A report in Thursday’s (1/24) Haaretz (Israel) states, “The Vienna Philharmonic has asked three historians to research the orchestra’s alleged Nazi past. The announcement on January 22 came after Harald Walser, a historian and Parliament member for the Austrian Greens, said in an interview that the orchestra demonstrated sympathy for the country’s Nazi leadership during World War Two. Historians Fritz Truempi, Oliver Rathkolb and Bernadette Mayrhofer will look into the ‘politicization’ of the Vienna Philharmonic from 1938 to 1945, the fate of its Jewish musicians during that time and its relations with Nazis afterward, according to an orchestra statement, the French news agency AFP reported. Their report is due in March. Walser has called for forming a committee of inquiry into the role of the philharmonic during those years and said the orchestra has not released all its documents from the Nazi era or has destroyed some of them. … Six Jewish musicians from the philharmonic were murdered by the Nazis in Austria and 11 were deported to death camps, according to reports.”
Posted January 25, 2013
