Hans Pfitzner and antisemitism, 2024
This Week in Classical Music: April 29, 2024. Hans Pfitzner: antisemitism then and as we speak. We’re remembering the German composer Hans Pfitzner, who was born on Might 5th of 1869, not due to his expertise – he was a conservative composer with sure items, however no more than that – 
however due to the antisemitism on our campuses. Pfitzner was a nationalist who was taken by the Nazi concepts; he met Hitler as early as 1923 (Hitler visited him in a hospital the place Pfitzer was recovering after surgical procedure). Pfitzner was very impressed, however not Hitler, he even determined that Pfitzner was half-Jewish. It took poor Pfitzner a few years to eliminate this reputational blemish. Pfitzner lived in an environment of unmitigated antisemitism, and whereas himself a vocal antisemite who thought that Jews, particularly overseas Jews, introduced a hazard to German religious life and tradition, he was not a “complete” antisemite just like the Nazi management, he was an antisemite “with exceptions.” For instance, he refused to jot down the music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Evening’s Dream when the Nazis determined to switch the Jewish Mendelssohn’s classical rating – in contrast to Carl Orff, who was comfortable to oblige. Pfitzner tried to assist some Jewish musicians, particularly his good good friend the music critic Paul Cossmann: Pfitzner was instrumental in saving Cossmann’s life in 1933 when he was arrested by the Gestapo however was helpless in 1942 when Cossmann was despatched to the Theresienstadt focus camp, the place he perished a number of months later. In fact, Pfitzner was not an exception: throughout the Nazi interval, German society as an entire was antisemitic. It was this societal antisemitism and, consequently, utter indifference to the destiny of the Jews that allowed the Nazis to proceed with the “Closing resolution.”
After WWII and the Holocaust, antisemitism turned an unacceptable trait, in all Western nations. So who may think about that in 2024 the campuses of our elite universities would develop into facilities of organized antisemitism? That Hamas supporters would develop into ethical leaders of our most privileged youth, that we’d hear the chants of “October 7th Each Day!”? What’s worse, as a substitute of appearing responsibly and resisting antisemitism, college directors equivocate, and so do many in our media. That is disheartening, and we don’t see the sunshine on the finish of this particularly darkish tunnel.