Mats Norman wrote:

>>Mahler was in fact Adolf Hitlers second greatest obsession with music
>>after Wagner.  I recall reading in an extensive Hitler-biography (don't
>>remember which one right now, I have to check), that his experience in
>>the very early 20th century with attending a concert in Wien of a
>>Mahler Symphony ...

And Mitch Friedfeld replied:

>I'd like for Mats to clarify this.  The only Mahler performance attended
>by Hitler that is documented by Henry-Louis de La Grange took place on May
>8, 1906, in Vienna.  Mahler conducted Tristan.  As far as I know, there is
>no evidence that Hitler ever heard Mahler's music in live performance.

I believe Mitch is correct. A few thoughts:

1.  As far as I can tell, there is no evidence that Hitler ever saw a
performance of a Mahler symphony, much less Mahler conducting Mahler.
If you look at the relevant dates and look at "who was where when," it is
extremely unlikely that Hitler would have seen Mahler conducting Mahler.

2.  Volume 1 of Ian Kershaw's recent superb Hitler biography states that
Hitler around 1906 saw Mahler conduct Tristan and The Flying Dutchman.

3.  As far as I can tell, most of the accounts of Hitler's contact with
Mahler (only in the form of seeing performances) in that time frame come
from August Kubizek, a friend of Hitler in the early 1900s.  Kubizek later
wrote basically a set of memoirs at the request of the Nazi party, and his
writings are universally questioned as to accuracy, although Kubezik's
description of Hitler's early interest in music are viewed as generally
more reliable (Kershaw Vol.  1 at pages 20-21 & 616-617).  It appears that
the description of Hitler admiring Mahler's Wagner is all based on Kubizek.
In 1906, I would not be particularly surprised if Hitler expressed
admiration for Mahler's Wagner; but we have to remember that the accounts
from that time frame concerning Hitler's opinion of Mahler are coming from
an extremely unreliable source.

4.  I don't know of any evidence that Hitler later expressed any admiration
for Mahler's conducting or music.  That prospect strikes me as incredibly
unlikely once Hitler's hideous racial views crystallized, and once the Nazi
party took control of Germany's musical life (which was very soon after
Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933).

5.  I hope it is obvious that, even if Hitler admired Mahler's conducting
before (or even after) Hitler developed his racial views, Hitler's
admiration should have nothing to do with a qualitative assessment
of Mahler's music.

6.  I think it is a general consensus that Hitler, after Wagner, most
admired Brucker, Beethoven, and Brahms, arguably in that order.  Mahler was
nowhere in Hitler's universe of musical admiration, at least after Hitler's
very early days (long before Hitler's racial views crystallized).

Drew Capuder