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by Anonymous on May 29th, 2005

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Was Wagner anti-Semitic?

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  • by EdMuse on January 10th, 2006

    EdMuse

    To this day, Wagner's family claims that Wagner harbored no antisemitic feelings, making the classic claim that "Some of his best friends were Jewish." There were two notable Jewish musicians in the circle of the extremely charismatic Wagner, but it's interesting to note that they both comitted suicide.

    Wagner's writings include an infamous essay "Das Judentum in Der Musik" (1850) (sometimes translated as "Judaism in Music," sometimes as "Jewishness in Music"), Wagner made the case that, in the new German nationalist art form he was devising, it was important that all Jewish elements be expunged. He was also quoted as having said that it was alright to be Jewish, "as long as you work toward self distruction" (note the self distructiveness of his aforementioned Jewish friends).

    It is difficult to deny that, to current standards, Wagner was an antisemite. It is often pointed out that Hitler was highly inspired by the writings of Wagner. It is also important, though to point out that much of Wagner's writing was pure German nationalism, and as such, would have been of great interest to Hitler (contrary to myth, Wagner was not Hitler's favorite composer; that was Franz von Suppe, whom Hitler admired for his marches).

    To put Wagner's antisemitism in perspective, understand that Germany as a political entity was still in its formative state during Wagner's day. Jews were, at the time, offered citizenship, but only if they agreed to repudiate their Jewish nationality and assimilate into German culture. It is often suggested that Wagner's suggestion as self distruction referred to this relinquishing of Jewish culture, which would have led to the eventual demise of Judaism, rather than to actual physical self distruction. Still, this conclusion is by no means definite, and the case for a lenient interpretation is not helped by his re-publication of "Das Judentum" in 1869.

    It is also important to note that Wagner's level of antisemitism was probably normal in Europe in the 19th century. If I might present an opinion, we should be thankful that times change.

    And if you want something further to chew on: If you're interested to read about Richard Wagner's cryptic antisemitism, you should look into the overt antisemitism of his wife, Cosima, the daughter of Franz Liszt. I'd treat on it more, but 1. it's not completely relevant to the topic, and 2. I'd have to dig up some decade-old research on the topic done by a colleague of mine.

    -EdM.

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    • People forget how racist society was, even 50 years ago. A certain level of anti-semitism was the norm in western society.

      RedJohn

      by RedJohn on February 15th, 2006

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