos into tragedy, going into a crashing
climax that diminishes into an ending, searching yearning, and
wistfully sad.
Her personality is written into every mood of the song. She is at
once fine, courageous, pathetic, and wild. She finished to an
applause that reflected the indifference of the place. In spots it was
spontaneous and insistent. In others little attention was paid to her.
She is wasted here.
But she cares not. In her face you can see that she gets her
applause in the song itself. It was glorious, just to be singing with
heart, soul and voice. She smiles faintly, then sits down modestly.
I knew it. She is Russian. She has everything to suggest it. Full of
temperament, talent and real emotional ability, hidden away here in
Le Rat Mort. What a sensation she would be in America with a little
advertising! This is just a thought, but all sorts of schemes present
themselves to me.
I can see her in "The Follies" with superb dressing and doing just the
song she had done then. I did not understand a word of it, but I felt
every syllable. Art is universal and needs no language. She has
everything from gentleness to passion and a startling beauty. I am
applauding too much, but she looks and smiles, so I am repaid.
They dance again, and while they are gone I call the waiter and
have him explain to the manager that I would like to be presented to
her. The manager introduces her and I invite her to my table. She
sits there with us, while her companion, the dark girl, does a solo
dance.
She talks charmingly and without restraint. She speaks three
languages—Russian, French, and English. Her father was a Russian
general during the Tsar's reign. I can see now where she gets her
imperious carriage.
"Are you a Bolshevik?"
She flushes as I ask it, and her lips pout prettily as she struggles
with English. She seems all afire.
"No, they are wicked. Bolshevik man, he's very bad." Her eyes flash
as she speaks.
"Then you are bourgeoisie?"
"No, but not a Bolshevik." Her voice suggests a tremendous vitality,
though her vocabulary is limited. "Bolshevik good idea for the mind,
but not for practice."
"Has it had a fair opportunity?" I ask her.
"Plenty. My father, my mother, my brother all in Russia and very
poor. Mother is Bolshevik, father bourgeoisie. Bolshevik man very
impudent to me. I want to kill him. He insult me. What can I do? I
escape. Bolshevik good idea, but no good for life."
"What of Lenin?"
"Very clever man. He tried hard for Bolshevik—but no good for
everybody—just in the head."
I learn that she was educated in a convent and that she had lost all
trace of her people. She earns her living singing here. She has been
to the movies, but has never seen me. She "is go first chance
because I am nice man."
I ask her if she would like to go into moving pictures. Her eyes light
up.
"If I get opportunity I know I make success. But"—she curls her
mouth prettily—"it's difficult to get opportunity."
She is just twenty years old and has been in the café for two weeks,
coming there from Turkey, to which country she fled following her
escape from Russia.
I explain that she must have photographic tests made and that I will
try to get her a position in America. She puts everything into her
eyes as she thanks me. She looks like a combination of Mary
Pickford and Pola Negri plus her own distinctive beauty and
personality. Her name is "Skaya." I write her full name and address
in my book and promise to do all I can for her. And I mean to. We
say "Good Night," and she says she feels that I will do what I say.
How has she kept hidden?
Due at Sir Philip Sassoon's for a garden party the next day, I decide
to go there in an aeroplane and I leave the Le Bourget aerodrome in
Paris in a plane of La Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes, and at
special request the pilot landed me at Lympne in Kent and I thereby
avoided the crowd that would have been on hand in London.
It was quite thrilling and I felt that I made a very effective entrance
to the party.
And what a delightful retreat! All the charm of an English country
home, and Sir Philip is a perfect host. I get English food and
treatment. I have a perfect rest, with no duties, and entertainment
as I desire it. A day and a half that are most pleasant!
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