Wagner in Tel Aviv [1] Noah Klieger

Noah Klieger, Wagner is known as an antisemite author, do you listen to music by other anti-Jewish composers or read books by other anti-Semitic writers?

Of course. Many great musicians were anti-Semites. That permeates whole cultures, not just German, but also Russian, French and British culture. If we were to eschew artists on account of their anti-Semitic stance, we’d find ourselves in a cultural wasteland. Of course I’ve read Dostoevsky. Even Shakespeare was not exactly philo-Semitic.

Then what’s so special about Wagner?

Wagner is the father of race theory. He was the first to talk and write about a master race. Later on, the Siegfrieds in his operas were called Aryans. Wagner set them off - and not only in his music - against the Jews as members of an inferior race. In his essay Das Judentum in der Musik (“Judaism in Music”) Wagner fleshed that theory out in all its particulars for the field of music. But Wagner also goes beyond music to talk in the most general sense about the Jews as an inferior class that should disappear. Wagner doesn’t talk about murdering Jews, but they had to be got rid of somehow. Wagner was the first and only one to put forward such a theory at the time.

Is that why you became an advocate of a strict Wagner boycott?

The Israeli boycott of Wagner is unofficial. There is and has never been a resolution to that effect – whether on the part of the government or the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. This boycott has existed since 1938 and is not a product of the Holocaust. In November 1938, Wagner's works were on the programme of the Israeli Philharmonic in Tel Aviv, which was conducted by the greatest conductor of all time, Arturo Toscanini. Then, on the night of 9 November, the first major pogrom organized by the German government at the time took place: Kristallnacht – that quaint appellation for the burning down of synagogues all over Germany and Austria. Thousands of Jewish shops and homes were destroyed, more than 1000 Jews were murdered and about 35,000 Jews interned in the first concentration camps in Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen.

Whereupon Bronislaw Huberman, the founder of the Israeli Philharmonic, decided not to play Wagner in a place like Germany where so many Jews were being killed under the influence of his theories. Hitler only carried out what Wagner had earlier articulated in his theoretical essays, in which he wrote that the Jews had to be got rid of. They were murdered under Hitler, that’s true, but the idea originally came from Wagner, who spread this philosophy. That’s why Huberman decided not to play Wagner. The concert programme was changed at short notice and Toscanini, a Gentile, immediately agreed and performed other works instead of Wagner.


What do you think of the stories about Wagner being played in concentration and extermination camps?

These stories are clearly spurious. Wagner was not played in camps with orchestras like Auschwitz 1, Auschwitz 3 or in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Wagner didn’t compose any march music, and the orchestras in the camps played only march music in the mornings and evenings as the labour commandos marched to and from work. They didn’t give any concerts and they didn’t play at all during the day, not even Wagner. Hitler loved Wagner, but that’s a different matter.

Then’s it’s a particularly macabre tall tale?

It’s a made-up story, but it has never been the reason for the opposition to Wagner. After the Holocaust, the survivors fell in with Huberman’s view and maintained the boycott in pre-statehood Israel. Wagner’s music can be played in Ramallah, which is what Daniel Barenboim does. He can do what he thinks is right there.

The main argument often cited for the Wagner boycott is the survivors’ feelings. What do you think of that?

I base the boycott on Wagner's ideology instead of emotions. The general public doesn’t know much about Wagner. Even my colleagues in the Israeli press don’t know a whole lot more and are always talking about Wagner's anti-Semitism. And now I come to the feelings: One of the less convincing and stupider arguments I hear all the time is that, after all, many Israelis also drive a Volkswagen or Mercedes and use Bosch appliances at home or Zeiss cameras. So why shouldn’t Wagner’s music be played too? A piece of metal, a Volkswagen, does not stir up the same feelings in survivors, their families and friends or quite simply in other Jews as the music of Wagner, according to whose theories millions of Jews were murdered.

Since we’re on the subject of emotions...

This subject is very emotionally charged, that’s true. But feelings shouldn’t be simply disregarded. The Volkswagen argument is not compelling for me. I don’t care if Israelis buy themselves a Volkswagen, but as long as there are still people in Israel who cannot endure Wagner's music, Wagner should not be played in Israel. Nowadays there are young Israelis with no direct connection to the Holocaust, but even they don’t feel it’s necessary for Wagner to be publicly performed. People can listen to Wagner at home as often as they like.

What do you think of the new attitude towards Wagner? Some Israelis go quite easy on him.

There’s a similar attitude towards Zionism as well. Most of the selfsame Israelis go on the assumption that there’s no such thing as Zionism. And yet there are post-anti-Semites as well as post-Zionists. But I don’t agree with them that everyone’s got a right to their own opinion on the matter. In my opinion, I’ve got the stronger arguments - if only because they haven’t got any arguments at all.

I could put it in a rather exaggerated way, too: if I knew there were Israeli Jews who are going to commit suicide if Wagner does not get played publicly, I’d lift the boycott. But I’ve never heard of anyone committing suicide because Wagner doesn’t get played in Israeli concert halls. I can’t even recall any demonstrations in which thousands took to the street to call for the abolition of the Wagner boycott. There is an association that advocates public performances of Wagner. Well so what. Israel is a democracy. People like Haneen Zoabi and Ahmad Tibi sit as representatives in parliament even though they speak out against the state of Israel day and night. So why shouldn’t there be some Israelis who want to hear Wagner too? Fair enough, I’m simply of a different opinion.


Do you think the boycott on Wagner's music will remain in place?

I can certainly imagine that those holding out against Wagner might not be around anymore in five or ten years’ time. So it doesn’t have to remain in place forever. I just want people to know the facts. The facts are not what most people say. Wagner was the founding father of the German hero, a tall broad-shouldered blue-eyed German, a perfect Aryan, a Siegfried. Hitler worshipped this type because to him it embodied what he wanted to be and wasn’t. He adored Wagner so much precisely because Wagner held to this type, to the greatness of Germany. Wagner's operas are hymns of praise to this race. There is no such thing as an Aryan or Jewish race.

Do you think Wagner would have identified with Hitler?

Of course, he would have been delighted. Here’s someone implementing his ideas. Suddenly there’s a real possibility. Wagner apparently didn’t think about the possibility of murdering thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions. But I’m firmly convinced that he wouldn’t have been opposed.

Dor Glick, Journalist and Web-Editor of the Goethe-Institute Israel, asked the questions