The Struggle Over Legacies

Two-hundred years ago this week, in Leipzig, Germany, Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born.  Over his career, he became an unparalleled composer and conductor famous for his operas.  His music is known by aficionados and novices alike.  He died in February of 1883, a complete half a century prior to 1933.  In the small village of Röcken, Germany in October of 1844, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born.  Over his career, he broke new ground as a philosopher as well as a critic and his works are as famous and as likely to be known by the uninitiated as any other philosopher in world history.  He died in August of 1900, three decades prior to 1933.  Even though both men lived and worked decades prior to that year, marked by the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, the two men are forever and seemingly unbreakably linked to the worst excesses and ideology of the Nazis.  The question is, should they? 

In Israel, Wagner is persona non grata and understandably so.  The music of Wagner has come to epitomize the Nazis through Hitler’s love for the composer.  For Jews, there will never be a separation no matter how benign an individual performance of Tristan und Isolde or Der Ring des Nibelungen can be.  Wagner has been accused of being anti-Semitic and there is certainly evidence enough to prove that accusation.  The 1850 piece On Jewishness in Music was an opening salvo of Wagner’s declaration of disdain for Jews.  As with many people of the day, there was a historic strain of anti-Semitism and Wagner was a product of his day.  To suggest, however, that he would have been a Nazi is more of a stretch.   

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf about a childhood experience of seeing Lohengrin, its transformative powers and many modern observers have made connections and judgments that simply do not hold water.  Still today, the very nature of playing Wagner can cause a row.  In Israel, Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim planned to play a Wagner piece as part of an encore in 2001 – one he would ask the audience about first and allow those who did not want to hear to leave.  It did not matter as the very thought that it could happen forced Mr. Barenboim to back off.  That might sound reasonable given the setting but elsewhere?  In Düsseldorf during a production of Tannhaüser, scenes of the concentration camps accompanied by Wagner in the background led to loud boos.  While the majority of Germans associate Wagner with Hitler, Der Spiegel asked if Germans could enjoy any aspect of its culture anymore.       

For Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most influential modern thinkers, the connection between his writings and the Nazi ideology was first drawn from the actions of his sister, who along with her husband, helped establish a German colony in Paraguay with the intent of creating a perfect society.  During the latter years of her life, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche supported the Nazis until her death in 1935.  She also edited and rewrote many of her brother’s works to reinforce Nazi ideology.  Therein lays the philosopher’s crime – oddball family members.  That is not to say that Nietzsche himself was not anti-Semitic (though there is much evidence to suggest anti-Semitism and not) but to suggest he was a Nazi because of how Hitler and his henchmen used notions like suffering and the übermensch (Superman) is no proof. 

Hitler’s love of Nietzsche stemmed from a love of the philosopher’s concept of Superman – a fully-realized man free from the constraints of a corrupt society (western European) and a corrupt moral code (Christianity).  In Nietzsche’s Man and Superman, the Nazis perverted his ideas, ignoring much of what would rebuke the fascist ideology.  Many modern scholars are working hard to re-introduce the German’s thoughts and ideas, unedited from the re-fashioning of his sister.  This is a hard road, however.  Those not familiar with the man and his work will miss the affirmation of man’s ability to endure, to rise above those things that hold individuals back and reveal true character.  I’ve stood at his grave in Röcken and visited Weimar to visit his archives where his sister hosted and swayed Adolf Hitler.  Still, he has been read by many world leaders and ordinary folks seeking to better understand his ideas and his concept of human nature.  Hitler was just one of them – and he misunderstood what he read.

In history, I teach my students not to judge historical figures based on present moralities and if anything, Wagner and Nietzsche suffer from a lack of adhering to this paradigm.  Should Jews get past Wagner and take him at face value?  Because there is such a connection between the man and the philosophy, perhaps the onus is on others to listen to the music and better understand the musicality.  Should people read Nietzsche for themselves to determine the real meaning and ideas behind the man?  Sure though I’m not sure it will happen.  He needs to be read in his entirety but few have a desire to do so.  As a result, connections, especially historical connections, become a tricky thing.  Most are based on assumptions and that is fraught with danger.