How did both sides of World War 2 use music to influence, distract and motivate

their population?

Annotated bibliography

Annotation 1

https://theconversation.com/how-the-nazis-used-music-to-celebrate-and-facilitate-murder-15570
4

Source: The Conversation

Title: “How the Nazis used music to celebrate and facilitate murder”
Date: March 12, 2021
Author: Edward B. Westermann
Edward B. Westermann is a regents professor of history at the A&M university of Texas-San Antonio.

“I was struck by the ways in which music accompanied deaths in the camps, the
ghettos and the killing fields.”
● Music was used by the nazi concentration camps to create a strong feeling of boldness
and nobleness in a community that is perpetrating atrocities.
“Under the Nazi regime, music and song forged community, camaraderie and
shared purpose.”
● It is notable how music also was accompanied by alcohol, as it serves the purpose to
celebrate the idea of murder and facilitate the acts, as if to gaslight the enforcers of the
holocaust to believing his actions are heroic
“As she lay battered and bleeding on the floor, she heard the voices of her
attackers crooning to “the sound of a sentimental [Robert] Schumann song.”
● Robert Schumann is as good a piece of music as he was one of the pillars of German
nationalism, which led to the inevitable acceptance of selflessness in acts. Concludes
that music helped to the execution and perpetuation of a vast majority of nazi crimes
against jews, masking it as patriotism.
Evaluation: Edward B. Westermann is a history professor, which means documented position,
could reflect slight bias. It is a publicity article for his book, which could have some interest
partiality. Inevitable clear aversion towards the nazi regime and some sensationalism attributed
to the atrocities (normal and understandable)

Annotation 2

https://concordiamemoryproject.concordiacollegearchives.org/exhibits/show/sartyessays/christin
emiller

Source: Sarty Letter Collection

Title: “Playing a Role in the War: Music in World War II”
Date: no date shown
Author: Christine Miller
Christine Miller is a student in history, studying the surviving letters from Howard Sarty.

“Music used in military hospitals during the war was the impetus for the music
therapy profession.”
● Music was used by the Americans as therapy for the soldiers at hospitals, normally
recovering from horrible injuries and trauma.
“Music reminded them of who they were fighting for and who they would return
home to when the war was over, thus boosting their morale and encouraging the
soldiers to work hard to end the war.” Eg. “Cleanin’ my rifle and thinking of you”,
“Ten Days With Baby”,
● Music was used also to motivate the soldiers to end the war as quickly as possible,
reminding them of what they had at home, their families and old lives. “…and about that
song ‘Ten days with baby,’ I wish I could spend ten million days with Baby.” (Howard
Sarty).
“The broadcasting company established in Britain was known as the American
Forces Network, and it eventually traveled to Germany with the masses of
American soldiers when the front was on the move.”
● The US established radio stations in other countries to ensure the reminding of American
culture in soldiers. This highlights how the protection of American values and patriotism,
 and the impending feeling of missing their country played a role in the incessable
motivation of the soldiers.
Evaluation: Christine Miller wrote this according to the letters of a real American WW2 soldier,
meaning the source may be slightly unreliable but very reliable nonetheless, as it tis a primary
source. Obvious strong bias against the opposite side and slight bias against the British,
unknown reason.

Annotation 3

https://www.jstor.org/stable/965620?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Source: The Musical Times

Title: The Aryanization of music in Nazi Germany
Date: January 1990

Author: Erik Levi

Erik Levi is Visiting Professor in Music at Royal Holloway, having formerly been Professor of Music and Director of Performance
there up to 2015. He studied in the Universities of Cambridge and York and at Berlin Staatliche Hochschule für Musik.

“Mendessohn's stature as a major nineteenth-century musical figure had

declined. Anti-semitic opinions played no small part in this process.”
● Nazis used anti semitism and music to influence anti semitism into the population, one of
the ways they did that was diminishing the talent and public opinion of revered jewish
artists like Felix Mendelsohn.
“The reaction was galvanized by Richard Wagner whose controversial essay Das
Judentum in der Musik (1850, rev. 1868) argued that the superficial nature of the
composer's (Mendelsohn) genius was attributable to his racial origin”
● Nazis also had the support of Richard Wagner, a very public figure, that used radical and
supernatural tactics to influence the population.
“Herzog (part of the ideological committee) offered both composers an unusually
generous commission fee of 2000 Reich Marks for each score, together with an
agreement of publication by the recently formed Deutscher NS Musikverlag”.
 ● They had a very public and expensive campaign to try and aryanism Shakespeare’s
Sommernachtstraum (a summer night’s dream), as Mendelsohn’s music to the theater
work was vital for its representation at the time Very clear tactic to try to denigrate jew
works.
“The replacement of Mendelssohn, the purification of Mozart and the distortion of
Handel are but three chilling examples of an extremist policy which had
undermined the values of a civilized society.”
● The nazis in an attempt to take away all possible credit from the jewish people, tried to
hastily remove all jewish links that stained those patriotic Austro-German works of music,
further enhancing the synthetic charm of aryan superiority on the population.
Evaluation: Erik Levi is not a historian, but rather a musician. This article is objective in its most
part as it merely exposes the truth and events that unfolded in the propaganda direction section
of the third reich.

Annotation 4

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40215356?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Source: Journal of Historical Research in Music Education

Title: Nationalism in United States Music Education During World War 2

Date: April 2009
Author: J. Scott Goble
J. Scott Goble is an Associate Professor of Music Education at the University of British Columbia.

