“So Very German”

Think of the great composers of German and Austrian music in the last century, and certain names spring to mind: Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill. Among those names should be Ernst Toch. That for many musicians and music lovers this is not yet so is due not to the character of Toch's music but to the curtailment of his meteoric early career by the Nazi regime, which drove the composer into exile in 1933. In the United States, where Toch eventually settled, his major achievements in orchestral, chamber, and operatic music remain less familiar than those of his American and European peers. Toch has long been best known for The Geographical Fugue, which is such a repertory staple that today it seems hardly a choral singer in the United States passes through high school and college without performing the piece at least once. The work is equally popular among avocational choruses of all kinds, and professional choirs of course also sing it. Given the Fugue's renown, it is strange that the oddly stoic little note Toch (1950, 12) appended to the published score has apparently excited little curiosity over the years: piece is the last movement of a suite GESPROCHENE MUSIK (Spoken Music), which, from different angles, tries to produce musical effects from speech. The suite was performed and recorded at the Berlin Festival of Contemporary music [sic] in 1930. The got lost or was destroyed, likewise the music, except the manuscript. Ernst Toch You might think conductors would have been tumbling over one another trying to get hold of the other movements of this suite: the existence of the manuscript for more music related to the Fugue has been no secret for decades. The full story is stranger still. Toch's note would lead the reader to imagine a live public performance and a commercially released live or studio recording. Yet there was no such show, nor any such album. It may come as a shock to its fans that, far from being designed as the reliable choral showpiece it has since become, the Fugue was not originally intended for performance by live singers at all. As Toch indicates, the Fugue premiered with its original German text as Der Fuge aus der Geographie during the Neue Musik Berlin festival in July 1930 as part of a three-movement suite, whose first two movements are published here for the first time. As Mark Katz (2001, 176; 2004, 99-113) recounts, the suite was one of the works debuted on the program of Grammophonmusik (gramophone music) as Originalwerke fur Schallplatten (original works for albums) shared by Toch and Hindemith, both then rising young stars of German new music, during which the composers used phonographs in various ways to play prerecorded sounds onstage. This explains why there was only ever one record of Spoken Music, not records. Toch's suite in performance was not played back at the speed at which it had been recorded--78 RPM--but much faster: that was the whole point. The score was conceived for the purpose of providing material for a pioneering experiment in the mechanical manipulation of sound: specifically, an investigation into the acoustical properties of speech as raw material for music that focused on how vocal sounds change when speeded up--to such an extent that, as Toch perhaps to his surprise discovered, they may be distorted beyond recognition. As the composer explained in the program notes he wrote for the concert, he sought to explore the spoken word, and let a four-part mixed chamber choir speak specifically determined rhythms, vowels, consonants, syllables, and words, which by involving the mechanical possibilities of the recording (increasing the tempo, and the resulting pitch level) created a type of instrumental music, which leads the listener to forget that it originated from speaking. (Toch 1930, 221-22) (1) It must have been a weird sight: Berlin's hippest aficionados of avant-garde composition (as I picture them) assembled before a phonograph onstage out of whose great horn-shaped speaker piped the sounds of, well, Alvin and the Chipmunks on amphetamines chanting Ratibor! …

The article examines the forms and methods of the Nazi occupation authorities’ struggle against the partisan movement on the border territory of Belarus and the North-West of Russia. From the very first days of the occupation of the region, the German occupation bodies and services paid considerable attention to the development of the most effective forms and methods of combating the partisan movement. The fight against the partisan movement was based on a variety of reconnaissance work: aviation and combat reconnaissance, visual observation, intelligence intelligence work. Agent cadres were trained in special training centers (courses and schools) created by the German special services. Another form of struggle against the partisan movement was the organization and training of pseudo partisan detachments. Committing crimes under the guise of partisans against the civilian population, pseudo-partisan units discredited the partisans in the eyes of the civilian population, thereby depriving the resistance movement of social support and support. The study noted that the most massive and brutal method of fighting the partisan movement was punitive operations aimed at eliminating partisan detachments and brigades, seizing food, mass destruction and seizure of civilians for subsequent forced labor. It is shown that under the guise of fighting partisans, the Nazis punished not only adults, but also children and adolescents. To fight the partisan movement, the invaders also used agitation and propaganda work. Orders were regularly posted in public places urging the population to fight the partisans. A special place was occupied by anti-partisan agitation in the periodicals. Under the occupation, the forms and methods of fighting the resistance movement against the Nazi regime were constantly improved taking into account the gaining practical experience of the struggle by the invaders.

