Musikutbyte som politiskt slagträ?

Kurt Atterberg och Helmuth Thierfelder

Abstract

Musical exchange as a political tool? Kurt Atterberg and Helmuth Thierfelder
In this article I have studied how Northern music and musical exchange between Sweden and Germany were used as a political tool as well as I have analysed the ideas that existed about Northern music and their function in Swedish-German musical relations with a focus on the Nazi period in Germany. The empirical example is from the correspondence between the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg (1887–1974) and the German conductor Helmuth Thierfelder (1897–1966) and between them and the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin. When the Nazi government tried to hinder Thierfelder in his work for musical exchange, Atterberg wrote critical letters to the Nazi regime. Among other things, the regime accused Thierfelder for preferring Northern music at the expense of German music. After the war, Thierfelder could use his work for Northern music and his connections to colleagues from Northern countries to defend himself against accusations for having been a Nazi. My textual analysis shows that Atterberg and Thierfelder cooperated with Nazi politicians as long as the regime supported their musical goals and their career. Politics was used strategically to attain musical goals. But this also means that neither of them acted as a convinced Nazi. However, when an artist rates his or her own artistic interests as more important than politics, the artist is a pliant tool for politicians, as long as the politicians support the artist’s interests.