Iain Simons writes:

>...I believe somebody mentioned that Richard Strauss was also a member
>of the party.  It was my understanding that he remained neutral, as it
>were.  Due to this, however, he spent the majority of the post-war days
>in Switzerland.

Richard Strauss headed up the Reichsmusikkammer, the Propaganda Ministry's
organization that sought to control musical life under the Third Reich.
As I recall, he never formally joined the Party.  In practice he lent his
(very weighty) name to the Party, while leaving as much of the political
work as was possible to true believers.  In return, the Party closed an eye
on the potentially dangerous fact that Strauss' beloved daughter-in-law was
Jewish.  There are some statements on record that toady to the Nazis but
it's also a matter of record that Strauss worked harmoniously with Jewish
musicians or librettists.  After the war he went through a hearing before
a denazification tribunal.  His career was not handicapped by its findings
which, curiously, seem to have been lost--or remain securely concealed some
place.  A continuing cavalcade of researchers,including this list's former
memeber Paul Moor and myself, have sought, but not found.  Strauss did
spend some time in Switzerland after the war but unlike Furtwaengler whose
denazification didn't go as smoothly as apparently Strauss' did, the latter
probably went over the border because times were not nearly as hard over
there as they were in Germany.  (Both men had money stashed away in
Swwitzerland and hence no problem sustaining themselves and their
families.)

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]