Ernst Trier Mørch: inventor, medical pioneer, heroic freedom fighter.

Over the first months of its existence Special Operations Executive had to reckon with the lack of serious opposition against Nazi Germany in occupied Europe. In enemy nations, a vast majority of the population firmly supported their own governments, and in any case the opposition movements were not ready to betray their countries to the enemy. In occupied Europe most people were stunned by defeat. The exception was Poland, where the German occupation left no space for collaboration and the organization of a strong resistance movement was under way. But the British quickly realized that supporting the resistance posed almost unsurmountable logistical obstacles, and soon gave up the idea of gaining any quick results there. It was only when the war spread to the Balkans in the spring of 1941 and Hitler invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June that the seeds of strong anti-German movements were planted.

This article examines the history of the Armenian Legion’s creation, structure, and activities within Nazi Germany’s armed forces during World War II. Based on a comprehen-sive analysis of archival documents, authentic sources, and the works of prominent historians, the study reveals the political and military motivations behind the formation of the legion, as well as its organizational specifics and combat path. Special emphasis is placed on the fact that the majority of the legion’s members did not serve Nazi objectives but defected to the Red Army and European resistance movements at the earliest opportunity. The article also explores the subsequent fate of the legionnaires in various European countries, including France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Greece.

Joachim Prinz, the subject of the concerto, was a prominent rabbi in Berlin during the Nazi regime who later, after fleeing to America, became a civil rights activist. While any effective piece of music has the potential to bring people together, a composer can deliberately address issues of human rights wordlessly through music’s metaphorical power. Much of Beethoven’s music tells of struggle and triumph, conveying in vivid musical narratives the relentless determination to ‘take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them’. The political situation at the time of the first performance will affect whether the audience perceives the music as a composer’s autobiographical statement or as an outcry of the resistance movement. The experience of such music is no mere diversion or distraction: it is, rather, a path to the extraordinary in all of the reader, in which the resonance of our despair and hope is revealed.

The article examines the relationship between members of the British aristocracy and German Nazism in the 1920's,1930’s and 1940’s. The examination is extended into an analysis of the resistance movements in Norway and Denmark during the occupation 1940-1945. A significant issue is the infiltration of democratic, non-repressive societies perpetrated by German Nazis during World War II and the decades leading up to it. The article is not historical. It is a literary interpretation of the socially, politically and psychologically complex conditions making up the crisis of World War II, based on the three novels. The analysis of Kirsten Thorup's novel Mørket bag dig includes an account of the rescue of the Danish Jews. The rescue operation was undertaken for the sake not only of the Jewish people but also for the sake of the preservation of democracy as an ethical and humanistic institution.

Dr. Benken’s book is a case study of the life and death of Jan Rodowicz, nom-de-guerre Anoda, who served as a combatant in the Polish pro-independence underground resistance movement during the Second World War. The operations in which Anoda was involved, his conduct during and after the War, especially in the investigation following his arrest by the Communist security service and the mystery shrouding his death while under interrogation, turned him into a symbol for the young people of Poland in those times. His generation was forced to fight for its freedom against two criminal totalitarian systems, the Nazi Germans and the Soviets, paying with their life or health for the ideals they did not want to give up.

The Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) – Secret State Police – is considered one of the most criminal formations of the Nazi German state. In the years 1939–1945, it formed a department at the Sicherheitspolizei und SD (Security Police and Security Service) headquarters in Radom, which was the capital of one of the districts of the General Government. Extremally brutal extermination activities carried out by Gestapo officers against the Polish and Jewish population were accompanied by duties related to office work. Completing the fi les as well as creating and systematically supplementing fi les of various types was supposed to ultimately lead to obtaining the complete knowledge of the structures of the Polish resistance movement, and then to its annihilation. The guidelines for offi cial activities issued in 1940 were to systematize the work of Gestapo offi cers, making it more eff ective. Said guidelines cover a range of policing issues, from clerical activities to dealing with agents.