German musical organization. Established in November 1933, the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Music Chamber) was one of the seven sub-chambers of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture), founded and operated by Joseph Goebbels. Like the other sub-chambers for theatre, visual arts, film, literature, journalism and radio, the Reichsmusikkammer was the official organization of the Third Reich coordinating all facets of the music industry, with departments for composition, soloists, orchestras, entertainment music, music education, choral music, church music, concert agencies, copyright issues, music and instrument vendors, and financial and legal matters. It set wages for professional musicians, regulated professional certification, introduced exams and training courses for private music instructors and provided a pension plan for artists. Membership was required of all music professionals, who had to furnish proof of ‘Aryan’ lineage to join; thus the Reichsmusikkammer served as an effective mechanism to exclude Jews from German musical life. Richard Strauss served as the first president of the Reichsmusikkammer but was compelled to resign with the discovery of his defiance to the regime in insisting on working with the Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig. The first vice-president, the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, stepped down following his controversial defence of Hindemith. Strauss was succeeded by the conductor and musicologist Peter Raabe, and Furtwängler was succeeded by the composer Paul Graener.
Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer
H. Ihlert: Die Reichsmusikkammer: Ziele, Leistungen und Organisation (Berlin, 1935)
J. Wulf: Musik im Dritten Reich: eine Dokumentation (Gütersloh, 1963/R)
F. Prieberg: Musik im NS-Staat (Frankfurt, 1982)
M. Thrun: ‘Die Errichtung der Reichsmusikkammer’, Musik und Musikpolitik im faschistischen Deutschland, ed. H.-W. Heister and H.-G. Klein (Frankfurt, 1984), 75–82
A. Steinweis: Art, Ideology, & Economics in Nazi Germany: the Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts (Chapel Hill, NC, 1993)
G. Splitt: ‘Die “Säuberung” der Reichsmusikkammer’, Musik in der Emigration 1933–1945: Verfolgung – Vertreibung – Rückwirkung, ed. H. Weber (Stuttgart, 1994), 10–55
M. Kater: The Twisted Muse: Musicians and their Music in the Third Reich (New York, 1997)
PAMELA M. POTTER