“MENC (Music Educators National Conference) leaders decided to orient the

organization’s efforts toward promoting music as a means of nurturing national
solidarity and buoying citizen’s morale (October 1940)”
● Even before the start of the United State’s involvement in the second world war, their
plan was to reject the traditional eastern musical values that they have been promoting
because of the large german implication in them, they started drafting a plan to bolster
American national music to motivate their population
“Stimulate loyalty and fidelity to American ideals and principles and allegiance to
the American flag”
● Similar to the axis powers, Americans didn’t solely focus on motivation when musically
educating, they also tried to bolster nationalism in their own right, only that nationalism
was built on different values.
“They also recommended that the nation’s music teachers introduce in their
classes not only music of the United States, but also folk songs “reflecting the
spirit of neighboring peoples” in North and South American nations.
● In contrast to the axis powers, the American nation strived to enhance the USA's allies’
public opinion. They decided to leave political differences aside and use a convenient
egality in the introduction of allied nations’ culture to promote unity. The axis powers
used a similar strategy, but rather by devaluing other ideologies, forcing the whole nation
to work in unity as nothing else was permitted. Here the political differences are noted.
“The popular song of 1942, "Rosie, the Riveter" by Redd Evans and John Jacob
Loeb stemmed from a government media campaign encouraging women to take
jobs during the war. The song's lyrics, which affirm that a "little frail girl can do
more than a man can do,".”
● This is another example of this forced egality in the amercian government, as both
republican and democratic parties agreed to boost feminism in the face of desperate
need
Evaluation: Another example of an article not done by a historian, but with a very objective eye
on the topic of music education. No significant bias seen. The article uses several primary
sources reporting on the actual implementation of these legal education reforms.

Annotation 5

https://www.jstor.org/stable/260106?read-now=1&seq=6#page_scan_tab_contents

Source: Journal of Contemporary History

Title: The Nazi Musicologist as Myth Maker in the Third Reich
Date: October 1975
Author: Michael Meyer
Michael Meyer is an Emeritus Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew Union College

“In early 1933 the Nazi revolution was immediately expressed in music
journalism, in distinguished pages of musicological journals, and in books. Some
'progressive' journals were purged, dissolved and reconstituted”
● The nazi modification of music also reflected this uniformity across all fields of art, as
they systematically hand-picked those opinions that were positive to the third reich, not
only contributing to the influence of the population but also leading to a desistment in the
motivational department.
“Other commentators agreed that 'there is no such thing as a National Socialist
music', only an art which regards National Socialism as its source of
Experience.”
● The effects of this notable fix on population control resulted in an inevitable failure at
their purpose, as all that censorship extracted from the music what made it unique,
leaving behind an attempt at change.
“The so-called 'new music', which 'had eroded native art music... had rejected all
natural desire for pleasurable sound and beauty ... a bacillus which had produced
laziness, implanted into the cultural body by hostile agents... This musical
bolshevism has had its golden age… through play of sound, dissonant sport,
degenerate harmony and chaotic form.”
● Primary source of Walter Abendroth, a nazi musicologist justifying the removal of at that
time booming folk culture music and the apparently inexplicable disappearance of jewish
historical German composers. Another place where the nazi propagandistic fail was
inevitable, the censorship on new rising musical styles, further detriment the motivational
effect of music on their population, especially if we count on the fact that the nazi army
desperately relied on young generations as primary actives, as a lot of traditionally aged
soldiers had died in WWI.
Evaluation: No clear bias, although understandable, historian scholar article, objective
musicology. Primary sources included.

Annotation 6
https://www.jstor.org/stable/45293624?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Title: "Honor Your German Masters": The Use And Abuse Of "Classical" Composers In
Nazi Propaganda.
Source: Journal of Political and Military Sociology
Date: Winter 2002
Author: David B. Dennis
David B. Dennis is a professor of musicology at Loyola University of Chicago.

“Use the term "serious music" as a translation of the German

Ernstmusik to indicate my focus on what is commonly known in American
English as "classical" music, as opposed to Unterhaltungsmusik that would
include more popular forms.”
● The Nazis referred to classical music as “serious music”, meaning that it was more
promotable for the purposes of the government. The link of this decision to the lack of
motivation in the population and army and the failure of the program is clear, in contrast
to American music that was uplifting, this is inspiring but nonetheless not cheering for a
population at war.
“The Völkischer Beobachter' s "top eleven" list of composers would run as
follows: Wagner (243), Beethoven (116), Mozart (107), Bruckner (47), Bach (43),
Schubert (35), Brahms (23), Handel (22), Weber (20), Liszt (16), and Haydn (15)”
● Here we see the composers the nazi regime decided to promote, all of them classical
and romantic composers, most with a very epic and harmonically tense music style, all of
them “pure aryans”, and none of them were relatable for the youth. This is where the
knowledge that most historians have of the Nazi regime comes from, that it was
“movie-made”
“Virtually no major area of Nazi policy - cultural, social, economic, military, or
racist - was addressed in the Völkischer Beobachter without some accompanying
reference to Wagner's views on the matter.”
● The incredibly prominent role of Richard Wagner in the Nazi music propaganda was
undeniable, and his views were respected as the ones of a leader or a god, as he was
 as pure as an aryan can get. This could also bolster the nazis use of great, epic,
olympian style aesthetic, and also certainly fabricated this serious, epic, ultra important
tone that the nazi music propaganda brandished during the war.
Evaluation: Scholar musicology article, various primary sources referenced, objective diction
overall.