Word: ngler
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Furtwängler is generally rated among the first half-dozen maestros of the world. In Germany, where great music has long ranked among the important responsibilities of the state, he occupied a position as essential as that of a cabinet minister. When the Nazis took over, FurtwĠngler, as head of the state-supported Berlin Philharmonic and Berlin Opera, became one of their knottier problems. He detested the Nazis. But if they forced his resignation, Germany would lose one of her few remaining claims to cultural prestige. So they began seducing him into the Nazi game...
...Politics. FurtwĠngler was a man of idealism, deeply patriotic, with a mystical absorption in German culture. He believed that the Nazi movement was a troublesome but temporary phenomenon, and was anxious to do what he could to preserve German musical standards. He fancied that in staying in Germany, rather than going into exile, he would find ways, with art as his shield, of opposing the Nazis...
FurtwĠngler managed to delay the "Aryanization" of the Berlin Philharmonic for many months. But Nazi authorities, through legal technicalities, delayed the payment of the orchestra's state subsidy, reduced it to near bankruptcy. When FurtwĠngler issued a statement that art could not flourish under political domination, Goebbels cracked: "Politics, too, is an art, and what is more, the highest and most comprehensive art of all." An interview between FurtwĠngler and Hitler produced two hours of shouting and led to one interesting aftermath: when FurtwĠngler refused to conduct at Nürnberg...
Hindemith v. Hanfstängl. FurtwĠngler's biggest struggle came in 1934 when he was readying Paul Hindemith's opera Mat his der Maler for the Berlin Opera. Hindemith, a modernist, was a particular enemy of Hitler's famed musical adviser, Ernst ("Putzi") Hanfstangl. Orders came from Goring to postpone the performance indefinitely. FurtwĠngler thereupon wrote an article for the Berlin papers denouncing Nazi musical policy and claiming a free artist's right to perform whatever he liked...
Berliners crowded FurtwĠngler's concerts to applaud his stand. A few weeks later FurtwĠngler was informed that Mathis der Maler was verboten. He resigned his post, started to leave Germany for Egypt. The Nazis closed the frontiers to him. Finally he retired to a furnished room on the outskirts of Munich, decided to make no more public appearances...