Commando Musik. How the Nazis Plundered Musical Europe.
Buchet Chastel| N° d'inventaire | 22103 |
| Format | 15 x 23 |
| Détails | 410 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2019 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782283031988 |
From the moment they came to power, the Nazis developed an aggressive cultural policy, which continued with seizures and looting in France and throughout the occupied territories. The Rosenberg Organization (ERR) was notably created in 1940 with the aim of eliminating Jewish cultural life throughout Europe, through the confiscation of works of art and libraries. It was within this framework that a cell dedicated to music was created, the Sonderstab Musik (Music Commando), composed of eminent German musicologists, tasked with locating instruments, scores, and manuscripts. In this work, which required more than ten years of research, Willem de Vries reveals for the first time the organization of this commando which, between 1940 and 1944, "transferred" to Germany several hundred thousand works and several tens of thousands of instruments and scores. The composer Darius Milhaud, the pianists Wanda Landowska and Artur Rubinstein, the music critic Arno Poldès, and the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky were among the victims of these massive spoliations, whose actors, operations, and scale are finally being brought to light.
From the moment they came to power, the Nazis developed an aggressive cultural policy, which continued with seizures and looting in France and throughout the occupied territories. The Rosenberg Organization (ERR) was notably created in 1940 with the aim of eliminating Jewish cultural life throughout Europe, through the confiscation of works of art and libraries. It was within this framework that a cell dedicated to music was created, the Sonderstab Musik (Music Commando), composed of eminent German musicologists, tasked with locating instruments, scores, and manuscripts. In this work, which required more than ten years of research, Willem de Vries reveals for the first time the organization of this commando which, between 1940 and 1944, "transferred" to Germany several hundred thousand works and several tens of thousands of instruments and scores. The composer Darius Milhaud, the pianists Wanda Landowska and Artur Rubinstein, the music critic Arno Poldès, and the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky were among the victims of these massive spoliations, whose actors, operations, and scale are finally being brought to light.