4 - Ehrt euren Deutschen Meister: Reproducing Wagner in the GDR

Summary

REGARDLESS OF HOW LIMITED productions of Richard Wagner's (1813– 83) operas actually were in Nazi Germany, it is well known that Hitler's appropriation of the Bayreuth master nevertheless tainted the composer's image, both inside and outside of Germany. If this “Opiumschmuggler des Nationalsozialismus” (opium smuggler of national socialism) were ever to serve again as a symbol of German culture, the link with Hitler would have to be thoroughly severed. The most radical step toward such a reimagining of the composer and his works took place in Bayreuth, the very heart of the Wagnerian world and the site of Hitler's closest associations with Wagner and his family. The postwar Bayreuth productions by Wieland Wagner (1917–66) had a clear goal: to create a new Bayreuth and a new Wagner free of any nationalist or romantic associations. Through famously sparse, “entrümpelte” (decluttered) stagings, Wagner could be reclaimed—or so it was thought—as an emblem of an untainted, universal (German) Kultur. The notices on posters displayed at the opening of the “new” Bayreuth in 1951 made this depoliticization unambiguous: “Im Interesse einer reibungslosen Durchführung der Festspiele bitten wir von Gesprächen und Debatten politischer Art auf dem Festspielhügel freundlichst absehen zu wollen. ‘Hier gilt's der Kunst.’” (In the interest of the smooth conduct of the festival we kindly request that discussions and debates of a political nature should be avoided at the festival theatre site. “Art is what matters here.”)

But Wieland Wagner was not the only German interested in reappropriating Wagner in the name of a new German culture. The importance of denazification and the reestablishment of a “true” German state were just as pronounced, if not more so, in the Soviet Occupation Zone and later in the GDR. There, ideologues claimed that it was the East that had preserved the revolutionary and humanistic tradition of German culture while the West had allowed reactionary and fascist movements to hijack society. As such, politicians and cultural leaders in the East felt that they could better see to the re-creation of German culture, and not just for the East, but for all of Germany.