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thoroughly examines different types of history plays and gives many
examples. The ban on dealing with contemporary subjects on stage—
as well as on the use of Nazi symbols or uniforms—meant that writers
had to concentrate on other topics. �or many playwrights, however,
this move was probably convenient, as dealing with the immediate
past posed many potential problems. These plays were more
likely to be censored than works about a more remote past. Although
it might not be correct to claim that these dramatists fled into the
safety of the past, their behaviour does not automatically mean that
they actively supported the Nazi ideology (as Gadberry argues on
pp. 100–101) either. Gadberry is right, however, to say that most of
the history plays reflect Nazi ideology in one way or another, and
also that most of them lack real conflict and complex character studies,
but appear rather simple and flat. We must bear in mind, however,
that although these plays were highly promoted, they never
played a decisive role in the repertoire.
Although opera was of particular concern to the Nazis, Eric Levi’s
article shows that this area, too, was ‘beset with ambiguities and contradictions’
(p. 136). The fact that the notion of an ‘opera crisis’ persisted
throughout the Third Reich suggests that an original form, a
typical Nazi opera, was never found. Deficiencies in the musical
quality of the works and rigid censorship account for this failure.
Permission to stage the non-German operatic repertoire, for example,
depended very much on the political situation at the time. Works by
Scandinavian and Italian composers were endorsed, whereas
Russian operas reached German stages only during the brief German–Soviet
pact between 1939 and 1941. On the other hand,
although Offenbach and Meyerbeer were banned, libretti by Jews or
half-Jews were still accepted. During the first year of the Nazi regime
in particular, control was far from total and quite a few outlawed
pieces managed to slip through the net. Parallel to the search for an
archetypal Nazi opera, musicologists tried to redraw the classical
repertoire by ‘Aryanizing’ the libretti of Mozart’s operas, presenting
Wagner as a ‘spiritual godfather’ (p. 141) of the Nazi regime, or reviving
Lortzing as a composer of Volksoper. None of the contemporary
composers secured unequivocal approval. Graener or Vollerthun,
hailed as the heralds of a new era in the first two seasons after the
seizure of power, quickly lost their influence. The same holds true for
many of the younger composers, such as Egk, Orff, and Wagner-
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Theatre under the Nazis