Korean wins Karajan’s job
NewsThe South Korean conductor Chanmin Chung has been named first Kapellmeister and deputy Generalmusikdirektor at Theater Aachen, where Herbert von Karajan launched his career in 1935.
Chung has been working until now as second Kapellmeister in Erfurt.
It’s a slower escalator nowadays.
But Herbert had to overcome WWII and the post-WWII period – so he probably used the emergency stairs.
Actually he climbed onto Aachen rooftops to look out for fires.
HvK did not have to overcome anything; it was all, conveniently, forgotten and swept under the carpet on his behalf.
On his way up, a broad brown escalator.
Two signal numbers:
1.607.525
3.430.914
The first, registered on April 8, 1933, identifies Herbert von Karajan as a member of the NSDAP Ortsgruppe Neustadt.
The second, registered on May 1, 1933, identifies him as a NSDAP member in Ulm.
This double membership persisted until 1939. After Karajan’s formal request for a NSDAP party booklet (bestowed on confirmed members after a number of years) on July 6, 1938, diligent office bees at the Nazi party central discovered that his first NSDAP membership had been technically dormant, as HvK had failed to pay his party dues. The second number remained valid and was confirmed.
Not that he needed it formally: on April 20, 1939, — Hitler’s 50th birthday — Herbert von Karajan was named „Staatskapellmeister“ by the Führer himself. All was peachy and groovy.
For the minute details, see online:
https://www.stadt-salzburg.at/fileadmin/landingpages/stadtgeschichte/nsprojekt/strassennamen/biografien/karajan_herbert_von-v1.pdf
(A remarkable file compiled on behalf of the communal administration of Salzburg, no less, making good use of recent archival research by Vienna University historian Oliver Rathkolb.)
Further notes by Oliver Rahtkolb:
https://wph-live.s3.amazonaws.com/media/filer_public/cf/fd/cffdb77e-cf4e-441c-92e4-090a92b2c7a3/ns_rath_entnazifizierung_de_v01.pdf
Detailed reference:
Oliver Rathkolb: „Geschichte(n) einer Karte“. Anmerkungen zur Wechselbeziehung zwischen Nationalsozialismus und Künstlern am Beispiel von Herbert von Karajans NSDAP Mitgliedschaft, in: Friedrich Edelmayer, Margarete Grandner, Jiri Pesek, Oliver Rathkolb (Hrsg.): Über die österreichische Geschichte hinaus. Festschrift für Gernot Heiss zum 70. Geburtstag, Münster 2012 (Aschendorff Verlag), 191-214.
Let it go. The war ended in 1945 – 76 years ago. As Jordan Peterson has often observed, “you think you would have been one of the good guys during the Nazi years; you just need to think again”!!